#OTD#Onthisday 24 March, 1813, the day after Napoleon's comeback to the Tuileries, Pope Pius VII issued a statement retracting and denouncing the Second Concordat of Fontainebleau as morally inadmissible.
Those Napoleon had commissioned to monitor the Popel-Bishop of Nantes Duvoisin, Minister of Worship Bigot, and Captain and Chamberlain Lagorsse-observed subtle, inexplicable changes in his demeanor since late January.
Pius VII, who, according to Meneval, "had hardly signed the Concordat before he repented it," underwent a moral and spiritual reawakening in isolation. He finally turned to the cardinals Pacca, Conslavi, and di Pietro, who had been beseeching him to reject the profane.
Although the Holy Father was invigorated mentally, his aged body could hardly hold a pen. Nevertheless, he insisted on writing on his own, so as to imbue the statement with an uncontested authority representing the Sacred. He wrote:
"Sire,
However painful the avowal which We are about to make to your Majesty may be to our heart, whatever pain it may cause to yourself, fear of the judgments of God, to Whom our great age and declining health bring Us daily nearer,
should render Us superior to all human considerations, and cause us to despise the terrible anguish which is bearing Us down at this moment. Impelled by our duty, and with that sincerity and frankness which befit our dignity and our character,
We declare to your Majesty, that since the 25th of January, when We apposed our seal to articles which were to serve as a basis to a final treaty mentioned therein, the greatest remorse and the deepest contrition have continually afflicted our soul.
We immediately recognised our error. Constant and serious reflection convince Us more and more powerfully of the evil of a concession into which We allowed ourselves to be drawn in the hope of putting an end to the actual troubles of the Church,
and out of the desire to please your Majesty. One single thought calmed our affliction. It was the hope of remedying by an act of final agreement the evil which We had just caused the Church by signing these articles. But what was not our grief when to our great surprise,
in spite of what had been determined with your Majesty, We saw these same articles which were but the basis of a future treaty, published under the title of Concordat.
...It is in the presence of God, Who will soon demand of Us an account of the power which was conferred on Us
as Vicar of Christ for the government of the Church, that We declare in all apostolical sincerity that our conscience is invincibly opposed to the execution of the articles contained in the document of January 25th ....
With respect to this document , signed by our hand , We repeat to your Majesty the words addressed by our predecessor Paschal II, in a Brief to Henry V, in whose favour he also made a concession which justly caused remorse to his conscience."
#OTD 26 March, 1813, Sweden became informed of the alliance between Prussia and Russia. Bernadotte, in response to Napoleon's threat of war, maintained that he shall remain "frank and loyal" to France but simultaneously dedicated to the well-being of Sweden and her loyal Allies.
Ambassador Thornton became jubilant at discovering what Messenger Morand had handed to Bernadotte. They were Cathcart's letters from the Russian headquarter at Kalisch, containing "a copy of the treaty with Prussia, and a letter from the Emperor Alexander to the Prince Royal."
It also mentioned an outdated intelligence "that the armistice made by Russia with the Austrian troops under Prince Schwarzenberg was unlimited in its duration, and that no efforts would be left unemployed to bring Austria into the system of the Allies."
#OTD 26 March, 1813, Eugene’s vanguard became dispersed around Möckern. Vandamme, before leaving Wesel, left a harrowing warning to the dissidents of Hamburg, Münster, and Bremen.
By nightfall, Durutte completely abandoned Dresden to the incoming army of Wintzingerode.
Due to the roads being impassable from seasonal floods, the viceroy kept his reconnoitering the area with smaller, separate groups. Each fording point became a bottleneck, preventing the infantry and cavalry from crossing side by side.
(Eugene to Nap, 24-25 March 1813)
This, of course, was what horrified his stepfather, who wrote to him:
"This march would destroy everything...It is necessary to start from the principle that it is absolutely useless to disseminate (hand in hand) cavalrymen one by one, by corps."
(Nap to Eugene, 26 March 1813)
#OTD 26 March, 1813, the French and the Russians continued the march on Lüneburg, where the first roll call for the Hussar volunteers was heard. Dornberg was repulsed by Montbrun's detachment at Werben, while Erstorff prevented a detachment under Morand from occupying Lüneburg.
A mini-exhibition on the palace had attracted the volunteers with uniforms put on display; in reality, supplies were still lacking that some of them were driven to procure horses and weapons on their own.
(Charras; Mittler; Jacobi)
Soon, Dornberg faced a French detachment led by Montbrun, belonging to Davout's I Corps. After a forced march via Stendal, the three battalions and 500 cavalrymen assaulted the Cossacks' encampment in Werben.
#OTD 25 March, 1813, Napoleon issued a decree revoking Pope Pius VII's denouncement of the Concordat of Fontainebleau, declaring that it had been inspired by nothing but the Holy Spirit.
In extreme secrecy, he planned to isolate the Holy Father from the cardinals and bishops.
After Bignot handed him the Pope's proclamation from the Fontainebleau, Napoleon replied:
"The Minister of Worship will keep the Pope's letter of March 24th as an inviolable secret, as I wish to be able to say that I have or have not received it."
His emphasis on extreme confidentiality led this letter to be excluded in the collection of his correspondences. According to Thiers, he "wisely restrained himself to making public, as he considered himself by the pope's late conduct perfectly justified in doing,
#OTD 25 March, 1813, Alexander and Kutuzov gave their final approval to the Convention of Breslau. In accordance with the treaty, they issued a proclamation declaring the Confederation of the Rhine illegitimate, the ambivalent tone of which reflected Austria's balancing act.
The additional declaration showed Russia's effort to execute the preliminary terms of the treaty in a way that reflected the fragile intersection of diplomatic interests between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Again heavily mediated by Stein, the proclamation read:
"They (i.e. the Emperor and King) demand faithful cooperation especially from every German Prince, and in doing so they gladly assume that not one will be found among them who by choosing to be and to remain a renegade to the German cause
#OTD 24 March, 1813, Eugene reported that "the terror is very great" on Lower Elbe.
While Durutte and Carra St. Cyr respectively abandoned New Dresden and Bremen, a French force of 700 expelled Lieutenant Baurmeister and the 1st Royal Veteran Battalion from Bremelee.
Eugene, whose army had crossed the Elbe from Magdeburg on the 23rd, "travelled the whole country for five to six leagues." He reported great difficulties in reconnoitering, for seasonal rains made the roads on the meadows extremely damp and muddy.
In the morning, he surveyed the terrain with the II Cavalry corps, who found no enemy except "a few hundred Cossacks." He called a halt after judging the country beyond Nedlitz to be "too open" and vulnerable to "large cavalry movements" from the enemy.