use of augurs, auspices and sacred fowls. - It is interesting to trace
the long life and survivorship of this important idea from antiquity
down to the present day; it reappears in the Concordat and in the
Organic Articles of 1801, and still later in the late decrees
dissolving unauthorized communities and closing the convents of men. -
French jurists, and in particular Napoleon's jurists, are profoundly
imbued with the Roman idea. Portalis, in his exposition of the motives
for establishing metropolitan seminaries (March 14, 1804), supports
the decree with Roman law. "The Roman laws," he says, "place every
thing concerning the cult in the class of matters which belong
essentially to public rights."

[45] Thibaudeau, p.152.

[46] "Discours, rapports et travaux sur le Concordat de 1801," by
Portalis, p.87 (on the Organic Articles), p.29 (on the organization of
cults). "The ministers of religion must not pretend to share in or
limit public power. . . . Religious affairs have always been classed
by the different national codes among matters belonging to the upper
police department of the State. . . The political magistrate may and
should intervene in everything which concerns the outward
administration of sacred matters. . . . In France, the government has
always presided, in a more or less direct way, over the direction of
ecclesiastical affairs."

[47] "Discours, rapports, etc.," by Portalis, p. 31. - Ibid., p.143:
"To sum up: The Church possesses only a purely spiritual authority;
the sovereigns, in their capacity of political magistrates, regulate
temporal and mixed questions with entire independence, and, as
protectors, they have even the right to see to the execution of canons