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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair




In the evening Monsieur Raphael and his sister, and their colleagues,
gave a representation which was extremely well done. There was no
theatre at Muriel, but Apollonia had felicitously arranged a contiguous
saloon for the occasion, and, as everybody was at ease in an arm-chair,
they all agreed it was preferable to a regular theatre.

On the morrow they were to lunch with the mayor and corporation of
Grandchester, and view some of the principal factories; on the next day
the county gave a dinner to Lothair in their hall, the lord-lieutenant
in the chair; on Friday there was to be a ball at Grandchester given by
the county and city united to celebrate the great local event. It was
whispered that this was to be a considerable affair. There was not an
hour of the week that was not appropriated to some festive ceremony.

It happened on the morning of Friday, the cardinal being alone with
Lothair, transacting some lingering business connected with the
guardianship, and on his legs as he spoke, that he said: "We live in
such a happy tumult here, my dear child, that I have never had an
opportunity of speaking to you on one or two points which interest me
and should not be uninteresting to you. I remember a pleasant
morning-walk we had in the park at Vauxe, when we began a conversation
which we never finished. What say you to a repetition of our stroll?
'Tis a lovely day, and I dare say we might escape by this window, and
gain some green retreat without any one disturbing us."

"I am quite of your eminence's mind," said Lothair, taking up a
wide-awake, "and I will lead you where it is not likely we shall be
disturbed."

So, winding their way through the pleasure-grounds, they entered by a
wicket a part of the park where the sunny glades soon wandered among the
tall fern and wild groves of venerable oaks.

"I sometimes feel," said the cardinal, "that I may have been too
punctilious in avoiding conversation with you on a subject the most
interesting and important to man. But I felt a delicacy in exerting my
influence as a guardian on a subject my relations to which, when your
dear father appointed me to that office, were so different from those
which now exist. But you are now your own master; I can use no control
over you but that influence which the words of truth must always
exercise over an ingenuous mind."

His eminence paused for a moment and looked at his companion; but
Lothair remained silent, with his eyes fixed upon the ground.

"It has always been a source of satisfaction, I would even say
consolation, to me," resumed the cardinal, "to know you were a religious
man; that your disposition was reverential, which is the highest order
of temperament, and brings us nearest to the angels. But we live in
times of difficulty and danger -- extreme difficulty and danger; a
religious disposition may suffice for youth in the tranquil hour, and he
may find, in due season, his appointed resting-place: but these are days
of imminent peril; the soul requires a sanctuary. Is yours at hand?"

The cardinal paused, and Lothair was obliged to meet a direct appeal.
He said then, after a momentary hesitation: "When you last spoke to me,
sir, on these grave matters, I said I was in a state of great
despondency. My situation now is not so much despondent as perplexed."

"And I wish you to tell me the nature of your perplexity," replied the
cardinal, "for there is no anxious embarrassment of mind which Divine
truth cannot disentangle and allay."

"Well," said Lothair, "I must say I am often perplexed at the
differences which obtrude themselves between Divine truth and human
knowledge."

"Those are inevitable," said the cardinal. "Divine truth being
unchangeable, and human knowledge changing every century; rather, I
should say, every generation."

"Perhaps, instead of human knowledge, I should have said human
progress," rejoined Lothair.

"Exactly," said the cardinal, "but what is progress? Movement. But
what if it be movement in the wrong direction? What if it be a
departure from Divine truth?"

"But I cannot understand why religion should be inconsistent with
civilization," said Lothair.

"Religion is civilization," said the cardinal; "the highest: it is a
reclamation of man from savageness by the Almighty. What the world
calls civilization, as distinguished from religion, is a retrograde
movement, and will ultimately lead us back to the barbarism from which
we have escaped. For instance, you talk of progress: what is the chief
social movement of all the countries that three centuries ago separated
from the unity of the Church of Christ? The rejection of the sacrament
of Christian matrimony. The introduction of the law of divorce, which
is, in fact, only a middle term to the abolition of marriage. What does
that mean? The extinction of the home and the household on which God
has rested civilization. If there be no home, the child belongs to the
state, not to the parent. The state educates the child, and without
religion, because the state in a country of progress acknowledges no
religion. For every man is not only to think as he likes, but to write
and to speak as he likes, and to sow with both hands broadcast, where he
will, errors, heresies, and blasphemies, without any authority on earth
to restrain the scattering of this seed of universal desolation. And
this system, which would substitute for domestic sentiment and Divine
belief the unlimited and licentious action of human intellect and human
will, is called progress. What is it but a revolt against God?"

"I am sure I wish there were only one Church and one religion," said
Lothair.

"There is only one Church and only one religion," said the cardinal;
"all other forms and phrases are mere phantasms, without root, or
substance, or coherency. Look at that unhappy Germany, once so proud of
its Reformation. What they call the leading journal tells us to-day,
that it is a question there whether four-fifths or three-fourths of the
population believe in Christianity. Some portion of it has already gone
back, I understand, to Number Nip. Look at this unfortunate land,
divided, subdivided, parcelled out in infinite schism, with new oracles
every day, and each more distinguished for the narrowness of his
intellect or the loudness of his lungs; once the land of saints and
scholars, and people in pious pilgrimages, and finding always solace and
support in the divine offices of an ever-present Church, which were a
true though a faint type of the beautiful future that awaited man. Why,
only three centuries of this rebellion against the Most High have
produced throughout the world, on the subject the most important that
man should possess a clear, firm faith, an anarchy of opinion, throwing
out every monstrous and fantastic form, from a caricature of the Greek
philosophy to a revival of fetichism."

"It is a chaos," said Lothair, with a sigh.

"From which I wish to save you," said the cardinal, with some eagerness.
"This is not a time to hesitate. You must be for God, or for
Antichrist. The Church calls upon her children."

"I am not unfaithful to the Church," said Lothair, "which was the Church
of my fathers."

"The Church of England," said the cardinal. "It was mine. I think of
it ever with tenderness and pity. Parliament made the Church of
England, and Parliament will unmake the Church of England. The Church
of England is not the Church of the English. Its fate is sealed. It
will soon become a sect, and all sects are fantastic. It will adopt new
dogmas, or it will abjure old ones; any thing to distinguish it from the
non-conforming herd in which, nevertheless, it will be its fate to
merge. The only consoling hope is that, when it falls, many of its
children, by the aid of the Blessed Virgin, may return to Christ."

"What I regret, sir," said Lothair, "is that the Church of Rome should
have placed itself in antagonism with political liberty. This adds to
the difficulties which the religious cause has to encounter; for it
seems impossible to deny that political freedom is now the sovereign
passion of communities."

"I cannot admit," replied the cardinal, "that the Church is in
antagonism with political freedom. On the contrary, in my opinion,
there can be no political freedom which is not founded on Divine
authority; otherwise it can be at the best but a specious phantom of
license inevitably terminating in anarchy. The rights and liberties of
the people of Ireland have no advocates except the Church; because,
there, political freedom is founded on Divine authority; but if you mean
by political freedom the schemes of the illuminati and the freemasons,
which perpetually torture the Continent, all the dark conspiracies of
the secret societies, there, I admit, the Church is in antagonism with
such aspirations after liberty; those aspirations, in fact, are
blasphemy and plunder; and, if the Church were to be destroyed, Europe
would be divided between the atheist and the communist."

There was a pause; the conversation had unexpectedly arrived at a point
where neither party cared to pursue it. Lothair felt he had said
enough; the cardinal was disappointed with what Lothair had said. His
eminence felt that his late ward was not in that ripe state of probation
which he had fondly anticipated; but, being a man not only of vivid
perception, but also of fertile resource, while he seemed to close the
present conversation, he almost immediately pursued his object by
another combination of means. Noticing an effect of scenery which
pleased him, reminded him of Styria, and so on, he suddenly said: "You
should travel."

"Well, Bertram wants me to go to Egypt with him," said Lothair.

"A most interesting country," said the cardinal, "and well worth
visiting. It is astonishing what a good guide old Herodotus still is in
that land! But you should know something of Europe before you go there.
Egypt is rather a land to end with. A young man should visit the chief
capitals of Europe, especially the seats of learning and the arts. If
my advice were asked by a young man who contemplated travelling on a
proper scale, I should say begin with Rome. Almost all that Europe
contains is derived from Rome. It is always best to go to the
fountain-head, to study the original. The society too, there, is
delightful; I know none equal to it. That, if you please, is
civilization -- pious and refined. And the people -- all so gifted and
so good -- so kind, so orderly, so charitable, so truly virtuous. I
believe the Roman people to be the best people that ever lived, and this
too while the secret societies have their foreign agents in every
quarter, trying to corrupt them, but always in vain. If an act of
political violence occurs, you may be sure it is confined entirely to
foreigners."

