"I have had the curiosity," Caesar wrote to his friend Alzugaray, "to
inform myself about the life of the Borgias, and going on from one to
another, I reached Saint Francis Borgia; and from Saint Francis I have
gone backwards to Saint Ignatius Loyola.

"The parallelism between the doings of Caesar Borgia and of Inigo de
Loyola surprised me; what one tried to do in the sphere of action, the
other did in the sphere of thought. These twin Spanish figures, both
odious to the masses, have given its direction to the Church; one,
Loyola, through the impulse to spiritual power; the other, Caesar
Borgia, through the impulse to temporal power.

"One may say that Spain gave Papal Rome its thought and activity, as
it gave the Rome of the Caesars also its thought and activity, through
Seneca and Trajan.

"Really it is curious to see the traces that remain in Rome of
that Basque, Inigo. That half farceur, half ruffian, who had the
characteristics of a modern anarchist, was a genius for organization.
Bakunin and Mazzini are poor devils beside him. The Church still lives
through Loyola. He was her last reformer.

"The Society of Jesus is the knot of the whole Catholic scaffolding; the
Jesuits know that on the day when this knot, which their Society forms,
is cut or pulled open, the whole frame-work of out-of-date ideas and
lies, which defends the Vatican, will come down with a terrible noise.

"Rome lives on Jesuitism. Indubitably, without Loyola, Catholicism would
have rotted away much sooner. It is obvious that this would have been
better, but we are not talking about that. A good general is not one who
defends just causes, but one who wins battles.

"The Borgias, Luther, and Saint Ignatius, between them, killed the
predominance of the Latin race.

"The Borgias threw discredit on the free Renaissance life, before the
face of all nations; Luther removed the centre of spiritual life and
philosophy to Germany and England; Saint Ignatius prevented Roman
Catholicism from rotting away; he put iron braces on the body that was
doubling over with weakness, and inside his braces the body has gone on
decomposing and has poisoned the Latin countries.

"On hearing this opinion here, they asked me:

"'Then you think Catholicism is dead?'

"'No, no; as to having any civilizing effect, it is dead; but as to
having a sentimental effect, it is very much alive... and it will still
unfortunately keep on being alive. All this business of the