PIUS VII. 



PICS VII. 





Pius VI., forsaken by uiot of the cardinals, who Lad escaped, 

 remained in the Vatican. On tha 16th a tree of liberty was raised In 

 the Campo Vaccino, and Konu was formally declared a republic. 

 Bertbier afterwards tent an officer to intimate to the pope that ho 

 Boat renounce hit temporal sovereignty. I'iua aiuwered that he bad 

 melted it from Qod and by the fr.e election of men, and could not 

 renounce it; that he wai eighty yean old, and bin troubles could not 

 be of long duration, bat that be wai determined to do nothing 

 derogatory to hia high office. Next came the comminary-general of 

 the French army, who, after taking an inventory of all the valuables 

 that itill remained in the papal residence, ordered Pius to prepare to 

 tet out in two days, The pope said he could not oppose force, but 

 protctted against this new act of violence. On the 20th of February 

 1'iui VI. left the Vatican with a few attendant?, and, escorted by a 

 strong detachment of cavalry, took the road to Florence. He was 

 lodged at first in a convent near Siena, and afterwards in the Carthu- 

 aian convent near Florence, where he remained till tho following year, 

 when the French, having driven out of Tuscany the Orand-Duke 

 Ferdinand, and being threatened by the Austro-Uussians, who were 

 advancing to the Adige, ordered the pope to be transferred to France. 

 He was taken to Orenoble, and afterwards to Valence on the Rhuue, 

 where he died, in August of that year (1799), in the eighty-second 

 y.ar of his age and the twenty-fourth of his pontificate. Just before 

 hia death the Roman republic had ceased to exist, the French being 

 driven out of Italy by the Austro- Russians, and Rome was occupied 

 by Austrian and Neapolitan troops. In the year 1802, after the 

 restoration of the papal government, the remains of Pius VI. were 

 transferred to Rome by leave of the first consul Bonaparte, at the 

 request of his successor Pius VII., and deposited with solemn pump 

 in i lie church of St. Peter. 



HI'S VII., CARDINAL OBEOOBIO BARXABA CIHARAUONTI, was 

 bora in 1742, of a noble family of Cesena, which is supposed to have 

 been originally a branch of the French house of Clermont He first 

 studied in the college of Ravenna, and subsequently entered the order 

 of Benedictines, in 1753. He was appointed lecturer on philosophy, 

 and afterwards on theology, to the novices of his order, first at Purina 

 and then at Rome. Pius VI. appointed him bishop of Tivoli, and in 

 1765 made him a cardinal and bishop of Imola. When Bonaparte 

 took possession of the legations, and annexed them to the Cisalpine 

 republic, Cardinal Chiaramonti in a homily exhorted hia flock to sub- 

 mit to the new institutions, and to be faithful to the state of which 

 they had become a part This conduct is said to have acquired him 

 the good opinion of Bonaparte. When the news of the death of Pius 

 VI., in bis exile at Valence, in August 1799, came to Italy, the con- 

 clave being summoned to assemble at Venice, then under the dominion 

 of Austria, as Rome was in a state of anarchy, Cardinal Chiaiauionti 

 repaired to the former city. Thirty-five cardinals assembled at 

 Venice, in the Benedictine convent of S. Oiorgio Maggiore, in order to 

 elect a new pope, a dignity apparently not very enviable iii -un- 

 troubled times. The deliberations of the conclave lasted several 

 mouths, and at last Cardinal Chiaramonti was chosen, on the 14th of 

 March, IbOO, and crowned pope ou the 21st of the same month, under 

 the name of Pius VII. In the following July the pope mode his 

 entrenon into Rome, and soon after appointed Cardinal Consalvi bis 

 secretary of state, or prime minister. [CoxsAi.vi. ] In the following 

 year the peace of Lunaville, between France and Austria, wai made, 

 and Bonaparte, first consul of France, ordered bis troops to evacuate 

 the Papal territories, with the exception of the legations, which had 

 been formally incorporate- 1 with the so-called 'Italian Republic.' 

 Meantime the ecclesiastical aflairs of France were in a state of thu 

 greatest confiuion. France was still nominally Roman Catholic, but 

 the clergy were no longer in communication with the pee of Rome, 

 and were divided into parties. In the midst of this confusion about 

 one half of the population of France followed no mode of worship, 

 mrl professed no religion whatever. A vst number of pnrithchurclus 

 were shut up, and had been so for ten years. Bonaparte wished for a 

 concordat with Home. The pope appointed the prelate Spina and tho 

 theologian Caaelli, who proceeded to Paris, and lionaparte named his 

 brother Joseph, Cretet, councillor of ttate, and Beruier, a Vendcau 

 priest, to treat with the pope's negociatom. But on an intimation 

 from Bonaparte who was above all things anxious that the matter 

 should be promptly settled, the pope despatched to Paris Cardinal 

 Cooealvi, who smoothed down all difficulties, and the concordat was 

 signed at Paris, the 16th of July 1801, and was ratified by Pius at 

 Home, after some hesitation and consultation, on the 14th of August 

 following. The principal scruples of the pope were concerning certain 

 artieke called ' organic,' which lionaparte ap ( wnded to the concordat, 

 an if they had formed part of it, and which were proclaimed as laws 

 of the state. (< Botta,' b. xxi. ; Thibaudeau.) 



From 1801 till 1804 Hue VII. enjoyed tranquillity at Rome, which 

 he employed in restoring order to the finances, in ameliorating the 

 judicial administration, in promoting the agriculture of the Campagna, 

 and in other similar cares. His personal establishment wu moderate, 

 his table frugal, hie habits simple, and his conduct exemplary. In 

 May Ih04, Napoleon was proclaimed emperor, and some time after he 

 wrote to the pope requesting him to crown him solemnly at Paris. 

