The Concordat signed at the Tuileries on July 15, 1801, marked the end of the persecution led by revolutionary France against the Roman Catholic Church, culminating in the death of Pope Pius VI in 1799, who was deported by the Directory to Valence. Elected as sovereign pontiff in 1800 by a conclave sheltered in Venice, his successor took the name Pius VII and received overtures from the First Consul. Religious peace was a personal choice of Bonaparte: "The reestablishment of worship will win me the heart of the people."
The Time of Concord
The year 1802 marked the official reconciliation between the Church and the State. A Te Deum was celebrated at Notre-Dame de Paris, restored to Catholic Worship, on April 18, 1802, a day chosen by Chateaubriand to publish his "Genius of Christianity," an apology for the Christian religion eroded by the Enlightenment and tormented by the Revolution. In April 1802 (Year X of the revolutionary calendar), the Minister of the Interior, Chaptal, issued a "Call to all artists of the French Republic" to celebrate either the general peace or the law on Worship that guaranteed religious peace. Fifty-two painters submitted sketches for this competition. For the second subject, an anonymous proposal combines, like a Last Judgment, the two celestial and terrestrial worlds. Bonaparte listens to an angel and signs the Concordat. Saint Michael wields a flaming sword, and Justice drives away the reprobates. A heavenly choir overlooks the ternary group of theological virtues (Faith, Charity, and Hope). French warriors in armor and modern uniforms and men of the Church dominate the group of the four evangelists: Saint Luke and his bull, Saint Mark and his lion, Saint Matthew without a distinctive attribute, and finally, Saint John accompanied by an eagle and holding the Apocalypse. This proposal needed to be more laden with religious references to win the competition.
This political choice to reintegrate the Catholic Church into the State strengthened the power of the First Consul and met with broad popular support, which contributed to his elevation to the Empire by Senatus-consult of May 18, 1804. Enjoined to participate in the ceremony of the "coronation and anointing of His Majesty," the sovereign pontiff had to set out, and from November 25 to 28, 1804, made a stop at the palace of Fontainebleau, an old palace of the Crown refurbished for the occasion. The meeting of the two protagonists was singular, and the scene called for commemoration by the brush. Two artists collaborated on it, Demarne for the figures and Dunouy for the landscape.
The scene was commissioned by an imperial decree of March 3, 1806, for the Gallery of Diana at the Imperial Palace of the Tuileries and exhibited at the Salon of 1808. It portrays two characters in conflict on November 25, 1804, embodying one the spiritual power and the other the temporal power. Responding to an insistent invitation, Pope Pius VII had to come from Rome to Crown the young Emperor of the French at Notre Dame de Paris. He is represented in profile, stooped, hat in hand, deferential, while Napoleon, seen from three-quarters, occupies the central place and focuses the attention. Under the pretext of a hunt, Napoleon, in hunting attire, meets the pope as if by chance in the forest, at the crossroads of Saint-Hérem, in a rather cavalier and casual manner. Perched on an obelisk, an eagle dominates the scene, indicating who the master of the place is. Gleaming with gold, it seems to dispel the clouds and announce a radiant reign – it was counting without the storms hidden in the ambiguities of the present.
The pope stayed in Paris for five months, arousing great interest from the faithful. David, the former set designer for the Festival of the Supreme Being under Robespierre, became the "First Painter of His Majesty the Emperor" and endeavored to capture his traits. When the artist exhibited his first version of the Portrait of Pius VII in March 1805 at the gallery of the Conservative Senate located in the Luxembourg Palace, painted at the Tuileries in February-March 1805, the model still resided in Paris at the Pavillon de Flore and was known to Parisians. A large part of the critique praised David, formerly a critic of the papal government, for his faithful representation of the Roman pontiff to whom he paid an ambiguous tribute.
The paper held by the pope bears a Latin dedication in the dative case, meaning "To Pius VII, protector of the Fine Arts," a quality that the former regicidal convention member acknowledges in the sovereign pontiff. This second replica of the portrait, intended to be offered to the pope, remained in France.
Two docile cogs in the Napoleonic system
During the resumption of the struggle between the Empire and the Priesthood, several actors, members of the state apparatus, or the Church hierarchy, distinguished themselves by their zeal in the service of the Emperor. This crisis reached a climax. Pius VII, abducted from his Quirinal Palace at night in July 1809, tossed around in the French Empire for a while, imprisoned in Savona from August 1809 to June 1812, was forcibly transferred to Fontainebleau, where he arrived on June 19, 1812.
Two actors in this crisis now stand facing each other, each on a pedestal, in the dark antechamber of the "Pope's Apartment." Jean-Baptiste Nompère de Champagny (1756-1834) was a docile high official, a disciplined executor in the hands of the Emperor. He successively served as a State Councilor and then as a minister, first of the Interior on August 8, 1804, replacing Chaptal, then of Foreign Relations, following Talleyrand's departure on August 8, 1807. Count of the Empire in 1808 and then titled Duke of Cadore on August 15, 1809, Champagny was appointed on September 9, 1811, "general intendant of the Crown domains," replacing the Count Daru, and then Grand Chancellor of the Order of the Reunion on October 18 of the same year. When, after a forced and chaotic journey, Pius VII unexpectedly arrived at Fontainebleau on the evening of June 19, 1812, Champagny had to rush there the same evening to welcome him and accredit the fable of imperial hospitality in this palace turned into a golden prison for the pontiff, far from Rome and stripped of his States.
The bust of this dignitary of the French Empire was executed by Giacomo Spalla (1775-1834), who held the title of "sculptor of His Imperial and Royal Majesty in the departments beyond the Alps." This Piedmontese chisel gave an ancient severity to the massive features and square face of the model, endowed with "white eyes" imitating Roman sculpture. Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor in February 1805, the general intendant of the Crown domains displayed the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honor, worn across the chest and passing over the right shoulder, in a clear affirmation of the rank occupied by this crucial cog of the Napoleonic system.
In contrast to this representative of temporal power appears that of spiritual energy, Mgr. Duvoisin, Bishop of Nantes, enlisted in the service of the modern Caesar. Jean-Baptiste Duvoisin (1748-1813), the grand vicar of the bishop of Laon before the Revolution, submitted to the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy" and then emigrated to England in 1792. Returning to France after the Concordat of 1801, he soon attracted the attention of Bonaparte, who appointed him Bishop of Nantes in 1802 and granted him his complete trust. Called "our new Bossuet" by Talleyrand, the renegade bishop of Autun, Mgr. Duvoisin was lavished with honors by the imperial regime.
In the conflict between Pius VII and Napoleon I, Mgr Duvoisin was a humble servant of the Emperor. During the council convened in Paris in 1811, he delivered a speech on June 17 affirming Gallican convictions. During Pius VII's forced stay in Savona (1809-1812), he was one of the six French bishops (along with his colleagues Barral, Mannay, Bourlier, de Beaumont, and de Pradt) sent on a mission in 1811 to persuade Pius VII. During the pope's imprisonment at the Imperial Palace of Fontainebleau (June 1812-January 1814), he paved the way in early 1813 for Napoleon's surprise visit. "I don't believe he can sustain a discussion; he has little confidence in the people around him...
Nevertheless, I need an answer. I am watching for the moment when I can ask him without causing too much emotion," wrote Mgr Duvoisin to the Emperor. His maneuvers contributed to extracting from the exhausted pontiff, surrounded by Gallican prelates loyal to the Emperor, the "Concordat of Fontainebleau" of January 25, 1813 – which Pius VII was soon to denounce under the influence of the returning "black cardinals" by his side. Immediately, the compliant Mgr Duvoisin was rewarded for his zeal, being appointed State Councilor on February 9, 1813. He died on July 9, 1813, urging Napoleon to come to terms with the pope while the conflict between the Priesthood and the Empire was at an impasse, suspended by the fate of arms. The official commission of a bust in Hermes aimed to perpetuate the memory of this collaborator of the Emperor. The sculptor De Bay Père (1779-1863) executed this bust of the late Bishop of Nantes in 1813, the very year of his death. The artist opted for a grave expression and austere demeanor, corresponding to the status of the concordat bishop. With massive features and ancient-looking white eyes, he is dressed in ecclesiastical attire, wears a pectoral cross under the flap, and displays the symbol of the Legion of Honor (star) and the Order of the Reunion founded by Napoleon in 1811 (cross, plaque, and grand cross), as a sign of pronounced allegiance to the imperial system. The Imperial Order of the Reunion plaque offered a synthesis of the Grand Empire. In the center was the imperial throne, at the foot of which rested the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, the emblem of Rome, which became the capital of Christianity, wrested from the pope and annexed to the Empire in 1809. This insistent display, three times over, of the imperial order of the Reunion indicates which side the prelate had chosen. The fall of the Empire led to the mutilation of these Napoleonic references. Upon the return of the Bourbons, damnatio memoriae struck this overly zealous servant of the Emperor.
The ghost of Pius VII, from the Salon in Paris to the walls of Fontainebleau
Under the July Monarchy, Achille Poirot (1797-1852), an architect and painter specializing in views of monuments, exhibited at the Salon of 1843 held at the Royal Museum of Arts at the Louvre a topographic view titled "View of the courtyard of the donjon at the palace of Fontainebleau" (No. 962 in the Salon booklet). This painting, of excellent fidelity, details half of the Oval courtyard. The viewpoint, taken from the old Capetian donjon, encompasses the arcade, the advancement of the so-called "Serlio" entrance, the Baptistery door in the median axis of the composition, the "kitchen" courtyard in the background, the so-called Tiber pavilion, and the four fake bays built by Henri IV in imitation and extension of those of Henri II's Ballroom.
This topographic view, painted by a precise architect who was more comfortable rendering buildings than human figures, is also a historical scene. It reveals the desire of the July Monarchy, fond of history painting, to compose a repertoire of the "Fastes de Fontainebleau." The artist, concerned with accuracy, populated the courtyard with characters in First Empire costumes. He distributed characters and accessories into several groups. On the left, in the shadow, is a heavy carriage and servants wearing the green livery of the Emperor's Household. On the right, in bright light and stark contrast, is the pope, accompanied by an officer and a clergyman, blessing the kneeling faithful. The booklet thus details the scene: "Pope Pius VII, returning from a walk, gives his blessing to sick children." This iconography, linked to the pope's captivity from June 1812 to January 1814, is extremely rare. As much as the memory of Pius VII's captivity is prevalent in the toponymy of the Fontainebleau castle – the first floor of the wing of the Queen Mother is called the "Pope's apartment" – the representation of a natural or fictional episode of this stay in this palace turned into a "golden prison" for the new "Saint Peter in Chains" is rare.
This museum's return of the actor to the drama scene foreshadows the future room "Napoleon as the new Constantine." This sequence will address the regulation of religions in the imperial system, focusing on Catholicism, the faith "of the vast majority of the French," from the regained religious peace to the resumption of the conflict between the Priesthood and the Empire. It will be a significant component of the journey through the Napoleon I Museum, which is scheduled for redeployment on December 2, 2028.
Commentaires