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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
Akerman and the emancipation of Greece, it would be possible
to make the Porte listen to reason; but what likelihood is there
that Russia will confine herself to terms which she might have
obtained without firing a gun? How could she abandon claims so
loudly and so publicly expressed? One means alone, if there be
one, would present itself: to propose a general congress at
which the Emperor Nicholas would yield, or appear to yield, to
the wishes of Christian Europe. A means of success with men is
to save their self-esteem, to supply them with a reason to
withdraw their word and issue from a bad plight with honour.
"The greatest obstacle to this plan of a
congress would come from the unexpected And reflections.
success of the Ottoman arms during the winter.
If, owing to the rigour of the season, the want of provisions, the
insufficiency of the troops, or any other cause, the Russians
were obliged to abandon the Siege of Silistria, if Varna, which,
however, is hardly probable, were to fall again into the hands of
the Turks, the Emperor Nicholas would find himself in a position
which would no longer permit him to listen to any proposal,
under the penalty of descending to the lowest rank of
monarchs: then the war would continue and we should come
back to the eventualities inferred in this Note. If Russia lost her
rank as a military power, if Turkey replaced her in this quality,
Europe would only have changed one peril for another. Now, the
danger which would come upon us through the scimitar of
Mahmud would be of a much more formidable nature than that
with which we should be threatened by the sword of the
Emperor Nicholas. If fortune, by chance, seat a remarkable
prince upon the Throne of the Sultans, he cannot live long
enough to change the laws and manners, even if he had the
intention to do so. Mahmud will die: to whom will he leave the
Empire, with its disciplined, fanatical soldiers, with its ulemas
holding in their hands, thanks to the initiation of modern tactics,
a new means of conquest for the Koran?
 "While Austria, at last terrified by those false calculations, would
be obliged to guard herself on frontiers where the janissaries
gave her nothing to fear, a new military insurrection, a possible
result of the humiliation of the Emperor Nicholas, would perhaps
break out in St. Petersburg, spread from place to place, and set
fire to the north of Germany. That is what the men do not
perceive who, in politics, confine themselves to vulgar terrors
and commonplaces. Petty dispatches, petty intrigues are the
barriers which Austria designs to oppose to an all—threatening
movement. If France and England adopted a course worthy of
themselves, if they notified the Porte that, in case the Sultan
should close his ears to all proposals of peace, he would find
them on the battle-field in the spring, that resolution would
soon have put an end to the anxiety of Europe."

*
The existence of this Memorandum, having transpired in the
diplomatic world, attracted to me a certain consideration which I did
not decline, but which I did not either aspire to. I do not too clearly
see what there was to surprise the "practical" men. My Spanish War
was a very "practical" thing. The incessant work of the general
revolution operating in the old society, while bringing about among
ourselves the fall of the Legitimacy, has upset calculations
subordinate to the permanence of facts as they existed in 1828.
Do you wish to convince yourselves of the enormous difference of
merit and glory between a great writer and a great politician? My
works as a diplomatist have been hallowed by what is recognised as
the supreme ability, success. And, still, whosoever may at any time
read this Memorandum will no doubt skip it close-legged, and I
should do as much in the reader's place[693]. Well, suppose that,
instead of this little diplomatic master-piece, we were to find in this
writing some episode after the manner of Homer or Virgil, if Heaven
had granted me their genius: do you think we should be tempted to
skip the loves of Dido at Carthage or the tears of Priam in Achilles'
tent?
 To Madame Récamier
"Rome, Wednesday, 10 December 1828.
"I have been to the Tiberine Academy, of which I have the
honour to be a member. I have heard very witty speeches and
very fine verses. What an amount of wasted intelligence! To-
night I have my great ricevimento; I am terrified of it as I write
to you."
"11 December.
A reception at
"The great ricevimento passed off admirably. the Embassy.
Madame de Chateaubriand is delighted,
because we had all the cardinals on the face of the earth. All
Europe in Rome was there with Rome. Since I am condemned
for some days to this business, I prefer to do it as well as
another ambassador. The enemies dislike any kind of success,
even the most miserable, and it is punishing them to succeed in
a field where they believe themselves unequalled. Next
Saturday, I transform myself into a canon of St. John Lateran,
and on Sunday I give a dinner to my colleagues. An assembly
more to my taste is that which takes place this evening: I dine
at Guérin's with all the artists and we shall settle your
monument to Poussin. A young pupil full of talent, M.
Desprez[694], will make the bas-relief, taken from a picture by
the great painter, and M. Lemoyne[695] will make the bust. We
must have only French hands here.
"To complete my History of Rome, Madame de Castries has
arrived. She again is one of those little girls who have sat on my
knee, like Césarine (Madame de Barante)[696]. The poor woman
is very much changed; her eyes filled with tears when I
reminded her of her childhood at Lormois. It seems to me that
the new arrival is no longer under the spell of enchantment.
What an isolation! And for whom? I tell you, the best thing for
me to do is to go to see you again as soon as possible. If my
Moses[697] comes down safely from the mountain, I will borrow
one of his rays, to reappear before your eyes quite brilliant and
youthful."
"Saturday, 13.
"My dinner at the Academy went off admirably. The young men
were pleased: it was the first time an ambassador had dined
'with them.' I announced the Poussin Monument to them; it was
as though I were already honouring their ashes."
Thursday, 18 December 1828.
"Instead of wasting my time and yours in telling you the doings
of my life, I prefer to send them to you all written down in the
Roman newspaper. Here are another twelve months that have
fallen on my head. When shall I have rest? When shall I cease
to waste on the high-roads the days that were given me to
make a better use of? I have spent with my eyes shut while I
was rich; I thought the treasure inexhaustible. Now, when I see
how it has diminished and how little time is left to me to lay at
your feet, I feel a pain at my heart. But is there not a long
existence after that on earth? A poor, humble Christian, I
tremble before Michael Angelo's Last Judgment; I know not
where I shall go, but, wherever you are not, I shall be very
unhappy. I have a hundred times acquainted you with my plans
and my future. Ruins, health, the loss of all illusion, all say to
me, 'Go away, retire, have done.' I find nothing at the end of my
day's journey but you. You wished me to mark my stay in Rome,
it is done: Poussin's tomb will remain. It will bear this
inscription:
F. A. de Ch . to Nicolas Poussin,
for the glory of art and the honour of france
[698].

