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Innocent XI
1676-1689

Benedetto Odescalchi born 1611

Innocent XI was born on the 16th of May, 1611, of an illustrious family of Como, a city of the Milanese. Having completed his studies under the Jesuits, he went to Genoa to perfect his acquirements; thence to Rome and to Naples, where he received the grade of doctor. Having from an early age felt a vocation to the ecclesiastical life, he proceeded to Rome in the reign of Urban VIII, who made him assistant prothonotary, president of the chamber, and commissioner of assistance of the Marches during the war against the Duke of Ferrara.

Innocent X, after confiding to Benedetto the functions of president of the March and governor of Macerata, gave him the purple in 1645, when he was not yet thirty-four years of age.

In 1666 Cardinal Odescalchi was created legate to Ferrara. His letters of nomination began with these compliments words: "We send you, the father of the poor."

Bayle and several other French encyclopaedias state that Benedetto had been a soldier. This is not correct. The writers have confounded him with quite another Odescalchi who fought in Flanders. Count Antonio Joseph Rezzonico, in a dissertation printed at Como in 1742, has shown that Benedetto was never a soldier. These writers ascribe Pope Innocent's opposition to Louis XIV to the military tastes and habits of the pontiff. But in truth, as Benedetto was never anything but an ecclesiastic, it is manifestly unjust to attribute to him the hard, stern feeling of the camp:an ecclesiastic from the first, he could only take counsel from the duties of sovereign pontiff and independent sovereign.

In the conclave which followed the death of Clement IX, Benedetto would doubtless have received the tiara; but Cardinal de Bouillon, fearing the known austerity of Odescalchi, induced the King of France to exclude him.

After the funeral of Clement X, on the 2nd of August. sixty-seven sacred electors entered into conclave.

To meet the necessary expense of this occasion, the College had previously decided that a sum of twenty-five thousand crowns should be drawn from the treasury of the Castle of Sant' Angelo.

It was in this conclave that the name of the Zelanti was first used; it indicated those cardinals who, from pure religious zeal, sought, independently of all human considerations and interest, to select the worthiest for the pontificate. In the first ballots Cardinal Celio Piccolomini obtained twenty-eight votes; but forty-five were required for a valid election. Cardinal Gravina then proposed Odescalchi. The latter warmly refused the nomination; but, on the evening of the 20th of September, the cardinals, paying no attention to his resistance, repaired to the chapel, and, without a single exception, insisted upon kissing his hand, which was sufficient to make him the legitimately elected head of the Church, this being a less tumultuous kind of election by adoration. Odescalchi, taken by surprise by this novelty, burst into sobs and implored a moment for reflection. There was an instant silence, and all present gazed with astonishment and admiration upon that spectacle of humility and detachment from worldly grandeurs.

At that moment Odescalchi, his face downcast towards the earth, shed tears that were actually visible upon the earth. He entreated the cardinals to elect some one else: he named one of them worthier than himself; he named two; he named all of them, and he entreated them not to crush him under a burden too heavy for him to bear. But the electors were inflexible, especially Cibo, a personage of great integrity and especially jealous of the decorum of the Church, and they would allow Odescalchi to hesitate no longer; and menaced him with the consideration that by prolonging the conclave he would be acting to the detriment of Holy Church.

That powerful motive was required to decide him to accept; but he still demanded that there should be a ballot, in order that everything should be done decorously and in order. At first he had nineteen votes; but at the accesso the other forty-seven votes elected him pontiff.

On account of the close friendship which united Odescalchi and Cibo, who hoped to see another Innocent VIII, of the Cibo family, and in memory of Innocent X, from whom Odescalchi had received the purple, Benedetto took the name of Innocent XI, and was crowned on the 4th of October. A month later, on the 8th of November, he took possession of Saint John Lateran.

On the day of his election, when he had scarcely entered the Vatican, he called to his side Livius Odescalchi, the only son of his brother Charles, and told him in a tone of authority to proceed with his studies at the college of the Jesuits. "You will make," said the pope to his nephew, "no change in your former way of life; you will receive neither presents nor visits as our nephew, and you will in no respect interfere in the government of our court." The young noble, who was then twenty-two years of age, obeyed these orders of his uncle. That his nephew should have no cause to complain, the pope presented to him his own entire patrimony, an income of some forty thousand crowns, with the exception of less than one fortieth, which the Holy Father reserved for his own personal expenses. "There," said Innocent, "you have enough to support you nobly, without your needing any of the dew of the Vatican." And during his whole pontificate this disinterested pope never touched a cent of the State income, but ordered all to be applied to the discharge of the debts of the apostolic chamber and the needs of the Church.

He reformed the palace table, and admitted to it none but those who were recommended by modest demeanor and purity of morals. He soon announced to all the Christian sovereigns his exaltation, of which he had been the sole opponent, and he exhorted them to concord, and offered to go to any Catholic city they chose, in order that he might personally endeavor to arrange terms of peace, and show the spirit of conciliation that especially belongs to a sovereign pontiff. At the same time he recommended to all his nuncios that they should bear in mind the bygone victories of the Turks and their attempts to put down Christianity in Europe.

