HIS LATTER DAYS. 259

of Home, which prevailed, on this occasion, over respect for the
purple. AJberoni 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 Due d'Orl^ans, 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 impunity from every-
thing most infamous and most degrading. Ingratitude, infi-
delity, 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 XL, legal proceedings that had
been taken to deprive Alberorii of his cardinalship, carne 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; proceed-
ings, as I have said, were in progress to deprive him of his
cardinalship. The King and Queen of Spain evidently stimu-
lated 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
deprive himself of his hat by way of penitence, is what his
brethren will not endure. A cardinal may be poisoned, stabbed,
got rid of altogether, but lose his dignity he never can. Rome
must be infallible, or she is nothing.

It was decided, that if, at the election of the new Pope, Al-
beroni were not admitted to take part in the proceedings, he

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