TROUBLE WITH THE POPE—THE CONSCRIPTION—EVASIONS OF THE BLOCKADE—THE TILSIT AGREEMENT BROKEN “This child in concert with our Eugène will constitute our happiness and that of France,” so Napoleon had written Josephine after the birth of the King of Rome, but it soon became evident that he was wrong. There were causes of uneasiness and discontent in France which had been operating for a long time, and which were only aggravated by the apparent solidity that an heir gave to the Napoleonic dynasty. First among these was religious disaffection. Towards the end of 1808, being doubtful of the Pope’s loyalty, Napoleon had sent French troops to Rome; the spring following, without any plausible excuse, he had annexed four Papal States to the kingdom of Italy; and in 1809 the Pope had been made a prisoner at Savona. When the divorce was asked, it was not the Pope, but the clergy, of Paris, who had granted it. When the religious marriage of Marie Louise and Napoleon came to be celebrated, thirteen cardinals refused to appear; the “black cardinals” they were thereafter called, one of their punishments for non-appearance at the wedding being that they could no longer wear their red gowns. To the pious all this friction with the fathers of the Church was a deplorable irritation. It was impossible to show contempt for the authority of Pope and cardinals and not wound one of the deepest sentiments of France, and one which ten years before Napoleon had braved most to satisfy. [Illustration: NAPOLEON AND POPE PIUS VII. IN CONFERENCE AT FONTAINEBLEAU. Engraved by Robinson, after a painting made in 1836 by Wilkie.] To the irritation against the emperor’s church policy was added bitter resentment against the conscription, that tax of blood and muscle demanded of the country. Napoleon had formulated and attempted to make tolerable the principle born of the Revolution, which declared that every male citizen of age owed the state a service of blood in case it needed him. The wisdom of his management of the conscription had prevented discontent until 1807; then the draft on life had begun to be arbitrary and grievous. The laws of exemptions were disregarded. The “only son of his mother” no longer remained at her side. The father whose little children were motherless must leave them; aged and helpless parents no longer gave immunity. Those who had bought their exemption by heavy sacrifices were obliged to go. Persons whom the law made subject to conscription in 1807, were called out in 1806; those of 1808, in 1807. So far was this premature drafting pushed, that the armies were said to be made up of “boy soldiers,” weak, unformed youths, fresh from school, who wilted in a sun like that of Spain, and dropped out in the march.