He awaited impatiently the birth of a second son that he might take him to Rome, crown him King of Italy and proclaim the independence of the great peninsula under the regency of Prince Eugene." