vital interests of the church seemed to be threatened. The emperor on several occasions sharply rebuked Fesch for what he thought to be weakness and ingratitude. It is clear, however, that the cardinal went as far as possible in counselling the submission of the spiritual to the civil power. For a time he was not on speaking terms with the pope; and Napoleon recalled him from Rome.
Affairs came to a crisis in the year 1809, when Napoleon issued at Vienna the decree of the 17th of May, ordering the annexation of the papal states to the French empire. In that year Napoleon conferred on Fesch the archbishopric of Paris, but he refused the honour. He, however, consented to take part in an ecclesiastical commission formed by the emperor from among the dignitaries of the Gallican Church, but in 1810 the commission was dissolved. The hopes of Fesch with respect to Regensburg were also damped by an arrangement of the year 1810 whereby Regensburg was absorbed in Bavaria.
In the year 1811 the emperor convoked a national council of Gallican clerics for the discussion of church affairs, and Fesch was appointed to preside over their deliberations. Here again, however, he failed to satisfy the inflexible emperor and was dismissed to his diocese. The friction between uncle and nephew became more acute in the following year. In June 1812, Pius VII. was brought from his first place of detention, Savona, to Fontainebleau, where he was kept under surveillance in the hope that he would give way in certain matters relating to the Concordat and in other clerical affairs. Fesch ventured to write to the aged pontiff a letter which came into the hands of the emperor. His anger against Fesch was such that he stopped the sum of 150,000 florins which had been accorded to him. The disasters of the years 1812–1813 brought Napoleon to treat Pius VII. with more lenity and the position of Fesch thus became for a time less difficult. On the first abdication of Napoleon (April 11th, 1814) and the restoration of the Bourbons, he, however, retired to Rome where he received a welcome. The events of the Hundred Days (March-June, 1815) brought him back to France; he resumed his archiepiscopal duties at Lyons and was further named a member of the senate. On the second abdication of the emperor (June 22nd, 1815) Fesch retired to Rome, where he spent the rest of his days in dignified ease, surrounded by numerous masterpieces of art, many of which he bequeathed to the city of Lyons. He died at Rome on the 13th of May 1839.
See J. B. Monseigneur Lyonnet, Le Cardinal Fesch (2 vols., Lyons, 1841); Ricard, Le Cardinal Fesch (Paris, 1893); H. Welschinger, Le Pape et l’empereur (Paris, 1905); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897–1900).
FESSA, a town and district of Persia in the province of Fars. The town is situated in a fertile plain in 29° N. and 90 m. from Shiraz, and has a population of about 5000. The district has forty villages and extends about 40 m. north-south from Runiz to Nassīrabad and 16 m. east-west from Vāsilabad to Deh
Dasteh (Dastajah); it produces much grain, dates, tobacco, opium and good fruit.
FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT (1806–1869), American statesman and financier, was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, on the 16th of October 1806. After graduating at Bowdoin College in 1823, he studied law, and in 1827 was admitted to the bar, eventually settling in Portland, Maine, where for two years he was associated in practice with his father, Samuel Fessenden (1784–1869), a prominent lawyer and anti-slavery leader. In 1832 and in 1840 Fessenden was a representative in
the Maine legislature, and in 1841–1843 was a Whig member of the national House of Representatives. When his term in this capacity was over, he devoted himself unremittingly and with great success to the law. He became well known, also, as an eloquent advocate of slavery restriction. In 1845–1846 and 1853–1854 he again served in the state House of Representatives, and in 1854 was chosen by the combined votes of Whigs
and Anti-Slavery Democrats to the United States Senate.
Within a fortnight after taking his seat he delivered a speech in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which at once made him a force in the congressional anti-slavery contest. From then on he was one of the most eloquent and frequent debaters among his colleagues, and in 1859, almost without opposition, he was re-elected to the Senate as a member of the Republican party, in the organization of which he had taken an influential part. He was a delegate in 1861 to the Peace Congress, but after the actual outbreak of hostilities he insisted that the war should be prosecuted vigorously. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, his services were second in value only to those of President Lincoln and Secretary Salmon P. Chase in efforts to provide funds for the defence of the Union; and in July 1864 Fessenden succeeded Chase as secretary of the treasury. The finances of the country in the early summer of 1864 were in a critical condition; a few days before leaving office Secretary Chase had been compelled to withdraw from the market $32,000,000 of 6% bonds, on account of the lack of acceptable bids; gold had reached 285 and was fluctuating between 225 and 250, while the value of the paper dollar had sunk as low as 34 cents. It was Secretary Fessenden’s policy to avoid a further increase of the circulating medium, and to redeem or consolidate the temporary obligations outstanding. In spite of powerful pressure the paper currency was not increased a dollar during his tenure of the office. As the sales of bonds and treasury notes were not sufficient for the needs of the Treasury, interest-bearing certificates of indebtedness were issued to cover the deficits; but when these began to depreciate the secretary, following the example of his predecessors, engaged the services of the Philadelphia banker Jay Cooke (q.v.) and secured the consent of Congress to raise the balance of the $400,000,000 loan authorized on the 30th of June 1864 by the sale of the so-called “seven-thirty” treasury notes (i.e. notes bearing interest at 7.3% payable in currency in three years or convertible at the option of the holder into 6% 5–20 year gold bonds). Through Cooke’s activities the sales became enormous; the notes, issued in denominations as low as $50, appealed to the patriotic impulses of the people who could not subscribe for bonds of a higher denomination. In the spring of 1865 Congress authorized an additional loan of $600,000,000 to be raised in the same manner, and for the first time in four years the Treasury was able to meet all its obligations. After thus securing ample funds for the enormous expenditures of the war, Fessenden resigned the treasury portfolio in March 1865, and again took his seat in the Senate, serving till his death. In the Senate he again became chairman of the finance committee, and also of the joint committee on reconstruction. He was the author of the report of this last committee (1866), in which the Congressional plan of reconstruction was set forth and which has been considered a state paper of remarkable power and cogency. He was not, however, entirely in accord with the more radical members of his own party, and this difference was exemplified in his opposition to the impeachment of President Johnson and subsequently in his voting for Johnson’s acquittal. He bore with calmness the storm of reproach from his party associates which followed, and lived to regain the esteem of those who had attacked him. He died at Portland, Maine, on the 6th of September 1869.
See Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden (2 vols., Boston, 1907).
FESSLER, IGNAZ AURELIUS (1756–1839), Hungarian
ecclesiastic, historian and freemason, was born on the 18th of May 1756 at the village of Zurány in the county of Moson. In 1773 he joined the order of Capuchins, and in 1779 was ordained priest. He had meanwhile continued his classical and philological studies, and his liberal views brought him into frequent conflict with his superiors. In 1784, while at the monastery of Mödling, near Vienna, he wrote to the emperor Joseph II., making suggestions for the better education of the clergy and drawing his attention to the irregularities of the monasteries. The searching investigation which followed raised up against him many implacable enemies. In 1784 he was appointed professor of Oriental languages and hermeneutics in the university of Lemberg, when he took the degree of doctor
