lost your
credit in France, and you are under a necessity to make it appear that
what they say is false. You are not a hermit, but a cardinal, and a
cardinal, too, of the better rank. At Rome there are many people who
love to tread upon men when they are down. Dear sir, take care you do
not fall, and do but consider what a figure you will make in the streets
with six vergers attending you; otherwise every pitiful citizen of Paris
that meets you will be apt to jostle you, in order to make his court to
the Cardinal d'Est. You ought not to have come to Rome if you had not
had resolution and the means to support your dignity. I presume you do
not make it a point of Christian humility to debase yourself. And let me
tell you that I, the poor Cardinal Chigi, who have but 5,000 crowns
revenue, and am one of the poorest in the College, and though I am sure
to meet nobody in the streets who will be wanting in the respect due to
the purple, yet I cannot go to my functions without four coaches in
livery to attend me."

Therefore I hired a palace, kept a great table, and entertained fourscore
persons in liveries. The Cardinal d'Est, the very day after the creation
of the new Pope, forbade all Frenchmen to give me the way in the streets,
and charged the superiors of the French churches not to admit me. M. de
Lionne, who resided here as a sort of private secretary to Mazarin, was
so nettled because the new Pope had granted me the pallium for my
archbishopric that he told him the King would never own me, insinuated
that there would be a schism among the clergy of France, and that the
Pope must expect to be excluded from the congress for a general peace.
This so frightened his Holiness that he made a million of mean excuses,
and said, with tears in his eyes, that I had imposed upon him, and that
he would take the first opportunity to do the King justice. Upon this M.
de Lionne sent word to the Cardinal that he hoped very shortly to
acquaint him of my being prisoner in the Castle of Saint Angelo, and that
the Cardinal would be no better off for his Majesty's amnesty, because
the Pope said none but he could absolve or condemn cardinals. Meantime
all my domestics who were subjects of the King of France were ordered to
quit my service, on pain of being treated as rebels and traitors. I
could have little hope of protection from the Pope, for he was become
quite another man, never spoke one word of truth, and continually amused
himself with