Napoleon had set off on his expedition to Egypt, from which he had stealthily slipped back to Paris in August 1799, just a week before the death of Pius VI. Joseph Bonaparte had proved incapable of holding Rome, anti-French and propapal risings by the Sanfedisti—“those of the Holy Faith”—had broken out all over the peninsula, and the French army had beaten a hasty retreat. It had, however, immediately been replaced by another army of occupation, Neapolitan this time, and there was a general feeling among the cardinals that the forthcoming conclave should be held in some city other than Rome, safer and generally more tranquil. They chose Venice.The Most Serene Republic was dead. Napoleon had put an end to it in May 1797. A “Tree of Liberty” had been erected in St. Mark’s Square, surmounted by the symbolic scarlet Phrygian cap, which bore more than a passing resemblance to the doge’s corno. The corno itself, together with other symbols of the ducal dignity and a copy of the Golden Book in which the names of all the noble families of the republic were inscribed, had been publicly burned beneath it.
