The Modern Regime, Volume 2 by Hippolyte Taine
page 64 of 369 (17%)
page 64 of 369 (17%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
arch-bishop of Paris was published on the same day that I had been
appointed prefect of police. The new arch-bishop had made too much noise in the past for him not to have become known to me. He was as happy with his appointment as I was unhappy with mine. I met him in the chateau Fontainebleau and I have ever since been haunted by the noisy expression of his happiness. He constantly repeated this sentence: "The Emperor has just satisfied the two greatest requirements of his capital. With a good police and a good clergy he can always be sure of public order, since an arch-bishop is also a prefect of the police." [56] Report of Siméon to the tribunat on presenting to it the Concordat and Organic Articles, Germinal 17, year X. - Henceforth "the ministers of all cults will be subject to the influence of the government which appoints or confirms them, to which they are bound by the most sacred promises, and which holds them in its dependence by their salaries." [57] "Discours, rapports, etc.," by Portalis, p. 40. - Emile Ollivier, "Nouveau manuel de droit ecclésiastique," P.193. (Reply by Portalis to the protests of the Holy See, Sep. 22, 1803.) Before 1789 Portalis writes: "The spectacle presented by the monks was not very edifying. . . . The legislature having decided that religious vows could not be taken up to twenty-one years of age, . . . this measure keeps novices away; the monastic orders, sapped by the state of morals and by time, could obtain no recruits; they languished in a state of inertia and of disfavor which was worse than annihilation. . . . The era for monastic institutions had passed." [58] Pelet de la Lozère, p.146. (Words of Napoleon, March 11, 1806.) |
|