World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

The Emperor Napoleon judged soundly of that spirit of power and counsel for which the Abbé Emery piously ascribed to God all the praise. "M. Emery is the only man who makes me afraid," said he; "he makes me do all that he wishes, and perhaps more than I ought. For the first time, I meet a man gifted with a veritable power over men, and from whom I ask no account of the use to which he will put it. On the contrary, I wish to be able to confide to him all our youth; I should die more reassured as to the future."

Notwithstanding the ascendancy which his holy character and the firm moderation of his spirit exercised over the emperor, the Abbé Emery was not deceived as to his personal action in the ecclesiastical commission. "Permit me," he wrote to the minister of religion, "out of respect for the bishops, to abstain from taking any deliberative part, and only to have a consulting voice; that is to say, that I may simply furnish upon the matters which may be discussed the lights and documents which my studies and experience may enable me to give." The Superior of St. Sulpice was once more to give his opinion freely before the impatient and haughty master, who claimed to subdue all wills and all consciences to his empire, "I do not call in question the spiritual power of the Pope," said Napoleon one day, when he had called the Ecclesiastical Commission to the Tuileries: "he has received it from Jesus Christ; but Jesus Christ has not given him the temporal power. It was Charlemagne who gave it to him, and I, as the successor of Charlemagne, wish to take it away from him, because he does not know how to use it, and because it hinders him from exercising his spiritual functions. What inconvenience will there be in the Pope being subject to me, now that Europe knows no other master?" "Sire," replied Emery, "your Majesty is better acquainted than I am with the history of revolutions. The present state of things may not always exist. It is not, then, necessary to change the order wisely established. The holy father will not agree to the concessions which your Majesty demands from him, because he cannot do it." Napoleon did not answer. The Abbé Emery had refused to sign the propositions accepted by the Ecclesiastical Commission; he dreaded the Council. "How is it that our bishops do not see," wrote he, "that the means of conciliation which the emperor demands from them are only a trick on his part to impose upon the simple, and a mask to cover his tyranny? Let him leave the Church tranquil; let him restore their functions to the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops; let him renounce extravagant pretensions, and all will soon be arranged." The emperor, meanwhile, let it be known amongst the delegates that he intended to send to Savona to have an understanding with the Pope. "This is a good time to die," said Emery. God granted him this favor. He had suffered long, and on the 28th of April, 1811, he breathed his last.

It was at this very moment that the Archbishop of Tours and the Bishops of Nantes and Treves set out for Savona, charged to obtain from the Pope the concessions necessary for the re-establishment of ecclesiastical order. Already the Council had been ostentatiously convoked without the circular letters making mention of the name of Pius VII. "One of the contracting parties has disowned the Concordat," said the summons to attend; "the conduct that has been persevered in, in Germany for ten years past, has almost destroyed the episcopate in that part of Christendom; the Chapters have been disturbed in their rights, dark manoeuvres have been contrived, tending to excite discord and sedition among our subjects." It was in order to prevent a state of things contrary to the welfare of religion, to the principles of the Gallican Church, and to the interests of the state, that the emperor had resolved upon collecting, on the 9th of July following, in the church of Notre Dame at Paris, all the bishops of France and Italy in national council.

The prelates delegated to Savona had for their mission to announce to Pius VII the convocation of the Council and the repeal of the Concordat. "We intend," said their instructions, "that the bishops should be instituted according to the Concordat of Francis I., which we have renewed, and in such a manner as shall be established by the Council, and shall have received our approbation. However, it would be possible to revert to the Concordat on the following conditions: 1st. That the Pope should institute all the bishops that we have appointed; 2nd. That in future our appointment shall be communicated to the Pope in the ordinary form; that if three months after the court of Rome has not instituted, the institution shall be performed by the Metropolitan." A letter, almost threatening, written by nineteen bishops assembled at the house of Cardinal Fesch, accompanied the officious propositions of the emperor. The anger of Napoleon had weighed heavily on the Council. On the 9th of May the three prelates arrived secretly at Savona.

