The

a right to do, for if the Pope intended to re- | heart of Germany. The orders he gave for main neutral in the tremendous conflict this purpose in detail provided for every which ensued in Europe on the rupture of necessity, foresaw every difficulty, and the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon was not covered the whole line of march. overstepping the bounds of international number of days of each corps on the road, law in recommending the Pope to put him- its destination, and its very place on the self in a position to make his neutrality res- field of battle on the other side of Europe. pected. The neutrality of the Pope was an were all calculated and specified to the last immense obstacle to Napoleon's strategical degree of precision; and never was the genschemes in Italy. His army of observation ius of great military operations more strikunder Gouvion Saint-Cyr in Southern Italy, ingly active in the Emperor than on this ocand his army under Masséna in the North, casion. were cut asunder by this block of the Pontifical States, which, from the very nature of the Pope's Government, formed a harbour of refuge for the emissaries of his enemies, where all the hostile courts were represented by ministers, who found no difficulty in, supplying their Governments with information about every movement of French troops in the whole length of the Italian peninsula. That so scientific, imperious, and grasping a strategist as Napoleon should have chafed vehemently at the existence of an obstacle was inevitable; but he was not yet prepared to suppress it.

He left Paris for his army in September 1805. In a few weeks he had more than realised the appalling threats against Austria which he had addressed to his own Conseil d'Etat before his departure, by reducing Mack to capitulate at Ulm; the news of that event reached the Vatican on the 13th of November; on which very day the Pope thought fit to remonstrate, by a sealed letter addressed to the Emperor himself, against the occupation of Ancona. In spite of the opinion of M. d'Haussonville, both the date of the letter of the Pope, and the terms in which it was couched, seem to us to have been singularly ill-chosen. The campaign in Germany was not concluded by the capitulation of Ulm; and the attention of the Emperor being then wholly absorbed in the stupendous strategical movements which preceded the battle of Austerlitz -a querulous letter of the Pope about so comparatively small a matter as the occupation of Ancona at that time was not calculated to meet with a very favourable reception. M. d'Haussonville, with that fine turn of language of which he makes such elegant and telling use throughout these volumes, declares that in the Pope's letter on sentait le ton plaintif de la tendresse blessée plutôt que l'aigre accent d'une menacante récrimination.' On this point the reader must judge for himself, by an extract. The Pope begins by avowing that the occupation has caused him both surprise and grief, and says subsequently:

Napoleon was at this time engaged in one of the most immense conflicts, not only of his own career, but of all history. The two years preceding and the three years subsequent to the Peace of Amiens formed together the most brilliant and the least reprehensible portion of his domination. It is impossible for his most systematic detractor to refuse admiration to the wonderful promptitude with which he abandoned his scheme for the invasion of England after the reverse of Trafalgar, conceived at once an immense scheme of European conquest, and carried it immediately into execution. M. d'Haussonville is evidently writing from personal sources of information when he speaks of the astonishment and admiration which M. Daru, the Emperor's secretary, always evinced when he called to mind the manner in which Napoleon received the fatal news of the destruction of his fleet at Trafalgar. Daru was called to his side immediately on the reception of the news of Nelson's last victory. The Emperor exhausted at first a whole vocabulary of furious invective and satire on the incompetency of the unfortunate Villeneuve; he then grew calm, ordered his secretary to be seated and to prepare to write. Napoleon, then dismissing Trafalgar, Villeneuve, and the camp of Boulogne from his thoughts, dictated at once and almost without a stop the plan of a new campaign. The army which had so long been seated in sight of the English coast was to be transported mysteriously and rapidly at once to the justice.'

We had especial motives for believing that the sentiments of friendship which your Majesty professed towards us would have preserved us from so cruel an affront. We perceive that we are mistaken. We then tell you frankly, that since our return from Paris we have experienceed nothing but painful and unpleasant treatment (amertumes et déplaisirs); while, on the conwith your Majesty, and our invariable bearing trary, the personal acquaintance which we made towards you, seemed to promise us a totally dif ferent line of conduct. In a word, we do not find in your Majesty that return of feeling which we believed we had a right to expect of your

We imagine a more impolitic letter was never penned by one head of a Government writing directly to another. For a Sovereign with his own hand to threaten to demand the recall of an ambassador, takes the proceeding altogether out of the province of diplomacy, and gives it the character of an act of personal defiance and re

