CHAPTER XI

THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE EMPEROR AND THE POPE

In the year 1803 Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérôme, was in the United States as an officer in the squadron of Admiral Willaumez. During his stay at Baltimore he made the acquaintance of the daughter of the rich Protestant merchant Paterson; and the Bishop of Baltimore married the young couple in spite of their different creeds, and in spite of the fact that the bridegroom, who was only nineteen years of age, could not produce the permission of his mother. Napoleon, who was then only First Consul, at first looked upon this union as an act of juvenile indiscretion; but when Jérôme showed signs of wishing to take his wife to Europe, the Director of Police received orders, in case it happened, to send her to Amsterdam, and from thence back to America. Jérôme, meanwhile, was careful to land his wife at Lisbon, but when he heard there of his brother’s order, he dared not disobey it. He sent his wife to Holland, and travelled himself to Milan to meet the Emperor. Napoleon soon got his brother to wish for a divorce, and his mother to lodge the complaint that her consent had not been obtained; but it was not easy to get the Pope to annul the marriage. Cardinal Caprara placed his theological adviser, Caselli, at the disposal of the Emperor in order to find out all the reasons that might tell in favor of the Emperor’s wishes; but an agent of the United States pleaded the cause of the Paterson family at Rome. Pius VII, who had studied canon law all his life, took the greatest pains to discover a reason which might make it possible for him to gratify the Emperor; and at last he believed that he had found such a reason in one of the decrees of the Council of Trent. But he soon had scruples. Had the decree of the Council of Trent been published at Baltimore? Minute investigations were made in the archives of the Inquisition and the Propaganda to find an answer to this question, and the upshot was that the decree of the Council of Trent had not been published at Baltimore. Consequently Pius VII, in the friendliest of terms, refused to sanction the divorce. Napoleon, quite unable to understand the anxious scruples of the Pope, found in the conduct of Rome only a ridiculous expression of spitefulness and ill-will, and he could not conceive how a pope should not be willing at once to declare the marriage of a Catholic with a Protestant null and void. That religion, then as always, was to Napoleon only a weapon for momentary use, was made plain at a later time, when he made Jérôme marry the Lutheran heiress of Wurtemberg.

After this little disagreement the Pope began to discover, as did nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, that Napoleon was a tyrant, who could less and less put up with any hindrances in his way. But in spite of the strained relations between France and Rome, the other Powers continually upbraided him with showing special favor to France. They soon had occasion to see that the relation between the Pope and the Emperor was less warm than they thought. In October 1805 the French troops obtained permission to march through the Papal States on their way from Naples to the north of Italy; but the French general forthwith abused this permission to occupy the Papal city of Ancona. The Pope expressed to the Emperor his astonishment at this step, and threatened in the mildest terms to break off diplomatic relations if Ancona were not evacuated by the French.

NAPOLEON TO THE POPE 

A sorrowful tone pervades the whole of the Pope’s letter. He has paid every regard to France; he has been obliged to suffer for it at the hand of others, and what reward has he received? Napoleon was then outside Vienna (November 1805), and he was so much taken up with more important matters that two months elapsed before he found time to answer the Pope from Munich, in January 1806. He received the Pope’s letter, he said, at a critical moment, but he answered it amidst surroundings of good fortune and of praise. His words from beginning to end sound like a rebuke to the Pope. He takes God to witness that he has done more for religion than all the reigning sovereigns put together, but Pius VII has always been unreasonable and ungrateful. In a letter to Fesch on the same day, Napoleon calls the Pope's letter “ridiculous and idiotic”, the Pope's councilors “fools”, and he threatens to recall Fesch and send a Protestant layman to Rome as Minister. He says bluntly that the Pope and his councilors, by their relations with the Russians and English, have “prostituted religion”, and he hints that he might be tempted to reduce the Pope to be Bishop of Rome.

