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the characters and police-records of such individuals as had been entrusted by Miollis with the duty of recruiting for his local Gendarmerie; he brought them to justice on a charge of high treason before the papal magistrates; and so presented the world at large with such a series of scandalous revelations as completely to discredit the methods both of Miollis himself and his subordinates.

There followed an unsuccessful attempt of the French to kidnap Cardinal Pacca, which was thwarted by the firmness of the Pontiff in person, who concealed his secretary and ordered the fortification of the Quirinal, in which he gave asylum also to three other Cardinals whom Miollis had menaced with transportation if they fell into his hands.

Had Pius VII made use of this moment to give the signal for a general rising against the invaders it would probably have resulted in their overthrow. For six months the Romans had been awaiting some such signal on his part, and all was ready for a revolt. But, for some reason or other, he held back, and nothing happened-to the intense disappointment of his people. Nevertheless, so alarmed had Miollis been by the nearness of the danger that he sent entreaties to Napoleon, begging him to take stronger measures against the opposition of the Pontiff. This was in the September of 1808, the same

month in which Murat, the Emperor's brother-in-law, was created by him King of Naples in place of Joseph Bonaparte, who had been lately made King of Spain.

No sooner was Murat seated on the Neapolitan throne than he began to offer his services and those of his army to Napoleon against the "rebellious Romans and their ungrateful Pontiff," as he styled them. But, in truth, the Emperor had no great desire to avail himself of these offers. To begin with, it was no part of his policy to extend his brother-in-law's activities any further beyond the confines of Naples than could be helped. For Rome was still the darling of Napoleon's heart, and he did not intend it to be ravaged. Also, he was never entirely trustful of Murat's ambitions; and this more especially as the latter had given his whole confidence to a man-Count Salicetti-whom Napoleon particularly despised and disliked for his personal cowardice and his incurable double-dealing. This Salicetti was a Corsican, bilious, sallow of complexion, and with a pair of shifty, chocolate-coloured eyes; a former member of the National Convention of 1793, and a regicide, he had covered himself with obloquy as one of the administrators of the Reign of Terror. A persecutor of religion during his lifetime, when the hour came for him to die, in

* As shown by his inducing two women, a mother and her daughter, to shelter him at the risk of their lives during the Reaction after July 1794-a fact which came to the knowledge of Bonaparte, who, for their sakes alone, abstained from having him arrested,

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December 1809, he sent a hasty message to Fra Egidio, the famous lay-brother of the Franciscans in Naples, to pray for him. But, on receiving the summons, the saint replied to it with a shake of the head. "It is too late," he said; "for, as you will find on your return to Palazzo Maresca ". Salicetti's residence off the Chiaja-" he died just after you left there." And so it proved.

Advised, then, by Salicetti, Murat continued to press his offers of interference upon the Emperor throughout the winter and spring of 1808-1809. This did not prevent him from representing himself as a friend in disguise to Pius VII and the Curia at Rome. But, at first, Napoleon would have none of him; until, at long length, worn out by his importunities, and having no one else-on account of the war with Austria that had just broken out— the Emperor sent word to him in the last days of March 1809 that he was to re-enforce Miollis and to place a part of his army for that purpose on the Roman frontier. Murat, however, demurred to the idea of his "beautiful troops being under the orders of a Miollis "; likewise, he insisted that nothing else but only his own nomination to the supreme command in the Roman States "could possibly," as he put it in a letter of April 14, 1809, "disconcert the enemies of the Emperor." These representations, however, were fruitless, Napoleon having no intention of superseding Miollis, whom he liked and trusted both as an aristocrat and a soldier

courtier of the old school of Louis XVI. The only concession which he could be persuaded to make was that Murat might send Salicetti to Rome to represent him among the members of the new Government; but upon the condition that Salicetti, like all the rest, was to be subject to Miollis.

What the Emperor did not know was that Salicetti, without waiting for his permission, had already betaken himself to Rome in order to further the interests of Murat with the Pope and the Curia, as well as to prepare the way for the next step in the affair-that of the imminent, formal annexation of Rome by Murat to the Empire. Arriving thus unexpectedly at Rome early in April, Salicetti informed Miollis of the intended Coup d'État to the amazement of the General who had been left in ignorance of the Imperial decision-and was told, in exchange, that, come what might, he was to consider himself Miollis' subordinate. This so irritated Salicetti that he returned, forthwith, to Naples; but only to be sent back again at once to Rome. Here he learned that a certain General Lemarrois had been installed as chargé d'affaires by Miollis, who had gone to Milan to confer with the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, upon the situation, and presumably, to ask his aid towards the subjugation of the Papacy. As a matter of fact, Salicetti did not actually go as far as Rome itself, but broke his journey at Albano, in order not to arouse the suspicions either of the papal authorities

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or of Miollis' partisans among the French. From Albano "the Corsican Fouché," as Salicetti was nicknamed, was kept in touch with all that was taking place in the city by his indefatigable spies. As he wrote to Murat, if the latter meant to make himself master of Rome in the Emperor's name by proclaiming the annexation before Miollis could return to do so, he must act at once.

Nothing loath, Murat gave orders for his army to advance upon Rome on June 7, Salicetti receiving instructions to meet him there on the tenth of the

same month. It appeared to the conspirators that nothing now could prevent them from taking possession of the papal capital.

What was at the bottom of Murat's mind, what astounding designs he may have dared to cherish, must for ever remain a matter for speculation. His secret relations with the Pope, no less than the fact of Napoleon's having at that moment just suffered a serious defeat at Essling, near Vienna, may contribute to something approaching a solution of the problem. Also, his subsequent open defection from Napoleon's cause a few years later may furnish some index to the motives of his conduct on this occasion.

Be that as it may, Salicetti left Albano for the Farnese Palace in Rome, with high hopes, on June 9. His road was that of the Appian Way and the Porta San Giovanni.

Scarcely had he reached his destination, however,