The War Upon Religion: Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in EuropeCunningham, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
History
The War Upon Religion: Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in Europe
Cunningham, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Catholic Church -- Europe; Catholic Church -- History; Church and state -- Catholic Church
Napoleon, now at the summit of his political and military career, looked
forward to still other conquests. He had crowned himself Emperor of the
French at Paris; he received another crown at Milan, making him king of
Italy. Then came Austerlitz and Jena and Eylau to humiliate Austria and
Prussia and Russia. He became a king-maker by placing his brothers upon
the thrones of Naples, Holland and Westphalia. The battle of Wagram,
1809, brought Austria to the feet of the Emperor, who demanded in
marriage the hand of the Austrian Emperor's daughter, the Princess Maria
Louisa. Josephine, her claims long vanished, was divorced from Napoleon
upon the plea of State necessity. An emperor to be an emperor indeed,
must be able to look upon the children who shall carry his great name to
posterity. The marriage of Josephine and Napoleon had been fruitless in
this regard; reasons of State, therefore, demanded, according to
Napoleon, that a dissolution should take place, and that a new empress
be called to the throne. This reasoning of Napoleon was accepted by
Europe; only the Holy Father withheld his approbation and assent.
Josephine was divorced and the Emperor remarried to Maria Louisa. It was
on this occasion that the terms were coined in the ecclesiastical world
"the red and the black cardinals," at the great ceremony which was
performed by Cardinal Fesch in the Tuileries, April 2, 1810. Of the
twenty-nine cardinals then in Paris, thirteen, including Consalvi,
refused to honor the occasion with their presence. This mark of
disapprobation was punished by the Emperor who besides depriving them of
their salaries forbade them to wear the colors or insignia of their
cardinalatial rank. Hence their designation as the black cardinals.
These two divorces betray sufficiently the shallow honor of Napoleon in
dealing with the Church, a quality which other events of this period
brought more into evidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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