CHARACTER OF THE LAST 



€C I am excluded from their confutations, faid he one® 

 6 e to cardinal Cavalchini ; but I know all that pafTes. 

 m The bulinefs can come to no good iflue. If the 

 * s court of Rome will preferve its dignity, it muft ab- 

 " folutely keep upon terms with the princes of Bour- 

 C( bon, and favour their wifhes. Their arms extend 

 <c over the Pyrennees and the Alps." He has been 

 more than once heard to fay : A fpiritual order, which 

 the catholic powers are no longer inclined to tolerate, 

 mufl be abolifhed. It was well-known, that, while yet 

 a Minorite, he never burnt incenfe to the fociety of 

 Jefus, and while lecturer of theology in his order, in 

 the public difputations he had feveral times combated 

 their theological tenets. *• 



Hence it appears to have been an unpardonable neg- 

 ligence in the general Ricci, who. had fo much the 

 afcendant with pope Rezzonico that he could gain any 

 point for the benefit of his order, in not circumventing 

 him in his promotion to the cardinal's hat. Since, 

 upon the demife of Rezzonico, cardinal Chigi, an 

 egregious bigot to his order, had already fo many 

 voices in the conclave, he fhould have unlocked all his 

 treafures, and fet every fpring in motion, either to in- 

 fure himfelf the favour of cardinal de Bernis, who fided 

 with the houfe of Bourbon, or to have weakened his 

 party. Was it likely, that a man, who, from the 

 humble {ration of a poor abbe, had arrived at the high 

 office of minifter of ftate and cardinal, by female in- 

 trigue, and only lived at Rome, becaufe it was refol- 

 ved to forbid him the court of France, that fuch a man 

 was not to be feduced to either fide ? But Ricci, from 

 the extravagant favour he had enjoyed during trie for- 

 mer 



