"No pope yet, we expect him hourly; but, if the choice has been delayed, if obstacles have arisen on every hand, it is not my fault: they ought to have listened to me a little more, and not acted in a sense exactly opposite to that which they seemed to decide upon. For the rest, it seems to me at present that every one wants to be at peace with me. The Cardinal de Clermont-Tonnerre himself has just written to tell me that he claims my former kindness for him; and after all that he comes to stay with me resolved to vote for the most moderate pope. "You have read my second speech. Thank M. Kératry[65], who has spoken so obligingly of the first; I hope he will be still more pleased with the other. We shall both of us try to make liberty Christian, and we shall succeed. What do you say to the answer Cardinal Castiglioni made me? Have I been finely enough praised 'in open conclave'? You could not have done better in the days when you spoilt me." [Sidenote: Letters to Madame Récamier.] "24 _March_ 1829. "If I were to believe the rumours of Rome, we should have a pope to-morrow; but I am in a moment of discouragement, and I refuse to believe in such happiness. You can understand that that happiness is not political happiness, the joy of a triumph, but the happiness of being free and seeing you again. When I speak to you so much about the Conclave, I am like the people who have a fixed idea and who believe that the whole world is interested in that idea. And yet, in Paris, who thinks of the Conclave, who troubles about a pope or my tribulations? French light-heartedness, the interests of the moment, the discussions in the Chambers, excited ambitions have very different things to do. When the Duc de Laval used also to write to me of his cares about the Conclave, preoccupied with the Spanish War as I was, I used to say, when I received his dispatches, 'Oh, good Heavens, I have something else to think of!' and M. Portalis is applying the _lex talionis_ to me to-day. Nevertheless, one may fairly say that things at that time were not what they are now: religious ideas were not mixed up with political ideas as they have since been throughout Europe; the quarrel did not lie there; the nomination could not, as it does now, disturb or pacify States. "Since the letter which informed me that M. de La Ferronnays' leave had been extended and that he had left for Rome, I have heard nothing: still, I believe that news true.