replied with the famous "Non possumus" but in 1862 accepted too late Ricasoli's proposal concerning ecclesiastical property. After the September Convention of 1864, Antonelli organized the Legion of Antibes to replace French troops in Rome and in 1867 secured French aid against Giuseppe Garibaldi's invasion of papal territory. Upon the reoccupation of Rome by the French after the Battle of Mentana on 3 November 1867, Antonelli again ruled supreme, but after the entry of the Italians in 1870, he was obliged to restrict his activity to the management of foreign relations. With the Pope's approval, he wrote the letter requesting the Italians to occupy the Leonine City in which the Italian government had intended to allow the pope to keep his temporal power and obtained from the Italians payment of the Peter's pence (5,000,000 lire) remaining in the papal exchequer, as well as 50,000 scudi, the only installment of the Italian allowance (subsequently fixed by the Law of Guarantees, 21 March 1871) that was ever accepted by the Holy See. By the nature of the post that he occupied from 1850 to his death, Antonelli had little to do with questions of dogma and Church discipline although he signed the circulars addressed to the Powers transmitting the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and the acts of the First Vatican Council (1870). His activity was devoted almost exclusively to the struggle between the papacy and the Italian Risorgimento. He died on 6 November 1876. Antonelli bequeathed his personal fortune of about 623,341 gold francs (derived chiefly from his family patrimony) to his four living brothers and two nephews, though pointedly excluding a nephew who had become an anticlerical Italian nationalist, and bequeathed his collection of precious gems to the Vatican museum and the crucifix that he kept on his desk to Pope Pius IX as a personal memento. Although it did not prevent Pope Pius IX's beatification, some observers believe that Antonelli's notoriety might be enough to prevent his canonization. Antonelli was one of the last deacons to be created a cardinal before Pope Benedict XV decreed in 1917 that all cardinals must have been ordained priests. No cardinal eligible to participate in a papal conclave has gone as long as Antonelli—29 years—without doing so. Roger Etchegaray overtook Antonelli on 26 November 2008 in years of service as a cardinal and ultimately served for 40 years without participating in a conclave, but