THIRTEENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1796–1799.
The temporal power of the popes had long ceased to be an object of jealousy for Christian princes: the small extent of their states, the respect which was entertained for their ministry, and their abstinence from military enterprises, preserved peace in a city which had formerly, and for many centuries, made the world tremble with the terror of its arms. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had satisfied themselves with seizing the Venaissian county, to punish the popes for some affronts offered to their crowns; and the pontiffs, conscious of their weakness, had acknowledged their errors and disavowed the acts of their ministers. But it was not thus when the French revolution broke out. Pius VI., irritated at seeing at once both his annates and the Venaissian county wrested from his hands, entered into the league of the kings against France. In no city were the French more hated than in Rome. Basseville, the French envoy, was massacred in a riot, which the government of the Pope had allowed to be got up with more than suspected negligence. The troops of the Pope were preparing to unite themselves with those of the other powers of Italy, when Buonaparte was seen to enter that country, in 1796, as a conqueror. His victories seemed to foretell the destruction of the Holy See. Republican enthusiasm was awakened on the banks of the Tiber; nothing was talked of but rebuilding the Capitol and founding a new Roman republic.
The French general had conquered the duchy of Urbino, Romagna, and the march of Ancona. The terrified Pope sued for peace: Buonaparte granted him at first a truce, and then a peace. The Pope yielded to the republic the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, which the French had already conquered, and all the shores of the Adriatic Gulf, from the mouths of the Po to Ancona. A month after, the Pope weakly allowed some of his subjects to take up arms, in consequence of a supposed reverse suffered by Buonaparte. The latter contented himself with chastising some villages of Ferrara, which had excited the revolt. A third time Buonaparte pardoned him, and his pardon was ratified by the French Directory: Joseph Buonaparte was appointed ambassador to Rome. Party spirit was, however, too strong; the apparent moderation of the French could not bring the court of Rome to pacific sentiments. Its hatred against France was kept alive by the queen of Naples, who threw open the ports of the Mediterranean to the English. In addition to this, a long hesitation to acknowledge the Cisalpine republic; then the nomination of General Provera to command the army of the Pope, and a course of proceedings which announced the intention, but which did not give the means, of entering into a fresh war: the French ambassador forced the Pope to declare himself in a positive manner. Everything seemed appeased; there was a calm, but it was such a one as precedes the eruption of a volcano. On the 28th of December, 1797, a fresh seditious movement broke out in Rome; some men assembled round the house of the ambassador, uttering revolutionary cries. Scarcely had they preluded by a few acts of apparent insurrection, when the troops of the Pope came up, dispersed the rioters, and pursued them into the palace of the ambassador, whither their fear had driven them. Joseph Buonaparte insisted upon his residence being respected, and promised to give up the guilty; but he was answered by a shower of balls, by which his windows were broken to pieces. He interposed everywhere between those who struck and those who were stricken. One of his friends, the Adjutant-General Duphot, who was to have married his sister-in-law the next day, was an object of his greatest care; but he was assassinated close to his side: his inanimate body was stabbed by the ruffians in a hundred places: the French had great difficulty in rescuing it from the hands of these furious men. The court of Rome offered the French ambassador all kinds of reparation; but the latter thought it not prudent or dignified to remain longer in a palace which had been so shamefully violated, where he and his whole family had been insulted, and whose floors were still stained with the blood of his friend. Cardinal Doria in vain had recourse to the Spanish ambassador to pacify him: the whole French legation quitted Rome. The Consistory believed, in this peril, that the court of Naples would keep its word, and would hasten to send its promised succours; but it received nothing but an excuse, to amuse or appease the French government, till the Neapolitan army was on its march. The Directory, however, was inflexible: a month had scarcely passed away when a French army, led by General Alexander Berthier, was at the gates of Rome, and had taken possession of the castle of St. Angelo. On the 17th of February, 1798, the anniversary of the Pope’s election, an insurrection broke out in the capital. His palace was invested, but respect checked the insurgents at the entrance. They met with resistance nowhere; they abstained from violence or insult towards the Pope, but they declared Rome free; they claimed for themselves the honour of being of the blood of the Catos and Scipios; and the boasted descendants of Camillus threw open the gates to the Gauls. A deputation arrived at the French camp; General Berthier mounted the steps of the Capitol, and saluted a new Roman republic; but the Romans had no longer the virtues of their fathers: no thing can bear less resemblance to another, than modern Romans do to ancient Romans. Consuls, tribunes, and popular laws, were once more to be seen in Rome; and these decrees wanted nothing but to be applied to a people who entertained a love of the republic. Its reign was short and tempestuous; and the French Directory took no measures calculated to gain the affection of the Romans. The aged Pope was sent to France, but died on the road; the wealth and the master-pieces of art were carried off, the people became dissatisfied, and a fresh insurrection quickly broke out against the men they had so recently hailed as their liberators: they were obliged to be suppressed with the strong hand. Whilst Buonaparte was in Egypt, the king of Naples supposed the time most fit for an outbreak of the Italian states, to liberate themselves from the domination of the French. He marched at the head of seventy thousand Neapolitans, the real command of whom was intrusted to the Austrian general Mack, and entered the Roman territory. The French army which occupied it only consisted of sixteen thousand men, disseminated over all the points. Championnet, who commanded them, thought it best to retire to Upper Italy. The king of Sicily and General Mack entered Rome on the 25th of November, 1798; Championnet gathered together his army and stood his ground. Mack, after several days of hesitation, ventured to attack him on the other side of the Tiber. The French, though vastly inferior in numbers, repulsed the Neapolitans; in three days, they made eleven thousand prisoners. Mack beheld his columns flying in the greatest disorder; and, being unable to rally them, abandoned the capital of the Christian world, covered himself with the Teverone, and was pursued by the French, who possessed themselves successively of Capua and Naples. This occupation lasted but a short time; the French under Schérer being beaten in Upper Italy, abandoned Naples and Rome, to defend themselves against the Austrians and the Russians. Ferdinand went back to Naples, and occupied Rome till it returned to its obedience to Pius VII.
Rome has since that time been more than once humbled by the French; but as nothing like a siege has taken place, the events of its further history do not fall within our plan.