In easy indifference to such harmless insult, and not heeding the loud knock which, from stick or stone, the iron shutters resounded under, the Jew sat at his table in that little chamber beside the Arno, of which the reader already knows the secret. Several decanters of wine are before him, and as he sips his glass and smashes his filbert, his air is that of the very easiest unconcern. Attempting, but with inferior success, an equal degree of calm, sits the Abbé D'Esmonde on the opposite side of the table. With all his training, his calm features betray at moments certain signs of anxiety, and, while he speaks, you can see that he is listening to the noises in the street without. “How I detest that song!” said Morlache, as the full swell of a deep-voiced chorus filled the air. “I verily believe the Revolution has not inflicted us with anything more outraging to good taste than the air of 'Viva Pio Nono.'” “Always excepting Pio Nono himself,” said D'Esmonde, “who is far more the child than the father of this movement.” “Not bad for a priest to renounce allegiance to his holy master!” said Racca, laughing. “You mistake me, Signor Morlache,” said D'Esmonde, eagerly. “I spoke of Pio Nono, the politician,--the rash innovator of time-honored institutions, the foolish donor of concessions that must be won back at the price of blood, the man who has been weak enough to head a movement which he ought to have controlled in secret. How the people shout! I hear many a voice in accents of no Italian origin.” “Yes, the city is full of Poles and Hungarians.” “It will soon be time to drop the curtain on this act of the drama, Morlache; enough has been done to show the world the dangerous doctrines of these fanatics. They who cry 'No property in France,' shout 'No King in Germany,' 'No Pope in Rome.' The peaceful or well-ordered must be taught to see in us their safeguard against these men. They must learn to think the Church the sanctuary it was of old. From all these convulsions which shatter empires, we are the refuge!” “But you yourself gave the first impulse to this very movement, Abbé?” “And wisely and well we did it! Should we have stood passive to watch the gradual growth of that cursed spirit they miscall independent judgment,--that rankest heresy that ever corrupted the human heart? Should we have waited till Protestantism with its Bible had sowed the seeds of that right of judgment which they proclaim is inherent in all men? Would it have been safe policy to admit of discussing what was obligatory to obey, and look on while this enlightenment--as they blasphemously term it--was arraigning the dogma of the Church as unblushingly as they questioned the decree of a minister?” “I perceive,” said the Jew, laughing, “You great politicians are not above taking a lesson from the 'Bourse,' and know the trick of puffing up a bad scheme to a high premium, prepared to sell out the day before 'the fall.'”