Pope Pius VI was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in 1799.
Pius VI condemned the French Revolution and the suppression of the Gallican Church that resulted from it. French troops commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the papal army and occupied the Papal States in 1796. In 1798, upon his refusal to renounce his temporal power, Pius was taken prisoner and transported to France. He died eighteen months later in Valence. His reign of over two decades is the fifth-longest in papal history.