Chapter XVI: Found at Last! (1)

While the three inmates of the white-washed villa were watching the days go by, and wondering if to-morrow could possibly be as happy as yesterday and to-day, Clide de Winton was living a very different life in his lodgings near the asylum. He had not yet been permitted to see the lady whom he believed to be his wife. She had fallen ill with an attack on the lungs which had very nearly proved fatal, and during the six weeks that it lasted it was impossible to let any one approach her except the familiar faces of the doctor and her attendant. She had rallied from this illness only to return to her old delusion with a fonder intensity than ever. Day after day she decked herself in her faded flowers and ribbons, and stood or knelt at her window, stretching out her arms to the mid-day sun, calling to him with the tenderest words of endearment, and telling him her passionate love-tale over and over again; then turning from this to paroxysms of despair more violent than formerly, and which threatened at each crisis to shatter the fragile vase and send the feeble spark flying upwards.

“And now she courted love; now, raving, called on hate.”

Clide had repeatedly asked to see Mr. Percival, but the desire for an interview was evidently not mutual; for, although no refusal was ever sent, the promises held out by the medical man were continually broken; the visit of Mr. Percival was always “unexpectedly prevented” by one cause or another. Stanton arrived at the conclusion that he did not wish to meet Clide, and that, moreover, he was constantly at the asylum unknown to them, and that the only way to see him would be to lie in wait and collar him, and make him speak out by main force, since he would not do it otherwise. Mr. de Winton saw difficulties in the way of this summary method of proceeding, but his valet entreated him to leave it in his hands and not trouble himself about that. Clide had small confidence in the diplomatic skill of his man, but he could trust him not to do anything dangerously rash; so he asked no questions, but let him follow his own devices for catching Mr. Percival. That gentleman, however, proved himself a match for Stanton. He was not to be taken either by stratagem or force; and though Stanton dodged about the park gates, and recruited a small police force, amongst little boys on the lookout for a penny, to skulk about late and early to watch the comers and goers from the asylum, and give him timely warning, it led to nothing but vain hopes and frequent disappointments.

Clide was growing sick to death of the miserable business. He had been more than two months now stationed at his post. Isabel’s illness had made two-thirds of that time utterly useless to him; but it was now a full week since the doctor had declared her convalescent, and he seemed no nearer the solution of her identity than when he first descried her through the panel of the door. He determined at last one morning to go in and speak out his mind to the medical man. He told him that he insisted on an interview with Mr. Percival, or else he would take steps in the matter which might be disagreeable to all parties. It was quite inexplicable, he said, that they should not have been able to find an opportune moment or letting him approach the patient all this time, and the persistent obstacles that were thrown in the way of an interview with the man who called himself her guardian led him to infer that both Mr. Percival and the doctor were in league to prevent her identity being tested and established.

The effect of this broadside was startling. But although it took the doctor entirely by surprise, it did not throw him off his guard or disturb his presence of mind. He looked at the speaker for a moment in silence, and then said in a perfectly cool and collected manner:

“I see there is no use in playing at this game any longer. I have humored you up to this, and borne with your mania, because I knew it was a mania. It has been plain to me from the third time I saw you, Mr. de Winton, that you were yourself the victim of a delusion and an eligible candidate for a lunatic asylum. I have prevented Mr. Percival from taking steps to have you confined—the law empowers us to do so when a madman threatens the security and honor of another—because I hoped the monomania would wear itself out with patience. I find I have been mistaken. I shall interfere no farther with Mr. Percival in his legitimate desire to protect the lady who is under my care from your persistent persecution. She is no more your wife than she is mine. Your story about her is as groundless as the ravings of a man in fever.”

While the doctor delivered himself of this attack Clide stared at him in stupefaction. He saw the medical man’s glance fixed on him with the expression of one who was versed in the art of reading the mind through that lucid and faithful interpreter—the eye. But though he was both shocked and indignant, he was not a whit frightened; he bore the scrutiny without flinching, without dropping his lid once.

“You are a clever tactician, I see,” he said coolly. “Carrying the war into the enemy’s country is one of the desperate strategies of a daring general, but it is sometimes more fatal to the invader than to the invaded. You have now thrown off the mask and shown me exactly what manner of man I have to deal with, and I shall resort to other means than those I have hitherto employed for seeing the patient whom I am now absolutely and fully convinced is no other than my unhappy wife.”

He rose, and was leaving without further parley when the doctor cried out:

“You can see her this moment, if you choose—that is, if you choose to be guilty of homicide. I am prepared to state before the first men in the faculty, and to stake my character on the assertion, that—if she be your wife—the sight of you, supposing that it brings recognition, will be fatal to her life by causing the rupture of a vessel on the brain. Come back with any qualified witnesses you think fit, and I will repeat this in their presence, and then, on your responsibility, I will conduct you to the patient.”

Clide made no answer, but left the house, and was soon on his way to Piccadilly in a cab. The admiral had come to town the night before; it was partly the desire to be able to give his uncle some definite information concerning the inmate of the mad-house that had driven him to burn his ships and have it out with the doctor.

