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Pope and burned. The possessions o the Roman See in France were confiscated. There were French tumults in Rome but the people still sided with the Pope. Bonaparte, having defeated the Austrians in Italy, attacked the Papal States because Pius had joined the coalition of powers against him. The armistice and the subsequent Peace of Tolentino (1797) cost the Pope Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna, 36,000,000 lire in money, Church treasures, part of the library and of the Museo Pio Clementine which the Pope had completed. Caravans heavily laden with loot rolled off toward the Seine. But Paris wanted still more: the "Lama of Europe" and his religion were to be destroyed forever. In Rome a republican party raised the tri- colour and shouted "Down with the Pope." Papal militia executed a young French General. The Directory sent another, Berthier, to take revenge, and the city was compelled to surrender to him. The Pope was declared deposed, the Republic was proclaimed, and seven consuls were entrusted with the provisional government. A tree of liberty was planted on the Capitol, and Berthier read an address in honour of the occasion: "Manes of Cato, Pompeii, Brutus, Cicero, Hortensius, receive the homage of liberated France. The grandsons of the Gauls come today with the olive branch of peace in their hands, in order to erect on this holy place that altar of freedom consecrated by the hand of the first Brutus." The Pope did not flee as had been hoped, and so Berthier demanded that he abdicate. Pius replied: "I have been elected Pope and I will die a Pope. You can cause great suffering to an eighty-three-year-old man, but it will not last long. I am in your power but you have the body only and not the spirit." The French feared a Roman rebellion and arrested the Pope so that they might take him out of the city. He remonstrated that he wished to die in Rome. c< You can die anywhere,*' Berthier replied.
Since the end of the sixteenth century, there has existed a list of phrases characterizing the Popes who had gone before and those who were still to come. It is associated with the name of St. Malachias, an Irish Saint of the twelfth century. In this reputed prophecy, the phrase applied to Pius VI was peregrinus apostolicus martens in exilio "the apostolic wanderer who dies in exile." The Pope carried out this prediction to the letter. The journey led to Siena via post- chaise. Here an earthquake destroyed the monastery in which he
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