Capturing or dispersing the Pope’s troops as he went, and winning by his clemency the good-will of the people, Napoleon drew near Rome. The Vatican was in dismay, and the Pontiff listened to those who advised peace. The treaty of Tolentino was soon agreed upon, and the papal power once again escaped that complete destruction which the Directory wished. A mere push then, an additional day’s march, the capture of another priest-led mob, would have toppled the sovereignty which was at war with creed, sound policy, and common sense. It cost torrents of blood, later, to finish the work which Napoleon had almost completed then. By the treaty of Tolentino, February 19, 1797, the Pope lost $3,000,000 more by way of indemnity; the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, together with the Romagna, were surrendered; papal claims on Avignon and the Venaisson were released, and the murder of Basseville was to be formally disavowed. To his credit be it said that Napoleon demanded the suppression of the Inquisition; to his discredit, that he allowed the priests to wheedle him into a waiver of the demand. “The Inquisition was formerly a bad thing, no doubt, but it is harmless now--merely a mild police institution. Pray let it be.” Napoleon really was, or pretended to be, deceived by this assurance, and the Inquisition remained to purify faith with dungeon, living death in foul tombs, torture of mind and of body in Italy, in Spain, in South America, in the far Philippines. “Most Holy Father,” wrote Bonaparte to the Pope; “My Dear Son,” wrote the Pope to Bonaparte; and so they closed _that_ lesson. Amid all the changes made and to be made in Italy there was one government Napoleon did not touch. This was the little republic of San Marino, perched upon the Apennines, where from its rain-drenched, wind-swept heights it had for a thousand years or more looked tranquilly down upon troubled Italy. Governed by a mixed council of nobles, burgesses, and farmers, it was satisfied with itself, and asked only to be let alone. Now and then a pope had shown a disposition to reach out and seize the little republic, but it had always managed to elude the fatherly clutch. Napoleon respected the rights of San Marino, and offered to increase its territory. San Marino declined; it had enough. More would bring trouble. Presenting it with four cannon as a token of his esteem, the great Napoleon got out of the sunshine of this Italian Diogenes, and left it in peace. In 1852 the Pope again hungered for San Marino; but Napoleon III. interfered, and the smallest and oldest republic in the world was left to its independence in its mountain home. CHAPTER XIV