... "I have formal orders from the First Consul to inform you that your first move in regard to the Holy See must be to demand of the Pope, within the term of five days, a definitive determination in regard to the project of the convention and the Bull in which the convention is to be inserted, which have been proposed to him for adoption. If in the respite which you are charged to offer, the two projects are adopted without any modification the two States bound together by the ties of peaceful relations whose importance and necessity the Holy See ought to perceive now more than ever.... If changes are proposed to you, and the granted time expires, you will announce to the Holy See that your presence in Rome having become useless for the object of your mission you see yourself obliged with regret to betake yourself to your general-in-chief, and you will leave at once for Florence." [Illustration: CACAULT.] M. Cacault made haste to transmit this ultimatum to the Holy Father, who received it with mingled feelings of astonishment and anxiety. Though fully determined never to yield upon points that concerned the dogmatic teachings of the Church, nevertheless he was careful not to act without first consulting his advisors in the Sacred College--the twelve cardinals of the Particular Congregation. Their sentiments agreed fully with his own. They thought it necessary for M. Cacault to withdraw from his diplomatic post, but the principle involved was altogether too important to permit of mere temporal considerations. The turn taken by events brought back to the mind of the Pope the unhappy episodes of 1798, the exile and death of Pius VI., the certainty of eventual schism in the Church not only in France but throughout Europe. There was apparently much to be gained by a passive yielding to the demands of the First Consul; but the loss on the other hand would prove incalculable, besides meaning eventual ruin to the whole Church. It was not surprising therefore that after considering the matter from every standpoint the Pope finally intimated to the French minister his unalterable resolution of maintaining the position he had taken at any cost.