The çoisRenéPrésident de Brosses sends his friend the Abbé Courtois a list of the cardinals of the Conclave, with a word on each of them to his honour:
"Guadagni[43], a bigot, a hypocrite, witless, tasteless, a poor monk.
"Aquaviva of Aragon, a fine presence, although somewhat heavy in figure, as he is also in mind.
"Ottoboni[44], no morals, no credit, debauched, ruined, a lover of the arts.
"Alberoni[45], full of ardour, anxious, restless, despised, no morals, no decency, no consideration, no judgment: according to him, a cardinal is a ----- dressed in red."
The rest of the list is all of a piece; cynicism here takes the place of wit.
A singular piece of buffoonery took place: de Brosses went to dine with some Englishmen at the Porta San Pancrazio; they had a mock election of a pope: a certain Sir Ashwood took off his wig and represented the dean of the cardinals; they sang _Oremus_, and Cardinal Alberoni was elected by the ballot of that orgy. The Protestant soldiers in the Constable de Bourbon's army nominated Martin Luther pope in the Church of St. Peter. Nowadays the English, who are at once the plague and the providence of Rome, respect the Catholic Religion which has permitted them to build a church outside the Porta del Popolo. The government and manners of the day would no longer suffer such scandals.
So soon as a cardinal is imprisoned in the conclave, the first thing he does is, with the aid of his servants, in the dark, to scratch at the newly blocked-up walls until they have made a little hole. Through this, during the night, they pass strings by means of which news is sent and received between the inside and the outside. For the rest, the Cardinal de Retz, whose opinion is above suspicion, after speaking of the miseries of the conclave in which he took part, ends his story with these fine words:
"We lived there, always together, with the same mutual respect and the same civility that are observed in the closets of kings; with the same politeness that obtained at the Court of Henry III.; with the same familiarity that is seen in the colleges; with the same modesty that prevails in noviciates, and the same charity, at least in appearance, that might exist among brothers wholly united."