Had not the Church all eternity before it?
And, moreover, why should not the victor be himself?
Could not God accomplish the impossible?
Why, if it so pleased God, on the very morrow his city would be restored to him, in spite of all the objections of human reason, all the apparent logic of facts.

Ah! how he would welcome the return of that prodigal daughter whose equivocal adventures he had ever watched with tears bedewing his paternal eyes! He would soon forget the excesses which he had beheld during eighteen years at all hours and in all seasons.

Perhaps he dreamt of what he would do with those new districts with which the city had been soiled.

Should they be razed, or left as evidence of the insanity of the usurpers?
At all events, Rome would again become the august and lifeless city, disdainful of such vain matters as material cleanliness and comfort, and shining forth upon the world like a pure soul encompassed by the traditional glory of the centuries.

And his dream continued, picturing the course which events would take on the very morrow, no doubt.