This “reduction” appeared to him more and more desirable. The Papal States formed a disagreeable gap between the kingdoms of Naples and of Italy, and its capital was the seat of a clever diplomacy representing Powers which were nearly all hostile to France. Fouché, who even in Rome had many spies, reported to his Emperor that Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar had created quite as much joy in Rome as the battle of Austerlitz. The same spies also reported, it is true, that the Quirinal remained neutral, but this Napoleon did not believe. He found it advisable, however, to prepare the way for the reduction by peaceful negotiation, and to that end he wrote, on 13th February 1806, a remarkable letter to the Pope.

In this he advises the Pope to get rid of all difficulties by keeping aloof from those Powers which, from a religious point of view, are heretical and outside the Church, and, politically speaking, are so far distant from the Papal States that they are unable to defend him, and can do him nothing but harm. He further proposes a sort of alliance between France and Rome. “Our conditions”, he says, “ought to be, that Your Holiness will pay the same regard to me in temporal matters that I pay to you in spiritual matters ... Your Holiness is sovereign in Rome, but I am the Roman Emperor. All my enemies ought to be yours”. He reproaches Rome for its slowness and laziness, but hints that this reproach only concerns certain persons in the Pope’s entourage, who “do not care for what is right, but, instead of laboring in these critical times to heal the hurt, only labor to make it worse”. These words were aimed at Consalvi. Fesch, who could never hit it off with the papal Secretary of State, continually slandered Consalvi to Napoleon, and the Emperor had discovered, during the negotiations for the Concordat, that Consalvi was one of the few Roman statesmen who had sufficient political insight and knowledge of European politics to prove dangerous. Therefore the Emperor’s ill-will turned more and more against Consalvi. In the above-mentioned letter to Fesch Napoleon wrote: “Tell Consalvi, that if he loves his country, he must either leave the ministry or do what I require; and that I may be religious, but that I am not a sanctimonious person”.

The Emperor’s demand at this period was that the Pope should break off diplomatic connections with all the enemies of France, expel their subjects from the Papal States, and close his harbors against them—in short, cast in his lot with the Emperor. It can easily be imagined that a statesman like Consalvi never could agree to such a project; for the moment that such a demand was satisfied, the Pope would have sunk into being nothing but a French courtier bishop. Nor did Napoleon make Rome more complaisant by emphasizing the Roman character of his empire; for people were by no means blind to the great difference that there was between the Europe of Charles the Great and modern Europe. If he had pursued Napoleon’s policy, Pius VII would have surrendered his spiritual authority over more than half of Europe; and in view of the despotic character of the Emperor, it is very doubtful if he would by that means have gained any greater influence over the Church of France.

THE POPE TO NAPOLEON

Consalvi, in the meantime, advised the Pope to place the matter before the cardinals, and this was done. Two meetings were held, in which thirty cardinals took part; but all of them, except the French cardinal, Bayane, were against Napoleon’s proposal, “because the independence of the Holy See was so closely connected with the welfare of religion”. In an elaborate letter the Pope explained the reasons which led him to reject the Emperor’s proposal. God is the God of peace; how, then, could His representative be expected to further strife? God offers peace both to them that are nigh, and to them that are afar off; therefore, the Pope must keep peace both with Catholics and with heretics. On this ground he must reject the Emperor’s proposal, which would drag him into war with the Emperor's enemies. Regarding Napoleon's censure upon Rome for being slow, with special reference to affairs in Germany, Pius VII rightly points out that affairs there were very complicated, and became more so day by day, especially after the congress of Regensburg. Napoleon’s attempt to make himself Roman Emperor is dismissed with the remark that he is the Emperor of the French, but that he has no authority whatever over Rome. There is no emperor over Rome: it would mean the abolition of the Papal authority. There is a title of Roman Emperor, but it belongs to the Emperor at Vienna, and cannot at one and the same time be borne by two sovereigns. Pius VII therefore feels himself constrained to reject Napoleon’s theory that the Pope should acknowledge his authority in temporal matters, just as he acknowledges that of the Pope in spiritual matters; for the Pope's spiritual authority is of divine origin, and cannot be compared with any temporal authority. It is therefore unreasonable to demand that the enemies of a prince should be also the enemies of the Pope. Such a demand would be in conflict with the divine mission of the Papacy in the world.

