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Updated: May 27, 2025
It appears that when in that office, the man Neündorf was, in 1810, arrested at Rome, and interrogated by M. Radet, chief of police in that city: the latter, pronounced him to be in reality the son of Louis XVI. Than M. Radet, there could not be a better judge of the matter, for he happened to be one of the five persons who arrested Louis and his family when they tried to quit France, and were intercepted at Varennes.
General Radet had sent for the final orders of General Miollis. The brigadier of gendarmerie charged with this commission re-entered the chamber of the Pope. "The order of his excellency," said he, "is, that it is necessary for the holy father and Cardinal Pacca to set out at once with General Radet: the other persons in his suite will follow after." The Pope rose up; he walked with difficulty.
Moved in spite of himself, Radet offered his arm to support him, proposing to retire, in order to leave the holy father free to give his orders and dispose of any valuable objects that he might have a fancy for. "When one has no hold upon life, one has no hold upon the things of this world," replied Pius VII., taking from a table at the side of his bed his breviary and his crucifix.
The emperor may tear us in pieces, but he will not obtain from us what he demands. After all that we have done for him, ought we to expect such treatment?" "I know that the emperor is under many obligations to your holiness!" replied Radet, more and more troubled. "Yes, more than you are aware of; but, finally, what are your orders?"
At eleven o'clock I myself placed my patrols, my guards, my posts, and my detachments for carrying out the operations, whilst the governor-general caused the bridges of the Tiber and the castle of St. Angelo to be occupied by a Neapolitan battalion." General Radet had received a written order from General Miollis, for the arrest of Cardinal Pacca. The order to arrest the Pope was not written down.
General Radet and a marshal of the household got on to the box-seat; the horses set off at a quick trot along the road to Florence. General Radet offered a purse of Gold to the Pope, which the latter refused. "Have you any money?" asked the holy father of his companion. "I have not been permitted to enter my apartment," said the cardinal; "and I did not think of bringing my purse."
"I disembarrassed myself of them," writes Radet, "by calling out to them to place themselves on their knees on the right and left of the road, in order that the holy father might give him his benediction; then all of a sudden I ordered the postillions to dash forward. By this means the people were still on their kness whilst we were already far away, at a gallop. This plan succeeded everywhere."
As all productions of this sort were, as usual, liberally rewarded by the Emperor, they poured in from all parts of his Empire. Three poets and authors of the theatre of the Vaudevilles, Barrel, Radet, and Desfontaines, each received two hundred napoleons d'or for their common production of a ballad, called "Des Adieux d'un Grenadier au Camp de Boulogne."
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