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Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature Author:Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, Diana White, Mary Morison Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II THE CONCORDAT One night in the month of October 1801 the gates of Paris were secretly opened to admit a closed carriage with a military escort. What was... more » concealed in that carriage ? Was it a criminal ? Was it contraband ware ? There sat in it an old priest, Caprara by name, the Pope's envoy to General Bonaparte ; and the contraband article thus smuggled into Paris in the darkness was the Concordat, the compact with Rome which re-established the Christian religion in France. It was considered rash to allow a priest coming on such an errand to make his entrance in daylight ; the First Consul, with his usual sagacity and forethought, had arranged that he should arrive at night. It was not violence that was feared, only laughter. " They dared not," says Thiers, " put such temptation in the way of the mirth- loving population of Paris." The same difficulty recurred in April 1802, when, after countless attempts to come to an agreement, during the course of which it often seemed as if the negotiations were on the point of being finally broken off, things were so far settled that Napoleon could accord an official reception to the Cardinal-Legate. Ecclesiastical etiquette prescribes that a gold crucifix shall be borne in front of a papal legate, and the Cardinal demanded that on his way to the reception at the Tuileries this should be done by a mounted officer in a red uniform. On this occasion also the Government, as Thiers tells us, was afraid of the effect of such a spectacle on the population of Paris. A compromise was come to ; it was agreed to do with the crucifix what had been done withthe Cardinal himself six months previously, namely, drive it in a closed carriage. 1 Thiers, ffisfoire du consulat a de tempire, iii. 211, 342. At last, a week later, on Easter Sun...« less