Innocent XI ordered an attentive examination into the conduct and capacity of all who were proposed for promotion to dignities; and to that end he named a congregation of four cardinals and four prelates, with instructions to regard merit as the sole claim to benefices, altogether irrespective of influence and patronage. On one occasion Cardinal Cibo presented to the pontiff a list of competitors for various canonries, and a memorandum of the several recommendations. Glancing through the list, the pope came to a name to which no recommendation was attached. "And this one," said the pope to the cardinal, "who recommends him?" no one," replied the cardinal. "In that case," said the pope, "we will patronize him, and prefer him to all the others. We think very little about recommendations, when the person lacks virtue. Dignities should be the reward of virtue, and not of ambition–the prize of merit, and not of office-seeking."

Feeling the deep importance of these noble maxims, he ordered bishops not to admit to holy orders any one who not either a patrimony or a benefice rightfully conferred. Renewing the decree of Alexander VII, he ordered that candidates for the priesthood should for ten days perform the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius.

In a secret consistory he one day made some general remarks upon sumptuous carriages and gorgeous liveries; and he begged the cardinals, for Christ's sake, to hold themselves aloof from all luxurious pomp, as being altogether incompatible with ecclesiastical decorum.

Learning that some barons neglected to pay their debts to their merchants, he ordered the latter to be paid from the ecclesiastical chamber, which could recover the money more easily. This failing to correct the evil, he forbade merchants to give credit, under penalty of losing all legal claim upon their debtors. He also endeavored to repress the usury of the Jews, which until then had possessed almost entire impunity. He published some excellent laws called Innocenziane; he reformed all the tribunals and the chanceries, taking care that the expenses should be regulated only by the justice of the particular cases, and not by avarice and greed.

On the 13th of March in the year 1677, Innocent confirmed the decree of the Congregation of Rites, of the of the 16th of the preceding January, which approved the immemorial cultus (that is, the equipollent, and not the solemn beatification) of the Blessed Amadeus X, third Duke of Savoy, eldest son of the second Duke Louis of that name, and of Anne, daughter of John, King of Cyprus, and grandson of that Duke Amadeus who was antipope under the name of Felix V.

Amadeus X was born at Thonon, on the 1st of February, 1435. Saint Francis de Sales, on the 7th of March, 1612, had solicited from Paul V the canonization of this servant of God.

Innocent was rigidly opposed to the sale of any offices in his court, even if they were not ecclesiastical, and he abolished the college of the twenty-four apostolic secretaries, which had been established by Calixtus III; refunding, however, to each of the secretaries the sum that he had paid for his place. Another good work engaged the attention of Innocent XI. He had reflected upon the excessive expenses of canonization, and he determined to provide effectually for this expense.

By a constitution published on the 15th of October, 1678, he approved the decrees of the Congregation of Rites upon the rules to be followed in the beatification and the canonization of saints. He fixed the fees of all the ministers employed on those occasions, reforming and diminishing the price of the vacations which it would be necessary to allow in such proceedings.

Meantime the question of the regalia was revived in France– that is to say, of the right of the kings to enjoy the revenues of a vacant bishopric, and to confer, during the vacancy of a see, benefices without cure of souls. The Parliament of Paris, by a sentence of 1668, had extended the regalia to all benefices which might be included in countries where the regalia had not previously obtained. King Louis XIV, by his edicts of 1673 and 1675, had confirmed that sentence, and the French clergy had approved it for fear of more troubles. The only opposing bishops had been those of Pamiers and Aleth; and, accordingly, their temporalities were confiscated.

When ecclesiastical rights were in the question, Innocent was not the pontiff to yield. He recommended the respect due to the constitution of the fourteenth general council (the second Council of Lyons), celebrated in 1274 by Gregory X, and opposed the extension of the regalia; and therefore invited the King of France not to insist upon the execution of his edicts. On that subject he addressed to His Majesty on the 12th of March and on the 21st of September, 1678, two briefs in which he lavished both praise and entreaty. But the royal government turned a deaf ear. Then Innocent addressed two other briefs, of December 25, 1678, and March 3, 1680, adding menaces to his zealous exhortation.

On the 3rd of February, 1682, commenced the operations of the famous assemblage of the Gallican clergy, consisting of thirty-four archbishops and bishops and of thirty-eight ecclesiastics of less elevated rank. They recognized the right to extend the regalia to the whole kingdom, and established the four famous propositions called those of the Gallican clergy, concerning the independence of the kings, the authority of the general councils, and the power of the sovereign pontiffs, which they pretended to limit.

The question of the four articles resounded throughout all Europe. Accusations still abound. On the one hand complicities are attributed to Bossuet, of which he would not and could not be guilty.

The edict was issued. The bishops who had not been called to the assembly were discontented with what had been done without their concurrence, and disclaimed all responsibility for it. Clergymen presented for sees did not obtain bulls. Religion suffered. France in general showed itself faithful to Rome. At the end of 1682 the health of Colbert became impaired; he did not recover as had been hoped in the spring of 1683. In the month of August, in this latter year, the patient felt the approach of death. Louis wrote to him. Colbert placed the letter under his pillow unread. Being urged to reply to it, he said: "I will hear no about the king; let him leave me in quiet now at least! If I had done for God what I have done for that man, I should be doubly saved, and I know not what will become me." He died on the 6th of September, 1683, and with ended the series of great French ministers–Sully, Richlieu, Mazarin, and Colbert.

In consequence of the declaration, to which we return, Innocent refused to give bulls to some thirty-five bishops named by the Most Christian King. He yielded nothing during his whole pontificate, and the difference only ceased bring the reign of Innocent XII.

The Jansenists had not forgotten to propagate their doctrines and their pretensions by printing books into which they crowded errors without any restraint.

The pope perceiving that many writers were in error upon the subject of moral discipline, here too strict and there too relaxed, saw good reason for condemning, in the month of March, 1679, sixty-five propositions extracted from their works. He did not limit his zeal or his prudential watchfulness to this. Every day there appeared editions of books in which, under the pretence of introducing strictness of morality, men revived the doctrine of the five propositions condemned in Jansenius. The pope, to meet the evil, published the prohibition of the book entitled "Defence of the Discipline observed in the Diocese of Sens relative to the Imposition of Public Penance for Public Sins." In that book novelties of rites were admitted which were either capriciously invented or resuscitated from ancient customs, and thence there were scattered among the faithful a fatal distinction and an odious diversity of penances.

The same censure condemned a translation of the Homilies of Saint John Chrysostom, that of Egide Gabriel, an adulterator of the pure morality, entitled "Specimina moralis Christianae et moralis diabolicae."

Three different works were also censured in which an anonymous Jansenist accused the Jesuits of being the authors of the sixty-five propositions condemned by Innocent.

The fury of the enemies of the Church knew no relaxation. Endeavors were made to render the sacraments odious and to introduce new rites into the penances, so as to inspire horror against the inviolable secrecy of the confessional. It was even asserted that it was permissible in certain cases to violate the secrecy for the benefit of the penitent himself even when he refused his consent. That frightful error, which was already diffused in several countries, was stifled by a stern decree of the Holy Office, dated 19th of November, 1681.

From the violation of the sacramental secrecy, the contemners of morality passed to another and no less pernicious error: it consisted in censuring the absolution given to penitents before the actual performance of the penance imposed. A malicious endeavor was made to prove by ancient examples, ill applied, that the penitents were never fully absolved until after the performance of the penance imposed by the priests. That error had been taught by Peter de Osma, professor of theology in the University of Salamanca, after being condemned with other errors at Alcala by Alphonso Carillo, Archbishop of Toledo. Sixtus V also condemned it. Nor was this all. An author who did not know how to distinguish sacramental absolution from canonical absolution composed a book which he submitted to the pope. His Holiness, suspecting from the mere title what was the real nature of the book, caused it to be strictly examined, and condemned it in a severe decree in 1685.

Meantime, in 1683, the Turks determined to take a terrible revenge for the defeat which they had sustained. The pope had the happiness to unite in a solemn treaty the Emperor Leopold and John Sobieski, King of Poland. He the ordered public prayers at Rome because the Turks had insolently marched upon Vienna. Not content with so much zeal, the pope, in order that the Christian warriors might act in concert, sent a hundred thousand crowns to the emperor and the like sum to the King of Poland, towards the expenses of the war. The Sacred College contributed towards this Christian alms; and Livius, nephew of the pope, contributed personally ten thousand crowns from his own patrimonial estate.

In describing the siege of Vienna we shall follow John Peter de Welckeren, chevalier of the Holy Roman Empire and aulic councillor of war to the emperor, who sent to the authorities of Rome a detailed account of that memorable victory of the Christians over the Turks.

The sultan had taken an impious oath to carry war into Austria for the purpose of annihilating the Catholic religion. He directed his whole forces against that country. The advanced guard consisted of thirty thousand pioneers, whose business was to widen and level the roads. They were followed by a corps of fifty thousand janizaries, having heavy muskets and an iron ring on the left arm. Then followed fifty thousand mounted spahis, armed with bows and arrows; these were followed by fifty thousand infantry, having with them a hundred immense bronze cannon, besides smaller pieces, with an immense quantity of caissons and combustible shell. In the rear were innumerable wagons, containing the enormous amount of provisions necessary for the supply of so vast a force. When this army reached Belgrade, it was by twenty-two thousand Tartars, eight thousand Transylanians, and twelve thousand Wallachian and Moldavian cavalry, who had arrived by other roads.

Prince Charles, Duke of Lorraine, had received from Leopold the command of the imperial army on the 6th of May, 1683. Couriers promptly announced to him that the grand vizir, at the head of more than two hundred thousand men, was making forced marches upon Vienna. The duke then distributed his troops so as to best defend himself and most vigorously oppose the efforts of the enemy against the city.

