[242] Thibaudeau, tom. ii., p. 55; Letter de Cacault à Buonaparte, Correspondence Inédite, tom. ii., pp. 114-125; Montholon, tom. iii., p. 387.
[243] Voltaire, in one of his romances, terms the Pope an old gentleman, having a guard of one hundred men, who mount guard with umbrellas, and who make war on nobody.—S.
"Arma diu sênior desueta trementibus ævo
Circumdat nequicquam humeris, et inutile ferrum
Cingitur"——
Æneid, Lib. II.
"He—when he saw his regal town on fire,
His ruin'd palace, and his entering foes,
On every side inevitable woes;
In arms disused invests his limbs, decay'd,
Like them, with age; a late and useless aid."
Dryden.
[245] Cacault was born at Nantes in 1742. During the Consulate, he was chosen a member of the Senate. He published a translation of Lessing's Historical Sketch of the Drama. He died in 1805.
[246] "La cour de Rome, au desespoir, saisirait un fer rouge: elle s'abandonne à l'impulsion bruyante des Napolitains."—Correspondence Inédite, tom. ii., p. 119.
[247] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 387.