One night in the month of October 1801 the gates of Paris were secretly
opened to admit a closed carriage with a military escort. What was
concealed in that carnage? Was it a criminal? Was it contraband ware?
There sat in it an old priest, Caprara by name, the Pope's envoy to
General Bonaparte; and the contraband article thus smuggled into
Paris in the darkness was the Concordat, the compact with Rome which
re-established the Christian religion in France. It was considered rash
to allow a priest coming on such an errand to make his entrance in
daylight; the First Consul, with his usual sagacity and forethought,
had arranged that he should arrive at night. It was not violence that
was feared, only laughter. "They dared not," says Thiers, "put such
temptation in the way of the mirth-loving population of Paris."[1]
The same difficulty recurred in April 1802, when, after countless
attempts to come to an agreement, during the course of which it often
seemed as if the negotiations were on the point of being finally broken
off, things were so far settled that Napoleon could accord an official
reception to the Cardinal-Legate. Ecclesiastical etiquette prescribes
that a gold crucifix shall be borne in front of a papal legate, and the
Cardinal demanded that on his way to the reception at the Tuileries
this should be done by a mounted officer in a red uniform. On this
occasion also the Government, as Thiers tells us, was afraid of the
effect of such a spectacle on the population of Paris. A compromise
was come to; it was agreed to do with the crucifix what had been done
with the Cardinal himself six months previously, namely, drive it in a
closed carriage.
At last, a week later, on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1802 (28th
Germinal of the year X.), a copy of the Concordat was posted up early
in the morning in all the streets of Paris, and the First Consul,
after signing the Peace of Amiens in honour of the day, proceeded
to Notre Dame, to hear the great Te Deum sung in celebration of the
reinstitution of Christian worship, or, to use the official expression,
the reconciliation of the Republic with Heaven. Programmes of the
ceremonies had been distributed. The First Consul was attended by a
numerous and distinguished suite. He had himself intimated to the wives
of all the high officials that they were expected to appear in full
dress. They accompanied Madame Bonaparte; he himself was surrounded
by his staff, all his generals, and all the most important civil
functionaries. The carriages which had belonged to the old court were
taken into use again on this occasion. Bonaparte drove to church in
the old royal state-coach, and with all the pomp of royalty. Salvoes
of artillery proclaimed to the world this resurrection of the church
from the dead and this first attempt at the revival of royal power
and royal splendour. The route of the procession from the Tuileries
to Notre Dame was lined by troops of the First Army Corps. The
Archbishop of Paris received the First Consul at the church door and
offered him holy water. He was then conducted under a canopy to the
seat reserved for him. The Senate, the Legislative Assembly, and the
Tribune occupied the places at the two sides of the altar. The church
was soon full of uniforms, beautiful dresses, and liveries. Liveries,
which had disappeared during the Revolution, reappeared along with
cassocks. Behind the First Consul stood his generals, in gala uniform,
"rather obedient than convinced," as Thiers remarks. They did their
best to show what was really the case, namely, that they were there
against their will, and that the whole ceremony was in their eyes a
contemptible farce. Their behaviour was characterised by those who
differed from them as "unseemly." That of the First Consul presented
a marked contrast. Attired in his red consul's uniform, he stood
motionless, with a severe, inscrutable countenance, serious and cold,
displaying neither the indifference of the unwilling spectators nor the
devotion of the faithful. On the hilt of his sword glittered the famous
Regent diamond, which he had had set there for the occasion, as a sign
that the symbols of majesty which had hitherto belonged to the crown
now belonged to the sword. His demeanour showed plainly enough that
this act of his was not an act of faith, but of will, and that he was
determined his will should prevail.
On the morning of the day on which this famous Te Deum was sung, the
Government organ, _Le Moniteur_, published by Bonaparte's express order
a review of a book, the second edition of which was dedicated to him
as the restorer of the church. The book was Chateaubriand's _Génie du
Christianisme_. The review was written by Fontanes; it had appeared in
the _Mercure_ three days before, but was now, by Government orders,
republished in the official organ. _Le Génie du Christianisme_ was as
much part of the programme of the day as the low-necked dresses and the
liveries. The religious reaction in society and in literature may be
dated almost from the same hour, from the same fête. In a letter from
Joubert to Chateaubriand's friend, Madame de Beaumont, we come upon the
remarkable words: "Our friend was created and brought into the world
expressly for this occasion."
The planning and compassing of this same religious solemnity had cost
Bonaparte an infinite amount of trouble. But of what avail was it that
at every street corner men read that "the example of centuries, as
well as reason, bade them appeal to the papal sovereign to reconcile
opinions and customs"? Of what avail that the city was illuminated
and a state concert given at the Tuileries in honour of the solemn
occasion? The feeling inspired was dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction
as great as the joy inspired in its day by the festival in honour of
the Supreme Being.
When Bonaparte, on his return from Notre Dame, turned in the Tuileries
to one of his officers, General Delmas, and asked his opinion of the
grand religious ceremony, that officer replied: "It was an excellent
Capuchin carnival play (_Capucinade_); there was only one thing
wanting--the million of people who have given their lives to break down
what you are building up again." And in these words Delmas expressed
the general feeling of Napoleon's officers. In November 1801 the
exasperation of the army at the idea of a reconciliation with the
church had made itself distinctly felt; men who were on such intimate
terms with Bonaparte as Lannes and Augereau had plainly expressed their
annoyance at the prospect of having to show their uniforms in a church;
and it was a common remark among the soldiers that the French flags had
never won so many laurels as now, when they were no longer consecrated.
When the generals received a direct order to appear at Notre Dame they
sent Augereau (in vain, we know) as their spokesman to the Tuileries to
implore that they might be excused.
The army was the element in society which had remained most faithful to
the fundamental ideas of the Revolution. When, under the Directory, the
royalist reaction seemed on the point of victory, it was foiled because
the Republican Government, weak and divided as it was, could rely upon
the army. For in the army the true republican principle of equality had
been maintained as it had been nowhere else. Before the Revolution,
officer and private had been separated by a yawning chasm. The officer
was originally the feudal lord, then the landowner, then the nobleman;
and no private soldier, however greatly he distinguished himself, could
make his way up into this higher caste. During the Revolution these
relations had been turned upside down. In the first place there were,
amongst the crowds who volunteered as private soldiers, many men of
noble birth; and in the second place, the nobility had been deprived
of their right to officer the army; the officers were chosen from the
ranks. Moreover, the fatigues and hardships shared alike by all during
the wars of the Republic had made officers and privates comrades. In
spite of regimental discipline, the private soldier felt himself to be
the brother-in-arms of his officer, whose equal he might any day become
by his bravery and the fortunes of war.
A return to monarchical government would have been at once fatal to
this new constitution of the army; and every mark of favour shown to
the church was regarded as a presage or preliminary of such a return.
Hence the army still spoke the old revolutionary language--was equally
hostile to kings, nobles, and priests. It lived in apprehension of a
restoration of the monarchy and of Catholicism, trusted in Bonaparte
as the man who was to prevent this, and was prepared, in case of his
defection, to appeal to another Jacobin general--Jourdan, Bernadotte,
or Augereau--to arrange a counter _coup d'état_.
So bitter was the feeling in the army against the Catholic priesthood
at the moment when the Concordat was signed, that secret meetings were
held and a conspiracy was organised to annul this compact with the
church. Many officers of rank, even distinguished generals, were mixed
up in the affair. Moreau was in communication with the conspirators,
although he never attended their meetings. At one of these meetings
they went the length of resolving on the assassination of the First
Consul. A certain Donnadieu offered to do the deed. But General
Oudinot, who was present, informed Davoust of what was impending, and
Donnadieu, who was arrested, confessed everything. The conspirators
were dispersed; some were imprisoned, some banished, among the latter
being General Monnier, who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at
Marengo.[2]
All this gives us a sufficiently clear idea of the state of opinion in
the army. And the civil authorities were of the same mind. The plan
of the Concordat had met with unanimous opposition. Talleyrand, as
Minister of Foreign Affairs, had persistently advised against it. The
Concordat struck at himself, as a former bishop, and with his political
clearsightedness he foresaw its serious consequences for France. The
Council of State received the First Consul's announcement that he had
signed the compact with cold silence, and yet it was in this assembly
that he had his most devoted adherents. Even Thiers, whose admiration
for Bonaparte leads him to give an incomplete account of the episode of
the Concordat, writes: "The members sat gloomy and dumb, as if they had
seen one of the most beneficial achievements of the Revolution undone
before their eyes. The icy silence was not broken. They dispersed
without expressing an opinion, without saying a word."