"Our friends the St. Jeromes are going to Rome," said Lothair.

"Well, and that would be pleasant for you. Think seriously of this, my
dear, young friend. I could be of some little service to you if you go
to Rome, which, after all, every man ought to do. I could put you, in
the way of easily becoming acquainted with all the right people, who
would take care that you saw Rome with profit and advantage."

Just at this moment, in a winding glade, they were met abruptly by a
third person. All seemed rather to start at the sudden rencounter; and
then Lothair eagerly advanced and welcomed the stranger with a proffered
hand.

"This is a most unexpected, but to me most agreeable, meeting," he said.
"You must now be my guest."

"That would be a great honor," said the stranger, "but one I cannot
enjoy. I had to wait at the station a couple of hours or so for my
train, and they told me if I strolled here I. should find some pretty
country. I have been so pleased with it, that I fear I have strolled
too long, and I literally have not an instant at my command," and he
hurried away.

"Who is that person?" asked the cardinal with some agitation.

"I have not the slightest idea," said Lothair. "All I know is, he once
saved my life."

"And all I know is," said the cardinal, "he once threatened mine."

"Strange!" said Lothair, and then he rapidly recounted to the cardinal
his adventure at the Fenian meeting.

"Strange!" echoed his eminence.



CHAPTER 49


Mrs. Campian did not appear at luncheon, which was observed but not
noticed. Afterward, while Lothair was making some arrangements for the
amusement of his guests, and contriving that they should fit in with the
chief incident of the day, which was the banquet given to him by the
county, and which it was settled the ladies were not to attend, the
colonel took him aside and said, "I do not think that Theodora will care
to go out to-day."

"She is not unwell, I hope?"

"Not exactly -- but she has had some news, some news of some friends,
which has disturbed her. And, if you will excuse me, I will request
your permission not to attend the dinner to-day, which I had hoped to
have had the honor of doing. But I think our plans must be changed a
little. I almost think we shall not go to Scotland after all."

"There is not the slightest necessity for your going to the dinner. You
will have plenty to keep you in countenance at home. Lord St. Aldegonde
is not going, nor I fancy any of them. I shall take the duke with me
and Lord Culloden, and, if you do not go, I shall take Mr. Putney Giles.
The lord-lieutenant will meet us there. I am sorry about Mrs. Campian,
because I know she is not ever put out by little things. May I not see
her in the course of the day? I should be very sorry that the day
should pass over without seeing her."

"Oh! I dare say she will see you in the course of the day, before you
go."

"When she likes. I shall not go out to-day; I shall keep in my rooms,
always at her commands. Between ourselves, I shall not be sorry to have
a quiet morning and collect my ideas a little. Speech-making is a new
thing for me. I wish you would tell me what to say to the county."

Lothair had appropriated to the Campians one of the most convenient and
complete apartments in the castle. It consisted of four chambers, one
of them a saloon which had been fitted up for his mother when she
married; a pretty saloon, hung with pale-green silk, and portraits and
scenes inlaid by Vanloo and Boucher. It was rather late in the
afternoon when Lothair received a message from Theodora in reply to the
wish that he had expressed of seeing her.

When he entered the room, she was not seated; her countenance was
serious. She advanced, and thanked him for wishing to see her, and
regretted she could not receive him at an earlier hour. "I fear it may
have inconvenienced you," she added; "but my mind has been much
disturbed, and too agitated for conversation."

"Even now I may be an intruder?"

"No, it is past; on the contrary, I wish to speak to you; indeed, you
are the only person with whom I could speak," and she sat down.

Her countenance, which was unusually pale when he entered, became
flushed. "It is not a subject for the festive hour of your life," she
said, "but I cannot resist my fate."

"Your fate must always interest me," murmured Lothair.

"Yes; but my fate is the fate of ages and of nations," said Theodora,
throwing up her head with that tumult of the brow which he had once
before noticed. "Amid the tortures of my spirit at this moment, not the
least is that there is only one person I can appeal to, and he is one to
whom I have no right to make that appeal."

"If I be that person," said Lothair, "you have every right, for I am
devoted to you."

"Yes; but it is not personal devotion that is the qualification needed.
It is not sympathy with me that would authorize such an appeal. It must
be sympathy with a cause, and a cause for which, I fear, you do not --
perhaps I should say you cannot -- feel."

"Why?" said Lothair.

"Why should you feel for my fallen country, who are the proudest citizen
of the proudest of lands? Why should you feel for its debasing thraldom
-- you who, in the religious mystification of man, have, at least, the
noble privilege of being a Protestant?"

"You speak of Rome?"

"Yes, of the only thought I have, or ever had. I speak of that country
which first impressed upon the world a general and enduring form of
masculine virtue; the land of liberty, and law, and eloquence, and
military genius, now garrisoned by monks, and governed by a doting
priest."

"Everybody must be interested about Rome," said Lothair. "Rome is the
country of the world, and even the doting priest yon talk of boasts of
two hundred millions of subjects."

"If he were at Avignon again, I should not care for his boasts," said
Theodora. "I do not grudge him his spiritual subjects; I am content to
leave his superstition to Time. Time is no longer slow; his scythe mows
quickly in this age. But when his debasing creeds are palmed off on man
by the authority of our glorious capitol, and the slavery of the human
mind is schemed and carried on in the forum, then, if there be real
Roman blood left -- and I thank my Creator there is much -- it is time
for it to mount and move," and she rose and walked up and down the room.

"You have had news from Rome?" said Lothair.

"I have had news from Rome," she replied, speaking slowly in a deep
voice; and there was a pause.

Then Lothair said: "When you have alluded to these matters before, you
never spoke of them in a sanguine spirit."

"I have seen the cause triumph," said Theodora; "the sacred cause of
truth, of justice, of national honor. I have sat at the feet of the
triumvirate of the Roman Republic; men who, for virtue, and genius, and
warlike skill and valor, and every quality that exalts man, were never
surpassed in the olden time -- no, not by the Catos and the Scipios; and
I have seen the blood of my own race poured, like a rich vintage, on the
victorious Roman soil; my father fell, who, in stature and in mien, was
a god; and, since then, my beautiful brothers, with shapes to enshrine
in temples; and I have smiled amid the slaughter of my race, for I
believed that Rome was free; and yet all this vanished. How, then, when
we talked, could I be sanguine?"

"And yet you are sanguine now?" said Lothair, with a scrutinizing
glance; and he rose and joined her, leaning slightly on the
mantel-piece.

"There was only one event that could secure the success of our efforts,"
said Theodora, "and that event was so improbable, that I had long
rejected it from calculation. It has happened, and Rome calls upon me
to act."

"The Papalini are strong," continued Theodora, after a pause; "they have
been long preparing for the French evacuation; they have a considerable
and disciplined force of janizaries, a powerful artillery, the strong
places of the city. The result of a rising, under such circumstances,
might be more than doubtful; if unsuccessful, to us it would be
disastrous. It is necessary that the Roman States should be invaded,
and the papal army must then quit their capital. We have no fear of
them in the field. Yes," she added, with energy, "we could sweep them
from the face of the earth!"

"But the army of Italy," said Lothair, "will that be inert?"

"There it is," said Theodora. "That has been our stumbling-block. I
have always known that, if ever the French quitted Rome, it would be on
the understanding that the house of Savoy should inherit the noble
office of securing our servitude. He in whom I alone confide would
never credit this; but my information, in this respect, was authentic.
However, it is no longer necessary to discuss the question. News has
come, and in no uncertain shape, that whatever may have been the
understanding, under no circumstances will the Italian army enter the
Roman state. We must strike, therefore, and Rome will be free. But how
am I to strike? We have neither money nor arms. We have only men. I
can give them no more, because I have already given them every thing,
except my life, which is always theirs. As for my husband, who, I may
say, wedded me on the battle-field, so fax as wealth was concerned, he
was then a prince among princes, and would pour forth his treasure, and
his life, with equal eagerness. But things have changed since
Aspromonte. The struggle in his own country has entirely deprived him
of revenues as great as any forfeited by their Italian princelings. In
fact, it is only by a chance that he is independent. Had it not been
for an excellent man, one of your great English merchants, who was his
agent here, and managed his affairs, we should have been penniless. His
judicious investments of the superfluity of our income, which, at the
time, my husband never even noticed, have secured for Colonel Campian
the means of that decorous life which he appreciates -- but no more. As
for myself, these considerations are nothing. I will not say I should
be insensible to a refined life with refined companions, if the spirit
were content and the heart serene; but I never could fully realize the
abstract idea of what they call wealth; I never could look upon it
except as a means to an end, and my end has generally been military
material. Perhaps the vicissitudes of my life have made me insensible
to what are called reverses of fortune, for, when a child, I remember
sleeping on the moonlit flags of Paris, with no pillow except my
tambourine; and I remember it not without delight. Let us sit down. I
feel I am talking in an excited, injudicious, egotistical, rhapsodical,
manner. I thought I was calm, and I meant to have been clear. But the
fact is, I am ashamed of myself. I am doing a wrong thing, and in a
wrong manner. But I have had a sleepless night, and a day of brooding
thought. I meant once to have asked you to help me, and now I feel that
you are the last person to whom I ought to appeal."