"What more have I to do here now? Nothing, especially after

subscribing your name for the sum of one hundred ducats to
the monument of the man whom you say you love best 'after
myself:' Tasso."
 "Rome, Saturday, 3 January 1829.
"I am recommencing my good wishes for the New Year: may
Heaven grant you health and a long life! Do not forget me; I
have hopes, for, indeed, you remember M. de Montmorency and
Madame de Staël: your memory is as good as your heart. I was
saying yesterday to Madame Salvage[699] that I knew nothing in
the world so beautiful as yourself or better.
"I spent an hour yesterday with the Pope. We
spoke of everything, including the loftiest and An hour with Leo
XII.
gravest topics. He is a very distinguished and
enlightened man and a Prince full of dignity. The adventures of
my political life needed only that I should be in relations with a
sovereign pontiff; that completes my career.
"Would you like to know exactly what I do? I rise at half-past
five, I breakfast at seven o'clock; at eight o'clock, I go back to
my study, I write to you, or do some business, when there is
any to do (the detail-work in connection with the French
establishments and the French poor is pretty considerable); at
mid-day, I go to wander for two or three hours among the ruins,
or to St. Peter's, or to the Vatican. Sometimes I pay a necessary
visit before or after my walk; at five o'clock, I come home; I
dress for the evening; I dine at six o'clock; at half-past seven, I
go to a party with Madame de Chateaubriand, or I receive a few
people at home. At eleven, I go to bed, or else I go back once
more to the campagna, in spite of the robbers and the malaria.
What do I do there? Nothing: I listen to the silence and watch
my shadow passing from portico to portico along the moonlit
aqueducts.
"The Romans are so accustomed to my 'methodical' life that
they reckon the hours by me. They must be quick about it; I
shall soon have been round the clock."

"Rome, Thursday, 8 January 1828.

"I am very unhappy; the finest weather in the world has
changed into rain, so that I am no longer able to take my walks.
And yet that is the only pleasant moment of my day. I used to
go thinking of you to these deserted campagne; they linked the
past and the future in my sentiments, for formerly I used to
take the same walks. Once or twice a week, I go to the place
where the English girl was drowned: who now remembers that
poor young woman, Miss Bathurst[700]? Her fellow-countrymen
and women gallop along the river-side without thinking of her.
The Tiber, which has seen many other things, does not trouble
about her at all. Besides, its waters have been renewed: they
are as pale and still as when they passed over that creature full
of hope, beauty and life.
"I have fallen into a very lofty strain without knowing it. Forgive
a poor hare imprisoned and steeped in his form. I must tell you
a little story of my last 'Tuesday.' There was an immense crowd
at the Embassy; I was standing with my back against a marble
table, bowing to the people arriving and leaving. An
Englishwoman, of whom I knew neither the name nor the
appearance, came up to me, looked me straight in the face and
said, with the famous accent:
"'Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you are very unhappy!'
"Astonished at this apostrophe and at this manner of entering
into conversation, I asked her what she meant. She replied:
"'I mean to say that I pity you.'
"So saying, she linked her arm into that of another
Englishwoman, was lost in the crowd, and I did not see her
again during the rest of the evening. That eccentric stranger
was neither young nor pretty: I feel grateful to her,
nevertheless, for her mysterious words.
"Your newspapers continue to say the same things about me. I
don't know what has possessed them. I ought to believe myself
as forgotten as I wish to be.
"I am writing to M. Thierry by this post. He is at Hyères and
very ill. Not a word of reply from M. de La Bouillerie[701]."

To M. Thierry[702]

"Rome, 8 January 1829.

"I was much touched, monsieur, to receive the new edition of
your Letters, with a line which proves that you have thought of
me. If that line had been in your own hand, I should have
hoped for the sake of my country that your eyes would reopen
to the studies which your talent turns to such wonderful
account. I am greedily reading, or rather re-reading, this too
short work. I am making dog's ears to every page, in order the
better to mark the passages upon which I wish to rely. I shall
quote you very frequently, monsieur, in the work which I have
been so many years preparing, on the two first dynasties. I shall
shelter my ideas and my researches behind your authority; I
shall often adopt your reforms in nomenclature; lastly, I shall
have the good fortune to be almost invariably of your opinion,
while departing, much despite of myself, no doubt, from the
system put forth by M. Guizot; but I cannot, in common with
that illustrious writer, overthrow the most authentic monuments,
turn all the Franks into 'nobles' and 'free-men,' and all the
Roman-Gauls into 'slaves of the Franks.' The Salic Law and the
Ripuarian Law have a multitude of articles based on the
difference of condition among the Franks:
"'St quis ingenuus ingenuum ripuarium extra solum vendiderit,
etc., etc.'
"You know, monsieur, how eagerly I wished for
you in Rome. We should have sat down on Letter to
Augustin Thierry.
some ruins: there you would have taught me
history; I, an old disciple, would have listened to my young
master with the sole regret that I no longer had enough years
before me to profit by his lessons:
 Tel est le sort de l'homme: il s'instruit avec l'âge.
Mais que sert être sage,
Quand le terme est si près[703]?
"Those lines are from an unpublished ode, written by a man
who is no more, by my good and old friend, Fontanes. Thus,
monsieur, does everything remind me, among the remains of
Rome, of all that I have lost, of the short time that still remains
to me and of the brevity of those hopes which seemed so long
to me in former days: spem longam.
"Believe, monsieur, that no one admires you more, or is more
devoted to you than your servant."

Dispatch to M. le Comte de La Ferronays

"Rome, 12 January 1829.

