Note 2 — Chapter VII · RELIGION

The Revolution had separated Church and State and suppressed clerical privilege by the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” enactment of 1790. Napoleon, alive to the patriotic value of a State Church, repealed this law and declared the divorce of Church and State to be null and void. His negotiations with the Pope (Pius VII.) resulted, in 1801, in the arrangement known as the Concordat, by which the Roman Catholic Church was again made the established national Church, its clergy became civil servants paid by the State, and its worship became a branch of public administration.