es as you have just witnessed. I cannot think
that, in this age of infidelity and disorder, God can design to deprive
a Christian state of a line of sovereigns uniformly zealous in the
defence of truth; but the purposes of Heaven are inscrutable, as the
recent suppression of the Society of Jesus has most strangely proved;
and should our dynasty be extinguished I am consoled by the thought that
the rule will pass to one of our house. Of this I shall have more to say
to you in future. Meanwhile your first business is to acquaint yourself
with your new surroundings. The Duchess holds a circle this evening,
where you will meet the court; but I must advise you that the persons
her Highness favours with her intimacy are not those best qualified to
guide and instruct a young man in your position. These you will meet at
the house of the Countess Belverde, one of the Duchess's ladies, a woman
of sound judgment and scrupulous piety, who gathers about her all our
most learned and saintly ecclesiastics. Count Trescorre will instruct
you in all that becomes your position at court, and my director, Father
Ignazio, will aid you in the selection of a confessor. As to the Bishop,
a most worthy and conversable prelate, to whom I would have you show all
due regard, his zeal in spiritual matters is not as great as I could
wish, and in private talk he indulges in a laxity of opinion against
which I cannot too emphatically warn you. Happily, however, Pianura
offers other opportunities of edification. Father Ignazio is a man of
wide learning and inflexible doctrine, and in several of our
monasteries, notably that of the Barnabites, you will find examples of
sanctity and wisdom such as a young man may well devoutly consider. Our
convents also are distinguished for the severity of their rule and the
spiritual privileges accorded them. The Carmelites have every reason to
hope for the beatification of their aged Prioress, and among the nuns of
the Perpetual Adoration is one who has recently received the ineffable
grace of the vulnus divinum. In the conversation of these saintly nuns,
and of the holy Abbot of the Barnabites, you will find the surest
safeguard against those errors and temptations that beset your age." He
leaned back with a gesture of dismissal; but added, reddening slightly,
as Odo prepared to withdraw: "You will oblige me, cousin, when you meet
my physician, Count Heiligenstern, by not touching on the matter of the
restorative you h