e
Church should renounce all claim to her confiscated domains. All
classes of the community, so urged Bonaparte, had made immense
sacrifices during the Revolution; and now that peasants were settled
on these once clerical lands, the foundations of society would be
broken up by any attempt to dispossess them.

To both of these proposals the Court of Rome offered a tenacious
resistance. The idea of compelling long-persecuted bishops to resign
their sees was no less distasteful than the latter proposal, which
involved acquiescence in sacrilegious robbery. At least, pleaded Mgr.
Spina, let tithes be re-established. To this request the First Consul
deigned no reply. None, indeed, was possible except a curt refusal.
Few imposts had been so detested as the tithe; and its reimposition
would have wounded the peasant class, on which the First Consul based
his authority. So long as he had their support he could treat with
disdain the scoffs of the philosophers and even the opposition of his
officers; but to have wavered on the subject of tithe and of the
Church lands might have been fatal even to the victor of Marengo.[154]

In fact, the difficulty of effecting any compromise was enormous. In
seeking to reconcile the France of Rousseau and Robespierre to the
unchanging policy of the Vatican, the "heir to the Revolution" was
essaying a harder task than any military enterprise. To slay men has
ever been easier than to mould their thoughts anew; and Bonaparte was
now striving not only to remould French thought but also to fashion
anew the ideas of the Eternal City. He soon perceived that this latter
enterprise was more difficult than the former. The Pope and his
councillors rejoiced at the signs of his repentance, but required to
see the fruits thereof. Instead of first-fruits they received
unheard-of demands--the surrender of the three Legations of Bologna,
Ferrara, and Romagna, the renunciation of all tithes and Church lands
in France, and the acceptance of a compromise with schismatics. What
wonder that the replies from Rome were couched in the _non possumus_
terms which form the last refuge of the Vatican. Finding that
negotiations made no progress, Bonaparte intrusted Berthier and Murat
to pay a visit to Rome and exercise a discreet but burdensome pressure
in the form of requisitions for the French troops in the Papal States.

The ratification of peace with Austria gave greater weight to his
representations at Rome, and he en