What was Clement’s illness? How did his strong and healthy constitution undergo such an instantaneous and fatal change? And what complaint brought him to his grave? The partisans of the Jesuits, and some not very well informed historians, as Gorani, for example, Schoël, and others, deny that Ganganelli met with foul play. Georgel pretends that he died of remorse—that he made a full retractation; and, in proof of this, he points to his habitual exclamation, “Compulsus feci!” Of his retractation we shall not speak. It is contested by every historian; no mention is made of it except in the writings of the ex-Jesuit Georgel and his followers, who cannot produce a single proof or witness of their assertion. But is it true, at least, that the remorse, which had rendered him mad, as Crétineau affirms, brought him to the grave? We question whether the Jesuits can make good this other assertion. How can it be affirmed that Clement died of remorse, since, during eight long months after he had signed the Brief, he enjoyed not only his ordinary health and calmness, but was, on the contrary, more playful than ever? How came the remorse at such a late hour? What new crime had he committed in the interval? Does remorse admit of postponement? Does remorse produce all the physical diseases with which Ganganelli was suddenly affected? The extinction of voice, the inflammation of the throat, vomiting, complete prostration of strength—are these the symptoms of remorse? It is true that he often exclaimed “Compulsus feci!” and asked for mercy; but the unfortunate man asked for mercy from his assassins, not from the Supreme Judge. In his delirium, he supplicated his murderers to spare him; not to repeat the dose; or to administer to him some antidote, that his sufferings might cease. “Spare me! spare me!” he repeated; “I have been forced to the act, not so much, indeed, by the sovereigns, as by your own iniquities. Spare me, spare me these horrible sufferings!” he cried to everybody, and called upon his cherished Madonna to entreat for him, and to put an end to his tortures. Are delirium and insanity consequences of remorse, or rather the effects of several poisons—the belladonna, for example?
But let us see what other symptoms preceded and accompanied his death, and we shall be better able to judge of the quality of the illness which brought him to his grave.
“Several days before his death, his bones were exfoliated and withered—to use the forcible expression of Caraccioli—like a tree which, struck at the root, dies away, and sheds its bark. The scientific men who were called in to embalm his body, found the features livid, the lips black, the abdomen inflated, the limbs emaciated, and covered with violet spots; the size of the heart was much diminished, and all the muscles detached and decomposed in the spine. They filled the body with perfumes and aromatic substances; but nothing would dispel the mephitic exhalations. The entrails burst the vessels in which they were deposited; and when his pontifical robes were taken from his body, a great portion of the skin adhered to them. The hair of his head remained entire upon the velvet pillows upon which he rested, and with the slightest friction his nails fell off.”[410] The sight of Ganganelli’s dead body was quite sufficient to satisfy every one as to the sort of death he had met with. It did not even retain those lineaments which nature leaves to our remains at the moment when death seizes upon them, and the funeral obsequies convinced all Rome that Clement XIV. had perished by the acqua tofana of Perugia.[411]
However, Dr Salicetti, the apostolic physician, and Adinolfi, Clement’s ordinary doctor, on the 11th of December, three months after Ganganelli’s death, gave in a long procès verbal, declaring that it was false that the Pope had been poisoned; but they adduced no proofs whatever, and explained the fact of the body’s corruption by such strange and suspicious reasons, as rather to strengthen than diminish the opinion of those who thought differently. The fact is, that in Rome, after the doctors’ statement was made public, even the few who had some doubts as to the cause of this mysterious death, were now firmly of opinion that the Jesuits had poisoned the poor Pope. Gioberti, among other proofs which he adduces of the poisoning of Ganganelli, names a Dr Bonelli, famous for learning and probity, almost an ocular witness of the facts, who had often asserted to many persons still living that there was no doubt that Ganganelli had been poisoned.
But there is a witness far more respectable and trustworthy, who puts the question beyond doubt: that witness is Bernis; and no one that knows anything of the loyalty and nobleness of his character, would ever dare to impugn his testimony in an affair of such magnitude, when he, as ambassador, gives an account to his court of facts of which he was an eye-witness. Bernis, during the illness of the Pope, while every other person believed that Clement had met with foul play, alone had doubts; and his very hesitation, which proves his candour, leads him more surely to the discovery of the truth, which he attains step by step.[412]
On the 28th of August, twenty-four days before Ganganelli’s death, he wrote to the French minister: “Those who judge imprudently, or with malice, see nothing natural in the condition of the Pope; reasonings and suspicions are hazarded with the greater facility, as certain atrocities are less rare in this country than in many others.” Six days after the Pope’s demise, on the 28th of September, he wrote: “The nature of the Pope’s malady, and, above all, the circumstances attending his death, give rise to a common belief that it has not been from natural causes.... The physicians who assisted at the opening of the body are cautious in their remarks, and the surgeons speak with less circumspection. It is better to credit the account of the former than to pry into a truth of too afflicting a nature, and which it would perhaps be distressing to discover.” A month after, Bernis’ doubts are vanished, and on the 26th of October he writes: “When others shall come to know as much as I do, from certain documents which the late Pope communicated to me, the suppression will be deemed very just and very necessary. The circumstances which have preceded, accompanied, and followed the death of the late Pope, excite equal horror and compassion.... I am now collecting together the true circumstances attending the malady and death of Clement XIV.,[413] who, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, prayed, like the Redeemer, for his most implacable enemies; and who carried his conscientiousness so far, as scarcely to let escape him the cruel suspicions which preyed upon his mind since the close of the holy week, the period when his malady seized him. The truth cannot be concealed from the king, sad as it may be, which will be recorded in history.”
But there is another and a more imposing testimony to the fact—that of Pope Pius VI., the successor of Clement XIV.; it is transmitted to us also by Bernis, who speaks in the following cool and dispassionate terms, more than three years after the death of Ganganelli. He wrote on the 26th of October 1777, as follows:—“I know better than any one how far the affection of Pius VI. for the ex-Jesuits extends; but he keeps on terms with them rather than love them, because fear has greater influence on his mind and heart than friendship.... The Pope has certain moments of frankness, in which his true sentiments shew themselves. I shall never forget three or four effusions of his heart which he betrayed when with me, by which I can judge that he was well aware of the unhappy end of his predecessor, and that he was anxious not to run the same risks.”[414]
Such was the end of a man born with the best possible dispositions, and endowed with truly noble and amiable qualities. His spirit of tolerance, above all, deserves the highest eulogium. He tolerated all sorts of opinions, provided they were expressed in decorous language; and although he condemned the doctrines of the philosophers, he kept on good terms with them. He would not, as Benedict XIV. had done, write to Voltaire; but, in answer to some sporting jests made upon his person, which were reported to him, he intimated to the Patriarch of Ferney, through his old friend De Bernis, that he “would willingly take him to his heart, provided he would end by becoming a good Capuchin.”[415]
Ganganelli was, no doubt, a man incapable of governing under difficult circumstances. He had neither energy nor skill enough in handling difficulties, and he placed all his merits in evading them. But his moderation, his genuine spirit of tolerance, the purity of his morals, his modesty, his benevolence, deserve the sincerest respect, and his deplorable death a lasting compassion.[416]