"As far as I am concerned, this is a matter of indifference to me. I shall show Their Eminences all the services which depend upon myself. If they question me touching things which it is well that they should know, I shall tell them what I can; if you transmit the King's orders for them to me, I will communicate these to them; but, if they were to arrive here in a spirit hostile to the views of His Majesty's Government, if it were perceived that they were not in agreement with the King's Ambassador, if they held a language contrary to mine, if they went so far as to give their votes in the Conclave to some exaggerated man, if even they were divided among themselves, nothing would be more fatal. It would be better for the King's service that I should instantly hand in my resignation rather than present this public spectacle of our discords. Austria and Spain have a line of conduct with reference to their clergy which leaves no opening for intrigue. No Austrian or Spanish priest, cardinal or bishop, can have any other agent or correspondent in Rome than the ambassador of his Court himself; the latter has the right to remove from Rome, at a moment's notice, any ecclesiastic of his nationality who may obstruct him. "I hope, monsieur le comte, that no division will take place, that Their Eminences the cardinals will have formal orders to submit to the instructions which I shall before long receive from you, and that I shall know which of them will be charged with the exercise of the exclusion, in case of need, and which heads that exclusion is to strike. "It is very necessary that we should be on our guard; the last ballots revealed the awakening of a party. This party, which gave twenty or twenty-one votes to Cardinals Della Marmora[51] and Pedicini, forms what is known here as the Sardinian faction. The other cardinals, alarmed, want all to give their suffrages to Oppizzoni, a man both firm and moderate. Although an Austrian, that is to say, a Milanese, he coped against Austria at Bologna. He would be an excellent choice. The votes of the French might, by settling on one candidate or another, decide the election. Rightly or wrongly, these cardinals are believed to be hostile to the present system of His Majesty's Government, and the Sardinian faction is reckoning on them. "I have the honour to be, etc[52]." [Sidenote: To Portalis and Récamier.] TO MADAME RÉCAMIER "ROME, 3 _March_ 1829.