For thou, O! Italia, hast cast thy birthright away. Thou hast burned Savonarola, thou hast endured the infamies of the Borgia, thou hast humbled thy body to France and Spain, thy soul to the worldlings who know not Christ. Therefore thy crown passes to the North, and men perhaps shall come from far, to wander through thy storied cities, to gaze on thy eloquent pictures, and to return, journeying away from the pageant of thy fading past to their lands of the potent present.... “Ride on, Andrea,” I commanded; “We are going back to the Regenstein.” FOOTNOTES: [9] The Pope’s executioner. CHAPTER XXI THE PARTING OF THE WAYS I had failed, and I did not conceal from myself one reason why I had failed. My past life and reputation had detracted from the weight of my arguments, rather than strengthened them. That I was stark mad, or perhaps the subject of demoniac possession was the firm impression (I afterwards learned), of most of my friends in Rome. Letters informing me as much and chiding me for “casting away the fairest chance that ever a man had of winning the Pope’s favor,” overtook me whilst I tarried at Vicenza, breaking my journey north. I had done well to leave Rome suddenly, otherwise I would surely have been placed under some restraint as a lunatic, whose folly took the form of heresy. From Vicenza I wrote to my Venice bankers, bidding them to sell all my estates and property in Italy to the first fair purchaser, and remit me the proceeds against goldsmiths’ bills on Augsburg. With the South I had finished. I dropped the title of Palaestro from my style, and for better or worse I reëntered Germany as only the “Graf von Regenstein.” Even after so brief an absence I could see how the spirit of excitement and enthusiasm for Luther had swelled. At Tübingen I met the latest pamphlet by Ulrich von Hutten, the prince of the German poets and Humanists, who had flown to the cause of Luther. His pen had been surely dipped in gall. In his biting invectives were embodied all the implacable hate which had been accumulating among the men of the North against the Papacy. Thus ran some of the “triads” in his _Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity_. “Three things abound in Rome; antiquities, poison, and ruins. “Three things the Romans trade in; Christ, church offices, and women. “Three things everybody wants in Rome; short masses, good gold, and a merry life. “Three things are most praised yet are most rare in Rome; devotion, faith, and innocence. “Three things a pilgrim usually brings back from Rome; a soiled conscience, a sick stomach, an empty purse. “Three things are most feared in Rome; that the princes get united, that the people begin to open their eyes, and that Rome’s frauds come to light. “Three things only can set Rome right; the determination of the princes, the impatience of the people, and a host of Turks at her doors.”