Previous articles in this series have alluded to Napoleon’s desire to conceal news of his excommunication by Pope Pius VII. This article reveals many otherwise unknown details of the heroic actions of the Marian Sodalities in spreading the news in defiance of Napoleon’s orders.
All documents related to the struggle between the Holy See and Napoleon, including the news of the Emperor’s excommunication by Pius VII, were made public thanks to the Marian Sodality’s underground network. Its members provided exemplary service to the Church during the pope’s captivity in Savona.1 The text of the Bull Quum Memoranda had yet to become widely known. Until that happened, the French government attempted to deceive the public by raising suspicions that the news of the excommunication was false. Therefore, obtaining and publishing the full text of the Bull, at least in Paris, was indispensable.
However, sodality members were watched by the imperial police. They had to work with extreme caution to avoid compromising the very existence of their underground network. Their first difficulty was to obtain a copy of the document. Only Cardinal Pacca or Pius VII could provide one with the necessary guarantees of authenticity. The cardinal was held incommunicado in the Fortress of Fenestrelle. The easier, albeit more risky, approach was to seek an audience with the pope himself. However, that request could not come from any of the Paris sodality members. Most of these men bore great names of nobility and were strictly watched by Napoleon’s police.
Duke Mathieu de Montmorency2 went to Lyon to devise a plan. He made contact with that city’s sodality members in the seemingly innocuous way alluded to in a previous article. The Marian Sodalities were doing a great apostolate among the poor and sick. People throughout France often saw sodality members helping the needy.
That charitable work provided an opportunity. There lived in Lyon a poor and sick woman surnamed Martin. She was well-known in the city, and everyone admired her resignation and exceptional interior life. Her conversation was attractive and edifying, and she was much venerated. She made her room available to the Lyon Sodality to serve as a meeting place with the network’s Parisian members. It was a safe place, as the police would never suspect that Catholics were defying their cunning agents in so humble an abode.
Duke Mathieu de Montmorency and Count Alexis de Noailles3 were already in Lyon. Benoît Coste4, Franchet d’Esperey5, and other congregants gathered there. They calmly agreed on a plan to send an emissary to Savona to obtain the Bull’s official text. They decided to send Claude Berthaud du Coin, the Lyon Sodality’s first assistant. Du Coin was still young and had not been involved in disclosing previous documents. Therefore, he was unknown to the police. To accomplish his mission, he had to contact Turin’s Amicizia, which had managed to reach Pius VII and deliver donations from Italian bankers.
Berthaud du Coin joyfully accepted the task and soon began his dangerous journey. He went first to Chambéry, where he met with Father Rey, a Lyon Sodality member and one of Aa’s heads at the local seminary. Father Rey could introduce him to Italian Catholics without exposing him to serious risk.
He had to be careful since if Napoleon’s police arrested the emissary with letters of recommendation from leaders of the underground network, they would treat him at least as a suspect. In Turin, M. du Coin met Father Pio Brunone Lanteri6 and went to confession with him. That meeting did not attract attention because Father Lanteri was known as a great confessor and was highly sought after by travelers drawn to his fame. Berthaud then went to Mondovi, where he met the Knight Cesare Renato Galleani d’Agliano, who gave the donations Amicizia had obtained to Pius VII. He advised Berthaud du Coin on how to approach the pope.
The meeting with the Knight d’Agliano required greater caution. M. du Coin introduced himself as an English tourist. He presented himself as a great admirer of Italy, interested in finding a guide to help him learn more about Turin’s wonders. The two spoke only English and took several tours together. On one of those occasions, the knight took the traveler to the palace of Bishop Vincenzo Maggioli, known as “Uncle Vincenzo” in the network’s coded language. Bishop Maggioli gave du Coin a letter of introduction to the pope’s chamberlain, Andrea Morelli, who was known to the underground network for his devotion to Pius VII and his services to Duke Mathieu de Montmorency during the pontiff’s imprisonment.
In Savona, Berthaud du Coin immediately sought out Andrea Morelli, who took him to attend the Mass celebrated by the pope. When the Holy Sacrifice was over, Pius VII addressed those present with a few words. He avoided extending the audience to avoid suspicion. Still, the allotted time sufficed for Berthaud du Coin to ask the pope’s chamberlain for the text of the Bull. He also presented inquiries from a sodality member. Unfortunately, the subjects of those inquiries are unrecorded.
Berthaud du Coin prepared everything. He wrote the consultations on the margins of a few book pages and told the steward which pages they were. That same afternoon, as arranged, Andrea Morelli stood on a bridge downtown talking to a friend. Berthaud du Coin approached. Without moving too far from the other person, he asked the steward to give the Holy Father the book as a souvenir. He presented himself as a fearful traveler wishing to honor the pope but keen not to get into trouble. He pretended to apologize for not revealing his identity.
Morelli sent him the pope’s answers and a copy of the Bull the next day. Berthaud du Coin then quickly returned to Lyon. From there, another sodality member took Quum Memoranda to Paris. There, Sodality members carefully copied the text and sent it to Father Jean-Marie de Lamennais in Brittany, as well as to network members in Bordeaux and other major French cities.
Correspondence authentique published the early documents. Now, it included the official Latin text of the excommunication and its translation. These were soon reprinted. Once again, Napoleon’s police were defeated. Indeed, the official closing of the Marian Sodalities had not advanced the Emperor’s agenda.
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Footnotes
- Pope Pius VII was imprisoned at Savona from July 1809 until June 1812. He was then moved to France, where the Holy Father was imprisoned until May 1814, being released when Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba.
- Duke Mathieu de Montmorency, First Duke of Montmorency-Laval (1767-1826) was a Catholic royalist. When the monarchy was restored, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Louis XVIII.
- Louis Joseph Alexis, Count de Noailles (1783-1835) was a founder of the group, Knights of the Faith. His mother was guillotined in 1794 during the Terror. After the fall of Napoleon, the Count would take part in the famous Congress of Vienna and serve in the French Parliament as a member of the “Ultraroyalist Doctrinaires” Party.
- Benoît Coste (1811-1845) was a French Counter-Revolutionary. He was a prominent member of Father Jacques Linsolas’s “underground Church” and organizer of Lyon’s Marian Sodality.
- François Franchet d’Esperey (1778-1864) participated in the Lyon insurrection of 1793, was a member of the Knights of the Faith, and was elected prefect of the Congregation of the Gentlemen of Lyon in 1809. He would be incarcerated from 1811 to 1814 for his assistance to Pope Pius VII. His more famous grandson, Louis Franchet d’Esperey, would serve as a French General in World War I.
- Servant of God Pio Brunone Lanteri, priest. (1759-1830) Leader of the Italian Amicizie. Collaborated to create Turin’s “Convitto Ecclesiastico,” where St. John Bosco later began his apostolic life. Founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary.