“You wish to destroy the Catholic Church in a city where it has ruled so many years.  Believe me, it is useless to burden ourselves with fruitless labor.  We have already enough to do; to defeat our enemies on the field of battle, it is not necessary to arouse all Europe against us—­even the heretics, through policy, would defend the cause of the Holy See.  Are you fully convinced that France would calmly look on?  France needs a religious worship:  that which you propose cannot, on account of its simplicity, replace this one.  Follow my advice:  let the pope be pope!  If you bury his earthly power, acknowledge at least his spiritual authority.  Force him not to seek refuge at a foreign court, where by his mere presence it would gain an immense ascendency.  Italy wants religion and the pope.  If she is wounded in her faith, she will be hostile to us, while now she is peaceably inclined.  I repeat, the present difficulties are too weighty, to add new ones.  Who can fathom the future?  Who can assume the responsibility of such a deed as the one you propose?  I shall not, therefore, do it, since you leave it with me to inform you on the subject.  I consider it dangerous to conjure up fanaticism.  The Catholic religion is that of the arts, and the arts are absolutely necessary to Italy’s welfare.  Be sure that if you destroy the former, you give a fatal blow to the latter, and that the Italians are good accountants.  Ponder well these matters, then, and be sure that Catholicism has ceased to exist in France.  Are you well satisfied that no one there will go back to it?”

While in Montebello, though the sword had been laid aside, Bonaparte was still busy with war affairs, and the quarrels of princes and nations.  Josephine at the same time passed there the honored life of a mighty princess, whose favors and intercessions the great and the powerful of earth endeavored to obtain by every conceivable means.  The ladies of the aristocracy of Milan were eager to pay their homage to the wife of the deliverer; the courts of Italy, as well as other parts of Europe, sent ambassadors to General Bonaparte; and these gentlemen were naturally zealous in offering their incense to Josephine, in surrounding her with courtly and flattering attentions.  The Marquis de Gallo, the ambassador of Spain at the court of Verona, came with the Austrian ambassador, the Count von Meerfeld, to Montebello, to enter into negotiations about the peace which was to form the precious key-stone to the preliminaries of Leobeu; and these two gentlemen, who opposed to the plain manners of Bonaparte’s companions-in-arms the very essence of refined, polished, and witty courtiers, rivalled each other in showing to Josephine their highest consideration by their festivities and amusements; to win her favor and interest through the most complacent and considerate attention to all her views, wishes, and plans.