Meantime twenty thousand Tartar light cavalry inundated the towns, hamlets, and unfortified castles, carrying fire and bloodshed in all directions, and reducing a host of Christians to captivity.

The inhabitants of Vienna, dreading a deplorable fate, prepared for flight. On the 7th of July, at eight o'clock in the evening, their imperial majesties left the capital with their families, and, with an escort of scarcely two hundred men, proceeded towards Augsburg. Some writers affirm that more than sixty thousand also quitted the city; but at the moment when the siege commenced there were still in Vienna sixty thousand men capable of bearing arms. Before he left Vienna the Emperor Leopold established in the city a civil authority of five persons and also a military power.

On the 14th of July the army of the Turks was seen approaching with a countless multitude of chariots, camels, and horses.

The hill of Saint Mark was invaded. The Turks dispersed to take up their several positions around the ramparts; and those incredulous Austrians who had endeavored to deny the progress of the vizir could no longer doubt that had made all the arrangements for the siege. Trenches were already commenced along the imperial way.

On the 18th of July, batteries, protected by wide ditches and placed upon the same line, attacked the city with great vigor. On the 19th there was an assault, but the Turks were repulsed with considerable losses. Nevertheless, a new review made in the camp showed that the vizir had still at command a hundred and sixty-eight thousand men. He persisted in renewing his attack by means of bridges of boats on the Danube. The new fears thus excited were communicated to the emperor. All Europe was stupefied by the news that spread on the last days of July. The King of France prepared for battle, but did not propose to take his forces far from the frontiers. Innocent XI, deeply grieved, but still preserving his courage, wrote to all the Christian powers,calling their attention to the great perils of Christianity. He himself, in a moment of touching emotion, knelt before the image of Jesus Christ crucified, and pronounced the words which Moses, in his great grief, had formerly uttered: "Either take away from them this evil, or erase me from the book that thou hast written" (Exod. xxxii. 32). Often, full ofconfidence in God, the pope showed the crucifix to those surrounded him, repeating the words: "Lord, my defender and my protector, in that I will hope."

Then devoting himself to other cares, he caused assistance in money and provisions of easy transport to be conveyed to Vienna.

On the 14th of August, 1683, the pope summoned the faithful to the churches to pray God for victory to the Christians over the infidels. Subsequently he directed peculiar ceremonies in the Church of the Minerva and in that of the Anima. There the cardinals assembled with the municipal administrators of the city, and chanted the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.

Meantime the pope wrote letters to the King of Poland, urging him to march to the relief of Vienna. At the same he instituted a universal jubilee, and again raised considerable sums, which he sent to Germany. The pontiff,knowing no limits to his zeal, sent a further sum of a hundred thousand sequins from his own patrimony. The King of Spain was naturally still more generous, as he was far richer. The King of Portugal gave sixty thousand, and the Sacred College, the prelates, and the princes of the Roman State contributed forty thousand. Finally, Tuscany and Venice sent considerable aid.

Meantime John Sobieski had united his brave and faithful Poles to march to defend the cause of Catholicism against its most terrible enemy; and when John had completed all his preparations, he addressed to the pope the following letter:

"Most Holy Father and clement Lord:"

"These few days past I and the leaders of the army have received the benediction of Your Holiness's nuncio, and today, feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, I mounted mounted my war-horse to engage in the sacred combat and, under God;s auspices, to give beleaguered Vienna her pristine liberty. The danger incurred by the city, and by all Christendom in it, so excites me that I have deemed it a duty not to await my corps from Lithuania and the Cossacks. I sent them orders to follow me, and early in September I will unite my forces with the emperor's on the banks of the Danube. In communicating my design to Your Holiness, I cannot express how powerfully your paternal exhortations have appealed to my heart, and how much I have esteemed your holy solicitude for Christendom. I have not hesitated to offer my person, my life, my affection, my royal house. I am assured, as well by the apostolical benedictions as by your paternal affection, that Your Holiness will not abandon me when I go forth to battle for the glory of the cross and the preservation of all Christendom. I repeat to Your Holiness, in hand and heart, how devotedly I am,"

"Your most obedient son,"

"John III, King of Poland."

Though Sobieski advanced rapidly, the besieged, unbroken in courage, were nearly overcome. It seemed that Vienna was about to see her last day dawn. The necessary succor, so earnestly implored of western Europe by the pontiff, was apparently still far from the point of danger. But the word of Sobieski was blessed of God.

The fierce cannonade relaxed only to allow Turkish flags too approach and deliver letters of the grand vizir, demanding the surrender of the city. To these Staremberg made no reply, although he could not promise himself that he could hold out three days more. At night distress-guns fired from the steeples announced the extremity to which Vienna was reduced. One night a sentinel, watching from the tower of Saint Stephen's Church, perceived a light flash on Kalenberg, a mountain near Vienna, which the grand vizir, Kara Mustapha Kul Oglon, had neglected to occupy, much as he boasted that he would never rest till he stabled his master's horses in Saint Peter's at Rome.

