chapeau de cardinal
Que pour tirer sa reverence.

Shortly afterward he was appointed Archbishop of Alby; but, according to
custom, he never appeared in his diocese. In 1769 he departed for Rome,
being nominated ambassador at the conclave for the nomination of Clement
XIV., that priest so gay, so gentle, and so witty, who has written that
sad people are like shrubs which never flower. Pope and cardinal
understood each other admirably well. Our cardinal never returned to
France; he had found in Rome a second fatherland, as sweet to his old ago
as France had been to his youth. He inhabited a magnificent palace, which
was for a length of time the hospitable refuge for all French travelers.
All had ready welcome, from the humble priest and poor artist to the
Princes and princesses of the blood royal. To use his own words,--"He
kept an _auberge_ of France in a square of Europe." He died in 1794,
faithful to his God and to his king, and bitterly denouncing the French
Revolution, which had despoiled him of his half million of francs per
annum, and had swept disdainfully away all the pretty artificial flowers
of his most artificial poetry. He died solitary and poor,--a strong
contrast to the style in which he had lived. But to return.

Madame d'Etioles passed in the eyes of the world as a perfect model of a
virtuous wife. She swore eternal fidelity to her husband, unless Louis
XV. should fall in love with her,--a reservation her husband was the
first to laugh at. At first this strange condition was spoken of as an
excellent joke in the house; from thence it spread abroad, and finally
reached Versailles. But the king, wishing to joke in return, contented
himself by saving,--"I should like very much to see this husband."

M. d'Etioles possessed an abandoned chateau in the forest of Senart;
Madame d'Etioles having learned that the king frequently hunted in the
forest, persuaded her husband to have the chateau newly furnished, and
put into a habitable state, alleging that the physicians had recommended
a change of air for her vapors. The husband, suspecting nothing, had the
chateau re-furnished an decorated in the most superb style. Once
installed in her new abode, Madame d'Etioles gave orders for the building
of three or four carriages of a most fairy-like lightness and elegance of
form, in which she might drive away her vapors. According to her
expectations, she frequently met the king in the forest; at first Louis
XV. passed