but then the law of conscription obliges the student of theology, as well
as the student of philosophy, to march together; and, when once in the
ranks, and accustomed to the licentiousness of a military life, they are
either unwilling, unfit, or unworthy to return to anything else. The
Pope, with all his entreaties, and with all his prayers, was unable to
procure an exception from the conscription of young men preparing
themselves for priesthood. Bonaparte always answered: "Holy Father, were
I to consent to your demand, I should soon have an army of priests,
instead of an army of soldiers." Our Emperor is not unacquainted with
the real character and spirit of his Volunteers. When the Pope
represented the danger of religion expiring in France, for want of
priests to officiate at the altars, he was answered that Bonaparte, at
the beginning of his consulate, found neither altars nor priests in
France; that if his reign survived the latter, the former would always be
standing, and survive his reign. He trusted that the chief of the Church
would prevent them from being deserted. He assured him that when once he
had restored the liberties of the seas, and an uninterrupted tranquillity
on the Continent, he should attend more, and perhaps entirely, to the
affairs of the Church. He consented, however, that the Pope might
institute, in the Ecclesiastical States, a seminary for two hundred young
Frenchmen, whom he would exempt from military conscription. This is the
stock from which our Church establishment is to be supplied!




LETTER XXIX.

PARIS, October, 1805.