His Majesty had arrived that morning from Florence a little before noon, without having given any notice to the Pope. About one, his Holiness was sitting with Don Luigi, his nephew, and the Bailli Antinori, his familiar friend, and finding that he had still some time to spare before his usual hour for going out, he went into his closet to write a letter. Just then a favourite valet-de-chambre ran into the room, and told Don Luigi that Cardinal Hertzan, the emperor’s representative, was ascending the staircase, and demanded an immediate audience. Greatly agitated by this announcement, Don Luigi knocked at the door, and informed Pius VI., who was not less disconcerted. Presently, the valet again hurried in, and said that the emperor also was there. Don Luigi thereupon told his uncle, who threw open his closet door just as the emperor and the cardinal entered the apartment through the opposite door. When his imperial visitor rose to take leave, Pius VI. conducted him through the apartments of the Countess Matilda into St. Peter’s. The Pope then proposed that they should offer up a prayer together, and invited the emperor to kneel by his side on a prie-Dieu, with two cushions, but the latter flung aside the one intended for himself, and knelt down on the bare floor. “Then,” said Pius, “I, too, must kneel on the floor: I cannot take this place.” “You may do as you please,” replied the emperor, “but I always kneel so.” He made a very short prayer, and, wishing the Pope good morning, went to see the Museum, and at four o’clock dined with Cardinal Hertzan, at whose house he had alighted.[31]
On the following day he dined with one of the generals who accompanied him, at a lodging-house in the Piazza di Spagna, and, according to his usual custom, sent down a large fish from the table to the mistress of the house. As he was going away, an immense number of the populace, who had collected round the door, began to cry aloud, “Viva l’imperadore!” “Viva Cesare!” His Majesty stopped a moment, and made them a sign to be quiet, and then jumped into his carriage and drove off. In the evening the emperor was present at the Duchess Bracciano’s, and afterwards at Princess Altieri’s, who had lighted up her house, of which he complained, as he does not permit the slightest ceremony, not even torches on the staircase.