The pupil of Caesar could certainly not neglect the aid of the spiritual hierarchy, which was all that remained of the old Roman grandeur.
Added to this was his keen instinct for reality, which led him to scorn such whipped-up creeds as Robespierre's Supreme Being and that amazing hybrid, Theophilanthropy, offspring of the Goddess of Reason and La Reveilliere-Lepeaux.

Having watched their manufacture, rise and fall, he felt the more regard for the faith of his youth, which satisfied one of the most imperious needs of his nature, a craving for certainty.

Witness this crushing retort to M.Mathieu: "What is your Theophilanthropy?
Oh, don't talk to me of a religion which only takes me for this life, without telling me whence I come or whither I go." Of course, this does not prove the reality of Napoleon's religion; but it shows that he was not devoid of the religious instinct.
The victory of Marengo enabled Bonaparte to proceed with his plans for an accommodation with the Vatican; and he informed one of the Lombard bishops that he desired to open friendly relations with Pope Pius VII., who was then about to make his entry into Rome.

There he received the protection of the First Consul, and soon recovered his sovereignty over his States, excepting the Legations.
The negotiations between Paris and the Vatican were transacted chiefly by a very able priest, Bernier by name, who had gained the First Consul's confidence during the pacification of Brittany, and now urged on the envoys of Rome the need of deferring to all that was reasonable in the French demands.

The negotiators for the Vatican were Cardinals Consalvi and Caprara, and Monseigneur Spina--able ecclesiastics, who were fitted to maintain clerical claims with that mixture of suppleness and firmness which had so often baffled the force and craft of mighty potentates.