The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 3

It was eleven o'clock when they withdrew; and some of the cardinals had the further imprudence to a.s.sure the ministers that the expressions used by the latter had been faithfully copied.

As soon as Consalvi was alone with his colleagues and could speak freely, he showed them the full meaning of the French terms suggested, and the impropriety, to say the least, of using them. All agreed to hold staunchly to their duty. But now appeared the further difficulty, created by having copied the ministers' words, which it would thus be impossible to seem to forget. Fouche was to see Napoleon soon after leaving them, and would doubtless hasten to a.s.sure him that the cardinals were writing a letter conformable to his wishes. Thus Napoleon, prepared for submission, would give way to tenfold anger on finding the reverse.

The letter was dictated by conscience alone, but its expressions were as much as possible tempered by prudence. Every word was carefully weighed; and five hours pa.s.sed in drawing it up. By its tenor, they sought to exculpate themselves from all suspicion of revolt and treason, saying that the real cause of their absence was because the Pope was excluded from the matter; that they had not pretended thereby to inst.i.tute themselves judges, or cast any doubts among the public either on the validly of the first marriage, or the legitimacy of the children that might follow the second. In conclusion, they a.s.sured Napoleon of their submission and obedience, without making any request for the restoration of their property or their purple. The thirteen signed by order of seniority in the cardinalate.

Cardinal Litta immediately conveyed this doc.u.ment to the minister of public worship, who p.r.o.nounced himself tolerably satisfied. But Napoleon quitted Paris the next day sooner than had been antic.i.p.ated, and without giving the audience to the minister which had been agreed on. Consequently the latter could not give the letter then, and he informed the cardinals that they must therefore conform to the orders already received. Accordingly they laid aside the ensigns of their dignity, and hence arose the designation of _black_ and _red_ cardinals. Their property was immediately confiscated, and their revenues, contrary to custom, were thrown into the public treasury.

After a short excursion in the Netherlands, Napoleon returned to Paris. Meanwhile the cardinals had put down their carriages, and hired more modest abodes, better suited to their fallen fortunes.

Contradictory rumors were afloat abroad as to their fate. Two months and a half pa.s.sed ere any change took place.

But on the 10th of June each cardinal received a note from the minister of public worship, appointing a time for him to call; two cardinals being designated for each successive hour. Cardinals Consalvi and Brancadoro were those summoned for the first hour. When they reached his cabinet, the minister informed them that they were to set out for Rheims in twenty-four hours, and to remain there until further orders should be given. Pa.s.sports were in readiness. All the other cardinals successively received a similar sentence; the only difference lay in the place of abode. They were exiled by twos, and care was taken to separate those supposed to be intimate. The minister offered to each cardinal fifty louis for the expenses of his journey; some accepted, and others declined; Consalvi being among the latter.

Soon after their arrival in the towns designated, each cardinal had an intimation from the minister that a monthly pension of 250f. would be duly paid. Consalvi refused to profit by this allowance, and he thinks the others did the same. On the 10th of January, 1811, both he and his {24} companion received a note from the sub-prefect of Rheims, requesting them to call and give information on certain orders that had arrived from the supreme authority in Paris. The two cardinals went. The sub-prefect then informed them that he was required to ask what sums they had received for their subsistence since their exile at Rheims, through what conveyance or persons, from whom, and to what amount Consalvi was able to answer that he had not accepted a penny from any one. "But how then do you live, since the government has seized all your property?" "My banker at Rome sends the necessary sums through his correspondent at Paris. Under other circ.u.mstances I would have borrowed from my friends."

This measure of the government was caused by irritation on learning that charitable persons had united to make up a general fund every month for the support of the cardinals, and it was wished to put a stop to the proceeding. Consalvi concludes the memoirs of his private life about this time, expressing a fear that the business mentioned above will not end with the interrogatory, but may bring about disastrous consequences. He also says, "We live in exile; foregoing all society, as becomes our situation and that of the Holy See and the sovereign pontiff our head. The red cardinals, I am told, remain in Paris, and go much in the world, but are not esteemed for their late conduct."

It is curious to contract with the preceding account the manner in which M. Thiers disposes of this same episode. "On the day of the emperor's marriage," says that historian, "thirteen out of twenty-eight cardinals failed to be present at the ceremony. The motive, which they dared not a.s.sign, but which it was desired to make the public understand, was that, without the Pope, Napoleon could not divorce, and thence, the first marriage still subsisting, the second was irregular. This motive was unfounded, since no divorce had taken place (for in effect divorce being forbidden by the Church could only have been p.r.o.nounced by the Pope), but simply annulment of the marriage with Josephine, p.r.o.nounced by the ordinary after all the degrees of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been exhausted." [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: M. Thiers here falls into a grave error: divorce being contrary to the law of G.o.d, no Pope can p.r.o.nounce one. The question was whether Josephine were lawfully married or not.]

