PIUS VII. AND THE REVOLUTION
Benedict XIV. had maintained Papal power and prestige in his Catholic
world by prudent concessions to a European spirit which he recognized
as having definitely emerged from its mediæval phase. His successors
for many decades lacked his penetration; though one may wonder if,
without sacrificing essential principles of the Papal scheme, they
could have advanced farther along the path of concession to a more and
more exacting age. However that may be, they generally clung to the
autocratic principles of the Papacy, and as a consequence they ceased
to be the leaders of their age and became little more than corks tossed
on heaving waters. Not until Leo XIII. do we find a Pope with a human
quality of statesmanship. In the intervening Pontificates the barque
of Peter drifted on the wild and swollen waters, pathetically bearing
still a flag which bore the legend of ruler of the waves.
Clement XIII. (1758-1769) and Clement XIV. (1769-1774) were
occupied with the problem of the Jesuits. One by one the Catholic
Powers--Portugal, France, Naples, and Spain--swept the Jesuits from
their territory, with a flood of obloquy, and then made a collective
demand on the Pope for the suppression of the Society. Clement XIII.
had made a futile effort to assert the old dictatorial power; and
Catholic nations had retorted by seizing part of the diminished Papal
States. France had occupied Avignon and Vennaissin, and Naples had
taken Benevento and Pontecorvo. The bewildered Pope found peace in
the grave, and the Powers ensured the election of a man who did not
regard the suppression of the Society as an impossibility. For four
years Ganganelli, Clement XIV., resisted or restrained the pressure of
the Catholic Powers, but in 1773 the famous Bull _Dominus ac Redemptor
Noster_ disbanded the most effective force of the Counter-Reformation,
plainly endorsing the charge against it of corruption.[336]
Pius VI. (1775-1798) came vaguely to realize that there was some deep
malady in the world which, in bewildering impotence, he contemplated.
The hostility to the Jesuits had been a symptom; nor was the symptom
more intelligible to so unskilful a physician when the Protestant
rulers of Russia and Prussia protected the Jesuits, while the Catholic
Powers sternly restrained his wish to restore the Society. Vaguely,
also, he realized that there was a deeper infidelity in the world; that
the "philosophers" of France and Spain and Italy and the "illumined
ones" of Germany were a new thing under the sun; and that the
traditions of the Papacy did not help in dealing with such "Catholic"
statesmen as Pombal, Aranda, Tanucci, and Choiseul. He had not even
the traditional remedy of finding support in the "Roman Empire." Under
Joseph II. and Kaunitz, Austria had developed a rebellious spirit
which rivalled the most defiant phases of Gallicanism.[337]
Pius visited Vienna, and trusted that his handsome and engaging
presence would reconcile the Emperor to his large pretensions, but
the visit was fruitless and the vanity of the Pope was bruised. At
least the mass of the people were faithful, Pius thought. Then there
came the terrible disillusion of the French Revolution, and resounding
echoes of its fiery language in Italy and Spain. Pius made his last
blunder--though the most natural course for him to take--by allying
himself with Austria and England against the Revolution, and the shadow
of Napoleon fell over Italy. Napoleon shattered the Austrian forces
and compelled the Pope to sacrifice Avignon and Venaissin, to lose the
three Legations (Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna), and to pay out of his
scanty income 30,000,000 lire. In the following year, 1798, the French
inspired a rebellion at Rome. The Romans set up once more feeble images
of their ancient "Consuls" and "Ædiles," and the aged Pope was dragged
from point to point by the French dragoons until he expired at Valence
on August 29, 1798. General Bonaparte had said, contemptuously, that
the Papacy was breaking up. There were those who asked if Pius VI. was
the last Pope.
But a new act of the strange European drama was opening. Bonaparte was
in Egypt, brooding over iridescent dreams of empire, and the treaty of
Campo Formio which he had concluded before leaving had given Venice
(as well as Istria and Dalmatia) to Austria. To Venice, accordingly,
forty-six of the scattered and impoverished cardinals made their way,
for the purpose of electing a new Pope, and the Conclave was lodged
in the abbey of San Giorgio on November 30th. The history of the
Papal Conclaves has inspired a romantic and caustic narrative,[338]
and the account of the Conclave of 1798-1799 is not one of the least
interesting. Austria, which had occupied the northern Papal provinces,
and Naples, which had succeeded the French in the south and was now
"guarding" Rome, did not desire the election of a Pope who would claim
his full temporal dominion. Against them was the solid nucleus of
conservative and rigid cardinals, and on the fringe of the struggle
were the unattached cardinals, some of whom had a lively concern about
this General Bonaparte who had just returned from Egypt. The statesman
of the College was Cardinal Consalvi, a very able and accomplished
son of a noble Pisan family. Consalvi, as a good noble and churchman,
loathed the Revolution, but, when the struggle of voters had lasted
three or four months and the two chief parties had reached a deadlock,
he listened to the suggestion of Cardinal Maury that the mild "Jacobin"
Cardinal Chiaramonti would be the best man to elect. Bonaparte had
spoken well of Chiaramonti, and Austria would not resent the election
of a lowly-minded Benedictine monk. Whether or no Consalvi suspected
that Maury was (at least in part) working for a personal reward, he
took up the intrigue, and on March 24th Chiaramonti became Pius VII.
