At first, records Lebzeltern, the Holy Father spoke of his sufferings in the journey from Rome and of all he had endured since being torn from the Eternal City; also, he expressed his sympathies for his visitor in what the latter had undergone of unjust imprisonment at the hands of the French and the Bavarians. In return[9] Lebzeltern, as he tells himself, gave the Pontiff an outline of public events since their last meeting in Rome, prior to the battle of Wagram—the Treaty of Vienna and its results; the progress of the war in Portugal; and the marriage of Napoleon to the Archduchess Marie-Louise. _All of which events Lebzeltern, a professional diplomatist and an Austrian official, believed to be hitherto unknown to the Pope_—wherein lies one of the most curious points of modern history. For, if Pope Pius VII was supposed, even by such men as Metternich and Lebzeltern, to be still, in May, 1810, in ignorance of the marriage of Napoleon to Marie-Louise, how can it be claimed that the Supreme Pontiff’s sanction had ever been given to that marriage? Apparently to Lebzeltern’s surprise, Pius VII had, however, actually learned of the imperial marriage through some secret channel: “... outwitting the watchfulness of his gaolers, he received news day by day...!” For, amongst other indignities, no letters were ever permitted to reach or issue from the Holy Father except such as had been approved by Berthier and by a certain Chabrol, Prefect of the “département” of Montenotte, by whom the Papal correspondence was always read and censored; so that it was evidently Napoleon’s purpose to keep his august prisoner in total ignorance of the majority of the world’s events. Nevertheless, Pius VII spoke with no bitterness, but only with great grief of the French Emperor, expressing the most sorrowful tenderness towards the man whom he had crowned Emperor at Notre Dame a few years previously. And all he asked was that he might be allowed to go back to Rome in order to be able to do his duty by the Church as her Pastor. At this point Lebzeltern made known the real object of his coming to Savona: namely, that Napoleon was anxious to come to an understanding with the Pope. To the latter this was, indeed, a most welcome surprise; but, almost immediately, he seemed to realise that he was suddenly in the presence of some sort of insidious temptation which was preparing to attack him. And here Lebzeltern, by turning the talk during some minutes to Austrian affairs, sought to give his listener time in which to recover from the first effects of his surprise. And so, for a while, they spoke of the dangers of a schism that threatened the German episcopate, so long deprived by Napoleon of the guidance of their Shepherd. And then, as the Pope began more clearly to divine the probable intentions of the Emperor towards him, he reverted to the subject of his captor: