A shrewd, dissolute, wicked man, he was superior to Sixtus in ability.
He had his mistresses, his luxury, his simony, and his cruelty, as Macchiavelli wrote of him.[1] Savona has no cause to glory in those whom she sent to occupy the chair of S. Peter.
But the place is associated with another Pope, and that one of a different stamp altogether, the unfortunate Pius VII., relegated there in 1809, and obliged to remain there till 1814. Pius was a good, quiet man, without force of character. When Napoleon let him understand that the States of the Church were to be taken from him, Pius was in dire distress and perplexity. Acting on the advice of his confidential attendant, Cardinal Pacca, he launched an excommunication at Bonaparte, Miollis, governor of Rome, all the French, and all such Romans as participated in the annexation of the States to the kingdom. The document was nailed up to the doors of several of the Churches of Rome,—
"But nobody seemed a penny the worse."
till an event occurred which startled the good people of the Eternal City.
There was a grand reception at the Chigi Palace, to which persons of all shades of politics were invited. A large company had already assembled, when the major-domo announced, "The Princess Borghese!" Now Prince Borghese had been an active partisan of Bonaparte and of the New Order. It was felt that the Prince and the Princess were both involved in the sentence of excommunication, and in former days no one would have dared to receive into his house those who had fallen under the ban of the Church. Presently the
- ↑ "Tre sue famigliari e care anzelle, lussuria, simonia, e crudeltade" (Opere, Flor., 1843, p. 882).