They had put an aged and timid monk at the helm on such a sea.
Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti was born at Cesena, of a small-noble family,
on August 14, 1742. He entered the Benedictine Order at the age of
sixteen and distinguished himself in his studies. As he was distantly
related to Pius VI., who was a flagrant nepotist, he easily earned
promotion at Rome. He taught theology and was titular abbot of San
Callisto. In time he became Bishop of Tivoli, then Bishop of Imola and
Cardinal. He was administering his diocese with due zeal, and more than
ordinary gentleness, when the storm of the French invasion broke upon
Italy. He was not a politician. He advised his people to submit to the
Cisalpine Republic set up by the French, and mediated for them with
General Augereau when some of them rebelled. But, when the Austrians
came in turn, he advised the people to submit to their "liberators,"
and, when the French returned, the magistrates of Imola charged him
with treachery and he had to plead on his own behalf. However, his
colleagues affected to regard him as a Jacobin, and his easy attitude
toward the French and the temporal power won him the tiara. He was
crowned in San Giorgio on March 21st.
Austria had refused the use of San Marco for the ceremony, because
it was nervously anxious to discourage ideas of royalty in the new
Pope, and its representative in the Sacred College, Cardinal Hrzan,
urged Pius to go from Venice to Vienna, and to make Cardinal Flangini
(a Venetian) his Secretary of State. Pius quietly refused, and chose
Consalvi. In quick succession the Austrian ambassador offered him the
territory they had taken from Lombardy, without the Legations, and then
two out of the three Legations (they keeping Romagna), but Consalvi
prompted him to refuse, and he set out for Rome. The Austrians would
not suffer him to pass through the Papal territory they held, and he
had to proceed by boat to Pesaro. But the news that the Neapolitans had
retired from Rome, and that the Austrians (chastened by Napoleon) now
offered him the three Legations they were unable to keep, cheered the
Pontiff on his journey and he entered Rome in triumph.[339]
Consalvi, whose firm hand guides that of the Pope during most of his
Pontificate, began at once to put in order the chaotic affairs of the
Papacy. The treasury was empty, though the four resplendent tiaras
had been stripped of their jewels, the taxes were insupportable, and
the coinage was shamefully debased. Consalvi removed some of the
taxes--though he was forced to restore them at a later date--and, at
a cost of 1,500,000 scudi, called in the adulterated coin. He turned
with vigour to the affairs of Germany, where the princes who were
dispossessed of their territory on the left bank of the Rhine by
the Treaty of Lunéville[340] proposed to recoup themselves from the
ecclesiastical estates on the right bank.[341] But every other interest
was soon overshadowed by the relations of Napoleon to Rome, and the
story of Pius VII. is almost entirely the story of those singular and
tragic relations.
