Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Nevertheless, Pius VII spoke with no bitterness, but only with great grief of the French Emperor, expressing the most sorrowful tenderness towards the man whom he had crowned Emperor at Notre Dame a few years previously. And all he asked was that he might be allowed to go back to Rome in order to be able to do his duty by the Church as her Pastor.

At this point Lebzeltern made known the real object of his coming to Savona: namely, that Napoleon was anxious to come to an understanding with the Pope. To the latter this was, indeed, a most welcome surprise; but, almost immediately, he seemed to realise that he was suddenly in the presence of some sort of insidious temptation which was preparing to attack him. And here Lebzeltern, by turning the talk during some minutes to Austrian affairs, sought to give his listener time in which to recover from the first effects of his surprise. And so, for a while, they spoke of the dangers of a schism that threatened the German episcopate, so long deprived by Napoleon of the guidance of their Shepherd. And then, as the Pope began more clearly to divine the probable intentions of the Emperor towards him, he reverted to the subject of his captor:

“I want nothing for myself,” he said, by way of warning Lebzeltern that it would be of no use for him to offer any personal advantage to the Pope (as such) as the price of a reconciliation with Napoleon. “I am old, and have no need of anything; I have sacrificed all I had to my duty. I have nothing left to lose. Therefore, no personal consideration can make me turn aside from the narrow road along which the sacred voice of my conscience has so far led me. I want no pension; the alms of the faithful will suffice me.... All I insist upon—and with all my strength—is that I be allowed free communication with the Bishops and the faithful.” Once, too, he seemed uncertain of even the diplomatist’s own intentions towards him. “At Rome, my dear Lebzeltern,” he reminded him, “I opened my heart to you in the conviction that you were incapable of abusing my confidence ...”—speaking rapidly in Italian.

And now, as Lebzeltern felt, the moment had come when he could no longer defer the revelation of what it was that Napoleon proposed to the Pope as the only possible basis of an agreement between them—that is to say, the only price he would accept to let Pius VII out of prison. It was by no means easy, as he gives one to understand, for the young Austrian to do this thing; but, at length, he forced himself to the point. After assuring the Holy Father once more of his own devotion to him, as well as of that of Metternich and the Emperor Francis, Lebzeltern proceeded to explain that Napoleon had in no way abated his desire to be the lord of Rome, which had long been one of the principal objects of his ambition; also, that he had in no way changed his mind in regard to the Pope’s surrender of the Temporal Power; and that, although Napoleon would not insist upon a formal deed of renunciation on the part of Pius VII, yet, at the same time, he must insist that the Pope should maintain an attitude of absolute submission in the matter, an attitude which should in no way recall the past political position of the Papacy, and which at bottom should be, in fact, an acknowledgment of the suzerainty of the French Emperor.

The words were scarcely out of Lebzeltern’s mouth when the Pontiff took him up with an amazing energy for so delicate a man.

“Is not Napoleon already, de facto, the master of Rome?” he demanded. “Does he not parcel out my States as he pleases? Do not his troops already hold my ports, camp in my capital, and live at my expense? And all I can do is to oppose a few protests to his armed force. But I know him; he is a man who never really wants what he says he wants—and what he really wants he will never admit to a living soul beforehand.”

To which Lebzeltern, in order to restore the Pope’s equanimity, replied by telling him how Metternich, in speaking to Napoleon, had declared himself openly on the side of the Holy Father; and, moreover, had emphatically impressed upon the Emperor the unchangeable principles[10] of the Austrian Government in regard to the Catholic Church and its visible spiritual Head on earth.

“I should indeed be grateful for any help that Austria could give me,” said the Pope. “All I ask is that Napoleon will let me go back to Rome and that he will allow me to keep about me a sufficient number of people for the business of consistories and councils—and that my relations with the faithful may be free and unhampered. I have no means of compelling Napoleon to restore the dominions of which he has robbed me—very well, all I can do is to protest. Beyond that I can do nothing.”

Here Lebzeltern, it must be recorded, made some attempt to persuade the Holy Father to make what he called “sacrifices” in the interests of the distracted Church—but of what nature, precisely, he did not specify. But Pius VII, reading his mind, replied that the duty imposed upon him by his conscience of defending the rights of the Holy See and the patrimony of the Church—which patrimony he was bound by his oath as Pope to transmit intact, in so far as in him lay, to his successors—forbade his remaining silent under Napoleon’s iniquity: his silence would be understood, by his enemies, to be a tacit abdication of the Temporal Power, and would be considered by the faithful as a cowardly surrender.

From this point in the conversation the two men understood each other’s position and standpoint clearly—and yet, both did their best to avoid the blind-alley into which the talk was surely leading them.