ch, unrecognized by Rome, was a mere half-way
house between Romanism and Protestantism; and he disliked the latter
creed because of its tendency to beget sects and to impair the
validity of the general will. He still retained enough of Rousseau's
doctrine to desire that the general will should be uniform, provided
that it could be controlled by his own will. Such uniformity in the
sphere of religion was impossible unless he had the support of the
Papacy. Only by a bargain with Rome could he gain the support of a
solid ecclesiastical phalanx. Finally, by erecting a French national
Church, he would not only have perpetuated schism at home, but would
have disqualified himself for acting the part of Charlemagne over
central and southern Europe. To re-fashion Europe in a cosmopolitan
mould he needed a clerical police that was more than merely French. To
achieve those grander designs the successor of Caesar would need the
aid of the successor of Peter; and this aid would be granted only to
the restorer of Roman Catholicism in France, never to the perpetuator
of schism.

These would seem to be the chief reasons why he braved public opinion
in Paris and clung to the Roman connection, bringing forward his plan
of a Gallican Church only as a threatening move against the clerical
flank. When the Vatican was obdurate he coquetted with the
"constitutional" bishops, allowing them every facility for free speech
in a council which they held at Paris at the close of June, 1801. He
summoned to the Tuileries their president, the famous Gregoire, and
showed him signal marks of esteem. "Put not your trust in princes"
must soon have been the thought of Gregoire and his colleagues: for a
fortnight later Bonaparte carried through his treaty with Rome and
shelved alike the congress and the church of the "constitutionals."

It would be tedious to detail all the steps in this complex
negotiation, but the final proceedings call for some notice. When the
treaty was assuming its final form, Talleyrand, the polite scoffer,
the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the
baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in
the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its
signature, Maret, Secretary of State, and Hauterive, who afterwards
become the official archivist of France. These men determined to
submit to Consalvi a draft of the treaty differing widely from that
which had been agreed upon; a