Chapter III: Opening of the Nineteenth Century (2)

"The central figure came forward a few steps toward me, and it was only by conjecture that I divined that it was Bonaparte, a conjecture that was confirmed by the attitude of Talleyrand, who still kept company with me and presented me to him. I was about to utter some words of compliment, and to speak of my journey; I had scarcely approached him than he at once opened up the conversation, and said curtly: 'I know the object of your journey to France. I want the conferences to be opened immediately. I give you five days, and I warn you that if, at the expiration of the fifth day, the negotiations are not terminated, you will return to Rome, while as to myself, I have already determined on what I shall do in such a hypothesis.'"

The calm dignity of the Cardinal triumphed over the haughty bearing of the Consul who permitted himself to yield somewhat. The audience lasted an hour and a half, and left the Roman prelate quite satisfied that he might employ as much time as the proper discussion of the affair should demand.

It was the 13th of July before the negotiators at last came to a definite agreement. The Concordat had reached that stage in the discussions when it could at length receive the signatures of the various officials interested. The night of the 13th was fixed as the date when that happy consummation was to be effected, and it was settled that all the negotiators were to meet for that purpose at 8 P. M., at the house of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of the first Consul.

So certain were the officials of the Government that the affair was now concluded, that the announcement of the fact appeared in the _Moniteur_ of the day, in an article concluding with the words: "Cardinal Consalvi has succeeded in the object which brought him to Paris." Moreover, the First Consul had confided to his intimates that on the following day, July 14th, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, the formal announcement of the signing of the Concordat would be made at a grand banquet to be held at the Tuileries, at which three hundred or more guests would be present, including the six signers.

In the meantime the party of opposition to the Concordat had not been idle. Under the inspiration of Talleyrand a spurious imitation of the document agreed upon was gotten up, and after a note brought by d'Hauterive--one of the creatures of the Minister of Foreign Affairs--to the First Consul, was substituted for the real paper, under the impression that Consalvi would be led to sign it in the haste required for the accomplishment of the other consequent events. The Cardinal goes on to relate his discovery of this deception:

"Seated around the table," (in the house of Joseph Bonaparte)
"a few moments were devoted to the question as to who should
subscribe first, as it seemed that the honor belonged to him
(Joseph) as the brother of the Chief of the Government. In
the mildest manner, yet with all the firmness required by the
occasion, I remarked that my quality of Cardinal and
representative of the Pope would not permit me to take second
place among the signers; I observed, moreover, that under the
old Government of France, as in all such cases, the cardinals
had undisputed precedence, and that I could not yield in a
point which did not concern me personally but the dignity
with which I was vested. I must in justice admit that, after
some difficulty, he yielded with good grace, and agreed that
I should sign first, while he should follow in the second
place, then the Prelate Spina, followed in order by the
Counsellor Cretet, Padre Caselli, and finally the Abbe
Bernier.

"Thereupon we immediately prepared for the work in hand, and
I took up the pen to affix my signature. But what was my
surprise when I saw the Abbe Bernier presenting me the copy
which he had unrolled, in order that I should begin with that
rather than with my own, and after glancing over it to assure
myself that it was correct, I perceived that the Concordat
which I was about to sign was not the one upon which not only
the negotiators, but the First Consul also, had agreed, but
one entirely different. The change in the first line caused
me to examine with greater diligence the remainder of the
document, and I discovered that the present copy not only
contained the very same draft which the Pope had refused to
admit without proper corrections, and which had given cause
for the recall of the French envoy through the refusal of the
Pope, but it changed the same in many points, having inserted
many things which had already been rejected before that draft
was sent to Rome.

"A proceeding of such a nature, incredible though a fact, and
which I will not permit myself to characterize--the thing
speaks for itself--paralyzed, so to speak, my hand before it
could sign. I expressed my surprise, and declared decisively
that I could not sign that document at any price. The brother
of the First Consul seemed no less astonished at what he
heard, and declared that he could not be persuaded of what I
said, since the First Consul had told him that everything was
agreed and that nothing remained to be done except to sign."

The firm stand taken by Cardinal Consalvi compelled the six commissioners to undertake again a revision of the document in order to be able to please if possible the First Consul, and thus end the affair before the banquet of the following day. It was noon of the fourteenth before they had come to a satisfactory agreement. The new copy was then taken by Joseph Bonaparte who brought it to his brother, the First Consul.

"He returned in less than an hour revealing in his
countenance the anguish of his mind. He informed us that the
French Consul was seized with a fit of great fury at the news
of what had happened; that in the impetuosity of his anger,
he had torn into a hundred pieces the draft of the Concordat
arranged by us; and that finally yielding to his prayers, his
solicitation, his reflections and his reason, he had
promised, although with unspeakable repugnance, to accept all
the articles agreed upon but as to one, which we had left in
suspense, he was as inflexible as irritated, charging me in
conclusion, that he looked for that article just as it was
written in the copy brought by Abbe Bernier, and that I had
only one of two things to do, either to admit that article as
it was and sign the Concordat, or to break definitely the
whole negotiation; that he was absolutely determined to
announce at the banquet of that day either the signing or the
rupture of the affair."

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Joseph Bonaparte brought this strange message. For two hours more this same messenger, aided by Cretet and Bernier, endeavored to bend the unflinching will of Consalvi, but to no purpose. He comprehended fully the great temporal evils that must follow a rupture with France, the dangers to the peace and liberty of the Pope and the welfare of the Church; but he knew at the same time that his action would be precisely in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Father, and therefore a matter of sacred duty. The discussion remained in the same condition when at four o'clock the six commissioners parted to prepare themselves for the banquet which was to begin at five. That this occasion promised to be one of violent anger on the part of Bonaparte was the thought of Consalvi as he entered the banquet hall of the Tuileries. The scene is described dramatically in his own words:

"Scarcely had we entered the hall in which the First Consul
was waiting, and which was thronged with magistrates,
officers, grandees of State, ambassadors, and most
illustrious foreigners,--guests at the banquet,--than he gave
us a welcome easy to imagine, he being already cognizant of
the rupture. He had hardly seen me than, with inflamed
countenance, and in a loud voice, he said: 'So, Monsieur
Cardinal, you wish to break the negotiations? Very well. I
have no need of Rome. I will act for myself. I have no need
of the Pope. If Henry VIII. who had not the twentieth part of
my power knew how to change the religion of his country
successfully, much more do I know how, and am able to do so.
And when I change religion in France, I shall change it in
nearly all of Europe wheresoever the influence of my power
extends. Rome will recognize the losses she must suffer, and
she will bewail them when it is too late. You are going,
well, that is the best you can do. You want a rupture, and
let it be so, since you wish it.'

"To these words uttered in public in a quick, loud tone of
voice, I answered that I could not overstep my powers, nor
agree on points contrary to the principles professed by the
Holy See. 'In things ecclesiastical,' I added, 'one cannot do
all that one can in temporal affairs in certain extreme
cases. Notwithstanding that, it did not seem to me possible
to say that the rupture was sought for on the part of the
Pope, since we were agreed upon all the articles, holding
only one in reserve, in regard to which I have proposed to
consult the Pope himself, even though his own (the French)
commissioners had dissented.' He (the Consul) interrupted me
to say that he wished to leave nothing imperfect, and that he
desired to conclude all or nothing. T answered that I had not
the right to accept the article in question, as long as it
remained precisely as he had proposed it, and without any
modification. He replied angrily that he wanted it just as it
was, without one syllable more or less. I answered that in
that case I should never sign it, because I could not at any
cost. He repeated: 'It is precisely for that reason that I
say that you want a rupture, and that I consider the affair
at an end, and that Rome will feel and weep over this rupture
with tears of blood.'"

After more words uttered in a like strain, the guests proceeded to the banquet which was of short duration and clouded by the irritable temper of the First Consul. After it was ended, however, a better spirit entered into Bonaparte, and yielding to the solicitations of the Count de Cobentzel, the peacemaker of the day, he agreed that the commissioners might come together again for the last time on the following day.

"Let them see if they cannot possibly arrange matters, but if
they separate without coming to a conclusion, the rupture
will be regarded as definitive, and the Cardinal may leave. I
declare also that I want this article to remain absolutely as
it is, and that I shall admit of no change."

And so saying he turned upon his heel.

The commissioners met accordingly on the following day at the house of Joseph Bonaparte, and after twelve hours of discussion finally came to an agreement of such a nature that the honor of the Holy See would be guaranteed thereby, while at the same time the obstinacy of the First Consul would suffer no perceptible wounding. It was at midnight when the affair was at last pronounced completed, and the commissioners at once affixed their signatures to the document.

"The Concordat was signed at two o'clock in the morning in
the house which I occupied in the Rue du
Faubourg-Saint-Honore. At the same hour I became the father
of a third child whose birth was saluted by the
plenipotentiaries of the two great powers, and his prosperity
predicted by the envoys of the Vicar of Christ."[1]

It was midnight instead of two o'clock A. M.

_TEXT OF THE CONCORDAT._

The Concordat, thus signed on July 15th, 1801, was conceived in the following terms:

Convention between His Holiness Pius VII., and the French
Government.

The Government of the Republic recognizes that the Catholic
Apostolic Roman religion is the religion of the great
majority of the French citizens.

His Holiness also recognizes that this same religion has
derived, and at this moment expects anew, the greatest good
and glory from the establishment of Catholic worship in
France, and the especial profession thereof made by the
Consuls of the republic.

Consequently, after the mutual recognition, both for the good
of religion and the maintenance of internal tranquility, they
have agreed upon the following:

Article I.

The Catholic Apostolic Roman religion shall be freely
exercised in France. Its worship shall be public, conforming
to the regulations of internal administration which the
Government shall deem necessary for the public tranquility.

Article II.

A new circumscription of the French diocese shall be made by
the Holy See in concert with the Government.

Article III.

His Holiness will declare to the incumbents of the French
Sees, that it expects from them, with a firm confidence, for
the sake of peace and unity, sacrifices of every kind, even
to the resignation of their Sees.

If, after this exhortation they refuse this sacrifice,
commanded by the well-being of the Church (a refusal
nevertheless which His Holiness does not expect), the
dioceses of the new circumscription shall be provided with
new bishops in the following manner:

Article IV.

The First Consul of the Republic will, within three months
after the publication of His Holiness' bull, nominate to the
archbishoprics and bishoprics of the new circumscription. His
Holiness will confer canonical institution according to the
forms established in regard to France, before the change of
Government.

Article V.

The nominations to Sees, hereafter to fall vacant, shall also
be made by the First Consul, and canonical institution will
be given by the Holy See, in conformity with the preceding
article.

Article VI.

The bishops, before entering on their functions, shall take
directly in the hands of the First Consul, the oath of
fidelity, which was in use before the change of Government,
expressed in the following terms:

"I swear and promise to God, on His holy Gospels, to observe
obedience and fidelity to the Government established by the
constitution of the French Republic. I also promise to have
no understanding with, assist in no council, entertain no
league, either within or without, which shall be contrary to
the public tranquility; and if in my diocese or elsewhere I
learn that anything is plotted to the prejudice of the State,
I will impart it to the Government."

Article VII.

Ecclesiastics of the second order shall take the same oath,
in the hands of the civil authorities named by the
Government.

Article VIII.

The following form of prayer shall be recited at the end of
the Divine Office, in all the Catholic Churches of France:
Domine, salvam fac Rempublicam. Domine, salvos fac Consules.

Article IX.

The bishops shall make a new circumscription of the parishes
in their dioceses, which shall be of no effect until approved
by the Government.

Article X.

The bishops shall appoint to the parishes. Their choice shall
fall only on persons acceptable to the Government.

Article XI.

Bishops may have a chapter in their Cathedral, and a seminary
for their diocese, without any obligation on the part of the
Government to endow them.

Article XII.

All the metropolitan churches, cathedrals, parishes, and
others not alienated, necessary for worship, shall be put at
the disposal of the bishops.

Article XIII.

His Holiness, for the sake of peace and the happy restoration
of the Catholic religion, declares that neither he nor his
successors will disquiet in any manner the holders of
alienated ecclesiastical property, and that, consequently,
the right to said property, with the rights and revenues
attached thereto, shall remain incommutable in their hands or
those of their representatives.

Article XIV.

The Government will secure a suitable salary to the bishops,
and to parish priests whose dioceses and parishes are
comprised in the new circumscription.

Article XV.

The Government will also take measures to enable French
Catholics, when so disposed, to create foundations in favor
of churches.

Article XVI.

His Holiness recognizes, in the First Consul of the French
Republic, the same rights and prerogatives enjoyed at Rome by
the former Government.

Article XVII.

It is agreed between the contracting parties that in case any
successor of the present First Consul should not be a
Catholic, the rights and prerogatives mentioned in the
preceding article, and the nominations to Sees, shall be
regulated, so far as he is concerned, by a new convention.

The ratifications to be exchanged at Paris within forty days.

Done at Paris, 26th Messidor, year IX. of the French
Republic, July 15th, 1801.

H. CARDINAL CONSALVI,
J. BONAPARTE,
J. ARCHEVEQUE de CORINTHE,
FR. CHARLES CASELLI,
CRETET,
BERNIER.

Upon its appearance, the new treaty was naturally subjected to criticism, adverse and favorable. That it meant a decided victory for the Church over her old enemies was admitted on all sides, and all hostility to its prescriptions could be reduced to the murmurings of the Royalists, the emigres, the Gallicans, the constitutionals and the various revolutionary parties. By the great mass of the Catholic people it was hailed as a rainbow of promise after the desolating storms of the past ten years.

"According to its first article the Catholic Apostolic and
Roman religion was to be exercised freely in France; the
Catholic Church was therefore to be free in her
organization, free in her preaching and teaching, free in her
discipline, in her ministers, in her right of acquiring such
property as would be necessary for the accomplishing of her
mission. She is no longer as under the old regime, intimately
allied with the State; she is no longer the Church of the
State; the separation of the temporal and the spiritual has
been effected.... But if in return one considers the words of
the text according to their real value, she is entirely free;
she need no longer fear trespassing from outside nor a
supervision that tends only to hinder her action; nor those
thousand and one interferences which were formerly
perpetrated by Gallicanism."

The article continues: "Its worship shall be public"--words which naturally signify the exercise of religious ceremonies not merely within the walls of the church, but exteriorly also, as in public processions, carrying the Blessed Viaticum to the sick, and such like. Nor is it strange that these practices should be permitted in a land where the Catholic faith is the religion of the great majority of the people, when in Protestant countries they are carried out solemnly and amid the veneration of all.

The addition of the words--"in conforming to the regulations of internal administration (reglements de police) which the Government shall deem necessary for the public tranquility"--was one of the causes of the delay in framing the Concordat; it was the clause against which the First Consul declaimed so violently on the famous afternoon of July 14th, and it has served ever since as the foundation of an anti-liberal jurisprudence.

"In practice it is the mayor who in each commune is charged
with maintaining public order and tranquility, and, by the
same title, whenever a mayor considers that a procession or
any other religious manifestation can occasion trouble and
disorder upon the public streets, he has the right to
interdict it. One must confess that in a country like ours
where the idea of liberty is so limited, it is sometimes a
means for the protection of the clergy and faithful against
injuries and outrages. But very often mayors have
interdicted, and permanently, only Catholic processions,
while they permit freethinkers to pass through the streets in
parades that are dangerous to the public. If a mayor acts
with such partiality, if he cannot support his interdiction
with some serious reason--like that municipal official who
would interdict a procession because the white veils of the
young girls might frighten horses--if a mayor, in a word,
acts by party spirit, and not in view of the public
tranquility, he violates the Concordat. True liberty of
conscience does not take account of the sentimental
susceptibilities of occasional nervous individuals, nor would
it impose upon anyone the obligation of dissimulating their
religious professions or philosophical opinions; on the
contrary it imposes on men the obligation of tolerating each
other reciprocally in the peaceful manifestation of their
beliefs. Hence, independently of the Concordat, is not such
liberty of conscience demanded for all citizens by the
Declaration of the Rights of Man?" (Croizil.)

