They travelled through the night, so swiftly that at one point the party had to stop to extinguish a fire that had started around the axles of Count Spaur’s carriage. Ten miles south, a larger and swifter carriage waited to convey him to the southern border of the Papal States and into the neighbouring Kingdom of Naples. The fugitive was bustled into a small open carriage and driven out of the city, his face obscured by the brim of his hat and the gathering darkness. The French ambassador to the Holy See, the duc d’Harcourt, remained alone in the chamber for 45 minutes, speaking in a loud voice so that no one would suspect that the pope had left the building.Īt the church of SS Marcellin and Peter, the pope’s coach was met by the Bavarian ambassador, Count Karl von Spaur, who was clutching a pistol in his right hand, in case they were challenged.
Half an hour later, in a state of great agitation, he left the papal audience chamber in the Quirinale Palace by an internal stairway and tiptoed down to the courtyard, where a carriage was waiting for him. At 5 p.m., he took off his Moroccan silk slippers with crosses embroidered on their uppers, put aside the red velvet papal cap and dressed himself in the black cassock and broad-brimmed hat of a country priest. O n the evening of 24 November 1848, Pope Pius IX fled from the city of Rome.
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