made the desired concessions. The bishops were deceived, and, with two exceptions, voted in favor of the decree. A little reflection, however, convinced many of them of the fraud which had been practised upon them, and they recalled their votes. Suddenly, on the 11th of July, Napoleon dissolved the council. The following day, at three o’clock in the morning, Mgr. de Broglie, Mgr. de Boulogne, and Mgr. Hirn, who had taken a prominent part in opposing the decree, were arrested in their beds and carried off to the prison of Vincennes. In August five cardinals and eight bishops, partisans of the emperor, were sent to Savona to make still another effort to win over Pius VII. to Napoleon’s plans. The Holy Father, who was so closely guarded that no one was allowed to see him except his bribed doctor and the jailer, was in total ignorance of all that had passed in the National Council. For five months, from September, 1811, to February, 1812, these cardinals and bishops used every argument and artifice to induce the pope to sign the decree of the council.
Their efforts were successful. Pius VII., worn out with importunities, feeble in body and in mind, wrote the brief of adhesion. But Napoleon was not satisfied. He was already organizing his army for the fatal Russian campaign, and he wrote to his Minister of Worship the following instructions: “I send you the original papal brief. Keep it and communicate its contents to nobody. I wish to find the bishops in Rome on my return, to see what we can do.… The truth is, the church is experiencing a crisis.” His victory over Russia was, in his imagination, already an accomplished fact; he
would return the undisputed sovereign of all Europe, would gather the bishops in Rome, and would give to the church, as he had given to the state, a Code Napoléon.
On the 24th of January, 1812, the Holy Father wrote to him in the most unaffected and simple manner, and begged to be permitted to consult disinterested counsellors and to have free communication with the faithful. Napoleon disdained to answer this letter, but sent through his Minister of Worship the following notification to the deputation at Savona: “His majesty deems that it is unfitting to his dignity to answer the letter of the pope.… His majesty pities the ignorance of the pope, and compassionates a pontiff who could have played so great a part, but who has become the calamity of the church.… His majesty understands these matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction better than the Holy Father.… If the pope cannot make a distinction which is simple enough to be grasped by the most uncultivated seminarian, why does he not voluntarily descend from the papal chair and leave it to a man who is less feeble in mind and better principled than he?” And now, just as he was setting out on the Russian campaign, he ordered that Pius VII. should be transferred from Savona to Fontainebleau.
The Holy Father was unwell, but to this no attention was paid. Just before reaching the Mont Cenis he fell dangerously ill. The journey was not interrupted. A bed was fitted up in the carriage and a surgeon procured, who, with the instruments that might be needed, accompanied him. When they reached Fontainebleau nothing was prepared, and the pope had to pass the first night in the porter’s lodge.
A Guide-book of Paris, published at this time, informed the French that they possessed a “papal palace” in their capital. But the end was drawing near. On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen at the head of an army of five hundred thousand men. As he reached the opposite bank his horse stumbled and fell. His fatalism led him to consider this a bad omen. The Russians fled before him, and, after the victories of Smolensk and Borodino, he rode into Moscow on the 15th of September. It was silent as a desert, and the Kremlin, where he took up his residence, was like a tomb. At midnight from a hundred quarters the flames burst forth, and in the lurid light of the burning city the army began the fatal retreat. The weather, which had been fine, suddenly grew cold; sleet and snow and rain beat with merciless fury upon the men, from their benumbed hands their arms fell, and by the roadside they laid down to die. On the 18th of December Napoleon arrived, a fugitive, in Paris. In this one campaign he had lost 250,000 men, half of whom had died of cold and hunger.
With the beginning of the year 1813 he wrote to Pius VII. and begged him to believe that his feelings of respect and veneration were independent of circumstances. Shortly afterwards he went to visit the Holy Father at Fontainebleau, and upon their first meeting for eight years he embraced him with every mark of affection. The health of the pope was wretched, and advantage was taken of his weak condition to obtain still further concessions.
Upon the promise of Napoleon to liberate the imprisoned cardinals, bishops, and priests, Pius VII. signed
the Concordat of Fontainebleau—an act which he almost immediately recalled, and which he never ceased to regret. When the faithful Pacca, after so long a separation, was at length admitted to his presence, he expressed his admiration for the pope’s heroic constancy.
“But finally,” cried out the Holy Father in anguish, “we have sullied our conscience. Those cardinals dragged me to the table and made me sign.”