saved St. Agnes from, cruel shame was wrought in
the vaulted chambers under the church of her name there, and that is
something beyond all the wonders of the Piazza del Popolo for its pathos
and for its poetry. But, if the Piazza Navona had no other claim on me,
I should find a peculiar pleasure in the old custom of stopping the
escapes from its fountains and flooding with water the place I saw
flooded with sun, for the patricians to wade and drive about in during
the very hot weather and eat ices and drink coffee, while the plebeians
looked sumptuously down on them from the galleries built around the
lake.

XI. IN AND ABOUT THE VATICAN

[Illustration: 33 COLONNADE AND FOUNTAIN AT ST. PETER'S]

It would be a very bold or very incompetent observer of the Roman
situation who should venture upon a decided opinion of the relations of
the monarchy and the papacy. You hear it said with intimations of
special authority in the matter, that both king and pope are well
content with the situation, and it is clearly explained how and why they
are so; but I did not understand how or why at the moment of the
explanation, or else I have now forgotten whatever was clear in it. I
believe, however, it was to the effect that the pope willingly remained
self-prisoned in the Vatican because, if he came out, he might not only
invalidate a future claim upon the sovereign dignity which the Italian
occupation had invaded, but he might incur risks from the more
unfriendly extremists which would at least be very offensive. On his
part, it was said that the king used the embarrassment occasioned by the
pope's attitude as his own defence against the anti-Clericals, who
otherwise would have urged him to far more hostile measures with the
Church. The king and the pope were therefore not very real enemies, it
was said by those who tried to believe themselves better informed than
others.

To the passing or tarrying stranger the situation does not offer many
dramatic aspects. When you are going to St. Peter's, if you will look up
at the plain wall of the Vatican palace you will see two windows with
their shutters open, and these are the windows of the rooms where Pius
X. lives, a voluntary captive; the closed blinds are those of the rooms
where Leo XIII. died, a voluntary captive. Whatever we think of the
wisdom or the reason of the papal protest against the occupation of the
States of the Church by the Italian people, these windows have their