CAPTIVITY OF POPE PIUS VII
One beautiful evening of early summer in the year 1810, the packet-boat
plying between Genoa and Savona reached the latter port after a fair,
but exciting passage; for, albeit the sea was scarcely ruffled by the
breeze—which in itself was barely sufficient to fill the sails—yet
during the whole of the voyage from Genoa a couple of British frigates
had accompanied the packet-boat, keeping, however, much to the surprise
of the voyagers, at a considerable distance and without manifesting
any hostile intention. And when, at last, the packet-boat was safe at
anchor in the harbour of Savona, the frigates likewise lay to, within
about a cannon-shot of the land, and began, apparently, to make all
snug for the night.
Among the passengers who now walked down the gang-plank of the
packet-boat on to the quay, thankful for once to British eccentricity
for its unaccountable generosity in letting them go their way
unmolested, was a man, still young, with an expression of imperturbable
good nature not unmixed with a certain bland shrewdness. This person,
after directing a servant, by whom he was accompanied, to have his
baggage taken to an hotel—possibly the Roma—betook himself alone and
on foot to the Vescovado, the palace of the Bishop of Savona—“a fairly
large house,” as Napoleon had described it in a letter in which he had
attempted to excuse himself for the choice of it as a residence for his
prisoner, Pope Pius VII.
The traveller, on arriving at the door of the Vescovado, found
his farther way barred by a couple of gendarmes who were mounting
guard there; to them, on their asking his business, he replied that
he desired an interview with the Sovereign Pontiff, and requested
that they would let him pass. For all answer they stared at him,
open-mouthed, taking him for an eccentric; when their commander, a
Colonel Thévenot, who chanced to be passing, took the matter out of
their hands.
“Who are you, sir, and what do you want?” he inquired.
“I wish to see the Holy Father, as soon as possible,” replied the
other. “Allow me”—handing the colonel a visiting-card inscribed:
LE CHEVALIER DE LEBZELTERN,
CONSEILLER D’AMBASSADE
DE
SA MAJESTÉ L’EMPEREUR D’AUTRICHE ET ROI
APOSTOLIQUE DE HONGRIE.
Having read the card, Thévenot glanced suspiciously at the owner of it;
then, seeing that he had indeed to do with a serious person, he turned
rather red in the face.
“Tut-tut, my dear sir, surely you cannot expect to obtain admission
to the Pope in this rough-and-ready way,” he stammered. “It is really
quite out of the question, you know,” with a wave of the hand to where,
in the courtyard, a corporal’s guard of Fusiliers was preparing to
relieve the sentries posted in all the approaches of the building.
“Ah, the guard of honour, I suppose, for His Holiness,” returned the
Austrian, with the vestige of a smile; whereat Colonel Thévenot’s
equanimity gave way.
“Frankly, sir,” he broke out, “please understand that no living being
is allowed to enter here without a written order from General Berthier,
the commandant of the town.”
“Frankly, sir,” retorted Lebzeltern in his turn, “that does not apply
to myself, and I am going to enter.”
Happily for all concerned, the situation was dispelled at that moment
by the sound of heavy firing from the direction of the harbour, where
the British frigates had suddenly come in closer towards the town,
with the intention of ascertaining the range of the French artillery,
especially of some large cannon on a new fort. The orders of Napoleon
himself, who was acquainted with this custom of the British, were
positive in regard to such provocations; and it was strictly enjoined
upon his officers to take no notice of them except in the event of a
serious attack. Nevertheless the garrison of Savona lost its head upon
this particular occasion and opened an extensive fire upon the two
inquisitive ships. As Lebzeltern described it:
“It was a splendid sight; the weather was superb, the sea like a
mirror, the whole coast, as well as the English ships, being turned to
gold in the sunset. On the side of Savona thundered the cannon, their
smoke shot with flame; from the English, though, there came no sound
except that of their bands playing their well-known air of ‘Go to bed,
go to bed, and get up as quickly as you can!’”
In the confusion of what the French imagined to be the preliminaries
of an action, the gates of the Vescovado were closed, and Lebzeltern,
thus forced to abandon his quest for the moment, turned his footsteps
towards the hotel. There was nothing for it, as he saw, but to obtain
General Berthier’s permission to see the Pope, with whom alone his
mission to Savona was concerned. Having dined therefore, he dispatched
a messenger to the Papal _maestro di camera_, Monsignor Doria, bearing
a letter from Count Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, under
whose instructions he was acting, together with a formal request for an
audience of the Holy Father.
Some explanation is necessary of the origin of Lebzeltern’s mission to
Savona; and so I trust the reader will not take it amiss if I venture
upon the attempt.
When, in the summer of 1809, Napoleon sent orders to Rome for the
arrest of the Pope, he did so under the impulse of one of those blind
rages of his which upset all the calculations of his wisest advisers,
and which only ended in raising up insurmountable barriers in the
way of his ultimate triumph. For years he had been angered by the
Pope’s refusal either to close the ports of the Papal States against
English ships and merchandise, or to expel the English residents in
his dominions. In answer to the Emperor’s repeated demands, Pius VII
had said that, as the Universal Spiritual Father of all the Christian
family, he absolutely refused to close their home and his (_i.e._
the Papal States) against his English children. Whereupon, in 1807,
Benevento and Pontecorvo were taken from the Papal States and erected
into French Duchies for Talleyrand and Bernadotte, to be held by
them as fiefs of the Empire. The next year Rome itself was occupied
by French troops, and the “legations” of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata,
and Camerino seized by Napoleon’s orders; and in 1809 the Eternal
City was declared to be annexed to the Empire as the capital of the
French _département_ or county of Rome. Finally, in the night of July
5-6, 1809, Pope Pius VII was arrested by General Radet and taken as a
prisoner to Savona.
Napoleon’s idea, in thus imprisoning the Pontiff and isolating him from
his accustomed friends, counsellors, and surroundings, was to wring
from him by suffering that compliance with the Imperial diplomacy which
the good old man had hitherto refused so uncompromisingly. To be sure,
now that Rome and the Papal States were in the hands of his soldiers,
the Emperor had no difficulty either in expelling or arresting the
English residing there, or in closing the whole of Romagna to British
merchandise; but, in his haste and anger, he had reckoned without the
religious difficulties of the new situation.
To begin with, in thus laying violent hands upon the person of the
Pope, he struck a blow not only at a fellow Sovereign, but at the Head
of the Catholic Church on earth, and in so doing wounded the whole of
the Church in its tenderest feelings, stirring up against himself a
resentment that knew no bounds, not only in France, Belgium, and Italy,
but also in Spain and Austria, as well as throughout the Catholic parts
of Germany and the Netherlands. Protests multiplied on every hand,
becoming increasingly violent, until Napoleon was forced to admit to
himself that he had made a terrible mistake, and that his glory and
power were insufficient to seduce the souls of men from their religious
allegiance to the successor of Saint Peter.
Moreover, the dangers and discomforts of his situation were rendered
intolerable by a Bull of Excommunication issued against him in that
summer of 1809, in the hour of his triumph over the Austrians at
Wagram; which Bull was served upon him in person, whilst surrounded by
his marshals, by a solitary ecclesiastic who, true to his mission, did
not honour him with any kind of salutation, but merely delivered the
parchment into the Emperor’s hand, turned his back upon him and walked
away.
Napoleon, indeed, feigned to make light of the excommunication, asking
of those about him whether the Pope expected the muskets to fall from
the hands of his, the Emperor’s, soldiers: but, in his heart, he was
greatly troubled. He had known for some time that such a Bull was on
its way to him, but had contrived to evade the service of it on him.
For Lebzeltern himself, who was Secretary of the Austrian Embassy in
Rome at the period of the Holy Father’s arrest, and who had long been a
valued and intimate friend of Pius VII, had been entrusted with another
such document at his departure from Rome on an order transmitted to
him from Napoleon through General de Miollis, ordering him (albeit a
foreign diplomatist) to quit French territory immediately.
Bearing with him, therefore, the Bull of Excommunication, Lebzeltern
had departed from Rome, being escorted on his way to Vienna as far
as Klagenfurt in Styria by a French officer. On reaching Schönbrunn,
however, he was arrested by the French military police; his baggage
and even his person was submitted to a degrading search, and at
length, every other means of purloining the Bull having been tried in
vain, Lebzeltern was threatened with being shot unless he gave up the
document—for Napoleon would appear to have entertained a superstition
that, if only he could escape from having the Bull served on him, its
effect would be annulled!
But nothing would induce Lebzeltern to reveal its hiding-place; and
so he was sent off as a State prisoner to Munich, with a special
recommendation to the Bavarian Government to treat him as harshly as
possible. Having passed some months there, however, he was exchanged
against a Baron d’Arétin, and came to Vienna, believing himself to be
free at last. But now Wagram had been fought, and Napoleon was master
there; and Lebzeltern was again arrested on a trumped-up charge of
seeking to escape from giving satisfaction to a French officer in
an affair of honour! Nor would Napoleon let him go, until compelled
to do so by the insistent demands of Metternich, who was just then
negotiating the peace preliminaries at Altenburg. At long length,
however, Lebzeltern was released, and joined the Austrian headquarters
near Schönbrunn, a few days before the signing of the Treaty of Vienna;
and it was he to whom Emperor Francis unburdened himself with tears in
his eyes on the subject of the Treaty.
Soon afterwards Lebzeltern went to Paris as Secretary of Embassy
under Metternich; and when, in the late spring of 1810, Napoleon asked
Metternich to find him a man to entrust with the errand of persuading
the Holy Father to accede to his views (_i.e._ the removal of the
Excommunication and the abdication of the Temporal Power in favour of
the Napoleonic dynasty), Metternich recommended Lebzeltern as the one
person qualified to speak to the Pope with any chance of being accorded
a favourable hearing.
The whole hinge of the matter was the Pope’s renunciation of the
Temporal Power; only in return for which would Napoleon (as he made
perfectly clear to Metternich) allow the Pontiff to return to Rome,
whence, alone, it was possible for Pius VII to direct the way of the
Catholic Church. And, unless the Pope would surrender the patrimony of
Peter, he should never see Rome again, and the Emperor would nominate
another Pontiff in his stead. The position was certainly simple enough,
according to Napoleon.
But Metternich had added, in private, a little word of his own in the
ear of his estimable subordinate on the eve of the latter’s departure
for Italy: “Do all,” said he, with a peculiar emphasis, “or else _do
nothing_.” And Lebzeltern, grasping the significance of the words,
had bowed, smilingly, before withdrawing to prepare for the journey.
He perfectly understood; what Metternich meant was, that he was
either to effect _in toto_ what both of them knew to be impossible,
or else he was to effect nothing at all. That is to say, he was not
to attempt any compromise by which the Pope might be hoodwinked into
doing what Napoleon wanted; for it was perfectly certain that Pius VII
would refuse to meet the Emperor’s views as laid down by the Emperor
himself for transmission by Lebzeltern. And, as Metternich realized,
the salvation not only of Austria, but of all Europe, depended upon
the Pope’s holding out against Napoleon; for the only thing that must
inevitably, sooner or later, bring about the Emperor’s downfall was the
sense of their outraged religion in the hearts of the vanquished.
After sending in his request for an audience to Monsignor Doria,
Lebzeltern went to call upon General Berthier, who was the commandant
of Savona and the Pope’s jailer. Berthier had heard of his arrival,
and began by telling Lebzeltern—who had told him that the object of
his mission was to discuss some Austrian religious business with the
Holy Father—that he could only be allowed to converse with Pius VII
in the presence of witnesses. To this Lebzeltern replied that it was
impossible for him to speak freely of the affairs of the Austrian
Court in the presence of any third party whomsoever; that, according
to Napoleon himself, the Pope was under no kind of restraint; and
lastly, that Napoleon both knew and approved of his, Lebzeltern’s,
mission. But it was not until Lebzeltern threatened to go back to Paris
immediately and to complain of the obstacle placed in his path, that
Berthier finally surrendered the point—albeit not without a violent
scene, in which he complained bitterly of the Emperor for placing him
(as was true enough) in so equivocal a position by first forbidding
him to allow any one to have access to the Pope without direct orders
to do so from Paris, and then sending Lebzeltern thus (under-handedly
and without as much as a line from any French official excepting a
passport) to match, as it were, his, Berthier’s, intelligence against
his obedience. Finally, he himself decided to give the preference to
his intelligence.
So it was all of four days after his arrival at Savona that Lebzeltern
was ushered by Monsignor Doria into the Pope’s presence.
At that time Pius VII although in his sixty-eighth year, looked
considerably younger, his hair being still jet-black and abundant,
and his dark eyes full of life and light. The smile too, which rarely
left his pale, kindly face, was peculiarly winsome in its frankness
and its serenity. The only signs about him of what he had endured of
late at the hands of the French administration were a weariness in his
voice and a marked stoop like that of a very old or very tired man. On
seeing Lebzeltern, though, he showed a greater animation and pleasure
than he had done for many months; especially was he delighted to learn
that their interview was to be an absolutely private one—for this he
regarded as a great indulgence on the part of his jailers, it being the
first time in his captivity (then nearly a year old) that he had been
allowed to speak with any except in the presence of a third party.
At first, records Lebzeltern, the Holy Father spoke of his sufferings
in the journey from Rome and of all he had endured since being torn
from the Eternal City; also he expressed his sympathies for his visitor
in what the latter had undergone of unjust imprisonment at the hands
of the French and the Bavarians. In return,[9] Lebzeltern, as he tells
himself, gave the Pontiff an outline of public events since their
last meeting in Rome, prior to the battle of Wagram: the Treaty of
Vienna and its results; the progress of the war in Portugal; and the
marriage of Napoleon to the Archduchess Marie-Louise. _All of which
events Lebzeltern, a professional diplomatist and an Austrian official,
believed to be hitherto unknown to the Pope_—wherein lies one of
the most curious points of modern history. For if Pope Pius VII was
supposed even by such men as Metternich and Lebzeltern to be still,
in May 1810, in ignorance of the marriage of Napoleon to Marie-Louise,
how can it be claimed that the Supreme Pontiff’s sanction had ever been
given to that marriage?
Apparently to Lebzeltern’s surprise, Pius VII had, however, actually
learned of the Imperial marriage through some secret channel. “...
Outwitting the watchfulness of his jailers, he received news day by
day....” For, amongst other indignities, no letters were ever permitted
to reach or issue from the Holy Father except such as had been approved
by Berthier and by a certain Chabrol, Prefect of the _département_
of Montnotte, by whom the Papal correspondence was always read and
censored; so that it was evidently Napoleon’s purpose to keep his
august prisoner in total ignorance of the majority of the world’s
events.
Nevertheless Pius VII spoke with no bitterness, but only with great
grief of the French Emperor, expressing the most sorrowful tenderness
towards the man whom he had crowned Emperor at Notre Dame a few years
previously. And all he asked was that he might be allowed to go back to
Rome in order to be able to do his duty by the Church as her Pastor.
At this point Lebzeltern made known the real object of his coming to
Savona: namely, that Napoleon was anxious to come to an understanding
with the Pope. To the latter this was, indeed, a most welcome surprise:
but almost immediately he seemed to realize that he was suddenly in
the presence of some sort of insidious temptation which was preparing
to attack him. And here Lebzeltern, by turning the talk during some
minutes to Austrian affairs, sought to give his listener time in
which to recover from the first effects of his surprise. And so for
a while they spoke of the dangers of a schism that threatened the
German episcopate, so long deprived by Napoleon of the guidance of
their Shepherd. And then as the Pope began more clearly to divine the
probable intentions of the Emperor towards him, he reverted to the
subject of his captor:
“I want nothing for myself,” he said, by way of warning Lebzeltern that
it would be of no use for him to offer any personal advantage to the
Pope (as such) as the price of a reconciliation with Napoleon. “I am
old, and have no need of anything; I have sacrificed all I had to my
duty. I have nothing left to lose. Therefore no personal consideration
can make me turn aside from the narrow road along which the sacred
voice of my conscience has so far led me. I want no pension; the alms
of the faithful will suffice me.... All I insist upon—and with all my
strength—is that I be allowed free communication with the Bishops and
the faithful.” Once, too, he seemed uncertain of even the diplomatist’s
own intentions towards him: “At Rome, my dear Lebzeltern,” he reminded
him, “I opened my heart to you in the conviction that you were
incapable of abusing my confidence....”—speaking rapidly in Italian.
And now, as Lebzeltern felt, the moment had come when he could no
longer defer the revelation of what it was that Napoleon proposed to
the Pope as the only possible basis of an agreement between them—that
is to say, the only price he would accept to let Pius VII out of
prison. It was by no means easy, as he gives one to understand, for the
young Austrian to do this thing; but at length he forced himself to the
point. After assuring the Holy Father once more of his own devotion
to him, as well as of that of Metternich and the Emperor Francis,
Lebzeltern proceeded to explain that Napoleon had in no way abated his
desire to be the Lord of Rome, which had long been one of the principal
objects of his ambition; also that he had in no way changed his mind
in regard to the Pope’s surrender of the Temporal Power; and that,
although Napoleon would not insist upon a formal deed of renunciation
on the part of Pius VII, yet, at the same time, he must insist that
the Pope should maintain an attitude of absolute submission in the
matter, an attitude which should in no way recall the past political
position of the Papacy, and which at bottom should be, in fact, an
acknowledgment of the suzerainty of the French Emperor.
The words were scarcely out of Lebzeltern’s mouth when the Pontiff took
him up with an amazing energy for so delicate a man.
“Is not Napoleon already, _de facto_, the master of Rome?” he demanded.
“Does he not parcel out my States as he pleases? Do not his troops
already hold my ports, camp in my capital, and live at my expense? And
all I can do is to oppose a few protests to his armed force. But I know
him; he is a man who never really wants what he says he wants—and what
he really wants he will never admit to a living soul beforehand.”
To which Lebzeltern, in order to restore the Pope’s equanimity, replied
by telling him how Metternich in speaking to Napoleon had declared
himself openly on the side of the Holy Father; and, moreover, had
emphatically impressed upon the Emperor the unchangeable principles[10]
of the Austrian Government in regard to the Catholic Church and its
visible spiritual Head on earth.
“I should indeed be grateful for any help that Austria could give
me,” said the Pope. “All I ask is that Napoleon will let me go back to
Rome, and that he will allow me to keep about me a sufficient number
of people for the business of consistories and councils—and that my
relations with the faithful may be free and unhampered. I have no
means of compelling Napoleon to restore the dominions of which he has
robbed me—very well, all I can do is to protest. Beyond that I can do
nothing.”
Here Lebzeltern, it must be recorded, made some attempt to persuade
the Holy Father to make what he called “sacrifices” in the interests
of the distracted Church—but of what nature, precisely, he did not
specify. But Pius VII, reading his mind, replied that the duty imposed
upon him by his conscience of defending the rights of the Holy See
and the patrimony of the Church—which patrimony he was bound by his
oath as Pope to transmit intact, in so far as in him lay, to his
successors—forbade his remaining silent under Napoleon’s iniquity: his
silence would be understood, by his enemies, to be a tacit abdication
of the Temporal Power, and would be considered by the faithful as a
cowardly surrender.
From this point in the conversation the two men understood each other’s
position and standpoint clearly—and yet both did their best to avoid
the blind-alley into which the talk was surely leading them.
“Let Napoleon only allow me to return to Rome,” pleaded the Pope—“the
catacombs will be enough for me, they have served as a shelter before
now for other Pontiffs.... As to my sustenance, as I said before, the
faithful will take care for it. No doubt Napoleon would offer me a
revenue from the funds of the religious orders he has suppressed—in the
same way that, when I went to Paris to crown him, he offered me some
eighteen or twenty million francs of such stolen money—an unspeakable
suggestion which I refused with horror and indignation! But, indeed,
now that I think of it—how could I possibly hold my tongue as he
proposes I should do, and not protest, while he would go on suppressing
convents and religious orders under my very eyes, as well as
introducing innovations that I could not pass over in silence without
becoming his accomplice in the face of all Christendom?”
In response Lebzeltern submitted that, possibly, Napoleon’s malevolent
dispositions towards the Church might be beneficially affected by the
removal of the ban of excommunication under which he still lay.
“But Napoleon would be excommunicated without any Bull of mine,”
replied the other. “For he is, _ipso facto_, as a persecutor of the
Church, outside her pale. Even if I had never issued any such ban
against him, he would still be excommunicated by his own acts.”
Lebzeltern now proposed that the Holy Father should write a letter to
Napoleon, demanding with all gentleness and moderation to be set at
liberty and allowed to resume his apostolic functions. “I would even
ask his help to that end,” pursued the Austrian, “and I would publish
the letter. Such a letter would in no way disparage the Vicar of
Christ, ever ready to forgive sinners; and, at the same time, it would
place Napoleon in an exceedingly embarrassing situation before the
world. By so doing, your Holiness would infallibly destroy at a single
blow those weapons of calumny which he is employing against you, and
which he means to go on employing.”
“Listen, Lebzeltern. You know that I am willing to concede all that it
is possible to concede; but where my conscience is concerned you behold
me perfectly resigned to remain as I am, a prisoner. If my captivity
were a thousand times harsher—if I had, even, to mount the scaffold—I
should not deviate by so much as a hair’s breadth from what my duty
demands of me. And it would be an unworthy betrayal of that duty if I
were to remove the ban of excommunication from Napoleon without good
and sufficient reason. As to the letter you propose that I should
write to him—a kind of encyclical, as it were—frankly, I feel that,
in sending such a thing to a man like Napoleon, who is capable of
changing the wording of it, and then publishing it to my detriment and
his own ends, I should do wrong in taking so grave a risk without first
consulting the Sacred College.”
And on Lebzeltern’s arguing that it was the Pope’s duty to make the
first move towards a reconciliation with the Emperor, Pius VII was
silent for a moment, as though deliberating upon his next words. At
last he spoke again.
“If Napoleon shows a desire to become reconciled to the Church, and if
he will prove his sincerity by some deed, the thing can be arranged—and
I assure you that no one is more desirous of it than I.”
And with that the first interview came to an end. Lebzeltern did not
see the Pontiff again until two days later. On May 18 he found him in a
condition of great fatigue from overwork (as may be easily understood
when one remembers that _the entire business of the Church had fallen
upon the shoulders of the venerable Pontiff, deprived by Napoleon’s
orders of assistance of any kind_ in the transaction of that stupendous
task!), and having before him a letter recently received from Cardinal
Fesch. In this letter the Cardinal had written of the Emperor’s
intention—unless an agreement were speedily come to between himself and
the Holy Father—of settling the question by choosing bishops that would
do his will from among the French clergy, bishops who would administer
their dioceses in accordance with Napoleon’s instructions alone, and
without any reference to the Pope.
In answer the Holy Father had condescended to write back to the
Cardinal to say that the Emperor was evidently bent upon making
impossible any reconciliation between them; and that any Episcopal
Council that the Emperor might call together upon his own initiative
would be absolutely null and void. Nevertheless he, the Pope, being
unwilling to refuse any chance of reconciliation, the Cardinal was to
exhort Napoleon upon the subject; to assure him of his glory in this
world and in the next if he would but sincerely become reconciled to
the Church; and, equally, to threaten him with condign punishment upon
himself and his dynasty if he should persist in his persecution of the
Church.
Lebzeltern now had to recognize that the Sovereign Pontiff had, in
his heart, lost all confidence in Napoleon’s good intentions; for
Pius VII now spoke of yet further pains and penalties that he had not
made use of and which were still at his disposal. Lebzeltern, though
undiscouraged, only tried the harder to incline the Pope towards an
understanding with the Emperor.
“If Napoleon will do something in favour of the Church, then, and
not before, will I withdraw my excommunication of him,” replied the
Pontiff. “To gain absolution, one must do penance——”
“Surely, Holy Father—but, generally speaking, the absolution precedes
the penance”—a specious argument this, of the diplomatist, seeing that
the fruit of the absolution is dependent upon the performance of the
penance.
All preliminaries being exhausted, it only remained for Lebzeltern to
disclose the absolutely last possible basis of an understanding between
the Pope and the Emperor.