That this letter would not make Napoleon more favorably disposed is obvious; he believed that he clearly discerned in it the views of Consalvi. His hatred of the Papal Secretary increased in consequence, and it continually received fresh nourishment. When Joseph was appointed King of Naples, the event was announced to the Pope in very high-flown language; but a few days after, Consalvi reminded Fesch in a note, of “the very intimate connection which had existed for several centuries between the Pope and Naples”; or, in other words, that the Pope claimed sovereignty over both the Sicilies. This boldness filled up the measure. “What does this Papal Secretary mean? What spirit of levity has possessed him?” writes Napoleon to Caprara. “If this continues, I will have Consalvi removed from Rome, and make him responsible for what he intends, for he is evidently bribed by the English”.

In order to show that his threats were seriously meant, Joseph had already, a week or two before, been ordered at once and in all secrecy to occupy Cività Vecchia, the seaport of Rome. Consalvi protested immediately against this occupation, and ordered the papal nuncios to inform the foreign governments that it was an act of violence, and not a consequence of any friendly agreement. But this did not stop Napoleon. Shortly afterwards the Moniteur announced that the Emperor had granted Benevento and Pontecorvo, the Pope’s two enclaves in Naples, to Talleyrand and Bernadotte, and at the same time a layman and an enemy of the Church, Alquier, was sent to Rome as French ambassador in the place of Cardinal Fesch. By this the Pope perceived clearly that nothing less than his whole temporal power was at stake, and he therefore determined to take up a firm attitude towards Napoleon.

When Consalvi saw that the Pope’s mind was made up, he considered that the moment was come to retire, although he was convinced that it would be of no use. He suggested to the Pope that he should choose another secretary, but for a long time the Pope was unwilling, lest it might seem to be a concession to Napoleon. At last he gave in to the representations of Consalvi, and on 17th June 1806 chose Cardinal Casoni to be his successor. Casoni had spent some time at Avignon, and had afterwards been nuncio in Spain, and France had no reason to suspect him. It was a genuine sorrow to the Pope to lose Consalvi, and this sorrow was shared both by the citizens of Rome and by the foreign diplomatists. Everybody felt as if they were standing upon a volcano—Pius VII no less than his subjects. When Cardinal Fesch had his farewell audience of Pius, he denied point-blank the Pope’s right to use his spiritual authority in the present condition of things in France, and he professed openly the opinion that General Councils were superior to the Pope. The master’s want of consideration had infected the servants.

NAPOLEON'S CALIPHATE

Napoleon proceeded further and further in the direction of his ideal ‘Caliphate’, which, especially since the coronation, had become his favorite and constant subject of thought. D'Haussonville observes how Napoleon, after the coronation, put forward the old bishops, whilst formerly he had been particularly anxious to support those who had taken the oath. At the same time he threw open commissions in the army to the old nobility, the Bar to the old Parliamentary families, and the offices of the Court to the men of the old régime. He himself explained why he did so: “Only the people of the old stock know how to serve”. He wished his government to be regarded as a continuation of the government of Louis XIV, only with this difference—that he was infinitely greater than the great King, and consequently he ought to have the Church more completely in his power. After his return from Tilsit in 1807 he told the papal nuncio in Paris, in the presence of all the diplomatists, that he would not allow his subjects to go to Rome and pay homage to “a foreign prince” like the Pope, so long as the Pope would not lay all sovereignty aside, and, like St Peter, be content with the spiritual power.

