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 CONCORDAT

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CONCORDAT

ISOO, Bonaparte, after his victory at Marengo, passed through Vercelli, where he paid a visit to Cardinal Martiniana, bishop of that city. He asked that prel- .•il(- to go to Rome and inform Pius VII that Bona- pirte wished to make him a present of thirty milhon Fn'iich Cathiihcs; that the first consul desired to reor- ganize the French dioceses, while lessening their num- licr; that the i in lyre bishops should be induced to re- sit;n their sees; that France should have a new clergy UTitrammclled by past political conditions; that the ji^pe's spiritual jurisdiction in France should be re- sl(ired. Martiniana faithfully reported these words to I'lus VII. It was only a few months before that I'lus VI had died at Valence, a prisoner of revolution- ary France. Pius VII, w'hen elected at Venice, had announced his accession to the legitimate government of Louis XVIII, not to that of the Republic; and now Honaparte, the representative of this de facto govern- iiunt, was making overtures of peace to the Holy See oil the very morrow of his great victory. His action naturally caused the greatest surprise at Rome. The ilithculties in the way, however, were very serious. They arose, chiefly (1) from the susceptibilities of the ' niigre bishops, from the future Louis XVIII, and from ( ardinal Maury, who was suspicious of any attempt it reconciliation between the Roman Church and the now France; (2) from the susceptibilities of the former r volutionaries, noiv the courtiers of Napoleon, but htill imbued with the irreligious philosophy of the oinhteenth century. The distinctive mark of the ne- i;otiations, taken as a whole, is the fact that the Fn-nch bishops, whether still aljroad or returned to tlioir own country, had no heart whatever in them. rhe concordat as finally arranged practically ignored tlioir existence.

11. The Three Phases of the Negotiations. — First Phase (5 Xovember, ISOO — 10 March, ISOl). Spina, titular Archbishop of Corinth, accompanied by Caselli, General of the Servites, arrived in Paris, on priest of Saint-Laud, at Angers, and famous for the ]iart he had played in the wars of La Vendee, was in- ^tructed by Bonaparte to confer with Spina. Four proposals for a concordat were submitted in turn to the pope's representative, who felt that he had no ritjht to sign them without referring them to the Holy See. Finally, after numerous delays, for which Tal- leyrand was responsible, a fifth proposal, written by Napoleon himself, was brought to Rome, on 10 March, by the courier Palmoni.
 * ') Xovember, 1800. Bernier, who had been parish

Second Phase. {10 March, ISOl — 6 June, ISOl). Cacault, member of the Corps Lcgislati], appointed as minister plenipotentiary to the Holy See, reached Rome on 8 April, 1801. He had received instructions from Napoleon to treat the pope as if he had 200,000 men. He was a good Christian, and anxious to bring the work of the concordat to a successful issue. What Bonaparte wished, however, was the immediate acceptance by Rome of his plan of the concordat ; on the other hand, the cardinals to whom Pius VII had submitted it took two months to study it. On 12 May, 1801, the very day on which Napoleon, at Mal- maison, was complaining to Spina of the slowness of the Holy See, the cardinals to whom the proposed concordat had been submitted sent yet another pro- posal to Paris. But, before this last proposal ha<l reached its destination, Cacault received an ultima- tum from Talleyrand, to the effect that he must leave Rome if, after an inter\'al of five days, the concordat proposed by Bonaparte had not been signed by Pius Vll. All might, even then, have been broken off, had the situation not been saved by Cacault. He left Rome, leaving his secretary Artaud there, but suggested to the Holy See the idea of sending Consalvi himself, Secretary of State to Pius VII, to treat with Bonaparte. On 6 June, 1801, Artaud and Consalvi left Rome in the same carriage.

Third Phase (6 June, ISO 1—15 July, ISOl). Con- salvi, after an audience with Bonaparte, discussed the various points of the proposed concordat with Ber- nier, and on 12 July they had reached an agreement. Bonaparte thereupon instructed his brother Joseph, Cretet, councillor of state, and Bernier to sign the concordat with Consalvi, Spina, and Caselli. During the day of the 13th, Bernier sent Consalvi a minute, adding: "Here is what they will propose to you at first; read it well, examine everything, despair of nothing." Between this minute and the proposal concerning which Consalvi and Bernier had come to the agreement of the day before, there were certain remarkable differences with regard to the publicity of worship; a clause relative to married priests, and al- ways rejected by Consalvi, was inserted; the clauses relating to seminaries, to chapters, and that of the pro- fession of the Catholic Faith by the consuls, to which the Holy See attached great importance were sup- pressed. Consalvi received the impression — he ex- presses it in his "Memoirs", written in 1812 — that the French Government intended to deceive him by sub- stituting a fresh text for the te.xt he had accepted ; and d'Haussonville, in his book, " The Roman Church and the First Empire", has fonnally impugned the good faith of Bonaparte's representatives. Bernier's afore- mentioned note of 13 July, recently discovered by Cardinal Mathieu, asking Consalvi to " read " and " ex- amine" carefully, proves that the French Govern- ment did not intend any deception; nevertheless, the presentation of this new draft reopened the wholeques- tion. Talleyrand had taken the initiative in this matter; for twenty consecutive hours Bonaparte's three plenipotentiaries and those of the Holy See car- ried on their discussion. The plan on which they finally agreed was thrown into the fire by Bonaparte, who that evening, at dinner, gave way to a violent fit of anger against Consalvi. Finally, on 15 July, a confer- ence of twelve hours ended in a definite agreement ; on the 16th Bonaparte approved of it. Pius VII, on his part, after consultation with the cardinals, sanctioned this arrangement, 11 August; on 10 September the signatures were exchanged, and on 18 April, 1802, Bonaparte caused the publication of the concordat and the reconciliation of France with the Church to be solemnly celebrated in the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris.

III. The Stipulations op the Concordat. — The French Government by the concordat recognized the Catholic religion as the religion oj tlie great majority of Frenchmen. The phrase was no longer as in former times, the religion of the State. But it was a question of a personal profession of Catholicism on the part of the Consuls of the Republic. The Holy See had in- sisted on this mention, and it was only on this condi- tion that the pope agreed to grant to the State police power in the matter of public worship. This question had been one of the most troublesome that arose dur- ing the course of the deliberations. In the matter of these police powers it had been agreed after many difficulties that the following should stand as Article 1 of the concorilat: "The Catholic, Apostolic and Ro- man Religion .■<hall be freely exercised in France. Its worship .siiall be public while conforming to such police regulations as t ho gnvernment shall consider necessary to [luhlic tranipiillity." The pope agreed to a fresh circumscription of the French dioceses. AVTien this subsequently took place, of the 136 sees only 60 were retained. The pope promised to inform the actual titulars of thi? dioceses that he should expect from them every sacrifice, even that of their sees.

According to Articles 4 and .5 the French Govern- ment was to present the nc'W bishops, but the pope was to give them canonical institution. (See Pres- entation; Institution, Canonical; Nomination.) The bishops were to appoint as parish priests such persons only as were acceptable to the Govern-