a morsel to let
slip. But who was Tamburini? I had never heard of him. I asked
Winckelmann, who dined with me.

"He's a man deserving of respect for his virtues, his character, his
firmness, and his farseeing intelligence. He has never disguised his
opinion of the Jesuits, whom he styles the fathers of deceits, intrigues,
and lies; and that's what made Passionei mention him. I think, with him,
that Tamburini would be a great and good pope."

I will here note down what I heard at Rome nine years later from the
mouth of a tool of the Jesuits. The Cardinal Tamburini was at the last
gasp, and the conversation turned upon him, when somebody else said,--

"This Benedictine cardinal is an impious fellow after all; he is on his
death-bed, and he has asked for the viaticum, without wishing to purify
his soul by confession."

I did not make any remark, but feeling as if I should like to know the
truth of the matter I asked somebody about it next day, my informant
being a person who must have known the truth, and could not have had any
motive for disguising the real facts of the case. He told me that the
cardinal had said mass three days before, and that if he had not asked
for a confessor it was doubtless because he had nothing to confess.

Unfortunate are they that love the truth, and do not seek it out at its
source. I hope the reader will pardon this digression, which is not
without interest.

Next day I went to see Cardinal Passionei, who told me I was quite right
to come early, as he wanted to learn all about my escape from The Leads,
of which he had heard some wonderful tales told.

"I shall be delighted to satisfy your eminence, but the story is a long
one."

"All the better; they say you tell it well."

"But, my lord, am I to sit down on the floor?"

"No, no; your dress is too good for that."

He rang his bell, and having told one of his gentlemen to send up a seat,
a servant brought in a stool. A seat without a back and without arms! It
made me quite angry. I cut my story short, told it badly, and had
finished in a quarter of an hour.

"I write better than you speak," said he.

"My lord, I never speak well except when I am at my ease."

"But you are not afraid of me?"

"No, my lord, a true man and a philosopher can never make me afraid; but
this stool of yours . . . ."

"You like to be at your ease, above all things."

"Take this, it is the funeral oration of Prince Eugene; I make you a
present of