CHAPTER VII

PIUS VI

IN Italy also, and not least in the Papal States, the French Revolution caused great and violent alterations.

The Conclave which met in 1774 after the death of Clement XIV had contained the same conflicting parties as the Conclave of 1769. The Zelanti were still sharply opposed to the cardinals belonging to the Crowned Heads; and they hoped for the restoration of the Jesuit order by means of a new pope of Jesuit sympathies, who might obtain support from a minister of one of the great Roman Catholic powers, friendly to the Jesuits. The Jesuit party had still enough influence to venture to remove the inscription on the monument of the late Pope, which spoke of his dissolution of the order; but it could not set Lorenzo Ricci free from his imprisonment in the Castle of St Angelo.

It was very difficult for the Conclave to agree. The Spaniards would not acknowledge the candidates of the Zelanti, and the Zelanti refused those proposed by the Spaniards. The cardinals went into conclave in the Vatican on 5th October 1774; but at the beginning of the year 1775 there was still no prospect of coming to any agreement. A great many of the cardinals used in the evening to visit Cardinal Bernis in his cell—No. 462—to pass the time, and enjoy the sweetmeats and fresh confectionery, which were sent into the Conclave every day from the hospitable cardinal’s kitchen. For a time, Cardinal Colonna had obtained many votes, but there could be no question of his election; he was only a man of straw, who was made use of until a real candidate could be found, and under the pious surface of the proceedings in the Conclave, intrigues were carried on, as is usually the case, which were far from edifying. Time began, however, to pass heavily for the cardinals, and Bernis was longing to see his sick friend, the Princess of Santa Croce. When a piece of the wall round the Conclave fell down, the story was circulated that the accident was due to him, and that he had walked out through the opening to visit the princess. Certain it is, that Bernis was tired of the Bourbon Courts for the votes to converge upon him. Bernis’ choice fell upon Braschi, the least dangerous of all the Zelanti. On 12th February he informed Braschi, that the Bourbons wanted a pope who, without giving any definite verbal or written promise before his election, would offer some hopes of confirming by a new brief or a bull the brief of Clement XIV with regard to the abolition of the Society of Jesus; who would either solemnly repeal the Bull of Maundy Thursday, or would at least consign it to oblivion; and who would say nothing about any claims to Parma, Piacenza, and the Two Sicilies. Braschi considered that these wishes were reasonable, and he became Bernis’ candidate accordingly. On the following evening Bernis settled with the future pope how the Secretaryship of State and other high posts were to be filled, and on 14th February he went the round of the cells in order to win over the Austrian and Spanish cardinals, who had scruples about giving their votes to Braschi. On 15th' February the final voting took place, and Bernis' candidate received the votes of all the other cardinals.

Giovanni Angelo Braschi, of Cesena, who after some hesitation between Clement XV and Benedict XV, chose to be called Pius VI, was a handsome man with a dignified demeanor and graceful movements. Everybody praised his rhetorical gifts and his ingratiating manner, but everybody knew also that he was beyond measure vain. When Luynes and Bernis, the two French cardinals, reported to their government that the Conclave was ended, they described the new Pope as fifty-seven years of age, an honest nobleman without favorites, and morally pure and well educated; but the dispatch ends cautiously with the following words: “God alone knows the heart, and men can only judge by appearances. The new Pope's manner of governing will show, whether, before his election, we saw his face or only his mask”.

While the cardinals were in conclave, Rome had been flooded with satirical writings and pasquinades of the most offensive sort. Several of them were burned on the Piazza Colonna by the executioner; but the scoffing did not cease because of that. The spirit of the eighteenth century had pervaded Italy also. Statesmen such as Firmian in Lombardy, Du Tillot in Parma, Rinuccini, Pallavicini and Gianni in Tuscany, Tanucci in Naples, Caracciolo and Simonetti in Sicily, were more or less under the influence of the French philosophy and the Gallican canon law. After the abolition of the Spanish dominion in Italy, a fresh current of thought passed through the peninsula, and the Spanish influence was succeeded by a strong influence from France. It was Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists, who took up the inheritance of Loyola and the stiff and gloomy Spaniards. When the Italian universities were reformed, after the expulsion of the Jesuits, they nearly all came into the hands of the men of free thought, and from them proceeded a strong opposition to the Church. The ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Paestum, which were brought again to light, gave, like the discovery of ancient remains in the days of the Humanists, the impulse to a new humanistic paganism, and the discovery of several of the writings of Greek thinkers had an influence similar to that of the treasures of the Byzantine libraries when they reached the west in the latter part of the Middle Ages. The effect of the antique might be traced at the end of the eighteenth century in every branch of intellectual life, and not least in art, from architecture to the style of furniture and the very cut of people's clothes. Even the morals of antiquity were revived. “In the morning a short Mass, in the afternoon a game of basset, in the evening a sweetheart”, said a Venetian proverb; and the Cicisbeati undermined married life both in the higher and in the lower walks of life.

