LETTER XXXIV.
SIR,Rome, October 10, 1731.
This being in all Appearance the last Letter I shall write to you from Rome, I shall now give you the best Answer I can to the Questions you put to me in your last.
You desire, Sir, that I should give you a faithful Character of the Holy Father; but do you consider well what it is you require? Is it likely that such a private Man as I, who only see the Pope thro’ a Perspective in all his Glory and Grandeur, shou’d be able to paint him? No, Sir, the Successors of St. Peter are not like other Princes: None but such of their Domestics as are their most intire Confidents can know them thoroughly; and these, either out of their Zeal or Policy, paint them always, if not as they are, at least as they ought to be. You will tell me, that in all Courts ’tis the same Case; and that, notwithstanding this, one may judge of Princes by their Actions. ’Tis very true, yet this gives us but an imperfect Idea of Princes, who often do Good or Harm without meaning either.
To judge by outward Appearances, Clement XII. may be rank’d among the greatest Popes that ever the Church had: He had always, even before he was Pope, the Reputation of an honest Man, and all his Pride is to merit that Character: He is rigid; and, if I may venture to say it, sometimes blunt in his Answers: His earnest Application to the retrieving of the Finances, which were very much disorder’d by the Ministers of Benedict XIII. renders him an Œconomist, perhaps more than suits with his Dignity: He has the Interests of the Holy See very much at heart; but is accus’d of being more troubled for the Loss of the Duchy of Parma, (which they give out here was devolv’d to the Holy See by the death of the Duke Francis Farnese) than for the Disturbances owing to the Affair of the Constitution in France: He is a great Admirer of Persons of Quality, but he does them little good: His good Husbandry extends even to his Nephews, whom he has loaded with Honours and Titles; but he has hitherto given them
very little Money. When he was a Cardinal, his House was open to every body; he liv’d magnificently, and it was expected he would rather be a prodigal Pope, than a saving one: He was civil and affable, but not very ready to do Services; for if he made his Friends welcome, he thought that was enough; Business was what took up little of his Time, and he bent his Thoughts more to noble Living than to Affairs of State. And the Romans, who had other Reasons not to be pleas’d with his Election, said he rose to the Pontificate from a Game at Picquet.
Since he is become a Pope, he is quite another sort of a Man: He is desirous to know every thing that passes, and is fond of being his own Minister. But ’tis his Misfortune, that his Memory begins to fail him, and he is almost blind; besides which, as he never was employ’d in State Affairs, he knows them not so much by Experience as Theory: Yet for all this it were to be wish’d, for the sake of the Ecclesiastical State, that he had been chose Pope in the place of Benedict XIII. But ’tis the Unhappiness of this Country, that its Princes are commonly more harass’d with their bodily Infirmities, than with the Cares of Government: ’Tis pity that the Pope is so old; for he has the very Qualities that constitute a great Prince. Notwithstanding his great Age, he has had the good Luck to make ten Cardinals, tho’ he has not been sixteen Months in the Pontificate; but his last Promotion of five Cardinals was not generally approv’d of. Among other coarse Pasquinades that were utter’d upon that Occasion, this Inscription was affix’d to several Gates of the Pontifical Palace, Nostro Signora fa una bella Promotione, quatro Matti, ed un Minchione, i. e. Our Lord, has made a fine Promotion, four Madmen and one Fool. Those five Cardinals were Signior Guadagno, the Pope’s Nephew,