“Oh! how absent I am,” answered Napoleon, as with surprise; “I entirely forgot that I left the Cardinal in my closet this morning.  I will go myself and make an apology for my blunder.”

His Eminence, quite exhausted, was found fast asleep; but no sooner was he a little recovered than he interrupted Bonaparte’s affected apology with the repetition of the demand he had made in the morning; and so well was Napoleon pleased with him, for neglecting his personal inconvenience only to occupy himself with the affairs of his Sovereign, that he consented to what was asked, and in laying his hand upon the shoulders of the prelate, said: 

“Faithful Minister! were every Prince as well served as your Sovereign is by you, many evils might be prevented, and much good effected.”

The same evening Duroc brought him, as a present, a snuffbox with Bonaparte’s portrait, set round with diamonds, worth one thousand louis d’or.  The adventures of this day certainly did not lessen His Eminence in the favour of Napoleon or of Pius VII.

Last November, some not entirely unknown persons intended to amuse themselves at the Cardinal’s expense.  At seven o’clock one evening, a young Abbe presented himself at the Cardinal’s house, Hotel de Montmorin, Rue Plumet, as by appointment of His Eminence, and was, by his secretary, ushered into the study and asked to wait there.  Hardly half an hour afterwards, two persons, pretending to be agents of the police, arrived just as the Cardinal’s carriage had stopped.  They informed him that the woman introduced into his house in the dress of an Abby was connected with a gang of thieves and housebreakers, and demanded his permission to arrest her.  He protested that, except the wife of his porter, no woman in any dress whatever could be in his house, and that, to convince themselves, they were very welcome to accompany his valet-de-chambre into every room they wished to see.  To the great surprise of his servant, a very pretty girl was found in the bed of His Eminence’s bed-chamber, which joined his study, who, though the pretended police agents insisted on her getting up, refused, under pretence that she was there waiting for her ‘bon ami’, the Cardinal.

His Eminence was no sooner told of this than he shut the gate of his house, after sending his secretary to the commissary of police of the section.  In the meantime, both the police agents and the girl entreated him to let them out, as the whole was merely a badinage; but he remained inflexible, and they were all three carried by the real police commissary to prison.