"The Vicomte de Chateaubriand, who has also been banished from his country, would be only too happy to be able to soften the fate of the Frenchmen who still find themselves placed under the blow of a political law. The exiled brother of Napoleon, addressing himself to an Emigrant formerly struck off the list of outlaws by Napoleon himself, is one of those freaks of fortune which must needs have the ruins of Rome for witnesses. "The Vicomte de Chateaubriand has the honour, etc." DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS "ROME, 4 _May_ 1829. "I have had the honour to inform you, in my letter of 30 April, acknowledging the receipt of your Dispatch No. 25, that the Pope received me in private audience on the 29th of April at mid-day. His Holiness appeared to me to be enjoying very good health. He made me sit beside him and kept me nearly an hour and a quarter. The Austrian Ambassador had had a public audience before me to hand over his new credentials. "On leaving the closet of His Holiness at the Vatican, I called on the Secretary of State, and, frankly broaching the question with him, said: "'Well, you see what our newspapers are making you out to be! You are "an Austrian, you hate France," you want to do her some bad turns: what am I to believe of all that?' "He shrugged his shoulders and replied: "'Your newspapers make me laugh; I cannot convince you by my words if you are not convinced already; but put me to the test and you shall see if I do not love France, if I do not do what you ask me in the name of your King!' "I believe, monsieur le comte, that Cardinal Albani is sincere. He is profoundly indifferent in religious matters; he is not a priest; he has even thought of giving up the purple and marrying; he does not like the Jesuits, who tire him with the noise they make; he is lazy, a glutton, a great lover of all kinds of pleasures; the weariness which bishops' charges and pastoral letters produce in him makes him extremely unfavourable to the cause of the authors of those charges and pastoral letters: that old man of eighty wants to die in peace and joyousness. "I have the honour, etc." [Sidenote: Monte Cavallo.] I often visit Monte Cavallo; there the solitude of the gardens is increased by the solitude of the Roman Campagna, in search of which one's eyes turn beyond Rome and up the right bank of the Tiber. The gardeners are my friends; there are walks leading to the Panatteria, a poor dairy-farm, aviary, or poultry-yard, the occupants of which are as indigent and peaceful as the latter-day popes. Looking down from the height of the terraces of the Quirinal enclosure, one sees a narrow street in which women sit working at their windows on the different storeys: some embroider, others paint, in the silence of this retired quarter.