tinker, by whom he had three children. This marriage, according to the
republican regulations, had only been celebrated by the municipality at
Ajaccio; Fesch, therefore, upon again entering the bosom of the Church,
left his municipal wife and children to shift for themselves, considering
himself still, according to the canonical laws, a bachelor. But Madame
Fesch, hearing, in 1801, of her ci-devant husband's promotion to the
Archbishopric of Lyons, wrote to him for some succours, being with her
children reduced to great misery. Madame Letitia Bonaparte answered her
letter, enclosing a draft for six hundred livres--informing her that the
same sum would be paid her every six months, as long as she continued
with her children to reside at Corsica, but that it would cease the
instant she left that island. Either thinking herself not sufficiently
paid for her discretion, or enticed by some enemy of the Bonaparte
family, she arrived secretly at Lyons in October last year, where she
remained unknown until the arrival of the Pope. On the first day His
Holiness gave there his public benediction, she found means to pierce the
crowd, and to approach his person, when Cardinal Fesch was by his side.
Profiting by a moment's silence, she called out loudly, throwing herself
at his feet: "Holy Father! I am the lawful wife of Cardinal Fesch, and
these are our children; he cannot, he dares not, deny this truth. Had he
behaved liberally to me, I should not have disturbed him in his present
grandeur; I supplicate you, Holy Father, not to restore me my husband,
but to force him to provide for his wife and children, according to his
present circumstances."--"Matta--ella e matta, santissimo padre! She is
mad--she is mad, Holy Father," said the Cardinal; and the good pontiff
ordered her to be taken care of, to prevent her from doing herself or the
children any mischief. She was, indeed, taken care of, because nobody
ever since heard what has become either of her or her children; and as
they have not returned to Corsica, probably some snug retreat has been
allotted them in France.