"Are you pursued?" "Worse; I am driven out. The master does not want me here any longer; he sends me into the mountains far from the pueblo, far from my friends and from you, and it is to bid you good bye that I 'come.' Mercedes bent her forehead in her hands. "Dita," said Ramon, "what have we done that life should be so hard?" And when Dita did not answer he added, "it is enough to make one rebel." "Rebel against whom?" she asked. "Against God," he replied. "No, God has not done it. We carry each others burdens. God leaves us free. The sins of the parents are visited upon their children. Such is life." "Oh, the miserable life that it is!" he answered, hurling a stone from him, which shattered itself upon a rock. "It is not miserable, except for the wicked. It is profitable for the good," she rejoined. "And who are the good?" he inquired. "Those who suffer and those who pardon." They remained a moment without speaking. Both were weeping. Ramon lifted his eyes, and pointing to the house, said: "It is there they have killed my father, and I must go away and we must forget each other." "Forget each other?" she asked. "Yes, for your father "Stop," she said. She had understood, and taking his hands in hers she made answer : "We shall be their victims. That is our work." Ramon gathered a flower that was blooming on the wall beside them and handed it to her; then staggering like a drunken man he went away. The highway that leads to Paredes runs for some time along the ledge of a precipice. Stretched out on the slope above the road, just where it turned, thus giving him command of it for some distance, Ramon, the day after his departure, was letting himself be carried away by a torrent of gloomy thoughts. His sheep were scattered over the plain. Armed with his gun he was keeping his lonely watch. A tinkle of bells aroused him from his reverie. A carro drawn by two mules was coming down the narrow pass. Ramon saw it with unconcern, when suddenly his countenance lighted up. Torribio was driving, and seated behind him he saw under the hood of the carro, Pepe and Faustino. Oh! the chance for the full measure of his hatred and vengeance! His blood rushed to his head, and rising on the bank he aimed at Faustino. Dismayed the driver pulled in the mules. One of them had been struck by the ball and was reeling, the other plunging wildly. In a moment the carro was turning over, and Ramon saw them hanging over the abyss. He shouted with glee. The three would die together. Suddenly a great thought flashed upon his mind like lightning. He leaps between the car and the edge, and with the force of despair hurls it back upon the road. But the effort made him lose his balance, and while the three guilty men were looking they saw him, to their horror, beating the air wildly with his hands. As he fell he uttered the words "I forgive," and was dashed on the rocks below. Études, July 20, 1902. PIERRE SUAU, S.J. PILGRIM-WALKS IN ROME. VI. FROM THE QUIRINAL TO PORTA PIA, AND S. AGNESE OUTSIDE THE WALLS. (Continued.) I. PIAZZA DEL QUIRINALE. THE Piazza del Quirinale, or large square at the west end of the Quirinal Palace, is an attractive spot, because of its elevated position, its palatial buildings, its gardens and its ancient obelisk. There is a delightful fountain too, whose waters leaping high into the air and dancing perpetually to their own music have a refreshing sound as the countless rills descend in cadence from the brimming basin to the pool below. The place is quiet enough now; there is little to remind one of the stormy scenes that here disgraced Rome in the struggle of the Revolution against the Papacy, except the Italian soldiers who stand guard at the palace entrance, and the flag of united Italy that floats from the belfry. The Pope has long since been driven away, and for the time being the Revolution with the king of Italy as its figure-head, holds possession of the property of the Apostolic See. Above the entrance of the palace is a beautiful statue of Our Lady and the Divine Child, and, lower down, reclining over the arched doorway, are the figures of SS. Peter and Paul, seemingly waiting patiently till the Pope returns to claim his own. To the right of the palace, as we face it from the square, is the Via del Quirinale, which runs into the well-known Via Venti Settembre, and at its entrance is a public garden, to make which two churches and two convents were sacrilegiously destroyed in 1888. The large building on our right is the Palazzo della Consulta, also robbed from the Pope in 1871. The associations of the place are sad : we can only recall one or two. The opening of the nineteenth century saw Napoleon I prosecuting his remarkable career of victories, dismembering empires, creating principalities and kingdoms, and making peace or war at his pleasure. In his pride he put forth his hand against the Holy See, which he had persecuted with savage malignity under Pope Pius VI. By a decree of April 2, 1808, he incorporated the Pontifical States with the French Empire, and declared them to be irrevocably united to the Kingdom of Italy, the vassal of France. An armed force entered the Quirinal palace to take possession in the Emperor's name: the Papal guards were disarmed, and the Holy Father found himself a prisoner in his own house. Against this outrageous unprovoked attack on the rights and property of the Church, he protested strongly; and, after considerable delay, published a Bull excommunicating all concerned in this measure, without naming any one in particular. On the night of July 4, 1809, the French General Radet entered the Papal apartments with a peremptory demand, in the Emperor's name, that the Pope should renounce at once all temporal sovereignty of Rome and of the Ecclesiastical States in the event of a refusal he had orders to seize his person and drag him into exile. The Pope fearless at this fresh display of Napoleon's violence, answered with firmness and dignity: "We cannot, we ought not, we will not yield or renounce that which is not ours. The temporal power belongs to the Church; we are only its administrator. The Emperor may cut us to pieces, but he will never obtain this renunciation from us." The word of command was given, the Pope was seized and carried off to France, with apparently no other prospect than that he should die in exile like his predecessor. The pathetic story may be read in Cardinal Pacca's Memoirs. Napoleon triumphed for a while, the Holy See lay crushed beneath his power; but God was already preparing the restoration of the Pope, and the downfall of his oppressor. "Napoleon; A stone by Satan hurled with thunder-shock, Crumbling the mightiest fabrics of the past; Broken itself by falling on the Rock."-(BARRAUD.) During the Revolution of 1848, when Mazzini, Garibaldi, and a host of desperadoes of the same stamp, were warring against the Papacy, a rabble-rout of Carbonari and of the vilest ruffians of Rome was led by Sterbini Canino (i. e. Prince Charles Bonaparte), Galletti and others to the Quirinal to wrest from Pope Pius IX the abdication of the Temporal Power into the hands of the people. The palace was besieged by the insurgents, fire was set to the great doors, and shots were aimed at the windows of the Papal apartments. Charles Bonaparte, who acted like a fury on this occasion, had the largest gun in Rome dragged up from the Piazza della Pillotta and planted in the centre of the piazza, ordering the men to be ready to blow down the palace gates, which the Swiss guards had bolted and were defending. |