_ arguments and reasonings are built 
“on maxims of policy, and those 
of religion appear in a collateral 
light, and chiefly as of an engine 
of state. — 
- From this letter, which was dated 
__theseventh of January, 1797, Buo- 
- naparte deduced, however, the pro- 
 priety of proceeding immediately 
to action against the pope, lest the 
Austrian ministry should adopt the 
plan suggested in that letter, and 
_ send such‘powerful succours, over 
_ the Adriatic, to Ancona, as might 
_ enable the pope to make a vigorous 
resistance. 
But it was not only among the 
-enemies. In Rome itself they were 
* numerous. Republican principles 
had silently, but effectually, been 
_ propagated there, and through other 
parts of the ecclesiastical state, and 
_ multitudes were impatiently wait- 
_ ing the opportunity of throwing off 
their subjection to the pope, and of 
f ‘erecting acommonwealth. Encou- 
 vagements, tending tothis end, were 
_ studiously held out to the people of 
that capital, and of the Roman do- 
"mains, by the Yrench. emissaries 
* scattered among them. ‘Thus the 
_ court of Rome had toguard against 
enemies no less, hostile to it than 
the French themselves, and, insome 
respects, more dangerous, as they 
__ were domestic, and would oppose 
all conciliation with France, as mi- 
‘Hitating directly against their own 
designs. | 
’ In addition to these there were 
_ many among those who continued 
obedient to the papal authority, 
‘and were averse to a change of go- 
' is _vernment, who scrupled not, open- 
ly, to disapprove the tardiness in! 
» Coming to a pacification with the 
, French; whomit were, in their opi- 
3s 
HISTORY- OF EUROPE. 
French that the Roman see had _ 
ris 
nion, absurd to oppose in the debi- 
litated state of the papal power, 
and from whom friendly conditions 
ight be obtained, if they were 
appli to with frankness and can- 
our, and if the intrigues hitherto 
carried on with their enemies were 
unfeignedly laid aside. 
Those who favoured this party, 
which wasthe mostnumerous, filled 
Rome with pasquinades and satires 
on the conduct of adminstration, 
which they represented as contrary 
to the true interests of the Roman 
see, and tending to its inevitable 
ruin. ‘The present pope being the 
sixth of the name of Pius, they 
applied to him what had formerly 
been said of Alexander the sixth, 
which was, that every sovereign of _ 
Rome, who had borne the name of 
Sextus, had constantly occasionedits 
ruin. Remonstranees of the in- 
utility and peril of encountering 
such formidable enemies as the . 
French, with undisciptined troops 
and inexperienced officers, were 
anxiously laid before the Roman go- 
vernment, by its most prudent well- 
wishers, and enforced by the minis- 
ters of those powers that were desi- 
rous of its preservation. But whe- 
ther it confided in a change of for 
tune, in favour of its Austrian ally, 
or that it hoped, by assuming an ap- 
pearance of resolution, and being 
seconded by a powerful body of 
auxiliaries, the French might be in- 
duced to grant better terms, it ob- 
stinately persisted in the determi- 
nation to try’ the chance’of war, 
rather than submit to the hard 
cohditions prescribed by the 
French. f 
Buonaparte, who hadhitherto en- 
tertained an expectation, that the 
terror of the French arms might at 
lust operate a submission in the court 
of 
