they were not killed to the last man on the steps of the Vatican when the Italians took the city.  We should have done it, we who had no popes among our grand-uncles, if we had not been busy fighting elsewhere.  But it is none the less pitiful to see the hammer of the appraisers raised above a palace with which is connected centuries of history.  Upon my life, if I were Prince d’Ardea—­if I had inherited the blood, the house, the titles of the Castagnas, and if I thought I should leave nothing behind me of that which my fathers had amassed—­I swear to you, Dorsenne, I should die of grief.  And if you recall the fact that the unhappy youth is a spoiled child of eight-and-twenty, surrounded by flatterers, without parents, without friends, without counsellors, that he risked his patrimony on the Bourse among thieves of the integrity of Monsieur Hafner, that all the wealth collected by that succession of popes, of cardinals, of warriors, of diplomatists, has served to enrich ignoble men, you would think the occurrence too lamentable to have any share in it, even as a spectator.  Come, I will take you to Saint-Claude.”

“I assure you I am expected,” replied Dorsenne, disengaging his arm, which his despotic friend had already seized.  “It is very strange that I should meet you on the way, having the rendezvous I have.  I, who dote on contrasts, shall not have lost my morning.  Have you the patience to listen to the enumeration of the persons whom I shall join immediately?  It will not be very long, but do not interrupt me.  You will be angry if you will survive the blow I am about to give you.  Ah, you do not wish to call your Rome a Cosmopolis; then what do you say to the party with which, in twenty minutes, I shall visit the ancient palace of Urban VII?  First of all, we have your beautiful enemy, Fanny Hafner, and her father, the Baron, representing a little of Germany, a little of Austria, a little of Italy and a little of Holland.  For it seems the Baron’s mother was from Rotterdam.  Do not interrupt.  We shall have Countess Steno to represent Venice, and her charming daughter, Alba, to represent a small corner of Russia, for the Chronicle claims that she was the child, not of the defunct Steno, but of Werekiew-Andre, you know, the one who killed himself in Paris five or six years ago, by casting himself into the Seine, not at all aristocratically, from the Pont de la Concorde.  We shall have the painter, the celebrated Lincoln Maitland, to represent America.  He is the lover of Steno, whom he stole from Gorka during the latter’s trip to Poland.  We shall have the painter’s wife, Lydia Maitland, and her brother, Florent Chapron, to represent a little of France, a little of America, and a little of Africa; for their grandfather was the famous Colonel Chapron mentioned in the Memorial, who, after 1815, became a planter in Alabama.  That old soldier, without any prejudices, had, by a mulattress, a son whom he recognized and to whom he left—­I do not know how many dollars.  ‘Inde’ Lydia and Florent.  Do not interrupt, it is almost finished.  We shall have, to represent England, a Catholic wedded to a Pole, Madame Gorka, the wife of Boleslas, and, lastly, Paris, in the form of your servant.  It is now I who will essay to drag you away, for were you to join our party, you, the feudal, it would be complete....  Will you come?”