She went through Barcelona; there and
everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honor. She
travelled to Rome, and all doors flew open to receive her. She was
presented to his Holiness, with letters from his most Catholic majesty.
But letters there needed none. The Pope admired her as much as all
before had done. He caused her to recite all her adventures; and what
he loved most in her account, was the sincere and sorrowing spirit in
which she described herself as neither better nor worse than she had
been. Neither proud was Kate, nor sycophantishly and falsely humble.
Urban VIII. it was that then filled the chair of St. Peter. He did not
neglect to raise his daughter's thoughts from earthly things--he
pointed her eyes to the clouds that were above the dome of St. Peter's
cathedral--he told her what the cathedral had told her in the gorgeous
clouds of the Andes and the vesper lights, how sweet a thing, how
divine a thing it was for Christ's sake to forgive all injuries, and
how he trusted that no more she would think of bloodshed. He also said
two words to her in Latin, which, if I had time to repeat a Spanish
bishop's remark to Kate some time afterwards upon those two mysterious
words, with Kate's most natural and ingenuous answer to the Bishop upon
what she supposed to be their meaning, would make the reader smile not
less than they made myself.
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