In spite of the fulminations of the Church Freemasonry flourished in Italy, and the Illuminati obtained not a few followers south of the Alps. A host of pamphlets appeared containing bold attacks upon the Church, the Pope, and the scholastic theology. As early as 1723 Pietro Giannone had published his Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli, in which, without wishing to break with the Church, he scoffed at saints and indulgences, and adopted a critical attitude towards the miracle of the blood of St Januarius. Although his book was dedicated to Charles VI and published with the permission of the Vicegerent, it was placed upon the Index as an offensive and seditious writing, full of affronts to all ecclesiastical authority, and especially to the see of St Peter. Two years later, another Neapolitan, Giambattista Vico, under the title: Principles of a New Science regarding the Nature of Races, published a smaller but not less famous work; for in his Scienza Nuova Vico, although his views are based on defective historical and philosophical premises, yet—as Goethe said—gathered together with remarkable intuition all the historical points of view of former times into a “mighty unity”, a philosophy of history, which is also rich in deep insight into the philosophy of language. The philosopher and political economist, Antonio Genovesi, the disciple of Leibnitz and Locke, proposed to Tanucci that theology should be banished from the University of Naples in order that history and physics might take its place; and in his lectures on Political Economy, delivered at Naples in 1755, and published in 1765, Genovesi spoke against the celibacy of the clergy and the right of the monasteries to own property, and maintained that the State had a right to confiscate the goods of the Church. He was called in consequence by his antagonists, such as Mamachi, an enemy of religion and the State. But in spite of all opposition of the Church, the Philosophy of Sense, which he advocated, made great progress amongst the Italian youth.

An antireligious spirit appeared also amongst lawyers like Gaetano Filangieri and Cesare Beccaria; and Metastasio mentions that in his youth there was an ardente falange anti-Vaticana of Neapolitan jurists. Filangieri not only wished to wrest the schools from the guardianship of the Church, but according to his view the State ought also to watch over the education of priests. Although Beccaria, “to escape the bonds of superstition and the howls of fanaticism”, resolved to conceal the full significance of his message in a cloud of words, his book Dei delitti e delle pene contained a crushing condemnation of the Inquisition and of torture, and with this famous book a new era commenced in criminal law, which was more needed in Italy than anywhere else. Natural science received a new impetus from the discoveries of Volta and Galvani, and in Italy, as elsewhere, contempt for the Church and Christianity became for many the first result of the reviving study of the forces of Nature.

It was thus in a society deeply rent by humanism and skepticism that Pius VI took over the inheritance of St Peter, in the secret hope of regaining for the Papacy the tried support of Jesuitism. The favorites of Clement XIV soon learned that the new Pope did not approve of the church policy of his predecessor; and although Pius VI at first proceeded with the greatest caution, it was soon discovered what was the most ardent wish of this Zelante. In spite of the eagerness of Spain to have Bishop Juan de Palafox placed among the Blessed, Pius VI delayed the process of beatification, and at last it was stopped by an imperative message from the Pope in 1777; it was asserted that the correspondence of that enemy of the Jesuits with the theologians of Louvain had given the Advocatus diaboli plenty of ground for assailing his orthodoxy. On the other hand, Pius VI dared not, especially out of regard for Spain, to open the gates of the Castle of Sant' Angelo for Lorenzo Ricci; but when, as Bernis wrote home, “Providence ordered things so well” that the Jesuit General died (24th November 1775), his imprisoned assistants were immediately released.

Before the death of Ricci, Pius VI had already entered upon secret negotiations with Frederick II regarding the Jesuits. Bernis reported to his government in October 1775 that the Prussian king, who had no envoy in Rome, had been negotiating with the Pope by means of a certain Abate Ciofani, who was much attached to the Jesuits. The headquarters of the negotiations was not Rome, however, but Warsaw, where Garampi, one of the allies of the Jesuits, was nuncio. The brief of Clement XIV inhibited such Jesuits as would not acknowledge the dissolution of their order from the performance of all priestly offices; but Pius VI allowed Garampi to give permission to the bishops of Silesia and Prussian Poland to grant the Jesuits the right to minister in spite of refusing obedience to the brief. For Frederick II, in spite of the brief of dissolution, looked upon the Jesuits in Prussia as a lawful society; the Prussian Jesuits received novices as usual, and they thought of electing a new General after the death of Ricci, but contented themselves with a vicar-general for Silesia. Pius played a double part, inasmuch as openly, out of regard for the Bourbons, he spoke against the contumacy of the Prussian Jesuits, whilst secretly he approved of it.

In June 1776 it was even rumored, that there had been issued, from the Secretariate for Memorials, which was managed by Rezzonico, the friend of the Jesuits, a rescript whereby the ex-Jesuits obtained permission to use the office peculiar to their society, “as if the Pope still considered the society as in being”. France and Spain, however, made strong representations; and Tanucci declared on behalf of Naples that that kingdom would not hereafter in the usual solemn way deliver to the Pope, on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul, the customary tribute consisting of a white steed and ten thousand Roman gulden. It was no small grief to the vain Pope, who liked to seize upon every opportunity of appearing in full splendor, to be obliged to renounce the imposing scene, and in order to appease the Bourbon Courts he cancelled the rescript to the ex-Jesuits. Bernis was so pleased with this compliance that he confidently wrote home: “If this Pope should be so foolish as to work for the revival of the Society, he will meet with a general and unsurmountable opposition from the Courts, whether they be enemies or friends of the Jesuits”.

But towards the end of the year 1776, fate was indeed extraordinarily kind to the disciples of Loyola. Just when the Bourbon Courts began to draw together for a joint resistance to the double game of Pius VI, important changes took place in political circles. Tanucci at Naples was succeeded by the Marquis de la Sambucca; Don Jose Monino was recalled to Madrid to become the premier of Spain; in this way he became occupied with other matters than keeping an eye on the friendliness of Pius VI towards the Jesuits; and Pombal in Portugal fell into disgrace. Thus there disappeared at one moment from the political arena three of the most formidable opponents of the Jesuits; and Bernis was quite prepared to see the Queen of Portugal, who after the fall of Pombal seemed inclined to turn her court into une véritable capucinière, make up her mind to demand the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus.

CATHERINE II AND THE JESUITS

Under such circumstances the ex-Jesuits took fresh heart, and in Catherine II of Russia they found a well-wisher, who was able greatly to befriend them. The two hundred and one Jesuits in White Russia and Lithuania were among the first to take the oath of fealty to the Empress, and this procured for their superiors the most friendly reception when later on they met in St Petersburg to do homage to Catherine. When the brief of Clement XIV was issued, Tchernichef, the Governor of White Russia, who was a friend of the Jesuits, prohibited under most heavy penalties the introduction of Roman decrees into Russia. The Russian Jesuits therefore were able to act as if the brief Dominus ac redemptor noster did not exist. It is said that they asked Catherine’s permission to obey the bidding of the Pope, but that the Orthodox Empress replied that she wished to keep the Society of Jesus as it was. No doubt their petition was more or less of a pretence, and the reply of the Empress was scarcely unwelcome to them.

So zealous was Catherine II for the welfare of the Jesuits, that she begged Garampi to consecrate a convert named Stanislaus Siestrzencevicz, who had been educated as a Calvinist, to be Bishop of Mallo in partibus, that he might become apostolic visitor in White Russia. Before his consecration Siestrzencevicz solemnly promised the Empress to allow the Jesuits to live as heretofore. Thus Russia became an asylum for all the Polish, German, and Italian Jesuits. The Bishop of Mallo took upon himself to ordain to the priesthood a number of Jesuit scholastici. In later times writers on the Jesuit side, mainly relying upon a letter attributed to the former Polish minister, the Marquis Antici, have asserted that the Russian Jesuits on these points acted under the sanction of the Pope.

A great deal of what we now know about the state of affairs in Russia was unknown to the diplomatists of those days. In his relations with these, Pius VI continued his ambiguous policy. His constant excuse was that he had no power either over a Protestant prince like Frederic II, nor over a schismatic like Catherine. But Bernis was at his post. As soon as he heard that the Marquis Antici—whom he calls “the ecumenical minister”, in reference to the many Courts he had served since he had been in Poland—had obtained a brief permitting the ex-Jesuits at Cologne to live in community, and to teach and preach, he sounded such an alarm that the brief, which was already issued, was torn to pieces in his presence. But in Russia the Jesuits continued their activities, and Rome did not desist from its double game. As Bernis wrote to his government, it was not displeasing to the Pope that “seed of the Jesuits” should be preserved in remote countries, and with the sanction of Catherine II the Russian Jesuits, on 9th October 1782, elected Father Stanislaus Czernievicz as vicar-general with the authority of General.

PIUS VI AND THE JESUITS

This was open rebellion against the brief of Clement XIV, and the step taken by the Russian Jesuits caused the greatest indignation, both at Versailles and at Madrid. But help against the rebels was not to be expected from Pius VI. Already, in April 1780, he is supposed, in conversation with Cardinal Calino, to have called the dissolution of the Society of Jesus “a true mystery of iniquity”, and to have promised to seize the first opportunity for its re-establishment, maintaining that Clement XIV was not in full possession of his mental faculties, either before or after the dissolution, and just when the representatives of France and Spain in Rome were urgent to wring from Pius VI a disapproval of the doings of the Russian Jesuits, Catherine II informed him that in that case she would deprive all her Roman Catholic subjects of the free exercise of their religion. That this threat might not be carried into effect, Pius VI made haste to satisfy all Catherine’s wishes, but he sent at the same time to the Kings of France and Spain a brief which solemnly confirmed the brief of dissolution, and condemned the conduct of the Bishop of Mallo, as far as it was at variance with that brief. If this new brief had been published, the duplicity of Pius VI would have been patent to everybody, but the new Spanish representative at Rome, Florida-Blanca, partly out of respect for Russia, and partly out of attachment to the Pope, deemed it best to put off the publication. It became possible therefore for Pius VI to continue his perfidious policy. Soon after, in March 1783, the Bishop of Mallo, who in the meantime had become Archbishop of Mohilev, sent his coadjutor to Rome to request, in the name of the Empress, the Pope’s recognition of the doings of the Jesuits in White Russia. Pius VI told Bernis that he had expressed to this coadjutor his serious disapproval of the former Bishop of Mallo’s conduct, but the coadjutor himself swore, two years afterwards, that the Pope in reality had thrice repeated to him : Approbo Rossos Jesuitas!

Shortly after this, there were one or two incidents at Rome, which showed how completely Pius VI had become by degrees the slave of Jesuitism. A French beggar, Benoit Joseph Labre, from a village in the diocese of Boulogne-sur-mer, who had lived nine years in Rome, died on 16th April 1783. At once it began to be said that he was a saint. The Romans spoke with enthusiasm about his holy uncleanliness and his long prayers at the church doors. If was soon reported also that he had worked miracles and had entrusted his confessor with important prophecies. This confessor, Marconi, who wrote his life, was an ardent adherent of the Jesuits, and Bernis saw at once that the Jesuit party was at the back of this enthusiasm for Labre, which was turning the superstitious and ignorant city upside down. The excitement cooled somewhat, when a letter from Labre was found in France, in which he recommended the reading of the works of the Jansenist Oratorian, Pere Lejeune, and at the same time it was discovered at Rome, that Labre was accustomed to get good food and drink at an osteria, so that doubts began to arise with regard to the severity of his asceticism. Furthermore, Marconi, who called himself with pride his confessor, had in reality only heard his confession twice.

