Part 34

"It has always been the maxim of the French court, that the papal power is to be restricted by means of the French clergy, and that the clergy, on the other hand, are to be kept in due limits by means of the papal power. But never did a prince hold his clergy in more absolute command than Louis XIV. … The prince of Condé declared it to be his opinion, that if it pleased the king to go over to the Protestant church, the clergy would be the first to follow him. And certainly the clergy of France did support their king without scruple against the pope. The declarations they published were from year to year increasingly decisive in favour of the royal authority. At length there assembled the convocation of 1682. 'It was summoned and dissolved,' remarks a Venetian ambassador, 'at the convenience of the king's ministers, and was guided by their suggestions.' The four articles drawn up by this assembly have from that time been regarded as the manifesto of the Gallican immunities. The first three repeat assertions of principles laid down in earlier times; as, for example, the independence of the secular power, as regarded the spiritual authority; the superiority of councils over the pope; and the inviolable character of the Gallican usages. {2463} But the fourth is more particularly remarkable, since it imposes new limits even to the spiritual authority of the pontiff. 'Even in questions of faith, the decision of the pope is not incapable of amendment, so long as it is without the assent of the church.' We see that the temporal power of the kingdom received support from the spiritual authority, which was in its turn upheld by the secular arm. The king is declared free from the interference of the pope's temporal authority; the clergy are exempted from submission to the unlimited exercise of his spiritual power. It was the opinion of contemporaries, that although France might remain within the pale of the Catholic church, it yet stood on the threshold, in readiness for stepping beyond it. The king exalted the propositions above named into a kind of 'Articles of Faith,' a symbolical book. All schools were to be regulated in conformity with these precepts; and no man could attain to a degree, either in the juridical or theological faculties, who did not swear to maintain them. But the pope also was still possessed of a weapon. The authors of this declaration—the members of this assembly—were promoted and preferred by the king before all other candidates for episcopal offices; but Innocent refused to grant them spiritual institution. They might enjoy the revenues of those sees, but ordination they did not receive; nor could they venture to exercise one spiritual act of the episcopate. These complications were still further perplexed by the fact that Louis XIV. at that moment resolved on that relentless extirpation of the Huguenots, but too well known, and to which he proceeded chiefly for the purpose of proving his own perfect orthodoxy. He believed himself to be rendering a great service to the church. It has indeed been also affirmed that Innocent XI. was aware of his purpose and had approved it, but this was not the fact. The Roman court would not now hear of conversions effected by armed apostles. 'It was not of such methods that Christ availed himself: men must be led to the temple, not dragged into it.' New dissensions continually arose. In the year 1687, the French ambassador entered Rome with so imposing a retinue, certain squadrons of cavalry forming part of it, that the right of asylum, which the ambassadors claimed at that time, not only for their palace, but also for the adjacent streets, could by no means have been easily disputed with him, although the popes had solemnly abolished the usage. With an armed force the ambassador braved the pontiff in his own capital. 'They come with horses and chariots,' said Innocent, 'but we will walk in the name of the Lord.' He pronounced the censures of the church on the ambassador; and the church of St. Louis, in which the latter had attended a solemn high mass, was laid under interdict. The king also then proceeded to extreme measures. He appealed to a general council, took possession of Avignon, and caused the nuncio to be shut up in St. Olon: it was even believed that he had formed the design of creating for Harlai, archbishop of Paris, who, if he had not suggested these proceedings, had approved them, the appointment of patriarch of France. So far had matters proceeded: the French ambassador in Rome excommunicated; the papal nuncio in France detained by force; thirty-five French bishops deprived of canonical institution; a territory of the Holy See occupied by the king: it was, in fact, the actual breaking out of schism; yet did Pope Innocent refuse to yield a single step. If we ask to what he trusted for support on this occasion, we perceive that it was not to the effect of the ecclesiastical censures in France, nor to the influence of his apostolic dignity, but rather, and above all, to that universal resistance which had been aroused in Europe against those enterprises of Louis XIV. that were menacing the existence of its liberties. To this general opposition the pope now also attached himself. … If the pope had promoted the interests of Protestantism by his policy, the Protestants on their side, by maintaining the balance of Europe against the 'exorbitant Power,' also contributed to compel the latter into compliance with the spiritual claims of the papacy. It is true that when this result ensued, Innocent XI. was no longer in existence; but the first French ambassador who appeared in Rome after his death (10th of August, 1689) renounced the right of asylum: the deportment of the king was altered; he restored Avignon, and entered into negotiations. … After the early death of Alexander VIII., the French made all possible efforts to secure the choice of a pontiff disposed to measures of peace and conciliation; a purpose that was indeed effected by the elevation of Antonio Pignatelli, who assumed the tiara with the name of Innocent XII., on the 12th of July, 1691. … The negotiations continued for two years. Innocent more than once rejected the formulas proposed to him by the clergy of France, and they were, in fact, compelled at length to declare that all measures discussed and resolved on in the assembly of 1682 should be considered as not having been discussed or resolved on: 'casting ourselves at the feet of your holiness, we profess our unspeakable grief for what has been done.' It was not until they had made this unreserved recantation that Innocent accorded them canonical institution. Under these conditions only was peace restored. Louis XIV. wrote to the pope that he retracted his edict relating to the four articles. Thus we perceive that the Roman see once more maintained its prerogatives, even though opposed by the most powerful of monarchs."

