f appointing all the bishops and archbishops
on French territory. And better still, by virtue of the Organic Articles
and in spite of the Pope's remonstrances, he interposes, as with the
former kings, his authority, his Council of State and his tribunals
between the Holy See and the faithful. "No bull, brief, rescript,
decree... of the court of Rome, even when bearing only on individuals,
shall be received, published, printed or otherwise executed without
permission of the government. No person, bearing the title of apostolic
nuncio, legate, vicar or commissioner, ... shall, without the same
authorization, exercise on the French soil or elsewhere any function
in relation to the interests of the Gallican Church.... All cases of
complaint by ecclesiastical superiors and other persons shall be brought
before the Council of State."[5173] Every minister of a cult[5174] who
shall have carried on a correspondence with a foreign court on religious
matters or questions without having previously informed the Minister of
Worship and obtained his sanction shall, for this act alone, be subject
to a penalty of from one hundred to five hundred francs and imprisonment
during a term of from one month to two years. Every communication from
high to low and from low to high between the French Church and its Roman
head, cut off at will, intervention by a veto or by approval of all
acts of pontifical authority, to be the legal and recognized head of
the national clergy,[5175] to become for this clergy an assistant,
collateral, and lay Pope--such was the pretension of the old government,
and such, in effect, is the sense, the juridical bearing, of the
Gallican maxims.[5176] Napoleon pro-claims them anew, while the edict
of 1682, by which Louis XIV. applied them with precision, rigor and
minuteness, "is declared the general law of the empire."[5177]

There are no opponents to this doctrine, or this use of it, in France.
Napoleon counts on not encountering any, and especially among his
prelates. Gallican before 1789, the whole clergy were more or less so
through education and tradition, through interest and through pride;
now, the survivors of this clergy are those who provide the new
ecclesiastical staff, and, of the two distinct groups from which it
is recruited, neither is predisposed by its antecedents to become
ultramontane. Some among these, who have emigrated, partisans of the
ancient regime, find no difficulty in thus returning to old ha