betrayed his chiefs to the Republicans in the war of the Vendée. Thus, of the eight persons, including the principals, responsible for the text of the Concordat, six were of Italian race and only two were French. It may be noted that the word Concordat, derived from the Low Latin concordatum, is not found in either the Latin or the French version of the instrument. It is there called conventio or convention, Concordat being the traditional name for previous treaties between French rulers and the Holy See, which had been adopted by Voltaire and other classical writers. The Concordat. There are few documents of equal importance which are as brief as the Concordat of 1801. It contains only seventeen short clauses. Its chief provisions are that the Roman Catholic religion should be freely and publicly practised in France, subject to rules which the French Government should deem necessary in the interest of public order; that the First Consul should nominate the Bishops and the Pope confer canonical institution, the Bishops, and also the clergy, taking an oath of obedience to the Government. The presentation to parochial cures was given to the Bishops, their nominations being subject to the approval of the Government, a provision which I shall have to explain later on. The Holy See undertook not to disturb in their possession the purchasers of ecclesiastical property alienated at the Revolution, and the Government guaranteed a proper salary to Bishops and parochial clergy, though it is to be observed that these conditions are not inter-dependent. The Government undertook that French Catholics should have the power of founding endowments (fondations) for the benefit of churches, but this faculty has been greatly limited by the common law of France and by statutes which correspond to our Mortmain Acts. The Pope recognised the First Consul of the French Republic as possessing the same rights and prerogatives as those enjoyed by the ancient monarchy, none of which are specified, but which included. the right of having an Ambassador at the Vatican, of jurisdiction over French establishments at Rome, of intervention in the nomination of French Cardinals, and of entry into all monasteries. Among the honorary privileges thus confirmed to the rulers of France was a canonry of St. John Lateran. Hence it was M. Loubet's practice each New Year to write a polite letter, by the hand of M. Delcassé, to his colleagues of the venerable Chapter, and the very first consequence of the passing of the Separation Law was that in December 1905 he was solemnly deprived of his stall. Similarly, when the Journal Officiel in the last days of 1905 announced the ceremony to be observed at the Elysée on New Year's Day 1906, for the first time for a hundred years, the notification was omitted that at the reception of the diplomatic body the chief of the State would be supported by the Cardinals as well as by his Ministers. The final clause of the Concordat provides that, in the case of the chief of the State not being a Catholic, his preroga tives last mentioned, and also the right of nominating to vacant sees, should be regulated by a new convention. Since 1801 all the chiefs of the Executive in France whether styled Emperors, Kings, or Presidents, have been nominally Catholics, though no President elected under the Constitution of 1875 has been a practising Catholic. The clause seems to have had in view the possibility of the chief of the State being a Protestant, and its operation would have been interesting had M. de Freycinet's candidature for the Presidency been successful in 1887, he being a member of the Reformed Church. It should be noted that there is no mention of monastic orders in the Concordat, its aim being to regulate the relations of the secular clergy with the State. Such is the Concordat, which, until the end of 1905, subsisted between France and the Holy See. It has been bitterly criticised both by Catholics and philosophers, by Jacobins as well as by Clericals. Napoleon's first Ambassador to Pius VII,, Cacault, an old Breton revolutionary, who as a Breton revered the Pope, and who as a revolutionary admired the First Consul, described it as the work of a hero and of a saint. But it was more than that. Although drawn up under circumstances of the greatest difficulty, it was a work of the highest ability, and one of the most valuable diplomatic acts of the century, with all its defects. Attacked in turn by extreme men of all parties, its excellence has been proved by its having lasted through seven separate régimes for a hundred and four years, as a modus vivendi in France between the ever antagonistic powers of the spiritual and the temporal. The Organic Articles. The Concordat was supplemented by the Organic Articles, which have been ardently criticised by many Catholics who approved of the former. They are no less than seventy-six in number, and form the clauses of an Act known as la Loi du 18 Germinal An X., it having been passed on April 8th, 1802, three days after the |