The cab stopped, and as Clide alighted he was accosted by a friendly voice and the grip of a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Hallo, De Winton! How are you? Where have you turned up from?”

It was Ponsonby Anwyll’s voice; he looked in the highest state of elation, blonder and burlier than ever, the very picture of good temper, good digestion, and general prosperity.

The sight of him jarred on Clide; he had naturally a vindictive feeling toward poor Ponsonby since that random shot of Sir Simon’s about his making Franceline a good husband by and by. He did not believe a word of it; but it made him feel savagely to the young squire, nevertheless. How dare he behave so as to get his name coupled with hers at all?

“I have been hanging about town for some time,” returned Clide as stiffly as he could without being uncivil. “I suppose you’re on leave? Or perhaps quartered somewhere hereabouts?”

“Quartered! No such luck! We’re vegetating in Devonshire still, I’m sorry to say; but there’ll soon be an end of it for me. I mean to sell out and settle down one of these days. I’ve come up to try and get a month’s leave. I think I’ll succeed, too, the colonel is such an awfully good fellow; and what do you think I’m going to do with it? Where do you think I’m going to spend it?”

“How should I know?”

“At Nice! Sir Simon Harness has asked me over to stay at his villa there; the De la Bourbonais are there, you know. You’ll be glad to hear that Franceline has made a splendid recovery of it, and the count has picked up wonderfully too.… Oh! I beg a thousand pardons. Pray allow me!…” This was to an old lady whose umbrella he had whisked into the middle of the street with a touch of his stick, that he kept swinging round while he held forth to Clide. When he had picked it up and dusted it, and apologized three times over, he went on to say: “Why shouldn’t you run over and see them all too, eh? You used to be very friendly with the count, eh? And Sir Simon would be enchanted to see you. There’s nothing he likes so much as being come down on by a friend unawares, you know.”

“I never gratify my friends in that respect,” said Clide freezingly; “I always wait to be invited. Are you to be a large party at the villa?”

“I don’t fancy so; but I really don’t know. The only invitations I know of are myself and Roxham. He’s a capital fellow, Roxham; I’m glad we are going together. I wish you’d come too, though, eh? Perhaps you’ll think it over and pop down on us one of these days when we least expect it? Have you any message for Sir Simon or any of them?”

“My best respects to M. de la Bourbonais and his daughter. Good-afternoon. A pleasant journey to you!”

“Wish me good-luck about the leave first!” said the good-natured, obtuse dragoon as he strode on, laughing.

“The lumbering idiot! How I should like to kick him! The impudence of the lout calling her Franceline!” This was Mr. de Winton’s soliloquy as he stood looking after Ponsonby, giving at the same time a pull to the bell as if the house were on fire.

The admiral was out. Cromer, his old valet, who had first sounded the signal about Isabel, happened to be at his master’s for the day, and said he believed he had gone to see Master Clide. Clide jumped back into his cab and told the man to go like the wind, as he wanted to overtake some one. His reflections on the way were none of the pleasantest. What was bringing Ponsonby Anwyll to spend a month at Sir Simon’s while M. de la Bourbonais and his daughter were there? What but to marry Franceline? Had she, then, so completely forgotten Clide? Why not? If his love for her had a tithe of the unselfishness it boasted, he ought to be the first to rejoice at it; to be glad that she was happy and was about to become the wife of a good and honorable and warm-hearted man whom she loved. Did she love him? could she love him?—a lump of red and white clay with as much soul as a prize bull! She that was such an ethereal, lily creature—how could it be possible? What could any girl see in him to love? If this was an irrational and unfair estimate of Ponsonby’s outward and inward man, it was natural enough on Clide’s part. No man, be he ever so reasonable, is expected to do justice to the claims of any other man to be preferred by the woman he loves. But Clide was more savage with Sir Simon even than with Anwyll. What business had he to go meddling at making a match for Franceline? Why could he not have let her alone, and let destiny take its course—or, to put it in a more concrete shape, let Clide de Winton take his chance? Clide did not consider that his chance virtually had no existence whatever in Sir Simon’s calculations. He believed that Isabel’s identity was established beyond a doubt, and that this fact, much as he might regret it, excluded Clide for ever from having any part in Franceline’s destiny. He believed, moreover, or he wished to believe—which with the sanguine Sir Simon meant one and the same thing—that Clide had quite got over his _passion malheureuse_ for Franceline, but, whether he had or not, it could not be helped; he could not marry her, and it was preposterous to expect that she was to remain unmarried out of consideration for his feelings. Here was an admirable settlement in life that presented itself, and it was Sir Simon’s duty, as her self-elected guardian and her father’s oldest friend, to do all in his power to secure it to her.

Oh! but if Franceline would but wait a little longer—it might be such a very little while—until Clide was free! “What a pitiful thing a woman’s love is compared to a man’s! If I had been in her position, and she in mine,” he thought, “I would have waited a lifetime for her!”

You see Clide was assuming, in spite of his oft-sighed hopes to the contrary, that Franceline did love him. He argued the point bitterly in his mind, accusing her and acquitting her and cursing his own fate all in the same breath, as he rattled over the stony street. But the cursing brought no relief. Help was nowhere at hand. In the old story-books, when a man found himself at bay with difficulties, he called the devil to the rescue, and the devil came. These delightful legends generally represent him in spectacles and a bottle-green coat; they may sometimes differ as to the precise color of the coat, but they all agree that he was the most accommodating practitioner, often volunteering his services without waiting to be asked. When it came to striking a bargain, no one was more liberal than he. The man in difficulties made his own terms: unlimited wealth, a long life with the lady of his choice, the sweet triumphs of revenge—one or all of these the devil would concede with the utmost generosity; all the client had to do in return was to scratch his name to a bit of paper, signing his soul away—a sort of post-obit bill to be presented at some period that was not always even of necessity specified.

If this obliging old legendary personage had appeared at this juncture to Clide de Winton, I suspect he would have had little difficulty in striking a bargain with him. To be free; to burst at once this odious, insufferable chain that must soon be dissolved by death; to be able to seize the prize that was about to be snatched from him at the very moment he felt sure that a little delay would have secured it to him for ever—to obtain this Clide would have signed away his life, ay, and his soul’s life too, for the asking. No evil one, it is true, presented himself in a bottle-green coat or any other visible attire, but one, nevertheless, got close enough to the distracted lover’s ear to whisper a proposal audibly. An invisible devil jumped into the cab with him, and sat close to him all the way from Piccadilly home, and never ceased urging, pleading; no tongue of flesh ever spoke more distinctly:

“You have the game in your own hands. The doctor is out now. You know your way to her room. No one will stop you. Go straight up, and walk in, and address your wife; you are her husband, and have a right to do it. The shock will kill her; but what of that? What is life to her that any merciful man should wish to prolong it? Death will be the cessation of mental and bodily anguish to her, poor raving maniac, and it will set you free—free to marry Franceline. You know Franceline loves you. The mercy will then be for her too; if she marries Ponsonby Anwyll, it will be only to please her father. She will be miserable; it will break her heart. Go and save both her and yourself.”

When the tempter comes armed with such weapons as these, and finds us in the mood in which Clide was as he drove home through the noisy streets into the quiet suburb, the issue of the struggle, if struggle there be, is hardly doubtful. There was a struggle in this case. You could see it in the feverish movements of the tempted man; he could not sit still, but kept shifting his limbs as we are apt to do when there is no other escape from the steady contemplation of our thoughts. One moment he leaned back with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and stared out of the window; the next he started forward and bent down on his knees, as if examining closely something at his feet. He took off his hat, smoothed it with his coat-sleeve, pushed back his hair, and put his hat on again. This physical agitation seemed to bring him no relief. He drew out his pocket-book and read over attentively the memoranda of the day before—appointments at the club, with his tailor, books that he had dotted down for reading; but while he perused these commonplace items the voice of the tempter kept on whispering, louder and louder, sweeter and sweeter. The dusty cab was the temple of a vision. Franceline stood before him, with her arms outstretched; she drew nearer, she called him by his name; he felt her breath upon his cheek, the soft touch of her hand in his. Could sin come to him in such guise as this? His features for a moment were convulsed, swayed by the terrible conflict. Gradually the combat ceased, and an expression, not of calm, but of rigid determination, settled on them; the dark brows drew together, making that black line across the forehead which gave to Clide’s face its peculiar, strong individuality. He had not accepted the tempter’s arguments, but he had accepted the issue they pointed at, twisting reasons to his own purpose, and adopting the sophistry of passion: “I will go and accost her. Ten to one—what do I say? a hundred to one, she is not my wife. The absence of the silver tooth ought to have convinced me of that long ago. It ought to have settled the non-identity from the first; for Percival says he never heard of such a thing. As to its killing her, supposing she be my wife, it’s all nonsense; the fellow is in Percival’s pay, and that’s why he has fought out so against my seeing her. I’ll defy him once for all, and make an end of it one way or another.”

Clide did not, or would not, see the palpable paradox that there was in this train of reasoning; but deafen himself as he might by sophistry and inclination, he could not drown the voice of conscience, that clamored so as to make itself heard above every other.

“Has the admiral been here?” was his first question as he sprang out of the cab and rushed up-stairs.

“Yes, sir; him and Mr. Simpson.”

“Ah! Simpson. Are they long gone?”

“Not above a good quarter of an hour. They’re not gone very far; they’re over yonder,” said Stanton, with a knowing jerk of his head in the direction of the asylum.

Clide started.

“What do you mean? What are they gone to do there?”

“They’re just gone to have it out with the doctor, sir. Mr. Simpson says it’s all gammon about your not being let see her. He’s gone over to insist on seeing her himself—him and the admiral; and if the doctor refuses to let them up, Mr. Simpson’ll set the law on him.”

“Good God! they will kill her. They have done it already perhaps! I am too late to stop them!” said Clide, white to the lips, and taking a stride towards the door. The room reeled round him. Was he going to be an accomplice in the murder of his wife? He would at that moment have renounced Franceline for ever to prevent the act that a few minutes ago he was bent on committing.

Stanton was frightened.

“Stay you here, Master Clide,” he said, taking him by both arms and forcing him into a chair. “Don’t you take on like that. I’ll run across and stop ‘em. There an’t no ‘arm done; the doctor’s never in the ‘ouse at this hour, and they never ‘ud let them hup without him. You stay quiet while I run after them. I’ll be back in no time.”

Clide made no resistance; he let himself drop into the chair in a kind of stupor. The sudden reaction, coming close upon the fierce mental conflict he had gone through, acted like a blow on a drunken man; it stunned and felled him.

“Go, then, and be quick, for God’s sake!” he muttered.

* * * * *

Ten minutes went by, and then fifteen, and Clide began to wonder what was keeping Stanton.

He could bear the suspense no longer, but took up his hat and went to see what caused the delay.

Stanton, meantime, had not been amusing himself. In answer to his inquiries the porter informed him that the two gentlemen he was looking for had called at the house and asked to see the doctor, and, on hearing that he was out and not expected home for half an hour, had declined to come in, but were walking about the place waiting for him. Stanton hesitated a moment whether he should run home at once with this reassuring news to his master, or fetch the admiral and Mr. Simpson, and bring them back with him; he decided for the latter and set off to look for them. The grounds were spacious and thickly planted enough to admit of two persons easily getting out of sight for a few minutes; but when Stanton had looked all round, walking hastily from avenue to alley, and could see no trace of the two gentlemen, he began to think they must have changed their minds and gone away. He went on, however, a good way behind the house until he came on a low brick wall that he fancied must mark the limits of the premises. He was about to turn back when he heard a loud, shrill scream proceeding from the other side of the wall. He ran along by it till he saw a door that was ajar, and then, without pausing to consider where he was going or what he was doing, rushed in and ran on in the direction of the scream. Presently he heard voices raised in angry strife. A few more steps brought him in presence of Admiral de Winton, Mr. Simpson, and a third gentleman. They were disputing violently. The admiral was supporting a woman who had apparently fainted; the stranger was expostulating and trying to take her from him; Mr. Simpson was standing between them, speaking in loud and authoritative tones:

“Very well, very good; we shall see if it is as you say. But we must see for ourselves; we must find out if there was nothing in her crying out ‘Clide! Clide!’ the moment she saw this gentleman and heard his voice. Stand back! Don’t lay a finger on him or on her! I _do_ know what I am doing—I know better than you do. Stand off, I tell you!”

The stranger was, however, determined to make a fight for it, and was answering in a bullying, insolent manner when Stanton came up.

“I know that voice! Where have I heard it?” was the valet’s first thought as the loud, harsh tones fell on his ear.

There was a garden seat close at hand. The admiral was carrying the fainting woman towards it. Stanton ran forward to help.

“Go to the house and call for proper assistance,” said Mr. Simpson shortly to the stranger. “You know where to find it, I suppose; you know the house.”

“I know I sha’n’t move from this while my child is at the mercy of two escaped lunatics! That’s what I know,” retorted the other savagely.

The words were not out of his mouth when Stanton was at his throat, collaring him with both hands.

“You scoundrel! I’ve caught you at last,” he said. “You villain of villains! I’ll do for you! He’s the fellow that called himself Prendergast, and that’s master Clide’s wife!”

All this took much less time to enact than to relate. The scream which had brought Stanton to the spot had been heard by an attendant; there was always one on the watch in the neighborhood of the patients’ garden, and she came hurrying up in an instant.

“Who are you all, and what are you doing here?” she cried, casting an alarmed look at the three men and at the lifeless figure stretched on the wooden seat.

“A couple of escaped lunatics!” shouted Mr. Percival, struggling furiously. Stanton was holding him by the collar, while Mr. Simpson pinioned him from behind, the admiral standing meantime, bent in eager scrutiny, over the strange figure, decked out in faded flowers and ribbons, that lay insensible before him.

“Come here!” he said, beckoning to the attendant; “come and attend to this poor creature, and leave those gentlemen to settle their business alone.”

The woman evidently felt that this was what it most concerned her to do; she allowed the admiral to lift the patient in his arms, while she guided him into the house. They had just entered by a back door when Clide de Winton walked by in search of Stanton. The porter had directed him to “somewhere about the grounds,” and, after looking in vain up and down the avenues, he was going to give it up in despair when he saw the door in the garden wall, now wide open, and heard a voice which he recognized as Stanton’s, “Come on! You may as well give in and come quietly; bad language and kicks will only make it worse for you, you rascal!”

Clide was quickly on the spot, and beheld Stanton and Mr. Simpson wrestling desperately with a man whose fury seemed a match for their united strength.

“I’ve caught him, Master Clide! We have him tight—that rascal Prendergast! You an’t he? You be choked for a —— liar!”

Clide stood for a moment confounded. There was not a trait of resemblance, as far as he could see, between the stout, full-bodied man with jet black hair, and the gray-haired, thin, miserable-looking mortal whom he remembered as Mr. Prendergast. His first idea was that Stanton had made another outrageous mistake, as in the case of Miss Eliza Jane Honey.

“Who are you? You are not the Mr. Prendergast I knew, are you?” he said, addressing the stranger.

“Of course I am not! I never saw you or this madman in my life! My name is Mathew Percival; my daughter is unfortunately a patient in this asylum, and this fellow will have it that she is his wife!”

“My master’s wife, you scoundrel! Don’t think to come over us with making believe not to understand! She’s Mr. Clide de Winton’s wife!” said Stanton, taking a tighter grip, as if he feared the prize might make a sudden dart and escape from him.

“You _are_ the man who called himself Prendergast, and whose niece, as you then called her, I married!” said Clide. The voice and the broad Scotch accent were unmistakable, though the speaker had made an effort to disguise them. “You say she is your daughter now. Speak the truth at once. The patient in yonder house is the Isabel Cameron whom I married. Let him go, Simpson! Stanton, let go your hold on him! Speak out now.”

Mr. Prendergast, or Percival, looked down sullenly for a moment, as if making up his mind how to meet this challenge; then he looked up with the dogged, defiant air of a man at bay who is resolved to die game. He was going to speak, when a woman, the same attendant who had just left them, came running up in breathless haste.

“Stanton! Which of you is Stanton?” she cried.

“It’s me!”

“Then go as fast as you can and fetch your master! His wife is calling for him; run quickly, or it will be too late. She is dying!”

“I am his master! I am her husband! Take me with you!” said Clide, turning so white that Stanton thought he was going to faint and made a movement to give him his arm; but Clide waved him away and walked on with a steady step.

Something between a cry and an oath escaped from Percival; he made no attempt to follow them, but muttered more to himself than to his companions:

“The murder is out! There is nothing more to tell. She is his wife, and I am the Prendergast he knew.”

Stanton’s fury had subsided in an instant, quenched by the chill which those words of the attendant had thrown upon the group: “_She is dying!_” What had human passion or earthly vengeance to do now with Isabel or Mr. Prendergast? In the presence of the Great Avenger all other vengeance was silenced. The three men walked on toward the house without exchanging a word. The porter let them in. The doctor, he said, had not yet returned. It did not matter; they would wait, not for him now, but for Death.

When Clide entered the room, he beheld Admiral de Winton seated beside the dying woman’s bed; her face was lifted toward his with a mute expression, half of yearning, half of fear, while she listened to the soothing words he tried to speak to her. The moment Clide appeared her eyes turned toward him. There was no mistaking the identity now; those eyes, so faded and dim, were the same that had first fired his foolish heart with their dark young radiance. The cheeks, once round, were wan and hollow, the glossy, ebon hair was specked with gray, but the face was that of his long-lost wife, the Isabel of his boyish love.

“You have come!… You have come to say that you forgive me!” she said in faint, low tones, fastening a wistful, trembling glance on him; for Clide did not advance at once, but stood on the threshold, arrested by the mournful spectacle.

“Isabel!” he exclaimed, approaching softly, and he knelt down and leaned over her.

She looked at him so long without speaking that he began to fear she did not know him after all. He raised the little hand to his lips, and then stroked it caressingly; the action, the touch, seemed to strike some chord long sleeping.

“Clide, Clide!” she murmured, and the tears rose and rolled in large drops down her cheeks. His heart was wrung with pity; there was no room for any other feeling. If she had wronged him as deeply as he had ever feared, he forgave it all. He remembered nothing but that they had once loved each other, that she had suffered cruelly, and that she was dying.

“My poor Isabel! I forgive you with all my heart, as I hope to be forgiven; so help me God!”

He let his head fall on the pillow beside her and wept silently.

Admiral de Winton made a sign to the attendant that they had better withdraw and leave them alone; she hesitated a moment, and then followed him and closed the door softly behind her. And so they were once more together—those two who had been joined and parted, and reunited now for a moment only before the final parting. No one disturbed them, no eye looked behind the curtain while that last sacred interview lasted. For three hours Clide knelt by the side of his dying wife, her hand in his, her head resting on his breast. He whispered words of tenderness and mercy to the wearied spirit; he told her of a Love greater than his, and of a pardon mightier and more availing, of which his was but the pledge and the forerunner.

