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