cco imitating marble, the ogives which dared not
soar, the rounded vaults condemned to the heavy majesty of the dome
style. No, no, thought he, the faith whose cooling cinders lingered there
was no longer that whose brazier had invaded and set all Christendom
aglow! However, Monsignor Fornaro whom he chanced to meet as he was
leaving the church, inveighed against the Gothic style as rank heresy.
The first Christian church, said the prelate, had been the basilica,
which had sprung from the temple, and it was blasphemy to assert that the
Gothic cathedral was the real Christian house of prayer, for Gothic
embodied the hateful Anglo-Saxon spirit, the rebellious genius of Luther.
At this a passionate reply rose to Pierre's lips, but he said nothing for
fear that he might say too much. However, he asked himself whether in all
this there was not a decisive proof that Catholicism was the very
vegetation of Rome, Paganism modified by Christianity. Elsewhere
Christianity has grown up in quite a different spirit, to such a point
that it has risen in rebellion and schismatically turned against the
mother-city. And the breach has ever gone on widening, the dissemblance
has become more and more marked; and amidst the evolution of new
societies, yet a fresh schism appears inevitable and proximate in spite
of all the despairing efforts to maintain union.

* So called because it occupies the site of a temple to
Minerva.--Trans.

While Pierre thus visited the Roman churches, he also continued his
efforts to gain support in the matter of his book, his irritation tending
to such stubbornness, that if in the first instance he failed to obtain
an interview, he went back again and again to secure one, steadfastly
keeping his promise to call in turn upon each cardinal of the
Congregation of the Index. And as a cardinal may belong to several
Congregations, it resulted that he gradually found himself roaming
through those former ministries of the old pontifical government which,
if less numerous than formerly, are still very intricate institutions,
each with its cardinal-prefect, its cardinal-members, its consultative
prelates, and its numerous employees. Pierre repeatedly had to return to
the Cancelleria, where the Congregation of the Index meets, and lost
himself in its world of staircases, corridors, and halls. From the moment
he passed under the porticus he was overcome by the icy shiver which fell
from the old walls, and was quite un