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A groundbreaking account of Napoleon Bonaparte, Pope Pius VII, and the kidnapping that would forever divide church and state On 17 June 1811 the concile national began with a solemn procession and mass at Notre Dame. The sermon preached by Étienne-Marie de Boulogne, bishop of Troyes, offered a reassuringly Gallican preamble, but also reaffirmed absolute loyalty to the papacy. Equally, Cardinal Fesch's decision to have a roll call in the course of which each bishop swore allegiance to the pope, as prescribed by the canons of the Council of Trent, was seen as inappropriate by the emperor. Footnote 72 The most vexed question surrounded the status of those bishops who had been nominated to sees but had not received papal confirmation. When taking his oath, the bishop of Troyes dismissed these nominees as ‘those, whose very presence is already a scandal in their dioceses’. Footnote 73 Despite such opposition, they could attend the concile with a consultative voice but no voting rights. Brilliantly written, based on meticulous research in the archives and beautifully produced, it is a book that should be on the shelves of any serious Napoleonist as well as one that ought to be read with particular attention by those who continue to be mesmerized by visions of ‘Napoleon the Great’.”—Charles J. Esdaile, European History Quarterly
Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World: The Catholic Church in
On 25 July Bigot tallied votes for and against. To his satisfaction eighty-five bishops were favourable, while thirteen still opposed the decree. Footnote 99 Ten days later, the concile was reconvened for a pre-orchestrated final general congregation in which nothing was left to chance. Footnote 100 During the closing session, Bigot and Bovara steered the bishops successfully towards a formal ratification of the decree. The imperial government had achieved its objective, yet it could not hide the fact that the concile’s favourable verdict was the outcome of physical coercion and psychological intimidation. The enlarged deputation mandated by the decrees comprised the usual storm-troopers of Gallicanism and was expanded to include Cardinals Aurelio Roverella, Fabrizio Ruffo, Alphonse de Bayanne and Antonio Dugnani who headed for Savona. Footnote 101 They would negotiate with the pope from September until January 1812. Footnote 102Lesser men would have found reconciliation impossible, but Napoleon had a respectful, if unorthodox, view of religion. Napoleon boldly committed himself to reconciliation with the church — on his terms. Napoleon would tap Etienne-Alexandre Bernier, a former royalist rebel, as his chief negotiator with the papacy in historic negotiations. It is in making myself Catholic that I have finished the wars of Vendée; in making myself Muslim, I won the heart of Egypt. If I had to govern a nation of Jews, I should re-establish the Temple of Solomon,” he once said. 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 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.
Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII. By Ambrogio A. Caiani To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII. By Ambrogio A. Caiani
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’.
Try Ambrogio A. Caiani’s To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII...It is 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, Spectator ‘Books of the Year’ Ambrogio is also very interested in how the Ancien Régime was invented and conceptualised during the 19th century. With Professor Michael Broers of the University of Oxford he organised an international conference in August 2016 entitled: ‘The Price of Peace, Modernising the Ancien Régime? 1815-1848’. This encouraged scholars to engage and share new comparative perspectives on the political history of the European Restorations and Vormärz periods. A two-volume edited collection based on the conference proceedings was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.
Pope | napoleonicwars To Kidnap a Pope | napoleonicwars
Caiani is excellent on the local and particular, and is especially good on thephysical encounters between his two principals, which he recounts with colourfully tellingdetail. But his enthralling narrative widens out from the intertwined lives of the two menand their very contrasting entourages to illuminate international relations and the place ofreligion in the politics of the revolutionary and Napoleonic age.”—Colin Jones, French Studies Ambrogio receivedhis doctorate from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge in 2009. Since then he has taught at the universities of Greenwich and York and at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. He became Lecturer in Modern European History at Kent in 2013. Research interests 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.Fascinating account of Napoleon's attempt to control the catholic church and bend to his will and views in the same way he tried to force all the countries and political institutions of Europe to bend to his wishes and conform to what he thought right and best. Of course he failed with the catholic church just as he, largely, failed with his other ambitions (though of course while he may have failed in terms of the Napoleonic Empire and dynasty(ies) he tried to establish he did change Europe utterly. Although the years after his downfall are referred to as 'the restoration' it was nothing of the sort). Napoleon was not easy man to disagree with, he was a bully as well as an outrageous liar who convinced that whatever he wanted at any time was what was right and what he had always wanted. That the catholic church emerged from its battles with Napoleon a stronger more resilient institution owes much to pope Pius VII, one of the most unknown but best pope's of the past 200 years. His actions and behaviour during his struggle with Napoleon all reflect well on him and show up Napoleon's actions as shameful bullying.