punishments will attend the long warfare of life, beset by the contradictions of his fellow-mortals, some affirming, on the one hand, that there is a God, the great and intelligent Author of all things; and some, on the other, averring that there is no God; one man maintaining that there is good and evil by which he is to regulate his conduct, and another that there is neither good nor evil, but these are only the interested inventions of the powerful of the earth,-man, in the midst of these contradictions, experiences the imperative want of adopting a fixed and unalterable belief on all these points. Whether true or false, sublime or ridiculous, a religion he must have. Everywhere, in all ages, in all countries, in ancient as in modern times, in civilized as well as in barbarous nations, we find him a worshipper at some altar, be it venerable, degraded, or blood-stained. Whenever a country is without an established form of belief, a thousand sects, addicted to fierce disputation, as in America, or a thousand shameful superstitions, as in China, agitate or degrade the human mind; or, as was the case in France in '93, when a passing storm swept away the ancient religion of the land, we find man, who, but the day before, abjured for ever all belief, belying himself by the mad worship of the goddess Reason, inaugurated in the presence of the reeking scaffold, and thus proving his vow to have been as vain as it was impious. To judge man, then, by his ordinary and invariable conduct, he has need of a religious creed. This being granted, what can be more desirable for a civilized community than a national religion, founded on the feelings of the human heart, in conformity with the rules of a pure morality, consecrated by time, and which, without intolerance or perseeution, can assemble, if not all, at least the majority of the citizens, at the foot of an altar ancient and respected?

'Such a creed, if it has not existed for centuries, cannot be invented. The most sublime philosopher can only make men think, he cannot make them believe. A conqueror covered with glory can found an empire, but he cannot found a religion. In ancient times, sages and heroes have succeeded in enslaving the minds of men, and imposing a creed upon them, by attributing to themselves relations with heaven. In modern times the creator of a religion would be treated as an impostor. Whether surrounded with terror as Robespierre, or with glory like young Bonaparte, his scheme would end only in ridicule.

'There was no need to invent a religion in 1800. A pure, moral, ancient belief was in existence; this was the old religion of Christ, the work of God, according to some; according to others, the fabrication of men; but, by unanimous consent, the profound work of a sublime Reformer; of a Reformer commented on during eighteen centuries by councils, which consisted of assemblies of the most eminent men of their time, who discussed, under the title of heresies, all systems of philosophy; adopting on each of the grand problems of human destiny opinions the most plausible and most suitable to society, and adopting those opinions by what might be termed a majority of the human race; thus finally producing that body of unvarying doctrine known by the name of Catholic Unity; a doctrine before which the mighty genius of a Bossuet and a Leib

nitz, after having long investigated all codes of philosophy, had humbly prostrated itself. That religion still existed whose sway had extended over all civilized nations, had formed their morals, had inspired their songs, had furnished subjects for their poetry, their pictures, their statues; whose impress stamped all their national recollections, and whose sign was emblazoned on their banners, whether victorious or vanquished. It had disappeared for a time, during a wild tempest of the human mind; but that tempest passed, and a want of religious faith being again felt, it was found lurking in the recesses of the heart, the natural and indispensable creed of France and of Europe.'-Vol. iii. p. 122.

This restoration of the Church to a recognised place in the state was, of all the First Consul's measures, that which was most dubious at the time, but which most evinced his sagacity and foresightedness in the event. It was opposed by almost all his contemporaries, by all those among whom he lived, and who might be thought to have constituted a public opinion for him. All the moderate constitutional party, who had not, like Robespierre and St. Just, shed human blood, and who disavowed all participation in the violent excesses of the Revolution, yet looked upon the overthrow of Christianity as one of the main points gained by the Revolution, as final, and what could not be disturbed without undoing all that it had cost so much to do. And to those who, from political views, opposed the measure, may be added the men of science and learning, who had no little weight in society at the time, especially on a question of this nature. They regarded Christianity as not only politically destroyed, but as having been refuted, exploded; as a system, which never could regain any hold of a philosophical mind, and which was fast disappearing from that of the people at large, and which ought therefore to be suffered to die a natural death. La Place, La Grange, Monge, united in imploring the First Consul not to prostrate at the feet of Rome the dignity of his government and his age. A third party, and a very numerous one, were those whom interest arrayed in opposition to any negotiation with Rome. The purchasers of the Church lands, though receiving the most solemn and repeated guarantees of the inviolability of their new acquisitions, looked with alarm at any revival of the pretensions of a religion, which they were conscious must condemn the injustice and spoliation by which the lands had been acquired. However willingly the clergy might renounce any wish to molest the occupants, the act of occupation, it was felt, could never be sanctioned. To this class of opponents belonged M. Talleyrand, who, galled by recollections which came home to himself, did not wish to have France brought again into relations with Rome.

Most of all was to be feared that ridicule, powerful everywhere-in France all-powerful-which had now attached-it seemed inseparably-to all the ceremonies and outward profession of the religion of Christ. Voltaire and Frederick II., the wits of the eighteenth century, had wielded such a power over men's minds, that even those who still adhered to the faith durst not perform any of the acts it requires in public. And the companions in arms of General Bonaparte, generals and officers of every grade, who had never received the rudiments of a liberal education, who had been brought up amid the vulgar jests of the camp, or the declamations of the clubs, were peculiarly sensitive on the score of ridicule. They treated religion, and all relating to it, with profane and ribald mockery. At the last moment it required all the authority of the Military Chieftain to bring this infidel soldiery to submit to be present at the High Mass at Nôtre Dame, which ratified the conclusion of the Concordat.

