The Pope also passed under the yoke.  For a long time the relations between Pius VII. 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.  Why then did the Pope set himself above Christ?  Why did he refuse to render to Caesar that which was Caesar’s?—­A fortnight later the Emperor advised Eugene to despatch troops in the direction of Bologna—­“and if the Pope commits an imprudence, it will be a fine opportunity for depriving him of the Roman States.”

No imprudence was committed.  Yet, in the following January, Napoleon ordered his troops to occupy Rome, alleging that the Eternal City was a hotbed of intrigues fomented by England and the ex-Queen of Naples, that Neapolitan rebels had sought an asylum in the Papal States, and that, though he had no wish to deprive the Pope of his territories, yet he must include him in his “system.”  When Pius VII. refused to commit himself to a policy which would involve war with England, Napoleon ordered that his lands east of the Apennines should be annexed to the Kingdom of Italy (April 2nd, 1808).  Napoleon thus gained complete control over the Adriatic coasts, which, along with the island of Corfu, had long engaged his most earnest attention.[177]

True to his aim of forcing or enticing all maritime States into a mighty confederacy for the humiliation of England, Napoleon had given most heed to lands possessing extensive seaboards.  Northern Italy, Holland, Naples, North Germany, Prussia, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and Central Italy had, in turn, adopted his system.  On Austria he exerted a less imperious pressure; for her coast-line of Trieste and Croatia was so easily controlled by his Italian and Dalmatian territories that English merchandise with difficulty found admittance.  Yet, in order to carry out there also his policy of “Thorough,” he brought the arguments of Paris and St. Petersburg to bear on the Court of Vienna; and on February 18th, 1808, Austria was enrolled in a league that might well be called continental; for in the spring of that year it embraced every land save Sweden and Turkey.

His activity at this time almost passes belief.  While he fastened his grip on the Continent, gallicized the institutions of Italy and Germany, and almost daily instructed his brothers in the essentials of successful statecraft, he found time to turn his thoughts once more to the East, and to mark every device of England for lengthening her lease of life.  Noticing that we had annulled our blockade of the Elbe and Weser, with the aim of getting our goods introduced there by neutral ships, Napoleon charged his Finance Minister, Gaudin, to prepare a decree for pressing hard on neutrals who had touched at any of our ports or carried wares that could be proved to be of British origin.[178]