Page:Vactican as a World Power.djvu/349

 POPE A PRISONER 335

Guard of Nobles, drove out the Cardinals who had refused to swear an oath of loyalty to Joseph Bonaparte, and occupied San Angclo. A new act of violence occurred every day. The Papal government had no money and no power, and it had feared that the despairing populace would rebel. Miollis informed the Pope that he had authority to shoot or hang anyone who did not obey his orders. On September 6, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacca, was to be arrested in the Quirinal and later deported. The Pope rushed into his room with dishevelled hair and demanded that he share imprisonment with him in the Palace. Prepared for the worst, the two remained in the Quiri- nal, around which there was now stationed a heavy guard. Pius spurned the opportunity to flee on board an English ship, and he repulsed every thought of a popular uprising. But the Bull which imposed the ban on Napoleon had already been written in 1806 and was kept secretly in the the Secretary of State's office.

On May lyth, 1809, Napoleon carried out his great attack on Rome. A decree signed at Schoenbrunn Castle excoriated the "con- tinuous animosity of the Supreme Head of religion against the most powerful Prince of Christendom." The voice came from behind a mask which the Papacy recognizes always and will recognize until the end. "In order to bring to a speedy conclusion these quarrels so injurious to the welfare of religion and of the Empire, His Majesty could have recourse only to one means to annul the Donation of Charlemagne and therewith make the Popes what they always ought to be, thus guaranteeing the spiritual power against the passions to which temporal power is subject. Jesus Christ, who was of the blood of David, did not want to be King of the Jews. . . My kingdom is not of this world, Christ has said, and with this utterance He con- demned for all times every blending of religious interests with worldly ambition." Moreover the argument was not missing that the Pope must stand above the nations, and that if he act as a sovereign inter- ested in state policies the neutrality of his influence upon the peoples will be undermined. To say that the Church might be ruled by the Pope as long as it docs not minimize the liberties of the Gallican Church simply meant that the Pope was not the Pope of France. "When future generations shall laud the Emperor for having restored religion and built up altars anew, they will nevertheless find fault with

336