“I do not know what to think.  The times seem unsettled, and so are my ideas.  I was told that your Eminence would help me to decide what to believe.”  Gouache smiled pleasantly, and looked up.

“And who told you that?”

“Don Giovanni Saracinesca.”

“But I must have some clue to what your ideas are,” said the Cardinal.  “When did Don Giovanni say that?”

“At Prince Frangipani’s.  He had been talking with your Eminence—­perhaps he had come to some conclusion in consequence,” suggested Gouache.

“Perhaps so,” answered the great man, with a look of considerable satisfaction.  “At all events I am flattered by the opinion he gave you of me.  Perhaps I may help you to decide.  What are your opinions? or rather, what would you like your opinions to be?”

“I am an ardent republican,” said Gouache, boldly.  It needed no ordinary courage to make such a statement to the incarnate chief of reactionary politics in those days—­within the walls of the Vatican, not a hundred yards from the private apartments of the Holy Father.  But Cardinal Antonelli smiled blandly, and seemed not in the least surprised nor offended.

“Republicanism is an exceedingly vague term, Monsieur Gouache,” he said.  “But with what other opinions do you wish to reconcile your republicanism?”

“With those held by the Church.  I am a good Catholic, and I desire to remain one—­indeed I cannot help remaining one.”

“Christianity is not vague, at all events,” answered the Cardinal, who, to tell the truth, was somewhat astonished at the artist’s juxtaposition of two such principles.  “In the first place, allow me to observe, my friend, that Christianity is the purest form of a republic which the world has ever seen, and that it therefore only depends upon your good sense to reconcile in your own mind two ideas which from the first have been indissolubly bound together.”

It was Gouache’s turn to be startled at the Cardinal’s confidence.

“I am afraid I must ask your Eminence for some further explanation,” he said.  “I had no idea that Christianity and republicanism were the same thing.”

“Republicanism,” returned the statesman, “is a vague term, invented in an abortive attempt to define by one word the mass of inextricable disorder arising in our times from the fusion of socialistic ideas with ideas purely republican.  If you mean to speak of this kind of thing, you must define precisely your position in regard to socialism, and in regard to the pure theory of a commonwealth.  If you mean to speak of a real republic in any known form, such as the ancient Roman, the Dutch, or the American, I understand you without further explanation.”

“I certainly mean to speak of the pure republic.  I believe that under a pure republic the partition of wealth would take care of itself.”

“Very good, my friend.  Now, with regard to the early Christians, should you say that their communities were monarchic, or aristocratic, or oligarchic?”