Among the passengers who now walked down the gang-plank of the packet-boat on to the quay, thankful for once to British eccentricity for its unaccountable generosity in letting them go their way unmolested, was a man, still young, with an expression of imperturbable good-nature not unmixed with a certain bland shrewdness. This person, after directing a servant, by whom he was accompanied, to have his baggage taken to an hotel—possibly the “Roma”—betook himself alone and on foot to the “Vescovado,” the palace of the Bishop of Savona, “a fairly large house,” as Napoleon had described it in a letter in which he had attempted to excuse himself for the choice of it as a residence for his prisoner, Pope Pius VII. The traveller, on arriving at the door of the Vescovado, found his further way barred by a couple of gendarmes who were mounting guard there; to them, on their asking his business, he replied that he desired an interview with the Sovereign Pontiff, and requested that they would let him pass. For all answer they stared at him, open-mouthed, taking him for an eccentric; when their commander, a Colonel Thévenot, who chanced to be passing, took the matter out of their hands. “Who are you, sir, and what do you want?” he enquired. “I wish to see the Holy Father, as soon as possible,” replied the other. “Allow me”—handing the Colonel a visiting card inscribed: “LE CHEVALIER DE LEBZELTERN, Conseiller d’Ambassade de Sa Majesté l’Empereur d’Autriche et Roi Apostolique de Hongrie.” Having read the card, Thévenot glanced suspiciously at the owner of it; then, seeing that he had indeed to do with a serious person, he turned rather red in the face. “Tut-tut, my dear sir, surely you cannot expect to obtain admission to the Pope in this rough-and-ready way,” he stammered. “It is really quite out of the question, you know,” with a wave of the hand to where, in the courtyard, a corporal’s guard of fusiliers was preparing to relieve the sentries posted in all the approaches of the building. “Ah, the guard of honour, I suppose, for His Holiness,” returned the Austrian, with the vestige of a smile; whereat Colonel Thévenot’s equanimity gave way. “Frankly, sir,” he broke out, “please understand that no living being is allowed to enter here without a written order from General Berthier, the commandant of the town.” “Frankly, sir,” retorted Lebzeltern in his turn, “that does not apply to myself, and I am going to enter.”