After the reign of Pope Calixtus the Third, the Ring of the Fisherman was no longer used as the private seal of the Popes, but was always attached to briefs. On the death of Innocent the Tenth the name was cut out of the ring or erased. At the decease of Pius the Sixth the usual ceremonies were not observed, and the ring was not broken, as was the practice at the elevation of each pontiff. Aimon, in his ‘Tableau de la Cour de Rome,’ says that after the Pope’s death ‘le Cardinal Camerlingue vient en habit violet, accompagné des clercs de la chambre en habits noirs, reconnoître le corps du Pape. Il l’appelle trois fois par son nom de baptême, et comme il ne lui donne ni réponse, ni signe de vie, il fait dresser un acte sur sa mort par les Protonotaires Apostoliques. Il prend du Maître de la Chambre Apostolique, _l’anneau_ du Pêcheur, qui est le sceau du Pape, _d’or_ massif, et du prix de cent écus. Il le fait mettre en pièces et donne ces pièces aux Maîtres des Cérémonies à qui elles appartiennent. Le Dataire et les Sécrétaires qui ont les autres sceaux du Pape défunt, sont obligés de les porter au Cardinal Camerlingue, qui les fait rompre en présence de l’Auditeur de la Chambre du Trésorier, et des Clercs Apostoliques, et il n’est permis à aucun autre des Cardinaux d’assister à cette fonction.’ When it was decided by the French in 1798 that the Pope was to be removed to France, on February 18 in that year the Republican Haller, son of the celebrated Swiss physician of that name, chose the moment when the Pontiff was at dinner in the Vatican to announce to him the resolution of the French Republic. He entered the apartment rudely, and, advancing to the Pope, announced the object of his visit, and demanded the instant surrender of the Papal treasures. ‘We have already given up all we possessed,’ replied the Pope calmly. ‘Not _all_,’ returned Haller, ‘you still wear two very rich rings; let me have them.’ The Pope drew one from his finger: ‘I can give you,’ he said, ‘this one, for it is indeed my own; take it: but the other is the Ring of the Fisherman, and must descend to my successor.’ ‘It will pass first to me, holy father,’ exclaimed Haller, ‘and if you do not surrender it quietly it will be taken from you by force.’ To escape further insult the Fisherman’s Ring was given up, but as it was found to be intrinsically of no value it was soon afterwards restored to the Pontiff. The ring of Pius the Ninth is of plain gold, weighing one and a half ounces, and it was made from the gold which composed the Ring of the Fisherman of Pope Gregory the Sixteenth.[49]