The Pope then demands the evacuation at Rome which gave him disagrecable reof Ancona, and declares, not in precise flections, and exasperated him amid all the words, but in unmistakable fashion, that, pride and triumph of success; for Napolein case of refusal, Cardinal Fesche must be on, like too many of the sons of genius, in recalled. the very plenitude of universal admiration, might be stung to fury by a dissentient voice however insignificant. At Rome, the miscellaneous society, composed for the most part of the emissaries of his enemies, had, at certain moments, doubted of his success; a flush of joy passed over many faces, and congratulations were exchanged at the prospect of a reverse of his glory. He knew all this, and no doubt his informants exaggerated all such manifestations in their reports; for Rome was full of Napoleon's spies and agents of police, kept there to give him secret intelligence of the conduct of all the sojourners in the Holy City. It is not to be wondered then that Napoleon wrote an angry reply to Pius VII.

sentment.

Very Holy Father,' he wrote on the 7th of

·

evil counsels, and has written me a letter in terms so little considered. Your Holiness is at liberty to keep my minister or to dismiss him. The occupation of Ancona is an immediate and necessary consequence of the bad organisation of the military force of the Holy See. Your Holiness had an interest to know that this fortress was in my hands rather than in those of the English and the Turks.'

Unfortunately for the Pope, who had perhaps written this injudicious letter at the suggestion of the Powers hostile to France, the state of Europe had changed before it reached its destination, and Napoleon did not condescend to answer it until the 7th of January, 1806, after three months of such triumphant success as had made him the virtual master of Europe, and placed kings January, 1806, I received a letter from your and emperors as suppliants at his feet. He had in fact fulfilled his threat of dis- Holiness of the date of the 18th of November. I membering Austria; he had punished Prus- fact, that when all the Powers in the pay of Engcould not but be very strongly affected by the sia for a suspicious neutrality, by forcing land were engaged in a coalition to make unjust her to invade Hanover and break with Eng-war against me, your Holiness has lent an ear to land; he conferred royal rank on the Elector of Bavaria; he had punished the perfidy of Queen Caroline of Naples by declaring that the House of the Bourbons had ceased to reign at Naples;' he had bestowed the Crown of Naples on his brother Joseph, the Crown of Holland on his brother Louis; he had married his adopted son, Eugène Beauharnois, Viceroy of Italy, to a Princess of Bavaria; and he was making alliances for other members of his own and Josephine's family with other royal houses of Europe. Such a rapid burst of victory and glory, unprecedented in the history of the world, exalted the whole French nation to the wildest pitch of enthusiasm and admiration. From the Senate and Corps Législatif, down to the humblest municipal council, every public body voted addresses, which filled the Moniteur' day after day with rhapsodical panegyrics of the author of this astounding fortune. The Church Napoleon's own creation - swelled the diapason of this universal song of rapture from the stately cathedrals of France and the humblest village choirs resounded hymns of adoration.in honour of this new David, the Great Cyrus, the Pepin, and the Charlemagne of his time.

While this universal symphony of laudation saluted him on all sides, there was but one discordant note, and that came from the querulous reproaches of the Pontiff of Rome. Other events, too, had happened

He then replies to the reproaches of the Pope about the painful and unpleasant treatment,' the amertumes et déplaisirs, to which he had been subject, and continues

'I have considered myself as the protector of the Holy See, and in this title I have occupied Ancona. I have considered myself, like my predecessors of the second and the third race, as the eldest son of the Church. I will protect constantly the Holy See, in spite of the wrong measures, the ingratitude, and the evil dispositions of men who have unmasked themselves during the last three months. They believed me not. I repeat it, if your Holiness wishes to send away my minister, you are free to do so, as you are free to receive in preference the English and the Chalif of Constantinople. God is judge who of reigning princes has done most for religion.'*

At the same time he wrote a letter to

Cardinal Fesch, which was to be shown to the Vatican, couched in terms of menace and even of insult; one of the phrases be

*Correspondance de l'Empereur Napoleon I. Vol. xi. p. 527.

ing, Puisque ces imbéciles ne trouvent pas d'inconvénient à ce qu'un protestant puisse occuper le trône de France, je leur enverrai un ambassadeur protestant.'

To these menaces the Pope replied in a letter dated 29th of January, 1806, which evinces again a still greater ignorance of human nature, and especially of the nature of men in the possession and exercise of power, than on the former occasion. He commences it, it is true, in terms of explanation and expostulation of a soothing character; he endeavours in the gentlest fashion to show that the suspicions and reproaches of Napoleon are undeserved. Yet he does not confine himself to merely demanding the evacuation of Ancona, but proceeds, in all simplicity of heart, to ask for the restitution of the Legations.

The reply of Napoleon to this communication is one of the most important in the whole series of the correspondence between himself and the Pope. It is the last in which he addresses the Pope with any remains of the cordiality which formerly existed between them; and, moreover, it is the first in which he clearly indicates the sort of bargain he proposed to establish between the Head of the Church and himself, as the head of the new Carlovingian Empire which he meditated establishing in Europe. His plan, however, of an alliance with the Papacy had not yet reached that enormous height of arrogant ambition which was its final phase, and of which he has left an outline for posterity in the astounding language dictated to Las Cases at St. Helena:

them. . . .

Holiness deceive you, and are your enemies.' *
Those who speak any other language to your

The Emperor was more than ever resolved to retain the Legations, and replied to the Pope's demand for their restoration by himself making a fresh demand, which was a new aggression on the temporal power of the Pope. Cardinal Fesch was instructed to require expressly from the Papal Government first, the expulsion of all English, Russians, and Sardinians from Rome and the Roman States; secondly, the interdiction of the Papal harbours to the ships of these Powers; and adds

'I share in all the pain of your Holiness, and Cardinal Fesch was made personally reconceive that you find yourself in difficulties. sponsible for the success of these new deYour Holiness can avoid all by walking in a mands, which were accompanied, as we straight path, and avoiding the labyrinth of pol- see, by a new theory, now put forward for itics and deference for Powers which, considered the first time, that the Emperor, as the heir religiously, are heretical and not of the Church, of Charlemagne and of his prerogatives as and considered politically, are at a distance from the supposed donor of the patrimony of your States, incapable of affording protection, and only able to do you injury. All Italy shall Peter, claimed to reduce the Holy See to a be subjected to my law. I will not touch the in-state of vassalage under the Empire. dependence of the Holy See. . . . But our conditions must be that your Holiness shall have the same regard for me in temporal affairs as I have for you in spiritual, and that you cease to confer useless acts of favour on the heretical enemies of the Church, and on persons who can do it no benefit. Your Holiness is sovereign at Rome, but I am its emperor. All my enemies must be its enemies likewise. It is not then proper that any agent of the King of Sardinia, any English, Russians, or Swedes, should reside at Rome or in your States, nor that any vessels belonging to these Powers enter your harbours. As chief of our religion I shall always have for your Holiness the filial deference which I have

Unfortunately the Court of Rome itself, and the general tone of the clergy dependent on Napoleon, had placed these dangerous Carlovingian weapons in his hands. The title of Protector of the Catholic Religion had been applied to satiety to the chief author of the Concordat, and the memories of Pepin and Charlemagne had been evoked without limit to pay homage to him; though little, perhaps, did those who applied such language imagine at the time that their com parisons would ever bear more than a faint

*Correspondance de l'Empereur Napoleon I., vol. xii. p. 38.

This reply was of great length, - a very Napoleon received the Pope's letter with able State paper, drawn up with modera- either real or feigned indignation, and detion and reason, and with much dignity of clared, through M. de Talleyrand, that he tone. The Pope declared that the demands would no longer correspond personally with of Napoleon could not be acceded to by the the Holy Father. He laid all the blame of Holy See without violating its obligations the resistance of the Pope to his demands in its double capacity as a spiritual and upon Consalvi; and the manifestation of temporal Power; that the expulsion from his ill-will and that of Cardinal Fesch tothe States of the Church of the Russians, English, Swedes, and Sardinians, and the closing of all Roman ports to these nations, would necessarily place the Holy See in a state of hostility to these Powers; that the Vicar of the Gospel of Christ was, by the very character of his divine office, bound to remain at peace both with Catholics and heretics, except in case of hostile aggression and of the imminent peril of religion;

demands continued still to be of the same tenor as during the secretaryship of Consalvi. But M. Alquier, who had succeeded Cardinal Fesch as French ambassador, discharged the difficult duties of his post in a manner more grateful to the Papal Court than his predecessor, in a manner which recalled the good offices of M. Cacault, and he endeavoured to remove the illusions of the Emperor that the Pope was himself incapable of firm and independent action.

the character of the Sovereign Pontiff, if it is "There is a strange mistake,' he wrote, 'about believed that his apparent flexibility yields to all the movements people wish to impose upon him.

