Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

“Let Napoleon only allow me to return to Rome,” pleaded the Pope—“the Catacombs will be enough for me, they have served as a shelter before now for other Pontiffs.... As to my sustenance, as I said before, the faithful will take care of it. No doubt Napoleon would offer me a revenue from the funds of the religious orders he has suppressed—in the same way that, when I went to Paris to crown him, he offered me some eighteen or twenty million francs of such stolen money—an unspeakable suggestion which I refused with horror and indignation! But, indeed, now that I think of it—how could I possibly hold my tongue as he proposes I should do, and not protest, while he would go on suppressing convents and religious orders under my very eyes, as well as introducing innovations that I could not pass over in silence without becoming his accomplice in the face of all Christendom?”

In response Lebzeltern submitted that, possibly, Napoleon’s malevolent dispositions towards the Church might be beneficially affected by the removal of the ban of excommunication under which he still lay.

“But Napoleon would be excommunicated without any Bull of mine,” replied the other. “For he is, ipso facto, as a persecutor of the Church, outside her pale. Even if I had never issued any such ban against him, he would still be excommunicated by his own acts.”

Lebzeltern now proposed that the Holy Father should write a letter to Napoleon, demanding with all gentleness and moderation to be set at liberty and allowed to resume his apostolic functions. “I would even ask his help to that end,” pursued the Austrian, “and I would publish the letter. Such a letter would in no way disparage the Vicar of Christ, ever ready to forgive sinners; and, at the same time, it would place Napoleon in an exceedingly embarrassing situation before the world. By so doing, your Holiness would infallibly destroy at a single blow those weapons of calumny which he is employing against you, and which he means to go on employing.”

“Listen, Lebzeltern. You know that I am willing to concede all that it is possible to concede; but where my conscience is concerned, you behold me perfectly resigned to remain as I am, a prisoner. If my captivity were a thousand times harsher—if I had, even, to mount the scaffold—I should not deviate by so much as a hair’s breadth from what my duty demands of me. And it would be an unworthy betrayal of that duty if I were to remove the ban of excommunication from Napoleon without good and sufficient reason. As to the letter you propose that I should write to him—a kind of encyclical, as it were—frankly I feel that, in sending such a thing to a man like Napoleon, who is capable of changing the wording of it, and then of publishing it to my detriment and his own ends, I should do wrong in taking so grave a risk without first consulting the Sacred College.”

And, on Lebzeltern’s arguing that it was the Pope’s duty to make the first move towards a reconciliation with the Emperor, Pius VII was silent for a moment, as though deliberating upon his next words. At last he spoke again:

“If Napoleon shows a desire to become reconciled to the Church, and if he will prove his sincerity by some deed, the thing can be arranged—and I assure you that no one is more desirous of it than I.”

And with that the first interview came to an end. Lebzeltern did not see the Pontiff again until two days later; on May 18, he found him in a condition of great fatigue from overwork (as may easily be understood when one remembers that the entire business of the Church had fallen upon the shoulders of the venerable Pontiff, deprived by Napoleon’s orders of assistance of any kind in the transaction of that stupendous task!) and having before him a letter recently received from Cardinal Fesch. In this letter the Cardinal had written of the Emperor’s intention—unless an agreement were speedily come to between himself and the Holy Father—of settling the question by choosing Bishops that would do his will from among the French clergy, Bishops who would administer their dioceses in accordance with Napoleon’s instructions alone and without any reference to the Pope. In answer, the Holy Father had condescended to write back to the Cardinal to say that the Emperor was evidently bent upon making impossible any reconciliation between them; and that any Episcopal Council that the Emperor might call together upon his own initiative would be absolutely null and void. Nevertheless, he, the Pope, being unwilling to refuse any chance of reconciliation, the Cardinal was to exhort Napoleon upon the subject; to assure him of his glory in this world and in the next if he would but sincerely become reconciled to the Church; and, equally, to threaten him with condign punishment upon himself and his dynasty, if he should persist in his persecution of the Church.

Lebzeltern now had to recognise that the Sovereign Pontiff had, in his heart, lost all confidence in Napoleon’s good intentions; for Pius VII now spoke of yet further pains and penalties that he had not made use of and which were still at his disposal. Lebzeltern, though, undiscouraged, only tried the harder to incline the Pope towards an understanding with the Emperor.

“If Napoleon will do something in favour of the Church, then, and not before, will I withdraw my excommunication of him,” replied the Pontiff. “To gain absolution, one must do penance——”