No. 242. Letter from Emperor Napoleon I to Archchancellor Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès, July 23, 1809
During the night of July 5–6, 1809, General Radet entered the Quirinal Palace and abducted Pope Pius VII, who would remain in captivity until 1814.



This event marked the culmination of a long-simmering, then open, conflict with the pope who had crowned Napoleon emperor. After Pope Pius VII refused to support the Continental Blockade—particularly his refusal to close ports such as Ancona—Napoleon retaliated with increasing force: he occupied parts of the Papal States, seized key ports, marched troops into Rome on February 2, 1808, and in March expelled foreign cardinals.
On July 6, 1809, General Miollis, then governor of Rome and the Papal States, was reinforced with 400 gendarmes sent on Napoleon’s orders. He was instructed to remove the pope and delegated the task to his chief of police, General Radet, who arrested Pius VII outside the city.
This letter marks Napoleon’s first official reaction to the pope’s arrest. A shrewd political move, Napoleon manually corrected the phrase "AGAINST MY ORDERS" to "WITHOUT MY ORDERS"—allowing him to disavow the action without acknowledging insubordination or being compelled to take punitive steps.

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