With the pretext of removing cups and jugs left on the tables, I moved away from my place to rejoin Abbot Melani whom I saw chatting somewhat disconsolately with a pair of elderly ladies while scanning the whole assembly for the least event worthy of interest or, better, suspicion. Seeing me approach he promptly left the two ladies and with a furtive gesture indicated that I was to join him outside, on the balcony above the stairs leading directly from the main salon down to the gardens.
The sun was still blazing, and we found ourselves providentially alone. I told him briefly of the conversation between the two churchmen and the planned reform of public order in Rome which I had overheard.
"Those two spoke the truth," he commented. "The Roman police have always been both corrupt and utterly shameless."
At that moment, a number of high-ranking prelates emerged from the salon onto the balcony, to take a few pinches of snuff. Some of the faces were known to me, but I could not put names to them. Only one did I remember perfectly and it was that, in fact, which startled me. It was His Eminence Cardinal Albani.
At a glance, Atto took in the situation. He continued what he was saying, gradually raising his voice as he spoke.
"No one is more corrupt than the catchpolls, my boy," he declared, speaking with mounting passion, turning now to address the cardinals who had just appeared.
There shone in his small eyes, perceptible only to those who knew him well, who knows what project or desire.
"And above all, than the judges," he continued, "because in our mad and supposedly modern times, which are nevertheless still the sucklings of a very recent past — times which I would call the Universal Republic of Verbiage — facts count only on the basis of the name they're given. The judges are honorary citizens of this republic, because their task is to satisfy the thirst for revenge of the powerless and the victims of injustice who have ever and will ever crowd their antechambers; antechambers which one leaves with few real facts in hand and many words, for it is precisely of words that this republic consists, as their eminences will be readily aware."
Atto's sally had cast all in the blackest embarrassment. He was at one and the same time addressing the highest wearers of the purple and myself, a mere plebeian. But such insolence, already grave and unusual, was as nothing beside the factious content of his discourse, which sounded like a hymn to mischief making.
"Through the judges' hands passes the world's future," he continued, "for when man counts for little, as in our times, the law is triumphant. Being intrinsically void of any substance, like insanity, it takes up whatever free space it can find. If you should read in a gazette, 'The Judges have ordered the arrest of the alleged swindler Such-and-Such', you will at once think that good has triumphed over evil, for the judges are called judges and the newspaper has called the man they've arrested a swindler. This being said, even before his trial, the death blow against Such-and-Such has already been struck, for fame has plenty of breath and immense wings and aims the darts that are placed in its quiver at whomsoever it will, without paying the slightest attention to any poison in which they may have been dipped. So no one will tell you that those Judges often lie or accept bribes, that they are marionettes, dolls, dummies created out of nothingness and manipulated so as to strike at adversaries, to create diversions, to subvert and to distract public opinion."
I looked around me. The cardinals present during Atto's rash coup de theatre were grey in the face with consternation. The afternoon was supposed to be dedicated to academies, not the justification of revolt.
"Take careful note, however, the Universal Republic of Verbiage is certainly populated by puppets and marionettes, yet it is built of stones as massive as those of the walls of Ilium; these are called justice, truth, public health, security… Each one of these is a cyclopic mass that can neither be discussed nor moved, because the power of words is the only sovereign in our times. Whosoever stands up against seeming truth and seeming Justice will always be called deceitful and dishonest, whoever resists public health will be labelled a spreader of the plague, and if they take on security, they will be damned as subversives. Any attempt to convince others, many others, that behind those words there often, oh so often, lies concealed their very opposite, will be as effective as trying to lift those walls and transport them over a thousand leagues. Better by far to put one's hands over one's eyes and simply keep going, like those who have always decided the fate of nations, the sovereigns and their occult counsellors: well they know that perverse wheel of fortune, and indeed they encourage it, for they want the judges, the catchpolls and all the other marionettes of that sad and grotesque Republic of Verbiage to remain their slaves, and our butchers. Until, perhaps, one day they too are hanged on the orders of a judge."
"Abbot Melani, you are challenging the order of things."
It was Albani. As on the evening before, Atto was being menacingly called to order by His Holiness' Secretary for Breves.
"I am challenging nothing and nobody," Atto replied amiably, "I am merely meditating on…"
"You are here to provoke, to stir up trouble and confusion. You are promoting disorder, inviting people to mistrust judges, to disobey the police. All that, I heard quite clearly."
"Stirring up trouble? Far from it, Your Eminence. As a French subject…"
"That you are on the side of the Most Christian King, that, everybody knows by now," Albani interrupted him yet again, "but there are limits you should not overstep. The Papal See is not some land to be overrun by this or that power. The Holy City is the universal haven of peace, open to all men of goodwill."
His tone admitted of no reply.
"I bow down to Your Eminence," was Atto's sole response as he made a deep bow to his contradictor, and attempted to kiss his ring.
To complete the insult, however, Albani did not see (or wish to see) the gesture and turned sharply towards the rest of his company, commenting harshly on what had just taken place.
"Incredible! To come here, to the home of the Secretary of State, making propaganda for France, and then spreading ideas…" he exclaimed indignantly to his fellow cardinals.
Atto was thus left kneeling before Albani's back. Someone among the latter's friends noticed this and sniggered. The humiliation was as grave as it was comic.
Moments later, Melani had returned to the salon; I followed him discreetly. His rash speech had been made in my presence too. It might appear to be the ravings of one beside himself, which I had witnessed by pure chance. But one must not go too far: we must avoid word getting around that I was in his service, otherwise I too would come under a cloud of suspicion and mistrust. I did not want to protect his interests but my own. What if Cardinal Spada were to decide that I was mixed up with with a troublemaker? I ran the risk of dismissal.
We crossed the salon, still crowded with guests, keeping our distances. Melani gestured that I was to follow him to his lodgings on the upper floors.
"So, have you understood how the Republic of Verbiage works?" he resumed, as though his speech had never been interrupted.
"But Signor Atto…"
"You have doubts, I know. You would like to say to me: if what you say is really true, how do you know, and how do others like you know, that the police are not to be trusted and that judges too are sometimes corrupt, and at the service of the powerful?"
"Well, if, among other things…"
"These are clandestine truths, my boy, banished from the Republic of Verbiage and thus utterly worthless. And remember," said he with an admonitory grin, "if order is to be maintained in states and in kingdoms, the people must never know the truth about two things: what there really is in sausages and what takes place in the courts of law."