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Every throne and
every church, without exception, that owned the supremacy of
Rome, was prostrated in the dust."--_"Rome and Its Papal
Rulers," p. 436._
The decree of the French Convention in 1793 was followed by the stroke
with the sword at Rome in 1798. The full history is told in fewest words
by a Roman Catholic writer, Rev. Joseph Rickaby, of the Jesuit Society:
"When, in 1797, Pope Pius VI fell grievously ill, Napoleon gave
orders that in the event of his death no successor should be
elected to his office, and that the Papacy should be
discontinued.
"But the Pope recovered. The peace was soon broken; Berthier
entered Rome on the tenth of February, 1798, and proclaimed a
republic. The aged pontiff refused to violate his oath by
recognizing it, and was hurried from prison to prison in
France. Broken with fatigue and sorrows, he died on the
nineteenth of August, 1799, in the French fortress of Valence,
aged eighty-two years. No wonder that half Europe thought
Napoleon's veto would be obeyed, and that with the Pope the
Papacy was dead.


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