And finally, but not the least obstinate opposition, was that offered by the constitutional clergy. These were the priests who had been put in the place of the legitimate clergy by the Convention. The legitimate priests had been first deprived, and then exiled, and otherwise persecuted, for refusing to take the oath to the Constitution. The constitutional priests were mere creatures of the State; they were not acknowledged by Rome, or by the faithful: they were, in fact, mock priests, counterfeit imitations, endeavoured to be passed off upon the people for the true. Of their bishops, but few had gone through the forms of regular election, but had usurped their powers during the confusion, or had procured their appointment by clandestine chapters, or parties in the chapters, destitute of any legal or canonical authority. And among the body of this description of clergy were a large proportion who had lost all moral weight, who had mingled in the political squabbles of the time, had been violent declaimers at the clubs, or men of profligate lives, and Jansenist priests, who had taken advantage of the disorder to marry. this party looked upon themselves as suffering in behalf of the Revolution. They represented the discredit they were in with the rural populations as the result of their fidelity to the Constitution. They had not fled, they said, nor deserted their churches during the reign of terror, but had sought to reconcile the religious part of the people to the new order of things: and now they were to be thrown aside, and the old priests, enemies of the Government, most of them emigrants, to be taken into favour.

All

This then was the formidable opposition which the First Consul had to encounter in his scheme of restoring to the Church

in France a legal position, and a public acknowledgment. And it may be well asked, how did it consist with the line of policy which we have ascribed to the First Consul, to take so important a step in what would seem to be a direct opposition to the almost unanimous voice, both of public opinion and of the counsellors by whom he was habitually surrounded? We see the ardent Republicans, and the consistent political maintainers of the Revolution, the purchasers of Church lands, the recreant ecclesiastics, the men of science and philosophy, the army, and the constitutional priests, so many different classes, so many diverse interests, all united, and thus generating a public opinion which covered with ridicule all practical profession of Christianity. This measure, then, bears the appearance of an exception to the ordinary policy of the Consulate, and has been considered by some as an early instance of that obstinate perseverance in his own schemes against the expressed opinions of the nation, to which the Emperor sacrificed the popularity and ascendency which the First Consul had acquired. We are speaking now of the human motives and the worldly policy alone which were concerned in these events, and not of the unseen, but overruling, hand of Providence, which used the apparently uncontrolled sway the young conqueror had gained over the minds of his countrymen to bring about its own purposes.

And in this point of view, not one of the First Consul's measures evince more strikingly his capacity for seizing the real, true, and permanent bearings of the public mind, and not suffering himself to be deceived by that false mirage which counterfeits it, and which expresses itself in violent declamation, in noisy harangues, in public meetings, and petitions. He saw through, what no one else did, that superficial coterie which was ever putting itself forward as the French nation; he saw that the saloons of Paris were not France, that it was not enough to gain the faubourgs, if he did not also gain the rural populations. He felt the much greater depth and sincerity that lies in the faith of a Catholic, than in any attachment to self-formed and self-adopted doctrines of philosophy, politics, or religion. Strange that one hardly a believer himself, and afterwards stained with so many crimes, should have been almost the only man of his class who understood the vitality of the Christian religion, who saw that it had a germ of life which all the shadowy simulations of creeds, worship of reason, theophilanthropism, latitudinarianism, lacked. At the very time when infidelity was most triumphant, when a Pope had died the prisoner of a Republic, and all-friends, and foes, believers and unbelievers alike-thought that the days of the great religious system which had so long been dominant in Europe were numbered, the scheme was resolved on.

The

Pope might now seem in the last stage of decrepitude, and the description in Pilgrim's Progress of the old man who sat in helpless imbecility by the road-side, biting his nails from vexation, that he could now no longer, as formerly, come at travellers, might now be thought justly applicable. The watch-word of Voltaire, Ecrasez l'infame, was now about to have its fulfilment.

So judged all the world, friends as well as foes. Not so the keensighted man in whose hands Providence seemed for the time to have placed the direction of the affairs of all Christendom. It is one, and not the least wonderful, of the consequences of an enlarged understanding, and high position, that it seems to bring its possessor into contact with spiritual powers and existences which are not perceived by those who move in a lower sphere, and with less extended knowledge. Intellect is very far from being a means of spiritual attainment. But it is the case, that in proportion as the individual ascends in the social scale, and multiplies his connexion and acquaintance with different points of human society, he becomes cognisant of systems, forces, and relations which do not exist for those in a less exalted position. So children move about totally unconscious of those intricate and subtle laws of society, which, as they grow up, they find to have been woven in and around the whole intercourse of man with man; so the peasant or the artizan could not be made to comprehend the refined policy which regulates the mutual dealings of states. Universally, men come later to apprehend political than social relations. And the existence and attributes of the Church are less palpable, less manifested, than those of States, and have accordingly, as we see, escaped the eye of large classes of Christians, who deny their existence. Still more delicate and intangible is the intercommunion of the separate parts and members of the Church Universal; an intercommunion which is again denied, or dispensed with, by many who are not blind to the general principles of the Christian society or polity. But to a view of these secret and subtle influences Napoleon was admitted by force of the eminent position which he had attained in the European system. M. Thiers thinks that something must be set down to the influence of early impressions, recollections of his childhood. The sight of a decorated altar, he says, excited in him the most lively emotions. But mere emotions of this description would never have been a sufficient motive in the mind of the First Consul, had not his intellect disclosed to him those real powers which the Christian religion still exercised over the minds of the majority of France and of Europe.

The Concordat then, we repeat, was another, and not the least, striking instance of the general policy which distin