Lebzeltern was, indeed, astounded at the Pope’s generosity.
“Most Holy Father,” he stammered, “you have given too much not to give just one little thing more—merely to allow your subjects to obey the present Government in the Papal States, and to order them expressly to do so.”
There followed a gesture of such pain on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff, expressing so eloquently his repugnance to this proposal, that Lebzeltern was penetrated with a shaft of regret for having made it. Moreover, as he says himself, “I trembled at the thought of all I had obtained from him!”
At the same time Lebzeltern felt convinced of the uselessness of the Pope’s concessions. He knew that Napoleon, unless he could obtain the one thing on which his heart was set—the actual sovereignty of the Papal States, and that with the Pope’s consent and blessing—would not for a moment consider anything else that might be offered him instead.
So Lebzeltern parted from the Holy Father for that day, his heart full of indefinable misgivings for the dark future in which the power of Napoleon loomed so vast and menacing, and in which there was no great light visible to him of the Church, save only here and there, so to speak, where the feeble red glow of a few distant, wide-scattered sanctuary-lamps starred the mirk of the new Europe.
On May 20 Lebzeltern went for the last time to the Vescovado, to take leave of the august prisoner within its walls.
PIUS THE SEVENTH.
Photo by Levy et ses freres after the painting in the Louvre, by David.
On this last occasion of their meeting at Savona, the diplomatist found Pius VII in a very strange frame of mind. Not by any means inclined to withdraw the concessions he had made in the previous interview with Lebzeltern, but only regretting them bitterly; hoping they might not satisfy Napoleon, and so be rejected by him. On Lebzeltern’s presenting for his consideration a written outline of the concessions in question, the Pontiff, after considering them a little while, rose suddenly from his chair and spoke as follows: