On the journey Joseph met the Bishop of Grenoble, formerly the abbe Simon, his ancient professor of mathematics and philosophy in the College of Autun. Joseph had ever cherished the memory of his teacher with great affection, and, upon meeting, threw his arms around him in a tender embrace. As the bishop complimented him upon his high destiny, and congratulated him upon the probability of his immediate elevation to the throne of Spain, Joseph replied sadly,[Q] [Footnote Q: We are indebted, for the report of this conversation, to M. Simon, of Nantes, a nephew of the bishop.] "May your felicitations, Monsieur the Bishop, prove of happy augury to your former pupil. May your prayers avert the calamities which I foresee. As for me, ambition does not blind me. The joys of the crown of Spain do not dazzle my eyes. I leave a country in which I think that I have done some good, where I flatter myself to have been beloved, and that I leave behind me some regrets. Will it be the same in the new realm which awaits me? "The Neapolitans have, so to speak, never known nationality. By turns conquered by the Normans, the Spaniards, the French, it was little matter to them who their masters were, provided that these masters left them their blue skies, their azure sea, their spot in the sunshine, and a few pence for their macaroni. "Arriving among them, I found every thing to do. I stimulated their natural apathy, gave nerve to the administration, introduced some order everywhere. They were pleased with my good intentions, with my efforts. They loved me with the same fervor with which they hated the King of Sicily and his odious ministers. In Spain, on the contrary, I shall labor in vain; I can not so completely lay aside my title of a foreigner that I can escape the hatred of a people proud and sensitive upon the point of honor; of a people who have known no other wars but wars of independence, and who abhor, above all things, the French name. "The Peninsula contains at this moment, under arms, nearly one hundred thousand national soldiers, who will excite, at the same time, against my government, the monks, the clergy, the friends (and they are still numerous) of legitimacy, the ancient and faithful servants of old Charles IV., the gold and the intrigues of England. Every thing will prove an obstacle to my plans of amelioration. They will be misrepresented, calumniated, disowned.