PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--The sensation that the arrival of the Pope in this country
caused among the lower classes of people cannot be expressed, and if
expressed, would not be believed. I am sorry, however, to say that,
instead of improving their morals or increasing their faith, this journey
has shaken both morality and religion to their foundation.
According to our religious notions, as you must know, the Roman pontiff
is the vicar of Christ, and infallible; he can never err. The atheists
of the National Convention and the Theophilanthropists of the Directory
not only denied his demi-divinity, but transformed him into a satyr; and
in pretending to tear the veil of superstition, annihilated all belief in
a God. The ignorant part of our nation, which, as everywhere else,
constitutes the majority, witnessing the impunity and prosperity of
crime, and bestowing on the Almighty the passions of mortals, first
doubted of His omnipotence in not crushing guilt, and afterwards of His
existence in not exterminating the blasphemous from among the living.
Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes here, and
hope of a reward hereafter for unmerited sufferings upon earth, they all
hailed as a blessing the restoration of Christianity; and by this
political act Bonaparte gained more adherents than by all his victories
he had procured admirers.
Bonaparte’s character, his good and his bad qualities, his talents and
his crimes, are too recent and too notorious to require description.
Should he continue successful, and be attended by fortune to his grave,
future ages may perhaps hail him a hero and a great man; but by his
contemporaries it will always be doubtful whether mankind has not
suffered more from his ambition and cruelties than benefited by his
services. Had he satisfied himself by continuing the Chief Magistrate of
a Commonwealth; or, if he judged that a monarchical Government alone was
suitable to the spirit of this country, had he recalled our legitimate
King, he would have occupied a principal, if not the first, place in the
history of France,--a place much more exalted than he can ever expect to
fill as an Emperor of the French. Let his prosperity be ever so
uninterrupted, he cannot be mentioned but as an usurper, an appellation
never exciting esteem, frequently inspiring contempt, and always odious.
The crime of usurpation is the greatest and most enormous a subject can
perpetrate; but what epithet can there be given to him who, to preserve
an authority unlawfully acquired, asssociates in his guilt a Supreme
Pontiff, whom the multitude is accustomed to reverence as the
representative of their God, but who, by this act of scandal and
sacrilege, descends to a level with the most culpable of men? I have
heard, not only in this city but in villages, where sincerity is more
frequent than corruption, and where hypocrites are as little known as
infidels, these remarks made by the people:
“Can the real vicar of Christ, by his inauguration, commit the double
injustice of depriving the legitimate owner of his rights, and of
bestowing as a sacred donation what belongs to another; and what he has
no power, no authority, to dispose of? Can Pius VII. confer on Napoleon
the First what belongs to Louis XVIII.? Would Jesus Christ, if upon
earth, have acted thus? Would his immediate successors, the Apostles,
not have preferred the suffering of martyrdom to the commission of any
injury? If the present Roman pontiff acts differently from what his
Master and predecessors would have done, can he be the vicar of our
Saviour?”
These and many similar reflections the common people have made, and make
yet. The step from doubt to disbelief is but short, and those brought up
in the Roman Catholic religion, who hesitate about believing Pius VII. to
be the vicar of Christ, will soon remember the precepts of atheists and
freethinkers, and believe that Christ is not the Son of God, and that God
is only the invention of fear.
The fact is, that by the Pope’s performance of the coronation of an
Emperor of the French, a religious as well as a political revolution was
effected; and the usurper in power, whatever his creed may be, will
hereafter, without much difficulty, force it on his slaves. You may,
perhaps, object that Pius VII., in his official account to the Sacred
College of his journey to France, speaks with enthusiasm of the
Catholicism of the French people. But did not the Goddess of Reason, did
not Robespierre as a high priest of a Supreme Being, speak as highly of
their sectaries? Read the Moniteur of 1793 and 1794, and you will be
convinced of the truth of this assertion. They, like the Pope, spoke of
what they saw, and they, like him, did not see an individual who was not
instructed how to perform his part, so as to give satisfaction to him
whom he was to please, and to those who employed him. As you have
attended to the history of our Revolution, you have found it in great
part a cruel masquerade, where none but the unfortunate Louis XVI.
appeared in his native and natural character and without a mask.
The countenance of Pius VII. is placid and benign, and a kind of calmness
and tranquillity pervades his address and manners, which are, however,
far from being easy or elegant. The crowds that he must have been
accustomed to see since his present elevation have not lessened a
timidity the consequence of early seclusion. Nothing troubled him more
than the numerous deputations of our Senate, Legislative Body, Tribunate,
National Institute, Tribunals, etc., that teased him on every occasion.
He never was suspected of any vices, but all his virtues are negative;
and his best quality is, not to do good, but to prevent evil. His piety
is sincere and unaffected, and it is not difficult to perceive that he
has been more accustomed to address his God than to converse with men. He
is nowhere so well in his place as before the altar; when imploring the
blessings of Providence on his audience he speaks with confidence, as to
a friend to whom his purity is known, and who is accustomed to listen
favourably to his prayers. He is zealous but not fanatical, but equally
superstitious as devout. His closet was crowded with relics, rosaries,
etc., but there he passed generally eight hours of the twenty-four upon
his knees in prayer and meditation. He often inflicted on himself
mortifications, observed fast-days, and kept his vows with religious
strictness.
None of the promises made him by Cardinal Fesch, in the name of Napoleon
the First, were performed, but all were put off until a general
pacification. He was promised indemnity for Avignon, Bologna, Ferrara,
and Ravenna; the ancient supremacy and pecuniary contributions of the
Gallican Church, and the restoration of certain religious orders, both in
France and Italy; but notwithstanding his own representations, and the
activity of his Cardinal, Caprara, nothing was decided, though nothing
was refused.
By some means or other he was made perfectly acquainted with the crimes
and vices of most of our public functionaries. Talleyrand was surprised
when Cardinal Caprara explained to him the reason why the Pope refused to
admit some persons to his presence, and why he wished others even not to
be of the party when he accepted the invitations of Bonaparte and his
wife to their private societies. Many are, however, of opinion that
Talleyrand, from malignity or revenge, often heightened and confirmed His
Holiness’s aversion. This was at least once the case with regard to De
Lalande. When Duroc inquired the cause of the Pope’s displeasure against
this astronomer, and hinted that it would be very agreeable to the
Emperor were His Holiness to permit him the honour of prostrating
himself, he was answered that men of talents and learning would always be
welcome to approach his person; that he pitied the errors and prayed for
the conversion of this savant, but was neither displeased nor offended
with him. Talleyrand, when informed of the Pope’s answer, accused
Cardinal Caprara of having misinterpreted his master’s communications;
and this prelate, in his turn, censured our Minister’s bad memory.
You must have read that this De Lalande is regarded in France as the
first astronomer of Europe, and hailed as the high priest of atheists; he
is said to be the author of a shockingly blasphemous work called “The
Bible of a People who acknowledge no God.” He implored the ferocious
Robespierre to honour the heavens by bestowing, on a new planet pretended
to be discovered, his ci-devant Christian-name, Maximilian. In a letter
of congratulation to Bonaparte, on the occasion of his present elevation,
he also implored him to honour the God of the Christians by styling
himself Jesus Christ the First, Emperor of the French, instead of
Napoleon the First. But it was not his known impiety that made
Talleyrand wish to exclude him from insulting with his presence a
Christian pontiff. In the summer of 1799, when the Minister was in a
momentary disgrace, De Lalande was at the head of those who imputed to
his treachery, corruptions, and machinations all the evils France then
suffered, both from external enemies and internal factions. If
Talleyrand has justly been reproached for soon forgetting good offices
and services done him, nobody ever denied that he has the best
recollection in the world of offences or attacks, and that he is as
revengeful as unforgiving.
The only one of our great men whom Pius VII. remained obstinate and
inflexible in not receiving, was the Senator and Minister of Police,
Fouche. As His Holiness was not so particular with regard to other
persons who, like Fouche, were both apostate priests and regicide
subjects, the following is reported to be the cause of his aversion and
obduracy:
In November, 1793, the remains of a wretch of the name of
Challiers--justly called, for his atrocities, the Murat of Lyons--were
ordered by Fouche, then a representative of the people in that city, to
be produced and publicly worshipped; and, under his particular auspices,
a grand fete was performed to the memory of this republican martyr, who
had been executed as an assassin. As part of this impious ceremony, an
ass, covered with a Bishop’s vestments, having on his head a mitre, and
the volumes of Holy Writ tied to his tail, paraded the streets. The
remains of Challiers were then burnt, and the ashes distributed among his
adorers; while the books were also consumed, and the ashes scattered in
the wind. Fouche proposed, after giving the ass some water to drink in a
sacred chalice, to terminate the festivity of the day by murdering all
the prisoners, amounting to seven thousand five hundred; but a sudden
storm prevented the execution of this diabolical proposition, and
dispersed the sacrilegious congregation.