Before I pass on to anything else, I will inform my readers of what took place on the occasion of my second visit to this old cardinal, a great enemy of the Jesuits, a wit, and man of letters.

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

Adventures in the south, Volume 4c—­return to Naples

The rare unabridged London edition of 1894 translated by Arthur Machen to which has been added the chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.

RETURN TO NAPLES

ROME—­NAPLES—­BOLOGNA

CHAPTER VIII

Cardinal Passianei—­The Pope—­Masiuccia—­I Arrive At Naples

Cardinal Passionei received me in a large hall where he was writing.  He begged me to wait till he had finished, but he could not ask me to take a seat as he occupied the only chair that his vast room contained.

When he had put down his pen, he rose, came to me, and after informing me that he would tell the Holy Father of my visit, he added,—­

“My brother Cornaro might have made a better choice, as he knows the Pope does not like me.”

“He thought it better to choose the man who is esteemed than the man who is merely liked.”

“I don’t know whether the Pope esteems me, but I am sure he knows I don’t esteem him.  I both liked and esteemed him before he was pope, and I concurred in his election, but since he has worn the tiara it’s a different matter; he has shewn himself too much of a ’coglione’.”

“The conclave ought to have chosen your eminence.”

“No, no; I’m a root-and-branch reformer, and my hand would not have been stayed for fear of the vengeance of the guilty, and God alone knows what would have come of that.  The only cardinal fit to be pope was Tamburini; but it can’t be helped now.  I hear people coming; good-bye, come again to-morrow.”

What a delightful thing to have heard a cardinal call the Pope a fool, and name Tamburini as a fit person.  I did not lose a moment in noting this pleasant circumstance down:  it was too precious 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,—­