nsul
abolished the republican calendar and reestablished the Gregorian. This
is an error. He did not make the calendar a religious affair. The
'Senatus-consulte', which restored the use of the Gregorian calendar, to
commence in the French Empire from the 11th Nivose, year XIV. (1st
January 1806), was adopted on the 22d Fructidor, year XIII. (9th
September 1805), more than four years after the Concordat. The
re-establishment of the ancient calendar had no other object than to
bring us into harmony with the rest of Europe on a point so closely
connected with daily transactions, which were much embarrassed by the
decadary calendar.

Bonaparte at length, however, consented to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was
the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed
the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that
those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the
service was ended.

Whenever the First Consul determined to hear Mass publicly on Sundays in
the chapel of the Palace a small altar was prepared in a room near his
cabinet of business. This room had been Anne of Austria's oratory.
A small portable altar, placed on a platform one step high, restored it
to its original destination. During the rest of the week this chapel was
used as a bathing-room. On Sunday the door of communication was opened,
and we heard Mass sitting in our cabinet of business. The number of
persons there never exceeded three or four, and the First Consul seldom
failed to transact some business during the ceremony, which never lasted
longer than twelve minutes. Next day all the papers had the news that
the First Consul had heard Mass in his apartments. In the same way Louis
XVIII. has often heard it in his!

On the 19th of July 1801 a papal bull absolved Talleyrand from his vows.
He immediately married Madame Grandt, and the affair obtained little
notice at the time. This statement sufficiently proves how report has
perverted the fact. It has been said that Bonaparte on becoming Emperor
wished to restore that decorum which the Revolution had destroyed, and
therefore resolved to put an end to the improper intimacy which subsisted
between Talleyrand and Madame Grandt. It is alleged that the Minister at
first refused to marry the lady, but that he at last found it necessary
to obey the peremptory order of his master. This pretended resurrection
of morality by Bonaparte is excessively ridiculous. The