The results of this new local government have often been considered so favourable as to prove that the genius of the French people requires central control rather than self-government. But it should be noted that the conditions of France from 1790 to 1800 were altogether hostile to the development of free institutions. The fierce feuds at home, the greed and the class jealousies awakened by confiscation, the blasts of war and the blight of bankruptcy, would have severely tested the firmest of local institutions; they were certain to wither so delicate an organism as an absolute democracy, which requires peace, prosperity, and infinite patience for its development. Because France then came to despair of her local self-government, it did not follow that she would fail after Bonaparte's return had restored her prestige and prosperity. But the national élan forbade any postponement or compromise; and France forthwith accepted the rule of an able official hierarchy as a welcome alternative to the haphazard acts of local busybodies. By many able men the change has been hailed as a proof of Bonaparte's marvellous discernment of the national character, which, as they aver, longs for brilliance, order, and strong government, rather than for the steep and thorny paths of liberty. Certainly there is much in the modern history of France which supports this opinion. Yet perhaps these characteristics are due very largely to the master craftsman, who fashioned France anew when in a state of receptivity, and thus was able to subject democracy to that force which alone has been able to tame it—the mighty force of militarism.
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The return to a monarchical policy was nowhere more evident than in the very important negotiations which regulated the relations of Church and State and produced the Concordat or treaty of peace with the Roman Catholic Church. But we must first look back at the events which had reduced the Roman Catholic Church in France to its pitiable condition.
The conduct of the revolutionists towards the Church of France was actuated partly by the urgent needs of the national exchequer, partly by hatred and fear of so powerful a religious corporation. Idealists of the new school of thought, and practical men who dreaded bankruptcy, accordingly joined in the assault on its property and privileges: its tithes were confiscated, the religious houses and their property were likewise absorbed, and its lands were declared to be the lands of the nation. A budget of public worship was, it is true, designed to support the bishops and priests; but this solemn obligation was soon renounced by the fiercer revolutionists. Yet robbery was not their worst offence. In July, 1790, they passed a law called the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which aimed at subjecting the Church to the State. It compelled bishops and priests to seek election by the adult males of their several Departments and parishes, and forced them to take a stringent oath of obedience to the new order of things. All the bishops but four refused to take an oath which set at naught the authority of the Pope: more than 50,000 priests likewise refused, and were ejected from their livings: the recusants were termed orthodox or non-juring priests, and by the law of August, 1792, they were exiled from France, while their more pliable or time-serving brethren who accepted the new decree were known as constitutionals. About 12,000 of the constitutionals married, while some of them applauded the extreme Jacobinical measures of the Terror. One of them shocked the faithful by celebrating the mysteries, having a bonnet rouge on his head, holding a pike in his hand, while his wife was installed near the altar.[152] Outrages like these were rare: but they served to discredit the constitutional Church and to throw up in sharper relief the courage with which the orthodox clergy met exile and death for conscience' sake. Moreover, the time-serving of the constitutionals was to avail them little: during the Terror their stipends were unpaid, and the churches were for the most part closed. After a partial respite in 1795-6, the coup d'état of Fructidor (1797) again ushered in two years of petty persecutions; but in the early summer of 1799 constitutionals were once more allowed to observe the Christian Sunday, and at the time of Bonaparte's return from Egypt their services were more frequented than those of the Theophilanthropists on the décadis. It was evident, then, that the anti-religious furor had burnt itself out, and that France was turning back to her old faith. Indeed, outside Paris and a few other large towns, public opinion mocked at the new cults, and in the country districts the peasantry clung with deep affection to their old orthodox priests, often following them into the forests to receive their services and forsaking those of their supplanters.
Such, then, was the religious state of France in 1799: her clergy were rent by a formidable schism; the orthodox priests clung where possible to their parishioners, or lived in destitution abroad; the constitutional priests, though still frowned on by the Directory, were gaining ground at the expense of the Theophilanthropists, whose expiring efforts excited ridicule. In fine, a nation weary of religious experiments and groping about for some firm anchorage in the midst of the turbid ebb-tide and 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 Cæsars 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 Cæsar 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 Réveillière-Lépeaux. 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 Consul, and soon recovered his sovereignty over his States, excepting the Legations.
The negotiations between Paris and the Vatican were transacted chiefly by a very able priest, Bernier by name, who had gained the First Consul's confidence during the pacification of Brittany, and now urged on the envoys of Rome the need of deferring to all that was reasonable in the French demands. The negotiators for the Vatican were Cardinals Consalvi and Caprara, and Monseigneur Spina—able ecclesiastics, who were fitted to maintain clerical claims with that mixture of suppleness and firmness which had so often baffled the force and craft of mighty potentates. The first difficulty arose on the question of the resignation of bishops of the Gallican Church: Bonaparte demanded that, whether orthodox or constitutionals, they must resign their sees into the Pope's hands; failing that, they must be deposed by the papal authority. Sweeping as this proposal seemed, Bonaparte claimed that bishops of both sides must resign, in order that a satisfactory selection might be made. Still more imperious was the need that the 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]