In reality, however, this conduct of the thirteen cardinals, acting in conformity with their head, Pope Pius VII., though cut off from all communication with him, was the protest of the Church against temporal despotism in things spiritual. The Church was in chains, but G.o.d had left her a living voice to proclaim her rights. Consalvi never for one instant quits his ground--the Church's right of judgment--to give a shadow of personal opinion on the matter in question. It is a fine spectacle also to see him with his few colleagues, deserted by so many of their own body, quietly discussing what degree of excommunication Napoleon had incurred, whether all contact was forbidden, while they inhabited his very capital, and knew well the stem nature of that inexorable will.

The black cardinals continued to inhabit their different places of exile until Napoleon, working on the weakness and the affections of the aged pontiff, drew from him that semblance of a second concordat dated the 25th of January, 1813. Then, restored to liberty, they hastened to the feet of Pius VII.; and found him overwhelmed with grief at the concessions he had made, at what he called his guilt.

Truly he had but yielded in his feebleness to the unceasing persuasions of the red cardinals, backed by Napoleon's promises in favor of the Church, and to the charm exercised by that mighty genius when he stooped to court affection. The proviso made that the new concordat, to become binding, should first be submitted to the Sacred College a.s.sembled, {25} happily afforded the opportunity of annulling it. That was fully and worthily done by the papal letter addressed to the emperor on the 24th of March following.

When the course of events in Europe brought about such a change in his own position, Napoleon, still powerful notwithstanding, began to wish for a reconciliation with the Holy See. On the 23d of January, 1816, Pius VII. was allowed to set out for Rome, restored to his paternal sovereignty. Strangely, however, Consalvi was not permitted to accompany him. He received instead a note from the minister of public worship, informing him that orders would shortly be transmitted concerning himself, the execution of which admitted neither appeal nor yet delay.

And accordingly, two days after the Pope's departure, a letter came from the Duc de Rovigo, minister of police, telling Consalvi that he was condemned to another exile in the town of Beziers, and was to set out immediately for that destination in the strictest incognito, and escorted during the whole journey by an officer of gendarmerie.

Nothing more is said of this incident. Consalvi does not carry his memoirs beyond 1812. Two notes found among his correspondence, and signed by the functionaries above named, reveal the orders for this second exile. Napoleon abdicated on the 4th of April, 1816. On the 19th of May, in the same year, Pius VII. officially recalled Consalvi to his office of secretary of state.

Thus did Providence terminate the struggle between the spiritual and temporal powers; thus closed for Consalvi the exile consequent on his opposition to the imperial marriage.

On the very day that restored Consalvi to his councils, Pius VII.

learned that all the nations of Europe refused to receive within their territories the proscribed family of Napoleon. Rome opened her gates.

Madame Mere, as she was called, the mother of Napoleon, wrote thus to Consalvi, 27th May, 1818:

"I wish and I ought to thank your eminence for all you have done in our favor since the burden of exile has fallen on my children and myself. My brother, Cardinal Fesch, did not leave me ignorant of the generous way in which you received the request of _mom grand et malheureux proscrit de St. Helene_. He said that on learning the emperor's prayer, so just and so Christian, you had hastened to interpose with the English government, and to seek out priests both worthy and able. I am truly the mother of sorrows; and the only consolation left me is to know that the Holy Father forgets the past, and remembers solely his affection for us, which he testifies to all the members of my family.

"My sons, Lucian and Louis, who are proud of your unchanging friendship toward them, have been much touched likewise by all that the Pope and your eminence have done, unknown to us, to preserve our tranquillity when menaced by the different powers of Europe. We find support and an asylum in the pontifical states only; and our grat.i.tude is as great as the benefit. I beg your eminence to place the expression of it at the feet of the holy pontiff, Pius VII. I speak in the name of all my proscribed family and especially in the name of him now dying by inches on a desert rock. His holiness and your eminence are the only persons in Europe who endeavor to soften his misfortunes, or who would abridge their duration. I thank you both with a mother's heart,--and remain always, eminence, yours very devotedly and most gratefully, "Madame."