The announcement met with even a worse reception in the Legislative
Assembly. That body entered its protest against the re-establishment of
the church by electing as its president Dupuis, the author of _Origine
des cultes_, a book then much in repute, which explains Christianity as
an astronomical myth (the work parodied in Monod's famous pamphlet on
Napoleon as a sun-myth). Bonaparte, although he already felt himself
possessed of almost unlimited power, dared not lay the Concordat alone
before the Legislative Assembly; along with it he submitted to their
approval the so-called Organic Laws, which aimed at establishing the
relative independence of the French church. Knowing that they feared
papal influence, he hoped by this means to secure their votes. But it
was not until all its most energetic members had been expelled that the
Assembly sanctioned the Concordat.
In the Tribune there was a regular revolt, and nothing less than a
new breach of the constitution, namely, the reduction of the number
of members of that Chamber to eighty, was required to overcome its
opposition. To only three classes of men did the Concordat immediately
give entire satisfaction. These were (1) the clergy, with the exception
of those who had sworn allegiance to the Republican constitution and
who were now dismissed; (2) the numerous possessors of church property,
who had hitherto felt themselves insecure, but were now confirmed in
their ownership; (3) the great, ignorant peasant class, who could
neither read nor write, and who longed for their Sunday and their
church pageantry.
Even in the circle of the First Consul's most intimate associates one
attempt after another had been made to shake his resolve. The spirit
of the eighteenth century was strong in the men whose great or rare
gifts made them the most eminent of the day, and it was these men whom
Bonaparte chose for his companions. They all belonged to the class of
"moderate Revolutionists," and were all disciples of Voltaire. Men like
the famous astronomer Laplace, like the mathematicians Lagrange and
Monge, told Bonaparte every day that he was on the point of bringing
disgrace on his reign and his century. His old companions-in-arms, says
Thiers, though they knew how the nation honoured them, dreaded the
ridicule which awaited them if they knelt before the altar. Even his
own brothers, who associated with the most talented writers of the day,
importuned him not to stake his enormous power on a step so utterly at
variance with the spirit of the times.
These strong expressions, like the previously quoted words of Madame
Roland, show how certain men were that Christianity was to be regarded
as dead.
It was not religious conviction which induced a man with a mind
like Bonaparte's to act, regardless of all considerations and
representations, in opposition to the whole of thinking France. Many
of his utterances prove that he himself shared the opinions of the
men he was opposing, that he did homage to the so-called enlightened
deism of the eighteenth century. Certain assertions made by Bonaparte
to Monge have been quoted to prove that he was an orthodox believer.
"My religion is a very simple one," he said. "I see this great,
complex, magnificent universe, and say to myself that it cannot have
been produced by chance, but must be the work of an unknown, almighty
being, who is as superior to man as the universe is to our cleverest
machines." But would not Voltaire have expressed himself exactly thus?
Bonaparte continued: "But this truth is too concise, too brief, for
man; he wants to know many secrets about himself and his future which
the universe does not tell him. Here religion steps in, and tells each
individual what he longs to know. The one religion undoubtedly denies
what the other asserts. But I do not, like Volney, conclude from this
that all religions are worthless, but rather that they are all good."
This is the language of Lessing's Nathan. And quite in keeping with it
is another assertion made to Monge: "In Egypt I was a Mahometan; I must
be a Catholic in France. I do not believe in religions, but in the idea
of a God."
Some years earlier, in a speech made before the Directory and all
the public officials (December 1797), he had reckoned attachment to
religion, along with attachment to monarchy and feudalism, among "the
prejudices which the French people must overcome." When in Egypt, he
had not scrupled to proclaim himself a Mussulman. His proclamation
to the Arabian population contains this clause: "We, too, are good
Mussulmans. Is it not we that have destroyed the power of the Pope,
who commanded war upon Mussulmans?" Now he certainly (officially)
called the same Pope "the holy Father" and (privately) "the good
lamb"; nevertheless, when negotiations were being hindered by Romish
intrigues, he wrote of him in his letters as "the old fox," and called
the priests, or, to use his own word, _la prêtraille_, "imbecile
bunglers."
His behaviour during these same negotiations with Rome witnesses
equally strongly to his political wiliness and his unorthodoxy.
Cardinal Consalvi, before setting out on his journey to Paris in 1801,
had been imprudent enough to write to a friend of the anxiety he felt
in thus venturing into the very jaws of the lion, into the hot-bed
of that Revolution which had very recently shown itself so terribly
hostile to religion and its priests. Bonaparte owned a sort of Odin's
raven, which repeated all such private confessions to him. This raven
was at the post office where the Cardinal's letter was opened, and
its master consequently prepared just such a reception as was likely
to make an impression on the man to whose character the letter gave a
clue. It was evening when Consalvi arrived in Paris, but his audience
was already appointed for the next morning, so that he had neither
time to recover from the fatigues of the journey nor to take counsel
with the Pope's representatives. Early in the morning he was driven
to the Tuileries and ushered into a small bare room which he took to
be the anteroom of the First Consul's audience chamber. After he had
waited here for some time, a small door was opened, and through it he
passed, to his surprise, into a long suite of splendid apartments,
where all the principal government officials, the Senate, the
Legislative Assembly, the generals, and the staff were assembled. In
the courtyard he could see several regiments drawn up for inspection.
It was, as he himself wrote, the sudden transition from a hut to a
palace. All the dazzling splendour and formidable signs of authority
by which the consular dignity could be enhanced were here exhibited,
and when, in the farthest room of the suite, the Cardinal at last
entered the presence of the three Consuls, who sat surrounded by a
splendid retinue, Bonaparte advanced to meet him and said curtly, in
an imperious voice: "I know why you have come. You have five days for
negotiation. If the treaty is not signed by that time, everything is
at an end." Consalvi was undoubtedly perturbed for the moment, but he
succeeded in gaining time, and with the subtlety and skill of Romish
statecraft placed so many difficulties in Napoleon's way that the
latter, in one of the stormy audiences which followed, shouted angrily
and arrogantly: "If Henry VIII., who had not the twentieth part of my
power, could change the religion of his country, how much easier is it
for me to do it! I will change it, not in France alone, but throughout
Europe. Rome will weep blood when it is too late."
In this contemptuous manner did the restorer of religion speak of the
power he intended to restore.
It is, therefore, not altogether surprising that, as in the case of
a similar attempt made by Julian the Apostate 1500 years before,
laughter, sometimes only dreaded, sometimes actual, was the inseparable
adjunct of each step taken towards the reinstitution of the old
religion. When Bonaparte read Pius VII.'s first brief at a Council of
State, the brief in which the Pope intimates that he takes "his dear
son Talleyrand" into favour again, sounds of half-stifled laughter were
heard among the audience. Even Bonaparte himself was not always able
to preserve his gravity. On the day when Cardinal Consalvi, apparelled
in Roman purple, publicly presented him with a copy of the Concordat,
the First Consul was suddenly seized with a convulsive fit of laughter
which struck the whole assembly with consternation. And some years
later than this he was still so little edified by religious rites, and
so unable to control his countenance during their performance--he who
as a rule showed himself a master in the art--that when the Pope was
anointing him Emperor in 1804 he scandalised the spectators by yawning
incessantly during the whole ceremony. Charles X., true Bourbon as he
was, showed the proper seriousness when his turn came in 1825. With
unmoved countenance, without the shadow of a smile, he allowed himself
to be stripped to the waist and anointed, first on the head, then on
breast, back, and arms.