Chabrol, the Prefect of Montenotte, announced their visit to the Pope. "They can come in when they wish," replied Pius VII. For four months the old man had been living alone, without external communication, deprived of his friends and his servants, without pen and ink, gently accepting his sufferings, but visibly enfeebled in mind and body. Disturbed at first, he soon recovered himself, talked familiarly with the bishops, and limited himself to asking that he might be granted the support of a few of his counsellors on this grave occasion. The request was denied in the most respectful manner; the prelates delegated by the Emperor Napoleon offered their assistance to the holy Father. The letter of the nineteen bishops dwelt upon the hope that the Pope would engage himself to do nothing contrary to the declarations of the Gallican Church in 1682; Pius VII protested that he had never had any intention of doing so, but that it was impossible for him to enter into any written engagement on the subject, the declaration having been condemned by Pope Alexander VIII. He discussed, without bitterness, the question of canonical institution, whilst altogether repelling the propositions put forth by the bishops. "All alone by himself, a poor man could not take upon himself such a great change in the Church," said he, smiling.

The discussion was prolonged, not only on the part of the prelates, but also on the part of the Prefect of Montenotte, who had frequent interviews with the Pope, using by turns menaces and caresses, seeking to act on the mind of Pius VII by the interposition of his physician, Dr. Porta, completely devoted to the imperial service. The Pope was complaining of his health; his intellect appeared at times affected by his long anguish. "The chief of the Church is in prison, and alone," said he, "nothing can be decided by him."

The virtues of Pius VII, like his natural weaknesses, contributed to the trouble of his conscience and his mind. Gentle and good, easily tormented by scruples, he was tossed about between the conviction of the duties which he owed to the holy see, and the fear of prolonging in the Church a grave disorder, which might bring about grievous consequences. In his interviews with the bishops he yielded everything, whilst thinking he was resisting, and finished by accepting a note, drawn up under his own eyes, containing in principle all the required concessions. He had not signed it, but the negotiators were contented with what they had obtained. "This morning we have drawn up the whole clearly and in French," wrote the Archbishop of Tours. "We have presented it to the Pope, he has desired a few changes in expression, some addition of phrases, some trifling erasures, and there has resulted from it an ensemble quite as good, and indeed much better than we flattered ourselves on obtaining a few days ago." Next day, May 20th, in the morning, the negotiators took the road to Paris.

They had scarcely got a few leagues from Savona, and already the Pope was seized with remorse. Ill for several days past, deprived of sleep by the agitations of his mind and conscience, he reproached himself for all the articles of the note he had agreed to, and fell into a state of suffering which gravely disquieted his jailers. "I cannot conceive how I could accept these articles," repeated Pius VII; "some of them are tainted with heresy; it is an act of folly on my part, I have been half mad." "Absorbed in a complete silence, he closed his eyes in the attitude of a man who pondered deeply," wrote Chabrol, on May 23rd; "he only roused himself to cry out, 'Happily, I have signed nothing.' I told him to put full confidence in that which he had adopted in his conscience, which had no need of signatures, nor of conventions made by civil laws. He answered me that from that moment he had lost all peace of mind, and he has again fallen into the same absorbed reverie."

Thus the courage, and even the reason, of the unfortunate pontiff momentarily gave way under the pressure of a moral suffering beyond his forces. In order to calm him, Chabrol was obliged to despatch a courier in pursuit of the bishops, withdrawing the concessions implied in the first article of the note; then, at last, the scruples of the Pope were concentrated.

"This suppression is absolutely necessary," said he, "without which I shall raise a disturbance in order to make my intentions known." In advance, and by the very fact of the violent pressure exercised over a captive, old, sick, and alone, the emperor found himself in reality disarmed in face of the Council which he had just convoked; the concession which he had snatched from Pius VII became null, for the pope was protesting from the depth of his prison.