State and his tribunals between the Holy See and the faithful. " No
bull, brief, rescript, decree . . . of the court of Rome, even when
bearing only on individuals, shall be received, published, printed or
otherwise executed without permission of the government. No person,
bearing the title of apostolic nuncio, legate, vicar or commissioner,
. . . shall, without the same authorization, exercise on the French
soil or elsewhere any function in relation to the interests of the
Gallican Church. . . . All cases of complaint by ecclesiastical
superiors and other persons shall be brought before the Council of
State."[73] Every minister of a cult[74] who shall have carried on a
correspondence with a foreign court on religious matters or questions
without having previously informed the Minister of Worship and
obtained his sanction shall, for this act alone, be subject to a
penalty of from one hundred to five hundred francs and imprisonment
during a term of from one month to two years. Every communication
from high to low and from low to high between the French Church and
its Roman head, cut off at will, intervention by a veto or by approval
of all acts of pontifical authority, to be the legal and recognized
head of the national clergy,[75] to become for this clergy an
assistant, collateral, and lay Pope - such was the pretension of the
old government, and such, in effect, is the sense, the juridical
bearing, of the Gallican maxims.[76] Napoleon pro-claims them anew,
while the edict of 1682, by which Louis XIV. applied them with
precision, rigor and minuteness, "is declared the general law of the
empire."[77]

There are no opponents to this doctrine, or this use of it, in France.
Napoleon counts on not encountering any, and especially among his
prelates. Gallican before 1789, the whole clergy were more or less so
through education and tradition, through interest and through pride;