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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair




Father Coleman attended Lothair home to the Agostini Palace, and when
they parted said, with much emphasis, "I must congratulate you once more
on the great event."

On the following morning, Lothair found on his table a number of the
Roman journal published that day. It was customary to place it there,
but in general he only glanced at it, and scarcely that. On the present
occasion his own name caught immediately his eye. It figured in a long
account of the celebration of the preceding day. It was with a
continually changing countenance, now scarlet, now pallid as death; with
a palpitating heart, a trembling hand, a cold perspiration, and, at
length, a disordered vision, that Lothair read the whole of an article,
of which we now give a summary:

"Rome was congratulated on the service of yesterday, which celebrated
the greatest event of this century. And it came to pass in this wise.
It seems that a young English noble of the highest rank, family, and for
tune" (and here the name and titles of Lothair were accurately given),
"like many of the scions of the illustrious and influential families of
Britain, was impelled by an irresistible motive to enlist as a volunteer
in the service of the pope, when the Holy Father was recently-attacked
by the secret societies of atheism. This gallant and gifted youth,
after prodigies of valor and devotion, had fallen at Mentana in the
sacred cause, and was given up for lost. The day after the battle, when
the ambulances laden with the wounded were hourly arriving at Rome from
the field, an English lady, daughter of an illustrious house, celebrated
throughout centuries for its devotion to the Holy See, and who during
the present awful trial had never ceased in her efforts to support the
cause of Christianity, was employed, as was her wont, in offices of
charity, and was tending, with her companion sisters, her wounded
countrymen at the Hospital La Consolazione, in the new ward which has
been recently added to that establishment by the Holy Father.

"While she was leaning over one of the beds, she felt a gentle and
peculiar pressure on her shoulder, and, looking round, beheld a most
beautiful woman, with a countenance of singular sweetness and yet
majesty. And the visitor said: 'You are attending to those English who
believe in the Virgin Mary. Now at the Hospital Santissima Trinita di
Pellegrini there is in an ambulance a young Englishman apparently dead,
but who will not die if you go to him immediately and say you came in
the name of the Virgin.'

"The influence of the stranger was so irresistible that the young
English lady, attended by a nurse and one of the porters of La
Consolazione, repaired instantly to the Di Pellegrini, and there they
found in the court-yard, as they had been told, an ambulance, in form
and color and equipment unlike any ambulance used by the papal troops,
and in the ambulance the senseless body of a youth, who was recognized
by the English lady as her young and gallant countryman. She claimed
him in the name of the Blessed Virgin, and, after due remedies, was
permitted to take him at once to his noble relatives, who lived in the
Palazzo Agostini.

"After a short time much conversation began to circulate about this
incident. The family wished to testify their gratitude to the
individual whose information had led to the recovery of the body, and
subsequently of the life of their relation; but all that they could at
first learn at La Consolazione was, that the porter believed the woman
was Maria Serafina di Angelis, the handsome wife of a tailor in the
Strada di Ripetta. But it was soon shown that this could not be true,
for it was proved that, on the day in question, Maria Serafina di
Angelis was on a visit to a friend at La Riccia; and, in the second
place, that she did not bear the slightest resemblance to the stranger
who had given the news. Moreover, the porter of the gate being required
to state why he had admitted any stranger without the accustomed order,
denied that he had so done; that he was in his lodge and the gates were
locked, and the stranger had passed through without his knowledge.

"Two priests were descending the stairs when the stranger came upon
them, and they were so struck by the peculiarity of her carriage, that
they turned round and looked at her, and clearly observed at the back of
her head a sort of halo. She was out of their sight when they made this
observation, but in consequence of it they made inquiries of the porter
of the gate, and remained in the court-yard till she returned.

"This she did a few minutes before the English lady and her attendants
came down, as they had been detained by the preparation of some bandages
and other remedies, without which they never moved. The porter of the
gate having his attention called to the circumstance by the priests, was
most careful in his observations as to the halo, and described it as
most distinct. The priests then followed the stranger, who proceeded
down a long and solitary street, made up in a great degree of garden and
convent walls, and without a turning. They observed her stop and speak
to two or three children, and then, though there was no house to enter
and no street to turn into, she vanished.

"When they had reached the children they found each of them holding in
its hand a beautiful flower. It seems the lady had given the boy a rose
of Jericho, and to his sister a white and golden lily. Inquiring
whether she had spoken to them, they answered that she had said, 'Let
these flowers be kept in remembrance of me; they will never fade.' And
truly, though months had elapsed, these flowers had never failed, and,
after the procession of yesterday, they were placed under crystal in the
chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the Jesuit Church of St. George of
Cappadocia, and may be seen every day, and will be seen forever in
primeval freshness.

"This is the truthful account of what really occurred with respect to
this memorable event, and as it was ascertained by a consulta of the
Holy Office, presided over by the cardinal prefect himself. The Holy
Office is most severe in its inquisition of the truth, and, though it
well knows that the Divine presence never leaves His Church, it is most
scrupulous in its investigations whenever any miraculous interposition
is alleged. It was entirely by its exertions that the somewhat
inconsistent and unsatisfactory evidence of the porter of the gate, in
the first instance, was explained, cleared, and established; the whole
chain of evidence worked out; all idle gossip and mere rumors rejected;
and the evidence obtained of above twenty witnesses of all ranks of
life, some of them members of the learned profession, and others
military officers of undoubted honor and veracity, who witnessed the
first appearance of the stranger at the Pellegrini and the undoubted
fact of the halo playing round her temples.

"The consulta of the Holy Office could only draw one inference,
sanctioned by the Holy Father himself, as to the character of the
personage who thus deigned to appear; and interpose; and no wonder that,
in the great function of yesterday, the eyes of all Rome were fixed upon
Lothair as the most favored of living men."

He himself now felt as one sinking into an unfathomable abyss. The
despair came over him that involves a man engaged in a hopeless contest
with a remorseless power. All his life during the last year passed
rushingly across his mind. He recalled the wiles that had been employed
to induce him to attend a function in a Jesuits' chapel, in an obscure
nook of London; the same agencies had been employed there; then, as now,
the influence of Clare Arundel had been introduced to sway him when all
others had failed. Belmont had saved him then. There was no Belmont
now. The last words of Theodora murmured in his ear like the awful
voice of a distant sea. They were the diapason of all the thought and
feeling of that profound and passionate spirit.

That seemed only a petty plot in London, and he had since sometimes
smiled when he remembered how it had been baffled. Shallow
apprehension! The petty plot was only part of a great and unceasing and
triumphant conspiracy, and the obscure and inferior agencies which he
had been rash enough to deride had consummated their commanded purpose
in the eyes of all Europe, and with the aid of the great powers of the
world.

He felt all the indignation natural to a sincere and high-spirited man,
who finds that he has been befooled by those whom he has trustee; but,
summoning all his powers to extricate himself from his desolate dilemma,
he found himself without resource. What public declaration on his part
could alter the undeniable fact, now circulating throughout the world,
that in the supernatural scene of yesterday he was the willing and the
principal actor? Unquestionably he had been very imprudent, not only in
that instance, but in his habitual visits to the church; he felt all
that now. But he was tom and shattered, infinitely distressed, both in
body and in mind; weak and miserable; and he thought he was leaning on
angelic hearts, when he found himself in the embrace of spirits of
another sphere.

In what a position of unexampled pain did he not now find himself! To
feel it your duty to quit the faith in which you have been bred must
involve an awful pang; but to be a renegade without the consolation of
conscience, against your sense, against your will, alike for no
celestial hope and no earthly object -- this was agony mixed with
self-contempt.

He remembered what Lady Corisande had once said to him about those who
quitted their native church for the Roman communion. What would she say
now? He marked in imagination the cloud of sorrow on her imperial brow
and the scorn of her curled lip.

Whatever happened, he could never return to England -- at least for many
years, when all the things and persons he cared for would have
disappeared or changed, which is worse; and then what would be the use
of returning? He would go to America, or Australia, or the Indian
Ocean, or the interior of Africa; but even in all these places,
according to the correspondence of the Propaganda, he would find Roman
priests, and active priests. He felt himself a lost man; not free from
faults in this matter, but punished beyond his errors. But this is the
fate of men who think they can struggle successfully with a supernatural
power.

A servant opened a door and said, in a loud voice, that, with his
permission, his eminence, the English cardinal, would wait on him.



CHAPTER 68


It is proverbial to what drowning men will cling. Lothair, in his utter
hopelessness, made a distinction between the cardinal and the
conspirators. The cardinal had been absent from Rome during the greater
portion of the residence of Lothair in that city. The cardinal was his
father's friend, an English gentleman, with an English education, once
an Anglican, a man of the world, a man of honor, a good, kind-hearted
man. Lothair explained the apparent and occasional cooperation of his
eminence with the others, by their making use of him without a due
consciousness of their purpose on his part. Lothair remembered how
delicately his former guardian had always treated the subject of
religion in their conversations. The announcement of his visit, instead
of aggravating the distresses of Lothair, seemed, as all these
considerations rapidly occurred to him, almost to impart a ray of hope.

"I see," said the cardinal, as he entered serene and graceful as usual,
and glancing at the table, "that you have been reading the account of
our great act of yesterday."

"Yes; and I have been reading it," said Lothair, reddening, "with
indignation; with alarm; I should add, with disgust."

"How is this?" said the cardinal, feeling or affecting surprise.

"It is a tissue of falsehood and imposture," continued Lothair; "and I
will take care that my opinion is known of it."

"Do nothing rashly," said the cardinal. "This is an official journal,
and I have reason to believe that nothing appears in it which is not
drawn up, or well considered, by truly pious men."

"You yourself, sir, must know," continued Lothair, "that the whole of
this statement is founded on falsehood."

"Indeed, I should be sorry to believe," said the cardinal, "that there
was a particle of misstatement, or even exaggeration, either in the base
or the superstructure of the narrative."

"Good God!" exclaimed Lothair. "Why, take the very first allegation,
that I fell at Mentana, fighting in the ranks of the Holy Father.
Everyone knows that I fell fighting against him, and that I was almost
slain by one of his chassepots. It is notorious; and though, as a
matter of taste, I have not obtruded the fact in the society in which I
have been recently living, I have never attempted to conceal it, and
have not the slightest doubt that it must be as familiar to every member
of that society as to your eminence."

"I know there are two narratives of your relations with the battle of
Mentana," observed the cardinal, quietly. "The one accepted as
authentic is that which appears in this journal; the other account,
which can only be traced to yourself, bears no doubt a somewhat
different character; but considering that it is in the highest degree
improbable, and that there is not a tittle of confirmatory or collateral
evidence to extenuate its absolute unlikelihood, I hardly think you are
justified in using, with reference to the statement in this article, the
harsh expression, which I am persuaded, on reflection, you will feel you
have hastily used."

"I think," said Lothair, with a kindling eye and a burning cheek, "that
I am the best judge of what I did at Mentana."

"Well, well," said the cardinal, with dulcet calmness, "you naturally
think so; but you must remember you have been very ill, my dear young
friend, and laboring under much excitement. If I were you -- and I
speak as your friend, I hope your best one -- I would not dwell too much
on this fancy of yours about the battle of Mentana. I would myself
always deal tenderly with a fixed idea: harsh attempts to terminate
hallucination are seldom successful. Nevertheless, in the case of a
public event, a matter of fact, if a man finds that he is of one
opinion, and all orders of society of another, he should not be
encouraged to dwell on a perverted view; he should be gradually weaned
from it."

"You amaze me!" said Lothair.

"Not at all," said the cardinal. "I am sure you will benefit by my
advice. And you must already perceive that, assuming the interpretation
which the world without exception places on your conduct in the field to
be the just one, there really is not a single circumstance in the whole
of this interesting and important statement, the accuracy of which you
yourself would for a moment dispute."

"What is there said about me at Mentana makes me doubt of all the rest,"
said Lothair.

