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manlike quality was supplied by his Secretary of State, Cardinal Ercolc Consalvi. Pius had immediately raised this expert in ecclesiastical administration, who was not a priest and never became one, to the rank of cardinal-deacon, and had entrusted him with the duties o Pro-Secretary of State. This Roman marquis had received his early training in the famous seminary erected by the English Cardinal Duke Henry of York in Frascati, and had soon discerned the way he was to go. Nevertheless he now hesitated to assume the burdens of office to which the Pope called him, and casting himself at the Pontiffs feet begged for another assignment. But Pius was adamant, and so a friend of the Muses was placed on the captain's bridge of world history. Rome had seen evil days under the reign of French liberty. The people were ground down by plunderers and gougers; prices soared sky-high. The Pope was therefore greeted jubilantly. He had to thank the victor of Marengo for the fact that he was again the master of his own house. Consalvi began to dig out of the ruins what remained of the Papal States as a result of the Peace of Luneville. In his own memoirs one can read the chronicle of the trials and cares which haunted him day and night. Most scrupulously he kept his hands clean and returned even the slightest present sent him by his most intimate friends. Thus when he was named Cardinal, the Duke of York remembered his erstwhile favourite pupil handsomely in his will; but Consalvi compelled him to cancel these bequests. Seldom in history have two men worked together so highmindedly as did this Pope and his minister, to achieve all the results which pure devo- tion to a cause and greatness of character could produce in a rime when justice and power were so completely intertwined, Bonaparte was soon to realize the significance of moral weapons.
He seemed to be kindly disposed toward the Church. In conversa- tion with the Bishop of Vercelli and in a public address to the clergy of Milan, he expressed his willingness to live on good terms with the Holy Sec provided that the new position of France and its importance in the world were understood there. A country shaken by revolution was again in need of the support of the Catholic religion. During June, 1801, he and his general staff attended a service held in the Cathedral of Milan in honour of the Victory of Marengo. Before he went he wrote to the two other Consuls: 'Today I am going in
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