ENDING OF THE 1260 YEARS.
As soon as the French columns appeared, a deputation went out to meet them and to announce to the general that Rome, liberated, opened the gates to the regenerators of the people. Berthier immediately entered the city, amid an innumerable multitude of citizens, with the sound of trumpets, and accompanied by his staff, a hundred cavalry, and the grenadiers of his army. When he arrived at the foot of the capitol, he halted, and thus addressed the immense multitude: “Manes of Cato, Pompey, Cicero, and Brutus! receive the homage of freed Frenchmen, in this capitol, where you so often defended the popular rights, and honored the Roman republic! The children of Gaul, with the olive of peace in their hand, come in this august place to establish the altar of liberty garnished by the first Brutus! And you, Romans, who have re-conquered your legitimate privileges, remember your glorious ancestors, behold their monuments which surround you, and resume your ancient virtue and the virtue of your forefathers!” The loudest and long-continued acclamations followed the general’s address. After that ceremony, Berthier returned to his tent. Pius VI, always shut up in the Vatican, wished to disarm his formidable adversary, and sent to him the most eminent personages of his court, to make peace and to obtain a favorable capitulation. But Berthier’s inflexibility soon dissipated the pontiff’s illusions. The general refused to admit the papal deputation. He directed those envoys to be informed, that he should not recognise the sovereignty of the pope, and that he should not receive any overtures, except from the delegates of the Roman republic. The citizens had formed a government, modeled after the ancient constitutions of Rome, had named seven consuls, decreed the degradation of Pius VI, and published accusations against the peculating cardinals and plunderers. Assured of the support of France, after the answer of the general to the pope’s overtures, the new chiefs of the Roman government proceeded to their acts of justice. They affixed the public seal to the museums, the galleries, and all the other precious objects, to secure them from the pontiff’s rapacity. They sold, for the public benefit, the statues and vases which adorned the villa of Cardinal Albani, and the palace of Cardinal Busca, two prelates who had participated in all the felonies perpetrated by the pope’s bastards. They expelled from Rome, the Cardinals Antici, Caprara, Pignatelli, Archinto, and Gerdyl. They cast into prison, the secretary of state, Doria, the statesman Antonelli, the crafty Somaglia, and their minions Borgia, Carandi, Boverella, Carandini, Vincenti, and Mattei; that they might be judged by the tribunals. The Abbe Maury, who had been made a cardinal by Pius VI, as the reward of his services for despotism, escaped from Rome, and thus was screened from the public vengeance. To the pope and his two bastards, the people granted their lives, and merely deprived them of their domains, their palaces, and the riches of which they had defrauded the state, or stolen from the public revenue. The duchess of Braschi, that doubly incestuous courtesan, incestuous with her brother and her father, the wife of one and mistress of the other, was treated with yet more indulgence. The consuls left her part of the jewels and trinkets which the pope had given her, and banished her to Tivoli, where she comforted herself with another lover, amid the ruin of her family. All those misfortunes abased the pope almost to idiotism. At length, the governor of Rome, the General Cervoni, gave him the last stroke, by the official announcement, that the people had re-conquered their rights, and he was no longer an officer of the government. “What becomes of my dignity?” inquired Pius, with anxiety. “That will be reserved to you,” the general replied, “and an income of two hundred thousand crowns, to sustain your rank, will be granted you.” “My person,” asked the pontiff, “what is to be done with myself?” Cervoni answered—“You are in safety, and will have a hundred and twenty men for your guard.” “Then I am still pope!” exclaimed Pius with a strange grin. The governor of Rome having withdrawn, the old audacious pontiff almost recovered his animation. He called to him his chamberlain and other confidants, and with them plotted another tragedy, like the “Sicilian Vespers,” in which all the French and the partisans of the new government should be conjoined. They were warned of the conspiracy, and adopted the measures to hinder the accomplishment of his criminal project. The removal of Pius was one of those measures. In vain did the pope, who perceived that his plans were discovered, protest against the violence which was offered to him, and which severed him from his people and duties. He was placed in a coach with his physician, his footman, and cook, and driven toward Tuscany. He was set down at the convent of Augustin at Sienna, where he remained three months. There he lived in quiet, and forgotten by the world, when an extraordinary event, an earthquake, shook the asylum where he resided, and destroyed part of the walls of the edifice. Although he was not in danger, because, at the moment of the catastrophe, he was walking in one of the gardens of the city, yet he became so frightened that he would not return to the monastery. They gave up to his control, and for his residence, a country house, called “L’Enfer,” which furnished occasion for the sarcasms of the people, who said that, “the pope is in his own place.” Some time after he was transferred to the Grande Chartreuse of Florence, where he remained during ten months. But in his exile, the old pontiff renounced not the hope of his being avenged on the French. From the seclusion of Tuscany, he organized insurrections, and Rome speedily became the theatre of frightful massacres. Gangs of fanatics, conducted by monks and priests, with the crucifix in one hand and a torch in the other, ran about the streets and the public places. Every where, the French fell, assassinated by consecrated poignards, amid cries of, “Hail, Mary! Long live Pius VI!” The Italian patriots were thrown into the Tiber. A company of the Vatican guard were surprised, and every man of them slaughtered. It would have been difficult to foresee where those massacres would have stopped, if General Vial had not marched against them with his troops and seized the most mutinous of those crusaders. Those who escaped from seizure by the republican general, fled into the country, excited the fanaticism of the inhabitants of Albano, Riccia, Genzano, and Velletri, and returned to Rome, with a body of six thousand men; and they even dared to offer fight to the French. An engagement took place at Fratocchi, but it was of short duration; for at the first charge, the Italians scampered away from the field of battle. The pope, not content to embarrass the French in the heart of Rome, labored to raise up enemies to them in other parts of Italy. In concert with Britain, he intrigued, through his agents, with the silly Ferdinand IV of Naples, and his shameless wife, Maria Caroline, and induced him to declare war against France. At first, the king of the Two Sicilies was victorious. Rome, divested of the military, surrendered to the Neapolitans. The French, overpowered on all sides, by a numerous army, were obliged to retreat. But they soon retaliated under the command of General Championet; for the Neapolitans were driven back to Naples, and forced to surrender. Ferdinand IV was dethroned, and the Parthenopeian republic established. Cardinal Russo, the king’s minister, and the indefatigable agent of ultramontanism, hastened into Calabria, excited the ignorant population of that country to an insurrection, lifted up the crucifix as the signal of the crusade against the republicans, distributed indulgences and benedictions, recruited an army of mad bigots, and marched toward Naples, at the head of his consecrated bandits. The French, attacked by land and sea, were obliged again to retreat, and the Neapolitan patriots were forced to capitulate to the royal army; on condition that they might withdraw from the kingdom in safety with their property. As soon as Cardinal Russo obtained possession of the capitol, to the disgrace of Ferdinand and his licentious queen, and Nelson! in utter contempt of the treaty, guaranteed by the British ambassador, that execrable prelate arrested all the citizens suspected of being republicans, and tried them by a special “Junto.” Three hundred were executed in one day; and as if that tribunal of hangmen was insufficient to exterminate those unfortunate Neapolitans, Russo encouraged the barbarous Calabrians in pillage, conflagrations, rapes, and murder, and made the city of Naples a wide-spread scene of carnage. Pius VI heard of the success of his machinations, with inexpressible delight; and unable to retain his joy he addressed a brief to all the Roman prelates, announcing the triumph over the enemies of the papacy, and that the time was approaching when the papacy would arise from the dungeon in radiance, where it had been so tormented in his person. The pope directed the priests, in every country, to wait on the monarchs, to assist them with their counsels and prayers, and as they had not any arms, to replace the people under their domination, thereby promptly to destroy the revolutionary hydra. The pontiff seemed so certain of a speedy change in his condition, that he recalled about his person, his nephew, the duke of Braschi. The minion, who knew that his uncle was possessed of considerable sums of money and a large amount of jewels, hastened to Florence, took advantage of the pontiff’s sufferings, hindered him from leaving the bed, and stole his treasure. Then, ascertaining that the directory, weary of the increasing plots of the pope, had decided to transfer him to France, Braschi fled from Tuscany, as a felon, with his uncle’s jewels and gold. Pius left Florence under the safe-guard of the republican commissioners, and having passed through Turin, and crossed the Alps, he arrived at Valence in Dauphiny, which was designated as the place of his residence. By order of the directory, he was domiciled in the house of the governor of the citadel. He was treated with all kindness and liberality; and permitted to form a court of all the priests and servants who accompanied him. But nothing could comfort the old pontiff in his exile. The last act of ingratitude by his cherished bastard was a terrible blow to him. Moreover, the energies of his life having been very much exhausted by age, debauchery, and excesses of the table, palsy in his legs seized him, which subsequently affected his whole frame, and on August 29, 1799, Europe was delivered from the last pope of the eighteenth century. The pope was taken captive by Berthier, Feb. 10, 1798. Here was the infliction of the deadly wound. Here was the going into captivity of him who had led into captivity, as the prophet had predicted. Rev. xiii, 3, 10. But the deadly wound, says the record, was healed. What were the steps by which this was accomplished. These are set forth on p. 420 of the same history as follows: The papacy, that fatal and monstrous institution, which had been the cause of such numberless calamities, disasters, and persecutions, at the death of Pius VI, was apparently on the verge of complete extinction. But men were not sufficiently sated with superstitions, and the triumph of permanent liberty was still deferred! Bonaparte, consul, who began to think of placing on his head the diadem of Charlemagne, and who anticipated the period when he should want another Leo III to consecrate him, collected the scattered stones of the pontifical Babel, which the republic had almost razed, and anew reconstructed it. Twenty days after his attainment of power, thirty-five cardinals assembled at Venice, to fill the vacancy in the pontificate, and to elect the chief of the popedom. Each secular power, according to custom, intrigued to have one of their own minions nominated, and to insure the voices of the cardinals for him; but France was successful. Whether the first consul was more ably served, or whether he paid most generously for the votes, after one hundred and four days of discussions and strife, the majority was announced for the55cardinal Gregory Barnabas Louis Chiaramonti, who was proclaimed pope, on March 14, 1800, by the title of Pius VII. Thus from Feb. 10, 1798, to March 14, 1800, the papacy did not exist. All dominion, spiritual as well as temporal was taken away from the pope. Popery can receive no greater blow than this, till it feels from Heaven the wrath of Him whose place it has usurped on earth. The temporal power may be taken away this year, as some are expecting; but it will not be an infliction equal to its downfall from 1798-1800. Here was the fulfilment of the prophecy, “They shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end,” in a manner too marked and plain to be for a moment lost sight of or mistaken. And the restoration of the papacy though not to its former power, was no less marked. Concerning this event we still further read, p. 428. The Protestant princes of Germany themselves were even vigorously urged, solicited, and even threatened, respecting their permission for the Jesuits to be domiciliated in their territories. In fine, the restoration of Popery was every where proclaimed! Thus another great waymark was set up in the course of time, in the right way and at the right moment, to guide the weary traveler o’er the trackless waste, and inspire hope in the hearts of all those who are watching and waiting for the consolation of Israel.