That Pius VII was not disposed to abate in the least the claim to universal sovereignty which some of his predecessors had asserted for the papacy, and was therefore incompetent to deal compromisingly with any of the pending questions, is abundantly demonstrated by the history of his pontificate. His assumption that he occupied God's place upon earth, and was so clothed with divine authority that no human tribunal could rightly inquire into his conduct or motives, placed him in the attitude of bold defiance to the sentiment of liberalism then rapidly permeating the whole body of the people. He mistook the papal dogmas of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, and a few other popes, for the Christian doctrines of the nineteenth century. After Napoleon had extended the empire of France over Italy, it became necessary to adjust the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers. He accordingly addressed a letter to Pius VII, wherein he said: "I will touch in nothing the independence of the Holy See;" that is, that in all spiritual matters he would leave the independence of the pope undisturbed. He made this clear by continuing: "Your holiness will have for me in temporals the same regard I bear for you in spirituals." The obvious meaning of Napoleon was that Church and State should be separated, and that each should be independent of the other in its own proper sphere. The pope was to be left "sovereign in Rome," with all the temporal powers necessary to local government, but Napoleon should remain the emperor with the general jurisdiction pertaining to that office. In effect it was, substantially, a restoration of the relations which existed between the Church and the Emperors Constantine and Charlemagne. If Pius VII had accepted this proposition, it would have gone far towards allaying the revolutionary excitement in Europe, because the people would have seen in it a desire on his part to become reconciled to the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. It would have been accepted as a recognition of the fact--of which European society had then become conscious--that the wonderful advancement of the United States was attributable mainly to the separation of Church and State. But this was what Pius VII intended neither to concede nor recognize; for it was plain to him that if Church and State were separated in Italy, the papacy would come to an end. Therefore, after reminding Napoleon that he considered his proposition as offensive to "the dignity of the Holy See," and an invasion of his "rights of free sovereignty," although it left all his spiritual powers not only unimpaired but fully protected, he emphatically and indignantly rejected it. After declaring that "it is not our will, it is that of God, whose place we occupy on earth," he proceeds to define the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers in these unequivocal words: