To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII

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To Kidnap a Pope is a scholarly monograph that reads like a thriller; and is a work of narrative history which ably threads ideas into the heart of its presentation. It is also a timely reminder of the dangers that ecclesiastical leaders face when they seek to “ride the tiger” of contemporary power politics for transient institutional gain. The 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’. His second book entitled: To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII 1800-1815waspublished by Yale University Press in April 2021 just before the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death.Ambrogio has written a short blog about his work on Napoleon and Pius VII, and has taken part in an interview on his book.

Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII by Ambrogio A Caiani To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII by Ambrogio A Caiani

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. However, it is Caiani’s argument that Napoleon’s wish to give the ceremony a religious character was largely sincere. Napoleon would take as a personal slight the various cardinals and other figures who refused to attend. The story of the struggle, fought with cunning, not force, between the forgotten Roman nobleman Barnaba Chiaramonti, who became Pope Pius VII, and the all-too-well-remembered Napoleon.”—Jonathan Sumption, The Spectator , “Books of the Year”Napoleon reached center stage following the Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Once in power, Napoleon sought to ameliorate the effects of the French civil war. Those who supported the revolution pitted themselves against both royalist and Catholic forces in the Vendée wars, a series of farmer and peasant uprisings partly over the right to practice the Catholic faith. Napoleon sympathized with the peasants in the Vendée region and sought to reconcile the principles of the French Revolution with the Catholic Church.

To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII, by Ambrogio A. Caiani

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. To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account.On 5 July Fesch travelled to Saint Cloud to give the emperor news of this significant reverse. Footnote 80 The neo-conciliarist solution, instead of rallying and resurrecting the Gallican Church on the contrary emphasised the strength of Ultramontane feeling. The emperor expressed his dissatisfaction and threatened to arrest any metropolitan archbishop who would not bestow canonical investiture on an imperial candidate. Footnote 81 A last ditch attempt was made to save the situation and Napoleon dictated a draft set of decrees to be approved by the bishops. The decade-long struggle between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII is one of the great dramas of the revolutionary era, but remains little-known. Now, and for the first time in English, Ambrogio Caiani recounts this riveting story in full – and offers insight into one of the great conflicts that has shaped, and continues to shape, the modern world, the rivalry between religion and the state.’—Munro Price, author of Napoleon: The End of Glory In France, the situation was further reinforced by centuries of powerful localist traditions. Gallicanism, or the notion that the Church in France was autonomous and that its bishops in council shared spiritual authority with the pope, was a powerful legacy, which, although increasingly beleaguered, strongly influenced clerical thinking throughout the nineteenth century. The well-informed reminded the public that the decrees of the Council of Trent had never been ratified fully in France. Footnote 28 The most concrete expression of this ecclesiological position can be observed in Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's famous four articles of the declaration of 1682. Footnote 29 Essentially the French monarchy, and its Church, claimed administrative independence and immunity from excommunication. Bossuet's declaration was registered by the council of state after the annexation of Rome in 1809, and was made a mandatory part of the curriculum in seminaries throughout the French Empire. Footnote 30 Despite the obvious mutual advantages of this arrangement, relations between Pius and Napoleon soured rapidly. Napoleon’s importunate demands for the annulment of his marriage to Josephine echoed Henry VIII’s two centuries earlier. Increasingly, it became evident that Imperial territorial ambitions in Italy were a threat not only to external papal dependencies, but the Papal States and even the Eternal City itself. In Napoleonic Europe, there would be no room for the temporal autonomy that the papacy saw as the precondition for spiritual independence.