lic
tranquillity, they proved a fruitful source of discord, which during
the Empire became so acute as to weaken Napoleon's authority. In
matters religious as well as political, he early revealed his chief
moral and mental defect, a determination to carry his point by
whatever means and to require the utmost in every bargain. While
refusing fully to establish Roman Catholicism as the religion of the
State, he compelled the Church to surrender its temporalities, to
accept the regulations of the State, and to protect its interests.
Truly if, in Chateaubriand's famous phrase, he was the "restorer of
the altars," he exacted the uttermost farthing for that restoration.

In one matter his clear intelligence stands forth in marked contrast
to the narrow pedantry of the Roman Cardinals. At a time of
reconciliation between orthodox and "constitutionals," they required
from the latter a complete and public retractation of their recent
errors. At once Bonaparte intervened with telling effect. So condign a
humiliation, he argued, would altogether mar the harmony newly
re-established. "The past is past: and the bishops and prefects ought
to require from the priests only the declaration of adhesion to the
Concordat, and of obedience to the bishop nominated by the First
Consul and instituted by the Pope." This enlightened advice, backed up
by irresistible power, carried the day, and some ten thousand
constitutional priests were quietly received back into the Roman
communion, those who had contracted marriages being compelled to put
away their wives. Bonaparte took a deep interest in the reconstruction
of dioceses, in the naming of churches, and similar details, doubtless
with the full consciousness that the revival of the Roman religious
discipline in France was a more important service than any feat of
arms.

He was right: in healing a great schism in France he was dealing a
deadly blow at the revolutionary feeling of which it was a prominent
manifestation. In the words of one of his Ministers, "The Concordat
was the most brilliant triumph over the genius of Revolution, and all
the following successes have without exception resulted from it."[159]

After this testimony it is needless to ask why Bonaparte did not take
up with Protestantism. At St. Helena, it is true, he asserted that the
choice of Catholicism or Protestantism was entirely open to him in
1801, and that the nation would have followed him in either direction:
but his