The Republics at Rome and Naples 655
Meanwhile the British signed a treaty with Russia. The Ottoman Empire, at
war with France since the invasion of Egypt, prepared to send Turkish forces to
Italy. The Austrians, protesting that the time was not ripe, nevertheless soon joined
in. The Second Coalition had been formed. The general crisis of 1799 will be de-
scribed at the end of this book.
At Rome, the invasion, the renewal of war, and the elation of momentary vic-
tory all contributed to radicalize the republic. There were forced loans and attempts
at economic controls. Since the allied powers claimed to be fighting a crusade for
Christianity and the papacy, the handfuls of violent anti- Christians came to the
fore as the firmest defenders of the Roman Republic. Their attempts to make po-
litical use of a church in which they did not believe only turned Christians against
them. The argument that Christianity was democratic, or democracy Christian,
began to sound very hollow. Catholic democrats, believers in the separation of
church and state, who had at first favored the Roman Republic, were appalled at
the treatment accorded the Pope by his captors, especially after the war began—
moved at the age of eighty- two from city to city in Italy, increasingly forbidden to
see subordinates or advisers, taken through the snows of the Alpine passes to
France, and dying there in seclusion. On the other hand there were those, more
numerous among the French than the Italians, who could view these events with a
positive satisfaction, believing that with the death of Pius VI there would never be
another Pope of Rome at all. They found it eminently fitting that in 1799, as the
eighteenth century came to a close, in which so much else that was ancient and
benighted had disappeared, an end should also be put to the Catholic Church. It
seemed that the infâme had at last been crushed.
The occupation of Naples raised a new crisis between the French Directory and
its own generals supported by the Italian patriots. The Directory was averse to the
establishment of another republic in Italy. It estimated that, by direct military oc-
cupation, it might raise as much as 200,000,000 francs in the Kingdom of Naples,
and at the same time be free of troublesome commitments at a future peace con-
ference.^25 Championnet resisted his orders, refused to deal with the civilian com-
missioners from Paris, and consorted with Italian patriots who followed him from
Rome to Naples, and with those at Naples who welcomed him upon his arrival. In
exploiting the resources of Naples, he meant to favor the Italian revolutionaries, his
own soldiers, and himself. Remembering Bonaparte and the founding of the Cis-
alpine, he declared that he had overthrown the Neapolitan monarchy, not to serve
the ends of civilian graft and corruption, but to advance the liberation of Italy and
mankind.
A Neapolitan Republic was thus proclaimed in January 1799.
The Neapolitan Republic
The Neapolitan Republic lasted less than six months. Farthest out and most briefly
seen of all the satellites of Paris, it was by no means the dimmest, since it has al-
25 On this matter, and the conduct of Championnet, see Godechot, Commissaires, II, 254–74.