The French Revolution

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The greatest source of trouble and difficulty to Pius VI. was the French Revolution, which was a consequence of the revolt against the Church. The pope fought courageously against the Terror, when the worship of reason was proclaimed (1793). Napoleon Bonaparte revenged himself for the assistance which the pope had given the Allies against France by attacking the unprotected Papal States. A temporary respite was purchased at the cost of immense sacrifices by the Truce of Bologna (1796) and the Peace of Tolentino (1797). Valuable manuscripts and priceless works of art were taken from Rome and sent to Paris. Jacobin agents had already succeeded in gaining influence over the minds of young people in the Papal States, and the French ambassador's residence in Rome became a focus for revolutionary activities. A riot in which the arrogant French General Duphot was shot gave the desired pretext for the entrance of the French troops into Rome and the proclamation of a republic (1798). A statue of the Goddess of Liberty, who was represented trampling on the tiara, was set up outside the Castle of St. Angelo and was intended to symbolise the end of the rule of the pope. The republicans instituted a reign of disorder and pillage. Pius VI., ill as he was, refused to give up his rights, and was brought as a prisoner to Valence, where death put an end to his sufferings in 1799. Thus the papacy ended the i8th century in exile.

Pius VII., 1800-23: The Concordat of 1801.

The conclave was held in Venice under the protection of Austria, and the Benedictine monk Chiaramonti was elected pope in 1800 under the name of Pius VII. He was assisted in the extraordinarily dif ficult task which lay before him by the ablest ecclesiastical states man of the century, Ercole Consalvi, who had received his early training in the College of Cardinal Henry of York at Frascati. Rome was restored to the pope as a result of the political changes which took place, and the condition of the diminished papal State was improved as far as possible by economical administra tion and the development of agriculture. Napoleon, who had become First Consul in 1799, realized that his power could only be consolidated by the restoration of the Church in France and by a reconciliation with the Holy See. He had need of the pope in order to become emperor. After long negotiations, a Concordat was concluded in 18o1 ; although it made the French clergy en tirely dependent on the Government, it nevertheless represented a great improvement, since the Catholic Church was once more firmly established in France. Pius protested, though in vain,

against the additions which Napoleon arbitrarily made to the Con cordat by the Organic Articles. In the hope of gaining further advantages for the Church, he consented to go to Paris and to anoint Napoleon I. as hereditary emperor of the French (1804).

Napoleon showed more and more clearly that he aimed at universal power. He expected that all Italy should submit to him, and that the Pope should abandon his neutrality and join in the blockade of England. He put forward increasing demands both on political and on ecclesiastical matters, and when they were refused, he occupied Rome in 1808, while in the following year he proclaimed the union of the Papal States with the French empire, and, as the Emperor Frederick I. had once done, declared Rome directly subject to the Emperor. When the pope dared to issue a Bull of excommunication against the "robber of the patrimony of Peter," he was taken as a prisoner first to Savona and subsequently to Fontainebleau. A National Council was called in 1811 with the idea of intimidating the resolute pope, and giving a veneer of legality to the Emperor's ecclesiastical policy. Although Napoleon's star was already beginning to sink in the Russian campaign, he continued to increase his demands, and in Jan. 1813 he had a personal interview with the captive pope, at which he produced the preliminaries of an agreement. These he afterwards published, falsely alleging them to be an arrangement accepted by both parties (Concordat of Fontaine bleau). Pius, seeing that he had been tricked, revoked the con cessions which he had made; he no doubt suspected that his exile was nearing its end. He recovered his freedom on the fall of Napoleon. His entry into Rome, amid popular rejoicing, on May 24, 1814, was a brilliant triumph for the Church. Napoleon's return to power for the Hundred Days in 1815 meant fresh diffi culties for the papal State, and the pope himself was obliged to flee; but this was little in comparison with what had gone before. At the Congress of Vienna (q.v.), in 1815, Consalvi exerted all his diplomatic skill in order to obtain the benefit of the principle of legitimacy for the pope as the principal representative of the conservative spirit which the congress embodied. The Holy See recovered all its former possessions with the exception of Avignon and the Venaissin, which remained in the hands of France, and a district on the left bank of the Po, which fell to Austria.