"I was then witness of a phenomenon which I had often heard spoken of," relates Cardinal Pacca in his memoirs. "In an access of violent anger, the hair of the holy father bristled up, and his sight was confused. Although I was dressed as a cardinal, he did not know me. 'Who is there?' he demanded, in a loud voice. 'I am the cardinal,' I replied, kissing his hand. 'Where is the officer?' demanded the holy father; and I pointed him out near me, in a respectful attitude. Then the Pope, turning towards him, 'Go and tell your general that I am weary of suffering so many insults and outrages from a man who dares still to call himself a Catholic. I command my minister not to obey the injunctions of an illegitimate authority. Let your general know, that if force is employed to tear him from me it shall only be after having broken all the doors; and I declare him beforehand responsible for the consequences of such an enormous crime.' And making a sign to the cardinal to follow him, 'Let us go,' said the Pope. The officer had gone out to carry to the general the message of the holy father. The secretary of state was installed in an apartment which opened into the Pope's bedroom. The gates of the Quirinal remained closed to all the French officers, and General Miollis did not claim his prisoner."

Months had meanwhile passed away. The emperor had quitted Spain to make preparations for the campaign of Germany. Without ever ceasing to load the Pope with unfriendly words and treatment, Napoleon had been engaged in affairs more important than his troubles with the pontifical court. Public order was maintained in Rome, thanks to the Italian prudence of the secretary of state, and the strict discipline which General Miollis knew how to maintain among his troops, and even among the auxiliaries he had recruited from the revolutionary middle-class. The time arrived, however, when this situation, more violent in fact than in form, was suddenly to assume its real character. Napoleon was at Schoenbrunn, already victor in the five days' battle which had rendered him master of Vienna, and more certain than he was immediately after Essling of the promptitude and extent of his success. It was then that he drew up, and sent by Champagny, two decrees relating to the taking possession, pure and simple, of the States of the Pope. He explained the reasons of this to his minister in a long letter, which was to serve as a basis for Champagny's report, and which, by its singular mixture of thoughts and principles, showed the historical heredity connecting the power of Napoleon with that of Charlemagne, united to the sovereign power which disposed in the name of conquest of territories and states, were confused in the imagination of the emperor, and made him look upon the independent attitude of the Pope as an act of criminal opposition.

"When Charlemagne made the popes temporal sovereigns, he wished them to remain vassals of the empire; now, far from thinking themselves vassals of the empire, they are not even willing to form a part of it. The aim of Charlemagne in his generosity towards the popes was the welfare of Christianity; and now they claim to ally themselves with Protestants and the enemies of Christianity. The least impropriety that results from these arrangements is to see the head of the Catholic religion negotiating with Protestants; whilst according to the laws of the Church he ought to shun them, and excommunicate them. (There is a prayer to this effect recited at Rome.)

"The interest of religion, and the interest of the peoples of France, Germany and Italy, require that an end should be made of this ridiculous temporal power—the feeble remnant of the exaggerated pretensions of the Gregories, who claimed to reign over kings, to give away crowns, and to have the direction of the affairs of earth as well as of heaven. In the absence of councils, let the popes have the direction of the affairs of the Church so far as they do not infringe on the liberties of the Gallican Church—that is all right; but they ought not to mix themselves up with armies or state policy. If they are the successors of Jesus Christ, they ought not to exercise any other dominion than that which He Himself exercised, and His 'kingdom is not of this world.'

"If your Majesty does not do that which you alone can do, you will leave in Europe the seeds of dissension and discord. Posterity, whilst praising you for having re-established religion and re-erected her altars, will blame you for having left the empire (which is in fact the major portion of Christendom) exposed to the influence of this fantastic medley, inimical to religion and the tranquillity of the empire. This obstacle can only be surmounted by separating the temporal from the spiritual authority, and by declaring that the states of the Pope form a portion of the French Empire."

It is too often an error of men, even of the first rank, to believe in the universal power and duration of their wishes and decisions. The Emperor Napoleon though he had solved forever this question of the temporal power of the popes-a question which we have so many times heard discussed by the most eloquent voices; we have seen armies upholding on fields of battle contradictory principles on this subject, and diplomacy painfully accomplishing imperfect settlements.

He displayed towards Pope Pius VII. the most arrogant contempt of the rights and independence of others, and a passionate self-will as regards all resistance. Under shelter of ancient authority, of which he retrospectively took possession, he boldly invoked the highest reasons and the most venerated names, in order to justify an arbitrary resolution, and the grasping selfishness which swayed his mind. It was the practice of the French Revolution to prop up its violent and despotic proceedings by the loftiest principles; the Emperor Napoleon had not forgotten this tradition.

In all the manifestly criminal acts of his powerful career—in the fatal resolves of his mistaken and culpable caprices, whether it was a question of the assassination of the Due d'Enghien or the brutal removal of the Pope from Rome—Napoleon always chose his part in the complete isolation of his soul, and by the spontaneous act of a personal decision; he made sure of the execution of his will with minute precautions: he did not the less subsequently seek to throw back the responsibility of the acts themselves upon the instruments too ready to obey him. When Europe suddenly learnt that the Pope had been removed from the states henceforth united to the French Empire, Napoleon wrote to Fouché, "I am vexed that the Pope has been arrested; it is a great folly. It was necessary to arrest Cardinal Pacca, and leave the Pope in tranquillity at Rome;" and to Cambacérès, the 28th July: "It is without my orders, and against my will, that the Pope has been made to leave Rome."

Measures had, however, been taken with that provident exactitude which characterized the personal orders of the Emperor Napoleon. Immediately he had resolved upon the confiscation of the Roman States he had divined the consequence and importance of this act; the new government was organized, Murat had been charged with the command of the troops, and to hold himself ready for any event. "Since your Majesty has made me aware of your intentions as to Rome, I shall not withdraw from Naples," wrote Murat to the emperor. "Word has been sent me that the Pope wished to send forth an excommunication, but that the majority of the Consistory were opposed to it. All your orders will be fulfilled, and I hope without trouble."

This was hoping for much from the patience of the holy father, and maintaining great illusions as to the decision long since taken by the Court of Rome. The project of the spoliation of the pontifical states had not been kept so secret that the Pope and his minister had not been apprised of it; and several times Pius VII. had let it be understood that he was prepared for resistance. "We see plainly that the French wish to force us to speak Latin," he had said quite recently; "ah, well! we will do it."