appeared neither astonished nor disturbed with reference to the First
Consul. When they came to the discussion of the questions which had
brought him to Paris, the Pope's envoy showed himself easily influenced on
most of the points. Bonaparte himself summarized the whole of the
Concordat in a few words: "Fifty emigrant bishops, paid by England, manage
all the French clergy, and their influence must be destroyed. The
authority of the Pope is necessary for that. He deprives them of their
charge, or obliges them to resign. As it is said that the Catholic
religion is that of the majority of the French, the exercise of it should
be organized. The First Consul nominates the fifty bishops; the Pope
institutes them; they name the cures, and the State pays their salaries.
They take the oath: the priests who refuse to submit are removed, and
those who preach against the government are referred to their superiors.
After all, enlightened men will not rise against Catholicism; they are
indifferent."

A rather keen opposition, however, was raised among the courtiers and in
the army against the Concordat, which assisted in hampering the progress
of the negotiations. Most of the military men were still imbued with the
spirit of the Revolution, and suspicious of the influence of the priests.
The constitutional clergy, who had no serious objection to the Concordat,
the only means of securing them a regular ecclesiastical standing, feared
lest they should be sacrificed in favor of the priests who had refused to
take the oath. Several of them were married, and had thus increased the
difficulties of their position by new ties. So many personal interests and
different motives kept the First Consul's advisers in a state of hostility
to the claims of the Holy See. Even the preamble of the Concordat gave
room to long discussions. On the refusal to apply the title "State
religion" to the Catholic religion, Cardinal Consalvi agreed to the simple
statement of the fact that the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion was