In spite of the difficulties which had recently arisen between the emperor and himself, the Pope thought that Napoleon and the French Revolution were much indebted to him personally. Europe took this view, and frequent reproaches had been addressed to the Court of Rome by the powers who were enemies or rivals of France. It was, then, with astonishment, mingled with indignation, that Pius VII. learnt the news of the occupation of Ancona; he wrote, on the 13th November, 1805, a personal and secret letter to the emperor:--"We avow frankly to your Majesty the keen chagrin that we experience in seeing ourselves treated in a way that we do not think we have in any degree merited. Our neutrality has been recognized by your Majesty, as by all other powers. The latter have fully respected it, and we had especial motives for thinking that the sentiments of amity which your Majesty professed with regard to us would have preserved us from such a cruel affront. We will tell you frankly, since our return from Paris we have experienced only bitterness and trouble, and we do not find in your Majesty a return of those sentiments which we think ourselves warranted in justly expecting from you. That which we owe to ourselves is to ask from your Majesty the evacuation of Ancona, and, if met with a refusal, we should not see how to reconcile therewith a continuation of a good understanding with the French minister." It was from Munich, on the morrow of the battle of Austerlitz and of the peace of Presburg, that Napoleon at length responded, on the 7th of January, 1806, to the letter of the Pope, in the midst of the concert of adulations and transports which were lavished on him by the vanquished as well as by his courtiers. The protest of Pius VII. recalled to him the disagreeable remembrance of an independent authority, and one which he had not been always able to submit to his will; the anger of the despot broke forth with violence at once spontaneous and measured: "Your Holiness complains that since your return from Paris you have had nothing but causes of sorrow. The reason is, that since then all those who were fearing my power and testifying their friendship have changed their sentiments, thinking themselves authorized to do so by the power of the coalition; and that since the return of your Holiness to Rome I have experienced nothing but refusals to all my designs, even those that were of the utmost importance to religion; as, for example, when it was a question of hindering Protestantism from raising its head in France. I look upon myself as the protector of the Holy See, and by this title I have occupied Ancona. I look upon myself, like my predecessors of the second and third dynasty, as the eldest son of the Church, as alone bearing the sword to protect it and to shelter it from being defiled by Greeks and Mussulmans. I should ever be the friend of your Holiness, if you would only consult your heart and the true friends of religion. If