among the poor;
more than five hundred respectable impoverished Romans, who had been
accused of political offences, were secretly supported by them. In this
way the Jesuits, against whom the cry of denunciation had been raised
for years in all Europe, had nevertheless succeeded, at least in the
holy city, in gaining for themselves a very considerable party, and
thus securing protection and support in the time of misfortune and
persecution. But while the people wept with them, and many cardinals and
princes of the Church secretly pitied them, the ambassadors of the great
European powers alone remained insensible to their lamentations. No one
of them opened the doors of their palaces to them, no one afforded
them protection or consolation; and although it was known that cardinal
Bernis, in spite of the horror which had for years been felt of this
order in France, was personally favorable to them, and had long delayed
the consent of the court of France to their abolition, yet even Bernis
now avoided any manifestation of kindness for them, lest his former
friend, the Spanish ambassador, might think he so far humiliated himself
as to favor the Jesuits for the sake of recovering the friendship and
good opinion of the Duke of Grimaldi. But Grimaldi himself now no longer
dared to protect the Jesuits, however friendly he might be to them,
and however much they were favored by Elizabeth Farnese, the Spanish
queen-mother. King Charles, her son, had finally ventured to defy her
authority, and in an autograph letter had commanded the Duke of Grimaldi
to receive no more Jesuits in his palace. And while, as we have said,
the whole diplomacy had declared against the order of the holy fathers
of Jesus, it must have been the more striking that this Russian
Count Orloff had compassion upon them, and lent a willing ear to the
complaints of the unfortunate members of the order.

This Russian count gave the good Romans much material for reflection and
head-shaking; the women were occupied with his herculean beauty, and
the men with his wild, daring, and reckless conduct. They called him a
barbarian, a Russian bear, but could not help being interested in him,
and eagerly repeating the little anecdotes freely circulated respecting
him.

They smilingly told that he had been the first who had had the courage
to defy the powerful republic of Venice, which, for recruiting sailors
for his fleet in their territories for the war against the Turks,