He next discovered the name and abode
of every nobleman in Rome suspected even of the most careless attachment
to the ancient form of worship. He attended Christian churches,
mastered the intricacies of different sects, and estimated the
importance of contending schisms; gaining this collection of
heterogeneous facts under the combined disadvantages of poverty,
solitude, and age; dependent for support on the poorest public
charities, and for shelter on the meanest public asylums. Every
conclusion that he drew from all he learned partook of the sanguine
character of the fatal self-deception which had embittered his whole
life. He believed that the dissensions which he saw raging in the
Church would speedily effect the destruction of Christianity itself;
that, when such a period should arrive, the public mind would require
but the guidance of some superior intellect to return to its old
religious predilections; and that to lay the foundation for effecting in
such a manner the desired revolution, it was necessary for him--
impossible though it might seem in his present degraded condition--to
gain access to the disaffected nobles of Rome, and discover the secret
of acquiring such an influence over them as would enable him to infect
them with his enthusiasm, and fire them with his determination.
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