"Rome wishes to draw out this affair as long as possible in the hope of some political change which might favor her pretensions. I love and esteem the Pope very much, but I have little confidence in the cardinals, and in particular Cardinal Consalvi, who has broken his word with me, and is an enemy of France. He promised that the courier would arrive by the end of April; here it is the twelfth of May and he has not appeared; perhaps he has not even left Rome. More than that, my project of the Concordat has been changed and I shall not consent to that. Cacault writes that the Pope is unwilling to admit the article concerning the bishops and wishes me to send him the list of those whom I rejected, together with the reasons for their exclusion. Now, I declare that I do not want any of the former bishops, and I shall not yield upon that point. Why does the Court of Rome allow itself to be influenced by these non-Catholic powers? It confers with Russia, with Prussia, with England. Do the affairs of the Catholic world concern heretics and schismatics? It is I alone and the King of Spain who have the right to enter into such matters. You have just wounded Spain, and committed an awkward mistake in re-establishing the Jesuits at the request of the Tzar Paul I. Take care; it may cost you dearly to put yourself thus under the protection of Russia. For doing that the King of Sardinia has just lost Piedmont. "It is with me that you should arrange matters; it is in me that you should place your confidence; it is I alone who can save you. You demand the restoration of the Legations? You wish to be rid of the troops? Everything will depend upon the answer you make to my demands, especially with regard to the bishops. I was born a Catholic, I wish to live and die a Catholic, and I have nothing more at heart than the re-establishment of the Catholic worship, but the Pope is acting in a way that serves me as a temptation to become a Lutheran or Calvinist, and to draw all France along with me. Let him change his behavior and listen to me. If not, I shall establish a religion, I shall give the people a worship with bells and processions, I shall ignore the Holy Father, he shall no longer exist for me. Send a messenger this very day to Rome to tell him that." On the following day Spina, Talleyrand, and Bernier, each sent a letter to Rome, with accounts of the First Consul's anger. The fears of the Holy Father at the news thus received were still further intensified by the orders contained in a letter written by Talleyrand to Cacault and dated the nineteenth of May: