Presently, among other things, he went on to speak of the private misgivings with which Napoleon’s character inspired him. “Between ourselves, Lebzeltern, I am convinced that Napoleon is not in good faith when he says that he wishes to become reconciled with me.... If only he would let me have some one here, at Savona, to help me in my work, which is really and truly overwhelming; moreover, there is a vast amount of specialist and technical business which I cannot possibly transact by myself without consulting my expert advisers. And to make matters worse for me, my health and my eyesight are giving out; I do not feel that I shall be able to carry my burden of solitary labour very much longer; besides, it is bad for my temper, which I confess frankly I often have great difficulty in curbing.” Nor is there anything wonderful in this when one remembers the Pope’s situation after being imprisoned nearly a year in the house of the Bishop of Savona, shut off from the Cardinals (of whom the only news he had was that they had been imprisoned and maltreated in French fortresses by order of Napoleon) and from the faithful. Alone with his doubts and difficulties and age and ill health, and the insidious temptations put before him by the Emperor’s instruments (conscious, some of these, as was Fesch; unconscious, again, as was Lebzeltern)—what is there astonishing or blameable in this “great difficulty” so well and simply confessed by the most benignantly human Barnabo Chiaramonte? Presently he spoke again, to utter a final warning to Napoleon. “If Napoleon continues to make war upon religion (even although he does so under the guise of extending to it his hypocritical perfidious protection); if he attempts to have me dragged to Paris; if he goes on spreading the lie of my sacrificing the real interests of the Church to secondary matters and to worldly motives; if he persists in forcing me to more active reprisals,—then I shall have to use the last weapons that remain to me and which would make a stir in the world that he does not yet dream of. The only regret I should have in that case would be that some others—who have been less unkind to me than he—might suffer too. As to the precise nature of those weapons, it is possible that their effect might be very different from anything you could imagine. But make your mind easy; have no fear that I shall employ them unless I am absolutely obliged to do so. Do not be afraid of my doing anything precipitately, for I pray constantly for grace and strength sufficient to enable me to carry my cross patiently. But if you only knew the unvarying torment of my nights as well as of my days, Lebzeltern—the unceasing anguish of my solitude—you would not wonder at what must sometimes appear to you incomprehensible inconsistencies in my attitude towards many things—as must have been noticeable in the talks between us!”