"Well, we will not dwell on Mentana," said the cardinal, with a sweet
smile; "I have treated of that point. Your case is by no means an
uncommon one. It will wear off with returning health. King George IV
believed that he was at the battle of Waterloo, and indeed commanded
there; and his friends were at one time a little alarmed; but Knighton,
who was a sensible man, said, 'His majesty has only to leave off
Curacao, and rest assured be will gain no more victories.' The rest of
this statement, which is to-day officially communicated to the whole
world, and which in its results will probably be not less important even
than the celebration of the centenary of St. Peter, is established by
evidence so incontestable -- by witnesses so numerous, so various -- in
all the circumstances and accidents of testimony so satisfactory -- I
may say so irresistible, that controversy on this head would be a mere
impertinence and waste of time."

"I am not convinced," said Lothair.

"Hush!" said the cardinal; "the freaks of your own mind about personal
incidents, however lamentable, may be viewed with indulgence -- at least
for a time. But you cannot be permitted to doubt of the rest. You must
be convinced, and on reflection you will be convinced. Remember, sir,
where you are. You are in the centre of Christendom, where truth, and
where alone truth resides. Divine authority has perused this paper and
approved it. It is published for the joy and satisfaction of two
hundred millions of Christians, and for the salvation of all those who,
unhappily for themselves, are not yet converted to the faith. It
records the most memorable event of this century. Our Blessed Lady has
personally appeared to her votaries before during that period, but never
at Rome. Wisely and well she has worked in villages and among the
illiterate as at the beginning did her Divine Son. But the time is now
ripe for terminating the infidelity of the world. In the eternal city,
amid all its matchless learning and profound theology, in the sight of
thousands, this great act has been accomplished, in a manner which can
admit of no doubt, and which can lead to no controversy. Some of the
most notorious atheists of Rome have already solicited to be admitted to
the offices of the Church; the secret societies have received their
deathblow; I look to the alienation of England as virtually over. I am
panting to see you return to the home of your fathers, and re-conquer it
for the Church in the name of the Lord God of Sabaoth. Never was a man
in a greater position since Godfrey or Ignatius. The eyes of all
Christendom are upon you as the most favored of men, and you stand there
like Saint Thomas."

"Perhaps he was as bewildered as I am," said Lothair.

"Well, his bewilderment ended in his becoming an apostle, as yours will.
I am glad we have had this conversation, and that we agree; I knew we
should. But now I wish to speak to you on business, and very grave.
The world assumes that, being the favored of Heaven, you are naturally
and necessarily a member of the Church. I, your late guardian, know
that is not the case, and sometimes I blame myself that it is not so.
But I have ever scrupulously refrained from attempting to control your
convictions; and the result has justified me. Heaven has directed your
life, and I have now to impart to you the most gratifying intelligence
that can be communicated by man, and that the Holy Father will to-morrow
himself receive you into the bosom of that Church of which he is the
divine head. Christendom will then hail you as its champion and
regenerator, and thus will be realized the divine dream with which you
were inspired in our morning walk in the park at Vauxe."



CHAPTER 69


It was the darkest hour in Lothair's life. He had become acquainted
with sorrow; he had experienced calamities physical and moral. The
death of Theodora had shaken him to the centre. It was that first great
grief which makes a man acquainted with his deepest feelings, which
detracts something from the buoyancy of the youngest life, and dims, to
a certain degree, the lustre of existence. But even that bereavement
was mitigated by distractions alike inevitable and ennobling. The
sternest and highest of all obligations, military duty, claimed him with
an unfaltering grasp, and the clarion sounded almost as he closed her
eyes. Then he went forth to struggle for a cause which at least she
believed to be just and sublime; and if his own convictions on that head
might be less assured or precise, still there was doubtless much that
was inspiring in the contest, and much dependent on the success of
himself and his comrades that tended to the elevation of man.

But, now, there was not a single circumstance to sustain his involved
and sinking life. A renegade -- a renegade without conviction, without
necessity, in absolute violation of the pledge he had given to the
person he most honored and most loved, as he received her parting
spirit. And why was all this? and bow was all this? What system of
sorcery had encompassed his existence? For he was spell-bound -- as
much as any knight in fairy-tale whom malignant influences had robbed of
his valor and will and virtue. No sane person could credit, even
comprehend, his position. Had he the opportunity of stating it in a
court of justice to-morrow, he could only enter into a narrative which
would decide his lot as an insane being. The magical rites had been so
gradual, so subtle, so multifarious, all in appearance independent of
each other, though in reality scientifically combined, that, while the
conspirators had probably effected his ruin both in body and in soul,
the only charges he could make against them would be acts of exquisite
charity, tenderness, self-sacrifice, personal devotion, refined piety,
and religious sentiment of the most exalted character.