"Monsieur le comte,

"I saw the Pope on the 2nd of this month; he was good enough
to keep me with him in private audience for an hour and a half.
I must report to you the conversation which I had with His
Holiness.
"We first spoke of France. The Pope began with the most
sincere praise of the King.
"'At no time,' he said, 'has the Royal Family of France displayed
so complete a harmony of good qualities and virtues. Now calm
has been restored among the clergy; the bishops have made
their submission.'
"'That submission,' I replied, 'is, in part, due to the sagacity and
moderation of Your Holiness.'
"'I advised what seemed reasonable to me to be done,'
answered the Pope. 'There were no spiritual matters involved in
the ordinances[704]; the bishops would have done better to
leave their first letter unwritten; but, after saying, "Non
possumus," it was difficult for them to withdraw. They tried to
display as little contradiction as possible between their actions
and their language at the moment of their adhesion: we must
forgive them for it. They are pious men, firmly attached to the
King and the Monarchy; they have their weaknesses in common
with all men.'
"All this, monsieur le comte, was said in very clear and excellent
French.
"After thanking the Holy Father for the confidence which he
showed me, I spoke to him in terms of consideration of the
Cardinal Secretary of State:
"'I chose him,' he said, 'because he has travelled, because he
knows the general affairs of Europe and because he seemed to
me to possess the sort of capacity which his post demands. He
has written, with respect to your two ordinances, only what I
thought and what I recommended him to write.'
"'Might I venture to give Your Holiness,' I resumed, 'my opinion
of the religious situation in France?'
"'You will be doing me a great pleasure,' replied the Pope.
"I suppress a few compliments which His Holiness was good
enough to address to me.
"'I think then, Most Holy Father, that the mischief arose in the
first place from a mistake of the clergy: instead of supporting
the new institutions, or at least keeping silence respecting those
institutions, they allowed words of blame, to say no more, to
escape in their charges and sermons. Irreligious persons, who
were at a loss with what to reproach saintly ministers, seized
upon those words and made a weapon of them; they cried that
Catholicism was incompatible with the establishment of public
liberty, that it was war to the death between the Charter and
the priests. By holding the opposite conduct, our ecclesiastics
would have obtained all they wanted from the nation. There is a
great ground-work of religion in France and a visible inclination
to forget our old misfortunes at the foot of the altars; but also
there is a real attachment to the institutions introduced by the
sons of St. Louis. It would be impossible to calculate the
measure of power to which the clergy might have attained, if
they had shown themselves at the same time friends to the King
and the Charter. I have never ceased to preach this policy in my
writings and in my speeches; but the passions of the moment
refused me a hearing and took me for an enemy.'
"The Pope had listened to me with the greatest attention.
"'I enter into your ideas,' he said, after a moment's pause.
'Jesus Christ made no pronouncement as to the form of
governments. "Render to Cæsar the things that are
Cæsar's[705]" means only, "Obey the established authorities."
The Catholic religion has prospered in the midst of republics as
in the bosom of monarchies; it has made immense progress in
the United States; it reigns alone in Spanish America.'
"These words are very remarkable, monsieur le comte, at the
very moment when the Court of Rome is strongly inclining to
establish the bishops nominated by Bolivar[706].
"The Pope resumed:
"'You see how great is the influx of Protestant strangers to
Rome: their presence does good to the country; but it is also
good in another respect: the English come here with strange
notions regarding the Pope and the Papacy, the fanaticism of
the clergy, the slavery of the people in this country; they have
not stayed here two months before they are quite changed.
They see that I am only a bishop like any other bishop, that the
Roman clergy are neither ignorant nor persecuting, and that my
subjects are not beasts of burden!'
"Encouraged by this sort of effusion of the heart, and seeking to
widen the scope of the conversation, I said to the Sovereign
Pontiff:
"'Does not Your Holiness think that the moment is favourable for
the recomposition of Catholic unity, for the reconciliation of the
dissenting sects, by some slight concessions of discipline? The
prejudices against the Court of Rome are vanishing in every
quarter and, in a century which was still ardent, the work of
reunion had already been attempted by Leibnitz[707] and
Bossuet.'
"'This is a great matter,' said the Pope; 'but I must await the
moment fixed by Providence. I agree that the prejudices are
vanishing; the division of the sects in Germany has brought
about the lassitude of those sects. In Saxony, where I resided
for three years, I was the first to establish a foundling hospital
and to obtain that this hospital should be served by Catholics. A
general outcry arose against me at the time among the
Protestants; to-day those same Protestants are the first to
praise and endow the institution. The number of Catholics is
increasing in Great Britain; it is true that they include many
foreigners.'
"The Pope pausing for a moment, I took occasion to introduce
the question of the Irish Catholics:
"'If the emancipation takes place,' I said, 'the Catholic religion
will increase still more in Great Britain.'
"'That is true on one side,' replied His Holiness,
'but on the other there are disadvantages. The Pope Leo XII. on
Ireland.
Irish Catholics are very ardent and very
incautious. Has not O'Connell, in other respects a man of merit,
gone so far as to say that a concordat had been proposed
between the Holy See and the British Government? There is not
a word of truth in this assertion; I cannot contradict it publicly;
and it has given me great pain. And so, for the union of the
dissenters, it is necessary that things should be ripe and that
God Himself should complete His work. The popes can only
wait.'
"This was not my opinion, monsieur le comte; but my business
was to inform the King of the Holy Father's opinion on so
serious a subject, not to combat it.
"'What will your newspapers say?' asked the Pope, with a sort of
gaiety. 'They talk a great deal! Those of the Netherlands still
more; but I am told that, in your country, nobody thinks of their
articles an hour after they have read them.'
"'That is absolutely true, Most Holy Father: you see how the
Gazette de France deals with me,'—for I know that His Holiness
reads all our newspapers, not excepting the Courrier—'and still
the Sovereign Pontiff treats me with extreme kindness; I have
reason to believe, therefore, that the Gazette does not make a
great impression on him.'—The Pope laughed and shook his
head.—'Well, Most Holy Father, there are others like Your
Holiness; when the paper tells the truth, the good it says
remains; if it lies, it is as though it had said nothing at all. The
Pope must expect some speeches during this session: the
Extreme Right will maintain that M. le Cardinal Bernetti is not a
priest and that his letters on the ordinances are not articles of
faith; the Extreme Left will declare that we need not have taken
our orders from Rome. The majority will commend the
deference of the Privy Council and will loudly praise the spirit of
peace and wisdom of Your Holiness.'
"This little explanation appeared to charm the Holy Father, who
was pleased to meet with some one acquainted with the
workings of our constitutional machine. Finally, monsieur le
comte, thinking that the King and his Council would like to know
the views of the Pope on the present state of affairs in the East,
I repeated some news out of the papers, not being authorized
to communicate to the Holy See the positive facts of which you
informed me in your dispatch of the 18th December touching
the recall of our expedition to the Morea.
"The Pope did not hesitate to reply; he appeared to me to be
alarmed at the imprudence of instructing the Turks in military
discipline. I give his own words:
"'If the Turks are already capable of resisting Russia, what will
their power be when they have obtained a glorious peace? Who
will prevent them, after four or five years spent in rest and in
perfecting their new tactics, from hurling themselves upon
Italy?'
"I will confess, monsieur le comte, that, when I recognised
these ideas and these anxieties in the mind of the Sovereign
most exposed to the effects of the consequence of the
enormous error that has been committed, I congratulated
myself on having displayed to you in fuller detail, in my Note on
Eastern Affairs, the same ideas and the same anxieties.
"'Nothing,' added the Pope, 'except a firm resolution on the part
of the Allied Powers, can put an end to a misfortune which
threatens the future. France and England are still in time to stop
everything; but, if a new campaign open, it can set Europe on
fire, and then it will be too late to extinguish it.'
"'That reflection is the more just,' I answered, 'seeing that, if
Europe were to become divided, which God forbid, the presence
of fifty thousand Frenchmen would stir up the whole question
again.'
"The Pope made no reply; only it appeared to me that the idea
of seeing the French in Italy filled him with no sort of fear. Every
one is weary of the inquisition of the Court of Vienna, of its
cavilling, of its continual encroachments and of its little plots to
unite the peoples which detest the Austrian yoke into a
confederation against France.
"This, monsieur le comte, is a summary of my long conversation
with His Holiness. I do not know that any one has ever been in
a position to know more thoroughly the inner sentiments of the
Pope, that any one has ever heard a prince who governs the
Christian world express himself so plainly on subjects so vast
and so far removed from the narrow circle of diplomatic
commonplaces. Here there was no intermediary between the
Sovereign Pontiff and myself and it was easy to see that Leo
XII., thanks to his candid character and the impulse of a familiar
conversation, dissimulated nothing and in no way sought to
deceive.
"The leanings and wishes of the Pope are evidently towards
France: when he assumed the Keys of St. Peter, he belonged to
the faction of the zelanti; to-day he has sought his strength in
moderation: that is what the habit of power always teaches. For
this reason he is not beloved by the faction of cardinals which
he has quitted. Finding no man of talent in the secular clergy,
he has chosen his chief advisers among the regular clergy;
hence it comes that the monks are on his side, while the
prelates and the simple priests make a sort of opposition to him.
The latter, when I arrived in Rome, all had their minds more or
less infected with the lies of our congregation; they are now
infinitely more reasonable; they all, generally speaking, blame
the rising in arms of our clergy. It is curious to remark that the
Jesuits have as many enemies here as in France: they have as
their special adversaries the other religious and the heads of
Orders. They had formed a plan by means of which they would
have seized upon the public instruction in Rome to the exclusion
of the others: the Dominicans have foiled that plan. The Pope is
not very popular, because he administers well. His little army
consists of old soldiers of Bonaparte, who have a very military
bearing and keep excellent order on the high-roads. If material
Rome has lost in picturesqueness, it has gained in cleanliness
and healthiness. His Holiness plants trees and arrests hermits
and beggars: another subject of complaint for the populace. Leo
XII. is a great worker; he sleeps little and eats scarcely at all.
Only one taste remains to him of his youth, that of sport, an
exercise necessary to his health, which, for that matter, seems
to be improving. He has a few shots with a fowling-piece in the
vast enclosure of the Gardens of the Vatican. The zelanti find it
very difficult to forgive him this innocent diversion. The Pope is
reproached with the weakness and inconstancy of his affections.
"The radical vice of the political constitution of this country is
easily seized upon: it is old men who appoint as sovereign an
old man like themselves. This old man, when he becomes the
master, in his turn appoints old men as cardinals. Turning in this
vicious circle, the enervated supreme power is in this way
always at the edge of the tomb. The prince never occupies the
throne for a long enough period to execute the plans of
improvement which he may have conceived. A pope ought to
have sufficient resolution suddenly to promote a number of
young cardinals, in such a way as to ensure at the next election
the majority of a young pope. But the rules of Sixtus V.[708],
which give the hat to palace employments, the empire of
custom and habit, the interests of the people, who receive
gratifications at each change of the tiara, the individual ambition
of the cardinals, who wish for short reigns in order to multiply
their chances of the papacy, these and a thousand other
obstacles too long to narrate are opposed to the rejuvenation of
the Sacred College.
"The conclusion of this dispatch, monsieur le comte, is that, in
the present condition of affairs, the King can reckon entirely on
the Court of Rome.
"Cautious as I am in my manner of seeing and feeling, if I have
anything with which to reproach myself in the report which I
have the honour to send you, it is that I have weakened rather
than exaggerated the expression of His Holiness' words. My
memory is very safe; I wrote down the conversation on leaving
the Vatican and my private secretary has simply copied it word
for word from my minutes. The latter, rapidly jotted down, were
hardly legible to myself. You would never have been able to
decipher them[709].
"I have the honour to be, etc."
 To Madame Récamier

"Rome, Tuesday, 13 January 1829.

