To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII

Product Information

The imperial government had expected that the threat of a concile national meeting in Paris would induce the pope to make concessions. In April 1811 all the bishops of the French empire, of the kingdom of Italy and Karl Theodor von Dalberg, prince-primate of Regensburg, were summoned to Paris. Footnote 56 The intention was that an assembly of the bishops of the imperial Church could circumvent papal authority and sanction canonical investiture by metropolitan archbishops (or in their absence the senior bishop of the province). Although superficially simple, this plan rapidly ran into difficulties. The three deputy bishops returned from Savona with a note, dated 19 May, which they claimed had the pope's sanction. Footnote 57 It comprised four articles which accepted the metropolitans’ right to invest new bishops within six months of nomination. Within forty-eight hours, the pope's conscience caused him to disavow the note and retracted the last two articles. From a legal standpoint, the note was unsigned and thus valueless. The French state would gain thereby the strength that came from social cohesion in the religious sphere and the right to nominate bishops for papal approval. Conversely, by being given a state-sponsored hand in the work of ecclesial reconstruction, the papacy saw an opening for undermining the traditionally problematic autonomy of the Gallican Church in relation to Rome.

Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII | napoleonicwars To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII | napoleonicwars

In this enthralling study, Ambrogio Caiani gives a vivid account of the struggle between the two men, which would continue virtually unabated until Napoleon’s death on St Helena in 1821. He is commendably even-handed in his analysis, presenting it both as a personal tussle between two dogged opponents and as a clash between contrasting visions of the world: a Catholicism ever more drawn to counter-revolutionary reaction, and an emperor consciously pursuing his own brand of modernity."—Alan Forrest, BBC History Magazine This 5 May will mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death on St Helena. The occasion will no doubt be marked, as was the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo six years ago, by a flood of new books about the emperor, adding yet more to the estimated 200,000 already written. Given this saturation, one wonders if there is anything left to say. This fascinating book proves that there is. It does so by focusing on a crucial yet neglected aspect of Napoleon’s rule: his bitter, decade-long confrontation with Pope Pius VII. This marked an important step both in the emperor’s decline and fall, and in the evolution of the Catholic Church. THE entry of Brigadier Etienne Radet, supported by 700 soldiers of the occupying French garrison, into Rome’s Quirinale Palace in the small hours of 5/6 July 1809 was ill-starred. An attempt at surreptitious ingress via the gardens and an upstairs window descended into noisy farce, gendarmes first entangling themselves in ornamental foliage and then crashing to the ground on an overloaded ladder. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’

Title Detail: To Kidnap a Pope by Ambrogio A. Caiani

The abbés Lamennais (Jean, brother to the more famous Hugues), Astros, Perreau, Dauchet and many others, linked to the anti-imperial chevaliers de la foi conspiracy, were distinctly un-nostalgic. Footnote 39 They were radicals, who wanted a much more powerful and reformed Church to be built on the ruins of Gallicanism. In this they were natural allies of the papacy, and during the Restoration made some important contributions to political thought. Footnote 40 That said, Gallicanism did not die with the empire: the abbé Denis-Luc Frayssinous, who was the secretary to the concile national of 1811, and the later rector of the Restoration university, did his best, with a neo-Gallican clique, to rejuvenate French ecclesiastical traditions. Footnote 41 The battle between Gallican and Ultramontane ecclesiology would continue right up to the 1848 revolutions and beyond. Footnote 42 Caiani uses newfound research from the Vatican Archives and isn’t afraid to provide readers with the unusual conclusion that neither Napoleon nor Pope Pius emerge as the victor of the decade-long confrontation.”—Eleanor Longman-Rood, Reaction In gripping, vivid prose, Caiani brings to life the struggle for power that would shape modern Europe. It all makes for a historical read which is both original and enjoyable.”—Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette Caiani leads the reader expertly through diplomatic and theological disputes, a dynastic marriage, international relations and war. He handles this complex narrative deftly, without too much assumption of prior knowledge.”—David Laven , Times Literary SupplementThe most forgotten aspect of 1811 was the brief re-emergence of parlementaire Gallicanism. The council of state appointed a special commission of experts to explore legal remedies and apply pressure on the episcopate to solve the investiture crisis. It was presided over by Régnier, as minister of justice, and included some of the most famous jurists of the empire: Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès, Bigot, Michel Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély and Achille Libéral Treilhard. Footnote 87 Many of these men had been close to the Jansenist avocats of the parlement of Paris who had resisted the papal bull Unigenitus with great vigour throughout the eighteenth century. Footnote 88 From this older generation of lawyers they had inherited a disdain for any intrusion by Rome into French affairs. They were eager to protect Gallicanism from papal interference. In this goal they had a keen ally in the Voltairian, and anti-clerical minister of police, Anne Jean Savary duc de Rovigo. Footnote 89 He had been a key figure in the repression of secret networks of Ultramontane clergy, and had overseen the interrogation and arrests of the three bishops who had challenged the emperor's intentions during the concile. In many ways these men were the ideologues of Napoleon's ‘War against God’.