Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

But, after all, the Concordat was a compromise. Neither party got quite what was wanted. Napoleon expected that there would result a clergy wholly dependent upon his will; a pope who would be a sort of clerical lieutenant obeying imperial orders, content to move as a lesser light in the Napoleonic system. The Pope, on the other hand, eagerly expected a restoration, gradually, of the former spiritual prestige of the Church. When Napoleon was seen to attend Mass, and kneel for blessing or prayer, clerical fancy readily pictured the return of the good old times when pious Bourbon kings and their official mistresses had fallen on their knees at the feet of Jesuit confessors, and allowed the reins of government to be pulled by the Church. Especially did the Pope look for the restoration of his full temporal power, the return of the lost legations in Italy.

Both parties found themselves in grievous error. Napoleon not only believed he had done quite enough for the Church, but was inclined to think he had done too much. At any rate, he flatly declined to do more. He would not put priests in charge of the state schools; he would not restore the legations. He was ready to lavish respectful attentions upon the head of the Church, ready to aid him in restoring public worship, ready to fill his coffers with cash; but in the Concordat, the solemn contract already agreed on, he would make no change.

So the Pope had left Paris after the coronation in ill-humor. He refused to crown Napoleon at Milan; refused to annul Jerome’s marriage; refused to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples; refused to close his ports to English commerce. Professing neutrality, he became as much the enemy of France as he had been when an avowed member of the European league against the Revolution. Enemies of Napoleon flocked to Rome and found friendly welcome there. Fugitives from French justice took refuge under papal immunity, and were protected. The Roman court, as in the time of the Revolution, became a nucleus of anti-French sentiment and intrigue. Papal animosity to the French did not cool its ire when it saw him do in Spain what he had wished to do in Italy—abolish the Inquisition. Napoleon complained, remonstrated, threatened—all to no purpose. Meekly obstinate, piously implacable, the Pope refused to come to terms, using God’s name, of course, as a sanction to his own line of conduct.

During the campaign of 1809 Napoleon proclaimed the abolition of the temporal power of the Pope, and the papal territories were incorporated in the kingdom of Italy. The Pope’s spiritual powers were not challenged: his revenues were largely increased. The Pope protested, as usual, that the temporal power, lands, cities, rich revenues, were the patrimony of St. Peter, of God, and that he, the Pope, had no right to give them up. Napoleon, in effect, replied that what a French emperor had given, a French emperor could take away; and that it ill became the successor of Peter and the vicar of the homeless, moneyless Christ to be making such eternal clamor about money, wealth, lands, and earthly power and splendor. The situation at Rome, where French authorities and papal authorities were in conflict, became so embarrassing that the Pope was finally arrested, carried to Savona, and lodged in a palace there. Later, he was transferred to the magnificent château of Fontainebleau in France, where he was luxuriously lodged and treated as a prince.

This complete rupture between Napoleon and the Church might never have been more than an annoyance, a crab nibbling at the toe of Hercules, had Napoleon continued fortunate. But when disasters thickened, and his powers began to totter, the papal legions were not the weakest of those who assaulted his wavering lines.

Well had it been for France had Napoleon, in 1810, given personal attention to the Spanish war; equally well had he come to some terms with the Pope, who had excommunicated him. The longer each trouble was neglected, the more difficult its treatment became.

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Napoleon would not go to Spain, he would not settle his differences with the Pope; but he made up his mind to bring to an issue another long-deferred and vitally important matter—that of divorcing Josephine.

The Emperor must have an heir, the question of succession must not be left open longer: political necessity was inexorable: ambition would tolerate no obstacle.

Great as a man may become, he is human after all; and Napoleon flinched from saying the fateful word to Josephine. From time to time he shrank from the pitiful task, and the way in which he led up to it is full of the pathos which sometimes lies in small things. Whenever Napoleon was at home, it was the custom for a page to bring in coffee for the Emperor after dinner. Every day Josephine herself would take the tray, pour the coffee, sweeten it, cool it, taste it, and hand it to Napoleon. Years had come and gone, and the little domestic custom had become as fixed as the relation of man and wife.