_L. Ranke, History of the Popes, book 8, section 16 (volume 2)._

PAPACY:A. D. 1689. Election of Alexander VIII.

PAPACY:A. D. 1691. Election of Innocent XII.

PAPACY:A. D. 1700. Election of Clement XI.

PAPACY:A. D. 1700-1790. Effects of the War of the Spanish Succession. Declining Powers.

The issue of the War of the Spanish Succession "will serve to show us that when the Pope was not, as in his contest with Louis XIV., favoured by political events, he could no longer laugh to scorn the edicts of European potentates. Charles II. of Spain, that wretched specimen of humanity, weak in body, and still weaker in mind, haunted by superstitious terrors which almost unsettled his reason, was now, in the year 1700, about to descend to a premature grave. He was without male issue, and was uncertain to whom he should bequeath the splendid inheritance transmitted to him by his ancestors. The Pope, Innocent XII., who was wholly in the interests of France, urged him to bequeath Spain, with its dependencies, to Philip, Duke of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV., who claimed through his grandmother, the eldest sister of Charles. {2464} He would thus prevent the execution of the partition treaty concluded between France, England, and Holland, according to which the Archduke Charles … was to have Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands, while France took the Milanese, or the Province of Lorraine. The Archbishop of Toledo seconded the exhortation of the Pope, and so worked on the superstitious terrors of the dying monarch that he signed a will in favour of the Duke of Anjou, which was the cause of lamentation, and mourning, and woe, for twelve years, throughout Europe, from the Vistula to the Atlantic Ocean. …

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.

The Duke of Marlborough's splendid victories of Blenheim and Ramillies … placed the Emperor Joseph (1705-11), the brother of the Archduke Charles, in possession of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands and the victory of Prince Eugene before Turin made him supreme in the north of Italy and the kingdom of Naples

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707; ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713.

The Pope, Clement XI., was now reduced to a most humiliating position. Political events had occurred … which served to show very plainly that the Pope, without a protector, could not, as in former days, bid defiance to the monarchs of Europe. His undutiful son, the Emperor, compelled him to resign part of his territories as a security for his peaceful demeanour, and to acknowledge the Archduke Charles, the Austrian claimant to the Spanish throne. The peace of Utrecht, concluded in 1713 [see UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714], which produced the dismemberment of the monarchy, but left Philip in the peaceful occupation of the throne of Spain, did indeed release him from that obligation; but it did not restore him to the 'high and palmy state' which he occupied before he was obliged to submit to the Imperial arms. It inflicted a degradation upon him, for it transferred to other sovereigns, without his consent, his fiefs of Sicily and Sardinia. Now, also, it became manifest that the Pope could no longer assert an indirect sovereignty over the Italian States; for, notwithstanding his opposition, it conferred a large extent of territory on the Duke of Savoy, which has, in our day, been expanded into a kingdom under the sceptre of Victor Emmanuel and his successor. We have a further evidence of the decline of the Papacy in the change in the relative position of the States of Europe as Papal and anti-Papal during the eighteenth century, after the death of Louis XIV. The Papal powers of Spain in the sixteenth century, and of France, Spain, and Austria, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, determined the policy of Europe. … On the other hand, England, Prussia, and Russia became, in the eighteenth century, the great leading powers in the world. … The Pope, then, no longer stood at the head of those powers which swayed the destinies of Europe. … The Papacy, from the death of Louis XIV. till the time of the French Revolution, led a very quiet and obscure life. It had no part in any of the great events which during the eighteenth century were agitating Europe, and gained no spiritual or political victories."

_A. R. Pennington, Epochs of the Papacy, chapter 10._

PAPACY: A. D. 1713. The Bull Unigenitus and the Christian doctrines it condemned.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

PAPACY: A. D. 1721. Election of Innocent XIII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1724. Election of Benedict XIII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1730. Election of Clement XII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1740. Election of Benedict XIV.

PAPACY: A. D. 1758. Election of Clement XIII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1765-1769. Defense of the Jesuits, on their expulsion from France, Spain, Parma, Venice, Modena and Bavaria.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.

PAPACY: A. D. 1769. Election of Clement XIV.

PAPACY: A. D. 1773. Suppression of the Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.

PAPACY: A. D. 1775. Election of Pius VI.

PAPACY: A. D. 1789-1810. Founding of the Roman Episcopate in the United States of America.

In 1789, the first episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was founded, at Baltimore, by a bull of Pope Pius VI., which appointed Father John Carroll to be its bishop. In 1810, Bishop Carroll "was raised to the dignity of Archbishop, and four suffragan dioceses were created, with their respective sees at Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Bardstown, in Kentucky."

_J. A. Russell, The Catholic Church in the United States (History of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, pages 16-18)._

PAPACY: A. D. 1790-1791. Revolution at Avignon. Reunion of the Province with France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.

PAPACY: A. D. 1796. First extortions of Bonaparte from the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

PAPACY: A. D. 1797. Treaty of Tolentino. Papal territory taken by Bonaparte to add to the Cispadane and Cisalpine Republics.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

PAPACY: A. D. 1797-1798. French occupation of Rome. Formation of the Roman Republic. Removal of the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (DECEMBER-MAY).

PAPACY: A. D. 1800. Election of Pius VII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1802. The Concordat with Napoleon. Its Ultramontane influence.

See FRANCE A. D. 1801-1804.

PAPACY: A. D. 1804. Journey of the Pope to Paris for the coronation of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814. Conflict of Pius VII. with Napoleon. French seizure of Rome and the Papal States. Captivity of the Pope at Savona and Fontainebleau. The Concordat of 1813 and its retraction.

Napoleon "had long been quarrelling with Pius VII., to make a tool of whom he had imposed the concordat on France. The Pope resisted, as the Emperor might have expected, and, not obtaining the price of his compliance, hindered the latter's plans in every way that he could. He resisted as head of the Church and as temporal sovereign of Rome, refusing to close his dominions either to the English or to Neapolitan refugees of the Bourbon party. Napoleon would not allow the Pope to act as a monarch independent of the Empire, but insisted that he was amenable to the Emperor, as temporal prince, just as his predecessors were amenable to Charlemagne. They could not agree, and Napoleon, losing patience, took military possession of Rome and the Roman State."

_H. Martin, Popular History of France, since 1789, volume 2, chapter 12._

{2465}

In February, 1808, "the French troops, who had already taken possession of the whole of Tuscany, in virtue of the resignation forced upon the Queen of Etruria, invaded the Roman territories, and made themselves masters of the ancient capital of the world. They immediately occupied the castle of St. Angelo, and the gates of the city, and entirely dispossessed the papal troops. Two months afterwards, an imperial decree of Napoleon severed the provinces of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino, which had formed part of the ecclesiastical estates, under the gift of Charlemagne, for nearly a thousand years, and annexed them to the kingdom of Italy. The reason assigned for this spoliation was, 'That the actual sovereign of Rome has constantly declined to declare war against the English, and to coalesce with the Kings of Italy and Naples for the defence of the Italian peninsula. The interests of these two kingdoms, as well as of the armies of Naples and Italy, require that their communications should not be interrupted by a hostile power.'"

_Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 51 (volume 11)._