I travelled from Piombino to Florence, where I had great honours and vast
offers from the Grand Duke, though Mazarin had threatened him, in the
King's name, with a rupture if he granted me passage through his
dominions; but the Grand Duke sent to desire the Cardinal to let him know
whether there was any possibility of refusing it without disobliging the
Pope and the Sacred College. As I was travelling through the Duke's
country, my mules, being frightened by a clap of thunder, ran with my
litter into a brook, where I narrowly escaped being drowned.
As soon as I arrived at Rome the Pope sent me 4,000 crowns in gold. I
was immediately informed that a strong faction was formed there against
me by the Court of France; that the Cardinal d'Est, representative of
that nation, had terrible orders from the King; and that they were
resolved to send me packing from Rome, cost what it would. I had my old
scruples upon me, and said I would die a thousand deaths rather than make
resistance; but I thought it would be too disrespectful in a cardinal to
come so near the Pope and to go away without kissing his feet, and I
resolved to leave the rest to the providence of God.
The Pope having ordered his guards to be ready, in case the French
faction should offer to rise, the Cardinal d'Est was so good as to let me
alone. His Holiness gave me an audience of four hours, condescended to
beg my forgiveness for not having acted with more vigour for my liberty;
and said, with tears in his eyes: "God forgive those who delayed to give
me timely notice of your imprisonment, and who made us believe that you
had been guilty, of an attempt upon the King's person. The Sacred
College took fire at the news; but the French Ambassador being at
liberty, to give out what he chose, because nobody, appeared here on your
part to contradict him, Mazarin extinguished it, and half the Sacred
College thought you were abandoned by the whole kingdom." In short, the
Pope was so well disposed to me that he thought of adopting me as his
nephew, but he sickened soon after and died.
The conclave chose Cardinal Chigi (who was called Alexander VIII.) for
his successor, in whose election I had such a share that when it came to
my turn, at the adoration of the cardinals, to kiss his feet, he embraced
me, saying, "Signor Cardinal de Retz, 'ecce opus manuum tuarum'" ("Behold
the work of your own hands"). I went home accompanied with one hundred
and twenty coaches of gentlemen, who did not doubt that I should govern
the Pontificate.
My friends in France, who commonly judge of other nations by their own,
imagined that a persecuted cardinal might, nay, ought to live like a
private man even at Rome, and advised me not to spend much money, because
my revenues in France were all seized, and said that such exemplary
modesty would have an admirable effect upon the clergy of Paris. But
Cardinal Chigi talked after another manner: "When you are reestablished
in your see you may live as you please, because you will be in a country
where everybody will know what you are or are not able to do. You are
now at Rome, where your enemies say every day that you have lost your
credit in France, and you are under a necessity to make it appear that
what they say is false. You are not a hermit, but a cardinal, and a
cardinal, too, of the better rank. At Rome there are many people who
love to tread upon men when they are down. Dear sir, take care you do
not fall, and do but consider what a figure you will make in the streets
with six vergers attending you; otherwise every pitiful citizen of Paris
that meets you will be apt to jostle you, in order to make his court to
the Cardinal d'Est. You ought not to have come to Rome if you had not
had resolution and the means to support your dignity. I presume you do
not make it a point of Christian humility to debase yourself. And let me
tell you that I, the poor Cardinal Chigi, who have but 5,000 crowns
revenue, and am one of the poorest in the College, and though I am sure
to meet nobody in the streets who will be wanting in the respect due to
the purple, yet I cannot go to my functions without four coaches in
livery to attend me."
Therefore I hired a palace, kept a great table, and entertained fourscore
persons in liveries. The Cardinal d'Est, the very day after the creation
of the new Pope, forbade all Frenchmen to give me the way in the streets,
and charged the superiors of the French churches not to admit me. M. de
Lionne, who resided here as a sort of private secretary to Mazarin, was
so nettled because the new Pope had granted me the pallium for my
archbishopric that he told him the King would never own me, insinuated
that there would be a schism among the clergy of France, and that the
Pope must expect to be excluded from the congress for a general peace.
This so frightened his Holiness that he made a million of mean excuses,
and said, with tears in his eyes, that I had imposed upon him, and that
he would take the first opportunity to do the King justice. Upon this M.
de Lionne sent word to the Cardinal that he hoped very shortly to
acquaint him of my being prisoner in the Castle of Saint Angelo, and that
the Cardinal would be no better off for his Majesty's amnesty, because
the Pope said none but he could absolve or condemn cardinals. Meantime
all my domestics who were subjects of the King of France were ordered to
quit my service, on pain of being treated as rebels and traitors. I
could have little hope of protection from the Pope, for he was become
quite another man, never spoke one word of truth, and continually amused
himself with mere trifles, insomuch that one day he proposed a reward for
whoever found out a Latin word for "calash," and spent seven or eight
days in examining whether "mosco" came from "muses," or "musts" from
"mosco." All his piety consisted in assuming a serious air at church, in
which, nevertheless, there was a great mixture of pride, for he was vain
to the last degree, and envious of everybody. The work entitled
"Sindicato di Alexandro VII." gives an account of his luxury and of
several pasquinades against the said Pope, particularly that one day
Marforio asking Pasquin what he had said to the cardinals upon his
death-bed, Pasquin answered, "Maxima de aeipso, plurima de parentibus,
parva de principibus, turpia de cardinalibus, pauca de Ecclesia, de Deo
nihil." ("He said fine things of himself, a great many things of his
kindred, some things of princes, nothing good of the cardinals, but
little of the Church, and nothing at all of God"). His Holiness, in a
consistory, laid claim to the merit of the conversion of Christina, Queen
of Sweden, though everybody knew to the contrary, and that she had
abjured heresy a year and a half before she came to Rome.
Having heard that Bussiere, who is Chamberlain to the Ambassadors at
Rome, had declared I should not have a place in Saint Louis's church on
the festival of that saint, I was not discouraged from going thither. At
my entrance he snatched the holy water stick from the cure just as he was
going to sprinkle me; nevertheless, I took my place, and was resolved to
keep up the status and dignity of a French cardinal. This was my
condition at Rome, where it was my fate to be a refugee, persecuted by my
King and abused by the Pope. All my revenues were seized, and the French
bankers forbidden to serve me; nay, those who had an inclination to
assist me were forced to promise they would not. Two of the Abbe
Fouquet's bastards were publicly maintained out of my revenues, and no
means were left untried to hinder the farmers from relieving me, or my
creditors from harassing me with vexatious and expensive lawsuits.
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