The sentinel called the governor. A field-glass disclosed horsemen and lances–the Polish hussars, the terror of the Osmanli. Every bell in town rang out its welcome to their deliverers, whose squadrons soon covered the mountain. The people of Vienna, able to bear arms, the wounded even, rushed to the ramparts. Staremberg gave arms to a crowd of boys and youth.

The morning sun disclosed a whole army encamped on the summit and slope of Kalenberg. Polish couriers appeared on Leopoldsberg, an opposing height. The Turkish army divided: one force descended the slope of the mountain; the other invested Vienna still more closely and prepared to assault it. To arouse the courage of his men, the vizir was borne through the trenches in a litter made musket-proof by iron network.

Every day unexpected troops swelled the force on the mountain. The Prince de Conti endeavored to escape from France to take part in the glorious struggle, but Louis XIV prevented it.

The Polish army had arrived on the 11th of September. On the morning of the battle, Father Mark de Aviano, a Capuchin, sent by Innocent XI, entered the church of Kalenberg and said Mass. Sobieski served it, and kneeling on the altar-steps, the hero, with bowed head and clasped hands, prayed fervently, imploring the Almighty to aid him promptly to accomplish the wish of Innocent XI. Then he received communion, and proceeded to knight his son, Prince James, then fourteen years of age.

The Capuchin then issued from the church and blessed the army, saying: "I proclaim to you, in the name of the Holy See, that if you have confidence in God, the victory is yours"

Then the king, by a signal, sent his army over those precipices, those defiles, those distant fields, on that magnificent camp, crying out: "Let us now march in trust: God Will help us."

On that same day (September 12) the king and his generals halted under a tree to dine; at noon the army moved on. In spite of the excessive heat, the army of the faith, seventy thousand strong, formed in a semicircle on that vast amphitheater. Sobieski was a magnificent sight. He spoke to each of his Christians in his own tongue–German to the Germans, Italian to the Italians, French to the French in his ranks. The Poles he directed by a signal or a movement of his head: they needed not words; all felt the mission God had given their nation.

How fared it in the Turkish camp? Terror began to spread; their outposts were driven in by a sortie from Vienna. The vizir endeavored to mount his war-horse, but, clumsy with trappings, it was fit neither for fight nor flight.

Sobieski, in the van, cried: "Not to us, 0 Lord of hosts, but to thy name give glory."

The hussars of Prince Alexander, Sobieski's eight-year old son, were stopped a moment by a wide ditch that defended the camp. At the cry, "God bless Poland," they plunged in, scaled the moat, and dashed into the camp. The Moslem army was annihilated; the cause of Europe, of Christianity, of civilization, had conquered. God heard the prayers of Innocent XI. At last there are but Christians on the battlefield. Cries rose on every side to honor religion, the pope, the emperor, the king. The intrenched camp was carried and plundered; chariots, camels, provisions, ammunition, silver, gold, the wealth of a Constantinople fell into the hands of the conqueror; for, as Sobieski writes, it was a city laid out with baths and fountains and gardens and every appliance of luxurious ease. Vienna could not hold the spoil; part was distributed in the the neighboring hamlets.

"The Duke of Bavaria and Waldeck embraced me as I entered" says Sobieski, describing to his wife his entrance into the city he had saved, "and kissed me on the face. Generals kissed my hands and boots; soldiers, officers, on horse and cried out, 'Oh! unser braver Konig.' All obeyed me more than my own. Then Father Aviano came, and embraced me a million of times, in a delirium of joy. He maintains that saw a white dove hovering over our army in the fight. Fanfan [Prince James] never left my side; he followed me on horseback for fourteen hours."

The result was truly miraculous. The imperial army, long exposed to the enemy's fire, lost only three thousand men. As to the Poles, their ardor was superhuman; they had rushed so furiously over the Turkish battalions that they threw down their arms and cried for mercy. Bonanni avers that only eighty Poles fell.

The Turkish army fled. Sobieski, full of joy, advanced to the vizer's tent; there he seized the imperial standard, and despatched it to Pope Innocent by Thomas Talenti, his secretary. The Polish envoy entered Rome on the 25th of September, at the moment when Saint Mary Major's was resounding with the Te Deum for the victory already announced by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

It had spread universal joy; sleep was forgotten; by night as by day, the streets were filled with citizens, congratulating each other on the triumph of the cross.

The day after his arrival, Talenti was introduced to the pope by Cardinal Charles Barberini, protector of Poland. In this audience Talenti presented to His Holiness an autograph letter of the king, in these words:

"Venimus, vidimus, et Deus vicit. Your Holiness will deign, I pray, to receive as a new token of my filial respect the news I impart of a signal victory granted by the Almighty to the Christian arms under Vienna. I have succeeded in destroying the greatest part of the Ottoman army, composed of over one hundred and eighty thousand fighting men. I have taken all his artillery, the principal standards of the grand vizir, his horses, arms, colors, tents; in fine, after an obstinate engagement of seven or eight hours, I put the vizir and all his soldiers to flight, and remained in possession of his camp, which extended over more than a league."