“If the Emperor were willing to forgo any formal act of abdication of
the Temporal Power on the part of your Holiness,” he ventured, “might
he count in return upon your absolute silence as to the past?”—by
which Lebzeltern meant that the Pope should by his silence give a tacit
sanction to all the things that Napoleon had done to the Church and her
ministers—his imprisonment of the Pope and many of the Cardinals, his
sequestration of countless Church moneys, his closing of the multitudes
of religious houses, and his throwing of their occupants, destitute and
homeless, upon the world.
“Out of the question,” said the Pope. “I could never feel sure of any
pact with Napoleon.” Presently, however, he added, “The guarantee,
though, of a third party to any treaty I might make with him would
certainly ease my mind considerably—especially if Austria would furnish
the guarantee.” And then, in an access of reconciliation he continued:
“I have already told you what I would be disposed to do on my side
towards healing the breach between Napoleon and the Church. What more
does he want of me? Does he wish me to recognize him as Emperor of the
West? Very well, I am willing to do so. Does he wish me to crown him
as such at Rome? Very well, again I am quite ready to do so. For that
would not in any way be contrary to my conscience, provided only that
he makes his peace with the Church and ceases from persecuting her; but
I insist upon it that he shall respect her earthly Head in that Head’s
unchangeable capacity as the spiritual chief of Christendom!”
Lebzeltern was, indeed, astounded at the Pope’s generosity.
“Most Holy Father,” he stammered, “you have given too much not to give
just one little thing more—merely to allow your subjects to obey the
present Government in the Papal States, and to order them expressly to
do so.”
There followed a gesture of such pain on the part of the Sovereign
Pontiff, expressing so eloquently his repugnance to this proposal, that
Lebzeltern was penetrated with a shaft of regret for having made it.
Moreover, as he says himself, “I trembled at the thought of all I had
obtained from him!”
At the same time Lebzeltern felt convinced of the uselessness of the
Pope’s concessions. He knew that Napoleon, unless he could obtain the
one thing on which his heart was set—the actual sovereignty of the
Papal States, and that with the Pope’s consent and blessing—would not
for a moment consider anything else that might be offered him instead.
So Lebzeltern parted from the Holy Father for that day, his heart full
of indefinable misgivings for the dark future in which the power of
Napoleon loomed so vast and menacing, and in which there was no great
light visible to him of the Church, save only here and there, so to
speak, where the feeble red glow of a few distant, wide-scattered
sanctuary-lamps starred the mirk of the new Europe.
On May 20 Lebzeltern went for the last time to the Vescovado, to take
leave of the august prisoner within its walls.
[Illustration: PIUS THE SEVENTH. Photo by Levy et ses freres
after the painting in the Louvre, by David.]
On this last occasion of their meeting at Savona, the diplomatist found
Pius VII in a very strange frame of mind. Not by any means inclined to
withdraw the concessions he had made in the previous interview with
Lebzeltern, but only regretting them bitterly; hoping they might not
satisfy Napoleon, and so be rejected by him. On Lebzeltern’s presenting
for his consideration a written outline of the concessions in question,
the Pontiff, after considering them a little while, rose suddenly from
his chair and spoke as follows:
“I have made known to you, Lebzeltern, many of my most secret thoughts
and sentiments which I would never have entrusted to another living
man except my confessor; and I do not regret it because I am perfectly
certain that you will never abuse the confidence I have placed in you.
Nevertheless, please bear in mind that I only authorize you to report
of me to Napoleon and Metternich what I am now going to tell you, and
which is just what you yourself have seen and heard—that I am perfectly
resigned to God’s will regarding me, and that I humbly place my cause
in His hands. Say that no consideration of any kind shall induce me to
disobey my conscience and the Divine law. Tell them that I am calm and
serene, and that all I ask of the Emperor—for whom I only hope and pray
that he may be granted the grace to make his peace with our holy mother
the Church—is that he will allow me the means of communicating freely
with the faithful, and that he will no longer deprive them of the
services of their father and servant. Tell the Emperor that I entreat
him to remember that the glory of this world is in itself no passport
to heaven; that, albeit I yearn with all my heart to be reconciled
with him, yet that I will never be so at the price of my conscience.