the Emperor and the Court of Rome. The Cardinal Secretary had made various efforts on his personal authority to conciliate the good-will of the Emperor without success. One of these was by procuring the departure of Mr. Jackson from Rome, who had been frequently signalised by the Emperor as one of a batch of hostile intriguers protected by the Holy See. Mr. Jackson was an English diplomatist of inoffensive character, formerly minister at the Court of Turin, who had followed the ex-King of Sardinia into exile at Rome; and on being informed by Consalvi, with every expression of respect, that his presence was a danger to the Roman Government, he proposed spontaneously to withdraw. But the irritation of the Emperor was now so intense that he never deigned to take notice of the departure of Mr. Jackson at all.* And, moreover, at this critical moment, the Court of Rome, with that incurable infatuation in temporal matters for which it has ever been distinguished, put forth another pretension which stung Napoleon afresh, by renewing its ever-contested claims to the suzerainty cessor will re-establish us. of Naples. Upon this the fury of Napoleon But the counsels of M. Alquier were lost exploded at once. Que veut la secrétair-upon Napoleon. He was determined not to erie d'Etat de Rome? quel esprit de vertige s'est donc emparé d'elle?' he exclaims in a note for the guidance of M. de Talleyrand. He ordered at once the occupation of Civita Vecchia, and seized the duchies of Benevento and Ponte Corvo, which he bestowed on M. de Talleyrand and Marshal Bernadotte.

The Pope is of a gentle character, but very irritable, and capable of exhibiting a firmness proof against everything. It is an undeniable fact that he would see without satisfaction his resistance produce political changes which he would call persecution. Like all the Ultramontanists, he thinks that the woes of the Church, to use their own expression, would bring about more prosperous times; and already they say openly," If the Emperor overthrows us, his suc(Vol. ii. p. 304.)

believe that the Pope would be less submissive to his dictation than he found nearly all the rest of the Sovereigns of Europe. This wedge of neutral territory in the heart of Italy interfered with his domination, and he was determined to be as completely master of the peninsula of Italy as of the peninsula of Spain. It is a singular coincidence that Napoleon now, in order, as he said, to re- from these two countries - the weakest and move his uncle Cardinal Fesch from the the most retrograde among the nations of reach of daily insult at Rome, replaced him Europe - he encountered more invincible by a M. Alquier, who had formerly been opposition to his usurpations than in any Minister to the Court of Naples. After the other part of the Continent. Nevertheless, retreat of Consalvi, the Pope, as though to he was irritated to an extreme degree at the prove that his line of policy was not prompt- unexpected manifestation of the indepened by his ministers - that he was no mere dent spirit of Pius VII. La cour de Kome fantoccino, to use his own expression est tout à fait devenue folle!' he wrote on chose, as Secretary of State, one of the old-June 22, 1806; and on July 1, according est and least prominent of the members of to his usual custom of scolding ambassadors the Sacred College, the Cardinal Casoni. when angry with the Governments they repThe replies of the Holy See to the Imperial resented, he assailed the Cardinal Legate at Saint Cloud, before his assembled ministers and foreign ambassadors, with a torrent of fierce invective which lasted an hour:

*Napoleon, nevertheless, in 1810, in his Exposé des motifs du senatus-consulte sur la réunion des Etats romains a l'empire, 17 février, 1810, put forward the presence of Mr. Jackson at Rome among the first in his list of grievances against the Holy See.

Soit aveuglement soit obstination... la cour de Rome alla plus loin encore. Un ministre anglais, la honte de son pays, avait trouvé un asile à Rome. La il ourdissait des complots, salariait des brigands et payait des assassinats, et Rome protégeait le traitre et ses agents, et Rome laissait empoisonner son cabinet de leur souffle corrupteur, et Rome trahissait en les alterant les secrets de la correspondance de son auguste allie, et Rome etait devenue un theatre de diffamation, un, atelier de libelles, et un asile de brigandage.'

"Ecrivez," he cried before the astonished assembly, "écrivez à Rome que je suis résolu à empêcher les Anglais de faire une diversion et de couper la communication entres mes troupes du royaume d'Italie et celles qui sont dans le royaume de Naples. Ecrivez que je demande à Sa Saiteté une déclaration sans ambiguité et sans réserve, portant, que pendant la présente

* Query: Should the word not be inserted here?Living Age.