书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600001066

第1066章

"Provided with "fiefs and counties" by this suzerain, the Pope owes him political fealty and military aid; failing in this, the endowment, which is conditional, lapses and his confiscated estates return to the imperial domain to which they have never ceased to belong.[35] Through this reasoning and this threat, through the rudest and most adroit moral and physical pressure, the most insidious and most persevering, through spoliation, begun, continued and completed by the abduction, captivity and sequestration of the Holy Father himself, he undertakes the subjection of the spiritual power: not only must the Pope be like any other individual in the empire,[36] subject by his residence to territorial laws, and hence to the government and the gendarmerie, but again he must come within the administrative lines; he will no longer enjoy the right of refusing canonical investiture to bishops appointed by the emperor,[37] "he will, on his coronation, swear not to take any measures against the four propositions of the Gallican Church,"[38] he will become a grand functionary, a sort of arch-chancellor like Cambacérès and Lebrun, the arch chancellor of the Catholic cult. -Undoubtedly, he resists and is obstinate, but he is not immortal, and if he does not yield, his successor will: it suffices to choose one that is manageable, and to this end things work in the next conclave.

"With my influence and our forces in Italy," Napoleon says afterwards,[39] "I did not despair, sooner or later, by one means or another, of obtaining for myself the control of the Pope, and, thenceforward, what an influence, what a lever on the opinion of the rest of the world!""Had I returned victorious from Moscow, I intended to exalt the Pope beyond measure, to surround him with pomp and deference. I would have brought him to no longer regretting his temporality; I would have made him an idol. He would have lived alongside of me. Paris would have become the capital of Christendom, and I would have governed the religious world the same as the political world. . . . I would have had my religious as well as legislative sessions; my councils would have represented Christianity; the Popes would have been merely their presidents. I would have opened and closed these assemblies, sanctioned and published their decrees, as was done by Constantine and Charlemagne." In 1809, the restoration of the great Carlovingian and Roman edifice had begun; its physical foundations were laid. By virtue of a decree,[40] "the expenses of the Sacred College and of the Propaganda were declared imperial." The Pope, like the new dukes and marshals, was endowed with a landed income on "property in different parts of the empire, two millions of rural revenue free of all taxation. "Necessarily" the Pope must have two palaces, one at Paris and the other at Rome. He is already nearly fully installed in Paris, his person being all that was lacking. On arriving from Fontainebleau, two hours off, he would find everything belonging to his office; "the papers[41] of the missions and the archives of Rome were already there." "The H?tel Dieu was entirely given up to the departments of the court of Rome. The district around Notre Dame and the Ile Saint-Louis was to be the headquarters of Christendom!" Rome, the second center of Christendom, and the second residence of the Pope, is declared[42] "an imperial and free city, the second city of the empire"; a prince of the empire, or other grand dignitary, is to reside there and "hold the court of the emperor." "After their coronation in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, the emperors" will go to Italy before the tenth year of their reign, and be "crowned in the church of St. Peter at Rome." The heir to the imperial throne "will bear the title and receive the honors of the King of Rome."Observe the substantial features of this chimerical construction.

Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, instinct, imagination, and souvenirs, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France. "Napoleon wanted to create the Italian kingdom over again,[43] combining Piedmont, Tuscany, etc., in one united independent nation, bounded by the Alps and the sea. . . . This was to be the immortal trophy erected in his honor. . . . He awaited impatiently the birth of a second son that he might take him to Rome, crown him King of Italy and proclaim the independence of the great peninsula under the regency of Prince Eugene." Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, it is the Pope who, in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed and Italy will once more become a nation. Napoleon prepares the way, and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the principal cult authorized in the empire.

V. State domination of all religion.

Services which Napoleon desires or expects from the French clergy. -His Roman idea of civil power. - Development of this conception by the jurists. - Every religious association must be authorized. - Legal statutes which fix the doctrine and discipline of the four authorized Churches. - Legal organization of the Catholic Church. - Its doctrine and discipline to be that of the old Gallican Church. - New situation of the French Church and new r?le of civil power. - It sets aside its ancient obligations. - It retains and augments its regalian rights. -The Church of France before 1789 and after 1802. - Increased preponderance and complete dominion of the civil power.