XXV. 1798. CHAP. guish the insurgents, and deputations of the citizens openly waited upon the French ambassador to invite him to support the insurrection, to which he replied in ambiguous terms, "The fate of nations, as of individuals, being buried in the womb of futurity, it is not 196, 206. given to me to penetrate its mysteries."' 'Hard. v. In this temper of men's minds, a spark was sufficient to occasion an explosion. On the 27th December, 1798, an immense crowd assembled, with seditious cries, and moved to the palace of the French ambassador, where they exclaimed-" Vive la Republique Romaine," and loudly invoked the aid of the French to enable them to plant the tricolor flag on the Capitol. The insurgents displayed the tricolor cockade, and evinced the most menacing disposition; the danger was extreme; from similar beginnings the overthrow of the governments of Venice and Genoa had rapidly followed. The Papal ministers sent a regiment of dragoons to prevent any sortie of the Revolutionists from the palace of the French ambassador; and they repeatedly warned the insurgents that their orders were to allow no one to leave its precincts. Duphot, however, indignant at being restrained by the pontifical troops, drew his sword, Duphot is rushed down the staircase, and put himself at the scuffle at the head of 150 armed Roman democrats, who were now French am- contending with the dragoons in the court-yard of bassador's. the palace; he was immediately killed by a discharge 2 slain in a Joseph Hard. v. Bot. ii. 445. Bonaparte's ordered by the serjeant commanding the patrol of report. the Papal troops; and the ambassador himself, who 209, 215. had followed to appease the tumult, narrowly escaped the same fate. A violent scuffle ensued, several persons were killed and wounded on both sides; and x. 333, 334. after remaining several hours in the greatest alarm, 207, 208. Joseph Bonaparte with his suite retired to Florence. 447. Lac. xiv. 146, 147. Jom. Hard. v. XXV. 1798. War is in declared against This catastrophe, however obviously occasioned by CHAP. the revolutionary schemes which were in agitation at the residence of the French ambassador, having taken place within the precincts of his palace, was unhap- consequence pily a violation of the law of nations, and gave the Directory too fair a ground to demand satisfaction. Rome. But they instantly resolved to make it the pretext for the immediate occupation of Rome and overthrow of the Papal government. The march of troops out of Italy was countermanded, and Berthier, the commander-in-chief, received orders to advance rapidly into the ecclesiastical states. Meanwhile, the democratic spirit burst forth more violently than ever at Ancona and the neighbouring towns; and the Papal authority was soon lost in all the provinces on the eastern slope of the Apennines. To these accumulated disasters, the pontiff could only oppose the fasts and prayers of an aged conclave-weapons of spiri- Bot. ii. tual warfare little calculated to arrest the conquerors x. 334. of Arcola and Lodi.' 450. Jom. vances to Jan. 25, Berthier, without an instant's delay, carried into execution the orders of the Directory. Six thousand Poles were stationed at Rimini to cover the Cisalpine republic; a reserve was established at Tolentino, while the commander-in-chief, at the head of 18,000 Berthier adveteran troops, entered Ancona. Having completed Rome. the work of revolution in that turbulent district, and secured the fortress, he crossed the Apennines, and advancing by Foligno and Narni, appeared on the 10th February before the Eternal City. The Pope, 452. Jom. in the utmost consternation, shut himself up in the x 336. Vatican, and spent night and day at the foot of the 230, 241. altar in imploring the Divine protection." 2* * The Directory, in their orders to Berthier, prescribed to him a course as perfidious as it was hostile. Their words were as follows:-" The in 1798. ? Bot. ii. Hard. v. CHAP. 1798. Revolution at Rome. Feb. 15. Conf. iv. 482. Rome, almost defenceless, would have offered no obstacle to the entrance of the French troops; but it was part of the policy of the Directory to make it that their aid was invoked by the spontaneous appear efforts of the inhabitants. Contenting himself, therefore, with occupying the Castle of St Angelo, from which the feeble guards of the Pope were soon expelled, Berthier kept his troops for five days encamped without the walls. At length the revolutionists having completed their preparations, a noisy crowd assembled in the Campo Vaccino, the ancient Forum; tention of the Directory is, that you march as secretly and rapidly as possible on Rome with 18,000 men. Its celerity is of the utmost importance; that alone can ensure success. The King of Naples will probably send an envoy to your headquarters, to whom you will declare that the French government is actuated by no ambitious designs; and that if it was generous enough to restrain its indignation at Tolentino, when it had much more serious causes of complaint against the Holy See, it is still more probable that it will do the same now. While holding out these assurances, you will at the same time advance as rapidly as possible towards Rome; the great object is to keep your design secret till you are so near that city that the King of Naples cannot prevent it. When within two days' march of Rome, menace the Pope and all the members of the Government, in order to terrify them and make them take to flight. Arrived in Rome, employ your whole influence to establish a Roman republic.”HARD. V. 221. Berthier, however, was too much a man of honour to enter cordially into the revolutionary projects of the Directory. On 1st January, 1798, he wrote to Napoleon :-" I always told you the command in Italy was not suited to me. I wish to extricate myself from revolutions. Four years' service in them in America, ten in France, is enough, general. I shall ever be ready to combat as a soldier for my country, but have no desire to 'Corresp. be mixed up with revolutionary politics." It would appear that the Roman people generally had no greater desire than he had to be involved in a revolution; for on the morning of his arrival at that city, he wrote to Napoleon :-" I have been in Rome since this morning; but I have found nothing but the utmost consternation among the inhabitants. One soli tary patriot has appeared at headquarters; he offered to put at my disposition two thousand galley slaves; you may believe how I received that proposition. My farther presence here is useless. I beseech you to recall me ; it is the greatest boon you can possibly confer upon me."-Berthier to Napoleon, 10th Feb. 1798. Corresp. Confid. iv. 510. XXV. 1798. the old foundations of the Capitol were made again to CHAP. resound with the cries, if not the spirit, of freedom, and the venerable ensigns, S.P.Q.R., after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, again floated in the winds. The multitude tumultuously demanded the overthrow of the Papal authority; the French troops were invited to enter; the conquerors of Italy, with a haughty air, passed the gates of Aurelian, defiled through the Piazza del Popolo, gazed on the inde-Bot. ii. structible monuments of Roman grandeur, and, Jom. x. amidst the shouts of the inhabitants, the tricolor flag xiv. 150. was displayed from the summit of the Capitol.' 458, 459. 336. Lac. cruelty of cans to the Pope. But while part of the Roman populace were surrendering themselves to a pardonable intoxication upon the fancied recovery of their liberties, the agents Atrocious of the Directory were preparing for them the sad rea- the Republilities of slavery. The Pope, who had been guarded by 500 soldiers ever since the entry of the Republicans, was directed to retire into Tuscany; his Swiss guard relieved by a French one, and he himself ordered to dispossess himself of all his temporal authority. He replied, with the firmness of a martyr, "I am prepared for every species of disgrace. As supreme pontiff I am resolved to die in the exercise of all my powers. You may employ force-you have the power to do so; but know that though you may be masters of my body, you are not so of my soul. Free in the region where it is placed, it fears neither the events nor the sufferings of this life. I stand on the threshold of another world; there I shall be sheltered alike from the violence and impiety of this." Force was soon employed to dispossess him of his authority; he was dragged from the altar in his palace, his repositories all ransacked and plundered, the rings even torn from his fingers, the whole effects in CHAP. 1798. the Vatican and Quirinal inventoried and seized, and the aged pontiff conducted, with only a few domestics, amidst the brutal jests and sacrilegious songs of the French dragoons, into Tuscany, where the generous hospitality of the grand duke strove to soften the hardships of his exile. But though a captive in the hands of his enemies, the venerable old man still retained the supreme authority in the church. From his retreat in the convent of the Chartreuse, he yet guided the counsels of the faithful; multitudes fell on their knees wherever 153. Hard. he passed, and sought that benediction from a capv. 243, 244. tive which they would, perhaps, have disregarded i. 172, 174. from a triumphant pontiff.' 1 Bot. ii. 463. Lac. xiv. 152, Pacca, i. The subsequent treatment of this venerable man Their conti- was as disgraceful to the Republican government, as nued severi- it was honourable to his piety and constancy as the him. He is head of the church. Fearful that from his virtues into France, and sufferings he might have too much influence on ty towards removed and there dies. Aug. 29, 1799. the continent of Italy, he was removed by their orders to Leghorn, in March 1799, with the design of transferring him to Cagliari in Sardinia; and the English cruizers in the Mediterranean redoubled their vigilance, in the generous hope of rescuing the father of an opposite church from the persecution of his enemies. Apprehensive of losing their prisoner, the French altered his destination, and forcing him to traverse, often during the night, the Apennines and the Alps, in a rigorous season, he at length reached Valence, where, after an illness of ten days, he expired in the eighty-second year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his pontificate. The cruelty of the Directory increased as he approached their dominions; all his old attendants were compelled to leave him, and the Father of the Faithful was allowed to ex |