CHAPTER VI. LOOKING FOR ST. PETER'S KEYS,
AND FINDING THEM.

THE reader of papal history is often struck
by the extreme swiftness with which the acts
of a pope are undone and reversed as soon as
ever the breath is out of his body. It is like
the action of a spring, which flies back to its
original form and position instantly on the
removal of the force which has compressed it.
This, again, is one of the consequences and
evidences of a state of society governed not by
law, but by personal interest, favour, and
privilege. Power passes from top to bottom of
the social scale into new hands, and, as a natural
and recognised consequence, it is wielded with
quite different objects, is directed to a new set
of aims, and made to subserve a new system of
interests and passions.

It was quite in accordance, therefore, with
the ordinary march of events in the Roman
world, that Vittoria Accoramboni should be
restored to liberty on the death of the pope who
had imprisoned her. A powerful friend was no
doubt on the watch to take instant advantage
of the opportunity; for, though more than two
years had elapsed since the gates of St. Angelo
had closed upon her—a terribly long trial for
the constancy of a swain of more than fifty years,
and half as many stone, whose physicians shook
their heads, as they redoubled their applications
of raw flesh to his diseased limbs—her Orsini
still was true; and on the very same day that
ended the old pope's life, she walked forth from
her prison, and returned to his protection.

Still, however, there remained considerable
difficulties in the way of the marriage. The
prohibition pronounced against it by Gregory
the Thirteenth had been especially extended
beyond his own lifetime; and the penalty
pronounced in case of disobedience was that of
being considered in open rebellion to the Holy
See. Now, though a position of open rebellion
against the sovereign was nothing new to an
Orsini, and Prince Paolo Giordano was by no
means likely to be definitively deterred from
doing that on which his heart was set by the
threat of it, yet it was a sufficiently serious
matter to make it very desirable that, if possible,
he should attain his object without incurring it.
Again, in case the Cardinal di Montalto should
be elected pope, as all Rome supposed he would
be, it was natural to suppose that he would be
little inclined to permit the marriage which his
predecessor had forbidden. The object of the
prince, therefore, was to obtain a juridical
opinion to the effect that Gregory's prohibition
ceased to have force after his death; and then to
celebrate the marriage before the next pope
could be elected.

The intervals between the end of one pope's
reign and the beginning of that of his successor
were always times of extra licence, turbulence,
violence, and lawlessness. And many things
were done during these interregnums which, bad
as the papal government was at all times, would
not have been done while the chair of St. Peter
was occupied. And these frequently recurring
periods of all but total anarchy varied, of course,
in duration, according to the amount of difficulty
experienced and time consumed by the cardinals
in coming to such a degree of agreement as was
necessary for the election of a new pope. In
the present case, Orsini flattered himself that he
should have plenty of time to accomplish his
marriage before the conclave could come to an
election. For though it was very generally
believed that Montalto would be pope, it was
perfectly well understood that this result would
only be brought about as a compromise between
strong parties in the conclave, each sufficiently
powerful to prevent their opponents' success,
but not able to elect their own candidate. It
was thought, therefore, that the election of
Cardinal di Montalto would not be decided on until
after there had been a certain amount of struggle
and trying of their respective strength by the
opposing factions.

Orsini's first step was not a difficult one.
Theologians of respectable standing were readily
found, who declared that the prohibition was
valid only during the reign of the pope who
pronounced it. It might probably have been less
easy to find canonists willing to support the
opposite opinion while there was no pope on the
throne, and an Orsini wished for a contrary
decision. Still the law required that Vittoria's
nearest relations should consent to the marriage.
It would seem that her father must have died
during the interval that had elapsed since her
marriage with Peretti; for we do not hear of
any application having been made to him, but to
her brothers, who, after their father's death,
were, for this purpose, their sister's legal
guardians. The consent of the three younger
brothers appears to have been obtained without
any difficulty; but the elder, the young man of
saintly morals, who had become Bishop of
Fossombrone, absolutely refused to permit the
match.

This hitch in the accomplishment of his object
seems to have given Orsini more trouble than it
might have been supposed he would have
permitted it to do. The spectacle of the great
chieftain of the house of Orsini waiting, and
waiting in vain, for the consent to his marriage
of the low-born bishop of an obscure little town
in the Umbrian Apennines, seems strange to us,
and must, one would think, have seemed
something more than strange to the noble lover.
And this consideration suggests the probability,
that his anxiety that all should be done with
scrupulous legality may have been due rather to
the lady, or to that superior and managing
woman, her mother, on her behalf. When young
ladies just out of their teens marry infirm old
nobles of fifty, they are apt to evince a much
more lively respect for, and interest in, law and
its provisions, than might be expected from the
giddiness natural to their age and sex.

But from whatever quarter proceeded this
unusual stickling for legality, certain it is that the
anxious couple spared no pains to attain it. But
that troublesome brother with his saintly morals
was immovable. Whether it were that the holy