d its numerous backwaters.[153]

Despite the absence of any deep religious belief, Bonaparte felt the
need of religion as the bulwark of morality and the cement of society.
During his youth he had experienced the strength of Romanism in
Corsica, and during his campaigns in Italy he saw with admiration the
zeal of the French orthodox priests who had accepted exile and poverty
for conscience' sake. To these outcasts he extended more protection
than was deemed compatible with correct republicanism; and he received
their grateful thanks. After Brumaire he suppressed the oath
previously exacted from the clergy, and replaced it by a _promise_ of
fidelity to the constitution. Many reasons have been assigned for this
conduct, but doubtless his imagination was touched by the sight of the
majestic hierarchy of Rome, whose spiritual powers still prevailed,
even amidst the ruin of its temporal authority, and were slowly but
surely winning back the ground lost in the Revolution. An influence so
impalpable yet irresistible, that inherited from the Rome of the
Caesars the gift of organization and the power of maintaining
discipline, in which the Revolution was so signally lacking, might
well be the ally of the man who now dominated the Latin peoples. The
pupil of Caesar could certainly not neglect the aid of the spiritual
hierarchy, which was all that remained of the old Roman grandeur.

Added to this was his keen instinct for reality, which led him to
scorn such whipped-up creeds as Robespierre's Supreme Being and that
amazing hybrid, Theophilanthropy, offspring of the Goddess of Reason
and La Reveilliere-Lepeaux. Having watched their manufacture, rise and
fall, he felt the more regard for the faith of his youth, which
satisfied one of the most imperious needs of his nature, a craving for
certainty. Witness this crushing retort to M. Mathieu: "What is your
Theophilanthropy? Oh, don't talk to me of a religion which only takes
me for this life, without telling me whence I come or whither I go."
Of course, this does not prove the reality of Napoleon's religion; but
it shows that he was not devoid of the religious instinct.

The victory of Marengo enabled Bonaparte to proceed with his plans for
an accommodation with the Vatican; and he informed one of the Lombard
bishops that he desired to open friendly relations with Pope Pius
VII., who was then about to make his entry into Rome. There he
received the protection of the First Con