The victory of Marengo, gained June 14, 1800, made the First Consul master of Italy. Five days after the battle, passing through Vercelli at the head of his army, he charged Cardinal Martiniana, bishop of that city, to communicate to the Pope his desire of negotiating a settlement of the religious affairs of France, and for this purpose he requested that Mgr. Spina, archbishop of Corinth, might be sent to him to Turin. His request was gladly complied with. But scarcely had that prelate entered Turin than he was ordered to set out at once for Paris, where Napoleon awaited his arrival. It needed but a short stay in that capital to convince Mgr. Spina that the projects of concordat proposed by the consul were absolutely inadmissible, as being founded on a basis completely at variance with the laws of the Church. In vain did the Pope, in his anxiety to promote the good of religion, forward to Paris an amended plan of concordat, in which he made every concession permitted by his duty as head of the Church. The only answer he received was an intimation from M. Cacault, the French agent at Rome, that unless within five days the proposals made by Napoleon were accepted without the slightest change, the least restriction or correction, he, Cacault, should declare a rupture between the Holy See and France, and immediately leave Rome to join General Murat at Florence. To all these threats, and to the menace of the loss of his temporal power, the Pope had but one reply, that same reply which we have heard from Pius IX. in our own day--that _non possumus_ against which all the assaults of the masters of legions have ever failed, and evermore shall fail.