Assure him very earnestly that I have not the smallest personal feeling
against him; that I forgive him with my whole heart all that he has
done to me; and that nothing could hurt me more than that he should
imagine me capable of harbouring resentments—which in themselves
are forbidden by God and have no place either in my heart or in my
inclination.”
Presently, among other things, he went on to speak of the private
misgivings with which Napoleon’s character inspired him. “Between
ourselves, Lebzeltern, I am convinced that Napoleon is not in good
faith when he says that he wishes to become reconciled with me.... If
only he would let me have some one here, at Savona, to help me in my
work, which is really and truly overwhelming; moreover, there is a vast
amount of specialist and technical business which I cannot possibly
transact by myself without consulting my expert advisers. And to make
matters worse for me, my health and my eyesight are giving out; I do
not feel that I shall be able to carry my burden of solitary labour
very much longer; besides, it is bad for my temper, which I confess
frankly I often have great difficulty in curbing.”
Nor is there anything wonderful in this when one remembers the
Pope’s situation after being imprisoned nearly a year in the house
of the Bishop of Savona, shut off from the Cardinals (of whom the
only news he had was that they had been imprisoned and maltreated
in French fortresses by order of Napoleon) and from the faithful.
Alone with his doubts and difficulties and age and ill health, and
the insidious temptations put before him by the Emperor’s instruments
(conscious, some of these, as was Fesch; unconscious, again, as was
Lebzeltern)—what is there astonishing or blameable in this “great
difficulty” so well and simply confessed by the most benignantly human
Barnabo Chiaramonte?
Presently he spoke again, to utter a final warning to Napoleon.
“If Napoleon continues to make war upon religion (even although he
does so under the guise of extending to it his hypocritical perfidious
protection); if he attempts to have me dragged to Paris; if he goes on
spreading the lie of my sacrificing the real interests of the Church
to secondary matters and to worldly motives; if he persists in forcing
me to more active reprisals,—then I shall have to use the last weapons
that remain to me and which would make a stir in the world that he does
not yet dream of. The only regret I should have in that case would be
that some others—who have been less unkind to me than he—might suffer
too. As to the precise nature of those weapons, it is possible that
their effect might be very different from anything you could imagine.
But make your mind easy; have no fear that I shall employ them unless
I am absolutely obliged to do so. Do not be afraid of my doing anything
precipitately, for I pray constantly for grace and strength sufficient
to enable me to carry my cross patiently. But if you only knew the
unvarying torment of my nights as well as of my days, Lebzeltern—the
unceasing anguish of my solitude—you would not wonder at what must
sometimes appear to you incomprehensible inconsistencies in my attitude
towards many things—as must have been noticeable in the talks between
us!”
And with that he dismissed Lebzeltern, who was as much moved as he;
for they now shared the same conviction of the utter emptiness of
Napoleon’s professions of a desire for reconciliation.
And as it proved; the doors of Savona did not open for Pius VII
until the next year, 1811—and then only to allow of his deportation
to another prison at Fontainebleau, where he was to remain until
Napoleon’s downfall. Once only did the Sovereign Pontiff weaken (with
none but the purest of good intentions) when, in 1813, he consented,
for a moment, to renounce the Temporal Power, in order that he might
be allowed to go back to Rome, thence to direct the Church. But in
vain, for Napoleon would not let him out of his hands, and Pius VII,
perceiving the mistake he had made, announced to all whom it might
concern his resumption of the inalienable dominions and Temporal
Sovereignty of the Popes. And in 1814 he returned to his rightful
throne in the Vatican amid the rejoicing of his subjects.
But what must have been his reflections in regard to his oppressor
during the five years (the exact duration of Napoleon’s crime against
him) that were consumed in the terrific expiation of St. Helena? And
his awe and amazement at the stupendous vindication of his trust in the
providence of Heaven?—for, as the Italian saying has it, “God does not
pay wages day by day, but only on Saturdays—and then He pays in full
with interest!”
Pius VII’s own revenge on Napoleon took the form of offering safe and
honoured homes, and the means to live, to his mother and his entire
family after his downfall. Whereby many descendants of the Bonapartes
are counted among the Roman nobles at this day.