Chapter V: Book XIII: 1 (2)

"If I were to believe the rumours of Rome, we should have a pope
to-morrow; but I am in a moment of discouragement, and I refuse to
believe in such happiness. You can understand that that happiness
is not political happiness, the joy of a triumph, but the happiness
of being free and seeing you again. When I speak to you so much
about the Conclave, I am like the people who have a fixed idea and
who believe that the whole world is interested in that idea. And
yet, in Paris, who thinks of the Conclave, who troubles about a
pope or my tribulations? French light-heartedness, the interests
of the moment, the discussions in the Chambers, excited ambitions
have very different things to do. When the Duc de Laval used also
to write to me of his cares about the Conclave, preoccupied with
the Spanish War as I was, I used to say, when I received his
dispatches, 'Oh, good Heavens, I have something else to think
of!' and M. Portalis is applying the _lex talionis_ to me to-day.
Nevertheless, one may fairly say that things at that time were not
what they are now: religious ideas were not mixed up with political
ideas as they have since been throughout Europe; the quarrel did
not lie there; the nomination could not, as it does now, disturb or
pacify States.

"Since the letter which informed me that M. de La Ferronnays' leave
had been extended and that he had left for Rome, I have heard
nothing: still, I believe that news true.

"M. Thierry has written me a touching letter from Hyères; he tells
me that he is dying, and still he wants a place in the Academy of
Inscriptions and asks me to write for him. I am going to do so.
My excavation continues to give me sarcophaguses; death can only
yield what it possesses. The Poussin monument is getting on. It
will be noble and large. You cannot imagine how the picture of the
Arcadian Shepherds was made for a bas-relief, nor how well it suits
sculpture."

"28 _March._

"M. le Cardinal de Clermont-Tonnerre, who has been staying with
me, enters the Conclave to-day; this is an age of marvels. I
have with me the son of Marshal Lannes and the grandson of the
Chancellor[66]; _Messieurs du Constitutionnel_ dine at my table
beside _Messieurs de la Quotidienne._ That is the advantage of
being sincere; let every one think what he pleases, provided I am
allowed the same liberty; I only endeavour that my opinion shall
have the majority, because I think it, and rightly, better than
the others. I attribute to this sincerity the tendency of the most
diverging opinions to gather round me. I exercise the right of
sanctuary towards them: they cannot be seized beneath my roof."

TO M. LE DUC DE BLACAS[67]

"ROME, 24 _March_ 1829.

"I am sorry, monsieur le duc, that a phrase in my letter should
have been able to cause you any anxiety. I have no reason whatever
to complain of a man of sense and intelligence[68], who told me
nothing save diplomatic commonplaces. Do we ambassadors ever talk
anything else? As to the cardinal of whom you do me the honour
to speak, the French Government has not designated any one in
particular; it has left the matter entirely as I reported it. Seven
or eight moderate and peaceful cardinals, who seem to attract the
wishes of all the Courts alike, are the candidates among whom we
wish to see the votes fall. But, if we lay no claim to impose a
choice upon the majority of the Conclave, we do with all our might
and by every means repel two or three fanatical, intriguing, or
incapable cardinals, whom the minority are supporting.

"I have no other possible means of sending you this letter,
monsieur le duc; I am therefore very simply posting it, because it
contains nothing that you and I cannot confess aloud.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

[Sidenote: To Blacas and Récamier.]

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, 31 _March_ 1829.

"M. de Montebello has arrived and has brought me your letter, with
a letter from M. Bertin and from M. Villemain.

"My excavations are doing well: I find plenty of empty
sarcophaguses; I shall be able to choose one for myself, without my
ashes being obliged to turn out those of the old dead men whom the
wind has carried away. Depopulated sepulchres afford the spectacle
of a resurrection, and yet they await only a more profound death.
It is not life but annihilation which has made those tombs deserted.

"To finish my little diary of the moment, I will tell you that the
day before yesterday I climbed to the ball of St. Peter's during
a storm. You cannot imagine the noise of the wind in mid-sky,
around that cupola of Michael Angelo and above that temple of the
Christians which crushes Ancient Rome."

"31 _March, evening._

"Victory! I have one of the Popes whom I had placed on my list: it
is Castiglioni, the very cardinal whom I was supporting for the
Papacy in 1823, when I was Minister, he who lately replied to me in
the Conclave with 'many praises.' Castiglioni is a moderate man and
devoted to France; it is a complete triumph. The Conclave, before
separating, gave orders to write to the Nuncio in Paris, to tell
him to express to the King the satisfaction of the Sacred College
with my conduct. I have already dispatched the news to Paris by the
telegraph. The Prefect of the Rhone is the intermediary of this
aerial correspondence, and this prefect is M. de Brosses, son of
that Comte de Brosses, the frivolous traveller to Rome, whom I have
often quoted in the notes which I collect while writing to you. The
courier who carries this letter to you carries my dispatch to M.
Portalis.

"I never have two consecutive days of good health now; this makes
me furious, for I have no heart for anything in the midst of my
sufferings. Still, I am awaiting with some impatience to hear the
effect in Paris of the nomination of my Pope, what they will say,
what they will do, what will become of me. The most certain thing
is that my leave has been applied for. I have seen in the papers
the great quarrel raised by the _Constitutionnel_ about my speech;
it accuses the _Messager_ of not printing it, and we in Rome have
_Messagers_ of the 22nd of March (the quarrel belongs to the 24th
or 25th) containing the speech. Isn't it singular? It seems clear
that there are _two_ editions, one for Rome and the other for
Paris. Poor people! I am thinking of the mistake made by another
paper; it assures its readers that the Conclave was very much
dissatisfied with this speech: what can it have said when it read
the praises given me by Cardinal Castiglioni, who has become Pope?