At sunset she died.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

NAPOLEON I. AND PIUS VII.[75]

In the _Life of Pope Pius VII._ Miss Allies has given us a picture of rare beauty and deep interest. We think, however, that the title of the book has not been well chosen. It is not a biography of Pius VII., but a history of the efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte to make the Papacy an appendage and support of the vast empire which he had founded with his sword. The materials for the narrative have been drawn chiefly from the _Mémoires_ of Cardinal Consalvi and the _Memorie Storiche_ of Cardinal Pacca, both of whom were witnesses of the facts which they relate. The author is also greatly indebted to the recent work of d’Haussonville, _L’Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire_.

The shock of the Revolution of 1789, which unsettled everything in Europe—ideas, customs, laws, government—could not possibly have left the church undisturbed. In France the goods of the clergy were declared to belong to the nation. The churches were turned into temples of Reason, the convents converted into barracks, the priests who remained faithful to their consciences guillotined or sent into exile. The new republic, “one and indivisible,” aspired to be also universal, and soon the clash of arms resounded throughout Europe. Napoleon, at the head of the army of Italy, gained those brilliant victories which kindled in his heart the flame of an all-devouring ambition. He was ordered to march upon Rome, and he wrote to Cardinal Mattei: “Save the pope from the greatest of evils; be persuaded that I need only the will in order to destroy his power.” Pius VI. was in consequence forced to sign a treaty in which he gave up a considerable part of his territory, and in the following year (1798) the French republic invaded Rome. The reign of the popes was declared to be at an end; the Holy Father was dragged away into captivity, and in August, 1799, died at Valence. The following November the cardinals met in conclave in Venice under the protection of Russia, England, and Turkey, and elected Barnaba Chiaramonti, who took the title of Pius VII., and on the 3d of July, 1800, entered Rome amidst universal demonstrations of joy. Just two months before Bonaparte had led his victorious troops across the Alps, and, having triumphed over Austria, had a _Te Deum_ sung in the cathedral of Milan for the deliverance of Italy from infidels and heretics—the Turks, namely, and the English. Shortly afterwards he informed Pius VII. of his wish to open negotiations for the arrangement of religious matters. The First Consul was preparing to assume the purple. “I did not usurp the crown,” he said; “it was lying in the mire: I picked it up. The people placed it on my head.” He felt, however, that an empire founded upon “blood and iron” could not dispense with the moral support of religion. He therefore determined to enter into a Concordat with the pope. This resolution, we are bound to believe, sprang purely from political and selfish motives. Whilst fortune smiled upon him Napoleon cared for religion only so far as it served his ambitious ends. To Menon, in Egypt, he wrote: “I thank you for the honors you have paid to _our prophet_.” In India he would have been for Ali, for Confucius in China, and in Thibet for the Dalai Lama. Consalvi was despatched to Paris to enter into articles of agreement with the First Consul. When the cardinal presented himself before Bonaparte, he turned abruptly upon him and said: “I know what brings you to France. I wish the negotiations to begin at once. I give you five days, and, if at the end of that time matters are not arranged, you must return to Rome; for my own part, I have already provided against such a contingency.”

After many discussions the First Consul declared that he was ready to ratify the Concordat. Joseph Bonaparte, Bernier, and Crétet were to sign for the French government, and Consalvi, Spina, and Caselli for the pope. At the appointed hour and place they all met. Bernier held in his hand what he said was the Concordat, and, as the cardinal claimed the right of signing first, he attempted to get him to affix his signature without looking at the document; but a glance showed Consalvi that a spurious paper had been substituted, and he refused to sign his name. The Concordat was to be proclaimed at a public dinner on the following day; so the discussions were reopened and continued through the whole night, but no satisfactory conclusion was reached. The hour for the dinner arrived, and when the cardinal entered the banquet-hall Bonaparte called out to him in a mocking tone:

“So you wish to break with me, Monsieur le Cardinal? Well,
be it so! I have no need of Rome! I have no need of the
pope! If Henry VIII., without the twentieth part of my
power, was able to change the religion of his subjects, how
much more able am not I! In changing the religion of France
I shall change it in all Europe, in all places where my
power is felt. When will you go?”

“After dinner,” replied the cardinal with seeming unconcern. This outburst of wrath was meant to frighten Consalvi: Bonaparte had really no intention of breaking so suddenly with the pope. Again negotiations were begun. The Concordat was signed, and Joseph was deputed to take it to the First Consul to obtain his _placet_; but the great man tore the paper into a hundred pieces. Finally, however, he yielded, and the public exercise of religious worship was again permitted in France.

But when Bonaparte published the Concordat, he added to it the “Organic Articles,” by which many of its provisions were practically annulled; and he was even guilty of the falsehood of making it appear that these articles were part of the convention with Pius VII. He was resolved to rule the consciences of men in the same absolute way in which he commanded his army. The bishops were required to submit all their official documents to the prefects of the departments. To prelates who were particularly zealous pastorals were sent, made to order by the central bureau at Paris. A bishop was not permitted to appoint or remove a priest without Bonaparte’s permission. Public worship was placed under the supervision of the police.

