This it is which makes her an auxiliary that no temporal prince
can well despise. It is in this aspect that I would have your Highness
consider her. Do not underrate her power because it seems based on the
commoner instincts rather than on the higher faculties of man. That is
one of the sources of her strength. She can support her claims by reason
and argument, but it is because her work, like that of her divine
Founder, lies chiefly among those who can neither reason nor argue, that
she chooses to rest her appeal on the simplest and most universal
emotions. As, in our towns, the streets are lit mainly by the tapers
before the shrines of the saints, so the way of life would be dark to
the great multitude of men but for the light of faith burning within
them..."
Meanwhile the shufflings of destiny had brought to Trescorre the prize
for which he waited. During the Duke's illness he had been appointed
regent of Pianura, and his sovereign's reluctance to take up the cares
of government had now left him for six months in authority. The day
after the proclaiming of the constitution Odo had withdrawn his
signature from it, on the ground that the concessions it contained were
inopportune. The functions of government went on again in the old way.
The old abuses persisted, the old offences were condoned: it was as
though the apathy of the sovereign had been communicated to his people.
Centuries of submission were in their blood, and for two generations
there had been no warfare south of the Alps.
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