The Pope’s fancy conjures up the vision of that coming time.  He sees the motley pageant of the Age of Reason pushing the churchly “masque” aside, impatient of the slowly-trailing garments, in which he, the last actor in it, is passing off the scene.  He beholds the trials of that transition stage; the many whose crumbling faith will land them on the lower platform of the material life; the few, who from habit, will preserve the Christian level; the fewer still, who, like Pompilia, will do so in the inspired conviction of the truth.  He sees two men, or rather types of men, both priests, frankly making the new experiment, and adopting nature as their law.  Under her guidance, one, like Caponsacchi acts, in the main, well; the other, like Guido Franceschini, wallows in every crime....  The “first effects” of the “new cause” are apparent in those murdering five, and in their victims.

But the old law is not yet extinct.  He (the Church) still occupies the stage, though his departure be close at hand:  so, in a last act of allegiance to Him who placed him there, he smites with his whole strength once more,

       “Ending, so far as man may, this offence.” (vol. x. p. 141.)

Yet again his arm is stayed.  Voices, whether of friend or foe, are sounding in his ear.  They reiterate the sophistries which have been enlisted in the Count’s defence:  the credit of the Church, the proprieties of the domestic hearth; the educated sense of honour which is stronger than the moral law; the general relief which will greet the act of mercy.  The Pope listens.  For one moment we may fancy that he yields.  “Pronounce then,” the imaginary speakers have said.  A swift answer follows: 

“I will, Sirs:  but a voice other than your’s
Quickens my spirit....” (vol. x. p. 146.)

and the death-warrant goes out.

A favourite theory of Mr. Browning’s appears in this soliloquy, for the first time since he stated it in “Sordello,” and in a somewhat different form:  that of the inadequacy of words to convey the truth.  The Pope declares (p. 78) that we need

               “Expect nor question nor reply

At what we figure as God’s judgment-bar! 
None of this vile way by the barren words
Which, more than any deed, characterize
Man as made subject to a curse.”

and again (p. 79) that

           “... these filthy rags of speech, this coil

Of statement, comment, query and response,
Tatters all too contaminate for use,
Have no renewing:  He, the Truth, is, too,
The Word.”

The scene changes to the prison-cell where Count Guido has received his final sentence of death.  Two former friends and fellow-Tuscans, Cardinal Acciajuoli and Abate Panciatichi, have come to prepare him for execution; but the one is listening awe-struck to the only kind of confession which they can obtain from him, while the other plies his beads in a desperate endeavour to exorcise the spiritual enemy, “ban” the diabolical influences, it is conjuring up.  The speaker is no longer Count Guido Franceschini, but