George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[74] Grace and Justice to Ferdinand VII., and who wished to show an excessive zeal in his master's affairs, in order to increase his own power. Colomardes, he said, believed that he, Giustiniani, had induced Pius VII. to acknowledge the South American Bishops; but though he thought that measure a wise one, he declared to me that he had nothing to do with it, and that the Pope's determination, in relation to it, was taken when he was absent from Rome. Colomardes, however, sent in the veto, and Marco was the only Cardinal who knew anything about it, or suspected it. He told me, too, that he doubted whether the King of Spain knew it till after it was despatched; for, having been exiled for adhering to Ferdinand's personal rights, and having, besides, rendered him great personal services, it was to be supposed the election would have been one of his choice.

‘However,’ the Cardinal went on, ‘it was a great favor done to me,’—a remark which I took the liberty to think somewhat affected, until, in the evening, old Prince Chigi, who holds the hereditary office of shutting up the Cardinals in conclave, and watching them till they elect, told me that it was understood, at the time, that Giustiniani really preferred the place of minister to that of pope. Perhaps he is better fitted for it; at any rate, he is a man of talent, and is the only Cardinal I have talked with, since I came to Rome, who has talked as if he were so. . . . .