At the very moment when he was about to break with the Pope, he was to be seen taking more than usual pains, as he expresses it, “to speak the language of religion”. He asks the bishops to render thanks to “the God of battles” for the splendid protection He has afforded to the arms of France, and the priests are ordered to pray “that our persecuted Catholic brethren in Ireland may obtain liberty of worship”. At first his victorious bulletins were read in the churches; but this was afterwards forbidden, because it would be awkward if the Emperor were ever to suffer a defeat, and, besides, the pulpit would thereby gain too great an influence. Napoleon had great ideas of the importance of a sermon, and he followed the preachers with the greatest attention. “Let M. Robert, the priest at Bourges, know”, he writes to Portalis, the Minister of Public Worship, “that I am displeased with him. On the 15th August he preached a very poor sermon”. At first he confined priests with whom he was “displeased” in a monastery, afterwards they had to go to prison. Sainte Marguerite, Fenestrelle, and Ivrée had their cells filled with clergymen.

But did not some of the French clergy deserve the scorn that lay at the bottom of divers of the Emperor's remarks? There were many bishops and priests who fawned upon Napoleon, and flattered him in a most indecent manner, and there was no one who had the courage to stay him on the road of self-deification. At the suggestion of Portalis two new festivals were introduced, as compensation for the old ones which had been abolished in order that the people should not be drawn away from work. One of them, “St Napoleon's Day”, was to be kept on 15th August, the birthday of Napoleon, and it was to be a day of thanksgiving for the good fortune of the empire; on the other hand, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, which had previously been associated with that day, was to be put out of mind. At a corresponding festival in the winter-time the Great Army and the Emperor's coronation were to be glorified. In answer to the circular which ordered the introduction of these festivals, petitions were sent in from many quarters to be allowed to erect chapels to the saint who had been so fortunate as to give the great Emperor his name. The old returned emigrant, D'Osmond, Bishop of Nancy, invited the faithful to form associations named after the new fashionable saint; and the biographer of D'Osmond, the Abbe Guillaume, says in 1862, in flattery of the Second Empire: “At the sound of the magic name Napoleon, thought became animated, hearts grew warm, and the masses set themselves in movement, and worked for the honor and the welfare of the country”.

ST NAPOLEON

There was, however, one drawback connected with the new saint: he was quite unknown. The Bollandists and the Roman Martyrology did not mention him, and D'Osmond could not find anything at all about St Napoleon in the libraries of Nancy. The zealous bishop wrote direct to Paris, but in spite of the city’s wealth of books all researches had the same poor result; no one anywhere knew anything of St Napoleon. At length Comparative Philology was drawn upon to help to dissipate the darkness that surrounded the new saint. It was discovered that a Greek of the name Neopolis or Neopolas had suffered martyrdom at Alexandria under Diocletian or Maximian. It was thought, therefore, that the name Neopolas, in accordance with the changes of sound in mediaeval Latin, must gradually have passed into Napoleo, and so into the Italian Napoleone. Upon this deep philological hypothesis, the new saint made his entry into the French calendar. But it was no wonder that the Emperor, who lived and labored amongst the French people, by degrees put the unknown saint into the shade, when the day of St Napoleon gathered together the festive crowds.

Ecclesiastical despots are wont to feel a certain uneasiness with regard to the individual differences which make their appearance along with the appropriation of things religious; and therefore they have commonly endeavored to give the Church around them an appearance of uniformity. At that time several church papers were published in France, but they were all ordered to stop, because it was not easy to keep an eye on them. On the other hand, a Journal des Curés was to be published as a kind of official church organ. The same striving after uniformity had already been expressed in the Organic Articles, where we read: “There shall be only one liturgy and one catechism in all the Catholic Churches of France”. Shortly after the conclusion of the Concordat, the preparation of a new catechism was taken in hand, but afterwards Napoleon thought it most profitable to take Bossuet’s catechism as a basis. It was in harmony with his awakening sympathy for the old régime. In spite of warning from the Holy See, Cardinal Caprara had taken part in the preparation of the new catechism, and was afterwards rewarded for it with censures from Rome. The Imperial Catechism of 1806 was thus in the main the work of the Bishop of Meaux, but Bousset’s composition was supplemented by certain additions “which should bind the people closer to the Emperor’s august person, and guide their submission towards the proper end”. In order to understand such phrases as these we need only look at the explanation of the Fourth (i.e., the Fifth) Commandment.