Another letter, from the ex-king of Holland, father of the present emperor of the French, addressed to Cardinal Consalvi, still further demonstrates the charity shown by Rome, and suggests many reflections.

With these extracts from Consalvi's {26} correspondence as a sequel, we shall close our episode of the imperial marriage; the circ.u.mstances they recall form a not uninstructive commentary on an event that seemed to place Napoleon at such a high point of worldly greatness.

"Eminence,--Following the advice of the Holy Father and of your eminence, I have seen Mgr. Bernetti, who is specially charged with the affair in question; and he, with his usual frankness, explained the nature of the complaints made by foreign powers against the family of the Emperor Napoleon. The great powers, and princ.i.p.ally England, reproach us with always conspiring. They accuse us of being mixed up, implicitly or explicitly, with all the plots in existence; they even pretend that we abuse the hospitality granted us by the Pope to foment divisions in the pontifical states, and stir up hatred against the august person of the sovereign.

"I was fortunately able to furnish Mgr. Bernetti with proofs to the contrary; and he will himself tell you the effect produced on his mind by my words. If the emperor's family, owing so much to Pope Pius XII. and to your eminence, had conceived the detestable design of disturbing Europe, and if it had the means of so doing, the grat.i.tude that we all feel toward the Holy See would evidently arrest us on such a course. My mother, brothers, sisters, and uncle owe too much respectful grat.i.tude to the sovereign pontiff and to your eminence to draw down new disasters on this city, where, while proscribed by the whole of Europe, we have been received and sheltered with a paternal goodness rendered yet more touching by past injustice. We are not conspiring against any one, and still less against G.o.d's representative on earth. We enjoy in Rome all the rights of citizens; and when my mother learned in what a Christian manner the Pope and your eminence were avenging the captivity of Fontainebleau and the exile of Rheims, she could only bless you in the name of her _grand et malheureux mort_, shedding sweet tears for the first time since the disasters of 1814.

"To conspire against our august and sole benefactor would be an infamy that has no name. The family of Bonaparte will never merit such a reproach. I convinced Mgr. Bernetti of it, and he will himself be our surety with your eminence. Deign then to listen to his words, and to grant us the continuance of your favor, together with the protection of the Holy Father.--In this hope, I am, eminence, your very respectful and most devoted servant and friend,

"L. DE SAINT-LEU."

"_Rome, 30th Sept_. 1821."

{27}

From Once A Week.

AN ENGLISH MAIDEN'S LOVE.

I read this incident when a mere girl in a very stupid old novel founded upon it, which I never could succeed in meeting with again.

The preface stated that in some church in England there yet remained the monument of the knight with his n.o.ble one-armed wife beside him. I should be glad if any of your readers could tell me where this monument is to be seen, and the real names (which I have forgotten) of the knight and lady.

'Twas in the grand heroic days, When Coeur de Lion reigned and fought; An English knight ta'en in those frays To Sultan Saladin was brought.

The sultan sat upon his throne, His courtiers stood around; And emir, prince, and padisha Bent lowly to the ground.

They served him upon bended knee-- "To hear is to obey;"-- For the fierce and cruel Moslem race An iron hand must sway.

The monarch gazed on each stem face; "Ye Moslem chiefs are brave; But I know a braver man than ye, Bring forth the Christian slave!"

The slave was brought, and at a sign The scimitar waved high, But the English captive gazed unmoved, With calm unshrinking eye.

Then spoke the sultan: "Hugh de Vere, I've need of men like thee, And thou shalt be the first man here, In this land, after me.

"Thou shalt have gold, and gems, and land, Palaces shall be thine.

And thou shalt wed a queenly bride, And be a son of mine.

"Only forsake thy fathers' faith, Mah'med and G.o.d adore, And forget thy love and fatherland.

Which thou shalt see no more."

Then Hugh de Vere obeisance made;-- "Since I must make reply, I will not change my love or faith, Far liever would I die.

{28}

"I have a G.o.d who died for me.

His soldier I am sworn.

Shall I, whose shoulder bears the cross, Upon the cross bring scorn?

"I have a love, a gentle girl.

Whom I love as my wife; I cannot bear a Moslem name.

Nor wed a Moslem wife."

"Bethink thee now," the sultan said; "How knowest thou that the maid Is not now wed, since thy return Hath been so long delayed?

"Fickle and false is woman's heart, It changes like the sky; The showers that fall so fast to-night To-morrow' sun will dry.

"Nor--trust me--e'er was maiden yet Constant as is the dove, Who dies of grief for her lost mate, And knows no second love."