Pius VI

Pius VI dated his letter Charitas at Rome on 13 April 1791, in the seventeenth year of his pontificate (Pius VI, Charitas closing line). In it he recounts his letters to the king of France since July 1790 urging him not to approve the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (Pius VI, Charitas 2–5), pronounces that law heretical in many of its decrees and in others sacrilegious and schismatic (Pius VI, Charitas 11), and suspends clergy who had sworn to uphold it unless they retract within forty days (Pius VI, Charitas 20).

By the treaty of Tolentino of 19 February 1797 he made peace with the French Republic, renouncing Avignon and the Legations of Bologna, Ferrara and Romagna (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 52B, pp. 257–258). His successor Pius VII praised the firmness with which he had borne his misfortunes and recorded that he died after providing for the election of the next pope (Pius VII, Diu satis 2, 4–5). See the French Revolution and the Church.