The Daughter of an Empress [129]
the crowning of our famous improvisatrice, Corilla, in the capitol. This is an injustice which Ganganelli's successor will have to repair. Will you do it?"
Braschi gave the cardinal a sly glance. "Ah," said he, "Signora Corilla seems to be less liberal than Signora Malveda? She will allow you no discount of her future laurel-crown, is it not so? I know nothing worse than an ambitious woman. Listen, Albani; it seems that we must be mutually useful to each other; I need your voice to become pope, and you need mine to become a favored lover. Very well, give me your voice, and in return, I promise you a laurel-crown for Signora Corilla, and eight thousand scudi for yourself!"
"Ah, you would haggle!" contemptuously exclaimed Albani. "You would be a very niggardly vicegerent of God! But as Corilla is well worth two thousand scudi, I am content. Give me eight thousand scudi and the promise to crown Corilla!"
"As soon as I am pope, I will do both. My sacred word for it! Shall I strengthen my promise by swearing upon the Bible?"
Cardinal Albani gave the questioner a glance of astonishment, and then broke out with a loud and scornful laugh.
"You forget that you are speaking to one of your kind! Of what use would such a holy farce be to us who have no faith in its binding power? No, no, we priests know each other. Such buffoonery amounts to nothing. One written word is worth a thousand sworn oaths! Let us have a contract prepared--that is better. We will both sign it!"
"Just as you please!" said Braschi, with a smile, stepping to his writing desk and rapidly throwing some lines upon paper, which he signed after it had been carefully read by Albani.
"At length the business is finished," said Albani. "Now, Cardinal Braschi, go to your signora, and surprise her with the news that she holds in her arms a pope /in spe/. Pope Clement will soon need a successor; he must be very ill, the poor pope!"
So speaking, he took leave of the future pope with a friendly nod, and departed with as much haste as he had come.
"And now to these pious Jesuit fathers!" said he, stepping out upon the grass. "It was very prudent in me that I went on foot to Corilla to-day. Our cursed equipages betray every thing; they are the greatest chatterboxes! How astonished these good Romans would be to see a cardinal's carriage before these houses of the condemned! No, no, strengthen yourselves for another effort, my reverend legs! Only yet this walk, and then you will have rest."
And the cardinal trudged stoutly on until he reached the Jesuit college. There he stopped and looked cautiously around him.
"This unfortunate saintly dress is also a hindrance," murmured he. "Like the sign over the shop-door it proclaims to all the world: 'I am a cardinal. Here indulgences, dispensations, and God's blessings are to be sold! Who will buy, who will buy?' I dare not now enter this scouted and repudiated sacred house. I might be remarked, suspected, and betrayed. Corilla, dear, beautiful woman, it costs me much pains and many efforts to conquer you; will your possession repay me?"
The cardinal patiently waited in the shadow of a taxus-bush until the street become for a moment empty and solitary. Then he hastened to a side-door of the building, and, sure of being unobserved, entered.
A deep and quiet silence pervaded these long and deserted cloister- passages. It seemed as if a death-veil lay upon the whole building--as if it were depopulated, desolated. Nowhere the least trace of that busy, stirring life, usually prevailing in these corridors--no longer those bands of scholars that formerly peopled these passages--the doors of the great school-room open, the benches unoccupied, the lecturer's chair, from which the pious fathers formerly with such subtle wisdom explained and defended their dangerous doctrines, these also are desolate. The reign of the Jesuits was over; Ganganelli had thrust them from the throne, and they cursed him as their murderer! He had suppressed their sacred order, he had commanded them to lay aside their peculiar costume
Braschi gave the cardinal a sly glance. "Ah," said he, "Signora Corilla seems to be less liberal than Signora Malveda? She will allow you no discount of her future laurel-crown, is it not so? I know nothing worse than an ambitious woman. Listen, Albani; it seems that we must be mutually useful to each other; I need your voice to become pope, and you need mine to become a favored lover. Very well, give me your voice, and in return, I promise you a laurel-crown for Signora Corilla, and eight thousand scudi for yourself!"
"Ah, you would haggle!" contemptuously exclaimed Albani. "You would be a very niggardly vicegerent of God! But as Corilla is well worth two thousand scudi, I am content. Give me eight thousand scudi and the promise to crown Corilla!"
"As soon as I am pope, I will do both. My sacred word for it! Shall I strengthen my promise by swearing upon the Bible?"
Cardinal Albani gave the questioner a glance of astonishment, and then broke out with a loud and scornful laugh.
"You forget that you are speaking to one of your kind! Of what use would such a holy farce be to us who have no faith in its binding power? No, no, we priests know each other. Such buffoonery amounts to nothing. One written word is worth a thousand sworn oaths! Let us have a contract prepared--that is better. We will both sign it!"
"Just as you please!" said Braschi, with a smile, stepping to his writing desk and rapidly throwing some lines upon paper, which he signed after it had been carefully read by Albani.
"At length the business is finished," said Albani. "Now, Cardinal Braschi, go to your signora, and surprise her with the news that she holds in her arms a pope /in spe/. Pope Clement will soon need a successor; he must be very ill, the poor pope!"
So speaking, he took leave of the future pope with a friendly nod, and departed with as much haste as he had come.
"And now to these pious Jesuit fathers!" said he, stepping out upon the grass. "It was very prudent in me that I went on foot to Corilla to-day. Our cursed equipages betray every thing; they are the greatest chatterboxes! How astonished these good Romans would be to see a cardinal's carriage before these houses of the condemned! No, no, strengthen yourselves for another effort, my reverend legs! Only yet this walk, and then you will have rest."
And the cardinal trudged stoutly on until he reached the Jesuit college. There he stopped and looked cautiously around him.
"This unfortunate saintly dress is also a hindrance," murmured he. "Like the sign over the shop-door it proclaims to all the world: 'I am a cardinal. Here indulgences, dispensations, and God's blessings are to be sold! Who will buy, who will buy?' I dare not now enter this scouted and repudiated sacred house. I might be remarked, suspected, and betrayed. Corilla, dear, beautiful woman, it costs me much pains and many efforts to conquer you; will your possession repay me?"
The cardinal patiently waited in the shadow of a taxus-bush until the street become for a moment empty and solitary. Then he hastened to a side-door of the building, and, sure of being unobserved, entered.
A deep and quiet silence pervaded these long and deserted cloister- passages. It seemed as if a death-veil lay upon the whole building--as if it were depopulated, desolated. Nowhere the least trace of that busy, stirring life, usually prevailing in these corridors--no longer those bands of scholars that formerly peopled these passages--the doors of the great school-room open, the benches unoccupied, the lecturer's chair, from which the pious fathers formerly with such subtle wisdom explained and defended their dangerous doctrines, these also are desolate. The reign of the Jesuits was over; Ganganelli had thrust them from the throne, and they cursed him as their murderer! He had suppressed their sacred order, he had commanded them to lay aside their peculiar costume