Everything connected with the restoration of priestly authority and
the reinstitution of Catholic worship was so utterly at variance
with the customs and ideas which had prevailed in France since the
Revolution that the witnesses of such rites could hardly believe their
own eyes; they could not persuade themselves to take them seriously.
In proof of this let me quote the words of such an eye-witness, De
Pradt, Archbishop of Malines. He says: "If one single individual, by
laughing, had given the signal, there would have been a perfectly
inextinguishable Homeric outburst. This was the reef on which it was
possible that everything might be wrecked. Fortunately Fouché, the
Chief of Police, had taken the proper precautions, and, thanks to him,
Paris kept a serious face."[3]
The occasion to which this utterance more particularly refers was
that of the Pope's visit to Paris. A Pope in Paris! This was a risky
experiment after all that had happened there during the last fifteen
years, and with "a population so light-hearted and still so strongly
influenced by philosophy." In hopes of inducing the Pope to give up the
journey, his advisers at the last moment laid the above quoted Egyptian
proclamation upon his table. But it was too late to shake his resolve.
The meeting of the two potentates took place at Fontainebleau. After
the first exchange of compliments and cordialities, they drove to the
Palace in the same carriage. Napoleon's face beamed with satisfaction,
and as he handed the Pope up the steps, each of his unusually lively
glances seemed to say: "Do you see my prize? I have him." By a comical
inadvertency, the great procession to Paris was led by a troop of
mounted Mamelukes. The sight of the bronze-hued visages of these
Mahometan horsemen transported the spectator in fancy to Mecca.
They made the entrance seem more like that of a Mahometan than of a
Christian high priest. The Pope's own face betrayed the embarrassment
he felt on finding himself in such an entirely new world. It was easily
seen that his foot, though it was kissed by multitudes, did not tread
this soil with perfect confidence. His priestly retinue, resplendent in
gorgeous episcopal vestments, and the military court which came to meet
it, shining in burnished mail, presented a strange contrast. One might,
says Archbishop de Pradt, have imagined one's self suddenly transported
to Japan at the moment of a visit from its spiritual to its temporal
emperor.
In order thoroughly to understand the First Consul's reasons for
determinedly adhering to and carrying out a project which at the first
glance seems unpatriotic and impolitic, we must consider the matter in
the first place from the purely economic point of view.
The Revolution had plunged France into economic distress. Prosperity
was at an end; the population was threatened by famine; in the middle
of the nineties more than half of the country lay uncultivated. The
lands of the _émigrés_ and the church had been paid for by their
purchasers in paper-money, but this paper-money was valueless. The
economic salvation of the country could only be accomplished by turning
to account the resources which had been made available by the new
distribution of the state property.
The land which had been taken from the nobility and the church had
long been left entirely uncultivated because, since the fruits of
the earth require time to blossom and mature, no one was willing to
plough and sow without the certainty that the ground would remain in
his possession long enough to reward him for his labour. But such
certainty was impossible as long as the old owners of the land were in
the country and had not renounced their right to it. Nothing but their
extermination could make the cultivation of the new national property a
reasonable proceeding. It was because the Reign of Terror exterminated
them that it was demanded and endured. When it had fulfilled its
double task of saving the Republic and ensuring the security of the
new distribution of property, it was overthrown. What the owners of
property demanded after its fall was, first and foremost, a government
under which it was possible for them to utilise their newly acquired
land.
There were in France still only the elements of a modern social
organism, of new conditions of proprietorship, of a new code of
laws--everything was incomplete. The Estates had disappeared; classes
did not as yet exist. The new order of things had not yet become, as it
were, a part of the family and the individual ethical consciousness.
Security, durability, was what now had to be achieved.
This could not be done by restoring the monarchy; for at this period
monarchy still meant the old order of things, the old laws, the old
distribution of property. Bonaparte gave France the security she
desired. And he did more than this; by his victories he spread the new
French ideas and customs abroad throughout Europe.