THE IMPERIAL CATECHISM

In Bossuet's catechism we read, What does the Fourth Commandment teach us further?

Answer: To respect all in authority, priests, kings, magistrates and others.

These few words sufficed in 1686, but in 1806 this part of the catechism was considerably swelled. Napoleon would not be placed behind the priests and in a line with the magistrates, and Frenchmen since the Revolution would need a more thoroughgoing education in obedience to be of any avail. Therefore the corresponding part in the Imperial Catechism, which seems to be the work of the Emperor himself, reads thus:

Q.: What duties have Christians towards the princes who govern them, and what are our particular duties towards Napoleon I, our Emperor?

A.: Christians owe to their sovereigns, and we especially to Napoleon I, our Emperor, love, respect, obedience, faithfulness, military service, the taxes, which are imposed to preserve and defend the empire and his throne; we owe him, further, fervent prayers for his salvation, and for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the State.

Q: Why do we owe all these duties towards the Emperor?

A.: First, because God, who creates kingdoms, and divides them after His will, has lavished upon our Emperor gifts both in peace and war, has placed him as ruler over us, and made him to be the minister of His power, and the image of Himself on earth. To honor and serve our Emperor is therefore to honor and serve God Himself. Secondly, because our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, both by His teaching and by His example, has taught us what we owe to our sovereign; He was born at the time when obedience was being paid to the commandment of Caesar Augustus; He paid the prescribed tax; and at the same time that He bade men to render unto God the things that are God’s, He bade them to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

Q.: Are there not special circumstances which ought to bind us still closer to Napoleon I, our Emperor?

A.: Yes, for it is he whom God has raised up under difficult circumstances to restore public worship and the holy religion of our fathers, and to be its guardian. He has restored and preserved public order by his deep and effectual wisdom; he defends the State with his mighty arm; he has become the Lord's anointed by his consecration at the hands of the Pope, the head of the whole Church.

Q.: What must we think of those who do not fulfill their duty towards our Emperor?

A.: According to St Paul the Apostle, they oppose what God has Himself ordained, and render themselves worthy of eternal damnation.

Q.: Shall we owe the same duties towards the legitimate successor of the Emperor as towards the Emperor himself?

A.: Yes, surely; for we read in the Holy Scriptures that God, the Lord of heaven and earth, according to His will, not only gives kingdoms to a single person, but also to his family.

Q.: What are our duties towards our magistrates ?

A.: We must honor, respect, and obey them, because our Emperor has entrusted to them his authority.

Q.: What is forbidden by the Fourth Commandment ?

A.: It is forbidden to disobey our superiors, to do them harm, or to say anything evil of them.

According to this recipe obedience to the Emperor was in future to be hammered into the French children. When the Pope came to know of this catechism, he remonstrated immediately, because the Emperor in authorizing it assumed a power which God had confided to the Church alone. It was to the apostles, and not to kings, that Christ had said, “Go ye and teach all nations!”. But it was too late; the Imperial Catechism continued to be the authorized manual of instruction in France until the fall of the empire.

New encroachments went hand in hand with the Emperor’s surreptitious usurpation of the right to establish text-books, which in Catholic lands is reserved for the Pope alone. Napoleon was not contented with having taken possession of the fortified places in the Papal States. He desired the moral support of the Pope against his enemies; and since Pius VII was unwilling to give it, he determined to take the final step. On 10th January 1808 General Miollis was ordered to advance upon Rome with the greatest secrecy, and in such a way that it would appear as if he intended to effect a juncture with the troops in Naples. He was to take the city, and to repress the least attempt at rebellion very severely.

