The temporal power of the popes had long ceased to be an object of
jealousy for Christian princes: the small extent of their states,
the respect which was entertained for their ministry, and their
abstinence from military enterprises, preserved peace in a city which
had formerly, and for many centuries, made the world tremble with the
terror of its arms. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had satisfied themselves
with seizing the Venaissian county, to punish the popes for some
affronts offered to their crowns; and the pontiffs, conscious of their
weakness, had acknowledged their errors and disavowed the acts of
their ministers. But it was not thus when the French revolution broke
out. Pius VI., irritated at seeing at once both his annates and the
Venaissian county wrested from his hands, entered into the league of
the kings against France. In no city were the French more hated than
in Rome. Basseville, the French envoy, was massacred in a riot, which
the government of the Pope had allowed to be got up with more than
suspected negligence. The troops of the Pope were preparing to unite
themselves with those of the other powers of Italy, when Buonaparte
was seen to enter that country, in 1796, as a conqueror. His victories
seemed to foretell the destruction of the Holy See. Republican
enthusiasm was awakened on the banks of the Tiber; nothing was talked
of but rebuilding the Capitol and founding a new Roman republic.
The French general had conquered the duchy of Urbino, Romagna, and
the march of Ancona. The terrified Pope sued for peace: Buonaparte
granted him at first a truce, and then a peace. The Pope yielded to
the republic the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, which the French
had already conquered, and all the shores of the Adriatic Gulf, from
the mouths of the Po to Ancona. A month after, the Pope weakly allowed
some of his subjects to take up arms, in consequence of a supposed
reverse suffered by Buonaparte. The latter contented himself with
chastising some villages of Ferrara, which had excited the revolt. A
third time Buonaparte pardoned him, and his pardon was ratified by
the French Directory: Joseph Buonaparte was appointed ambassador to
Rome. Party spirit was, however, too strong; the apparent moderation
of the French could not bring the court of Rome to pacific sentiments.
Its hatred against France was kept alive by the queen of Naples, who
threw open the ports of the Mediterranean to the English. In addition
to this, a long hesitation to acknowledge the Cisalpine republic; then
the nomination of General Provera to command the army of the Pope, and
a course of proceedings which announced the intention, but which did
not give the means, of entering into a fresh war: the French ambassador
forced the Pope to declare himself in a positive manner. Everything
seemed appeased; there was a calm, but it was such a one as precedes
the eruption of a volcano. On the 28th of December, 1797, a fresh
seditious movement broke out in Rome; some men assembled round the
house of the ambassador, uttering revolutionary cries. Scarcely had
they preluded by a few acts of apparent insurrection, when the troops
of the Pope came up, dispersed the rioters, and pursued them into the
palace of the ambassador, whither their fear had driven them. Joseph
Buonaparte insisted upon his residence being respected, and promised to
give up the guilty; but he was answered by a shower of balls, by which
his windows were broken to pieces. He interposed everywhere between
those who struck and those who were stricken. One of his friends, the
Adjutant-General Duphot, who was to have married his sister-in-law the
next day, was an object of his greatest care; but he was assassinated
close to his side: his inanimate body was stabbed by the ruffians in
a hundred places: the French had great difficulty in rescuing it from
the hands of these furious men. The court of Rome offered the French
ambassador all kinds of reparation; but the latter thought it not
prudent or dignified to remain longer in a palace which had been so
shamefully violated, where he and his whole family had been insulted,
and whose floors were still stained with the blood of his friend.
Cardinal Doria in vain had recourse to the Spanish ambassador to pacify
him: the whole French legation quitted Rome. The Consistory believed,
in this peril, that the court of Naples would keep its word, and would
hasten to send its promised succours; but it received nothing but an
excuse, to amuse or appease the French government, till the Neapolitan
army was on its march. The Directory, however, was inflexible: a month
had scarcely passed away when a French army, led by General Alexander
Berthier, was at the gates of Rome, and had taken possession of the
castle of St. Angelo. On the 17th of February, 1798, the anniversary
of the Pope’s election, an insurrection broke out in the capital.
His palace was invested, but respect checked the insurgents at the
entrance. They met with resistance nowhere; they abstained from
violence or insult towards the Pope, but they declared Rome free; they
claimed for themselves the honour of being of the blood of the Catos
and Scipios; and the boasted descendants of Camillus threw open the
gates to the Gauls. A deputation arrived at the French camp; General
Berthier mounted the steps of the Capitol, and saluted a new Roman
republic; but the Romans had no longer the virtues of their fathers: no
thing can bear less resemblance to another, than modern Romans do to
ancient Romans. Consuls, tribunes, and popular laws, were once more to
be seen in Rome; and these decrees wanted nothing but to be applied to
a people who entertained a love of the republic. Its reign was short
and tempestuous; and the French Directory took no measures calculated
to gain the affection of the Romans. The aged Pope was sent to France,
but died on the road; the wealth and the master-pieces of art were
carried off, the people became dissatisfied, and a fresh insurrection
quickly broke out against the men they had so recently hailed as their
liberators: they were obliged to be suppressed with the strong hand.
Whilst Buonaparte was in Egypt, the king of Naples supposed the time
most fit for an outbreak of the Italian states, to liberate themselves
from the domination of the French. He marched at the head of seventy
thousand Neapolitans, the real command of whom was intrusted to the
Austrian general Mack, and entered the Roman territory. The French army
which occupied it only consisted of sixteen thousand men, disseminated
over all the points. Championnet, who commanded them, thought it best
to retire to Upper Italy. The king of Sicily and General Mack entered
Rome on the 25th of November, 1798; Championnet gathered together his
army and stood his ground. Mack, after several days of hesitation,
ventured to attack him on the other side of the Tiber. The French,
though vastly inferior in numbers, repulsed the Neapolitans; in three
days, they made eleven thousand prisoners. Mack beheld his columns
flying in the greatest disorder; and, being unable to rally them,
abandoned the capital of the Christian world, covered himself with
the Teverone, and was pursued by the French, who possessed themselves
successively of Capua and Naples. This occupation lasted but a short
time; the French under Schérer being beaten in Upper Italy, abandoned
Naples and Rome, to defend themselves against the Austrians and the
Russians. Ferdinand went back to Naples, and occupied Rome till it
returned to its obedience to Pius VII.
Rome has since that time been more than once humbled by the French;
but as nothing like a siege has taken place, the events of its further
history do not fall within our plan.