1774.
DEATH OF CLEMENT XIV.
During the struggle which Clement had to undergo before the suppression
of the order, his health, as we have seen, had been injured, and his gay,
placid humour much altered. But the moment he had affixed his signature
to the document, after pronouncing those foreboding prophetic words,
“This suppression will cause our death”—wrung from his heart by the
knowledge he had of the enemies he was going to offend, as if those words
were the last doleful thought he was going to give to the subject—he
became an altered man, or, to speak more correctly, he again became the
same good-humoured, mild, and affable monk he had ever been. The facility
with which his orders were executed filled him also with extraordinary
joy. “His health is perfect, and his gaiety more remarkable than usual,”
wrote Bernis on the 3d of November 1773. Whatever discontent the nobles
and the cardinals may have felt, they remained silent spectators of the
event; and the generality of the citizens of Rome, and, in particular,
the Trasteverini, hailed the Pope with loud acclamations. In vain did the
conquering party foment a revolt; Rome remained tranquil; Clement was
delighted; and, as if to compensate for the sad moments he had passed,
and the irascible humour he had shewn, his character became still more
joyful, and almost infantine. One day, followed by the Sacred College and
all the Roman prelates, he went on horseback to the Church La Minerva.
Suddenly a heavy rain came on; _Porporati Monsignori_ all vanished, and
the light horsemen themselves sought shelter. The Pope, left alone, and
laughing at the terrors of his escort, proceeded bravely on his way
amidst the storm, and the people were delighted at the sight, and loud in
their applause.[402]
[Illustration: _Clement XIV._ (_Ganganelli_)
_Hinchliff._]
All the authors are unanimous on this point, and agree in representing
Ganganelli as full of vigour, and enjoying the most perfect health.
“The Pope,” says Botta, “enjoyed rather good health, because he was of
a strong constitution, and his natural strength had not been wasted
by an intemperate and licentious life; for, on the contrary, he had
always lived with frugality and moderation, according to his own natural
inclination.”[403] And the ex-Jesuit Georgel, who certainly can be
accused of anything but partiality to the suppressor of his order, says
“that Ganganelli’s strong constitution seemed to promise him a long
career.”[404] Nevertheless, in spite of appearances, sinister rumours
were afloat not only in Rome, but throughout all Italy. At the very time
that the Pope was seen in the public ceremonies, in all the churches
and everywhere else, enjoying the most perfect health and strength, the
rumour of his death was widely circulated. The Pythoness of Valentano
announced it with a characteristic obstinacy; and a Jesuit, writing to
a brother of the order, and relating such impious predictions, says,
_Aplica ut fiat systema_.[405]
Nor was it long before the ominous predictions were realised. This
man, represented by everybody as strong and healthy, suddenly, on the
approach of the holy week of 1774, some eight months after the signature
of the Brief, was taken ill, confined to his palace, and unable to grant
any audience, even to the diplomatic body. What had happened to Clement,
who, when on the 17th of August the ambassadors of the great powers were
admitted into his presence, appeared a MERE SKELETON? Whence such strange
and fatal change? The answer to these questions will appear from the
following statement of facts.
One day, on rising from table, the Pope felt an internal shock,
followed by a great cold; and although he was for a moment alarmed, he
soon recovered from his fright, and attributed his indisposition to
indigestion. But soon after, the voice of the Pope, which had always been
full and sonorous, was lost in a singular hoarseness; an inflammation
in his throat compelled him to keep his mouth continually open. He had
repeated attacks of vomiting, and felt such feebleness in his limbs, that
he was obliged to discontinue his long habitual walks. His step became
interrupted by sharp pains, and at length he could not find any rest
at all. An entire prostration of strength suddenly succeeded a degree
of even youthful activity and vigour; and the sad conviction that his
fears were realised, and that his life had been attempted, seized upon
Clement, and rendered him strange even to his own eyes. His character
was changed as by magic. The equability of his temper gave place to
caprice, his gentleness to passion, and his natural easy confidence to
continual distrust and suspicion. He saw poison and poniards everywhere.
Sometimes, under the conviction that he had been poisoned, he increased
his malady by inefficacious antidotes; at other moments, in the hope
of escaping an evil which he imagined not yet accomplished, he would
feed upon dishes prepared by his own hands. His blood became corrupted,
and the close atmosphere of his apartments, which he would not quit,
aggravated the effects of an unwholesome diet. In this disorder of his
physical system his moral strength gave way; all trace of the former
Ganganelli disappeared; and even his reason became disordered. He was
haunted by phantoms in his short moments of rest; and, in the silence
of night, he started up continually, as if dreams of horror had struck
his imagination. Often he ran from one place to another as if he was
pursued, exclaiming, as in the act of asking mercy, “_Compulsus feci!
compulsus feci!_”—I have been compelled![406] Indeed, that his reason
had abandoned him, is generally believed; and Pius VII., when prisoner
at Fontainebleau in 1814, exclaimed that _he_ should die mad, as Clement
XIV. These words are reported by Cardinal Pacca, a fellow-prisoner of
Pius.[407] Ganganelli passed seven months in this dreadful state; at last
his reason resumed its sway. For a while he shewed himself superior to
his terrors and infirmities. “He resumed some tranquillity,” says Botta,
“as generally happens some moments before man arrives at the last moment
of his life, as a warning of God to mortals to think of their own affairs
in that last moment. Already the attendants were rejoicing as if their
master was returning to life; but the calm was the forerunner of death.
The fatal signs soon re-appeared, and on the 22d September Ganganelli
breathed his last—giving back his courageous soul to Him from whom he had
received it.”[408]
The Romans heard of the Pope’s demise with indifference, as of an event
daily expected; but the Jesuits and their partisans gave an indecent and
unblushing expression to their joy, conveyed in the most infamous and
sacrilegious satires, which they carried themselves from place to place;
and this circumstance, together with what was known of Ganganelli’s
illness, left no doubts whatever in the people’s minds that the
unfortunate Clement had died by poison. “The human mind,” says Gioberti,
“is reluctant to believe in certain atrocious crimes, and I confess that
I have hesitated to believe the sect guilty of the death of Ganganelli;
nor have I consented to believe it till forced by the evidence of the
facts.”[409] Although our opinion exactly coincides with that of our
illustrious countryman, yet we shall put the facts and documents under
the eyes of our readers, and let them form a judgment for themselves.
What was Clement’s illness? How did his strong and healthy constitution
undergo such an instantaneous and fatal change? And what complaint
brought him to his grave? The partisans of the Jesuits, and some not
very well informed historians, as Gorani, for example, Schoël, and
others, deny that Ganganelli met with foul play. Georgel pretends that
he died of remorse—that he made a full retractation; and, in proof of
this, he points to his habitual exclamation, “_Compulsus feci!_” Of his
retractation we shall not speak. It is contested by every historian; no
mention is made of it except in the writings of the ex-Jesuit Georgel
and his followers, who cannot produce a single proof or witness of their
assertion. But is it true, at least, that the remorse, which had rendered
him mad, as Crétineau affirms, brought him to the grave? We question
whether the Jesuits can make good this other assertion. How can it be
affirmed that Clement died of remorse, since, during eight long months
after he had signed the Brief, he enjoyed not only his ordinary health
and calmness, but was, on the contrary, more playful than ever? How came
the remorse at such a late hour? What new crime had he committed in the
interval? Does remorse admit of postponement? Does remorse produce all
the physical diseases with which Ganganelli was suddenly affected? The
extinction of voice, the inflammation of the throat, vomiting, complete
prostration of strength—are these the symptoms of remorse? It is true
that he often exclaimed “_Compulsus feci!_” and asked for mercy; but the
unfortunate man asked for mercy from his assassins, not from the Supreme
Judge. In his delirium, he supplicated his murderers to spare him; not
to repeat the dose; or to administer to him some antidote, that his
sufferings might cease. “Spare me! spare me!” he repeated; “I have been
forced to the act, not so much, indeed, by the sovereigns, as by your
own iniquities. Spare me, spare me these horrible sufferings!” he cried
to everybody, and called upon his cherished Madonna to entreat for him,
and to put an end to his tortures. Are delirium and insanity consequences
of remorse, or rather the effects of several poisons—the belladonna, for
example?
But let us see what other symptoms preceded and accompanied his death,
and we shall be better able to judge of the quality of the illness which
brought him to his grave.
“Several days before his death, his bones were exfoliated and withered—to
use the forcible expression of Caraccioli—like a tree which, struck at
the root, dies away, and sheds its bark. The scientific men who were
called in to embalm his body, found the features livid, the lips black,
the abdomen inflated, the limbs emaciated, and covered with violet spots;
the size of the heart was much diminished, and all the muscles detached
and decomposed in the spine. They filled the body with perfumes and
aromatic substances; but nothing would dispel the mephitic exhalations.
The entrails burst the vessels in which they were deposited; and when
his pontifical robes were taken from his body, a great portion of the
skin adhered to them. The hair of his head remained entire upon the
velvet pillows upon which he rested, and with the slightest friction
his nails fell off.”[410] The sight of Ganganelli’s dead body was quite
sufficient to satisfy every one as to the sort of death he had met
with. It did not even retain those lineaments which nature leaves to
our remains at the moment when death seizes upon them, and the funeral
obsequies convinced all Rome that Clement XIV. had perished by the _acqua
tofana_ of Perugia.[411]
However, Dr Salicetti, the apostolic physician, and Adinolfi, Clement’s
ordinary doctor, on the 11th of December, three months after Ganganelli’s
death, gave in a long _procès verbal_, declaring that it was false
that the Pope had been poisoned; but they adduced no proofs whatever,
and explained the fact of the body’s corruption by such strange and
suspicious reasons, as rather to strengthen than diminish the opinion
of those who thought differently. The fact is, that in Rome, after the
doctors’ statement was made public, even the few who had some doubts as
to the cause of this mysterious death, were now firmly of opinion that
the Jesuits had poisoned the poor Pope. Gioberti, among other proofs
which he adduces of the poisoning of Ganganelli, names a Dr Bonelli,
famous for learning and probity, almost an ocular witness of the facts,
who had often asserted to many persons still living that there was no
doubt that Ganganelli had been poisoned.
But there is a witness far more respectable and trustworthy, who puts
the question beyond doubt: that witness is Bernis; and no one that
knows anything of the loyalty and nobleness of his character, would ever
dare to impugn his testimony in an affair of such magnitude, when he, as
ambassador, gives an account to his court of facts of which he was an
eye-witness. Bernis, during the illness of the Pope, while every other
person believed that Clement had met with foul play, alone had doubts;
and his very hesitation, which proves his candour, leads him more surely
to the discovery of the truth, which he attains step by step.[412]
On the 28th of August, twenty-four days before Ganganelli’s death, he
wrote to the French minister: “Those who judge imprudently, or with
malice, see nothing natural in the condition of the Pope; reasonings and
suspicions are hazarded with the greater facility, as certain atrocities
are less rare in this country than in many others.” Six days after the
Pope’s demise, on the 28th of September, he wrote: “The nature of the
Pope’s malady, and, above all, the circumstances attending his death,
give rise to a common belief that it has not been from natural causes....
The physicians who assisted at the opening of the body are cautious in
their remarks, and the surgeons speak with less circumspection. It is
better to credit the account of the former than to pry into a truth of
too afflicting a nature, and which it would perhaps be distressing to
discover.” A month after, Bernis’ doubts are vanished, and on the 26th of
October he writes: “When others shall come to know as much as I do, from
certain documents which the late Pope communicated to me, the suppression
will be deemed very just and very necessary. The circumstances which
have preceded, accompanied, and followed the death of the late Pope,
excite equal horror and compassion.... I am now collecting together the
true circumstances attending the malady and death of Clement XIV.,[413]
who, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, prayed, like the Redeemer, for his most
implacable enemies; and who carried his conscientiousness so far, as
scarcely to let escape him the cruel suspicions which preyed upon his
mind since the close of the holy week, the period when his malady seized
him. The truth cannot be concealed from the king, sad as it may be, which
will be recorded in history.”
But there is another and a more imposing testimony to the fact—that of
Pope Pius VI., the successor of Clement XIV.; it is transmitted to us
also by Bernis, who speaks in the following cool and dispassionate terms,
more than three years after the death of Ganganelli. He wrote on the 26th
of October 1777, as follows:—“I know better than any one how far the
affection of Pius VI. for the ex-Jesuits extends; but he keeps on terms
with them rather than love them, because fear has greater influence on
his mind and heart than friendship.... The Pope has certain moments of
frankness, in which his true sentiments shew themselves. I shall never
forget three or four effusions of his heart which he betrayed when with
me, by which I can judge that he was well aware of the unhappy end of his
predecessor, and that he was anxious not to run the same risks.”[414]
Such was the end of a man born with the best possible dispositions, and
endowed with truly noble and amiable qualities. His spirit of tolerance,
above all, deserves the highest eulogium. He tolerated all sorts of
opinions, provided they were expressed in decorous language; and although
he condemned the doctrines of the philosophers, he kept on good terms
with them. He would not, as Benedict XIV. had done, write to Voltaire;
but, in answer to some sporting jests made upon his person, which were
reported to him, he intimated to the Patriarch of Ferney, through his
old friend De Bernis, that he “would willingly take him to his heart,
provided he would end by becoming a good Capuchin.”[415]
Ganganelli was, no doubt, a man incapable of governing under difficult
circumstances. He had neither energy nor skill enough in handling
difficulties, and he placed all his merits in evading them. But his
moderation, his genuine spirit of tolerance, the purity of his morals,
his modesty, his benevolence, deserve the sincerest respect, and his
deplorable death a lasting compassion.[416]