hould be, daily; and it maintains this watch for its own advantage,
for the advantage of civil and political interests, in such a way that
concern for the other world may be serviceable and not prejudicial to
matters which belong to this one. In short, and as a summary, the First
Consul says, in a private conversation:

"The people want a religion, and this religion should be in the hands of
the government!"[5145]

On this theme, his jurists, old parliamentarians or conventionalists,
his ministers and counselors, Gallicans or Jacobins, his spokesmen in
the legislative assembly or the tribunate, all imbued with Roman law
or with the Contrat Social are capital megaphones for proclaiming the
omnipotence of the State in polished sentences. "The unity of public
power and its universality," says Portalis,[5146] "are a
necessary consequence of its independence." "Public power must be
self-sufficient; it is nothing if not all..." Public power cannot
tolerate rivals; it cannot allow other powers to establish themselves
alongside of it without its consent, perhaps to sap and weaken it. "The
authority of a State might become precarious if men on its territory
exercise great influence over minds and consciences, unless these men
belong to it, at least in some relation." It is careless "if it remains
unfamiliar or indifferent to the form and the constitution of the
government which proposes to govern souls," if it admits that the limits
within which the faith and obedience of believers "can be made or
altered without its support, if it has not, in its legally recognized
and avowed superiors, guarantees of the fidelity of inferiors." Such was
the rule in France for the Catholic cult previous to 1789, and such is
to be the rule, after 1801, for all authorized cults. If the State
authorizes them, it is "to direct such important institutions with a
view to the greatest public utility." Solely because it is favorable to
"their doctrine and their discipline" it means to maintain these intact
and prevent "their ministers from corrupting the doctrine entrusted to
their teaching, or from arbitrarily throwing off the yoke of discipline,
to the great prejudice of individuals and the State."[5147] Hence, in
the legal statute by which a Church is incorporated and realizes what
she is, it states in precise terms what it exacts or permits her to be;
henceforward she shall be this or that and so remain; her dogmas and her
canons, her hierarchy and