Here I stayed a week, and came, for the first time, into near contact with my fellow-defenders of the faith. The contact, instead of warming, chilled me inexplicably. Instead of belief, I discovered scepticism; instead of enthusiasm, persiflage and eternal quizzing, intolerable in professed martyrs to a sacred cause. "Que voulez-vous?" they said, shrugging their shoulders at my indignant remonstrances. "The ass who carries all his panniers on the same side stumbles on his own nose. To each man his business; those who believe, don't fight; and we who fight cannot be expected to believe." I was surprised to find that my own loyalty became affected by this indifference, much more than by any influence to which I had hitherto been submitted. Others had sneered because they did not know; but these men precisely because they knew too well. The cause which depended so exclusively upon their bravado was belittled in their own eyes, and presently in mine also. I felt somewhat ashamed of the drops of blood I had lavished so heroically at Montana, and when the gazettes began to flourish the fame of the victory, repeat the dying speeches of fallen braves, and enrol rascally Zouaves on saintly calendars, I could have blushed in the dark--everywhere a little martyrdom, a little battle, and innumerable little apotheoses. I began to doubt the greatness of the cause made up of such infinitesimals. It is easy to serve ideas in which we have ceased to heartily believe, but it is impossible to fight for those that have become to us the least in the world ridiculous. Perhaps Valeria's death had unconsciously disheartened me for an enterprise which had been, however remotely, its occasion. Perhaps many of her words, whose force I had successfully resisted during her lifetime, now re echoed from her grave with more profound significance. But it is certain that, for the first time, I wavered in affection for my life-long ideal. Alarmed at myself, and determined, if possible, to reinvigorate my failing faith, I went back to Rome, trusting that the Holy City would inspire me afresh. Appointed to a civil office of considerable importance, I was soon introduced into the midst of the Papal Court, and behind the scenes of the magnificent theatrical display that had so long dazzled my imagination. I was initiated into the shameful mysteries of cabal and intrigue, and taught the precious secrets of Pope and Cardinals. On every side I saw falsehood, treachery, and duplicity welcomed as the ablest servitors of truth, the grandest professions assumed as an excuse for the most vulgar villainy, ambition glozed over by degrading humility, and sensuality all the more disgusting from the saintly robes in which it was paraded and but half concealed. My faith, already enfeebled, died of rapid decline, stifled by these monstrous fooleries. Disenchanted, revolted, disgusted, I resigned my position, and abandoned the Pope and his cause forever.