"I should have too much to tell Your Holiness, were I to detail our march and battle. As I am preparing to pursue the remnant of the barbarous fugitives, Your Holiness will permit me simply to announce that, having had the honor to write to him from Ratisbon, in Silesia, that, according to my calculation, I would be under the walls of Vienna early in October, I am actually in it before that time."

"My secretary, Talenti, who will have the honor to present this letter to Your Holiness, was beside me all through the action; he can give Your Holiness all the details you desire, and assure you of the continuance of my due respect to your person, and my ardent zeal for the prosperity of the Catholic faith. I shall contribute, as far as depends on me, to the glory and satisfaction of Your Holiness, to whom I renew the assurances of my devotion."

"John III, King of Poland."

On the 29th of September, feast of Saint Michael, standard bearer of the heavenly host, the dean of the Sacred College celebrated Mass in the palace chapel, and after the offertory Count Denoff, the king's envoy, thus harangued the pope:

"Most Holy Father:"

"From the most ancient times till our day, the path of the conqueror has been strewn with signs of the conquered foe, as he passed on his triumphant way to the temple of glory."

"As John III, King of Poland, my beloved master, has by his heroic courage conquered, not for himself alone, but for Christendom, and as his piety to God and reverence to Your Holiness and the Apostolic See equal his royal courage, His Majesty has sent me as his ambassador to lay at your feet this great standard of the formidable ruler of the Turks–a standard that the king took with his own hand from the Moslem camp; and he lays it at the feet of Your Holiness, as the noblest trophy won from the Turkish power."

"John came, saw, and conquered. He came, leaving his kingdom, his queen, and his children; he hastened to deliver Austrian Vienna and save the empire. But he who has achieved all is the pontiff, to whom the king has evinced his devotedness by an example of submission hitherto unknown."

"He has seen, without feeling the slightest alarm, the cruel battalions of the Turks menacing the world with ruin. But Your Holiness had provided for all, opposing a single buckler to so many disasters, because, inspired by the Holy Ghost, Your Holiness had seen in the king the God-chosen defender of Christianity.

"He has conquered, for he has scattered the hostile hosts whom his hand lacked time to smite, and

'Haec omnes veterum revocavit adorea lauros.
Joannes cunctos reddit tibi, Roma, triumphos.'

"Yet great as the victory is, it has been gained only under the auspices of Your Holiness. You have both indeed conquered: Your Holiness by prayer and treasure lavished for the sacred war, and the king by steel and the intrepidity his royal blood. Let your beatitude then, Most Holy Father, know and accept willingly the eternal glory of his pontificate, and enjoy for years to come this glory, acquired by his courage and that of the most invincible monarch."

At the close of this address Talenti presented to the pope the great Turkish standard, which His Holiness handed to Marquis Naro, the standard-bearer of the Holy Roman Church, appointed to place it in Saint Peter's Church, which had not yet been prepared to receive the war-horses of the Emperor Mahomet IV. This immense standard was of Phrygian silk, woven with gold, mingled with red and green, and covered with Arabian sentences.

Rome distributes moral recompenses, which cannot be compared to any treasure. John had the happiness of receiving the stocco and berrettone, accompanied by an autograph letter from His Holiness.

We must not omit the names of several other princes distinguished in this memorable war. Christendom, after rendering her homage to the great courage of Sobieski, owes a lively gratitude to Ernest, Count Staremberg, governor of Vienna; then to John III, Elector of Saxony; Maximilian Emmanuel, Duke of Bavaria, and Charles, Duke of Lorraine, who made this glorious campaign as volunteers under Sobieski.

Rome resounded with sumptuous feasts at this overthrow of the enemies of the Church. Had Vienna fallen, they would soon have swooped down on Italy, and doubtless on France, and Catholics would have cried out for another Charles Martel.

Innocent struck a medal with the legend, "Dextera tua, Domine, percussit inimicum." Ten thousand crowns were distributed to the poor; the pope opened the prisons of debtors and those guilty of minor offences, paying the debts of the one and remitting the unsatisfied penalty of the other.

A new proof of pontifical liberality was also prepared at Rome; and again the sum of one hundred thousand crowns was sent to each of the sovereign conquerors of Islamism to continue the war. Venice, roused by Innocent, swelled the forces of the league.

The Turks would not for years be able to harass their Catholic neighbors, and thought only of keeping their possessions free from invasion. This enabled the pope to turn his cares to the reform of ecclesiastical discipline, his decisions on this point being the most important affairs of his pontificate. Never had so many works swarmed hostile to the discipline of the Church and the supreme authority of the sovereign pontiff.

Among these books several merited special attention. Good Catholic books were not wanting, among which Novaes mentions with high praise Bossuet's Exposition of the Catholic Church, calling it a golden book.

Another difference arose between the Roman government and France in 1686; it was the celebrated quarrel of the franchises.