The weak point in the international position of France at the beginning
of the century lay in the antagonism between its new social order
and the old social order prevailing in all the other countries. For
the sake of its own security it was necessary that the French nation
should metamorphose the social institutions of the nations it overcame.
Bonaparte understood this, and introduced the new order of things
wherever his influence permitted him to do so.
But, on the other hand, he considered it necessary to make concessions,
real or apparent, in those matters in which he could not otherwise
bring about uniformity between French conditions and those of the rest
of Europe. To ensure the stability of the new order of things, he
felt obliged to do what he himself called _mettre les institutions de
la France en harmonie avec celles de l'Europe_. He imagined that the
imperial crown upon his head would reconcile the powers to the French
Revolution; he believed that the creation of a nobility would promote a
more harmonious feeling between foreign nations and his own; and in the
same manner he considered it good policy to give France back a state
church bearing some resemblance to the churches of other countries.
He began at the foundation, that is to say, with the church. The
Concordat was concluded in 1802. In the same year was founded the order
of the Legion of Honour, which satisfactorily answered its purpose as a
mark of military distinction, but failed in what it was really intended
to accomplish, the creation of an aristocracy. In 1804 the Empire
was created. In 1807 the law of entail was reintroduced. In 1808 an
entirely new aristocracy was created.
All this, however, did not produce real similarity between France and
the rest of Europe. There was little resemblance between Napoleon,
the elected emperor, and the kings and emperors of the old dynasties;
and Napoleon's aristocracy was an aristocracy without privileges, his
church a church without endowments. But, although his various attempts
at restoration resulted in the estrangement of many of the best
elements in French society, it cannot be denied that they evidenced
political sagacity in both internal and international questions.
There was sound political economy in the idea of the Concordat.
It had not as yet been possible to efface the species of disgrace which
attached to the ownership of the confiscated property of the church
and the nobles. Consequently it did not yet possess the same market
value as other property. An inherited estate and an estate belonging
to the nation yielding the same revenue did not find purchasers at the
same price; the latter had to be sold for forty per cent. less. The
state could only alter this condition of matters in one way, namely,
by inducing the former possessors of what was now state property to
make a distinct renunciation of their right to it. In most cases this
could not be accomplished. As regarded church property, however, it was
possible; for the church had a head, whose decisions were binding on
all his subjects.
By means of the Concordat with the Pope Bonaparte succeeded in giving
the purchasers of church property that security which they had so long
desired in vain. The Pope declared distinctly that neither he nor his
successors would ever lay claim to the church lands which had been
sold. So now there was no longer either risk or sin in owning them.
In return the state promised the church a fixed income. The clergy of
all ranks were to receive remuneration--a comparatively modest yearly
payment in money and a dwelling-house. The churches which had not
been sold were made over to them. As regarded the expenses entailed
by the maintenance of public worship, the clergy were referred to
their Commune or Department (which was entitled to levy a tax for
this purpose) and to the charity of the faithful. Agreements of the
same kind were come to in the matter of the church educational and
charitable institutions. The state had deprived the Catholic church
of at least 5000 millions of capital and 270 millions of revenue; in
return it promised a yearly revenue of seventeen millions--thus doing a
good stroke of business at the same time that it tranquillised both the
owners of church property and the great body of orthodox Catholics.
The Concordat placed the three chief Christian confessions and the
Jewish religion in the same position; they were all under state
protection and their clergy were all dependent on the state for their
incomes. Napoleon evidently overestimated the power which this gave him
over the Catholic church, the only one of any importance in France.
It soon opposed him, upon which he used violence, actually carrying
off the Pope and keeping him prisoner. He himself set his Concordat at
naught.
But its sound political and tactical basis enabled it to survive both
this breach and its projector's fall.
The very important part which Bonaparte's personal ambition must have
played in the evolution of the Concordat need only be suggested. With
the authority of the church had been overthrown the authority of the
monarchy. What was required was the restoration of the principle of
authority. All the ceremonial of the old monarchy returned of its own
accord at the moment when religion again became a power in the state.
