The difficulty as to the appointment of bishops to vacant dioceses had not been settled. In May, 1810, Napoleon despatched two cardinals, most favorable to his pretensions, to Pius VII., whom he still held a prisoner in Savona, to persuade the pope to confirm the bishops appointed by the emperor; but the Holy Father was immovable. Napoleon thereupon resolved to make his own bishops and dispense with the papal confirmation. Cardinal Fesch, who had accepted the title of Archbishop-elect of Paris, now refused to take possession of his see without the approval of the pope. “I can force you to obey me,” said Napoleon to his uncle. “Sire, _potius mori_,” replied the cardinal. “Ah! ah! _potius mori_—rather Maury. Be it so. You shall have Maury.” Cardinal Maury accepted, and in a few days his vicar-general was arrested and sent to the dungeon of Vincennes, where he remained till the fall of the empire. About the same time Vincennes opened its gloomy gates to Cardinals di Pietro and Gabrielli. This was in 1811. Pius VII. had been in prison for two years. Napoleon now ordered his jailers to treat him with greater severity. No person was allowed to see him without the emperor’s permission; and for violating this regulation some priests from Marseilles were thrown into a filthy dungeon. All letters to and from the Holy Father were submitted to the inspection of the keeper of the prison. “It is useless for the pope to write,” said Napoleon; “the less he does, the better it will be.… The less that which he writes reaches its destination, the better.… I trouble myself very little as to what he may do.… Let him be told that it is distressing for Christendom to own a pope so ignorant of what is due to sovereigns, but that the state will not be disturbed, and good will be effected without him.” On the 8th of January, 1811, experts sent from Paris entered the episcopal palace at Savona, where the Holy Father was confined, opened his doors and drawers, searched his correspondence, unsewed his clothes, and broke open his desk, in order to discover something that might incriminate him. They even took away his breviary and the Office of the Blessed Virgin. He was also ordered to deliver up the Ring of the Fisherman; but, justly suspecting that it would be used for fraudulent purposes, he broke it in two and handed the pieces to Napoleon’s agent. A moral terrorism reigned over the religious world in France and Italy. The emperor’s vengeance pursued even ladies who gave alms to the Black cardinals. The cardinals, bishops, and priests who had spoken against his tyranny were in prison; the rest remained silent.