"When shall I have done talking to you of all these trifles? When
shall I busy myself only with finishing the Memoirs of my Life and
my life also, as the last page of those Memoirs? I have great need
of it; I am very weary, the weight of my days increases and makes
itself felt on my head; I amuse myself by calling it 'rheumatism'
but it is the kind that one cannot cure. One word only sustains me,
when I again say:

"'Soon.'"

"3 _April._

"I forgot to tell you that, as Cardinal Fesch behaved very well in
the Conclave and voted with our cardinals, I took a resolution and
invited him to dinner. He refused in a very tactful note."

[Sidenote: Dispatch to Portalis.]

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, 2 _April_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"Cardinal Albani has been appointed Secretary of State, as I had
the honour to inform you in my first letter carried to Lyons by
the mounted messenger dispatched on the evening of the 31st of
March. The new minister is not pleasing to the Sardinian faction,
nor to the majority of the Sacred College, nor even to Austria,
because he is violent, an Anti-Jesuit, rude in his manner, and an
Italian above everything. Rich and excessively avaricious, Cardinal
Albani is mixed up in all sorts of enterprises and speculations. I
went yesterday to pay him my first visit; the moment he saw me, he
exclaimed:

"'I am a pig!' He was, in fact, exceedingly dirty. 'You shall see
that I am not an enemy.'

"I am giving you his own words, monsieur le comte. I replied that I
was very far from regarding him as an enemy.

"'You people' he resumed, 'want water, not fire: don't I know
your country? Haven't I lived in France?' He speaks French like a
Frenchman. 'You will be satisfied, and your master too. How is the
King? Good-morning. Let us go to St. Peter's!'

"It was eight o'clock in the morning; I had already seen His
Holiness, and all Rome was hastening to the ceremony of the
Adoration.

"Cardinal Albani is a man of intelligence, false by nature and
frank by temperament; his violence foils his cunning; one can make
use of him by flattering his pride and satisfying his avarice.

"Pius VIII. is very learned, especially in matters of theology; he
speaks French, but with less facility and grace than Leo XII. He is
attacked on the right side with partial paralysis, and is subject
to convulsive movements: the supreme power will cure him. He is to
be crowned on Sunday next, Passion Sunday, the 5th of April.

"Now, monsieur le comte, that the principal business which kept
me in Rome is ended, I shall be infinitely obliged to you if you
will obtain for me from His Majesty's kindness a leave of a few
months. I shall not take it until after I have handed the Pope the
letter in which the King will reply to that which Pius VIII. has
written or is going to write to him to announce his elevation to
the Chair of St Peter. Permit me to beg once more, on behalf of my
two secretaries of Legation, M. Bellocq[69] and M. de Givré[70],
the favours which I have asked of you for them.

"The intrigues of Cardinal Albani in the Conclave, the partisans
whom he had won, even among the majority, had made me fear some
unexpected stroke to carry him to the Sovereign Pontificate. It
seemed to me impossible to allow ourselves to be thus surprised
and to permit the Austrian _chargé d'affaires_ to put on the tiara
under the eyes of the French Ambassador. I therefore availed myself
of the arrival of M. le Cardinal de Clermont-Tonnerre to charge
him against all eventualities with the letter enclosed, the terms
of which I framed on my own responsibility. Fortunately he was not
called upon to make use of this letter; he handed it back to me,
and I have the honour to send it to you.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

TO HIS EMINENCE MONSEIGNEUR LE CARDINAL DE CLERMONT-TONNERRE

"ROME, 28 _March_ 1829.

"MONSEIGNEUR,

"Unable to communicate with your colleagues, Messieurs the French
cardinals, confined in the Monte Cavallo Palace; obliged to provide
for every thing to the advantage of His Majesty's service, and
in the interests of our country; knowing how often unexpected
nominations have been made in the conclaves, I find myself, to my
regret, in the disagreeable necessity of confiding to Your Eminence
a power of eventual exclusion.

"Although M. le Cardinal Albani appears to have no chance, he is
none the less a man of capacity on whom, in case of a prolonged
struggle, they might turn their eyes; but he is the cardinal
charged at the Conclave with the instructions of Austria: M. le
Comte de Lützow has already designated him in that quality in
his speech. Now it is impossible to allow the elevation to the
Sovereign Pontificate of a cardinal openly belonging to a crown,
whether it be the Crown of France or any other.

"Consequently, monseigneur, I charge you, by virtue of my full
powers as His Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador, and taking all
the responsibility upon myself alone, to give the exclusion to M.
le Cardinal Albani, if, on the one hand, by a fortuitous juncture,
or, on the other, by a secret combination, he should come to
obtain the majority of the suffrages.

"I am, etc., etc."

[Sidenote: The letter of exclusion.]

This letter of exclusion, entrusted to a cardinal by an ambassador who is not formally authorized to that effect, is a piece of diplomatic temerity: it is enough to send a shudder through all stay-at-home statesmen, all the heads of departments, all the chief clerks, all the copiers at the Foreign Office; but, as the Minister knew so little about his business as not even to think of an eventual case of exclusion, needs must that I should think of it for him. Suppose that Albani had been made Pope by accident: what would have become of me? I should have been ruined for ever as a politician.

I say this, not for myself, who care little for a politician's fame, but for the future generation of writers who would be browbeaten because of my accident and who would expiate my misfortune at the cost of their career, even as the whipping-boy is punished when M. le Dauphin commits a blunder. But neither should my daring foresight, in taking the letter of exclusion upon myself, be too much admired: that which appears enormous, when measured by the stunted scale of the old diplomatic ideas, is really nothing at all, in the actual order of society. I owed my audacity on the one hand to my insensibility to all disgrace, on the other to my knowledge of contemporary opinion: the world as it is to-day does not care two sous for the nomination of a pope, the rivalries of crowns, or the internal intrigues of a conclave.

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

_Confidential._

"ROME, 2 _April_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"I have the honour to-day to send you the important documents
which I promised you. These are nothing less than the secret
and official journal of the Conclave. It is translated, word
for word, from the Italian original; I have only removed any
part of it which might point too precisely to the sources whence
I drew it. If the smallest atom of these perhaps unexampled
revelations were to transpire, it would cost the fortune, the
liberty and perhaps the lives of several persons. This would be
the more deplorable inasmuch as we owe these revelations not to
interest and corruption, but to confidence in French honour. This
document, monsieur le comte, must therefore remain for ever secret
after it has been read in the King's Council; for, in spite of
the precautions which I have taken to keep names silent and to
suppress direct references, it still says enough to compromise its
authors. I have added a commentary, to facilitate its perusal. The
Pontifical Government is in the habit of keeping a register on
which its decisions, its acts and deeds are noted down day by day,
and so to speak hour by hour: what an historical treasure, if one
could delve into it, going back towards the earlier centuries of
the Papacy! I have been given a momentary glimpse of it, for the
present period. The King will see, through the documents which I
am sending you, what has never been seen before, the inside of a
Conclave; the most intimate sentiments of the Court of Rome will be
known to him, and His Majesty's Ministers will not be walking in
the dark.

"The commentary which I have made of the journal dispensing me
from any other reflection, it but remains for me to offer you the
renewed assurance of the high regard with which I have the honour
to be, etc., etc."

The Italian original of the precious document announced in this confidential dispatch was burnt in Rome before my eyes; I have kept no copy of the translation of this document which I sent to the Foreign Office; I have only a copy of the "commentary" or "remarks" which I added to that translation. But the same discretion which made me charge the Minister to keep the document for ever secret obliges me here to suppress my own remarks; for, however great the obscurity in which those remarks are enveloped, in the absence of the document to which they refer, that obscurity would still be daylight in Rome. Now resentment is long in the Eternal City; it might happen that, fifty years hence, it should fall upon some grand-nephew of the authors of the mysterious confidence. I shall therefore content myself with giving a general epitome of the contents of the commentary, while laying stress on a few passages which bear a direct relation to the affairs of France.

We see, first, how greatly the Court of Naples was deceiving M. de Blacas, or else how much it was itself deceived; for, while it was causing me to be told that the Neapolitan cardinals would vote with us, they were joining the minority or the so-called Sardinian faction.

The minority of the cardinals imagined that the vote of the French cardinals would influence _the form of our government._ How so? Apparently by means of secret orders with which they were supposed to be charged and by their votes in favour of a hot-headed pope.

[Sidenote: A secret document.]

The Nuncio Lambruschini declared to the Conclave that the Cardinal de Latil had the King's secret; all the efforts of the faction tended to create the belief that Charles X. and his Government were not in agreement.

On the 13th of March, the Cardinal de Latil announced that he had a declaration purely of conscience to make to the Conclave; he was sent before four cardinal-bishops: the acts of that secret confession remained in the keeping of the Grand Penitentiary. The other French cardinals knew nothing of the subject-matter of this confession, and Cardinal Albani sought in vain to find out: the fact is important and curious.

The minority consisted of sixteen compact votes. The cardinals forming this minority called themselves the "Fathers of the Cross;" they placed a St. Andrew's cross on their doors as a sign that, having decided on their choice, they did not want to communicate with any one. The majority of the Conclave displayed reasonable sentiments and a firm resolution in no way to mix in foreign politics.

The minutes drawn up by the protonotary of the Conclave are worthy of remark. They conclude with these words:

"Pius VIII. determined to appoint Cardinal Albani Secretary of State, in order also to satisfy the Cabinet of Vienna."

The Sovereign Pontiff divides the lots between the two crowns: he declares himself the French Pope, and gives the secretaryship of State to Austria.

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, _Wednesday_ 8 _April_ 1829.

"This day I have had the whole Conclave to dinner. Tomorrow I
receive the Grand-duchess Helen. On Easter Tuesday, I give a ball
for the closing of the session; and then I shall prepare to come
to see you. You can judge of my anxiety: at the moment of writing
to you, I have no news yet of my mounted courier announcing the
death of the Pope, and yet the Pope is already crowned; Leo XII.
is forgotten; I have begun again to transact affairs with the
new Secretary of State, Albani; everything is going on as though
nothing had happened, and I do not even know whether you in Paris
know that there is a new Pontiff! How beautiful that ceremony of
the papal benediction is! The Sabine Range on the horizon, then
the deserted Roman Campagna, then Rome itself, then the Piazza San
Pietro and the whole people falling on its knees under an old man's
hand: the Pope is the only prince who blesses his subjects.

"I had written so far when a courier arrived from Genoa bringing
me a telegraphic dispatch from Paris to Toulon, which dispatch,
replying to the one I had sent, informs me that, on the 4th of
April, at eleven o'clock in the evening, they received in Paris my
telegraphic dispatch from Rome to Toulon announcing the election of
Cardinal Castiglioni, and that the King is greatly pleased.

"The rapidity of these communications is prodigious; my courier
left at eight o'clock in the evening on the 31st of March, and at
eight o'clock in the evening on the 8th of April I received a reply
from Paris."

"11 _April_ 1829.

"To-day is the 11th of April: in eight days we shall have Easter
with us, in fifteen days my leave, and then to see you! Everything
disappears before that hope; I am no more sad; I no longer think of
ministers or politics. To-morrow we begin Holy Week. I shall think
of all you have told me. Why are you not here to hear the beautiful
songs of sorrow with me! We should go to walk in the deserts of the
Roman Campagna, now covered with flowers and verdure. All the ruins
seem to become young with the new year: I am of their number."

[Sidenote: To Récamier and Portalis.]

_Wednesday in Holy Week_, 15 _April._

"I have just left the Sistine Chapel, where I attended Tenebræ and
heard the _Miserere_ sung. I remembered that you had talked to me
of this ceremony, which touched me a hundred times as much because
of that.

"The daylight was failing; the shadows crept slowly across the
frescoes of the chapel, and one distinguished but a few bold
strokes of Michael Angelo's brush. The candles, extinguished one
by one in turns, sent forth from their stifled flames a slender
white smoke, a very natural image of life, which Scripture compares
to a little smoke[71]. The cardinals were kneeling, the Pope
prostrate before the same altar where a few days before I had
seen his predecessor; the admirable prayer of penance and mercy,
which succeeded the Lamentations of the prophet, rose at intervals
in the silence of the night. One felt overwhelmed by the great
mystery of a God dying that the sins of mankind might be wiped out.
The Catholic Heiress was there on her seven hills with all her
memories; but, instead of the powerful pontiffs, those cardinals
who contended for precedence with monarchs, a poor old paralyzed
Pope, without family or support, Princes of the Church, without
splendour, announced the end of a power which has civilized the
modern world. The master-pieces of the arts were disappearing with
it, were fading away on the walls and ceilings of the Vatican, that
half-abandoned palace. Inquisitive strangers, separated from the
unity of the Church, assisted at the ceremony on their way and took
the place of the community of the Faithful. The heart was seized
with a two-fold sadness. Christian Rome, while commemorating the
Agony of Jesus Christ, seemed to be celebrating her own, to be
repeating for the new Jerusalem the words which Jeremias addressed
to the old."

[Sidenote: To Récamier and Portalis.]

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, 16 _April_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"Things are developing here as I had the honour to foreshadow
to you; the words and actions of the new Pope are in complete
agreement with the pacificatory system followed by Leo XII.: Pius
VIII. goes even further than his predecessor; he expresses himself
with greater frankness on the Charter, of which he is not afraid to
pronounce the word nor to advise the French to follow the spirit.
The Nuncio, having again written about our business, has received
a dry intimation to mind his own. All is being concluded for the
Concordat with the Netherlands, and M. le Comte de Celles will
complete his mission next month.

"Cardinal Albani, finding himself in a difficult position, is
obliged to pay for it: the protestations which he makes to me of
his devotion to France annoy the Austrian Ambassador, who is unable
to conceal his ill-humour. From the religious point of view we
have nothing to fear from Cardinal Albani; himself troubled with
very little religion, he will not feel the impulse to trouble us
either with his own fanaticism or with the moderate opinions of his
Sovereign.

"As for the political point of view, Italy is not at this day to be
juggled away through police intrigues and a cypher correspondence;
to allow the Legations to be occupied or to place an Austrian
garrison at Ancona on some pretext or other would mean stirring up
Europe and declaring war against France: now we are no longer in
1814, 1815, 1816 and 1817; a greedy and unjust ambition is not to
be satisfied before our eyes with impunity. And so, that Cardinal
Albani is in receipt of a pension from Prince Metternich; that
he is a kinsman of the Duke of Modena[72], to whom he declares
himself to be leaving his enormous fortune; that he is hatching
a little plot with that Prince against the Heir to the Crown of
Sardinia[73]: all that is true, all that would have been dangerous
at the time when secret and absolute governments set soldiers
dimly in movement behind the shelter of a dim dispatch; but, in
these days, with public governments, with liberty of the press
and of free speech, with the telegraph and general rapidity of
communication, with knowledge of affairs spread through the several
classes of society, we are protected against the conjuring tricks
and artifices of the old diplomacy. At the same time it cannot be
denied that there are drawbacks attached to an _Austrian chargé
d'affaires_ in the position of Secretary of State in Rome; there
are even certain notes (those for instance relating to the imperial
power in Italy) which it would not be possible to place in Cardinal
Albani's hands.