The revivification of the idea of authority which the Revolution
misunderstood and scorned has been described as Napoleon's greatest and
most arduous achievement.[4] It has been said with truth that no one
ever developed the instinct and the gift of ruling as naturally and as
boldly as he. But from the moment when, no longer content with being a
power in virtue of his genius and of the new social order, he attempted
to restore autocratic monarchy, what he relied on was not that idea
of authority which amalgamates with the idea of right, and is an
expression of the reasonableness of things, but the idea of authority
which influences by dazzling and which is accepted blindly. And from
that moment the alliance with the church was a necessity. When, in
1808, Wieland asked the Emperor why he had not adapted the religion he
had reintroduced somewhat more to the spirit of the times, Napoleon
laughed and replied: "Yes, my dear Wieland! It is certainly not a
religion intended for philosophers. The philosophers believe neither
in me nor my religion; and for the people who do believe one cannot do
miracles enough or allow them to retain too many." It would hardly be
possible to assert more plainly that authority is a dazzling, deluding
power. On other occasions Napoleon employed the word which became the
intellectual catchword of the following period--he described religion
as _order_. Johannes Müller writes to his brother in 1806: "The Emperor
spoke of what lay at the foundation of all religions, and of their
necessity, and said that men required to be kept in order."
In this conception of religion as order we seem to trace some
resemblance between Napoleon and the Jacobins, just as there is
certainly a similarity between his attempts to rehabilitate the church
and Robespierre's endeavours to reanimate religious feeling. As a
politician Robespierre believed in the ordering, regulating power of
religion, and as a politician at a period when the great majority of
educated men were deists, he feared atheism as an idea altogether
foreign to his age.
Bonaparte perceived what an invaluable instrument in the hand of a
ruler a traditional religion and form of public worship was, and, if
for no other reason than this, was determined on an alliance with the
clergy, whom he, when a victor in Italy, had flattered and favoured
with a view to eventualities. He was well aware that in France as
in other countries the ignorant majority were still attached to the
traditional religion, and that the teachings of the eighteenth-century
philosophers could not possibly as yet have penetrated to the lowest
and widest layer of the population. At an earlier period he had
openly avowed his aims. At a meeting of his Council of State in the
year 1800 he exclaimed: "With my government functionaries, my armed
police, and my priests I am in a position to do whatever I please."
To him the priest was a police official like the others, simply with
a different uniform. In the notes which he dictated to Montholon he
plainly intimates that the Concordat originated in his wish to attach
the clergy to the new order of things, and to break the last tie which
bound them, and the country with them, to the old royal house. He had
carefully weighed in his own mind the choice which lay open to him
between Catholicism and Protestantism. He conceded to his advisers
that the inclination of the moment was probably more in the direction
of Protestantism. "But," he sagaciously queried, "is Protestantism
the old religion of France? Is it possible to create in a people
habits, tastes, memories? The principal charm of a religion lies in
its memories. When I am at Malmaison I never hear the church bell of
the neighbouring village ring without feeling moved. And in France who
could feel moved in a Protestant church, which evokes no memories of
childhood, and the cold, severe appearance of which is so little in
harmony with the ideas of the people?" "Besides," said he to Las Casas,
"all my great aims were to be attained much more certainly with the
aid of Catholicism. It kept the Pope on my side, and with my influence
in Italy and my military strength there I did not doubt that sooner or
later, by one means or another, I should get this same Pope into my
power. And from that moment what influence! what a lever with which to
move public opinion throughout the world!... Had I returned from Moscow
as a conqueror I should easily have induced the Pope to forget the loss
of his temporal power. I should have made him an idol; he would have
stayed with me. Paris would then have become the metropolis of the
Christian world, and I should have ruled the religious as well as the
political world.... _My_ church councils would then have represented
Christianity; the Popes would simply have been their presidents."
Note, too, the arguments employed by Portalis, the official vindicator
and champion of the Concordat. Attempting to prove the impossibility
of introducing a new religion and the necessity of restoring the
old one, he writes: "In ancient times, in the days of ignorance and
barbarism, it was possible for very great men to proclaim themselves
inspired by God, and, following the example of Prometheus, to bring
down fire from heaven to animate a new world. But what is possible
among a people still in the process of development is not possible
in an old, time-worn nation, whose habits and thoughts it is so
difficult to change." He begins, we see, by appealing to the authority
of custom. And he continues: "Men believe in a religion only because
they take it to be the work of a God. All is lost as soon as the
hand of man is allowed to appear." It is unnecessary to argue that
this language is not the language of faith. What Portalis refers to
are the unsuccessful attempts to supersede the so-called revealed
religion by a revolutionary religion, a "religion of reason," like
Rousseau's and Robespierre's. These attempts had failed although the
new religion did not need to be invented, but in reality already
lived in the minds of the educated classes--had failed because it was
impossible, directly after the overthrow of all outward authority,
to give to the conviction shared by the majority of the educated an
outward authority of the nature of that which had been overthrown.
They bore no fruit, because their originators failed to grasp the fact
that the human mind is perpetually remoulding its religious and moral
conceptions, because they did not understand that the emancipated mind
must inevitably feel itself moving onward even faster than before its
emancipation towards a more perfect apprehension, and must consequently
feel itself compelled ever and anew to reject every limiting, dogmatic
principle. But to return, because the spontaneously evolved and chosen
form of belief had proved untenable, to the much more untenable, old,
petrified form, was certainly better politics than logic. There was
no argument possible except an appeal to the direct utility of the
proceeding. Therefore Portalis returns again and yet again to the
position, not that religion is true, but that it is useful, that it
is necessary, that it is impossible to rule without it, that morality
without religious dogmas would be "like justice without courts for
its administration." It is plain that the doctrine of hell-fire, as
long as it is believed in, is a powerful instrument in the hand of a
ruler. Portalis is actually honest enough to say in plain words: "The
question of the truth or falsehood of this or that positive religion is
a purely theological question, which does not concern us. Even if they
are false, religions have this advantage, that they are a hindrance to
the spread of arbitrary, independent teaching. They form a faith-focus
for individuals. Governments are at ease with regard to ascertained
dogmas which do not change. Superstition is, so to speak, regulated,
circumscribed, confined within bounds which it either cannot or dare
not overstep."
With subtle duplicity Bonaparte endeavoured to represent the
restoration of the church in a different light to the different
parties. To the Catholics it was represented as a service to
Christianity only paralleled by the deeds of Constantine and
Charlemagne, to the philosophers as an act by which the church was
completely subjected to the state and the secular authorities. "It is
an inoculation against religion," said Napoleon to the philosopher
Cabanis; "in fifty years there will be no religion left in France." So
much is certain, that he had no doubt whatever that by bringing about
this reconciliation between church and state he was ensuring himself an
obedient and devoted ally. To what extent he was mistaken is matter of
history. He had soon cause to repent bitterly of having allied himself
with the most undeveloped and ignorant, instead of the ablest and best,
part of the nation. De Pradt tells that he heard Napoleon say again
and again "that the Concordat was the greatest mistake of his reign."
It can hardly be called a political mistake. But it certainly was the
first and decisive departure from the spirit of the Revolution. It
ensured certain of the secular results of that Revolution, but ensured
them at the expense of the progress of French civilisation.[5]
[1] Thiers, _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_, iii. 211, 342.
[2] L. von Stein, _Geschichte der socialen Bewegung in Frankreich_, i.
230.
[3] De Pradt, _Histoire des quatre concordats_, ii. 212.
[4] See Guizot in the _Revue des deux mondes_, February 15, 1863.
[5] Sources: Thiers, _Histoire du Consulat_; Lanfrey, _Histoire de
Napoléon I_.; Mignet, _Histoire de la Révolution_, ii.; De Pradt,
_Histoire des quatre concordats_; Portalis, _Discours et rapports sur
le concordat_; Lorenz von Stein, _Geschichte der socialen Bewegung in
Frankreich_, i.; Taine, _Le régime moderne_, i.