indeed
he had no suspicion that the latter despised and execrated him and
mourned his accession to power in the conviction that he would lead Italy
to shame and ruin.

"Ah!" resumed Narcisse addressing Pierre, "he's one of those supple,
practical men who care nothing for a smack in the face. It seems that
unscrupulous individuals like himself become necessary when states get
into trouble and have to pass through political, financial, and moral
crises. It is said that Sacco with his imperturbable assurance and
ingenious and resourceful mind has quite won the King's favour. Just look
at him! Why, with that crowd of courtiers round him, one might think him
the master of this palace!"

And indeed the guests, after passing the Prince and Princess with a bow,
at once congregated around Sacco, for he represented power, emoluments,
pensions, and crosses; and if folks still smiled at seeing his dark,
turbulent, and scraggy figure amidst that framework of family portraits
which proclaimed the mighty ancestry of the Buongiovannis, they none the
less worshipped him as the personification of the new power, the
democratic force which was confusedly rising even from the old Roman soil
where the _patriziato_ lay in ruins.

"What a crowd!" muttered Pierre. "Who are all these people?"

"Oh!" replied Narcisse, "it is a regular mixture. These people belong
neither to the black nor the white world; they form a grey world as it
were. The evolution was certain; a man like Cardinal Boccanera may retain
an uncompromising attitude, but a whole city, a nation can't. The Pope
alone will always say no and remain immutable. But everything around him
progresses and undergoes transformation, so that in spite of all
resistance, Rome will become Italian in a few years' time. Even now,
whenever a prince has two sons only one of them remains on the side of
the Vatican, the other goes over to the Quirinal. People must live, you
see; and the great families threatened with annihilation have not
sufficient heroism to carry obstinacy to the point of suicide. And I have
already told you that we are here on neutral ground, for Prince
Buongiovanni was one of the first to realise the necessity of
conciliation. He feels that his fortune is perishing, he does not care to
risk it either in industry or in speculation, and already sees it
portioned out among his five children, by whose descendants it will be
yet further divided; and this is why he prudently makes