ABSTRACT
The French called awkward bishops many things, indeed several ended in prison, but they almost never accused them of pastoral neglect. Even as Elisa, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, railed at Paris to rid her of the Archbishop of Pisa – ‘who does not hide his hatred for the French … or [his support] for the malign influence of the faction of the Court of Rome: [whose] influence on the clergy of his diocese is deadly’ – she admitted that he ‘has the qualities and virtues of a good bishop’.1 Roederer admitted that the late Bishop of Spoleto would be missed on his death in 1812. Although he did little to help with conscription, he gave away his whole official salary in alms.2 Cerati, the pro-Jesuit Bishop of Piacenza, drew real praise from the ex-Terrorist Nardon on his death in 1806: ‘the poor have lost a father, the Church one of her true ministers’.3 He received this relatively warm obituary from the Minister of Religion on precisely these grounds:
This Prelate was certainly not French, either by taste or in his principles, but he loved his duty, he respected the [civil] authority and, by a principled conscience, he followed the right path. He feared compromising the Faith, by not obeying the law. I cannot feel the same confidence in the majority of his clergy.4