On the 16th of May, 1804, the senate voted that Napoleon should assume the title of emperor. Two months before, with premeditation and in cold blood, he had had the Duc d’Enghien assassinated at Vincennes; and this stain upon his name made him the more anxious to receive the imperial crown from the consecrated hands of the pope. A middle course was not open to Pius VII. He had either to accept Napoleon’s invitation or to declare himself his enemy.

With the understanding that the “Organic Articles” should be repealed, and that the constitutional clergy should make their retractation in his hands, the pope set out for Paris. In his long journey he was permitted to stop but twice, and upon his first meeting the new emperor he was treated in the most uncivil manner.

On the eve of the coronation Pius VII. received a visit from Josephine. She came to unburden her heart to him. The church had never blessed her marriage with Bonaparte, and she felt that this would probably be her last opportunity to have this matter arranged. The pope declared that he would not assist at the coronation unless the marriage was first contracted according to the rite of the church. The duplicity of Napoleon had deeply wounded the Holy Father, and the emperor’s wrath could not shake the pope’s firm resolve. During the night preceding the coronation, therefore, Cardinal Fesch performed the marriage ceremony in the chapel of the Tuileries in the presence of two witnesses. When the moment for the coronation came, Napoleon took the crown from the altar of Notre Dame, and himself placed it on his head. He had given the Holy Father his word that there should be but one coronation; in violation of this promise he had himself crowned a second time in the Champ de Mars. He crammed for his interviews with the pope, in order to astonish him by his knowledge of church history. Already he was pondering over the thought of keeping the Holy Father in France. The archiepiscopal palace was to be fitted up for Pius VII. and reserved exclusively for the Pontifical Court. When this was intimated to the pope, he replied that it had not been unforeseen; before leaving Rome he had signed a formal abdication, in case he should be forcibly detained in France. The document was in Palermo in the hands of Cardinal Pignatelli; the emperor might imprison Barnaba Chiaramonti, the simple monk, but not Pius VII., the Vicar of Christ.

The subject was dropped. The petty jealousy and dread of rival power or popularity which was so marked a feature in Napoleon’s character could not be concealed whilst the Holy Father remained in Paris as an independent sovereign. He was not allowed to celebrate pontifical Mass at Notre Dame on Christmas day; and he was hurried off to Mâcon before Easter, and thence continued his journey back to Rome, having refused to assist at the ceremony of Napoleon’s coronation at Milan as King of Italy.

Jérome Bonaparte, a younger brother of Napoleon, had married a Protestant girl in the United States, and the emperor, who wished his brothers and sisters to make matrimonial alliances with the most powerful families of Europe, applied to the pope to annul the marriage. Pius VII. declared that he had no power in the case. Napoleon sought revenge by meddling still further with the affairs of the church in Italy, and by taking forcible possession of Ancona, a portion of the papal territory. The Holy Father protested in a letter dated the 13th of November, 1805, which Napoleon did not find time to answer till January 7, 1806. In those two months he had brought to a close one of his most brilliant campaigns, had conquered the emperors of Austria and Russia, and dictated terms to all Europe.

In reply to the protest of the Holy Father Napoleon wrote to his ambassador at Rome in the following style: “The pope has written me a most ridiculous, a most foolish letter. These people thought I was dead.… Since these idiots do not object to the possibility of a Protestant occupying the throne of France, I will send them a Protestant ambassador.… I will change nothing outwardly, if people behave themselves with me; but otherwise I shall reduce the pope to be bishop of Rome. Really, nothing is so wanting in sense as the court of Rome.”

Only the Emperor of Russia and the King of England he declared were masters in their own states, because they had no pope to trouble them.

A month later (February, 1806) Pius VII. received another letter from Napoleon.

“Your Holiness,” he wrote, “must profess the same regard for
me in the temporal order as I profess for you in the
spiritual order. All my enemies must be your enemies. That
an Englishman, a Russian, a Swede, or a minister of the
Sardinian king should henceforth reside in Rome or in any
part of your states is entirely unfitting. No vessel
belonging to any of these states should enter your ports.”

The Holy Father replied that he was unable to assent to demands which were opposed to the character of his divine mission, “which owns no enmities, not even with those who have departed from the centre of unity.” Napoleon attributed the pope’s firmness to the counsels of Consalvi, and he determined to drive him from office. “Tell him,” he wrote to his ambassador, “that but two courses remain open to him: always to do what I wish or to quit the ministry.” He also informed the cardinal that none of his movements were unknown to him, and that for the first compromising act he should answer with his head; he would have him arrested in the streets of Rome. “These priests,” he said, “keep the soul for themselves and throw me the carcass.”

All this storm of imperial rage had broken upon the Head of the church because he had dared defend the honor of a Protestant girl, the daughter of a simple American citizen, against the attacks of the most terrible monarch of Europe.

