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FRANCIS J. CRILLY, President
IGNATIUS J. DOHAN, Vice-President

ANDREW J. KEEGAN, Treasurer

ALFRED J. MURPHY, Secretary
ANTHONY A. HIRST, Esq., Solicitor

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Announces that a few complete sets may

still be had. The first twenty-five volumes complete, with General Index, unbound; sixty dollars. Apply for same at once as orders will be filled as received.

211 So. 6th St.,

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Philadelphia

QUARTERLY REVIEW

"Contributors to the QUARTERLY will be allowed all proper freedom in the expression of their thoughts outside the domain of defined doctrines, the REVIEW not holding itself responsible for the individual opinions of its contributors " (Extract from Salutatory, July, 1890.)

VOL. XXXI.-JULY, 1906-No. 123.

T

PIUS VI. AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

II.

HE encroachments on the liberties of the Church and the interference in ecclesiastical matters which had distinguished the administration of Tanucci were continued under that of the Marquis della Sambuca, a Sicilian nobleman who had been for some years Ambassador at the Court of Vienna, and whom Queen Maria Carolina selected as less likely to be under the influence of the King of Spain. His opposition to the unimpeded exercise of the authority of the Holy See was quite as decided as that of his predecessor, for not only was the Royal Exequatur still declared to be required before a Papal brief containing a dispensation could be admitted into the country, but it was also enacted that it should not be granted unless the King's permission to apply to Rome for the dispensation had been previously obtained. A list was even published in 1778 of the various matters for which it had always been customary to apply to Rome for a dispensation, and it was notified that for no less than 78 of these leave to do so would thenceforth be refused. In pursuance of the same policy the provincials of the mendicant orders were prohibited in the following year from receiving novices for the space of ten years; a number of religious houses were suppressed in Calabria.

1 Rev. Ilario Rinieri, S. J., "Della Rovina di una Monarchia," Torino, 1901. Introduzione, p. lxl.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1906, by P. J. Ryan, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

in 1783, and four convents of the Olivatan Order in Sicily were closed in 1784 and their revenues confiscated. The right of nomination to twenty-five sees in the Kingdom of Naples had been granted by Pope Clement VII. to the Emperor Charles V., but Ferdinand claimed the right of nominating to every see, abbey or benefice by a simple decree, and up to the year 1779 about three hundred such decrees had already been issued. In fact, under the influence of della Sambuca the Neapolitan Church had been so much disorganized and so much discontent and insubordination excited among the religious orders, that the kingdom was rapidly drifting into a schism; the more so because some of the Bishops, through pusillanimity or from interested motives, sided with the King and submitted without resistance or protest to his aggressions on the rights of the Church.2

The result was that many sees remained vacant, as the Sovereign Pontiff refused to accept the ecclesiastics nominated by the Crown, and della Sambuca went so far as to say that he would have their spiritual jurisdiction conferred on them by a synod of Neapolitan Bishops; but as those whom he consulted on the matter pointed out to him that the people would refuse to acknowledge prelates who had not been lawfully appointed by the Holy See, he desisted from his project.3

As all the conditions stipulated by the Concordat of 1741 had been thus disregarded and broken by the Neapolitan Government, Pius VI. in 1782 sought to induce King Ferdinand to revise it and to come to a new agreement which should restore order in the Church and terminate the disputes with regard to the collation of benefices. Della Sambuca, however, delayed so long before replying to this proposal that the Pope perceived that his object was to make still further inroads on the liberties of the Church, and then to have them accepted as established rights before coming to any understanding with Rome.⭑

What Pius VI. had foreseen came to pass when, in 1785, he again made overtures to the Neapolitan Government, for the Minister demanded as a preliminary to any discussion that the Sovereign Pontiff should first approve of all the usurpations of the Crown and the regulations with regard to ecclesiastical matters which had been enacted up to that time, and his insistance on this condition put an end to the negotiations.5

The career of the Sicilian statesman was, however, drawing to its close, since for some time he had had a dangerous rival at the Court of Naples, who finally succeeded in supplanting him. This

2 Ibid, p. lxix.

3 Rinieri, ibid, p. lxix.

4 Ibid, p. lxiii.

Ibid, pp. 13-22.

was John Edward Acton, usually known as le Chevalier or General Acton, born at Besançon, where his father, a descendant of a younger branch of an old Shropshire family, the Actons of Aldenham Hall, and who had accompanied the historian Gibbon on his travels as his physician, had established himself and married. His son had entered the French navy, but having been disappointed with regard to promotion, he left it and entered the service of Leopold I., Grand Duke of Tuscany. Having been given the command of a frigate in 1773, he distinguished himself in several encounters with the Corsairs. of the North African States, and especially in the Spanish expedition led by Count O'Reilly against Algiers in 1775. There he commanded the two vessels sent by Tuscany, and by the daring with which he took up a dangerous position and the skill with which he directed. the fire of his ships, he rescued the Spanish army, which had been surrounded by the Moors. Invited to Naples in 1778 by Ferdinand IV., he was soon named Minister of Marine, and in that capacity displayed much activity. He built dockyards, founded a naval academy and soon created a fleet of four ships of the line, ten frigates and 128 smaller vessels. The Ministry of War was then entrusted to him, when he reorganized the Neapolitan army, which he raised to 50,000 men, and shortly afterwards the administration of the finances of the kingdom was placed in his hands.

The control which the King of Spain exercised over Neapolitan affairs and of which the prosecution of the Freemasons had been a consequence, was the chief cause of the hostility which soon arose between della Sambuca and Acton, for della Sambuca, a diplomatist of the old school,' was inclined to follow Tanucci's example and submit in everything to the dictates of Charles III., while Acton sought to render King Ferdinand independent of his father. This policy was also that of Queen Maria Carolina, who, guided by her brothers, Joseph and Leopold, aimed at replacing the influence of Madrid by that of Vienna. The dispute soon became still more embittered and two parties were formed at the court-the Spaniards, or partisans of Charles III., and the anti-Spaniards, or "Royalists," who wished to see the King freed from all foreign interference. Charles III. made

• Antonio Zobi, "Storia Civile della Toscana," Firenze, 1850. Vol. II., p. 210. 7 J. A. von Melfert, "Zeugenyerhor über Maria Karolina," in Archiv. fur Osterreichischer Geschichte, 1879. Vol. LVII., p. 293.

8 A. von Arneth, "Joseph II. und Leopold von Toscana. Ihr Briefwechsel von 1781 bis 1790." Wien, 1872. Vol. I., p. 304. Léopold à Joseph, 15 October, 1785: "La cabale ourdie contre Acton et contre la Reine a Sambuca et presque tous les seigneurs de la Cour à la tête, et tous les Siciliens, et ce qui s'appelle à Naples le parti Espagnol qui y est fort nombreux." P. 314, 23d Nov., 1705. The same to the same: "Le parti de Sambuca est victorieux, domine et menace tout le monde, quoique le Roi le haïssa: Seton a la fièvre continuelle et ne demande que son congé."

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