After providing, in this effective manner, for the total extinction of ecclesiastical power, the attention of the ruling powers, in conjunction with the French, was turned to the means of raising pecuniary supplies for the military, the services of which, it was conjectured, would shortly be wanted in the contest expected with Naples. An edict was therefore framed, by which three millions of piasters were placed in the hands of the consuls, for the use of the army.

This expectation of hostilities, on the part of Naples, was reasonably founded. General Mack had been dispatched by the imperial court to organize the Neapolitan army on the Austrian plan, and was, at this time, exerting all his abilities and diligence to this purpose. As soon as this could be effected, it was believed that a declaration of war would issue from the court of Naples, which had made the greatest efforts, and collected the largest army known in that kingdom for ages.

In all these preparations for war, and in all the measures and regulations adopted by the republican government of Rome, upon this, as well as every occasion, it was evidently the passive instrument of France. Though sufficiently inclined to another government than that of the pope, the popular party was desirous to establish one that should embrace and satisfy all parties, and was particularly averse to innovation in religious matters. The diminution of the ecclesiastical power excepted, little alteration had been intended by the party that sought a revolutiou. It was therefore with the deep, but seeret resentment peculiar to the Ita

lian disposition, that the Romans felt the heavy hand that oppressed instead of easing them. Numbers, doubtless, had so far entered into French principles and plans, as to prefer them to all others; but a far greater majority disapproved of them. and would have rested at less than half way. But the fact. was, that throughout the whole of the Roman revolution the French were absolute dictators, as they had been every where on a similar emer. gency. Their influence had been so carefully provided for in the present instance, that it was actually specified in the constitutional instru ment of government, that during the first ten years of the republic, the commander of the French forces, at Rome, should possess a negative on all the proceedings of the government and legislature. This was a stretch of power, which the French had not exercised in the formation of any other state. It was an affront that sunk deep into the minds of the Romans, who naturally thought themselves more competent to the management of their own af fairs, than a nation of strangers, so different from them in character, notions, habits, and a variety of other considerations. The principal object of the leading men in Rome was, therefore, to free themselves, without offending the French, from the unceasing interference these assumed in all affairs, great and small, to the just indignation of the former, to whom it soon became insupportable. Such, however, was their judgment and sagacity in obviating, or modifying, the precipitate measures pursued or recommended by the French, that in the general destruction or dilapidation effected by these, they found means to re

tain some institutions, which, though founded on superstition, were become essential resources for the exigencies of the state. The most considerable of these were the several offices from which the bulls and briefs, and the many other instruments of spiritual authority, had issued during so many ages. These, and others of a similar kind, were stiilsuffered to subsist,notwithstand ing the repugnance of the violent reformers. As their annual produce was computed at not less than three millions of French livres, this was a fund that prudence forbad to part with at a period of such pecuniary scarcity. It was a happy circumstance for Rome, that religious motives induced the catholic states, in Europe, to continue their spiritual subjection to the papal see; the jurisdiction of which, though suspended by temporary causes, they doubtednot would recover its former exercise and influence. This persuasion, though derided by the French, and those who adopted their principles, was of great efficacy in supplying many deficiencies, which mustwithout it haveoccasionedmuch private as well as public calamity. The sale of conventual lands, with the suppression and plunder of monasteries and churches, had raised large sums; but they were quickly consumed by the exigencies of the state, and still more by the avidity of the French, who, like most other invaders, thought themselves entitled, by the right of conquest, to dispose of whatever they could Jay their hands upon, and indiscriniinately seized every species of property.

While Rome, under the direction of France, was preparing to carry the revolutionary spirit into Naples,

But

the unhappy Pius, driven from the pontifical throne into exile, was endeavouring, by the consolations of religion, to reconcile himself to his destiny. He had, while head of the catholic church, displayed an attachment to exterior greatness, which induced the public to think that he would have been weighed down by misfortune, and hare proved utterly unable to support the fatal reverse that befel him. he met his trials with the decency of resignation, if not with the spirit of fortitude, and by the unshaken firmness of his conduct, interested all people in his sufferings. Reduced to the private enjoyments of a tranquil life in the monastic retirement he had chosen, it is highly probable that he might have continu ed in a peaceable existence several years longer, if the politics of France had permitted it. But the rancour of the French government seemed determined to persecute him to the last moment he had to live. The meanness of the ancient Romans, in pursuing Hannibal through every country, wherein he took refuge, was not more despicable than the solicitude of the French, in expelling Fius from the retreats where he had hoped to have been left unmolested. Offended probably at the reverence shown to his person, and the sympa, thy manifested for his misfortunes, which appeared a tacit condemna, tion of their behaviour to him, they were determined to deprive the catholic princes of this opportunity of acting in contradiction to them.

He had e.aped a remarkable danger in his retirement at Sienna. An earthquake threw down several buildings in the neighbourhood of that here he resided, which was a convent, and reecived also some da❤

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mage. From this place he removed to a Carthusian monastery near Florence, Here he flattered himself that he should end his days in peace, and chearfully expressed his expectation, that, after going through so many storms, he should here find a port at last.

It has been an object of speculation, what motives prompted the government of Trance to disturb the repose of an old man, incapable of giving them any cause of apprehension, and who, they well knew, was weary of public affairs, and sincerely desirous to pass the remainder of his life in peace, and at a distance from the world. But the vain-glory of upholding their own determinations in preference, and in contempt, as it were, of the opinion of others, may have probably been the motive of the harsh treatment they inflicted on the pope.

Nor ought the subserviency of the Roman catholic princes, on this occasion, to pass unnoticed or uncensured. The grand duke of Tuscany was wholly in their power, and cannot therefore be blamed for yielding to their mandates, in whatever related to the pope, or indeed to any other object and yet it was not without a princely concern for the hard fate of the unfortunate pontiff, that he signified to him the necessity he was under to dismiss him from his dominions. The Imperial court was applied to for a place of refuge in his behalf; but, contrary to expectation, the request was refused. The protection of Spain was next resorted to, but with no better suc

have more strongly demonstrated the fallen spirit of the Spanish monarchy, and its pusillanimous submission to the arbitrary mandates of the French republic.

After much wavering and consultatin, on the fittest place for his residence, it was at length determined to remove him to the island of Sardinia. Here he would be at a distance from all scenes of intrigue, and neither could take an active nor passive share in the efforts of his adherents to restore him to his former power. Here, too, it seems, the French government was meditating to provide a place of banishment for another Italian prince, the very sovereign of the island appointed for the residence of the pope.

Whether through grief at seeing himself the sport of fortune in his latter days, or through the natural infirmities of age, Pius was at this period seized with a dangerous illness, which, it was thought, for soine time, would have carried him to the grave. His removal now be came impracticable, and the French government, unwilling to incur the imputation of having purposely abridged his days, left him for the present unmolested.

The personal sufferings of a sovereign, venerable by the rank he held among Christian princes, and by his great age, and the patience with which he bore his calamities, had rendered him an object of respectful attention through all Europe. Both protestants and catholics united in commiserating his condition, and reprobating the unnecessary and unfeeling severity with which he was treated by an unpitying conqueror, and upon pretexts that were unjustifiable, as they were evidently unfounded.

In this general sense and compassion for his misfortunes, neither his religion nor his character interfered. Pius VI. was not irreproachable in his public or in his private capacity; but adversity had drawn a veil over his errors and trespasses, and the courage with which he supported his fate gave him a dignity which he had not commanded at the highest summit of his past elevation. In this light his fall was advantageous to him, as it procured him a reputation he would not have otherwise attained.

His reign, it has been said, was a continued series of mistakes: but the truth was, that he reigned at a time when both his temporal and spiritual subjects were almost equally ungovernable, and when not only the authority of the Roman catholic church was shaken to its foundations, but when even the Christian religion itself was called in question, and assailed with more enmity and virulence than it had experienced in any former ages.

From the time that Pius mounted the papal throne, he may, without exaggeration, be said to have ruled in a perpetual storm. Hosts of enemies arose on every side, and he was thwarted at home and abroad with much more obstinacy than his predecessors. With abilities of an inferior class, he had almost incessantly to contend with difficulties of the highest; and the weapons that he used in the contest, had long been blunted and worn out; for such certainly were the arguments and reasonings he brought forward to support his pontifical authority.

Inauspiciously for the tranquillity

of his people, as well as for his own, he was not at liberty to embrace a system of neutrality in the agitations that followed the French revo lution. He was bound, in duty to his spiritual character, to anathematise the proceedings that overturned the Gallican church. But it may justly be questioned, whether he ought in policy to have moved any farther, and whether, by abstaining from interference in its civil concerns, and submitting to the loss of the inconsiderable territory which he possessed in France, he might not have secured the peace of the Roman see, and transmitted the papal dignity to others unmolested and undiminished, together with the temporal power and dominions annexed to it, and which no potentate in Europe was inclined to lessen.

It is chiefly for his conduct in this latter instance, that hehas been censured. Others indeed have justified him on the principles of the coalition, to which he could not decently refuse his concurrence against a people accused of aiming at a fundamental subversion of all religion and government. But without entering into a discussion upon this subject, when it is considered, of how little weight the papal power was in the scale, that he had nothing to gain through the success of the coalition, and, if it failed, he had all to lose, which unfortunately proved the case, it would, consistently with the plainest policy, have been more prudent to preserve a neutrality that might eventually be beneficial to himself, than to act a part that could be of no utility to others.

CHAP.