In another note-book Miss Knight observes of M. de Brienne: “His manners were elegant, but not conciliating, and his effrontery appeared to me astonishing.... He was of an ancient and distinguished family, and, probably, had he been brought up to a military profession, would have been a man of honour and agreeable in society. I believe he was liberal, and in many respects useful in his diocese. He was at the head of those who were called ‘Evêques Administrateurs,’ in opposition to the ‘Dévôts,’ or pastoral bishops: both had their defects, and helped on the Revolution in different ways; for the first were too often libertines, and the second intolerant and illiberal.”
The singular liberality of this discourse, viewed with reference to the time and place of its delivery, and to the profession of the speaker, is beyond all praise. The archbishop was nearly a century in advance of his age.
François Joachim Pierre de Bernis belonged to a noble but impoverished family, whose paternal estate was near Pont St. Esprit, in Languedoc. He had a great talent for Anacreontic poetry, and his verses were lively and elegant, but too highly coloured for young readers. Though short, and by no means remarkable for beauty of face or figure, he was, when young, universally known as _le joli petit abbé_, and _l’aimable abbé_. In his early years he was often subject to great pecuniary embarrassments, but was always cheerful, always the gentleman, and always well received. He gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour by his verses, and of the king by a memoir on the dispute between the Parliaments and the Jesuits. He was sent as minister to Venice, and while there took priest’s orders, lest the Princesse de Rohan should ask him to marry her on the death of her husband, who was then past recovery. The princess and he had long been attached to one another, but he considered himself too much her inferior both as to rank and fortune to make a graceful figure in the world. His conduct on this occasion did not forfeit him the friendship of the princess, for she left him her entire fortune at her death; but he nobly gave it up to the Rohans, reserving for himself only a ring, on which was a Moor’s head, and this he wore as long as he lived, in remembrance of her. On his return to France he was made prime minister, but was soon displaced by the Choiseul party. He was then created a cardinal, but lived in a sort of disgrace until the accession of Louis XVI., when he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary of his Most Christian Majesty at the Court of Rome, whither he had gone for the Conclave of Ganganelli. He was subsequently dismissed from this post for refusing to take the oath exacted by the revolutionists, and was deprived of the revenues of his benefices in France. He had, however, a pension from Spain, and he received at his house in Rome, where he still continued to reside, Mesdames Adelaide and Victoire, the daughters of his old master, Louis XV. He bore his change of fortune with dignity and temper, and died about eighteen months before the French took possession of Rome.—_From MS. Notes by Miss Knight._