f subjects
of conversation. Before eight o'clock the Pope always retired,
distributing his blessing to the kneeling audience, as on his entry. When
he was gone, card-tables were brought in, and play was permitted. Duroc
received his master's orders how to distribute the places at the
different tables, what games were to be played, and the amount of the
sums to be staked. These were usually trifling and small compared to
what is daily risked in our fashionable circles.

Often, after the Pope had returned to his own rooms, Madame Letitia
Bonaparte was admitted to assist at his private prayers. This lady,
whose intrigues and gallantry are proverbial in Corsica, has, now that
she is old (as is generally the case), turned devotee, and is surrounded
by hypocrites and impostors, who, under the mask of sanctity, deceive and
plunder her. Her antechambers are always full of priests; and her closet
and bedroom are crowded with relics, which she collected during her
journey to Italy last year. She might, if she chose, establish a
Catholic museum, and furnish it with a more curious collection, in its
sort, than any of our other museums contain. Of all the saints in our
calendar, there is not one of any notoriety who has not supplied her with
a finger, a toe, or some other part; or with a piece of a shirt, a
handkerchief, a sandal, or a winding-sheet. Even a bit of a pair of
breeches, said to have belonged to Saint Mathurin, whom many think was a
sans-cullotte, obtains her adoration on certain occasions. As none of
her children have yet arrived at the same height of faith as herself, she
has, in her will, bequeathed to the Pope all her relics, together with
eight hundred and seventy-nine Prayer-books, and four hundred and
forty-six Bibles, either in manuscript or of different editions. Her
favourite breviary, used only on great solemnities, was presented to her
by Cardinal Maury at Rome, and belonged, as it is said, formerly to Saint
Francois, whose commentary, written with his own hand, fills the margins;
though many, who with me adore him as a saint, doubt whether he could
either read or write.

Not long ago she made, as she thought, an exceedingly valuable
acquisition. A priest arrived direct from the Holy City of Jerusalem,
well recommended by the inhabitants of the convents there, with whom he
pretended to have passed his youth. After prostrating himself before the
Pope, he waited on Madame Letitia Bonaparte. He tol