"No one has yet been able to fathom the secret of an appointment
which everybody dislikes, including even the Cabinet of Vienna.
Has this to do with interests foreign to politics? They say that
Cardinal Albani is at this moment offering to make the Holy Father
an advance of 200,000 piastres of which the Roman Government stands
in need; others pretend that this sum will be lent by an Austrian
banker. Cardinal Macchi told me on Saturday last that His Holiness,
not wishing to re-appoint Cardinal Bernetti and desirous,
nevertheless, of giving him a big place, found no other means of
arranging things than to make vacant the Bologna Legation. Wretched
little difficulties often become the motives of the most important
resolutions. If Cardinal Macchi's version is the true one, all that
Pius VIII. is doing and saying for the _satisfaction_ of the Crowns
of France and Austria would be only an apparent reason, by the aid
of which he would seek to mask his own weakness in his own eyes.
For the rest, no one believes that Albania ministry will last. So
soon as he begins to enter into relations with the ambassadors,
difficulties will spring up on every hand.

[Sidenote: The position of Italy.]

"As to the position of Italy, monsieur le comte, you must read with
caution what will be written to you from Rome or elsewhere. It is,
unhappily, but too true that the Government of the Two Sicilies has
fallen into the last stage of contempt. The manner in which the
Court lives in the midst of its guards, for ever trembling, for
ever pursued by the phantoms of fear, presenting the sole spectacle
of ruinous hunting-parties and gibbets, contributes more and more
to debase royalty in this country. Yet they take for _conspiracies_
what is only the general uneasiness, the product of the century,
the struggle of the old society with the new, the contest between
the decrepitude of the old institutions and the energy of the young
generations: in fine, the comparison which everybody makes of
that which is with that which might be. Let us not blind our eyes
to this fact: the great spectacle of a powerful, free and happy
France, that great spectacle which strikes the eyes of the nations
which have remained or relapsed under the yoke, excites regrets
or feeds hopes. The medley of representative governments and
absolute governments cannot long continue; one or the other must go
under, and politics must return to an even level, as in the time
of Gothic Europe. The custom-house on a frontier can henceforth
not separate liberty from slavery; a man can no longer be hung on
this side of a brook for principles reputed sacred on the other
side of that brook. It is in this sense, monsieur le comte, and
in this sense alone, that there is any _conspiracy_ in Italy; it
is in this sense too that Italy is _French._ On the day when she
shall enter on the enjoyment of the rights which her intelligence
perceives and which the progressive march of time is carrying to
her, on that day she will be peaceful and purely Italian. It is not
a few poor devils of _Carbonari_, stirred up by the manœuvres of
the police and mercilessly hanged, that will rouse the country to
revolt. Governments are given the falsest ideas of the true state
of things; they are prevented from doing what they ought to do to
ensure their safety by always having pointed out to them as the
private conspiracies of a handful of Jacobins what is really the
effect of a permanent and general cause.

"This, monsieur le comte, is the real position of Italy. Each of
her States, in addition to the common working of men's minds,
is tortured with some local malady: Piedmont is delivered to a
fanatical faction; the Milanese is being devoured by the Austrians;
the domains of the Holy Father are being ruined by bad financial
administration; the taxes amount to nearly fifty millions and do
not leave the landlord one per cent, of his income; the customs
bring in hardly anything; smuggling is general; the Prince of
Modena has established shops in his Duchy (a place of immunity for
all ancient abuses) for the sale of prohibited merchandise, which
he passes at night into the Bologna Legation[74].

"I have already, monsieur le comte, spoken to you of Naples, where
the weakness of the government is saved only by the cowardice of
the population.

"It is this absence of military valour that will prolong the
death-agony of Italy. Bonaparte did not have time to revive that
valour in the land of Marius and Cæsar. The habits of an idle life
and the charm of the climate contribute still more to deprive
the Southern Italians of the desire to agitate for an improved
condition. Antipathies arising from the territorial divisions add
to the difficulties of an inside movement; but, if some impulse
came from without, if some prince beyond the Alps granted a charter
to his subjects, a revolution would take place, because all is
ripe for such a revolution. Happier than we and instructed by our
experience, the people would be sparing in the crimes and miseries
with which we were lavish.

"I have no doubt, monsieur le comte, that I shall soon receive the
leave for which I asked you: I shall perhaps use it. At the moment,
therefore, of leaving Italy, I have thought it my duty to place
a few general hints before you, in order to fix the ideas of the
King's Council and to warn it against reports inspired by narrow
minds or blind passions.

"I have the honour to be, etc., etc."

[Sidenote: Expensive visitors.]

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, 16 _April_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"Messieurs the French cardinals are very eager to know what sum
will be allowed them for their expenses and their stay in Rome:
they have repeatedly asked me to write to you on the subject; I
shall therefore be infinitely obliged to you if you will inform me
as soon as possible of the King's decision.

"As regards myself, monsieur le comte, when you were good enough
to allow me an additional sum of thirty thousand francs, you were
under the impression that none of the cardinals would stay with me.
Now M. de Clermont-Tonnerre put up here with his suite, consisting
of two conclavists, an ecclesiastical secretary, a lay secretary, a
valet, two men-servants and a French cook, besides a Roman groom of
the chambers, a master of ceremonies, three footmen, a coachman and
all the Italian establishment which a cardinal is obliged to keep
up here. The Archbishop of Toulouse, who is not able to walk[75],
does not dine at my table; he requires two or three courses at
different hours, and horses and carriages for his guests and
friends. My reverend visitor will certainly not pay his expenditure
here; he will go, and leave the bills to me; I shall have to pay
not only the cook, the laundress, the livery-stable keeper, etc.,
etc., but also the two surgeons who came to look at His Lordship's
leg, the shoemaker who makes his white and purple slippers, and the
tailor who has 'confectioned' the cloaks, cassocks, neck-bands, the
whole outfit of the cardinal and his abbés.

