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When Madame Napoleon was informed by her husband of the necessity of choosing her almoner and chaplain, and of attending regularly the Mass, she first fell a-laughing, taking it merely for a joke; the serious and severe looks, and the harsh and threatening expressions of the First Consul soon, however, convinced her how much she was mistaken.
The staff of the kitchen and sanitation were the same as in the household of the Emperor; and besides these, six pages of the Emperor were always in attendance upon the Empress. The chief almoner was Ferdinand de Rohan, former archbishop of Cambray. Another decree of the same date fixed the duties of the prefects of the palace. The latter subsequently became prefect of the Department of the Cher.
This was precisely what the grand almoner had hoped and expected, and he laughed in his sleeve at the useless trouble taken by the archbishop; and whilst he openly affected to promote his desires as much as was in his power, he secretly took measures to prevent their success.
Though I was very well informed, by my good friend the Almoner, that the blow came from Court, I bore it with a great deal more patience than was consistent with a man of my spirit, for I did not seem to take the least notice of it, but was as gracious to the Cardinal as ever.
There were numerous and pressing petitions to the King to accomplish this; but the first Almoner, the Bishop of Burgos whose business it is to stop such intrigues, promptly spoke to the King when informed of this one, in the following terms: "Pedro Arias, O Most Catholic King, is a brave man, who has often risked his life for Your Majesty, and who we know by long experience is well adapted to command troops.
And then picture after picture followed; there were ornamented letters, large and small, engravings in the text and at the heading of the chapters; "The Annunciation," an immense angel inundating with rays of light a slight, delicate-looking Mary; "The Massacre of the Innocents," where a cruel Herod was seen surrounded by dead bodies of dear little children; "The Nativity," where Saint Joseph is holding a candle, the light of which falls upon the face of the Infant Jesus, Who sleeps in His mother's arms; Saint John the Almoner, giving to the poor; Saint Matthias, breaking an idol; Saint Nicholas as a bishop, having at his right hand a little bucket filled with babies.
The anything but grateful manner with which the almoner received this story was a great disappointment to the overzealous servant; nay, he secretly permitted himself to doubt his master's wisdom and energy when the latter remarked that the arrest of a man who had merely entered a stranger's garden was entirely unjustifiable, and that he was aware of the singer's acquaintanceship with the Hiltners.
Besides his dignity as a prelate, His Eminence is Ambassador from France at Rome, a Knight of the Spanish Order of the Golden Fleece, a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, and a grand almoner of the Emperor of the French.
On the 15th of August, 1785, at Mass-time, Cardinal Rohan, grand almoner of France, already in full pontificals, was arrested in the palace of Versailles and taken to the Bastille. The king had sent for him into his cabinet. "Cardinal," said Louis XVI. abruptly, "you bought some diamonds of Bcehmer?" "Yes, Sir." "What have you done with them?" "I thought they had been sent to the queen."
We need not, we think, point out to the intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom the liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer's appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great self-interests.
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