In the commencement of his pontificate the Holy Father had announced that he would admit at his court no ambassador from any sovereign who did not renounce all claim to any right of franchise to be exercised around his residence. These franchises had become a secure asylum for the majority of those of evil life, who thus found means to escape the justice of the country.

On the 12th of May, 1687, Innocent, by the bull Cum alias, signed by a majority of the cardinals, renewed the constitution of Julius III in 1552, Pius IV in 1561, Gregory XIII in 1572, Sixtus V in 1585, and many other pontiffs, abolishing these franchises. Excommunication was denounced against all who pretended in future to possess any such right, already condemned in the bull In Coena Domini, the edicts of Pope Urban VIII (January 15, 1626, and November 15, 1634) and finally by the edicts of the reigning pope, of November 26, 1677, and February 22, 1680.

The French king took offence, and sent Henry Charles, Marquis of Lavardin, minister extraordinary to Rome, to uphold his pretensions. He arrived November 16, 1687, attended by a crowd of gentlemen and four hundred and fifty soldiers fully equipped. He at once surrounded the Farnese Palace, where he took up his abode, with guards. He then gathered around him nearly twelve hundred men, and began to defend the district to which his pretensions extended, that to say, all the square before the palace and many adjacent streets, declaring it to be his will that no police agent should enter these franchises.

The pope, not moved by such preparations and threats, would not give the ambassador audience, leaving him without function or right to act as representative of the King of France. The Marquis of Lavardin, continuing to renew his pretensions, was excommunicated by the pope, and as he heard Mass at the Church of Saint Louis of the French, which been the national church since the days of Francis I, the pope laid an interdict on the church.

The king, not satisfied with the demands of his envoy, had an act passed by his Parliament appealing to a future council from the edict of Innocent, which he declared unjust. But common sense shows this not to be so: the pope wished the course of justice to prevail in his States, as the king did in his.

Pope Innocent then recalled the nuncio Ranuzzi, resident in France. Louis, carrying his obstinacy to its utmost, forbade the nuncio to leave France, and a diplomatic agent was seen retained against his own and his master's will. At last, under pretext of providing for Ranuzzi's safety, he put him under a military guard, as though France was at war with the Holy See. At the same time the king ordered his commanders in Provence to seize Avignon, usurping that country, the lawful possession of the Papal States.

Louis had, however, to deal with a pontiff whose will to defend his rights was not inferior to his piety and apostolic firmness. The king, endowed with a great character, could not but appreciate greatness in another. Informed of Innocent's firmness, he resolved to treat with Rome. Without informing Lavardin or Cardinal d'Estrees, the protector of France, he wrote an autograph letter to the pope and sent him a confidential agent; but the intrepid pontiff refused to give him audience.

Seeing that Innocent in the matter of the franchises was the same Innocent who opposed the extension of the regalia, Louis recalled Lavardin from Rome in 1689, awaiting better times to smooth the difficulties, which he did not effect until the reign of Innocent XII.

Michael de Molinos, an Aragonese priest and doctor, stood high in the pope's favor, but he was not free from reproach. He had just written a work entitled "Spiritual Guide, conducting the Soul by an Interior Way to obtain Perfect Contemplation and the Rich Treasure of Interior Peace." This book led into error many ladies and persons of all ranks, by teaching that whoever once directs his soul to God by means of the "prayer of quiet" can never again sin with the will. By this maxim of quietism he led his sectaries by an imaginary suspension of the senses, which he foolishly boasted of, to endless brutalities which could satisfy a corrupt sensuality. Cardinal Innico Caraccioli, at Naples, detected the venom concealed in this work, and wrote to the Holy Father, begging him to suppress such a book. Bishops in France and Italy acted with the same zeal. Innocent, by a circular, pointed out the evil and its remedy; and Cardinal Aldran Cibo wrote on the subject in most pressing terms to all the Italian bishops.

The author of this fatal error kept up so extensive a correspondence that twelve thousand letters from all parts of the world were found at his house, and the sum of four thousand crowns, resulting from a tariff imposed by him on all his correspondents on this doctrine, to meet the expense of postage.

The Jesuit, Father Segneri, celebrated for his piety and his elegant works, replied to the "Spiritual Guide." Molinos was arrested by order of the Holy Office, in his house, and thrown into prison. His book was examined, and it was seen that the prayer of quiet, dreamed of old by Oriental monks, had been revived by Molinos to cover sensual disorders which he wished to save under the cloak of devotion. Spain, in 1685, prohibited this with the other works of Molinos, extracting sixty-eight erroneous propositions. Molinos admitted them, and this most indecent of men, after the Gnostics and Turlupines, was accused of the most criminal Quietism, at the age of sixty, and sentenced to abjure his errors in the Church of the Minerva, which he did September 3, 1687.

After Molinos's abjuration Innocent condemned the sixty-eight propositions and forbade the use of any of this author's works.

The return of England to an obedience to the Holy See, after an apostasy of one hundred and fifty-two years, was a prodigy of Divine Providence to reward the merits of a holy and vigilant pontiff.

