The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome | Page 2

HOUSE OF MOURNING--Lying in State--Mother and
Son--Princess and Work-girl--Nani the Jesuit--Rival Cardinals--The
Pontiff of Destruction
XVI JUDGMENT--Pierre and Orlando--Italian Rome--Wanted, a
Democracy--Italy and France--The Rome of the Anarchists--The
Agony of Guilt--A Botticelli--The Papacy Condemned--The Coming
Schism--The March of Science--The Destruction of Rome--The
Victory of Reason--Justice not Charity--Departure--The March of
Civilisation--One Fatherland for All Mankind

ROME

PART I
I
THE train had been greatly delayed during the night between Pisa and
Civita Vecchia, and it was close upon nine o'clock in the morning when,
after a fatiguing journey of twenty-five hours' duration, Abbe Pierre
Froment at last reached Rome. He had brought only a valise with him,
and, springing hastily out of the railway carriage amidst the scramble of
the arrival, he brushed the eager porters aside, intent on carrying his
trifling luggage himself, so anxious was he to reach his destination, to
be alone, and look around him. And almost immediately, on the Piazza
dei Cinquecento, in front of the railway station, he climbed into one of
the small open cabs ranged alongside the footwalk, and placed the
valise near him after giving the driver this address:
"Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera."*
* Boccanera mansion, Julia Street.
It was a Monday, the 3rd of September, a beautifully bright and mild
morning, with a clear sky overhead. The cabby, a plump little man with
sparkling eyes and white teeth, smiled on realising by Pierre's accent
that he had to deal with a French priest. Then he whipped up his lean
horse, and the vehicle started off at the rapid pace customary to the

clean and cheerful cabs of Rome. However, on reaching the Piazza
delle Terme, after skirting the greenery of a little public garden, the
man turned round, still smiling, and pointing to some ruins with his
whip,
"The baths of Diocletian," said he in broken French, like an obliging
driver who is anxious to court favour with foreigners in order to secure
their custom.
Then, at a fast trot, the vehicle descended the rapid slope of the Via
Nazionale, which dips down from the summit of the Viminalis,* where
the railway station is situated. And from that moment the driver
scarcely ceased turning round and pointing at the monuments with his
whip. In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of
recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more
pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat
ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky
pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen with sculptured
work-pediments and statues.
* One of the seven hills on which Rome is built. The other six are the
Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Esquiline, Coelian, and Palatine. These
names will perforce frequently occur in the present narrative.
"The National Bank!" he said.
Pierre, however, during the week which had followed his resolve to
make the journey, had spent wellnigh every day in studying Roman
topography in maps and books. Thus he could have directed his steps to
any given spot without inquiring his way, and he anticipated most of
the driver's explanations. At the same time he was disconcerted by the
sudden slopes, the perpetually recurring hills, on which certain districts
rose, house above house, in terrace fashion. On his right-hand clumps
of greenery were now climbing a height, and above them stretched a
long bare yellow building of barrack or convent-like aspect.
"The Quirinal, the King's palace," said the driver.

Lower down, as the cab turned across a triangular square, Pierre, on
raising his eyes, was delighted to perceive a sort of aerial garden high
above him--a garden which was upheld by a lofty smooth wall, and
whence the elegant and vigorous silhouette of a parasol pine, many
centuries old, rose aloft into the limpid heavens. At this sight he
realised all the pride and grace of Rome.
"The Villa Aldobrandini," the cabman called.
Then, yet lower down, there came a fleeting vision which decisively
impassioned Pierre. The street again made a sudden bend, and in one
corner, beyond a short dim alley, there was a blazing gap of light. On a
lower level appeared a white square, a well of sunshine, filled with a
blinding golden dust; and amidst all that morning glory there arose a
gigantic marble column, gilt from base to summit on the side which the
sun in rising had laved with its beams for wellnigh eighteen hundred
years. And Pierre was surprised when the cabman told him the name of
the column, for in his mind he had never pictured it soaring aloft in
such a dazzling cavity with shadows all around. It was the column of
Trajan.
The Via Nazionale turned for the last time at the foot of the slope. And
then other