Odd Still Lives

New Zealand Tablet, 13 September 1906, Page 33

Odd Still Lives

.In the . celebrated interview between Pope. Pius VII.. and the Emperor Napoleon, when the former was a prisoner, at Fontainebleaii (says, ihe. '_Av[e Maria '), the Pope ' sought to' check the blasphemies of his captor by saying >-! lEmperor; take, care! The, "God i of -. . old still lives. When your measure is full He will break - it to pieces.' . ' Twelve years later the captive Eagle sat' chained to the? rock p£ his enforced solitude on the island of . St Helena. ; '\ 'Young man,' he said* one day to a youth who,as a little page, had been a witness of, the -f ambus ' interview, 'do you remember those words of Pius . Vll.,— his terrible prediction ?' I 'Yes, sire: " The . God of old still lives," he said. "He will crush you to pieces."' • • ' The Pope was no false prophet. My sceptre- has been broken, not ,°y man, but by God. x There were other circumstances relating to Pius VII_ over which Napoleon must often ljiave- wondered during the years of his captivity at St. N Helena. Las Cases relates that the fallen emperor; '. nevet pronounced the Pontiff's name without einqtion, calling him 'a lamb,' on _ account of the meekness ..with which he bore the trials of bis pontificate. The , Pope returned to Rome on the 24th of May; 1814, having been imprisoned at Fontaihebleau for five years. For : the same length of time his' persecutor had to en- - dure f the sufferings and humiliations of captivity, The ' coincidence—but it was more than a mere coincidenceis thus pointed out by Dom Gueranger, recording - the canqmests of Our Lady of Help. 'It was not the Allied Powers, who had - made common cause> against his oppressor, that broke the> Pontiff's fetters ; the very tyrant who kept him from Rome, had given him - permission to return. at the close of the preceding year; but -the Pontiff chose his o^vn time,- and did not ieave Fontainebleau till the -2&th of January. . . . The City of Peter had been 'reduced to a headtown of a French Department, 'wibh a Prefect for its administrator; and,- with a view to makiiig men foigeti tihat it was the City of the Vicars of Christ. > . . ' A messenger from- the island of St. Helena was one day ushered into the presence, of Pius VII. The exiled Napoleon, whoifi he., had . consecrated _ Emperor.. _ in the "Church 1 of . Notre 'Dame, and whose after conduct had -brought him under the ban of excommunication, now besought the Pontiff, the true aW only King, of Rome, to allow him to be readmitted to those spiritual blessings of which he had been justly deprived. 'Pius VII., who had so courageously braved public opinion by giving hospitality, .at Rome, to the mem/bers of the unfortunate Napoleon family,— readily > complied with the request thus made, of him ; and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was, shortly afterward, offered up in the presence of "the illustrious exile of St. Helena. ' ' But, before granting pardon, the justice of God had required, a full and -public expiation. He, who had been the- instrument., salvation to millions of souls, by restoring religion to France, was not to be lost ; but he had impiously imprisoned the Sovereign Pontiff in the castle at Fontainebleau, and it was in that very castle -that he had afterward to sign the deed of his own abdication. For five years he had held captive the . Vicar of Christ,, for five years he himself had to endure the sufferings and humiliation of captivity. Heaven accepted the retribution,, and left Mary_ to .complete her victory. Reconciled, with the Church,' and fortified by the Holy Sacraments which prepare the, Christian for eternity, Napoleon yielded -Up fiis soul into the hands of his Maker, on the sth day of May,— the- month that is ,sacrbd to iVlary.'

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