Frangipani too, whose son was to have married
Faustina, is gone these many years, and others of the older and graver
sort have learned the great secret from the lips of death.
But there have been other and greater deaths, beside which the mortality
of a whole society of noblemen sinks into insignificance. An empire is
dead and another has arisen in the din of a vast war, begotten in
bloodshed, brought forth in strife, baptized with fire. The France we
knew is gone, and the French Republic writes "Liberty, Fraternity,
Equality" in great red letters above the gate of its habitation, which
within is yet hung with mourning. Out of the nest of kings and princes
and princelings, and of all manner of rulers great and small, rises the
solitary eagle of the new German Empire and hangs on black wings between
sky and earth, not striking again, but always ready, a vision of armed
peace, a terror, a problem--perhaps a warning.
Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old Rome again. The last breath has
been breathed, the aged eyes are closed for ever, corruption has done
its work, and the grand skeleton lies bleaching upon seven hills, half
covered with the piecemeal stucco of a modern architectural body.
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