tes only admit ten, others go as far as
thirty. The probability is that the loss was about fifteen millions.**

* The allusion is evidently to the famous Union Generale, on
which the Pope bestowed his apostolic benediction, and with
which M. Zola deals at length in his novel _Money_. Certainly
a very brilliant idea was embodied in the Union Generale, that
of establishing a great international Catholic bank which
would destroy the Jewish financial autocracy throughout Europe,
and provide both the papacy and the Legitimist cause in several
countries with the sinews of war. But in the battle which
ensued the great Jew financial houses proved the stronger, and
the disaster which overtook the Catholic speculators was a
terrible one.--Trans.

** That is 600,000 pounds.

Whilst Narcisse was giving this account he and Pierre had despatched
their cutlets and tomatoes, and the waiter was now serving them some
fried chicken. "At the present time," said Narcisse by way of conclusion,
"the gap has been filled up; I told you of the large sums yielded by the
Peter's Pence Fund, the amount of which is only known by the Pope, who
alone fixes its employment. And, by the way, he isn't cured of
speculating: I know from a good source that he still gambles, though with
more prudence. Moreover, his confidential assistant is still a prelate.
And, when all is said, my dear Abbe, he's in the right: a man must belong
to his times--dash it all!"

Pierre had listened with growing surprise, in which terror and sadness
mingled. Doubtless such things were natural, even legitimate; yet he, in
his dream of a pastor of souls free from all terrestrial cares, had never
imagined that they existed. What! the Pope--the spiritual father of the
lowly and the suffering--had speculated in land and in stocks and shares!
He had gambled, placed funds in the hands of Jew bankers, practised
usury, extracted hard interest from money--he, the successor of the
Apostle, the Pontiff of Christ, the representative of Jesus, of the
Gospel, that divine friend of the poor! And, besides, what a painful
contrast: so many millions stored away in those rooms of the Vatican, and
so many millions working and fructifying, constantly being diverted from
one speculation to another in order that they might yield the more gain;
and then down below, near at hand, so much want and misery in those
abominable unfinished buildings of the new dist