Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/165

PIUS 155 Kaunitz touched the supremacy of Rome so nearly that in the hope of staying them Pius adopted the exceptional course of visiting Vienna in person. He left Rome on the 27th February 1782, and was magnificently received by the emperor, but his mission was unattended by any marked success. In Naples difficulties necessitating cer tain concessions in respect of feudal homage were raised by the minister Tannucci, and more serious disagreements arose with Leopold I. and Ricci, bishop of Pistoia and Prato, upon questions of reform in Tuscany. The outbreak of the French Revolution followed, and Pius in vain endeavoured to preserve the ecclesiastical discipline and property. The old Gallican Church was suppressed ; the pontifical and ecclesiastical possessions in France were confiscated ; and an effigy of himself was burnt by the populace at the Palais Royal. The murder of the Re publican agent, Hugo Basseville, in the streets of Rome (January 1793) gave new ground of offence; the papal court was charged with complicity by the French Conven tion ; and Pius threw in his lot with the league against France. In 1796 Napoleon invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops, and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius sued for peace, which was granted at Tolentino on the 19th February 1797 ; but on the 28th December of that year, in a riot created by some Italian and French revolution ists, General Duphot of the French embassy was killed and a, new pretext furnished for invasion. General Berthier marched to Rome, entered it unopposed on February 10, 1798, and, proclaiming it a republic, demanded of the pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. Upon his refusal he was taken prisoner, and on February 20th was escorted from the Vatican to Siena, and thence from place to place in succession to Florence, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, Grenoble, and Valence, where he died six weeks later, on the night of the 28th August 1799. Pius VII. succeeded him. The name of Pius VI. is associated with many and often un popular attempts to revive the splendour of Leo X. in the promo tion of art and public works, the words " JVIunificentia Pii VI. P.M.," graven in all parts of the city, giving rise amongst his impoverished subjects to such satire as the insertion of a minute loaf in the hands of Pasquin with that inscription beneath it. He is best remembered in connexion with the establishment of the museum of the Vatican, commenced at his suggestion by his predecessor, and with the attempt to drain the Pontine Marshes. In the latter undertaking large sums were expended to such small purpose that the phrase " Sono andate alle paludi Pontine " passed into a proverb applied to funds employed in extravagant projects. The chief result was the restoration of the Appian Way by the removal of the additions of Trajan and Theodoric with later accumulations, and the erection of a new viaduct to Terracina upon the original road of Appius Claudius. PIUS VII. (Gregorio Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti), pope from 1800 to 1823, was born at Cesena on August 14, 1742. After studying at Ravenna, he entered the Benedictine monastery of St Mary in his native town, but was almost immediately sent by his superiors to Padua and to Rome for a further course of studies in theology. He then held various teaching appointments in the colleges of his order at Parma and at Rome. He was created an abbot of his order by Pius VI., who appointed him bishop of Tivoli on the 16th December 1782, and on February 14, 1785, raised him to the cardinalate and the see of Imola. At the death of Pius VI. the conclave met at Venice on the 1st December 1799, with the result that Chiaramonti was declared his successor on March 14, 1800, and crowned on the 21st of that month. In the following July he entered Rome, appointed Cardinal Consalvi secretary of state, and busied himself with administrative reforms. His attention was at once directed to the ecclesiastical anarchy of France, where, apart from the broad schism on the question of submission to the republican constitu tion, discipline had been so far neglected that a large pro portion of the churches were closed, dioceses existed with out bishops or with more than one, Jansenism and marriage had crept into the ranks of the clergy, and indifference or hostility widely prevailed amongst the people. Encouraged by the intimation through Cardinal Martiniana of Napoleon s desire for the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in France, Pius appointed Caselli and Archbishop Spina to arrange a concordat with three nomi nees of Napoleon Joseph Bonaparte, Cretet, and the Vendean priest Bernier. Difficulties having arisen, the aid of Consalvi was called in, and the concordat, signed at Paris on July 15th, was ratified by Pius on the 14th August 1801. Its value, however, from the pontifical point of view was considerably lessened by the "Articles Organiques " appended to it by the French Government on the 8th April 1802. In 1804 Napoleon opened negotiations to secure at the pope s hands his formal con secration as emperor. After some hesitation Pius was induced to perform the ceremony at Notre Dame and to extend his visit to Paris for four months. He returned to Rome on the 16th May 1805 with many expressions of good will ; but in the October following the French troops, in evacuating the kingdom of Naples, suddenly occupied Ancona upon the alleged necessity of protecting the Holy See. Resistance by force was out of the question, but to a requisition from the emperor that all Sardinians, English, Russians, and Swedes should be expelled from the ponti fical states, and that vessels of all nations at war with France should be excluded from his ports, Pius replied by asserting the independence and neutrality of his realm. After negotiations had dragged on for two years, in the course of which the French occupied the chief Adriatic ports, Civita Vecchia was seized and the papal troops placed under French officers. On the 2d February 1808 Rome itself was occupied by General Miollis ; a month later the provinces of Ancona, Macerata, Fermo, and Urbino were united to the kingdom of Italy, and diploma tic relations between Napoleon and Rome were broken off ; finally, by a decree issued from Vienna on May 17, 1809, the emperor declared the papal states reunited to France by resumption of the grant of Charlemagne. Pius retali ated by a bull, drawn up by Fontana and dated June 10, 1809, excommunicating the invaders; and, to prevent insurrection, Miollis either on his own responsibility, as Napoleon afterwards asserted, or by order of the latter employed General Radet to take possession of the pope s person. The palace on the Quirinal was broken open during the night of July 5th, and, on the persistent refusal of Pius to renounce his temporal authority, he was carried off, first to Grenoble, thence after an interval to Savona, and in June 1812 to Fontainebleau. There he was induced, on the 25th January 1813, to sign a new concordat, which was published as an imperial decree on the 13th February. On conference with the cardinals, however, Pius withdrew his concessions and proposed a concordat upon a new basis. At first no attention was paid to this, and, when after the French armies were driven from Germany Napoleon endeavoured to purchase a new concordat by offering to restore the papal possessions south of the Apennines, Pius refused to treat with him from any place other than Rome. The order for his departure thither reached him on the 22d January 1814, and after a brief delay at Cesena he entered Rome on the 24th May 1814. With his states restored to him by the congress of Vienna and freed from the Napoleonic terror, he devoted the remainder of his life to social and ecclesiastic reform in accordance with the modern spirit, suppressing many of the feudal survivals, abolishing torture, reconstituting civil and judicial procedure, and giving effect to many beneficial

changes introduced by the French. His long and in many