At the end of January 1808 the General marched at the head of his army from Florence. As soon as he came to the borders of the Papal States, he asked permission to proceed by way of Rome. He expressed the wish that he had wings with which to reach Naples through the air, but since there was no other road on land than that through Rome, he asked permission to use it. The permission was granted, and nobody wondered at seeing, early in the morning of 2nd February 1808, a numerous French corps marching in through the Porta del Popolo. The army proceeded in order along the Via Babbuino, by the Piazza di Spagna, to the Porta S. Giovanni, with some guns in front, followed by the cavalry and infantry. As soon as they reached the great square in front of the Quirinal, where the Pope lived, a halt was made, and the guns were trained on the palace. It was Candlemas Day, and when the French soldiers marched in, the Pope and the cardinals were at service in the chapel of the Quirinal. They did not allow themselves to be in the least disturbed by the French, who beheld with wonder the Pope and the cardinals entering their carriages after the service as if nothing were happening. The Roman people could not take the matter so quietly, and for the first time in the memory of man the carnival week passed entirely unheeded.

Shortly after the French occupation of Rome, Cardinal Casoni was taken suddenly ill, and Doria Pamfili, who, on account of his short stature, was called Breve Papa, succeeded him as Papal Secretary of State. His government, however, did not last long, for Napoleon gave vent to his hatred of the Sacred College in an order which commanded that all the cardinals who were not Papal subjects by birth, should immediately be conveyed to their native regions, whether they would or not. In consequence of this order Doria was compelled to leave for Genoa, and Gabrielli became his successor. The Pope’s patience was now at an end: “Alas, these concessions”, he exclaimed, “what disasters have they not brought upon me!”, and in his despair he took the decisive step of breaking off diplomatic relations with France. Caprara’s plenipotentiary power was taken from him, and he was recalled. The Pope’s entourage tried to dissuade him from so violent a measure, but he stood firmly by his plan; it almost seemed as if he felt a certain pride in daring to take such a fateful course alone. The foreign diplomatists were more or less indifferent to the fate of the Pope; there were other thrones which were tottering at the time.

FRENCH VIOLENCE IN ROME

On 16th June two officers entered the house of the Papal Secretary of State, Gabrielli, without being announced, and put him under arrest. Then they sealed up his writing-desk, on which lay several important documents, and took him away from Rome. In the evening of the same day the Pope summoned Cardinal Pacca, and appointed him secretary. This cardinal had won his diplomatic spurs as nuncio at Cologne, but had afterwards been overshadowed by Consalvi, of whose secret enemies he was one. Pacca was an extreme absolutist both in Church and State, and had a more theological turn of mind than Consalvi. In conversation he was brilliant, and he possessed natural humor; but his horizon was narrow, and his view warped. The defiant position which he had been obliged to take at Cologne had been entirely after his own heart, and the situation which now awaited him as Papal Secretary did not differ much from the previous one. His experience at Cologne had taught him that it was best to proceed gently at the outset. Everything went quietly for a time—so quietly that the Pope began to be anxious: “My Lord Cardinal”, he said one morning to Pacca; “people say in Rome that we have fallen asleep. We must show that we are awake, and send a strong note to the French general regarding these latest deeds of violence”.

But Pacca reserved his guns till the right moment. He had many conversations with General Miollis, in which he endeavored to persuade the General to stop the acts of violence, but in vain. Bitter words were exchanged between them. Miollis said that he had orders to shoot and hang everybody who opposed the Emperor’s commands within the Estates of the Church. Pacca, however, only became defiant: he was not frightened.

