pretension, without complaining, dissimulating
everything, and untiringly pretending to regard Morcieu as an
accompaniment of honour. He received, then, no sort of civility on the
part of the Regent, of Dubois, or of anybody; and performed the day's
journeys, arranged by Morcieu, without stopping, almost without suite,
until he arrived on the shores of the Mediterranean, where he immediately
embarked and passed to the Genoa coast.

Alberoni, delivered of his Argus, and arrived in Italy, found himself in
another trouble by the anger of the Emperor, who would suffer him
nowhere, and by the indignation of the Court of Rome, which prevailed, on
this occasion, over respect for the purple. Alberoni for a long time was
forced to keep out of the way, hidden and a fugitive, and was not able to
approach Rome until the death of the Pope. The remainder of the life of
this most extraordinary man is not a subject for these memoirs. But what
ought not to be forgotten is the last mark of rage, despair, and madness
that he gave in traversing France. He wrote to M. le Duc d'Orleans,
offering to supply him with the means of making a most dangerous war
against Spain; and at Marseilles, ready to embark, he again wrote to
reiterate the same offers, and press them on the Regent.

I cannot refrain from commenting here upon the blindness of allowing
ecclesiastics to meddle with public affairs; above all, cardinals, whose
special privilege is immunity from everything most infamous and most
degrading. Ingratitude, infidelity, revolt, felony, independence, are
the chief characteristics of these eminent criminals.

Of Alberoni's latter days I will say but a few words.

At the death of Clement XI., legal proceedings that had been taken to
deprive Alberoni of his cardinalship, came to an end. Wandering and
hidden in Italy, he was summoned to attend a conclave for the purpose of
electing a new Pope. Alberoni was the opprobrium of the sacred college;
proceedings, as I have said, were in progress to deprive him of his
cardinalship. The King and Queen of Spain evidently stimulated those
proceedings: the Pope just dead had opposed him; but the cardinals would
not agree to his disgrace; they would not consent to strip him of his
dignity. The example would have been too dangerous. That a cardinal,
prince, or great nobleman, should surrender his hat in order to marry,
the store of his house demands it; well and good; but to see a cardinal
depri