242 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



authorit}'. On the contrary, lie 

 recommended, in earthly mat'er?, 

 obedience to the government of 

 Caesar. He was wholly taken up 

 with iiie g.eat work of the redemp- 

 tion and the safety of souls. Heir 

 of the power of Caesar, we are re- 

 solved to maintain the indepen- 

 dence of our throne, and the integ- 

 rity of all our rights. We are de- 

 termined to persevere in dur grand 

 work of the re-establishment of 

 religion. We will clothe her mi- 

 nisters with that consideration 

 which we alone can give them. 

 We will listen to them in all mat- 

 ters of a spiritual nature and of 

 conscience." 



It was observed in this exposi- 

 tion, that for the first time since 

 the Romans, Italj' was brought 

 under the same system of govern- 

 ment : to which grand result the 

 re-union therewith of the state of 

 Rome, which intersected the penin- 

 sula from the Adriatic to the Medi- 

 terranean, was indispensably neces- 

 sary. It appeared from the history of 

 ChailesVin, Lewis XII, and Fran- 

 cis I, how much mischief might be 

 done to France by an intermediate 

 power between the kingdom of 

 Naples and the north of Italy. 

 But why go back for f300 years to 

 history ? Had not the pope re- 

 ceived the English into his ports, 

 from whence they distributed 

 money and arms among the insur- 

 gent Calabrians? Had not the 

 pope refused to join a league of 

 ofience and defence between him, 

 the kingdom of Naples, and the 

 Jiingdom of Italy ? Ihe hatred of 

 the pope to France had been 

 strikinglj' manifested ever since 

 the peace of Presburgh. The 

 emperor had no alternative, but 

 to separate himself wholly from 



Rome, and create a patriarch, or 

 to destroy that temporal power 

 which was the only source of the 

 hatred which the court of Rome 

 bore to the French. To have 

 chosen the first of these alterna- 

 tives might have occasioned dan- 

 gerous discussions, and alarmed 

 some consciences. The emperor, 

 therefore, embraced what came 

 within the bounds of his imperial 

 prerogative, for the exercise of 

 which he was not accountable to 

 any person. 



We have alread}' taken notice 

 of the change of style in Buona- 

 parte's addresses to the legislators, 

 in one instance. It may be notic- 

 ed in another still more striking. 

 The Illyrian provinces, says he, 

 extend to the frontier of my great 

 empire. Thus France with other 

 conquests was enveloped in the 

 empire of Buonaparte ! And thus 

 evaporated all those brilliant illu- 

 sions of the imagination, to which 

 the volatile and sanguine nation of 

 the French at first abandoned 

 themselves, on seeing their armies 

 led on from victory to victory, 

 and conquest to conquest, by the 

 first general of the age ! Buona- 

 parte prefaced this second or 

 final decree for settling the affairs 

 of Rome, by stating, that when 

 Charlemagne, emperor of the 

 French, his august predecessor, 

 made a present of ditferent terri- 

 tories, in the nature of fiefs to the 

 bishop of Rome, those territories 

 and Rome ilse!f,nevertheless, conti- 

 nued still to be parts of the empire. 

 From that time to this, the union 

 of the temporal and spiritual 

 powers had been a continual 

 source of discord ; the dignity, 

 the integrity, the tranquillity, and 

 the security of the empire requir- 

 ed 