 After considerable hesitation Pins consented, and set off from Rome 

 at the beginning of November of that year. The ceremony of the 



coronation took place in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, after which 

 the pope spent several months in Paris, visiting the public establish- 

 ments, and receiving the homage of men of all parties, who were won 

 by hia unassuming yet dignified behaviour, and his unaffected 

 In May 1805, ha returned to Rome ; and his troubles began soon 

 after. In October ]>0.~/, a body of French troops suddenly took 

 military possession of Anoona, Pius remonstrated by a letter which 

 he wrote to Napoleon, who was at that time at the head of his army 

 in Austria. It was only after the peace of I*resburg that he received 

 an answer, in which Napoleon said, that he considered himself as the 

 protector of the Church against heretics and schismatics, like his pre- 

 decessors from the time of Charlemagne, and that as such be had 

 occupied Anoona to prevent it falling into the hands of the English 

 or the Russians. 



Soon after, Napoleon officially required the pope, through his 

 ambassador at Rome, to expel from his dominions all Ku^li-h, Russian, 

 Swedish, and Sardinian subjects, and to forbid hi* ports to the vessels 

 of those powers who were then at war with France. I'ius replied at 

 length in a letter to Napoleon, representing to him that his request 

 was destructive of the independence of the Papal State and of its 

 political neutrality, which were necessary to the welfare of the Church 

 and for the security of the numerous members of it who were living in 

 those very countries with which the emperor was then at war. Ho 

 said that the head of the Church ought to be a minister of peace, and 

 not to take part in a war which has not religion for its object ; that if 

 some of his predecessors had not always abided by this rule, he at 

 least should not follow their example. Napoleon however in 

 and an angry correspondence was carried on between the two courts 

 fur about two years on this subject of contention, the neutrality of the 

 Papal State being all the while merely nominal, as the French 

 marching from and to Naples crossed and recrossed it at their pleasure, 

 and the French also kept a garrison at Aucoua, the only papal port of 

 any importance. By degrees they extended their posts all along the 

 Adriatic coast, and garrisoned the various ports. Some time after, a 

 body of French troops, coming from Naples, passed through Hum, , 

 ostensibly to proceed to Leghorn ; but they suddenly turned out of 

 the main road and surprised in the night the to A ;i of i iviu V 

 of which they took military possession. In all these places they con- 

 fiscated whatever English property they could find. The papsl 

 at Anoona, Civita Vecchia, and other places, were ordered to place 

 themselves under the direction of the French commanders, an-. 

 officers who refused to do so were arrested and kept in confinement. 

 Napoleon in thu meantime found fresh grounds of quarrel with thu 

 pope. He wished to declare the marriage of hia brother Jcromu with 

 an American Protestant lady null ; but Pius refused, saying that 

 although the Church abhorred marriages between Catholics and 

 heretics, yet if they were contracted in Protestant countries according 

 to the laws of those countries, they were binding and indissoluble. 

 (' Letter of Pius VII.' on this important subject in Artaud, 'Vie du 

 PapePie VII.,' Paris, 1826.) lie next accused the pope of >ul itorin. < 

 in giving the canonical institution to the bishops elected to vacant sees 

 in the kingdom of Italy. Eugene lieauharnais, viceroy of the kingdom 

 of It.ily, wrote an able and conciliatory letter to tho pope, in 01 

 bring about an arrangement; and the pope was induced to invite tlio 

 bishops elect to Rome in order to receive the canonical institution, 

 when a threatening letter came, written by Napoleon from Dresden 

 after the peace of Tilsit in tho summer of IbuT, in which be s 

 " tho pope must not take him for a Louis le Deuonnaire ; that his 

 anathemas would never make his soldiers drop their muskets ; that ho, 

 Napoleon, if provoked too far, could separate the greater part of 

 Europe from the Roman Church, and establish a more rational form 

 of worship than that of which tho pope was the head; that such a 

 thing was caay in the actual state of people's minds," &c. ; ami ho 

 forbade Eugene to correspond any longer with the pope, or semi the 

 bishops elect to Home, for, he said, "they would only imbibe there 

 prim -ipU-s of sedition against their sovereign." Matters were now 

 brought to an open rupture. A French force under General Jliollin 

 entered Homo in February 1S08, took possession of the castle and the 

 g.ites, leaving however the civil authorities undisturbed. The popo 

 was prevailed upou to seud Cardinal do llayanne as his legate to 

 to make a last effort at reconciliation : but tho cardinal had not . , 

 at his destination when a decree of Napoleon, dated 2nd of Apiii 

 united the provinces of Anemia, Macerate, Fermo, and Urbino to thu 

 kingdom of Italy. Fresh remon-trances on the part of Pius were 

 answered by threats of further hostile measures ou thu part of Napoleon, 

 unless the pope entered into an oil', nsive and defensive league with tin; 

 kingdoms of Naples and Italy, and by a declaration that " the 

 would lose his temporal sovereignty and remain Bishop of Rome as 

 his predecessors were during the first eight centuries, and under the 

 reign of Charlemagne." ( Note de M. de Cuampagny, Miuiatre des 

 Attains Ktrangdres a S. Eminence le Cardinal Capara, 18th of April, 

 1808.) 



The war which began soon after in Spain prevented Napoleon from 

 occupying himself with the affairs of Home, which remained in a 

 state of uncertainty amidst frequent clashing between the French 

 military authorities and the papal civil officers. The papal territory, 

 impoverished as it was by the loss of its finest provinces, was obliged 

 to pay the French troops which garrisoned the towns that still 