The right moment for energetic measures was not long delayed. The French had attempted to form a citizen guard in Rome, and many had been enrolled. But on 24th August 1808 a proclamation was found posted at the street corners of Rome, in which the Pope, as the “lawful sovereign” of the State, threatened those who enrolled themselves in the guard with the punishment of the Church. Miollis, who recognized Pacca’s style in the proclamation, determined to remove this Secretary as he had removed his predecessor. A few days later he sent a major to Pacca, to order his immediate departure for Benevento, his native town. The major was attended by a subaltern, who was to take care that the Secretary did not leave the house, and especially that he should have no communication with the Pope. Pacca, with the major’s permission, wrote a note to the Pope, in which he told him the reason of his unwonted absence from the audience. A few moments afterwards the Pope entered, and told the officer that he was tired of all the indignities inflicted upon him. Thereupon he turned to Pacca and ordered him to follow him. The French officer, who did not understand Italian, asked Pacca very politely to translate the Pope’s words. The Secretary did so. When Pacca had finished, the Pope said: “My Lord Cardinal, let us go”. He then led Pacca away by the hand, and the disconcerted officer dared not resist. From that day Pacca occupied three rooms adjoining the Pope’s apartments; both of them felt as if they were besieged, and expected a sudden attack every day.

NAPOLEON EXCOMMUNICATED

The rumor of Napoleon’s intention to usurp the Papal States and carry off the Pope revived at the Quirinal the idea of excommunicating the Emperor. It had already been proposed in 1806, but at that time it was considered to be premature.

Consalvi would, it is certain, have hesitated long before he would have fulminated an excommunication; but Pacca did not believe that the Church’s thunderbolt was less effective in the nineteenth century than in the Middle Ages. Two different Bulls were drawn up, one in case the French should use force before carrying away the Pope, another in the contrary case; and it was no longer any secret that Pius VII intended to use the strongest measures, for he felt himself driven to extremities. To the prelate of his treasury he said that he “had the mine ready, and only required to take the match in his hand to fire it off”, and to another official he said: “We see well enough that the French now mean to force us to speak Latin. Well! we will do so!

On 10th June 1809, shortly before noon, the Papal arms were taken down from the Castle of Sant' Angelo, amidst the thunder of guns, and the tricolor was hoisted. At the same time a decree issued by Napoleon on 18th May at Schonbrunn was published throughout the city. By this the Papal States were united to the empire, so that the sovereignty of the Pope was abolished. As soon as this news reached the Quirinal, Pacca hastened to the Pope, and both exclaimed, Consummatum est! Pius, however, still hesitated a little when it came to publishing the Bull of excommunication. He said that he had again read it through, and he thought that some expressions used in it about the French government were too strong; but Pacca maintained that the language was not too severe, and that, on the contrary, they had waited too long before protesting seriously against the violent action of the French. These words struck Pius VII. He returned to his desk and signed a protest in Italian, and then ordered the Bull to be posted at the usual places: at St Peter's, at the Church of the Lateran, and at Santa Maria Maggiore. Before sunset it was done by the hands of pious and brave men, and when the Romans returned from vespers they could see the mighty document with its big letters, until the French came and tore it down.

In this Bull, Quam memoranda, the Pope first of all enumerates all the sufferings which the Church and her ministers had had to undergo. These had been so great that it was no longer possible to show forbearance. “But we pray that those men will come to see that according to the law of Christ they are subject to our throne, and are placed under our supremacy. For we also have a kingdom, and a far better one, and it would be absurd to say that the spirit must obey the flesh, the heavenly obey the earthly”. The Pope is constrained to draw the punishing sword of Holy Church, but it is done in the hope that those who are against him will repent. Then follows the usual form of excommunication against all who have presumed to use violence against the Church, and against their assistants, and lastly, the command is given to proclaim the fulmination “in all places and amongst all nations”.

