The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome | Page 9

requirements, straightway
winged its flight to the future abode of universal happiness; whereas
the Viscount aspired to complete the downfall of the liberal ideas of
1789 by utilising the disillusion and anger of the democracy to work a
return towards the past.
Pierre spent some delightful months. Never before had neophyte lived
so entirely for the happiness of others. He was all love, consumed by
the passion of his apostolate. The sight of the poor wretches whom he
visited, the men without work, the women, the children without bread,
filled him with a keener and keener conviction that a new religion must
arise to put an end to all the injustice which otherwise would bring the
rebellious world to a violent death. And he was resolved to employ all
his strength in effecting and hastening the intervention of the divine,
the resuscitation of primitive Christianity. His Catholic faith remained
dead; he still had no belief in dogmas, mysteries, and miracles; but a
hope sufficed him, the hope that the Church might still work good, by
connecting itself with the irresistible modern democratic movement, so

as to save the nations from the social catastrophe which impended. His
soul had grown calm since he had taken on himself the mission of
replanting the Gospel in the hearts of the hungry and growling people
of the Faubourgs. He was now leading an active life, and suffered less
from the frightful void which he had brought back from Lourdes; and
as he no longer questioned himself, the anguish of uncertainty no
longer tortured him. It was with the serenity which attends the simple
accomplishment of duty that he continued to say his mass. He even
finished by thinking that the mystery which he thus celebrated--indeed,
that all the mysteries and all the dogmas were but symbols--rites
requisite for humanity in its childhood, which would be got rid of later
on, when enlarged, purified, and instructed humanity should be able to
support the brightness of naked truth.
And in his zealous desire to be useful, his passion to proclaim his belief
aloud, Pierre one morning found himself at his table writing a book.
This had come about quite naturally; the book proceeded from him like
a heart-cry, without any literary idea having crossed his mind. One
night, whilst he lay awake, its title suddenly flashed before his eyes in
the darkness: "NEW ROME." That expressed everything, for must not
the new redemption of the nations originate in eternal and holy Rome?
The only existing authority was found there; rejuvenescence could only
spring from the sacred soil where the old Catholic oak had grown. He
wrote his book in a couple of months, having unconsciously prepared
himself for the work by his studies in contemporary socialism during a
year past. There was a bubbling flow in his brain as in a poet's; it
seemed to him sometimes as if he dreamt those pages, as if an internal
distant voice dictated them to him.
When he read passages written on the previous day to Viscount
Philibert de la Choue, the latter often expressed keen approval of them
from a practical point of view, saying that one must touch the people in
order to lead them, and that it would also be a good plan to compose
pious and yet amusing songs for singing in the workshops. As for
Monseigneur Bergerot, without examining the book from the dogmatic
standpoint, he was deeply touched by the glowing breath of charity
which every page exhaled, and was even guilty of the imprudence of

writing an approving letter to the author, which letter he authorised him
to insert in his work by way of preface. And yet now the Congregation
of the Index Expurgatorius was about to place this book, issued in the
previous June, under interdict; and it was to defend it that the young
priest had hastened to Rome, inflamed by the desire to make his ideas
prevail, and resolved to plead his cause in person before the Holy
Father, having, he was convinced of it, simply given expression to the
pontiff's views.
Pierre had not stirred whilst thus living his three last years afresh: he
still stood erect before the parapet, before Rome, which he had so often
dreamt of and had so keenly desired to see. There was a constant
succession of arriving and departing vehicles behind him; the slim
Englishmen and the heavy Germans passed away after bestowing on
the classic view the five minutes prescribed by their guidebooks; whilst
the driver and the horse of Pierre's cab remained waiting complacently,
each with his head drooping under the bright sun, which was heating
the valise on the seat of the vehicle. And Pierre, in his black cassock,
seemed to have grown slimmer and elongated, very slight of build,