this time, maintained in the speculative region of abstract formulae,
comes down to solid ground, into practical and lasting use. Willingly
or not, "the Pope acts as if universal bishop;" urged and constrained
by the lay power, attached to a dictatorship,[3] he entered upon it
and so installed himself, and, ten years later, Napoleon, who had
impelled him on, regretted that he had done so. Warned by his Gallican
jurists, he saw the ecclesiastical import of his work; but it was too
late to retreat - the decisive step had been taken. - For, in fact,
the Pope had deprived all the chieftains of a great church of their
thrones, "his colleagues and co-bishops,"[4] successors of the
apostles under the same title as himself, members "of the same order
and stamped " with the same "character," eighty-five legitimate
incumbents[5] and, still better, as admitted by himself, blameless,
worthy, persecuted because they had obeyed him, banished from France
on account of their unwillingness to quit the Roman Church. He had
ordered them to resign; he had withdrawn apostolic powers from the
thirteen who had refused to tender their resignations; to all, even to
those who refused, he had appointed their successors. He assigned to
the new titularies dioceses of a new pattern and, to justify novelties
of such gravity,[6] he could allege no other reasons than
circumstances, the exigencies of lay power, and the welfare of the
Church. After that the Gallicans themselves, unless accepting the risk
of a schism and of separating forever from the Holy See, were obliged
to allow the Pope above and beyond the ordinary powers exercised by
him within the old limits of canons and of custom, an extraordinary
power unlimited by any canon or by any custom,[7] a plenary and
absolute authority, a right above all other rights, by virtue of
which, in cases determined by himself, he provided in a discretionary
way for all Catholic interests, of which he thus becomes the supreme
judge, the sole interpreter and the court of last appeal. An