"In that you are in error," said Lothair, rising and taking her hand
with an expression of much gravity; "I am the right person for you to
appeal to -- the only person."

"Nay," said Theodora, and she shook her head.

"For I owe to you a debt that I never can repay," continued Lothair.
"Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we
first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies
and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly
insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and
progress. Why, had it not been for you I should have at this very
moment been lavishing my fortune on an, ecclesiastical toy, which I
think of with a blush. There may be -- doubtless there are -- opinions
in which we may not agree; but in our love of truth and justice there is
no difference, dearest lady. No; though you must have felt that I am
not -- that no one could be -- insensible to your beauty and infinite
charms, still it is your consummate character that has justly fascinated
my thought and heart; and I have long resolved, were I permitted, to
devote to you my fortune and my life."



CHAPTER 50


The month of September was considerably advanced when a cab, evidently
from its luggage fresh from the railway, entered the court-yard of
Hexham House, of which the shuttered windows indicated the absence of
its master, the cardinal, then in Italy. But it was evident that the
person who had arrived was expected, for before his servant could ring
the hall-bell the door opened, and a grave-looking domestic advanced
with much deference, and awaited the presence of no less a personage
than Monsignore Berwick.

"We have had a rough passage, good Clifford," said the great man,
alighting, "but I see you duly received my telegram. You are always
ready."

"I hope my lord will find it not uncomfortable," said Clifford. "I have
prepared the little suite which you mentioned, and have been careful
that there should be no outward sign of any one having arrived."

"And now," said the monsignore, stopping for a moment in the ball, "here
is a letter which must be instantly delivered, and by a trusty hand,"
and he gave it to Mr. Clifford, who, looking at the direction, nodded
his head and said, "By no one but myself. I will show my lord to his
rooms and depart with this instantly."

"And bring back a reply," added the monsignore.

The well-lit room, the cheerful fire, the judicious refection on a
side-table, were all circumstances which usually would have been
agreeable to a wearied traveller, but Monsignore Berwick seemed little
to regard them. Though a man in general superior to care, and master of
thought, his countenance was troubled and pensive even to dejection.

"Even the winds and waves are against us," he exclaimed, too restless to
be seated, and walking up and down the room with his arms behind his
back. "That such a struggle should fall to my lot! Why was I not a
minister in the days of the Gregorys, the Innocents, even the Leos! But
this is craven. There should be inspiration in peril, and the greatest
where peril is extreme. I am a little upset -- with travel and the
voyage and those telegrams not being answered. The good Clifford was
wisely provident," and he approached the table and took one glass of
wine. "Good! One must never despair in such a cause. And if the worse
happens, it has happened before -- and what then? Suppose Avignon over
again, or even Gaeta, or even Paris? So long as we never relinquish our
title to the Eternal City we shall be eternal. But then, some say, our
enemies before were the sovereigns; now it is the people. Is it so?
True we have vanquished kings, and baffled emperors -- but the French
Republic and the Roman Republic have alike reigned and ruled in the
Vatican, and where are they? We have lost provinces, but we have also
gained them. We have twelve millions of subjects in the United States
of America, and they will increase like the sands of the sea. Still it
is a hideous thing to have come back, as it were, to the days of the
Constable of Bourbon, and to be contemplating the siege of the Holy See,
and massacre and pillage and ineffable horrors! The papacy may survive
such calamities, as it undoubtedly will, but I shall scarcely figure in
history if, under my influence, such visitations should accrue. If I
had only to deal with men, I would not admit of failure; but when your
antagonists are human thoughts, represented by invisible powers, there
is something that might baffle a Machiavel and appall a Borgia."