The articles relating to the bishops excited the greatest amount of dissatisfaction in many quarters. It meant the realization of that idea which Bonaparte had expressed to Cardinal Martiniana in the year preceding--the utter abolition of the old hierarchy--and the substitution of one entirely new and conformable to the order of things about to be established. Before the Revolution there were in France 136 Episcopal Sees. In the scheme of Bonaparte these were to be reduced to fifty only, of which ten were to be metropolitan, although later, in 1801, he was pleased to add ten other sees to the number. Commenting upon this reduction, Cardinal Mathieu observes:

"Sixty-six cities were thus subjected to a moral and material
decline from which they have never since rallied. Indeed,
each of these suppressed Sees was illustrated with memorials
of apostleship and holiness, with monuments, with religious
establishments of every kind which gave to the episcopal
cities an importance superior to that of their population and
made them so many interesting little capitals, wherein were
often hidden men of great merit. The dignitaries of the
secular and regular clergy, some families of impoverished
gentlemen or well-to-do bourgeois and professional people,
maintained therein an amiable society which kept up in the
most secluded provinces the best traditions of the old
regime--courtesy, a taste for literature and charity for the
poor. All these little centres of intellectual and moral life
were blotted out and the Concordat thus only sanctioned the
destruction effected by the Revolution."

It was mainly because of reflections like these that the old emigre bishops received the news of these articles with so sad a grace.

The articles which treat of ecclesiastical property and the salaries of the clergy will prove of interest especially at the present time, when in the Law of Separation they have been so badly misinterpreted. Article XII. reveals the fact that the Church was placed in _absolute_ possession of her property. The term "shall be placed at the disposition of the bishops" signifies the same thing that it did when in 1789 the property of the Church was confiscated by the then Government and, to use the terms of that law, _mise a la disposition de la nation_, placed at the disposition of the nation. There can be little doubt as to how those words were understood in 1789, for the nation, acting upon the law, immediately proceeded to the sale of all ecclesiastical property. The words, therefore, signified that the nation was placed in full and absolute possession of such property, and the precedent must in all honor apply equally when the terms are used in favor of the Church. To say, therefore, that the article gave to the bishops the mere use _ad revocationem_ of such property is only to betray a desire to excuse a robbery under the pretext of a misunderstanding. The Concordat thus acknowledged the Church's absolute possession of her churches and other religious establishments, a possession which will always remain hers rightfully, and which she shall defend in her own way against any attempt at alienation.

In the articles XIII. and XIV. the French Government acknowledges that even the alienated property, _i. e._, the churches, etc.--which after the confiscation of 1789 were sold, were even in 1801 the rightful property of the Church; though, nevertheless, the Church, for the sake of peace, therein agrees to waive her right. In so doing, however, she requires as a condition that the State shall compensate her for the same. This compensation is expressed in article XIV., wherein it is declared that the State shall assure a suitable salary to the clergy. In accordance with this disposition it follows that whenever--as at present--the Concordat should be abolished the Church should revert to her natural rights the compensation for alienated property being discontinued, such property or its value should be restored to the Church. In this matter the present Government of France has shown itself not merely unfair but actuated also by a spirit of robbery.

The Concordat finished, Cardinal Consalvi began his preparations for returning to Rome. He arrived in the Eternal City on August 6th. He had, however, been preceded by a messenger bearing the precious document, who arrived at the Vatican on July 25th. The instrument was immediately subjected to the examination of a commission of cardinals, and only after long and heated discussions was it finally accepted by the Holy See. It was signed by the Pope on August 15th, 1801.

In accordance with the prescriptions of the Concordat the Holy Father began at once the execution of that article which required the resignation of the various sees by their actual or rightful incumbents. The brief dispatched by the Pope to all the bishops of France, whether resident in that country or living in foreign lands, necessitated that an answer be received within ten days. Fourteen prelates residing in London declared, on September 27th, that they could not consent for the present to his demands, at least without having been heard. Twenty-six bishops residing in Germany answered in the same terms on October 28th. On January 21st the bishops who had taken refuge in England addressed to the Holy Father a new refusal protesting "against the attempts which had been made or which might be made against the rights of the Most Christian King, their Sovereign Lord, rights which the laws of the Church commanded the first among the Pontiffs to respect religiously, and the defence of which was for the French bishops a duty rendered sacred by their oaths of fidelity from which no power could release them, and whose violation would be a criminal act." Some hesitation was likewise manifested by the constitutional bishops resident in France, a hesitation, however, which under the tactful management of Cardinal Caprara, the new Legate a Latere at Paris, was finally overcome.

The Holy Father, after waiting patiently for several months for a favorable answer to his demands, resolved at length to act notwithstanding all protestations. In the Bull, _Qui Christi Domini_, he declared that he derogated to the consent of the bishops who had refused to sign their resignation, he interdicted in them every act of jurisdiction, he abolished the old dioceses existing in France, and erected sixty new sees in their place.

In the meanwhile the Concordat had been signed by Bonaparte, on September 10th, 1801. It yet, however, required the ratification of the governmental bodies before becoming law. Though signed on July 15th, 1801, it was not until April of the following year that this desired consummation was effected. It was finally ratified on April 8th, by the Corps Legislatif. The reason for the delay became apparent upon this occasion, for then there appeared in conjunction with the Concordat, and as if forming a part of it, a series of laws entitled _Organic Articles_, which had been elaborated during those nine months without the knowledge of the Pope, just as their publication was now effected without his cognizance. The purport of these latter articles was to destroy or contradict in great part the concessions granted by the Concordat. Rome has never ceased to protest against them, and to demand their abrogation or modification. In 1804 she seemed to have succeeded, deceived by the promises of Napoleon at a moment when he desired the aid of the Holy Father at the ceremonial of his coronation; in 1817, when a new Concordat was attempted, the partial abrogation of these Articles was one of the stipulations; their suppression was again proposed in 1848; and again in 1853. They remained, however, in spite of every effort, a constant obstacle to the fulfilment of the concessions of the Concordat and a source of perpetual trouble to the Church in France.

_TEXT OF THE ORGANIC ARTICLES._

Organic Articles of the Convention of the 26 Messidor, Year
IX.

Article 1. No bull, brief, rescript, decree, mandate,
provision, signature serving for provision, nor other
documents expedited by the Court of Rome, even though they
concern private individuals can be received, printed, or
otherwise put in force without the authorization of the
Government.

Article 2. No individual styling himself a nuncio, legate,
vicar, or commissary Apostolic, or who makes use of any other
determining title can, without the same authorization,
exercise upon French soil, or elsewhere, any function
relative to the affairs of the Gallican church.

Article 3. The decrees of the foreign synods, even those of
the general councils, cannot be published in France before
the Government has examined their form, their conformity with
the laws, rights and privileges of the French Republic, and
all that which in their publication could alter or interfere
with the public tranquility.

Article 4. No council, national or metropolitan, no diocesan
synod, no deliberative assembly, shall be held without the
express permission of the Government.

Article 5. All ecclesiastical functions shall be gratuitous,
except the offerings which will be authorized and fixed by
the regulations.

Article 6. Recourse to the Council of State shall be had in
every case of abuse on the part of superiors and other
ecclesiastical persons.

The cases of abuse are as follows: Usurpation or excess of
power, contravention of the laws and regulations of the
Republic; violation of the rules which are consecrated by the
Canons received in France; any attack on the liberties,
privileges, and customs of the French church; and every
undertaking or proceeding which, in the exercise of worship,
might compromise the honor of citizens, trouble their
consciences unnecessarily, or which might degenerate into a
source of oppression or injury to them, or become a public
scandal.

Article 7. Recourse to the Council of States shall also be
permitted whenever an attack is made upon the public
exercise of worship, and the liberty which the laws and
regulations guarantee to its ministers.

Article 8. This recourse is the privilege of all persons
interested. In default of a particular complaint, this duty
will devolve upon the prefects. Public functionaries,
ecclesiastics or other persons who wish to make use of this
appeal, will address a memorial, detailed and signed, to the
counsellor of State charged with all matters concerning
religion, whose duty it will be to obtain, in the shortest
time possible, all proper information, and upon his report
the affair will be taken up and finished in the
administrative form, or sent, as the case may demand, to the
competent authorities.

Article 11. The archbishops and bishops may, with the
authorization of the Government, establish in their dioceses
cathedral chapters and seminaries. All other ecclesiastical
establishments are suppressed.

Article 12. Bishops shall be permitted to add to their names
the title of Citizen or that of Monsieur. All other
qualifications are interdicted.

Article 16. No one may be nominated to bishopric who has not
attained the age of thirty years, or who is not of French
origin.

Article 18. The priest nominated by the First Consul shall
make haste to obtain institution from the Pope.

He cannot exercise any function before the bull containing
such institution has received the seal of the Government, and
before he has taken personally the oath prescribed by the
convention made between the French Government and the Holy
See. This oath shall be taken before the First Consul: a
formal attestation of the same shall be drawn up by the
Secretary of State.

Article 19. The bishops shall name and install the pastors;
nevertheless they shall not publish their nomination nor give
canonical institution until that nomination has been approved
by the First Consul.

Article 23. The bishops shall be charged with the
organization of their seminaries, and the regulation of that
organization shall be submitted to the approbation of the
First Consul.

Article 24. Those who shall be chosen to teach in the
seminaries shall subscribe to the declaration made by the
clergy of France in 1682 and published by an edict of the
same year; they will be obliged to teach the doctrine therein
contained; and the bishops shall address a formal attestation
of such submission to the counsellor of State charged with
all matters concerning religious worship.

The bishops will ordain no persons whose names have not been
submitted to the Government and approved by it.

Article 27. Pastors may not enter upon their functions before
they have taken in the hands of the prefect the oath
prescribed by the convention made between the Government and
the Holy See. A formal attestation of this act shall be drawn
up by the secretary general of the prefecture, and they shall
receive a copy of the same.

Article 32. No foreigner can be employed in the functions of
the ecclesiastical ministry without the permission of the
Government.

Article 39. There shall be but one liturgy and one catechism
for all the Catholic churches of France.

Article 40. No pastor may order extraordinary public prayers
in his parish without the special permission of the bishop.

Article 41. No feast, with the exception of Sunday, may be
established without the permission of the Government.

Article 45. No religious ceremony shall be held outside the
edifices consecrated to Catholic worship in such cities as
contain temples destined for a different worship.

Article 53. They shall not in their powers make any
publication foreign to religious worship, unless they be
authorized to do so by the Government.

Article 54. They shall not bestow the nuptial blessing except
on such as can prove in good and due form that they have
already contracted their marriage before a civil official.

Article 56. In all ecclesiastical and religious documents it
will be required to observe the equinoctial calendar
established by the laws of the Republic; the days shall be
designated by the names they hold in that calendar.

Article 64. The salary of an archbishop shall be 15,000
francs.

Article 65. The salary of bishops shall be 10,000 francs.

Article 66. Pastors shall be distributed into two classes.
The salary of pastors of the first class shall be 1,500
francs; that of pastors of the second class shall be 1,000
francs.

Article 67. The pensions which they receive, in execution of
the laws of the Constituent Assembly, shall be counted as a
part of their salary. The councils general of the large
communes can, out of their landed property or from the taxes,
accord an augmentation of salary if the circumstances require
it.

Article 68. Curates and assistants shall be chosen from
ecclesiastics pensioned in execution of the laws of the
Constituent Assembly. The sum of these pensions and the
product of offerings made to them shall constitute their
salary.

Article 69. The bishops shall draw up a list of rules
relative to the offerings which ministers of worship are
authorized to receive for the administration of the
sacraments. These rules drawn up by the bishops may not be
put in force without having been approved by the Government.

Article 70. Every ecclesiastic who receives a pension from
the State shall be deprived of such pension if he refuses to
perform the functions which shall be confided to him.

Article 71. The councils general of the department are
authorized to provide a suitable residence for the
archbishops and bishops.

Article 72. The presbyteries and the gardens thereto
pertaining shall, if they are not alienated, be turned over
to the pastors or to the assistants in charge of the same
missions. In default of such presbyteries the councils
general are authorized to provide them with a suitable
residence and garden.

Article 73. The foundations which have for their object the
maintenance of ministers and the exercise of worship can only
consist of rentals constituted in the State; they shall be
accepted by the diocesan bishop, and cannot be executed
except with the authorization of the Government.

Article 74. The immovable property, other than edifices
destined for residence and the gardens pertaining, cannot be
affected to ecclesiastical titles, nor possessed by ministers
of worship by reason of their functions.

Article 75. The edifices formerly destined for Catholic
worship, actually in the hands of the nation, shall be placed
at the disposition of the bishops by a written order of the
prefect of the department. A copy of this order shall be
addressed to the counsellor of State charged with all matters
concerning religious worship.

_PRESAGES OF PEACE._

The Concordat signed and ratified Catholic France settled down to the enjoyment of comparative peace and security. It was, however, only the security which follows the ravages of disease, the peace of convalescence, full of weariness, languor and exhaustion. The fifty bishops installed by the new decrees could not help a feeling of discouragement as they viewed the situation. The Church, it is true, was brought back to a position of honor and importance in the nation; but it was, at the same time, weighed down by the heavy burdens of Gallicanism and Caesarism; the former severing the ties that bound it to the head and centre of Christianity, the Holy Father; the latter making it subservient to the whims and fancies of a ruler, human at most and liable through the schemes of politics to be hostile and intolerant. The former was suited to the imperialistic ambitions of Bonaparte, who had already begun to dream of the glories of the old regime; the latter was couched in the fraudulent laws of the Organic Articles; the former was to lose its force before the lapse of half a century; the latter was to last as long as the Concordat itself.

Thus it was that the outlook at the beginning of the century was little favorable to the just execution of the Concordat. With all correspondence with Rome interdicted save under civil surveillance, deprived of the right of assemblage, and bound by slavish ties to a State official who alone could administer, reward, punish, teach, or cause to teach, according to his own pleasure, all true liberty seemed to have vanished as completely as during the dark times of the Revolution. With churches, schools and colleges under the direction of politicians, the right of ecclesiastical censure denied, and the number of aspirants to the priesthood limited, the religious society of France had become little more than an annex to the State, inferior in importance and subordinate to it in all things. The religious congregations were dispersed, the missionaries were forbidden to exercise their zeal, and for the thirty millions of Catholics in the country there were only eight thousand priests of whom fully two thousand bore the taint of the constitutional oath.

The bishops themselves were for the most part victims of the revolutionary tempest. Some of them had come forth from prison or from the foot of the scaffold whereon they had seen their fathers, brothers and friends brutally butchered by frenzied mobs. Others had come back from an exile wherein they had guarded religiously the dear image of the French Church and the hope of her speedy restoration. "But it was the Church they had seen flourishing under the shadow of a kingly sceptre, the Gallican Church with its gaudy livery and its royal servitude decorated with the names of privilege and liberty. Accustomed to receive favors from the hand of power, it was easy for them to transfer their adulatory homage from the thrones of Louis XIV. and Louis XVI. to the boots and spurs of him who, after all, had just opened to them the gates of their country and filled his native land with glory."