"Yesterday evening, at eight o'clock, I wrote you the letter
which M. Du Viviers[710] is bringing you; this morning, on
waking, I am writing to you again by the ordinary post, which
leaves at noon. You know the poor ladies of Saint-Denis: they
have been much neglected since the arrival of the great ladies
of the Trinità-del-Monte; without being the enemy of the latter, I
have taken the side of the former with Madame de Ch. For the
last month, the ladies of Saint-Denis have been wishing to give
a fête in honour of 'M. the Ambassador' and 'Madame the
Ambassadress:' it took place yesterday at mid-day. Imagine a
theatre arranged in a sort of sacristy with a platform giving on
to the church; as actors, a dozen young girls from eight years to
fourteen, who played the Machabées. They had themselves
made their helmets and cloaks. They spoke their French lines
with an enthusiasm and an Italian accent which were the
funniest things in the world; they stamped their feet at
energetic moments: there was a niece of Pius VII., a daughter
of Thorwaldsen, and another daughter of Chauvin[711] the
painter. They were incredibly pretty in their paper finery. The
one who played the High Priest had a great black beard which
delighted her but pricked her, and which she was constantly
obliged to put right with a little thirteen-year-old white hand. As
spectators, ourselves, a few mothers, the nuns, Madame
Salvage, two or three priests and a further score of little school-
girls, all in white, with veils. We had had cakes and ices brought
from the Embassy. They played the piano between the acts.
Imagine the hopes and joys which, must have preceded this
fête at the convent, and the memories which will follow it! The
whole ended with Vivat in æternum, sung by three nuns in the
church."
"Rome, 15 January 1829.
"Yours again! Last night we had wind and rain as in France: I
imagined them beating against your little window; I found
myself transported to your little room, I saw your harp, your
piano, your birds; you played me my favourite air, or
Shakspeare's: and I was in Rome, far away from you! Four
hundred leagues and the Alps separate us!
"I have received a letter from that witty lady
who used sometimes to come to see me at the Amateur
theatricals.
Foreign Office; you can judge how well she
courts me: she is a furious Turcophile; Mahmud is a great man,
who is in advance of his nation!
"This Rome, in whose midst I live, ought to teach me to despise
politics. Here liberty and tyranny have both perished: I see the
huddled ruins of the Roman Republic and the Empire of
Tiberius; what is all this to-day blended in the same dust? Does
not the Capuchin who sweeps that dust with his gown as he
goes by seem to make the vanity of so many vanities even more
perceptible? Nevertheless, I come back, in spite of myself, to
the destinies of my poor country. I would wish it religion, glory
and liberty, without thinking of my powerlessness to deck it with
that triple crown."
"Rome, Thursday, 5 February 1829.
"Torre Vergata is a domain of monks situated at about a league
from Nero's Tomb, on the left as you come from Rome, in the
most beautiful and deserted spot: there is an immense number
of ruins level with the ground covered with grass and thistle. I
began an excavation there two days ago, on Tuesday, just after
I had written to you. I was accompanied by Hyacinthe and by
Visconti[712], who is directing the excavation. The weather was
the loveliest in the world. A dozen men armed with spades and
pickaxes, digging up tombs and ruins of houses and palaces
amid profound solitude, offered a spectacle worthy of you. I
uttered but one wish: that you might be there. I would gladly
consent to live with you in a tent amid those ruins.
"I myself put my hand to the work; I discovered fragments of
marble: the clues are excellent and I hope to find something to
compensate me for the money wasted in this lottery of the
dead; already I have a block of Greek marble large enough to
make Poussin's bust. This excavation will become the object of
my walks; I shall go and sit everyday in the midst of these
remains. To which century, to which men did they belong? We
are perhaps removing the most illustrious dust without knowing
it. Perhaps an inscription will come to throw light upon some
historic fact, to destroy some error, to establish some truth. And
then, when I have gone away with my twelve half-naked
peasants, all will fall back into oblivion and silence. Do you
picture to yourself all the passions, all the interests which once
bestirred themselves in these abandoned spots? There were
masters and slaves, happy people and unhappy, beautiful
persons who were beloved and ambitious people who wanted to
be ministers. There remain a few birds and I, for but a very
short time longer; soon we shall fly away. Tell me, do you think
it worth while to be one of the members of the council of a little
king of the Gauls, for me, an Armorican barbarian, a traveller
among savages of a world unknown to the Romans and
ambassador to the priests whom they used to throw to the
lions? When I called to Leonidas at Lacedæmon, he did not
answer: the sound of my footsteps at Torre Vergata will have
roused nobody. And when I, in my turn, am in my grave, I shall
not hear even the sound of your voice. I must therefore hurry to
come closer to you and to put an end to all these idle fancies of
the life of men. There is nothing good save retirement, nothing
true save an attachment like yours."
"Rome, 7 February 1829.
"I have received a long letter from General Guilleminot[713]; he
gives me a lamentable account of what he suffered during his
journeys on the coasts of Greece: and yet Guilleminot was an
ambassador; he had large ships and an army under his orders.
To go, after our soldiers have left, to a country in which not a
house nor a corn-field remains, among a few scattered men,
driven by poverty to become brigands, is an impossible project
for a woman[714].
"I shall go to my excavation this morning:
yesterday we found the skeleton of a Gothic My excavations.
soldier and the arm of a female statue. It was
as though one had come upon the destroyer together with the
ruin he had made; we have great hopes of finding the statue
this morning. If the architectural remains which I am uncovering
are worth the trouble, I shall not break them up to sell the
bricks, as is usually done: I shall leave them standing, and they
will bear my name. They belong to the time of Domitian. We
have an inscription which shows this: it is the good time of the
Roman arts."

Dispatches to M. le Comte Portalis

"Rome, Monday, 9 February 1829.

