Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/192

202 hearts than many young but early-aged kings have had. But one cannot refrain from a feeling of wonder when one reflects, standing before these priestly forms in St. Peter's, what an amount of power the human race has for so many centuries unanimously conceded to them.

“They advanced out of darkness, not as kings, who were born to the purple; many of them were born in poverty and meanness; and yet hereditary emperors kissed their feet and called themselves vassals of their grace. They were yesterday unknown, and of no consideration, and already to-day they guide the reins of the world's history, and decide on the fate of nations. They ascended the throne of the world in the beggar's, or the hermit's cloak, and the world did not wonder at it. Neither races nor nations gave the deciding vote for their elevation; people scarcely knew whether they were Greek or Syrian, German or Spanish, Frenchmen, Englishmen, or Italian, because all nations obeyed them. And as they ascended the throne without having had a presentiment of their elevation, so they descended from it without knowing in whose hands the humor of the moment would place their staff. None of them knew, in the hour of death, who would be their successor, and yet their elective empire, the most accidental in the world, was immovable as the divine necessity.

“That which they spake became the law of the world. They were more terrible than Jehovah. They could lay upon a whole race, by a word, despair and the