Napoleon’s dream was to found a great western empire like that of Charlemagne, and for the accomplishment of this design he saw that the co-operation of the pope was necessary. He was therefore willing to defend the pope on condition that he should become his tool and lend himself as an obedient slave to his ambitious projects. But when he saw that there was no hope of bringing Pius VII. to accept his views on this subject, he began to govern the church after his own fashion. The bishops and priests who did not conform to his wishes were thrown into prison or forced to keep silence. He had his victories proclaimed from the pulpits; he furnished pastorals and exhortations in which it was made to appear that he was the defender of the faith, fighting against infidels and heretics; he recommended that prayers should be said that “our brothers, the persecuted Catholics of Ireland, might enjoy liberty of worship.” “Inform M. Robert, a priest of Bourges,” he wrote, “of my displeasure. He preached a very foolish sermon on the 15th of August. L’Abbé de Coucy is a great worry to me. He keeps up too great a correspondence. I wish him to be arrested and put into a monastery.… It is really shameful that you have not yet arrested M. Stevens. People are too sleepy; else how could a wretched priest have escaped?… I see from your letter that you have caused a _curé_ of La Vendée to be arrested. You have acted very wisely. Keep him in prison.” All religious newspapers—save one, the _Journal des Curés_, whose publications were strictly supervised—were suppressed. “No priest,” said Napoleon, “should bother his head about the church except in his sermons.” A special Sunday each year was set aside to commemorate the coronation and the victories of the _Grande Armée_; and in the sermon preached on that day particular mention was to be made of those who had fallen at Austerlitz. M. Portalis was charged with the preparation of a new imperial catechism, which was published in August, 1806. The children of France were taught that “the honor and the service of the emperor is one and the same thing as the honor and service of God”; that those who were wanting in their duty to Napoleon rendered themselves worthy of eternal damnation; and that God had given the crown not only to him, but to his family. The French bishops submitted in silence to this orthodox imperialism.

The next step was to deprive the pope of his temporal power. As Pius VII. had refused to enter into the emperor’s plans for the founding of a great western empire, he was to be imprisoned. Napoleon had just annihilated the wonderful troops of Frederick the Great, and from his palace at Berlin he once more dictated terms to the Holy Father. “Let the pope,” he wrote, “do what I wish, and he will be repaid for the past and the future.”

All Europe, save England, was lying helpless at the feet of the conqueror; and that the pope should continue to defend the interests of a Protestant country against the power of a second Charlemagne was an impossible supposition.

But Napoleon was now so great that he refused to enter into personal correspondence with Pius VII.; so he wrote to Eugene Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, with instructions that he should communicate his letter to the pope.

“They say,” wrote the emperor,” that they want to publish
all the evil that I have committed against religion. The
idiots! They ignore, then, that there does not exist a spot
in Italy, Germany, or Poland where I have not done more for
religion than the pope has done evil.… What does Pius VII.
mean by denouncing me to Christendom? Does he imagine that
their arms will fall from the hands of my soldiers?…
Perhaps the time is not far off when, if this meddling in my
affairs does not stop, I shall acknowledge the pope to be
nothing more than bishop of Rome, holding a rank in all
respects similar to my bishops.… In two words, this is the
last time that I consent to treat with these wretched
priests of Rome.”

The pope replied to these insults in a letter full of meekness and humility, in which he declared that he had refused Napoleon nothing which his conscience would permit him to grant. Napoleon gave orders for the occupation of Rome by the French troops under General Miollis; and the army passed in through the open gates of the city on the 2d of February, 1808. The pope was a prisoner. The Neapolitan cardinals were carried off by force; and in March all who were not natives of the states of the church were ordered to leave Rome. The dethronement of the pope was proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet, and his dominions were declared irrevocably united to the kingdom of Italy. The Holy Father signed the bull of excommunication, and in the night of the 5th of July, 1809, General Radet broke into his apartments, arrested him and Cardinal Pacca, hurried them into a closed carriage, and drove out of Rome through the Porta Pia, accompanied by a detachment of _gendarmes_. The pope, who was ill and weak, was driven in great haste through Italy to Savona, a fortified town near Genoa, where he was imprisoned.

Europe was dumb, the press was silent, and people dared not even express sympathy for the Holy Father. Napoleon tried to make the world forget that there was a pope; but he himself was often reminded of his existence. Many dioceses were without bishops, and the pope refused to confirm those who had been appointed, so long as he was deprived of his liberty. The emperor had some of the highest dignitaries of the French church to write to the prisoner of Savona to represent the evil consequences of this refusal; but to no purpose. All the cardinals were summoned to Paris to grace the Imperial Court. The _Penitentiaria_ and _Dataria_ were also removed thither. Napoleon sent a circular to the bishops, ordering them “to suppress the prayer to St. Gregory VII., and to substitute another feast for that of this saint, whom the Gallican Church cannot recognize.” Everything was “to be organized as if no pope existed.” No priest was to be ordained without the emperor’s permission. “Give orders,” he wrote, “to the prefect of the Taro department to choose fifty of the worst priests at Parma and fifty of the worst at Piacenza.… Let them embark for Corsica.”