On the 6th of February, 1685, died Charles II, King of England, who at his death professed the faith which he had followed but not avowed during his reign. His successor was his brother the Duke of York, who ascended the throne under the title of James II, and who became famous for his misfortunes. Almost immediately on his accession he revoked by a decree of April 14, 1687, the edict of Queen Elizabeth against the Catholics, and restored Catholicism as far as he could in his kingdom. But its triumph was brief. James was hated by all who hated Catholicism, and in 1688. they called to the throne William, Prince of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, and husband of James's daughter Mary, as he was a Protestant. He was crowned in 1689, James having fled with his queen and the Prince of Wales to France, where they were hospitably received by Louis XIV. Innocent wrote to the French king a letter worthy of the writer and his correspondent.

In 1688 Innocent received three ambassadors from King of Siam, who had embraced the Catholic faith. They were introduced by Father Guy Tachard, a French Jesuit, who at the same time handed the pope a letter from the king.

On the 19th of April, 1689, Queen Christina of Sweden died at Rome, where she had continued to live in a sort of magnificence which the pope permitted and aided by paying the princess a large annuity. Sometimes her remittances from Sweden were delayed, though in general they were paid in a praiseworthy manner, the delay arising from the misunderstandings of bankers, money not being as changed then as now.

Christina, inconstant in taste, was fond of travel, and loved to intermeddle in political affairs wherever she happened to be. She went further. The crime committed her orders on the 10th of November, 1657, in the Stag Gallery at Fontainebleau, can never be forgotten. Her grand esquire, the Marquis Monaldeschi, was assassinated by Setinelli, captain of her guards, before her eyes and by her order.

Father Lebel, a Trinitarian, called to hear his confession, protested against this act of violence, and urged the respect due to the royal residence, but Christina coldly and haughtily replied that Monaldeschi must die.

Returning to Rome, her welcome was chilling. Her letters from Sweden were less satisfactory. A minor held the throne. Christina would fain have returned; but they insisted on a new act of renunciation on her part, which she reluctantly signed. She then aspired to the throne of Poland; she seemed to float between Lutheranism and Catholicism, and would have visited England, had not Cromwell refused to receive her.

Repulsed by Sweden in 1666, the queen for a third time returned to Rome, and led a more regular life. Cardinal Azzolini was a sort of guardian, and feeling that a control was exercised, she resumed her intercourse with men of art and letters. She founded an academy, collected manuscripts, medals, paintings, gratifying in that attractive intellectual life of Rome, with its pleasing and innocent charms and distractions, passions which we are permitted to indulge to the utmost.

Christina died in her sixty-third year, ordering these words placed on her tomb: "D. O. M. Vixit Christina Annos LXII."

On the whole, religion derived many advantages from this conversion of the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. Catholicism was long spoken of in Sweden with more reserve and respect. The queen was less regretted, perhaps, than she deserved, for, led away by her restless disposition, she began to annoy the pope, her generous benefactor, by demanding for her palace franchises exceeding those of ambassadors, asserting that a queen was more than a king's representative. Death surprised her in the midst of these new troubles, on the 19th of April, 1689.

Innocent lost no occasion of watching over the interests of the Church, but on the 6th of June, 1689, he fell dangerously ill, and was ere long on the verge of the grave. During his sickness he displayed admirable virtue, exclaiming, Iike other revered popes, "0 God, increase my pains, but give me patience." Through Cardinal Colloredo, who attended him, he urged the cardinals, assembled in an adjacent room to choose a better successor to correct his errors. He declared that he had set apart one hundred and twenty thousand crowns to reduce the taxes, and that he wished this sum not to be diverted to other uses. At last, when death was near, he called his nephew Livius, and urged him not to interfere in the succeeding government. Innocent never lost sight of the real interests of Rome. An ambassador assuring him that his master would take the Odescalchi family under his protection, Innocent replied: "We have no house or family. God gave us the pontifical dignity, not for the advantage of our kindred, but for the good of the Church and the nations."

He soon after received the consolations of the Church, but after extreme unction had not strength to pronounce the profession of faith. Cardinal Colloredo read it aloud, and the dying pontiff laid his hand on the paper in token of his entire approbation. He then, with singular piety, asked for the absolution attached to the Rosary and Bona Mors, in presence of the generals of the Dominicans, Carmelites, and Jesuits, and expired on the 12th of August, 1689, at the age of seventy-eight, after governing the Church twelve years, ten months, and twenty-three days.

Innocent was one of the most illustrious pontiffs of the Roman Church, and owed his elevation solely to his merit. Even Protestants do him justice. His decisions were full of equity; he thought neither of himself nor of his kindred; he was free from all nepotism, attentive to the good of Christianity; and these many virtues led, after his death, to efforts for his canonization. The Romans insisted on his being proclaimed a saint, and carried off as a relic the cloak that covered his body.

This biographical data is from "The Lives and Times of the Popes" by The Chevalier Artaud De Montor. Published by The Catholic Publication Society of New York in ten volumes in 1911. The pictures, included in the volumes, were reproduced from " Effigies Pontificum Romanorum Dominici Basae."