difficulty in rallying the obedient around
him, for, being Catholic, his parishioners are so many sheep, docile,
taken with externals, impressionable, and ready to follow the pastoral
croisier, provided it bears the ancient trademark, consists of the same
material, is of the same form, conferred from on high and sent from
Rome. The bishops having once been consecrated by the Pope, nobody save
a Gregory or some antiquarian canonist will dispute their jurisdiction.

The ecclesiastical ground is thus cleared through the interposition of
the Pope. The three groups of authorities thereon which contend with
each other for the possession of consciences[5129]--the refugee bishops
in England, the apostolic vicars, and the constitutional clergy--
disappear, and now the cleared ground can be built on. "The Catholic
religion being declared[5130] that of the majority of the French people,
its services must now be regulated. The First Consul nominates fifty
bishops whom the Pope consecrates. These appoint the cures, and the
state pays their salaries. The latter may be sworn, while the priests
who do not submit are sent out of the country. Those who preach against
the government are handed over to their superiors for punishment. The
Pope confirms the sale of clerical possessions; he consecrates the
Republic." The faithful no longer regard it askance. They feel that
they are not only tolerated, but protected by it, and they are
grateful.[5131] The people recover their churches, their cures, the
forms of worship to which they are almost instinctively accustomed, the
ceremonial which, to their imagination, belongs to every important act
of their lives, the solemn rites of marriage, baptism, burial, and
other sacramental offices.--Henceforth mass is said every Sunday in each
village, and the peasants enjoy their processions on Corpus-Christi
day, when their crops are blessed. A great public want is satisfied.
Discontent subsides, ill-will dies out, the government has fewer
enemies; its enemies, again, lose their best weapon, and, at the same
time, it acquires an admirable one, the right of appointing bishops and
of sanctioning the cures. By virtue of the Concordat and by order of the
Pope, not only, in 1801, do all former spiritual authorities cease
to exist, but again, after 1801, all new titularies, with the Pope's
assent, chosen, accepted, managed, disciplined,[5132] and paid by
the First Consul, are, in fact, his creatures, and become