PIUS VII SEIZED

Pacca assures us that this Bull made the Romans rejoice, and there is no reason to doubt that such a step was greeted with joy by faithful Catholics, who saw the Pope in such mournful circumstances. But the imprisonment of Pius VII in Rome was only a half-measure. Napoleon commanded General Miollis to execute any orders that he might receive from Murat, King of Naples, with regard to the Pope, and he wrote to Murat, that, if contrary to the spirit of the Gospel the Pope dared to preach rebellion, he should be arrested. As Miollis was afraid that serious tumults would break out in Rome, he obtained Murat’s permission to arrest Pius. The night before 6th July the General had invited theélite of Rome to a splendid fête in the Palazzo Doria, and at three o'clock in the morning the Quirinal was surrounded. The French soldiers, commanded by General Radet, met with no resistance, because the Swiss Guard had received orders to keep back so as to avoid bloodshed. The French burst in the doors with the butt-ends of their muskets, and groped in the dark through the passages of the palace to the wing in which the Pope resided. Pacca heard the noise, and sent his nephew to the Pope to wake him. The Spanish cardinal, Despuigs y Dameto, also rushed into the Pope’s room, where he was received with the exclamation: “It is all over with us now!” The Spaniard answered: “Your Holiness knows that today is the octave of the feast of St Peter and St Paul. People expect that Your Holiness will give an example of courage”. “Your Eminence is right”, answered the Pope, and dressed himself. When he was dressed, he went down to the Audience Chamber, where Pacca& and some of those nearest the Pope had& gathered. When the doors were broken in, Pius VII walked to his table, and th cardinals ranged themselves beside him. Radet, who came at the head of his men, was startled at the sight, and remained silent for some moments; he afterwards related how the memory of his First Communion rose up at this moment in his mind and held him back. At length he summoned up his courage, and, though pale, and with a shaking voice, said that he had the disagreeable duty of compelling Pius VII to abdicate his temporal power, or else of conducting him to General Miollis. The Pope answered that he could not abdicate what was not his own: he was only steward of the Papal States. Thereupon he and Pacca were led to the gate of the Quirinal, where a carriage was in waiting for them. Despuigs accompanied the Pope to the carriage door and begged for the departing Pope's blessing and absolution. As a punishment for this hardihood he was shut up in the Collegium Romanum. Instead of driving to General Miollis, the carriage turned out of the city, and Radet apologized to his prisoner for the untruth he had uttered. Outside the Porta de Popolo post-horses were in waiting, and with them they went on, away from Rome, upon the road to Florence. In spite of their distress the Pope and his Minister could not help smiling, when they discovered, on looking into their purses, their apostolic poverty. The Pope had only twenty baiocchi,the Cardinal fifteen. Pius VII jestingly showed the contents of his purse to Radet, who was in the same carriage, and said: “There, you see what is left to me of my kingdom!”. Pacca meanwhile was seized with an anxious thought:—Was the Pope sorry for the excommunication? It was this which had brought him into such distress, and Pacca, as has been shown above, was to a great extent the cause of its being issued. But his anxiety soon disappeared, for Pius said with a smile and a satisfied air: “My Lord Cardinal, we did well in publishing the Bull of excommunication on 10th June, for now we could not have done it”.

From Florence they travelled through Genoa and Turin to Grenoble, and from thence by Valence, Avignon, and Nice to Savona, on the Gulf of Genoa. Pacca was then conveyed to Fenestrelle, where he was taken very ill. He complained of the severe climate, the long winter evenings, and the heretical atmosphere; for the inhabitants, who were formerly Waldensians, had after the Reformation become Calvinists. The population of the different towns and villages showed Pius VII and his Minister all possible respect, and the magistrates tolerated this, because they had not then received more detailed orders from the Emperor. But Fouché took care that the Pope was never mentioned in the Moniteur, and the Parisians therefore obtained no news whatever of the Pope’s fate through the papers. Both the south and the north of Italy were constantly spoken of, but with regard to the great event in the city of the Tiber the greatest secrecy was maintained. Yet even in Paris there were dark rumors of the kidnapping of the Pope, and it was there believed that he was at Grenoble. On 9th August 1809, the Moniteur at last contained a letter of 1st August from Grenoble in which it was said: “People here are much concerned about an unknown animal which has passed through here; the traces it has left lead people to suppose that it was a reptile of a bigger kind than those which are known in France”. After that, more is related about the road which the “reptile” took, and how it fell at last into a mountain stream.

In such language did Napoleon’s official organ indulge not quite five years after the coronation.