“Your Holiness,” I let a little steel ring in my voice, “when the French were in the land, and Charles VIII thundered on to Rome, my Italian grandfather held our castle fast for St. Peter. My German father died at Ravenna fighting the Pope’s battle. My sword has ever been at your Holiness’s summons. Therefore I have a right to speak to the Pope in this high matter, despite the frowns of Monsignore Priario.” Leo laid down his pen. “Proceed,” he commanded. He twirled his thumbs and moved uneasily. Clearly he was not pleased at me, but I persisted. “Your Holiness: you will graciously recall that through no volition of my own I was forced to return to my paternal estates in Germany. In Germany I was suffered to witness the very birth-pangs of this controversy that now vexes the Holy See. I beheld the doings of Tetzel, and if ever a robber clutched for money, he was that robber.” Next, briefly as I might, I told how Luther was drawn into the great debate, and how he had acted from the purest of motives, concluding, “then the storm spread. Luther is human. He has met attack with attack. Confronted with anathemas where he had expected comfort, what wonder he has denounced many things--even the Pope’s prerogative--when your Holiness, ignorant of the true situation, has been unable to silence the braying tongues of angry busybodies.” “A word,” interposed the darkly frowning Priario; “let me ask the Conte this: even conceding, what is impossible, that Tetzel were indeed a most indiscreet, nay objectionable, man, if this friar were truly a devout son of the Church, would he not rather ‘cover the nakedness of his Mother’--as commends the Scripture, and endure in silence, than blazon abroad this great scandal to the undermining of faith and the confounding of the pious laity?” “If your question needs an answer, Monsignore,” I rejoined with acidity, “you can know best whether St. Peter Damiani, Pope Gregory VII otherwise called Hildebrand, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux endured in silence the evils they saw rending the Church? Do Christians so ill then to venerate these saints?” The Pope had been following me keenly. The thrust of my answer was not lost to him. His face lighted as Priario winced, and his tone was more friendly. “A good arrow, Gualtiero. You always were clever in argument, although to hear _you_ wage war for this fellow makes me misdoubt my ears! But you said you had no theological reasons for me, but only worldly ones--how is that?” “Your Holiness is good to correct me. I am not here to excuse Martin Luther. I am here to say this,--I have been in Germany now many months. I have met men and women of all ranks and conditions,--princes, nobles, burghers, peasants, as well as clergy and monks. Your Holiness has been ill-served by your agents and newsmongers. A spirit of hostility against the Holy See exists in Germany that I fear the Pope’s intimates have been too selfish courtiers to report to him truly.”