now, the survivors of this clergy are those who provide the new
ecclesiastical staff, and, of the two distinct groups from which it is
recruited, neither is predisposed by its antecedents to become
ultramontane. Some among these, who have emigrated, partisans of the
ancient régime, find no difficulty in thus returning to old habits and
doctrines, the authoritative protectorate of the State over the
Church, the interference of the Emperor substituted for that of the
King, and Napoleon, in this as in other respects, the legitimate, or
legitimated, successor of the Bourbons. The others, who have sworn to
the civil constitution of the clergy, the schismatics, the impenitent
and, in spite of the Pope, reintegrated by the First Consul in the
Church,[78] are ill-disposed towards the Pope, their principal
adversary, and well-disposed towards the First Consul, their unique
patron. Hence, "the heads[79] of the Catholic clergy, that is to say,
the bishops and grand-vicars, . . . are attached to the government;"
they are "enlightened" people, and can be made to listen to reason.

"But we have three or four thousand curés or vicars, the progeny of
ignorance and dangerous through their fanaticism and their passions."

If these and their superiors show any undisciplined tendencies, the
curb must be tightly drawn. Fournier, a priest, having reflected on
the government from his pulpit in Saint-Roch, is arrested by the
police, put in Bicêtre as mad,[80] and the First Consul replies to the
Paris clergy who claim his release "in a well-drawn-up petition,":

"I wanted[81] to prove to you, when I put my cap on the wrong side
out, that priests must obey the civil power."

Now and then, a rude stroke of this sort sets an example and keeps the