“Good God!” ejaculated Leo, flushing, “do you tell me I am so hated! Wherein have I oppressed the Germans, pray? I surely sent the ‘Golden Rose’ to the Elector of Saxony. Ungrateful fellow not to surrender Luther in return for it!” “Your Holiness is not hated personally. I have heard you called ‘a lamb in the midst of wolves.’ But the hatred against the Holy See, against the system of Papal Revenues, the disposition of Church offices in Germany by the Pope’s intimates, against many other things connected with Rome, is blown up very fierce. I have heard many Germans assert it were time to cast off allegiance to Rome altogether and set up a national church for themselves.” The Pope’s thick lips twitched, Priario’s face grew black as thunder, and he broke out with: “Santa Maria! That is schism, blasphemy, and heresy all in one. Do we live again in the days of Arius and Donatus?” “These are not pleasant words, your Holiness, not the words of a servant craving your high favor,” I drove on desperately, “but the words of a servant who speaks sober truth. The whole land of Germany is ready to rise against the Church and the Holy See even as a hundred years ago Bohemia rose, only the blaze will be twenty-fold hotter, even as Germany is greater than Bohemia.” “You exaggerate, Gualtiero,” replied Leo, trying strenuously, it seemed, to recover his easy poise, and appear calm. “I’m sure you exaggerate. It is true Miltitz and Caïetanus have written somewhat of a misguided feeling in this heretic’s favor, but nothing like to this. You are bewitched, Gualtiero. You always were a fellow of enthusiasms and fancies. A few days in the Trastevere with the pleasant donnas there will cool your brain and make you think better of yourself--” I fear I cut the Pope short with an impatient gesture. “I am aware, your Holiness,” I declared, “how little my past life gives weight to my present mission. Yet this one thing I entreat. Postpone signing this paper. Give me formal audience to-night. Hear me with that calm wise judgment which makes Leo de’ Medici honored and respected as wise, no less than holy, throughout the world. You will then see that I talk no folly when I urge, ‘delay, do not enkindle all Germany, which is ready to rise in behalf of this friar.’” “Do you talk indeed seriously, Gualtiero,” said the Pope, looking at me shrewdly. “By the soul of my father and mother I do.” “I do not like it,” repeated Leo, “I do not like it. The fellow has had every consideration. I remember what Caïetanus wrote to Rome: ‘I will argue no more with that beast. Those eyes of his are too deep-set in his head, and his looks have too much meaning in them.’ He is clearly a heretic. If I spare him now, all Rome will laugh at me.” “A less serious calamity, your Holiness,” I ventured, “than to anathematize him, and have the anathema end in empty thunder, amid a great German schism.” Leo again knotted his fingers painfully. He was manifestly in sore doubt.