Senio in their front.  The resistance was brief.  The Pope’s army, composed mostly of new recruits, retreated in confusion.  Faenza was carried by the bayonet.  Colli and 3000 more laid down their arms; and the strong town of Ancona was occupied.[15] On the 10th of February the French entered Loretto, and rifled that celebrated seat of superstition of whatever treasures it still retained; the most valuable articles had already been packed up and sent to Rome for safety.[16]—­Victor then turned westwards from Ancona, with the design to unite with another French column which had advanced into the papal dominion by Perugia.

The panic which the French advance had by this time spread was such, that the Pope had no hope but in submission.  The peasants lately transformed into soldiers abandoned everywhere their arms, and fled in straggling groups to their native villages.  The alarm in Rome itself recalled the days of Alaric.

The conduct of Buonaparte at this critical moment was worthy of that good sense which formed the original foundation of his successes, and of which the madness of pampered ambition could alone deprive him afterwards.  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. 12, 1797) followed.  By this the Pope conceded formally (for the first time), his ancient territory of Avignon.  He resigned the legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, and the port of Ancona; agreed to pay about a million and a half sterling, and to execute to the utmost the provisions of Bologna with respect to works of art.  On these terms Pius was to remain nominal master of some shreds of the patrimony of St. Peter.