"Monsieur le comte,

"His Holiness had a sudden attack this morning of the disorder

to which he is subject; his life is in the most imminent danger.
The order has been given to close all the theatres. I have just
left the Cardinal Secretary of State, who is himself ill and who
despairs of the Pope's life. The loss of this enlightened and
modern Sovereign Pontiff would, at the present moment, be a
real calamity for Christianity and especially for France. I thought
it important, monsieur le comte, that His Majesty's Government
should be warned of this probable event, so that it may be
enabled to take such measures beforehand as it shall consider
necessary. Consequently, I have dispatched a mounted courier
to Lyons. This courier carries a letter which I am writing to
Monsieur the Prefect of the Rhône, with a telegraphic dispatch
which he will forward to you, and another letter which I am
asking him to send you by express. If we have the misfortune to
lose His Holiness, a fresh courier will bring you all the details to
Paris.
"I have the honour to be, etc."
"Eight o'clock in the evening.
"The congregation of Cardinals already assembled has forbidden
the Cardinal Secretary of State to give permits for post-horses.
My courier will not be able to leave until after the departure of
the courier of the Sacred College, in case of the Pope's death. I
have tried to send a man to carry my dispatches to the Tuscan
frontier. The bad roads and the absence of livery-horses have
made this plan impracticable. Obliged to wait in Rome, which
has become a kind of closed prison, I still hope that the news
will reach you by telegraph a few hours before it is known to the
other governments beyond the Alps. It might nevertheless
happen that the courier sent to the Nuncio, who will necessarily
leave before mine, will himself, when passing through Lyons,
give you the news by telegraph."
"Tuesday, 10 February, nine o'clock in the
morning. Death of Leo
XII.
"The Pope is dead; my courier is leaving. In a
few hours he will be followed by M. le Comte de
Montebello[715], attaché to the Embassy."
Rome, 10 February 1829.
"Monsieur le comte,

I dispatched to Lyons, about two hours ago, the special

mounted courier who will forward to you the unexpected and
deplorable news of the death of His Holiness. Now I am sending
off M. le Comte de Montebello, attaché to the Embassy, to
convey to you some necessary details.
"The Pope died of the hemorrhoidal affection to which he was
subject. The blood being extravasated into the bladder
occasioned a retention, which an attempt was made to relieve
by means of a sound. His Holiness is believed to have been
wounded in the course of the operation. In any case, after four
days' suffering, Leo XII. expired this morning at nine o'clock, as
I came to the Vatican, where an agent of the Embassy had
passed the night. The letter sent by my first courier informs
you, monsieur le comte, of my useless efforts to obtain a permit
for post-horses before the Pope's death.
"Yesterday I called on the Cardinal Secretary of State, who was
still very ill with a violent attack of gout; I had a rather long
conversation with him on the consequences of the misfortune
with which we were threatened. I lamented the death of a
Prince whose moderate sentiments and whose knowledge of
European affairs were so useful to the repose of Christianity.
"'It is not only a great misfortune for France,' answered the
Secretary of State, 'but a greater misfortune for the Roman
States than you imagine. Discontent and poverty are great in
our provinces and, if the cardinals think fit to adopt a different
system from that of Leo XII., they will find their work cut out for
them. As for myself, my functions cease with the death of the
Pope and I have nothing to reproach myself with.'
"This morning I again saw Cardinal Bernetti, who has, in fact,
laid down his functions as Secretary of State: he spoke to me to
the same effect as on the preceding day. I asked him to let me
meet him before he secluded himself in the Conclave. We
agreed that we should talk of electing a sovereign pontiff who
should continue the system of moderation of Leo XII. I shall
have the honour to communicate to you all the information that
I may gather.
"It is probable that the death of the Pope and the fall of
Cardinal Bernetti will delight the enemies of the ordinances[716],
they will proclaim this unhappy event a punishment from
Heaven. It is easy already to read that thought on certain
French faces in Rome.
"I regret the Pope for more than one reason; I had had the
good fortune to gain his confidence: the prejudices which had
been carefully instilled into his mind against me, before my
arrival, had become dispelled and he did me the honour, on all
occasions, to bear witness, publicly and aloud, to the esteem in
which he was good enough to hold me.
"Now, monsieur le comte, permit me to enter into the
explanation of a few facts.
"I was Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time of the death of
Pius VII. You will find in the boxes at the Office, if you think it
advisable to look into the matter, the continuous account of my
relations with M. le Duc de Laval. The custom is, on the death of
a Pope, to send an extraordinary ambassador, or to accredit the
resident ambassador through new letters to the Sacred College.
The latter is the course which I proposed to His late Majesty,
Louis XVIII., to follow. The King will do what he thinks best for
his service. Four French cardinals came to Rome for the election
of Leo XII. France to-day numbers five; a number of votes
certainly not to be despised in the Conclave. I shall, monsieur le
comte, await the King's orders. M. de Montebello, who is
instructed to hand you this dispatch, will remain at your
disposal.
"I have the honour to be, etc."

To Madame Récamier

"Rome, 10 February 1829, eleven d clock at night.

"I wished to write you a long letter; but the dispatch, which I
was obliged to write with my own hand, and the fatigue of
these last days have exhausted me.
"I regret the Pope; I had obtained his confidence. I am now
charged with an important mission; it is impossible for me to
know what the result will be, or what influence it will have over
my destiny.
"The conclaves generally last two months,
which will at least leave me free for Easter. I Conclave
arrangements.
will soon talk to you thoroughly of all that.
"Picture to yourself that they found that poor Pope, on Thursday
last, before he fell ill, writing his epitaph. They tried to divert
him from such sad thoughts:
"'No, no,' he said; 'it will be over in a few days.'"
"Rome, Thursday, 12 February 1829.
"I read your newspapers. They often give me pain. I see in the
Globe that Monsieur le Comte Portalis is, according to that
journal, my declared enemy. Why? Do I ask his place? He is
taking too much pains; I do not so much as think of him. I wish
him all possible prosperity; but yet, if it were true that he
wanted war, he would find me there. People seem to me to be
talking nonsense about everything, both about the immortal
Mahmud and the evacuation of the Morea.
"In the most probable event, this evacuation will put back
Greece under the yoke of the Turks, with the loss to us of our
honour and forty millions. There is a prodigious amount of wit in
France, but we lack judgment and common-sense; two phrases
make us drunk, we are led with words, and what is worse is
that we are always ready to disparage our friends and exalt our
enemies. Besides, is it not curious that they should make the
King, in his Speech[717], use my own language on 'the
agreement of the public liberties and the Royalty,' and that they
should have found such fault with me for using that language?
And the men who make the Crown speak thus were once the
warmest partizans of the censorship! For the rest, I am going to
see the election of the Head of Christianity; this spectacle is the
 last great spectacle that I shall witness in my life[718]; it will
close my career.
"Now that pleasures have ceased in Rome, business is
commencing. I shall be obliged, on the one hand, to write of all
that happens to the Government and, on the other, to fulfil the
duties of my new position. I must compliment the Sacred
College and attend the funeral of the Holy Father, to whom I
had become attached because he was but little loved, and the
more so in that, fearing that I should find an enemy in him, I
found a friend who, from the chair of St. Peter, formally gave
the lie to my 'Christian' calumniators. Then the French cardinals
are going to come down upon me. I have written to make
representations at least touching the Archbishop of
Toulouse[719].
"In the midst of all this stir, the Poussin monument is being
executed; the excavation is successful; I have found three fine
heads, a draped female torso, a funeral inscription by a brother
to a young sister, which touched me.
"Talking of inscriptions, I told you that the poor Pope had made
his on the day before that on which he was taken ill, predicting
that he was soon going to die. He has left a writing in which he
recommends his indigent family to the Roman Government: only
those who have loved much have such great virtues."