What was to be done? And could any thing be done? Could be escape?
Where from and where to? He was certain, and had been for some time,
from many circumstances, that he was watched. Could he hope that the
vigilance which observed all his movements would scruple to prevent any
which might be inconvenient? He felt assured that, to quit that palace
alone, was not in his power. And were it, whither could he go? To whom
was he to appeal? And about what was he to appeal? Should he appeal to
the Holy Father? There would be an opportunity for that to-morrow. To
the College of Cardinals, who had solemnized yesterday with gracious
unction his spiritual triumph? To those congenial spirits, the mild
Assessor of the Inquisition, or the president of the Propaganda, who was
busied at that moment in circulating throughout both the Americas, all
Asia, all Africa, all Australia, and parts of Europe, for the
edification of distant millions, the particulars of the miraculous scene
in which he was the principal actor? Should he throw himself on the
protection of the ambiguous minister of the British crown, and invoke
his aid against a conspiracy touching the rights, reason, and freedom
of one of her majesty's subjects? He would probably find that
functionary inditing a private letter to the English Secretary of State,
giving the minister a graphic account of the rare doings of yesterday,
and assuring the minister, from his own personal and ocular experience,
that a member of one of the highest orders of the British peerage
carried in the procession a lighted taper after two angels with
amaranthine flowers and golden wings.

Lothair remained in his apartments; no one approached him. It was the
only day that the monsignore had not waited on him. Father Coleman was
equally reserved. Strange to say, not one of those agreeable and polite
gentlemen, fathers of the oratory, who talked about gems, torsos, and
excavations, and who always more or less attended his levee, troubled
him this morning. With that exquisite tact which pervades the
hierarchical circles of Rome, every one felt that Lothair, on the eve of
that event of his life which Providence had so long and so mysteriously
prepared, would wish to be undisturbed.

Restless, disquieted, revolving all the incidents of his last year,
trying, by terrible analysis, to ascertain how he ever could have got
into such a false position, and how he could yet possibly extricate
himself from it, not shrinking in many things from self-blame, and yet
not recognizing on his part such a degree of deviation from the standard
of right feeling, or even of commonsense, as would authorize such an
overthrow as that awaiting him -- high rank and boundless wealth, a
station of duty and of honor, some gifts of Nature, and golden youth,
and a disposition that at least aspired, in the employment of these,
accidents of life and fortune, at something better than selfish
gratification, all smashed -- the day drew on.

Drew on the day, and every hour it seemed his spirit was more lone and
dark. For the first time the thought of death occurred to him as a
relief from the perplexities of existence. How much better had he died
at Mentana! To this pass had arrived the cordial and brilliant Lord of
Muriel, who enjoyed and adorned life, and wished others to adorn and to
enjoy it; the individual whom, probably, were the majority of the
English people polled, they would have fixed upon as filling the most
enviable of all positions, and holding out a hope that he was not
unworthy of it. Born with every advantage that could command the
sympathies of his fellow-men, with a quick intelligence and a noble
disposition, here he was at one-and-twenty ready to welcome death,
perhaps even to devise it, as the only rescue from a doom of confusion,
degradation, and remorse.

He had thrown himself on a sofa, and had buried his face in his hands to
assist the abstraction which he demanded. There was not an incident of
his life that escaped the painful inquisition of his memory. He passed
his childhood once more in that stern Scotch home, that, after all, had
been so kind, and, as it would seem, so wise. The last words of counsel
and of warning from his uncle, expressed at Muriel, came back to him.
And yet there seemed a destiny throughout these transactions which was;
irresistible! The last words of Theodora, her look, even more solemn
than her tone, might have been breathed over a tripod, for they were a
prophecy, not a warning.