“I have wished to do so!” sighed Ganganelli, “but there it has ended.  I have been hemmed in everywhere; wherever I wished to press through, I have always found a wall before me—­a wall of prejudices, of ancient customs, once received as indifferent, and at this wall my cardinals and officials held watch, taking care that my will should be broken against it, and not be able to speak through, in order to let in a little freedom, a little fresh air, into our walled realm!  They have curbed and weakened my will, until nothing more of it subsists, and of my holiest resolutions they have made a scarecrow before which foreign kings and princes cry murder, and prophesy the downfall of their kingdoms if I adhere to my innovations.  Ah, the princes, the princes!  I tell you, Lorenzo, it is the princes who have undermined the happiness of the world with their ideas of absolute power; they are the robbers of all mankind; for freedom, which is the common property of all men, that have they, like regular lawless highwaymen, appropriated for themselves alone.  They plundered the luck-pennies of all mankind, and coined them into money adorned with their likenesses, and now all mankind run after this money, thinking:  ’If I gain that, then shall I have recovered my part of human happiness which once belonged to all in common!’ It has come to this, Lorenzo, through the rapacity of princes, and yet they still tremble upon their thrones, and fear that the people may one day awake from their stupid slumber, all rising as one man, and cry in the paling faces of their robbers:  ’Give back what you have taken from us—­we will have what is ours; we require freedom and human right; we will no longer remain slaves to tremble before a bugbear; we will be free children of God, and have no one to fear but the God above us and the consciences within our own breasts!’ Come down, therefore, from your usurped thrones, become once more human—­labor, enjoy, complain, and rejoice, as other men do; live not upon the sweat of your subjects, but nourish yourselves by your own efforts, that justice may prevail in the world, and humanity regain its rights!”

And Ganganelli’s eyes flashed, his sunken cheeks were feverishly flushed, while he was thus speaking.  Lorenzo observed it with anxious eyes; and when the pope made a momentary pause, he said:  “You are again altogether the good and brave brother Clement, but even he should think about sparing himself!”

“And to what end should he spare himself?” excitedly exclaimed Ganganelli; “Death sits within me and laughs to scorn all my efforts, burying himself deeper and deeper in my inward life.  You must know, Lorenzo, that my cause of sorrow is precisely this, that I now live in vain, and that I cannot finish what I began!  I wished to make my people happy and free; that was what alarmed all these princes, that was an unheard-of innovation, and they have all put their heads together and whispered to each other, ’He will betray to mankind that they have rights