With subtle duplicity Bonaparte endeavoured to represent the restoration of the church in a different light to the different parties. To the Catholics it was represented as a service to Christianity only paralleled by the deeds of Constantine and Charlemagne, to the philosophers as an act by which the church was completely subjected to the state and the secular authorities. "It is an inoculation against religion," said Napoleon to the philosopher Cabanis; "in fifty years there will be no religion left in France." So much is certain, that he had no doubt whatever that by bringing about this reconciliation between church and state he was ensuring himself an obedient and devoted ally. To what extent he was mistaken is matter of history. He had soon cause to repent bitterly of having allied himself with the most undeveloped and ignorant, instead of the ablest and best, part of the nation. De Pradt tells that he heard Napoleon say again and again "that the Concordat was the greatest mistake of his reign." It can hardly be called a political mistake. But it certainly was the first and decisive departure from the spirit of the Revolution. It ensured certain of the secular results of that Revolution, but ensured them at the expense of the progress of French civilisation.[5]

[1] Thiers, _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_, iii. 211, 342.

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, Vol. III (of 6) The Reaction in France — Part 42

[2] L. von Stein, _Geschichte der socialen Bewegung in Frankreich_, i. 230.

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, Vol. III (of 6) The Reaction in France — Part 42

[3] De Pradt, _Histoire des quatre concordats_, ii. 212.

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, Vol. III (of 6) The Reaction in France — Part 42

[4] See Guizot in the _Revue des deux mondes_, February 15, 1863.

[5] Sources: Thiers, _Histoire du Consulat_; Lanfrey, _Histoire de Napoléon I_.; Mignet, _Histoire de la Révolution_, ii.; De Pradt, _Histoire des quatre concordats_; Portalis, _Discours et rapports sur le concordat_; Lorenz von Stein, _Geschichte der socialen Bewegung in Frankreich_, i.; Taine, _Le régime moderne_, i.

Bonaparte, intending as he did to deal the Republic a death-blow, struck at its heart. He recognised that it would never be possible thoroughly to suppress civil liberty unless he first suppressed the endeavour after spiritual liberty which had become ever more strenuous during the course of the Revolution. The Concordat prepared the way for the recovery by ecclesiasticism of all its old power.