in Paris and clung to the Roman connection, bringing forward his plan
of a Gallican Church only as a threatening move against the clerical
flank. When the Vatican was obdurate he coquetted with the
"constitutional" bishops, allowing them every facility for free speech
in a council which they held at Paris at the close of June, 1801. He
summoned to the Tuileries their president, the famous Grégoire, and
showed him signal marks of esteem. "Put not your trust in princes"
must soon have been the thought of Grégoire and his colleagues: for a
fortnight later Bonaparte carried through his treaty with Rome and
shelved alike the congress and the church of the "constitutionals."

It would be tedious to detail all the steps in this complex
negotiation, but the final proceedings call for some notice. When the
treaty was assuming its final form, Talleyrand, the polite scoffer,
the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the
baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in
the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its
signature, Maret, Secretary of State, and Hauterive, who afterwards
become the official archivist of France. These men determined to
submit to Consalvi a draft of the treaty differing widely from that
which had been agreed upon; and that, too, when the official
announcement had been made that the treaty was to be signed
immediately. In the last hours the cardinal found himself confronted
with unexpected conditions, many of which he had successfully
repelled. Though staggered by this trickery, which compelled him to
sign a surrender or to accept an open rupture, Consalvi fought the
question over again in a conference that lasted twenty-four hours; he
even appeared at the State dinner given on July 14th by the First
Consul, who informed him before the other guests that it was a
question of "my draft of the treaty or none at all." Nothing baffled