"If to this, monsieur le comte, you add my extraordinary expenses
for costs of representation, which expenses have been increased
by the presence of the Grand-duchess Helen, Prince Paul of
Wurtemberg[76] and the King of Bavaria, you will no doubt find that
the thirty thousand francs which you allowed me will have been
much exceeded. The first year of an ambassador's establishment
is a ruinous one, the grants allowed for that establishment being
far below its needs. It requires a residence of almost three years
for a diplomatic agent to find means to pay off the debts which
he has begun by making and to keep his expenses on a level with
his receipts. I know all the penury of the budget of the Foreign
Office; if I had any fortune of my own, I would not trouble you:
nothing is more disagreeable to me, I assure you, than these
details of money into which a rigorous necessity compels me to
enter, much against my will.

"Accept, monsieur le comte, etc."

I had given balls and evening-parties in London and Paris, and, although a child of a different desert, I had not passed too badly through those new solitudes; but I had had no glimmer of the nature of the entertainments in Rome: they have something of ancient poetry, which places death by the side of pleasures. At the Villa Medicis, where I received the Grand-duchess Helen, the gardens themselves are an adornment, and the frame of the picture is magnificent: on one side, the Villa Borghese, with Raphael's house; on the other the Villa Monte-Maria, and the slopes edging the Tiber; below the spectator, the whole of Rome, like an old, abandoned eagle's nest. Amid the groves thronged, together with the descendants of the Paulas and Corinnas, beauties come from Naples, Florence and Milan: the Princess Helen seemed to be their queen. Boreas, suddenly descending from the mountain, tore the banqueting-tent and fled with shreds of canvas and garlands, as though to give us an image of all that time has swept away on this shore. The Embassy staff were in consternation; I felt an indescribable ironical gaiety at seeing a breath from heaven carry off my gold of a day and my joys of an hour. The mischief was promptly repaired. Instead of lunching on the terrace, we lunched in the graceful palace: the harmony of the horns and oboes, spread by the wind, had something of the murmur of my American forests. The groups disporting amid the squalls, the women whose tortured veils beat their hair and faces, the _saltarello_ which continued during the storm, the _improvisatrice_ declaiming to the clouds, the balloon escaping crooked-wise with the cypher of the Daughter of the North: all this gave a new character to those sports in which the customary tempests of my life seemed to take part.

What a fascination for any man who should not have counted his heap of years, and who should have asked illusions of the world and the storm! It is difficult indeed for me to remember my autumn when, at my receptions, I see pass before me those women of spring-time who penetrate among the flowers, the concerts and the lights of my successive galleries: as who should sway swans swimming towards radiant climes. To what _désennui_ are they going? Some seek what they already love, others what they do not yet love. At the end of the road, they will fall into those sepulchres, always open here, into those ancient sarcophaguses which serve as basins to fountains hanging from porticoes; they will go to swell so many light and charming ashes. Those waves of beauties, diamonds, flowers and feathers roll to the sound of Rossini's music, which is re-echoed and grows feebler from orchestra to orchestra. Is that melody the sigh of the breeze to which I listened in the savannahs of the Floridas, the moan which I heard in the Temple of Erechtheus at Athens? Is it the distant wailing of the north winds, which rocked me on the ocean? Could my sylph be hidden beneath the form of some of these brilliant Italian women? No: my hamadryad has remained united to the willow of the meadows where I used to talk with her on the further side of the hedge at Combourg. I have little in common with these frolics of the society which has attached itself to my steps at the end of my race; and yet this fairy-scene contains a certain intoxication that flies to my head: I get rid of it only by going to cool my brow in the solitary square of St. Peter's or in the deserted Coliseum. Then the puny sights of the earth are lost, and I find nothing equal to the sudden change of scene but the old melancholy of my early days.

[Sidenote: The exiled Bonapartes.]

I will now set forth here my relations, as Ambassador, with the Bonaparte Family, in order to clear the Restoration of one of the calumnies that are incessantly being thrown at its head.

France did not act alone in banishing the members of the Imperial Family; she merely obeyed the hard necessity put upon her by the force of arms; it was the Allies who provoked that banishment: diplomatic conventions, formal treaties pronounce the exile of the Bonapartes, lay down the very places they are to live at, forbid a minister or ambassador to deliver a passport, by himself, to Napoleon's kinsmen; the visa of the four other ministers or ambassadors of the four other contracting Powers is exacted. To such a degree did the blood of Napoleon frighten the Allies, even when it did not flow in his own veins!

Thank God, I never submitted to those measures. In 1823, without consulting anybody, in spite of the treaties, and on my own responsibility as Minister of Foreign Affairs, I delivered a passport to Madame la Comtesse de Survilliers[77], then in Brussels, to enable her to come to Paris to nurse one of her kinsmen, who was ill. Twenty times over I called for the repeal of those laws of persecution; twenty times over I told Louis XVIII. that I should like to see the Duc de Reichstadt captain of his Guards, and the statue of Napoleon put back on the top of the column in the Place Vendôme. Both as minister and ambassador, I rendered all the services in my power to the Bonaparte Family. That was the broad view I took of the Legitimate Monarchy: liberty can look glory in the face. As Ambassador to Rome, I authorized my secretaries and attachés to appear in the palace of Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu; I threw down the barrier raised between Frenchmen who had all known adversity. I wrote to M. le Cardinal Fesch to invite him to join the cardinals who were to meet at my house; I expressed to him my sorrow at the political measures which it had been thought necessary to take; I reminded him of the time when I had formed part of his mission to the Holy See; and I begged my old ambassador to honour with his presence the banquet of his old secretary of embassy. I received the following reply, full of dignity, discretion and prudence:

[Sidenote: Fesch, Jerome Bonaparte.]

