and Napoleon had been strained.

Gentle as the Pontiff was by nature, he had declined to exclude all British merchandise from his States, or to accept an alliance with Eugene and Joseph.

He also angered Napoleon by persistently refusing to dissolve the marriage of Jerome Buonaparte with Miss Paterson; and an interesting correspondence ensued, culminating in a long diatribe which Eugene was charged to forward to the Vatican as an extract from a private letter of Napoleon to himself.[176] Pius VII.

was to be privately warned that Napoleon had done more good to religion than the Pope had done harm.

Christ had said that His Kingdom was not of this world.