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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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