"PALAZZO FALCONIERI, 4 _April_ 1829.

"Cardinal Fesch greatly appreciates M. de Chateaubriand's obliging
invitation, but his position on returning to Rome was such as to
recommend him to forsake the world and lead a life quite apart
from any society except that of his family. The circumstances that
followed proved to him that this course was indispensable to his
tranquillity; and, as the amenities of the moment are no safeguard
against unpleasantness in the future, he is obliged not to change
his mode of life. Cardinal Fesch begs M. de Chateaubriand to be
convinced that nothing can equal his gratitude, and that it is
with much regret that he will not wait upon His Excellency as
frequently as he would have desired.

'His very humble, etc.,

"CARDINAL FESCH."

The phrase, "the amenities of the moment are no safeguard against unpleasantness in the future," is an allusion to the threat uttered by M. de Blacas, who had given orders for M. le Cardinal Fesch to be flung down his stairs if he presented himself at the French Embassy: M. de Blacas was too much inclined to forget that he had not always been so great a lord. I who, in order to be what I have to be, in so far as I can, in the present, am constantly recalling my past, have acted differently with His Eminence the Archbishop of Lyons: the little misunderstandings that existed between him and me in Rome oblige me to adopt a tone of propriety the more respectful inasmuch as I, in my turn, belong to the triumphant and he to the beaten party.

Prince Jerome, on his side, did me the honour to ask my intervention, sending me a copy of a request which he was addressing to the Cardinal Secretary of State; he says in his letter to me:

"Exile is terrible enough, both in its principle and in its
consequences, for that generous France which witnessed his birth
[Prince Jerome's], that France which possesses all his affections
and which he has served for twenty years, not to wish to aggravate
his situation by permitting every government to abuse the delicacy
of his position.

"Prince Jérôme de Montfort, confiding in the loyalty of the French
Government and in the character of its noble representative, does
not hesitate to believe that justice will be done him.

"He takes this opportunity, etc.

"JÉRÔME."

In consequence of this request, I addressed a confidential note to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Bernetti; it ends with these words:

"The motives inferred by Prince Jérôme de Montfort appearing to
the undersigned to be founded on justice and reason, he could
not refuse the applicant the intervention of his good offices,
persuaded as he is that the French Government will always regret
to see the severity of the political laws aggravated by measures
likely to give umbrage.

"The undersigned would set an especial value upon obtaining, in
this circumstance, the powerful interest of H. E. the Cardinal
Secretary of State.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

At the same time I replied to Prince Jerome as follows:

"ROME, 9 _May_ 1829.

"The French Ambassador to the Holy See has received the copy of the
note which Prince Jérôme de Montfort has done him the honour to
send him. He hastens to thank him for the confidence which he has
been good enough to show him; he will make it a duty to write to
His Holiness' Secretary of State in support of His Highness' just
claims.

"The Vicomte de Chateaubriand, who has also been banished from his
country, would be only too happy to be able to soften the fate of
the Frenchmen who still find themselves placed under the blow of a
political law. The exiled brother of Napoleon, addressing himself
to an Emigrant formerly struck off the list of outlaws by Napoleon
himself, is one of those freaks of fortune which must needs have
the ruins of Rome for witnesses.

"The Vicomte de Chateaubriand has the honour, etc."

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, 4 _May_ 1829.

"I have had the honour to inform you, in my letter of 30 April,
acknowledging the receipt of your Dispatch No. 25, that the Pope
received me in private audience on the 29th of April at mid-day.
His Holiness appeared to me to be enjoying very good health. He
made me sit beside him and kept me nearly an hour and a quarter.
The Austrian Ambassador had had a public audience before me to hand
over his new credentials.

"On leaving the closet of His Holiness at the Vatican, I called on
the Secretary of State, and, frankly broaching the question with
him, said:

"'Well, you see what our newspapers are making you out to be! You
are "an Austrian, you hate France," you want to do her some bad
turns: what am I to believe of all that?'

"He shrugged his shoulders and replied:

"'Your newspapers make me laugh; I cannot convince you by my words
if you are not convinced already; but put me to the test and you
shall see if I do not love France, if I do not do what you ask me
in the name of your King!'

"I believe, monsieur le comte, that Cardinal Albani is sincere. He
is profoundly indifferent in religious matters; he is not a priest;
he has even thought of giving up the purple and marrying; he does
not like the Jesuits, who tire him with the noise they make; he
is lazy, a glutton, a great lover of all kinds of pleasures; the
weariness which bishops' charges and pastoral letters produce in
him makes him extremely unfavourable to the cause of the authors of
those charges and pastoral letters: that old man of eighty wants to
die in peace and joyousness.

"I have the honour, etc."

[Sidenote: Monte Cavallo.]

I often visit Monte Cavallo; there the solitude of the gardens is increased by the solitude of the Roman Campagna, in search of which one's eyes turn beyond Rome and up the right bank of the Tiber. The gardeners are my friends; there are walks leading to the Panatteria, a poor dairy-farm, aviary, or poultry-yard, the occupants of which are as indigent and peaceful as the latter-day popes. Looking down from the height of the terraces of the Quirinal enclosure, one sees a narrow street in which women sit working at their windows on the different storeys: some embroider, others paint, in the silence of this retired quarter.

The cells of the cardinals of the last Conclave do not interest me at all. When St. Peter's was built, when master-pieces were ordered of Raphael, when at the same time the Kings came to kiss the Pontiffs slipper, there was something worthy of attention in the Temporal Papacy. I would gladly see the cell of a Gregory VII.[78], of a Sixtus V., just as I would look for the lions' den in Babylon; but dark holes, deserted by an obscure company of septuagenarians, represent to me only those _columbaria_ of Ancient Rome, which are empty to-day of their dust and from which a family of dead have fled.

I therefore pass rapidly by those cells, already half demolished, to walk through the rooms of the palace: there everything speaks to me of an event[79] for which one finds no precedent except by going back to Sciarra Colonna[80], Nogaret[81] and Boniface VIII.[82]

My first and my last visit to Rome are connected by memories of Pius VII., to whose story I have referred when speaking of Madame de Beaumont and of Bonaparte. My two visits are two pendentives outlined under the vault of my monument. My faithfulness to the memory of my old friends must give confidence to the friends who remain to me: for me nothing sinks into the tomb; all that I have known lives around me: according to the Indian doctrine, death, when it smites us, does not destroy us; it only makes us invisible.

TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, 7 _May_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"I have at last received, by Messieurs Desgranges and Franqueville,
your Dispatch No. 25. This rude dispatch, made out by some ill-bred
Foreign-Office clerk, is not what I had the right to expect after
the services which I had had the honour to render the King during
the Conclave; and above all they might have remembered a little
whom they were addressing. Not an obliging word for M. Bellocq,
who obtained such exceptional documents; nothing in reply to the
request I made on his behalf; gratuitous comments on Cardinal
Albania nomination, a nomination made in the Conclave which no
one, therefore, could have foreseen or prevented, a nomination
concerning which I have never ceased to send you explanations. In
my Dispatch No. 34, which has doubtless now reached you, I again
offer you a very simple method of getting rid of this cardinal, if
he causes France such alarm, and that method will already be half
carried out when you receive this letter: to-morrow I shall take
leave of His Holiness; I shall hand over the Embassy to M. Bellocq,
as _chargé d'affaires_, in accordance with the instructions in your
Dispatch No. 24, and leave for Paris.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

This last note is a rude one, and puts an abrupt close to my correspondence with M. Portalis.

[Sidenote: To Portalis and Récamier.]

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"14 _May_ 1829.

"My departure is fixed for the 16th. Letters from Vienna arriving
this morning announce that M. de Laval has refused the Foreign
Office; is it true? If he keeps to this refusal, what will happen?
God knows. I hope that all will be decided before my arrival in
Paris. It seems to me that we have become paralyzed and that we
have nothing free except our tongues.

"You think I shall come to an arrangement with M. de Laval; I doubt
it. I am inclined to come to an arrangement with nobody. I was
going to arrive in the most peaceful mood, and those people think
fit to pick a quarrel with me. So long as I had a chance of office,
they could not praise and flatter me enough in their dispatches;
the day on which the place was taken, or thought to be taken, they
drily inform me of M. de Laval's nomination in the rudest and at
the same time the most stupid dispatch. But, before becoming so
flat and insolent between one post and another, they ought to have
reflected a little whom they were addressing, and M. Portalis will
have learnt as much from a word which I have sent him lately in
reply. It is possible that he merely signed without reading, just
as Carnot signed hundreds of death-warrants on trust."

The friend of the great L'Hôpital[83], the Chancelier Olivier[84], in his sixteenth-century language, which set politeness at defiance, compares the French to monkeys which clamber to the tree-tops and never cease climbing until they reach the top-most branch, where they show what they ought to hide. All that has happened in France from 1789 to our own time proves the correctness of the simile: every man, as he ascends through life, becomes like the Chancellor's ape; he ends by shamelessly exposing his infirmities to the passers-by. See, at the end of my dispatches I am seized with a desire to boast: the great men who swarm at this present time prove that a man is a dupe if he does not himself proclaim his immortality.

Have you read, in the archives of the Foreign Office, the diplomatic correspondence relating to the most important events at the period of that correspondence?

"No."

At least you have read the printed correspondence: you know the negociations of Du Bellay, of d'Ossat, of Du Perron, of the Président Jeannin[85], the State Memoirs of Villeroi[86], the _Économies royales_ of Sully[87]; you have seen the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Richelieu[88], numbers of letters of Mazarin, the papers and documents relating to the Treaty of Westphalia[89], to the Peace of Munster[90]? You know Barillon's[91] Dispatches on English affairs; the negociations on the Spanish Succession are not unfamiliar to you; the name of Madame des Ursins has not escaped you; M. de Choiseul's[92] Family Compact has come under your notice; you are not unacquainted with Ximenes[93], Olivarez[94] and Pombal[95], Hugo Grotius on the liberty of the seas[96], his letters to the two Oxenstierns[97], the Negociations of the Grand Pensionary de Witt[98] with Peter Grotius[99], the second son of Hugo; in fine, the collection of diplomatic treaties has perhaps attracted your attention?

"No."

[Sidenote: My diplomatic dispatches.]