_CORONATION OF NAPOLEON._

It is not wonderful, therefore, that the will of the Conqueror should remain uppermost in all church affairs during the course of the Consulate, when only a few courageous and noble souls dared to stand forth in the defence of ecclesiastical rights and liberties. The Consulate was termed the _Lune-de-miel_, the honeymoon, in this new union of Church and State; but its joys, such as they were, were to feel ere long the bitterness entailed by the unreasoning and imperious exactions of an overbearing consort.

The soldier who had risen to the command of armies had been honored with the title of First Consul; his head, yet uncrowned, was restless till it should feel upon it the emblem of royalty. It was his ambition to be called, and to be like Charlemagne, an emperor; he desired that the consecrating oils in the great ceremony should be conferred by no less a personage than the Holy Father himself, and he wished that the Pope should perform this ceremony at Paris. The venerable Pontiff, when apprised of this new demand of Bonaparte, was at a loss how to respond. He looked for counsel to his most prudent friends, and above all to the great Giver of light, and then weighing in the balance the great harm he knew must come from a formal refusal, and the immense benefits he felt must accrue to the Church from so slight a sacrifice, he determined, leaving the issue to Divine Providence, to gratify this wish of the General. He did not do so, however, before renewing his protest against the obnoxious Organic Articles, and obtaining from Bonaparte a promise of their speedy revokal.

In compliance with these resolves, the Holy Father set out from Rome on November 2, 1804, and after a journey of nearly a month's duration, through provinces once hostile, but now enthusiastic in their greetings, he reached Fontainebleau on Sunday, November 25th. Here he was met by Bonaparte who displayed at first an apparent desire to shower every honor upon his illustrious guest. Yet even this short stay near Paris was marked by the same evidences of fickleness and selfishness on the part of the First Consul, as were shown in his every relation with the Holy See. At one time it would seem as if nothing were too good for the aged Pontiff, and the Consul, to demonstrate this conviction, would display the most utter obsequiousness to his spiritual superior; an hour afterwards the Holy Father was made to feel most keenly the sense of humiliating dependence upon his tormentor. Yet the spirit of the martyr bore up bravely through storm and sunshine. He met the delegation sent to him from the French Senate with a calm undisturbed serenity that drew expressions of admiration from men hostile to the very name of religion; he forebore any words of reproach against the unwarranted demands of Bonaparte. There were, however, some things upon which he insisted strongly, and without which he would refuse, even on the eve of the great day, to be present at the coronation. There were among the French bishops men who had signed the Civil Constitution during the Revolution in defiance of ecclesiastical warnings to the contrary. Still unrepentant, they hoped under the protection of Bonaparte to continue in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction without yielding proper submission to the Holy See. To compel them to this latter course was the determined policy of Pius VII. though the constitutional bishops found a ready ally in the First Consul himself. The latter at first endeavored to gloss over the objections of the Pope, hoping that in the excitement of the day the coronation ceremony might take place before any action would be taken in regard to the obnoxious bishops. But Pius VII. was far too vigilant to become a victim to this deception. The aged Pontiff demanded the act of submission as a necessary condition before the great ceremony should proceed, and Bonaparte, tacitly acknowledging his defeat, yielded. The constitutional bishops at his command repaired to the presence of the Holy Father and complied fully with his wishes.

On the evening of December 1st, the Holy Father learned for the first time that the new Emperor had never contracted an ecclesiastically legal marriage with Josephine, his reputed wife. Despite the fact that all preparations for the great ceremony had been completed, the Pope sent word to Napoleon that he should refuse to take part in the coronation on the morrow unless the Emperor and Josephine should contract their marriage vows that very night in the presence of a duly authorized priest of the Church. Again the Emperor, fretful and impatient as he was, yielded to the demands of the Pope, and the marriage ceremony was performed at midnight in the chapel of the Tuileries in the presence of Cardinal Fesch, uncle to Napoleon. The following day, December 2nd, the Conqueror of Europe, the great Dictator of France, realized the dream of his lifetime. The solemn ceremony of his consecration and coronation as Emperor of the French took place in the great cathedral of Notre Dame in the midst of all the splendor which the united resources of Church and State could afford. The ceremony began shortly after ten o'clock, when Napoleon, proceeding with Josephine to the foot of the altar, in the presence of the Holy Father made the solemn promise that he would maintain peace in the Church of God. The two candidates for royalty knelt upon cushions and received from His Holiness the oils and imperial consecration. Napoleon then ascended the altar, and taking the crown into his own hands placed it upon his head, after which he took up the smaller crown of the Empress and bearing it to Josephine crowned her. She received the diadem kneeling. The ceremony was concluded with the _Te Deum_.

Pius VII. returned to Rome after what was to him a humiliating and exacting journey. Indeed he could congratulate himself that he had at all escaped perpetual exile at Paris. Before he had left that city, the new Emperor, flushed with his recent glories, conceived the plan of retaining the Pope at Paris. The latter, however, had prepared himself for the demand and could answer courageously, that if they were to use force they would have at Paris only a poor monk called Barnabas Chiaramonti. Before he had left Rome he had arranged that in such an emergency a new Pope would be immediately elected.

_THE AFFAIR OF JEROME._

Even at the entrance of the Eternal City, new complications met to annoy and confuse him, which, however, he settled with his usual diplomatic firmness and condescension. The affair of Prince Jerome was just then attracting attention. The latter, a lad of nineteen, and brother of the Emperor, had married while in America, December 24, 1803, a certain Miss Patterson, a descendant of one of Maryland's best families. The ceremony was performed by Archbishop Carroll, and was valid in the eyes of the Church. Upon his returning to France with his young bride he was met by the anger of his imperial brother, who as soon as possible wrote to Pope Pius VII.: "I have several times spoken to Your Holiness about a brother, nineteen years old, whom I sent on a frigate to America, and who after a month's stay, married in Baltimore--although a minor--a Protestant daughter of an American merchant. He has just returned; he feels the extent of his fault. I have sent back Miss Patterson, his alleged wife, to America. According to our laws the marriage is null. A Spanish priest so far forgot his duty as to give the nuptial blessing." Napoleon then proceeds to request the Pope to declare the marriage invalid, giving as his principal reasons: That the lady was a Protestant; that Jerome was yet a minor according to French law; that the Gallican Church of France held it invalid, and that the marriage was clandestine and null according to the Council of Trent. To all these objections the Holy Father answered that the marriage was entirely valid, that it was not subject to the Council of Trent, the decrees of which had not been published in America, and that it was not in his power to annul the same unless stronger reasons were brought forward to warrant such action. To this determination the Pope adhered unflinchingly, despite the threats and revengeful actions of Napoleon. Even later, in 1807, when Jerome was married to a princess of Wurtemburg, the Holy Father, far from consenting, renewed his declaration as to the validity of the first marriage.

Napoleon, now at the summit of his political and military career, looked forward to still other conquests. He had crowned himself Emperor of the French at Paris; he received another crown at Milan, making him king of Italy. Then came Austerlitz and Jena and Eylau to humiliate Austria and Prussia and Russia. He became a king-maker by placing his brothers upon the thrones of Naples, Holland and Westphalia. The battle of Wagram, 1809, brought Austria to the feet of the Emperor, who demanded in marriage the hand of the Austrian Emperor's daughter, the Princess Maria Louisa. Josephine, her claims long vanished, was divorced from Napoleon upon the plea of State necessity. An emperor to be an emperor indeed, must be able to look upon the children who shall carry his great name to posterity. The marriage of Josephine and Napoleon had been fruitless in this regard; reasons of State, therefore, demanded, according to Napoleon, that a dissolution should take place, and that a new empress be called to the throne. This reasoning of Napoleon was accepted by Europe; only the Holy Father withheld his approbation and assent. Josephine was divorced and the Emperor remarried to Maria Louisa. It was on this occasion that the terms were coined in the ecclesiastical world "the red and the black cardinals," at the great ceremony which was performed by Cardinal Fesch in the Tuileries, April 2, 1810. Of the twenty-nine cardinals then in Paris, thirteen, including Consalvi, refused to honor the occasion with their presence. This mark of disapprobation was punished by the Emperor who besides depriving them of their salaries forbade them to wear the colors or insignia of their cardinalatial rank. Hence their designation as the black cardinals. These two divorces betray sufficiently the shallow honor of Napoleon in dealing with the Church, a quality which other events of this period brought more into evidence.

The vainglorious assumptions of the Emperor knew no bounds. Petted and flattered where he was not feared, he often smiled as he heard himself compared with Alexander, Caesar, or Charlemagne. He designed as a means of greater glory the complete solidification of his empire under his own supreme control. Only one obstacle lay in the way of his colossal ambition. He chafed at the thought that there was yet in Italy one little state which would hold out against his pretensions; and then, hurried on by the lust of power, and blinded by prosperity, this pretended successor of Charlemagne proceeded against the Pope. Again the aged Pontiff remonstrated. He reminded Napoleon of his former injustice in the matter of the Organic Articles; he reproached him for the injurious dispositions of the Civil Code which he had introduced into France, especially the law granting divorce, the tendency of which laws was to render the discipline of the Church almost null; and now in the face of this new danger, the projected subjugation of the States of the Church, he reminded the Emperor of the judgments that the Almighty must send upon those who disregard His Divine ordinances. The words of the Pope, instead of moderating the intentions of Napoleon, served only to fill him with violent anger. He determined thenceforth to cast aside all promptings of conscience and to take immediate steps for the complete subjugation of Rome. Benevento and Ponte Corvo at once fell into his hands; his troops took possession of Ancona and all cities on the Adriatic coast; Rome itself was invaded; the Papal militia was incorporated with the French; the Pope was deprived of every official necessary for the direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and surrounded by a guard in his own palace of the Quirinal.

_EXCOMMUNICATION OF NAPOLEON._

For these outrages the Holy Father addressed Napoleon: "By the bowels of the mercy of our God we exhort, we pray, we conjure you, Emperor and King Napoleon, to change your designs, to clothe yourself again with those sentiments which you manifested at the beginning of your reign. Remember that there is a God and King above you; remember, and always keep before your mind, that you will see very soon and in a terrible manner how those who command others shall by Him be judged with the utmost rigor." The holy Pontiff then published in the face of Europe a solemn protest against the unjust pretensions of Napoleon.