He well knew that, of all the inhabitants of the Roman territories, the class who contemplated his approach with the deepest terror were the unfortunate French priests, whom the Revolution had made exiles from their native soil.

One of these unhappy gentlemen came forth in his despair, and surrendering himself at the French headquarters, said he knew his fate was sealed, and that they might as well lead him at once to the gallows.

Buonaparte dismissed this person with courtesy, and issued a proclamation that none of the class should be molested; on the contrary, allotting to each of them the means of existence in monasteries, wherever his arms were or should be predominant.
This conduct, taken together with other circumstances of recent occurrence, was well calculated to nourish in the breast of the Pope the hope that the victorious general of France had, by this time, discarded the ferocious hostility of the revolutionary government against the church of which he was head.

He hastened, however, to open a negotiation, and Napoleon received his envoy not merely with civility, but with professions of the profoundest personal reverence for the holy father.

The Treaty of Tollentino (Feb.