Towards the end of August, as Father Franklin walks toward the celebration of the Pope's Name Day – significantly, the Pope is named John, so the feast in question is the rather unusual choice of the Decapitation, not the more popular Nativity, of St. John the Baptist -, he passes the yoked carriages of the deposed Crowned Heads of Europe. As he recognizes the British Royal Family, the German House of Hohenzollern, the House of Romanov, the Spanish and French Houses of Bourbon, and scores of "lesser powers", Father Franklin ponders the "appalling danger" their presence constitutes "in a democratic world." The world, he knows, affects "to laugh at the desperate play-acting of Divine Right on the part of fallen and despised families", but he shudders to think what could happen if that sentiment ever turns to anger.