In subsequent articles styled "organic," Bonaparte, without consulting the Pope, made several laws that galled the orthodox clergy. Under the plea of legislating for the police of public worship, he reaffirmed some of the principles which he had been unable to incorporate in the Concordat itself. The organic articles asserted the old claims of the Gallican Church, which forbade the application of Papal Bulls, or of the decrees of "foreign" synods, to France: they further forbade the French bishops to assemble in council or synod without the permission of the Government; and this was also required for a bishop to leave his diocese, even if he were summoned to Rome. Such were the chief of the organic articles. Passed under the plea of securing public 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 religious policy, if carefully examined, shows no sign of wavering on this subject, though he once or twice made a strategic diversion towards Geneva, when Rome showed too firm a front. Is it conceivable that a man who, as he informed Joseph, was systematically working to found a dynasty, should hesitate in the choice of a governmental creed? Is it possible to think of the great champion of external control and State discipline as a defender of liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment?
The regulation of the Protestant cult in France was a far less arduous task. But as Bonaparte's aim was to attach all cults to the State, he decided to recognize the two chief Protestant bodies in France, Calvinists and Lutherans, allowing them to choose their own pastors and to regulate their affairs in consistories. The pastors were to be salaried by the State, but in return the Government not only reserved its approval of every appointment, but required the Protestant bodies to have no relations whatever with any foreign Power or authority. The organic articles of 1802, which defined the position of the Protestant bodies, form a very important landmark in the history of the followers of Luther and Calvin. Persecuted by Louis XIV. and XV., they were tolerated by Louis XVI.; they gained complete religious equality in 1789, and after a few years of anarchy in matters of faith, they found themselves suddenly and stringently bound to the State by the organizing genius of Bonaparte.
In the years 1806-1808 the position of the Jews was likewise defined, at least for all those who recognized France as their country, performed all civic duties, and recognized all the laws of the State. In consideration of their paying full taxes and performing military service, they received official protection and their rabbis governmental support.
Such was Bonaparte's policy on religious subjects. There can be little doubt that its motive was, in the main, political. This methodizing genius, who looked on the beliefs and passions, the desires and ambitions of mankind, as so many forces which were to aid him in his ascent, had already satisfied the desires for military glory and material prosperity; and in his bargain with Rome he now won the support of an organized priesthood, besides that of the smaller Protestant and Jewish communions. That he gained also peace and quietness for France may be granted, though it was at the expense of that mental alertness and independence which had been her chief intellectual glory; but none of his intimate acquaintances ever doubted that his religion was only a vague sentiment, and his attendance at mass merely a compliment to his "sacred gendarmerie."[l60]
Having dared and achieved the exploit of organizing religion in a half-infidel society, the First Consul was ready to undertake the almost equally hazardous task of establishing an order of social distinction, and that too in the very land where less than eight years previously every title qualified its holder for the guillotine. For his new experiment, the Legion of Honour, he could adduce only one precedent in the acts of the last twelve years.
The whole tendency had been towards levelling all inequalities. In 1790 all titles of nobility were swept away; and though the Convention decreed "arms of honour" to brave soldiers, yet its generosity to the deserving proved to be less remarkable than its activity in guillotining the unsuccessful. Bonaparte, however, adduced its custom of granting occasional modest rewards as a precedent for his own design, which was to be far more extended and ambitious.
In May, 1802, he proposed the formation of a Legion of Honour, organized in fifteen cohorts, with grand officers, commanders, officers, and legionaries. Its affairs were to be regulated by a council presided over by Bonaparte himself. Each cohort received "national domains" with 200,000 francs annual rental, and these funds were disbursed to the members on a scale proportionate to their rank. The men who had received "arms of honour" were, ipso facto to be legionaries; soldiers "who had rendered considerable services to the State in the war of liberty," and civilians "who by their learning, talents, and virtues contributed to establish or to defend the principles of the Republic," might hope for the honour and reward now held out. The idea of rewarding merit in a civilian, as well as among the military caste which had hitherto almost entirely absorbed such honours, was certainly enlightened; and the names of the famous savants Laplace, Monge, Berthollet, Lagrange, Chaptal, and of jurists such as Treilhard and Tronchet, imparted lustre to what would otherwise have been a very commonplace institution. Bonaparte desired to call out all the faculties of the nation; and when Dumas proposed that the order should be limited to soldiers, the First Consul replied in a brilliant and convincing harangue: