the several parishes. They met their death as became true sons
of the holy Church, declaring with their last breath that the sacrifice
would bring a blessing on the faith.'

'So it will--they are right--truth must triumph at last, Massoni,' said
the Cardinal hurriedly; 'but we are passing through a fiery ordeal;
sparks of the same fire have been seen among ourselves too. Grave fears
exist that all is not well at Viterbo.'

'The flame must be trodden out quickly and completely, your Eminence;
deal with traitors with speed, and you can treat true men with justice.
The Abbe Guescard, whose book on private judgments you have seen, was
buried this morning.'

'I had not heard that he was ill.'

'It was a sudden seizure, your Eminence, but the convulsions resisted
all treatment, and death closed his sufferings about midnight. The
doctrines of Diderot and Jean Jacques form but sorry homilies. They who
preach them go to a heavy reckoning hereafter.'

'And meet with sudden deaths besides,' said the Cardinal, with a glance
in which there was fully as much jollity as gloom.

The Jesuit Father's pale face remained calm and passionless as before,
nor did a syllable escape from him in reply. At length the Cardinal
said, 'All accounts agree in one thing, the pestilence is spreading,
At Aranguez, in Spain, a secret society has been discovered in
correspondence with Des-moulins. At Leipsic a record for future
proscription throughout Germany has been found, exactly fashioned after
the true Paris model; and even in sluggish England the mutter-ings of
discontent are heard, but with them we have less sympathy--or rather we
might say, God speed the hand that would pull down the heretic Church!'
'Carroll tells me that Ireland is ripe, though for what, it is yet hard
to pronounce. The cry of "Liberty" in France has awakened her to the
memory of all her hatred to England. Men of great ability and daring are
eagerly feeding the flame; the difficulty will be to direct its ravages
when once it breaks out. If the principles of France sway them, the
torrent that will overwhelm the heretic will also sweep away the faith.'

'Much will depend upon the men who direct the movement.'

'No, no,' said the Jesuit, 'next to nothing. Each in his turn will be
the victim of the event he seems to control. It is not the riven tree
carried along by the current that directs the stream. It is to human
passions and their working we must look, to see the issue