“But Napoleon would be excommunicated without any Bull of mine,” replied the other. “For he is, _ipso facto_, as a persecutor of the Church, outside her pale. Even if I had never issued any such ban against him, he would still be excommunicated by his own acts.” Lebzeltern now proposed that the Holy Father should write a letter to Napoleon, demanding with all gentleness and moderation to be set at liberty and allowed to resume his apostolic functions. “I would even ask his help to that end,” pursued the Austrian, “and I would publish the letter. Such a letter would in no way disparage the Vicar of Christ, ever ready to forgive sinners; and, at the same time, it would place Napoleon in an exceedingly embarrassing situation before the world. By so doing, your Holiness would infallibly destroy at a single blow those weapons of calumny which he is employing against you, and which he means to go on employing.” “Listen, Lebzeltern. You know that I am willing to concede all that it is possible to concede; but where my conscience is concerned you behold me perfectly resigned to remain as I am, a prisoner. If my captivity were a thousand times harsher—if I had, even, to mount the scaffold—I should not deviate by so much as a hair’s breadth from what my duty demands of me. And it would be an unworthy betrayal of that duty if I were to remove the ban of excommunication from Napoleon without good and sufficient reason. As to the letter you propose that I should write to him—a kind of encyclical, as it were—frankly, I feel that, in sending such a thing to a man like Napoleon, who is capable of changing the wording of it, and then publishing it to my detriment and his own ends, I should do wrong in taking so grave a risk without first consulting the Sacred College.” And on Lebzeltern’s arguing that it was the Pope’s duty to make the first move towards a reconciliation with the Emperor, Pius VII was silent for a moment, as though deliberating upon his next words. At last he spoke again. “If Napoleon shows a desire to become reconciled to the Church, and if he will prove his sincerity by some deed, the thing can be arranged—and I assure you that no one is more desirous of it than I.”