[500] This book was written in Rome in 1828 and 1829, and revised in February
1845.—T.
[501] In re-reading those manuscripts, I have merely added a few passages from
works published subsequently to the date of my embassy to Rome.—Author's
Note.
[502] Æn., IV. 23.—B.
[503] Formerly the residence of the Comtesse de Beaumont.—T.
[504] Madame de Duras died at Nice in January 1829.—B.
[505] "Great-hearted Clara, noble, faithful friend,
Thy memory is no longer in the land;
Thy very grave by men's cold eyes is bann'd;
The world forgets thee, and thy name doth end."—T.
[506] All the foregoing, from the words "which overtook her at Nice," was added
afterwards to Chateaubriand's diary of the road. Manifestly he could not insert in
his journal, on the 25th of September 1828, a note from the Duchesse de Duras
written on the 14th of November 1828; nor could he speak of the death of
Madame de Duras and of her tomb, seeing that she died only in 1829.—B.
[507] St. Charles Cardinal Count Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan (1538-1584), was
born at Arona on the Lago Maggiore, where a colossal statue, 70 feet high, was
erected to his memory in 1697. St. Charles is buried in Milan Cathedral. He was
canonized in 1610 and is honoured on the 4th of November.—T.
[508] If Chateaubriand did not see Marie-Louise in 1828, when passing through
Parma, he had dined with her, some years before, at Verona, where she had gone
to see her father, during the sitting of the Congress.
"We at first," he writes, "refused an invitation from the Archduchess of Parma. She
insisted, and we went. We found her very gay; the universe having made it its
business to remember Napoleon, she no longer had the trouble of thinking of him.
She spoke a few careless words, and as it were casually, about the King of Rome:
she was pregnant. Her Court had a certain air of dilapidation and decay, excepting
M. de Neipperg, a man of good manners. There was nothing out of the common
except ourselves dining at Marie-Louise's table and the bracelets, made out of the
stone of Juliet's sarcophagus, worn by Napoleon's widow. As we crossed the Po, at
Piacenza, a single bark, newly painted, carrying a sort of imperial ensign, attracted
our eyes. Two or three dragoons, in shell-jackets and forage-caps, were watering
their horses; we were entering the States of Marie-Louise; that was all that
remained of the power of the man who clove the rocks of the Simplon, planted his
banners on the capitals of Europe, and raised Italy which had lain prostrate for so
many centuries."
When speaking to Marie-Louise, Chateaubriand told her that he had met her
soldiers at Piacenza, but that that little troop was nothing beside the great imperial
armies of former days. She answered drily:
"I never think of that now." (Congrès de Vérone, Vol. I. p. 69.)—B.
[509] Charles Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Lucca, later Charles II. Duke of Parma
(1799-1883), son of Maria Louisa of Spain, ex-Queen of Etruria, and heir, by the
terms of an arrangement concluded in Paris in 1817, to the Duchies of Parma and
Piacenza on the death of Marie-Louise. This occurred in 1847, when Charles
became Duke of Parma; but he abdicated, in March 1849, in favour of his son,
Charles III., who was assassinated in 1854. Charles III. was succeeded by his son,
the present Duke Robert I., then a child of six years of age, who was dethroned in
1860, and his duchy annexed to Sardinia by Victor Emmanuel II.—B.
[510] Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619), the founder of the Bolognese School, and
his two cousins and pupils, Agostino Carracci (1558-1602) and his brother
Annibale Carracci (1560-1609).—T.
[511] Pius VII. became Bishop of Tivoli in 1780, Bishop of Imola and a cardinal in
1785, and Pope in 1800.—T.
[512] Purgatorio, Canto XVI. 65-66.—B.
[513] Beatrice de' Bardi (1266-1290), née Portinari, celebrated by Dante in his Vita
Nuova and Divina Commedia.—T.
[514] Dante, Vita Nuova, Canto III. 78.—T.
[515] Theodore Martin's Dante, Vita Nuova, Canto III., the closing stanza.—T.
[516] Cary's Dante: Purgatory, XXX. 23-28.—T.
[517] "Quando nel mondo ad ora adora
M'insegnavate come l'uom s'eterna."
Inferno, Canto XV. 84-85.—B.
[518] Teresa Contessa Guiccioli, later Marquise de Boissy (1801-1873), née
Gamba. She lived with Lord Byron between 1819 and 1823. She married Hilaire
Étienne Octave Rouillé, Marquis de Boissy, in 1851.—T.
[519] The octagonal basilica of San Vitale does, in fact, recall Constantinople,
because it was built, under Justinian, in imitation of St. Sophia. Charlemagne
caused it to be copied for the Church of Aix-la-Chapelle.—B.
[520] The Church of San Apollinare, erected under Theodoric at the
commencement of the sixth century, also presents the Byzantine type in all its
oriental brilliancy. The twenty-four columns of Greek marble which divide the
church into three aisles were brought to Ravenna from Constantinople.—T.
[521] Honorius Flavius Emperor of the West (384-423). His love for a hen called
Roma forms an anecdote related by Procopius.—B.
[522] Galla Placidia (circa 388-450 or 451), daughter of Theodosius the Great,
sister of Honorius and mother of Valentinian III. Her adventures indeed form the
strangest of romances. Born at Constantinople, she was taken prisoner at the
siege of Rome by Alaric and carried off in captivity. Atawulf, Alaric's brother-in-law,
became smitten with her and married her. After his death, she married
Constantius, one of Honorius' generals, who soon assumed the title of Constantius
III. After being first the slave and then the Queen of the Visigoths, she governed
the Western Empire in the name of her infant son. Her tomb is at Ravenna.—B.
[523] Theodoric the Great (circa 454-526), King of the Ostrogoths and, after 493,
sole ruler of Italy.—T.
[524] Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (circa 475—circa 524), a Roman
philosopher, author of De Consolatione Philosophiæ. He was put to death by
Theodoric, without trial, on the charge of treason and magic.—T.
[525] Amalasontha (498-535), daughter of Theodoric the Great, and Regent
during the minority of her son Athalric King of the Ostrogoths (526). Athalric died
in 534, and Amalasontha divided the authority with her cousin Theodatus, whom
she married, and who ordered her to be strangled in 535.—T.
[526] Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus (circa 468—circa 560), a wise administrative
officer under Odoacer, Theodoric and Amalasontha. He retired to a monastery in
Calabria in 538, where he wrote his History of the Goths and other works.—T.
[527] The Exarchate of Ravenna was instituted in 568, after the conquest of the
Ostrogothic Kingdom by the Byzantines. It at first comprised all Italy, but was soon
confined to the district round Ravenna and, in 755, was taken from the Lombards
by Pepin the Short, and granted to Rome.—T.
[528] Astolf King of the Lombards (d. 756). His conquest of the Exarchate of
Ravenna (752) was wrested from him by Pepin the Short in 755.—T.
[529] Ravenna finally passed to the Papal States in 1509.—T.
[530] Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II. (1443-1513), elected to the Papacy in
1503.—T.
[531] Giovanni Cardinal de' Medici, later Pope Leo X. (1475-1521), was created a
cardinal at the age of thirteen, fought for Pope Julius II. at Ravenna, in 1512,
where he was taken prisoner, and was elected successor to Julius on his death in
the following year.—T.
[532] Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), the celebrated Italian poet and author of
Orlando Furioso.—T.
[533] Pierre du Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard (1476-1524), the Chevalier sans peur
et sans reproche.—T.
[534] Gaston de Foix, Maréchal Duc de Nemours (1489-1512), defeated the Papal
and Spanish forces at the celebrated Battle of Ravenna, on the 11th of April 1512,
but was killed while pursuing the beaten enemy.—T.
[535] Caterina Sforza (d. 1460), natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and
widow of Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola and Forli, sustained a siege at Forli
against Cæsar Borgia, and was captured in the breach with her son Ottaviano.
Louis XII. caused her to be set at liberty. She had taken a Medici for her second
husband, and died at Florence.—T.
[536] Inferno, Canto VII. 75.—B.
[537] Annibale della Genga, Pope Leo XII. (1760-1829), elected to the Papacy in
1823.—T.
[538] Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, Roman Emperor (circa 53-117), succeeded the
Emperor Nerva in 98. The Arch of Trajan was erected at Ancona in 112; it is of
white marble, stands at the end of the break-water, and is perhaps the best-
proportioned of all the Roman triumphal arches.—T.
[539] Donato d'Agnolo Bramante (1444-1514), the celebrated Italian architect and
predecessor of Michael Angelo.—T.
[540] The Chiesa della Santa Casa, which contains the famous pilgrimage shrine of
the veritable House of Our Lady, transported by angels from Nazareth and
miraculously set down in Italy on the 10th of December 1294.—T.
[541] Léonore de Montaigne, later Vicomtesse de Gamaches. The reference occurs
in Montaigne's Journey into Italy.—T.
[542] The Treaty of Tolentino was signed on the 19th of February 1797, between
General Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII.—T.
[543] The Battle of Lake Trasimenus (217 B.C.) at which Hannibal routed the
Romans. Fifteen thousand of the latter were killed or driven into the lake and
drowned; six thousand were taken prisoners; and ten thousand saved themselves
by dispersion and flight.—T.
[544] Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), the French historical and landscape painter.—T.
[545] Cf. Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV., stanzas 66 et seq.—T.
[546] Leo XII. was born at Genga, near Spoleto, in 1766.—T.
[547] Spoleto repulsed the victorious enemy after the Battle of Trasimenus in 217
B.C.—T.
[548] Fra Filippo Lippi (circa 1402-1469) was placed by his aunt in a Carmelite
convent. He left it when about twenty and, during an excursion at sea, was taken
captive by some Moorish pirates. He purchased his liberty by drawing a full-length
portrait of his master in charcoal on a white wall. He died at Spoleto, said to have
been poisoned, on the 9th of October 1469.—T.
[549] Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), the author of Don Quixote de la
Mancha, was captured on returning to Spain, four years after the Battle of
Lepanto, in 1575, and passed five years in captivity in Algiers. He was ransomed
by his family and religious charity in 1580.—T.
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