After these discoveries, the ex-Jesuit, Zaccaria, thought it prudent to drop that sketch of the holy man’s life which he was engaged in writing; but fanaticism and enthusiasm could not be restrained by critical researches. It was said that Labre had worked miracles, not only at Rome, but in France as well, and Pius VI interested himself in the slandered saint. In defiance of the remonstrances of Bernis, he put everything in train for the process of beatification; and in the very middle of the Revolution, on 31st March 1792, when Bernis was no longer able to watch his actions, he began the apostolic ‘process’, and declared Labre the Venerable. It was a triumph for the Jesuits; and although both they and the Pope soon had other matters to think of than the process of beatification, the French beggar was not forgotten. On 20th May 1861, he was beatified, and on 8th December 1881, Leo XIII canonized him.

In 1792, when the process of Labre’s beatification was set in motion, the re-establishment of the order of Loyola was also seriously considered. It was thought that the unbeliev­ing philosophy would hardly have gained so many conquests if the order had not been suppressed. Even a diplomatist like Aranda, the Spanish representative in Rome, who formerly had been very fierce against the Jesuits, now hoped to find in the re-established order an ally against the Revolution. But it was still too soon to call for ‘the strong and well-tried pilots’; only in the atmosphere of a general European reaction could the solemn re-establishment of the hated order be spoken of. Pius VI had to be satisfied with such triumphs as the recantation of Febronius, and the victories over the Electors at Ems and the Bishop of Pistoia, and, as we have seen, even those victories were crossed by bitter humiliations.

The home government of Pius VI was fairly energetic, but not successful. Clement XIV had endeavored to effect a balance in the budget by diminishing his expenses. Only when enterprises of general utility or of science were in question, was he liberal. But Pius VI was anything but economical. He endeavored by a new fiscal system, and in other ways, to obtain larger revenues for the papal treasury. Still it was much easier to reduce the expenditure than to increase the revenue, and the new taxes created much discontent. The Jubilee year of 1775 did not bring, as in the Middle Ages, a flood of gold pieces to Rome; but it gave Pius the opportunity to exhibit himself often in splendid attire, and to elicit from the many spectators admiration for his fine hands and his small feet. “Quanto e bello!” was the exclamation that usually met him on the part of the Roman women, but with the addition, more flattering for a pope, “Tanto e bello quanto e santo!”

The most debated of all Pius VI’s civic enterprises was the draining of the Pontine marshes. Many were enthusiastic about this undertaking, but the enthusiasm soon subsided. It became evident that Pius VI had wished, by carrying out his project, to gain the reputation of an engineer, without having any of the qualifications. Before one third of the marshes had been converted into dry ground, all the money which the whole undertaking should have cost was used up. It had been expected that the arable land so reclaimed would in a short time repay the cost of drainage; but this hope failed completely. The Romans were scandalized when Pius VI gave to a relation of his, who already called himself ‘Duke’ Braschi, the reclaimed land in perpetual lease. It looked like an anachronistic attempt to get a principality for a pope's nephew.

The draining of the Pontine marshes was by no means: the only enterprise that exhausted the papal treasury and brought the finances of Pius VI into hopeless disorder. The Renaissance ideas floating in the air of Rome had infected him. He desired to carry his name down to posterity as a builder. The architect, Carlo Marchionne, was bidden to make plans for a sacristy for St Peter’s. When completed, this sacristy was not as large as Pius had thought it would be; but, as it stands, with its three magnificent apartments, adorned with dazzling splendor, it cost more than 1,500,000 Roman gulden. The pompous inscription above the main entrance, which announces to coming generations that it was erected according to the wish of the people (publica vota), must not be taken too literally. A few days after it was set up, the following disavowal could be read underneath it:

“Publica! mentiris. Non publica vota fuere,

Sed tumidi ingenii vota fuere tui”.

The Romans had quickly seen through the vainglorious Pope, who never omitted to mark any statue or work of art which he had himself added to the collections of the Vatican with the words: Munificentia Pii Sexti, and who in the so-called Museo Pio-Clementino has erected the finest monument to his munificentia.

MURDER OF DE BASSVILLE

With the French Revolution began the great humiliations of Pius VI. In Austria it was believed that he was at the bottom of the disturbances in Tuscany and the insurrection in Belgium, which latter—like a prophecy of that covenant between Ultramontanism and Liberalism, which later on was struck in Belgium—was in fact led by the Archbishop of Malines and a Liberal advocate. If Pius VI really played with the revolutionary fire in Tuscany and Belgium, he was cruelly punished for it by all the disasters which the French Revolution and its sequel brought upon his head. We have seen what horror the Civil Constitution of the clergy and the occupation of Avignon and Venaissin created in Rome. During the days of the Directory misfortunes came still closer home to the Papacy.

Shortly after France became a Republic, the French diplomatist, Hugou de Bassville, who had been sent to Rome in November 1792 to discover the weak points in the papal government, had the Bourbon fleur-de-lis removed from the post office, and from the Palazzo Mancini, where the French Academy had its home; and later on the statue of Louis XVI in the Academy was thrown down. The papal Secretary of State informed Bassville at once that his master did not approve of displacing the fleur-de-lis in favor of the device of the so-called Republic. The ill-will towards France in certain circles was very great. When the French diplomatist, with some countrymen of his, drove down the Corso on 13th January 1793, his carriage was attacked in the Piazza Colonna by a crowd of people, who seem to have been set on by one or two abbés, and Bassville was mortally wounded. The circle of French artists, who had their place of resort in the Academy at the Palazzo Mancini, and whose sympathies were with the Revolution, were greatly exasperated by his death; and the exasperation was not less in Paris. The Moniteur spoke about laying the Vatican in ashes; and notwithstanding their many anxieties at home and abroad; the Parisians did not forget to demand revenge upon the murderers of Bassville.

On 26th April 1796 General Bonaparte issued from his headquarters at Cherasco a proclamation, in which he called upon his victorious troops to carry liberty, not only to Turin and Milan, but also to Rome, “where the murderers of Bassville are still trampling on the ashes of those who vanquished the Tarquins”. On 15th May he made his entry into Milan; and on 19th June he came to Bologna, where already in 1794 some young Italians had endeavored to raise an insurrectional and had decked themselves with the Italian tricolor, formed of the white and red colors of Bologna, together with the green of hope. Immediately upon the arrival of Bonaparte I the Senate of Bologna took the oath of fealty to the French I Republic, and in the course of a short time Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, and Faenza were in the power of the French. Everywhere in the conquered places the Pope's coat of arms was taken down, and trees of liberty were planted; and Bonaparte was preparing to go through Romagna and the Marches to Rome, to take revenge for Bassville.

In his hour of need Pius VI besought the Tuscan statesman, the Marchese Manfredini, as the servant of a neutral power, to go to Bologna and make an attempt to stop the advancing enemy. With Manfredini went Lorenzo Pignotti, who hoped to win the heart of Bonaparte by using in honor of the young commander a stanza of Tasso's about Godfrey of Bouillon. But neither the words of Manfredini nor the verse of Tasso made any impression on the victorious warrior. The Spanish representative in Rome, Don Jose d'Azara, who next attempted to incline Bonaparte more favorably towards the Pope, was not more successful. When D'Azara proposed to let Pius VI off with paying four or five million lire for expenses of war, Bonaparte became furious, and called it an insult to the French nation to imagine that its enemy could get off so cheaply. He gave such free course to his ill-humor that at last D'Azara withdrew to his apartment, shedding tears of shame. On 23rd June 1796 it came at last to a very burdensome truce for Rome. Besides the cession of Bologna and Ferrara, it laid upon the Curia heavy compensation for the family of Bassville. Five hundred valuable manuscripts and a hundred works of art were to be delivered over, besides provisions to the value of five and a half million lire, and a war indemnity of fifteen millions and a half.

THE TRUCE OF BOLOGNA

To arrive at an agreement about the final conditions of peace, Pius VI sent Count Pierracchi to Paris. The Papal representative could not expect to find much good-will on the part of the Directory. Carnot was the only one of the Directors who did not wish to see a Roman republic raised on the ruins of the Papacy. For Lareveillère-Lépeaux the successor of St Peter was a rival; Catholicism was the successful competitor with Theophilanthropism. And Rewbell had the genial idea, that if it was not possible to get rid of the Papacy altogether, it would be well to get two or more popes at once, so that republicans, and royalists, and the various States, might have one apiece; only care must be taken that the Pope of the French Republic should dwell at Rome.

To appease the men of the Revolution, Pierracchi brought with him a brief to all faithful Catholic Christians dwelling in France and in communion with the Papal See. In this letter, Pius VI appealed to the recipients to keep the peace and to show due submission to the powers that be, reminding them that the Roman Church, like St Paul, teaches that authority is from God. It was the first time that Pius VI had spoken in this way with reference to the French Republic; and the letter caused great irritation among the Roman Zelanti, who maintained that obedience could only be demanded for legitimate authorities, and never for usurping ones. Most of the priests who had taken the oath to the Constitution disseminated the letter with joy, as a proof that they had acted correctly; but some of them, more clear-sighted than the rest, had some misgivings with regard to the form in which the address was couched, and also as to certain expressions in the letter itself. Those who had not taken the oath were as dissatisfied with it as the Zelanti at Rome.

On 26th July Count Pierracchi was presented by the Spanish representative in Paris, the Marquis del Campo, to the French Foreign Secretary, Delacroix; but it was not till 12th August that negotiations began. Delacroix at once rode the high horse, and informed Pierracchi that it would be the easiest thing in the world for France to change all the principalities of Italy into revolutionary states. The first demand of Delacroix on behalf of the Directory was a distinct and explicit withdrawal of all the violent and contemptuous expressions that the Pope had used in bulls and briefs with regard to the French Revolution. The above-mentioned brief to the faithful Catholics in France was in Delacroix’s view inadequate; and as the Foreign Secretary and Pierracchi could not agree about an altered drafting of the article referring to the withdrawal of earlier bulls and briefs, the negotiations were hastily broken off. On 23rd August the Papal envoy received orders to leave Paris at the earliest possible moment, together with his Secretary of Legation, because it had been clearly shown that he had not sufficient authority to make the requisite submission. After the victory of Bonaparte over General Wurmser and the Austrians, the Directory thought that there was no need to wait so long a time as would elapse before Pierracchi could get the necessary instructions from Rome. It was much simpler to entrust to the victorious General of the army in Italy the duty of negotiating directly with the Pope.

While the peace negotiations were in progress, it seems that there were also negotiations tending to nothing less than the conclusion of a new Concordat with Rome. If we may venture to believe the memoirs left by the Papal Nuncio at Paris during the Revolution, Mgr. de Salamon, which were published a few years ago by the Abbé Bridier, Pierracchi played also the part of second to Salamon in conducting confidential negotiations for a Concordat. Mgr. Salamon says: “The Directory made induce His Holiness to confirm the Civil Constitution of the clergy. Half of the old bishops were to have been recalled, and restored to their former sees, and half of the bishops who had taken the oath were to have been retained. When an episcopal see was vacant, the Directory was to propose three persons, of whom the Pope was to select one”. The draft of this Concordat, according to Mgr. Salamon, was actually printed; but when a further oath was demanded from the bishops and priests, Pius VI peremptorily rejected it.

PROPOSALS FOR A CONCORDAT  

Negotiations for a Concordat have hitherto been altogether unknown, and men as much at home in those times as Boulay de la Meurthe, who edited the documents relating to the history of the actual Concordat, are very skeptical with regard to the revelations of the Papal Nuncio. It is certainly an extraordinary thing that this attempt to make a Concordat does not seem to have been mentioned at all at the conclusion of the Concordat of 1801. Silence with regard to the negotiations in 1796 can perhaps be explained by the fact that Rome did not feel inclined to take up former negotiations which were based upon a partial recognition of the bishops who had taken the obnoxious oath, and of the Civil Constitution. Besides this, Rome in 1801 stood face to face with a different government from that of 1796. From other sources we learn that Pierracchi brought with him two cardinals’ hats, of which the one seems to have been destined for Gregoire, the other for Bishop Saurine, who also had taken the oath. It is, furthermore, a fact that Pierracchi during his three or four weeks’ stay in Paris had dealings with the bishops of that party, who were on friendly terms with Carnot. Salamon’s account, therefore, is not wholly untrustworthy, but we are for the present unable to check the details of his story. Only so much is certain that he was disposed to over-rate his own importance; and it is difficult to believe that the Directory really intended to make a Concordat with Rome, even on the basis of a partial acceptance of the Civil Constitution. Possibly it was a case in which Carnot acted on his own account.

At Rome hopes were entertained of escaping the humiliating conditions of peace by gaining time. When D'Azara returned from Bologna he was received as a deliverer; but he was edified by the state of things in the city of St Peter. He was scandalized by the endless processions, and by the streams of people who visited images of the Madonna that opened and shut their eyes. In spite of his devotion to the Pope, this Spanish nobleman was a child of the eighteenth century. When Miot, the French ambassador to Tuscany, and some other French agents, came to Rome, by Bonaparte’s orders, to enforce the conditions of the armistice, there were frequent scenes in the streets. The Pope and the inhabitants of Rome were compelled to part with their art treasures; and there was such eagerness in Paris to get hold of them that the notion was entertained of offering Pius VI a famous old image of St Anne from a Carmelite monastery at Auray in exchange for this or that object of art.

>As soon as Wurmser crept forward, the English-Neapolitan party took courage again, and Pius VI determined to make an attempt to induce Bologna and Ferrara to throw off the French yoke. But the appeal which he sent to the Senate of Bologna was immediately despatched to Bonaparte by the Senate itself, and the Archbishop of Ferrara, Cardinal Mattei, who had gone to Ferrara, in spite of the armistice, to refix the Papal coat of arms, soon became the prisoner of Bonaparte. After Wurmser’s defeat the Cardinal-Archbishop was arrested and conveyed to Brescia, and Pius VI received a sharp admonition to keep better order in his capital, so that French citizens there might not be exposed to ill-treatment. At this juncture, Pierracchi returned to Rome with the proposal of the Directory, that the expressions in former bulls and briefs derogatory to the Revolution should be withdrawn. The cardinals, who were immediately called together, declared it to be impossible for the Pope to accede to this request, but D'Azara induced the Dominicans of Maria sopra Minerva and their General, who was a Spaniard, to deliver an elaborate opinion, which attempted to prove that the request of the Directory, when rightly understood, was not injurious to the doctrine of the Church. Furnished with this theological judgment, D'Azara went to the Pope, but the acumen of the Dominicans was not appreciated by him. He declared to D'Azara that this question was settled, and that he intended, by the advice of the cardinals, to leave Rome. Preferably he would go to Spain; but as D'Azara did not dare to encourage the execution of this plan without the permission of his sovereign, he spoke of a retreat to Malta. He had already asked the English Admiralty to place one or two ships at his disposal, that he might safely reach, that place of security. He also requested D’Azara once more to do the Papacy the favor of accompanying the Papal negotiator, Mgr. Galeppi, from Rimini to Florence, where he was to meet the French commissioners.

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

The moment D'Azara was out of Rome, Pius VI summoned the unfortunate Dominican General, and charged him with having done incalculable harm to the dignity of the Pope, the Papal States, and the whole Church of God, by his inconsiderate opinion. A letter from the General to D'Azara affords a lively picture of the excited conversation, and shows how deeply the successor of St Dominic was hurt, as a theologian, a Dominican, and a Spaniard, by the abuse of the wrathful Pope.

The negotiations at Florence led to no result. Mgr. Galeppi repudiated all idea of retractation, and, when the discussions were broken off, Pius VI appealed to the King of Spain and the other Catholic powers. Then a new French diplomatist, Cacault, came to Rome in the place of Miot, to look after the interests of France in the execution of the provisions of the truce. Shortly after appeared an envoy from Naples, desirous of concluding a defensive alliance with the Pope. It was General Acton, the Machiavellian Minister of King Ferdinand, who made this proposal; but the spies of Bonaparte in Naples had already long ago reported what was going on to the French headquarters, and Bonaparte immediately made Cacault write to Acton and say that a French army would appear on the frontier, if he ventured to allow Neapolitan soldiers to enter the Papal States.

To bring the matter to an issue, Bonaparte sent a letter to Cardinal Mattei, in which he suggested that Mattei should go to Rome and enlighten Pius VI as to the real state of affairs, and with regard to the dangers which might result from protracted obstinacy on the part of the Papacy. Mattei went; but he found the Pope fully determined to try the fortunes of war. Cardinal Albani was sent to Vienna to beg help of Austria, and it was hoped in Rome that the victories of France would soon be succeeded by defeat. On the feast of the Epiphany 1797 the new banners of the Papal army bearing the well-known inscription, In hoc signo vinces, were consecrated with great solemnity in St Peter’s, and the prelate who said the Mass addressed to the troops on the occasion some words about the approach of a “Holy War”.

All the hopes of Rome were quickly shattered. As soon as Bonaparte learned that Pius VI had made an alliance with Austria, he ordered Cacault to leave Rome within six hours, and then he turned his hand against the Papal States. After firing a few shots near Castel Bolognese, the Papal troops retired in great haste, whereupon the French occupied Ancona without striking a blow, and pushed on as far as Tolentino (13th February). The tidings of the fall of Ancona caused the greatest consternation at Rome. Pius VI immediately summoned a congregation of cardinals, which resolved that the successor of St Peter should flee to the Neapolitan frontier with his ministers, while the cardinal-bishops should betake themselves to their sees. The costly tiaras of the Pope and all his precious stones were packed up, all the cash that could be got out of the banks and lending houses was gathered together, and on Saturday, 11th February, at even­tide, the flight was to be accomplished. But when it was noised abroad in Rome that Pius VI was intending to leave, a great multitude thronged the piazza of St Peter's, and when the Pope was about to mount into his carriage, the advocate Bartolucci gathered up courage and made such strong remonstrances that the Pope's flight was for the moment given up. Instead of doing as he had intended, Pius VI sent Cardinal Mattei, his nephew Braschi, the Marchese Massimi, and Mgr. Galeppi to Tolentino to sue for peace.

PEACE OF TOLENTINO

Bonaparte had shown great humanity and moderation in the ccupied districts. He kept firm discipline amongst his troops, and did not allow religion to be outraged. But the conditions of peace which he now imposed were naturally more rigorous than those at Bologna. By the peace of Tolentino, concluded on 19th February, the Pope was obliged to abandon his claims upon Avignon and Venaissin, Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna; he was compelled to promise to disband his army, to deliver up the manuscripts and art treasures which were formerly promised, and to pay 15,000,0o0 lire more than were imposed upon him at Bologna. Five days later Pius VI signed the hard and humiliating treaty of peace, and he might even count himself happy that Bonaparte, as his aide-de-camp, Marmont, says, still allowed himself to be so much guided by political calculations and practical considerations that he was insensible to the honor of entering the metropolis of the Christian world as a conqueror.

So far from doing this, Bonaparte sent Marmont to Rome to arrange the necessary details for the execution of the terms of peace. Pius VI received the young officer “with dignity and kindness”, and Marmont found the venerable old man, who spoke with interest of Bonaparte, and with admiration of the French victories, both impressive and charming; but he was shocked at the levity of the Romans. In the fortnight he spent in the town he saw all the inhabitants devoting themselves to enjoyment, and the light-mindedness of the women, according to his accounts, surpassed all description. And yet this peace of Tolentino was in reality the beginning of the end of the temporal power of the Pope. When Bonaparte forwarded the terms of peace to the Directory, he accompanied them with a letter showing the importance which he himself attached to what France gained at Tolentino. It was better, he said, to get the three best provinces of the Papal States surrendered by the Pope of his own free will than to have taken it all by force; and the 30,000,000 lire promised to France were in his estimation worth ten times as much to the French as Rome itself. “It is my opinion”, he writes, “that when Rome has lost Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, and the thirty millions that we have taken, it cannot hold together any longer; the old machine will fall to pieces of itself”. D'Azara passed the same judgment on the situation. It seemed to him that Rome could not possibly fulfill the heavy economic obligations. “The Pope”, he writes, “will by the cession of all his best provinces become powerless and without authority; and as the party in Rome, which is desirous of a change of government, has grown enormously, it will be a miracle if a revolution does not take place in Rome with incalculable consequences”.

>Even among the cardinals there were some who, like Cardinal Doria, clearly perceived the difficulties of the position; and they insisted that Rome should in every particular fulfill her obligations, and renounce all thoughts of revenge in order to escape still greater calamities. But most of the members of the Sacred College, of which an overwhelming majority had voted for the fatal breach of the truce, consoled themselves with the silent hope that the fortunes of war would soon turn, and that Austria or Naples would send help! Amongst the adherents of the Zelanti hatred of France and the French increased in proportion as the revolutionary party, not without incitement from Paris, more and more daringly lifted up its head in Rome. On the 21st of October the zealous Lareveillère-Lépeaux wrote to Bonaparte, in view of the death of the Pope, which was then considered imminent: “We must use the opportunity to favor the institution of a representative government in Rome, and to deliver the world at last from the dominion of the Pope”. There were many other Frenchmen besides the apostle of Theophilanthropism who hoped for the approaching fall of the Papacy.

DISTURBANCES AT ROME

The republicans in Rome, however, had not patience enough to wait for the Pope's death. In the night between 27th and 28th December some of them, starting at the Villa Medici on the Pincian Hill, attempted to plant trees of liberty in several places of the town. The military guards easily quelled the disturbances that night; but the next evening the Roman republicans assembled in front of the Palazzo Corsini in the Via della Longara in Trastevere, where the envoy of France, Joseph Bonaparte, was living, and an eventful encounter took place, of which the most trustworthy account is given in a dispatch from Joseph Bonaparte to Talleyrand. According to that account, a few of the Roman revolutionaries had already visited Joseph Bonaparte on 27th December, to tell him that on the following night a revolution would break out in the town. Joseph answered that in consequence of his position at the Papal Court, he could not become a party to such a plot; and he represented to them that the intended revolution would be both unprofitable and untimely. No regard was paid to these remonstrances. At four o'clock he was roused by a great noise, but, as has been said already, the tumult was soon quelled, and Joseph slept peacefully that night. The day following, when he had heard more of the events of the night, he went to the Papal Secretary of State and begged him to punish all those Romans, who, not being in the service of the Legation, had assumed the French cockade. While he was sitting at dinner on the evening of the same day in the Palazzo Corsini, the porter brought word that a score of people assembled outside were distributing French cockades and shouting: !Long live the Republic! Long live the Roman people”. One of them, an artist, whom Joseph Bonaparte knew, wished to speak to the Ambassador of France. He began by saying: “We are free, and we have come to ask the support of France”. Joseph advised the excited young man to keep quiet, and to exhort his companions to be still, informing him that he would not afford the Roman revolutionaries any protection whatsoever.

