were already there." "The Hôtel Dieu was entirely given up to the
departments of the court of Rome. The district around Notre Dame and
the Ile Saint-Louis was to be the headquarters of Christendom!" Rome,
the second center of Christendom, and the second residence of the
Pope, is declared[42] "an imperial and free city, the second city of
the empire"; a prince of the empire, or other grand dignitary, is to
reside there and "hold the court of the emperor." "After their
coronation in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, the emperors" will
go to Italy before the tenth year of their reign, and be "crowned in
the church of St. Peter at Rome." The heir to the imperial throne
"will bear the title and receive the honors of the King of Rome."
Observe the substantial features of this chimerical construction.
Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, instinct,
imagination, and souvenirs, considers in his plan the future of Italy,
and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the
net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France. "Napoleon
wanted to create the Italian kingdom over again,[43] combining
Piedmont, Tuscany, etc., in one united independent nation, bounded by
the Alps and the sea. . . . This was to be the immortal trophy erected
in his honor. . . . He awaited impatiently the birth of a second son
that he might take him to Rome, crown him King of Italy and proclaim
the independence of the great peninsula under the regency of Prince
Eugene." Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, it is the Pope who,
in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has
maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed
and Italy will once more become a nation. Napoleon prepares the way,
and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive
condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and
limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of
managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the