Napoleon had re-entered Italy, and won Marengo, before Pius reached
Rome. But experience in the East and consideration of his growing
ambition had made Voltaireanism seem to him impolitic, and he now sent
a representative to treat with the new Pope as respectfully as if he
commanded 200,000 men. They would co-operate in restoring religion
in France. Pius timidly expressed some concern at the Mohammedan
sentiments Bonaparte had so recently uttered in Egypt, but he and the
cardinals assented to the proposal, and Archbishop Spina was sent to
Paris in November (1800). In view of Napoleon's demands--that the old
hierarchy of 158 bishops should be reduced to sixty, that a certain
proportion of the Republican (constitutional) bishops should be
elected together with a proportion of the emigrant royalists, that no
alienated church-property should be restored, and that Christianity
should not be established as "the religion of France"--Spina found that
his powers were inadequate, and Napoleon sent Cacault to Rome with
the draft of a Concordat (March, 1501). Pius and his cardinals shrank
from so formidable a sacrifice, and would negotiate, in time-honoured
Roman fashion. But ancient customs did not impress Bonaparte. Cacault
reported in May that the Concordat was to be signed in five days,
whether it killed the bewildered Pope or no (as Consalvi said it
would), or France would set up its Church without his aid. As a
compromise, Cacault suggested that Consalvi should accompany him to
Paris, and the Quirinal had faith in its great diplomatist. Even
Consalvi, however, was nervous and almost powerless before the studied
violence of Napoleon, and his diplomatic movements were constantly met
with a brusque declaration that Napoleon would detach France, if not
Catholic Europe, from the Papacy if the Concordat were not quickly
signed.[342]
The attitude of Napoleon was not merely despotic. Although France was
still overwhelmingly Catholic, as writers on the revolutionary excesses
often forget, an important minority, including most of Napoleon's
higher officers, were bitterly anti-clerical and opposed any attempt
to restore the Church. Napoleon, who felt that the religious sentiment
of the majority must be dissociated from the emigrants and bound up
once more with a national Church, would have preferred to dispense with
Rome and proceed on extreme Gallican principles. But Catholic sentiment
would not acquiesce in so violent a procedure, and Napoleon realized
the vast gain it would be to him to win the cosmopolitan influence of
the Pope. This feeble and timid monk, he thought, needed intimidation,
and of that art Napoleon was a master. After a final twenty-four hours'
sitting on July 13th-14th, the draft was passed by Consalvi. After a
further struggle, and some further modification, it satisfied both
parties, and Consalvi sent it, with some satisfaction, to Rome for the
Pope's signature. The new bishops were to be nominated by Napoleon
and instituted by the Pope, and the Catholic faith was to be declared
"the religion of the majority." Freethinkers resented the whole
negotiation: Gallicans deplored that the power of the clergy had been
divided between the Pope and the Consul: Royalists abroad protested
bitterly against the required resignation of the old bishops. Pius felt
that this miraculous restoration of the Church was worth the price. He
signed the Concordat and blessed the restorer of the faith.
But the Pope and Consalvi obtained a further insight into Napoleon's
character when the Concordat was made public on Easter Sunday (1802).
With it were associated, as if they were part of the agreement,
certain "Organic Articles" of the most Gallican description. No Bull
or other document from Rome could be published in France, no Nuncio
or Legate exercise his functions, and no Council be held, without
the authorization of the secular authorities. All seminary-teachers
were to subscribe to the famous principles of 1682, and in case the
higher clergy violated those or the laws of the Republic the Council
of State might sit in judgment on them. Pius made a futile protest,
when he read the seventy-six lamentable articles, but Napoleon soon
had the Pope smiling over a gift of two frigates to the Papal navy;
and Pius laicised Talleyrand and raised five French bishops, including
Napoleon's half-uncle Fesch, to the cardinalate. A similar Concordat
was forced by Napoleon on the Cisalpine Republic in 1803, and Naples
was compelled to return Benevento and Pontecorvo. The first phase ended
in smiles.
Cardinal Caprara was sent as legate to Paris, and his experiences
moderated the Pope's satisfaction. He was quite unable to resist the
election of the constitutional bishops (the clergy who had adhered
to the Republican Constitution, which Rome severely and naturally
condemned) and he could not wring from them a formal acknowledgment of
their errors. But these matters were soon thrust out of mind by fresh
events in France. On May 18, 1804, Napoleon was elected Emperor, and
he invited Pius to come to Paris to crown him. There was a natural
hesitation at Rome to flout the Bourbons and their allies by such a
recognition of Napoleon, but the long delay was not in substance due
to that political scruple; nor was it in any serious degree due, as
some writers say, to the recent execution of the Duc d'Enghien, which
appears little in Papal documents. Consalvi persuaded the Pope to
bargain with Napoleon: to stipulate for the abolition of the Organic
Articles, the punishment of the constitutional clergy, and the return
of the three Legations. As before, the diplomacy of Consalvi was
boisterously swept aside by Napoleon, and on November 2d the aged
Pope set out for Paris. Not a single definite promise had been made,
and it seems, from later language of the Pope, that either he or
Consalvi regarded the journey with grave distrust. Pius left behind
him a document authorizing the cardinals to choose a successor, in
case Napoleon violently detained him in France. We may ascribe this
foresight to Consalvi, as throughout these earlier years Pius appears
to be merely the agent of the wishes of the cardinals.
Napoleon must have noted with satisfaction the ease with which his
constant trickery escaped the Pope's eye. On November 25th he, in
hunting dress, with studied casualness, met the Pope on the open
road at Fontainebleau, arranged that he should himself sit on the
right in their joint carriage, and drove him into Paris by night.
Every detail had been carefully planned with a view to the avoidance
of paying unnecessary honour to the Pope. Pius noticed nothing, and
wrote enthusiastically to Italy of Napoleon's goodness and zeal for
religion; and indeed the enthusiasm of the faithful Catholics of Paris,
when they found a venerable Pope blessing them from the balconies of
the Tuileries, might well seem to him to indicate a triumph after
the dark decade that had passed. Disillusion came slowly. Josephine,
who now knew that she was threatened with divorce, confided to the
Pope that there had been no church-celebration of her marriage with
Napoleon, and Pius refused to crown them until it took place. Napoleon
thundered, but the Pope had a clear principle and the difficulty was
met by trickery. Cardinal Fesch was permitted by the Pope to marry them
without witnesses, and Napoleon pointed out to friends that he was
taking part in the ceremony without internal consent. On the following
day, December 2d, the coronation took place at Notre Dame, and Napoleon
at one stroke annihilated the prestige of the Pope by crowning himself
and Josephine with his own hands.
Another wave of disdain of the Pope passed through foreign lands: "A
puppet of no importance," said even Joseph de Maistre. Pius remained
gentle and patient. He had still to win the reward of his sacrifices:
to induce the Emperor to restore the Papal States, to modify the
Organic Articles, to abolish the law of divorce, enforce the observance
of Sunday, and reintroduce the monastic orders. The cardinals had drawn
up a pretty program. Napoleon suavely refused every proposition, and
sent one of his officers to suggest that Pius would do well to settle
at Avignon, and have a palace at Paris. Pius, now thoroughly alarmed,
refused emphatically to stay in France, and disclosed that he had
arranged to give him a successor if he were detained. And Pius returned
to give the cardinals a roseate account of the resurrection of religion
in France and the goodness of the Emperor. When he refused, shortly
afterwards, to crown Napoleon King of Italy at Milan, there were those
who admired his firmness. It is more likely that he acted on the advice
of the disappointed cardinals.
Up to this point Pius VII. had given no indication of personality.
One must, of course, appreciate that the restoration of the Church in
France would seem to him an achievement worth large sacrifices, yet
his childlike joy in Napoleon's insincere caresses, his utter failure
to detect the true aims and the trickery of the Emperor, and the
entire lack of plan or efficacy in his protests, must have convinced
Napoleon, as they convinced hostile Royalists, that he was a mere
puppet. He cannot possibly have had the measure of ability with which
Cardinal Wiseman would endow him. The same conclusion is forced on us
by a consideration of the second part of his relations with Napoleon.
Isolated from his abler cardinals, he, like a child, bemoans his
inability to form his judgment, and stumbles from error to error. But
ten years of defeat have taught him that he is dealing with an enemy
of religion, and he reveals a certain greatness of character in his
resistance.
In the spring of 1805 the Emperor asked the Pope to dissolve, or
declare null, the marriage which his brother Jerome had contracted
in America with a Miss Paterson, a Protestant. Pius was eager to do
so, if ecclesiastical principles yielded the slightest ground for
such an act, but, after a long examination, he was obliged to refuse.
Napoleon began to speak of him as a fool. The summer brought war with
Austria once more, and in October the French troops marched through the
Papal States on their way to Naples, and occupied Ancona. When Pius
protested (November 13, 1805), the Emperor scornfully replied--after
an interval of two months--that if its Papal owners were not able or
willing to fortify Ancona, he must occupy it: that the Pope and the
cardinals prostituted religion by their friendly relations with English
and Russian enemies of France: and that he would respect the Pope's
spiritual sovereignty, and expected from him respect for the Emperor's
political sovereignty.[343] On February 13, (1806) Napoleon wrote more
explicitly. The Pope must close his harbours against the English, expel
from Rome all representatives of the enemies of France, get rid of
his bad counsellors (Consalvi), and remember that Napoleon is Emperor
of Rome.[344] Pius, after consulting the cardinals, replied that the
"Roman Emperor" was at Vienna, and that the Papacy would not be drawn
into a war between France and England. To the French representative
in Rome the Pope used a very firm language; he would die rather than
yield on what he conceived as a matter of principle. When, some time
afterwards, Napoleon annexed Naples, and the Papacy protested that it
was a Papal fief, Napoleon rightly gave Consalvi the credit for the
opposition and forced him to resign. He had in 1802 restored Benevento
and Pontecorvo to Rome: he now gave the former to Talleyrand and the
latter to Bernadotte.
It must seem an idle practice to seek apologies for Napoleon's
conduct, but we do well to conceive that each man was justified in his
procedure. Napoleon was wrong only in his pretexts and his methods.
He was no orthodox Catholic, and had no illusions about the sacred
origin of the temporal power. If the Pope chose to be a king, he
submitted to the laws of kings. The Papacy undoubtedly thwarted the
work of the Emperor in Italy and aided his enemies. Cardinal Pacca says
in his Memoirs that Pius wrote him that he "risked everything for the
English."[345] Common opposition to Napoleon brought about a remarkable
approach of Rome and England, and the Quirinal had hopes of advantage
for the Church in England. The Papal ports were of great service to the
English fleet, and therefore of great disservice to the French.
Pius VII. seems never to have realized the elementary fact that
Napoleon was not a Christian. He relied too long on the orthodox
fiction that, because the Pope was the successor of Peter in spiritual
matters, any _temporal_ power taken from him was taken from "The
Blessed Peter." Napoleon did not share that illusion, and it is
singular that he waited so long before consolidating his Italian
kingdom by absorbing the Papal States. The year 1807, when Napoleon
was busy with Prussia, passed in recriminations. Pius would, he said,
show them that the substitution of Cardinal Casoni as his Secretary
of State for Consalvi made no difference. He seemed to be finding his
personality, but there were fiery cardinals like Pacca still with him.
In January, 1808, Napoleon ordered General Miollis to occupy Rome, and
presently he expelled from Rome all cardinals who were not subjects
of the Papal States. Pius, during the night, had a protesting poster
fixed on the walls. On April 2d Napoleon annexed Urbino, Ancona,
Macerata, and Camerino: on the foolish pretext (among others) that
Charlemagne had bestowed those provinces on the Papacy for the good
of Catholicism, not for the profit of its enemies. Pius sent a long
and dignified protest to all bishops in his dominions and broke off
diplomatic relations with France. Gabrielli had succeeded Casoni in
counselling Pius, and the French now made the singular mistake of
arresting Gabrielli and substituting Pacca--a fiery and inflexible
opponent of Napoleon. In August Pacca came into violent collision with
the French and they went to arrest him. He summoned the Pope, and Pius
personally conducted him to the protection of the Quirinal. In the
solitude of the Quirinal they prepared for the last step and drafted
an excommunication of Napoleon.[346] At length on June 10, 1809, they
received Napoleon's declaration that the Papal States were incorporated
in his Empire, and the Bull of excommunication (_Quum Memoranda_) was
issued. It did not name Napoleon, and it was at once suppressed by
the French, but General Miollis considered that a conditional order
for the arrest of the Pope, which Napoleon had sent, now came into
force. At three in the morning of July 6th the troops broke into the
Quirinal. When General Radet and his officers reached the Audience
Chamber, they found the Pope sitting gravely at a table, with a group
of cardinals on either side. For several minutes the two groups gazed
on each other in tense silence, and at length Radet announced that
the Pope must abdicate or go into exile. Taking only his breviary and
crucifix, the Pope entered the carriage at four o'clock, and he and
Pacca were swiftly driven through the silent streets, and on the long
road to Savona. They found that they had between them only the sum of
twenty-two cents, and they laughed.
Pius reached Savona on August 16th (1809), and was lodged in the
episcopal palace. He refused the 50,000 francs a year and the carriages
offered by Napoleon. He refused to walk in Savona, and spent the day
in a little room overlooking the walls, or walking in the scanty
garden of the house. He had no secretary and his aged hands trembled,
but pious Catholics conspired to defeat his guardians (or corrupt his
guardians) and his letters and directions went out stealthily over
Europe. His cardinals were removed to Paris, and when Napoleon divorced
Josephine and married Marie Louise (April 1, 1810), only thirteen
out of the twenty-seven cardinals refused to attend the ceremony.
Pius still declined to enter into Napoleon's plans. Metternich sent
an Austrian representative to argue with him, but the Pope would not
yield his temporal power, and he demanded his cardinals. Cardinals
Spina and Caselli, of the moderate party, were sent to persuade him,
but the mission was fruitless. Napoleon, who was sorely harassed by
the Pope's refusal to institute the new bishops, tried to act without
him, and made Maury Archbishop of Paris. Pius sent a secret letter to
the Vicar Capitular of Paris, declaring that the appointment was null,
and Napoleon angrily ordered a search of his rooms and the removal of
books, ink, paper, and personal attendants.
At last, in June, 1811, the strategy of Napoleon succeeded. The
Archbishop of Tours and three other bishops presented themselves at
Savona with the terrible news that Napoleon had summoned a General
Council at Paris and expected the bishops to remedy the desperate
condition of the French Church--there were twenty-seven bishops
awaiting institution--independently of the Pope. Pius still refused
to submit, but day after day the prelates and the Count de Chabrol
harrowed him with descriptions of the appalling results of his
obstinacy, and on the tenth day they hastened to Paris with the news
that Pius had consented on the main point: he would institute the
bishops within six months, or, if he failed to do so, the Archbishop
would have power to institute them.
What really happened at Savona is the only serious controversy in
the life of Pius VII., and this controversy is based entirely on the
reluctance of Catholic writers to admit that the Pope erred. The usual
theory, based on the work of D'Haussonville,[347] is that Pius fell
into so grave a condition, mentally and physically, that he can hardly
be regarded as responsible. Recent and authoritative Catholic writers
have given a different defence. H. Welschinger[348] seems to suggest
that Pius was drugged by his medical attendant, but he goes on to make
this fantastic suggestion superfluous by claiming that Pius did not
consent at all, either orally or in writing. Father Rinieri, on the
other hand, scorns the theory of temporary insanity, holds that the
Pope deliberately assented, and claims that the consent was perfectly
justified because it was conditional; the Pope agreed _if_, as the
bishops said, his concession would lead to peace and his restoration
to liberty. These theories destroy each other, and are severally
inadmissible. Welschinger, to exonerate the Pope from weakness, assumes
that the Archbishop of Tours lied; for that prelate wrote at once to
Paris that they had "drawn up a note in His Holiness's room, and he had
accepted it," and on his duplicate of the note he wrote: "This note,
drawn up in His Holiness's room, and in a sense under his directions,
was approved and agreed to."[349] Indeed, when Welschinger himself
quotes the Pope saying, in his fit of repentance, "Luckily I _signed_
nothing," we gather that Pius _orally_ assented. Rinieri, on the other
hand, is wrong in making the Pope's assent strictly conditional; the
last clause of the note merely states that the Pope is assured that
good results will follow. And both writers are at fault when they lay
stress on the fact that the note was a mere draft of an agreement.
Unless the four bishops lied, Pius VII., under great importunity and
predictions of disaster, and in a very poor state of health, consented
to a principle which was utterly inconsistent with Papal teaching.
Later events put this beyond question, and make all these speculations
ridiculous. It is unquestioned that when, on the following morning,
Pius asked for the bishops and learned that they had gone, he fell
into a fit of remorse and despair which brought him near to the brink
of madness. It is equally unquestioned that Napoleon's council drew up
a decree in the sense of the famous Savona note and that on September
20th Pius signed it. Napoleon had been dissatisfied with the Pope's
_oral_ consent and his retractation (which the Emperor concealed), and
had tried to bully the council into a declaration independently of the
Papacy. When he failed, he assured them of the Pope's consent and they
passed the decree. Eight bishops and five cardinals took it to Savona,
and the Pope subscribed to it. The only plausible defence of Pius is
that he _granted_ or delegated the power to the archbishops, instead
of merely declaring that the archbishops possessed it. But the Pope's
acute remorse shows that he had not deliberately meant this.
Napoleon, however, saw that his scheme had failed in this respect, and
he kept the Pope at Savona while he set out on the Russian campaign.
After a time the Emperor, alleging that British ships hovered about
Savona, ordered the removal of the Pope to Fontainebleau, and he was
transferred with such secrecy and discomfort that he almost died in
crossing Mont Cenis. At Fontainebleau he maintained his quiet, ascetic
life: even afforded the spectacle of a Pope mending his own shirts.
The thirteen "black" cardinals--the men who opposed Napoleon and were
stripped of their red robes and sent into exile--could not approach
him, and he paid little attention to Napoleon's courtiers. In December
(1812) Napoleon was back from his terrible failure, but he still sought
to bluff the aged Pope. In a genial New-Year letter he proposed that
Pius should settle at Paris and have two million francs a year: that he
would in future permit the Catholic rulers to nominate two thirds of
the cardinals: and that the thirteen black cardinals should be censured
by the Pope and gracefully pardoned by the Emperor. Pius hesitated;
and on the evening of January 18th, when Napoleon suddenly burst into
his room and embraced him, the old tears of childlike joy stood in his
eyes once more. Napoleon remained and put before him a new Concordat,
sacrificing the demands he had made in his letter, but demanding the
abdication of the temporal power and six months' limit for the Papal
institution of bishops. Harrowing pictures of the Pope's condition and
the pressure put on him by Napoleonic prelates are drawn by pious pens.
But the fact is not disputed that on January 25th the "martyr-Pope"
signed the Concordat and sacrificed the temporal power.
When Pacca and Consalvi and the black cardinals, who were now set at
liberty, arrived at Fontainebleau, they shuddered at his surrender,
but they could not upbraid the pale, worn, distracted Pontiff. He
acknowledged his "sin," as he called it, and asked their advice. By
one vote--fourteen against thirteen--the stalwarts decided that he
must retract and defy Napoleon, and a remarkable week followed. They
drafted a new Concordat, and the Pope wrote a few lines each day, which
were taken away in Pacca's pocket to the rooms of Cardinal Pignatelli,
who lived outside. The Emperor's spies were defeated, and he had a
last burst of rage when the new Concordat was put before him. But the
Allies were closing round the doomed adventurer. As they approached, he
offered Pius half the Papal States, and made other futile proposals.
In January, 1814, Pius was conveyed to Savona: on March 17th he was
informed that he was free. Napoleon had fallen.
Consalvi was dispatched to join in the counsels of the Allies, and
Pacca, who took his place, set himself joyously to obliterate every
trace of the Revolution and Napoleon. Monasteries were re-opened,
schools and administrative offices restored to the clergy, the
Inquisition re-established, the Jews thrust back into the Ghetto: even
these new French practices of lighting streets at night and vaccinating
people were abolished. Above all things the Society of Jesus must be
restored. Pius had in 1801 recognised the Society in Russia[350] and
in 1804 he granted it canonical existence in the two Sicilies. The
appalling experience of the last twenty-five years had now swept the
last trace of liberalism out of the minds of Catholic monarchs, and
on August 17, 1814, the Bull _Sollicitudo Omnium_ restored the Society
throughout the world; though Portugal rejected it and France dared not
carry it out. A few months later Rome trembled anew, when it heard
that Napoleon had left Elba and Murat marched across the Papal States
to support him. Pius fled from Rome, rejecting all the overtures of
Napoleon and Murat, but the Hundred Days were soon over and reaction
reigned supreme. Pius never lost his quaint appreciation of Napoleon.
Mme. Letitia, the brothers Lucien and Louis, and Fesch lived in honour
at Rome, and, when the mother complained that the English were killing
her son at St. Helena, Pius earnestly begged Consalvi to intercede
for him. At Napoleon's death in 1821 he directed Fesch to conduct a
memorial service.
Meantime Consalvi had won back the Papal States (except Avignon and
Venaissin and a strip of Ferrara) at the Vienna Congress, and had
returned to moderate the excesses of the reactionary Pacca. Consalvi
had no liberal sentiments, but he had intelligence. At least half of
the educated Italians were Freethinkers, and the secret society of
the _Carbonari_ spread over the country, ferociously combatted by the
orthodox _Sanfedisti_. Italy entered on what the wits called the long
struggle of the "cats" and the "dogs": a rife period for brigands.
Consalvi, in spite of Pacca and the _Zelanti_, compromised. He retained
many of the Napoleonic reforms, though, when the Spanish revolution of
1820 had its revolutionary echoes all over Italy, he drew nearer to the
Holy Alliance for the bloody extirpation of liberalism. Rome prospered
once more, and artists and princes flocked to it, but Pius VII. must
have felt in his last years that the soil of Europe still heaved and
shuddered.
The relations of the Quirinal[351] with other countries were restored
in some measure, in face of stern opposition. A new Concordat with
France was signed in 1817, but the Legislative Assembly refused to
pass it and it did not come into force before the death of Pius.
Spain set up a régime of truculent orthodoxy under the sanguinary
rule of Ferdinand, and the Revolution of 1820 was crushed for him
by the French. Austria made no new Concordat and retained much of
the Febronian temper. Prussia signed a favourable Concordat in 1821.
Bavaria came to an agreement in 1817, but the liberals defeated it;
and Naples and Sardinia were ruled in the spirit of the Holy Alliance.
William I. sought a Concordat for the Netherlands, though without
result: England endeavoured to bring about an agreement in regard to
the Irish bishops, which was defeated by the Irish: and the dioceses of
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Richmond, and Cincinnati
were set up in America.
I do not enter into closer detail, as we recognize in all this work
the hand of Consalvi rather than of Pius. The aged Pope continued to
rejoice over every symptom, or apparent symptom, of religious recovery,
and to miscalculate his age. Even the revolution of 1820 failed to
shake orthodox security and led only to a more truculent persecution
of the new spirit. Pius had now passed his eightieth year and could
not be expected to see what neither Metternich nor Consalvi could see.
In the summer of 1823 he fell into his last illness. As he sank, men
noticed that he was murmuring "Savona, Fontainebleau," but he died
praying quietly on August 17th. It was a strange fate that put Barnaba
Luigi Chiaramonti on a throne in such an age. Whatever church-lore he
may have had, he confronted the problems of his age with dim and feeble
intelligence, and he was at times, when there was no Pacca or Consalvi
to guide him, induced to make concessions which are not consistent with
the fond title of "martyr-Pope." He was a good Bishop of Imola.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 336: It is not true that Clement abstained from passing
judgment on the Society; nor, on the other hand, need we regard
seriously the statement that he was poisoned by the ex-Jesuits. See the
author's _Candid History of the Jesuits_, pp. 355 and 368.]
[Footnote 337: In Austria the movement was called Febronianism, as
it had begun with a work (_De Statu Ecclesiæ_) published in 1763 by
Johann von Hontheim under the pseudonym of "Febronius." Hontheim
had learned Gallican sentiments at Louvain. Joseph II. had wisely
and firmly adopted the chief principles of the school: religious
toleration, restriction of the interference of the Popes, and control
of ecclesiastical property.]
[Footnote 338: Petrucelli della Gattina's _Histoire diplomatique des
Conclaves_, 4 vols., 1864-6.]
[Footnote 339: The chief source of our knowledge of the earlier years
of Pius is the sketch of his life by Artaud de Montor. Cardinal Wiseman
(another eulogist) covers the ground in the early chapters of his
_Recollections of the Last Four Popes_ (1858). Dr. E.L.T. Henke's
_Papst Pius VII._ (1860) is an excellent impartial study, while D.
Bertolotti's _Vita di Papa Pio VII._ (1881) is less scholarly, and Mary
Allies' _Pius the Seventh_ is rather a tract than an historical study.
The Pope's relations with Napoleon (after the coronation) are minutely,
though far from impartially, studied in H. Welschinger's _Le Pape et
l'Empereur_ (1905) and Father Ilario Rinieri's _Napoleone e Pio VII._
(2 vols., 1906): both make some use of unpublished documents. See also
F. Rinieri's _Il Concordato tra Pio VII. e il Primo Console_ (1902).
The Pope's Bulls are in the _Bullarii Romani Continuatio_ (ed. Barberi,
vols. xi.-xv). Contemporary documents abound, and one need mention only
the Memoirs of Consalvi, Pacca, and Talleyrand, and the _Correspondance
de Napoleon I._ Special studies will be quoted later. Dr. F. Nielsen's
_History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century_ (2 vols., 1906) is
the best recent study of the period of Pius VII. to Pius IX.; it is
scholarly and impartial.]
[Footnote 340: February 9, 1801.]
[Footnote 341: This Pius entirely failed to prevent. See Father Leo
Koenig's _Pius VII.: Die Sakularisation und das Reichskonkordat_
(1904).]
[Footnote 342: Consalvi's Memoirs are naturally prejudiced, and not
reliable. Theiner's _Histoire des deux Concordats_ (1869) and Séché's
_Les Origines du Concordat_ (1894) are carefully documented.]
[Footnote 343: _Correspondance de Napoleon I._, xi., 642.]
[Footnote 344: _Ibid._, xii., 477.]
[Footnote 345: _Memorie_, i., 68.]
[Footnote 346: Pacca relates that the English sent a friar to say that
they had a frigate ready to take away the Pope and his secretary. Such
were the relations of Rome and England.]
[Footnote 347: _L'Église Romaine et le Premier Empire_, 5 vols.,
1868-1870.]
[Footnote 348: _Le Pape et l'Empereur_ (1905), pp. 177-196.]
[Footnote 349: _See_ Rinieri, pp. 165 and 166.]
[Footnote 350: By the Brief _Catholicæ Fidei_, March 7, 1801.]
[Footnote 351: Almost the only mention of the Vatican at this period is
that in 1807 Pius had it prepared for the reception of Napoleon!]