“Tut-tut, my dear sir, surely you cannot expect to obtain admission to the Pope in this rough-and-ready way,” he stammered. “It is really quite out of the question, you know,” with a wave of the hand to where, in the courtyard, a corporal’s guard of Fusiliers was preparing to relieve the sentries posted in all the approaches of the building.
“Ah, the guard of honour, I suppose, for His Holiness,” returned the Austrian, with the vestige of a smile; whereat Colonel Thévenot’s equanimity gave way.
“Frankly, sir,” he broke out, “please understand that no living being is allowed to enter here without a written order from General Berthier, the commandant of the town.”
“Frankly, sir,” retorted Lebzeltern in his turn, “that does not apply to myself, and I am going to enter.”
Happily for all concerned, the situation was dispelled at that moment by the sound of heavy firing from the direction of the harbour, where the British frigates had suddenly come in closer towards the town, with the intention of ascertaining the range of the French artillery, especially of some large cannon on a new fort. The orders of Napoleon himself, who was acquainted with this custom of the British, were positive in regard to such provocations; and it was strictly enjoined upon his officers to take no notice of them except in the event of a serious attack. Nevertheless the garrison of Savona lost its head upon this particular occasion and opened an extensive fire upon the two inquisitive ships. As Lebzeltern described it:
“It was a splendid sight; the weather was superb, the sea like a mirror, the whole coast, as well as the English ships, being turned to gold in the sunset. On the side of Savona thundered the cannon, their smoke shot with flame; from the English, though, there came no sound except that of their bands playing their well-known air of ‘Go to bed, go to bed, and get up as quickly as you can!’”
In the confusion of what the French imagined to be the preliminaries of an action, the gates of the Vescovado were closed, and Lebzeltern, thus forced to abandon his quest for the moment, turned his footsteps towards the hotel. There was nothing for it, as he saw, but to obtain General Berthier’s permission to see the Pope, with whom alone his mission to Savona was concerned. Having dined therefore, he dispatched a messenger to the Papal maestro di camera, Monsignor Doria, bearing a letter from Count Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, under whose instructions he was acting, together with a formal request for an audience of the Holy Father.
Some explanation is necessary of the origin of Lebzeltern’s mission to Savona; and so I trust the reader will not take it amiss if I venture upon the attempt.
When, in the summer of 1809, Napoleon sent orders to Rome for the arrest of the Pope, he did so under the impulse of one of those blind rages of his which upset all the calculations of his wisest advisers, and which only ended in raising up insurmountable barriers in the way of his ultimate triumph. For years he had been angered by the Pope’s refusal either to close the ports of the Papal States against English ships and merchandise, or to expel the English residents in his dominions. In answer to the Emperor’s repeated demands, Pius VII had said that, as the Universal Spiritual Father of all the Christian family, he absolutely refused to close their home and his (i.e. the Papal States) against his English children. Whereupon, in 1807, Benevento and Pontecorvo were taken from the Papal States and erected into French Duchies for Talleyrand and Bernadotte, to be held by them as fiefs of the Empire. The next year Rome itself was occupied by French troops, and the “legations” of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino seized by Napoleon’s orders; and in 1809 the Eternal City was declared to be annexed to the Empire as the capital of the French département or county of Rome. Finally, in the night of July 5-6, 1809, Pope Pius VII was arrested by General Radet and taken as a prisoner to Savona.
Napoleon’s idea, in thus imprisoning the Pontiff and isolating him from his accustomed friends, counsellors, and surroundings, was to wring from him by suffering that compliance with the Imperial diplomacy which the good old man had hitherto refused so uncompromisingly. To be sure, now that Rome and the Papal States were in the hands of his soldiers, the Emperor had no difficulty either in expelling or arresting the English residing there, or in closing the whole of Romagna to British merchandise; but, in his haste and anger, he had reckoned without the religious difficulties of the new situation.