After the artist had departed, it was announced that the Via della Longara was quite full of people, shouting: “Long live the Republic!”. When Joseph heard it, he called for the insignia of his ambassadorial rank, and descended the stairs to reason with the crowd; but before he got out of the palace he heard an outcry, and the court of the palace was full of people, who had taken refuge there, pursued by Papal troops. Joseph asked the leader of the troops by what right Papal soldiers had entered the premises that were under the, jurisdiction of France, an ordered them to retire. General Duphot, who had followed Joseph Bonaparte, eager as he was, sprang in amongst the troops, and followed the crowd down the Via della Longara as far as the Porta Settimiana. There he dropped down, struck by two bullets, and no sooner was he fallen to the ground than many shots were fired upon the inanimate corpse, and the clothes were torn off it.

The death of Duphot exasperated the Romans of the French party beyond measure, and Joseph Bonaparte quitted Rome immediately. The brave young general was next day to have married Joseph's sister-in-law, the child sweetheart of General Bonaparte, Désirée-Eugénie Clary, of Marseilles, who later on, became the wife of Bernadotte. For this reason the death of Duphot was in more than one way a source of grief to the General of the Italian army, and the Directory was infuriated when it received intelligence of what had happened. The Moniteur called upon the French nation to shed tears “because one of its most distinguished generals had fallen at the hands of the priestly assassins at Rome”, and General Berthier was immediately ordered to march upon that city with 15,000 soldiers. When the French were two days’ journey from the town, it was intended that Pius VI should be forced by menaces to flee, so as to avoid laying hands on the successor of St Peter.

DEPOSITION AND FLIGHT OF PIUS

As soon as the French drew near to Rome, the terrified Pope sent out agents with a view to stopping the French army, but they were turned away. Not until the gates of Rome were reached, would Berthier consent to give them an interview. On 10th February, he had advanced to that point, and as Pius had not fled, as was expected of him, Berthier made a series of humiliating demands upon him. He asked for the right to place a garrison in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, a fresh contribution of money and horses, and the erection of two monuments to Bassville and to Duphot. Pius VI conceded everything. For some days, it seemed as if the French were going to maintain the Pope's authority in the town, and Berthier was content to establish his head­quarters outside the Porta del Popolo, between Monte Mario and Pontemolle. But on 15th February about three hundred Roman ‘patriots’ assembled in the Forum Romanum to proclaim the abolition of the Papal government and the reign of liberty and equality. A tree of liberty was planted on the Capitol, and seven consuls were elected who showed their mind forthwith by inviting the French general to a meeting in the citadel. Berthier accepted the invitation, and, on that spot so full of memories, he begged the spirits of Cato, of Pompey, of Brutus, of Cicero, and of Hortensius to accept the homage of the freemen of France. A few days later, a deputation consisting of Jews, apostate monks, and rebels, waited upon Pius VI in order to extract from him a recognition of the Roman republic. Pius answered that God had bestowed the sovereignty upon him, and that he could not abdicate it; he said that he was an old man of more than eighty years of age, who was ready to bear any outrages that they might think fit to inflict upon him. Upon this reply, the Vatican was occupied by ‘patriots’, who ordered Pius VI to leave Rome within eight and forty hours.

On 20th February 1798, the aged Pope quitted his capital under military surveillance, accompanied only by a small band of attendants. A few days later, the cardinals also were ejected, although, as Alfieri told them with scathing contempt in his Misogallo, several of them had “sung the Te Deum, which was offered in St Peter's to celebrate the deposition of the Pope”. On the Tuscan frontier, the Pope was received as the guest of the Grand Duke, and in that capacity took up his abode first at Siena, in the monastery of the Augustinians, now the Collegio Tolomei, in the Piazza S. Agostino. When an earthquake compelled him to leave Siena (on 1st June 1798), he took his journey to the beautiful Certosa, situated about four miles out of Florence, with its glorious view over the valley of the Ema, and the snow-covered peaks of the chain of the Apennines. But by 12th March 1799 the Directory declared war against Tuscany, and on 27th March, the same day that the Grand uke forsook Florence, the Pope, in spite of his fourscore and two years and his infirmity, had to leave the Certosa in the Val d'Ema, to be conveyed by way of Parma, Tortona, and Turin, to the citadel of Valence in Dauphiné, where death on 29th August put an end to his anxieties and sufferings. His body remained unburied for four months, until Bonaparte, as one of the first proofs of the conciliatory mind of the Consulate towards the Church of Rome, granted the exiled Pope a grave, and erected a monument in his honor. The heart of Pius VI is still preserved at Valence, but his dust rests in the crypt under St Peter's; and in the confession near the high altar of St Peter’s, close by the grave of the Apostle, surrounded by the ever-burning lamps, is seen his kneeling figure, chiselled by the hand of Canova.

The prophecy of Malachias was well adapted to Pius VI when it foretold that a peregrinus apostolicus would be the successor of Clement XIV. But the description is still better suited to the Pope who came next; for the affliction and exile of Pius VI were only a prelude to the still greater affliction, and the still more bitter exile, that awaited his successor.