Memoirs of Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz — Volume 4Retz, Jean François Paul de Gondi de
History
Memoirs of Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz — Volume 4
Retz, Jean François Paul de Gondi de
France -- Court and courtiers; France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715; Mazarin, Jules, 1602-1661
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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