Striking remarks.
"Religion," said he, "is something which can not be eradicated from the heart of man. He must believe in a superior being. Who made all that?" he continued, pointing to the stars brilliantly shining in the evening sky. "Last Sunday evening I was walking here alone, when the church bells of the village of Ruel rang at sunset. I was strongly moved, so vividly did the image of early days come back with that sound. If it be thus with me, what must it be with others? Let your philosophers answer that, if they can. It is absolutely indispensable to have a religion for the people. In re-establishing Christianity, I consult the wishes of a great majority of the French nation."
Influence of Josephine in the re-establishment of Christianity.
Josephine probably had very little religious knowledge. She regarded Christianity as a sentiment rather than a principle. She felt the poetic beauty of its revelations and its ordinances. She knew how holy were its charities, how pure its precepts, how ennobling its influences, even when encumbered with the grossest superstitions. She had seen, and dreadfully had she felt, what France was without religion—with marriage a mockery, conscience a phantom, and death proclaimed to all an eternal sleep. She therefore most warmly seconded her husband in all endeavors to restore again to desolated France the religion of Jesus Christ.
Religious ceremony at Nôtre Dame.
The next morning after the issuing of the proclamation announcing the re-establishment of public worship, a grand religious ceremony took place in honor of the occasion in the church of Nôtre Dame. Napoleon, to produce a deep impression upon the public mind, invested the occasion with all possible pomp. As he was preparing to go to the Cathedral, one of his colleagues, Cambacèrés, entered the room.
"Well," said the first consul, rubbing his hands in fine spirits, "we go to church this morning; what say they to that in Paris?"
"Many people," replied Cambacèrés, "propose to attend the first representation in order to hiss the piece, should they not find it amusing."
"If any one takes it into his head to hiss, I shall put him out of the door by the grenadiers of the consular guard."
"But what if the grenadiers themselves take to hissing like the rest?"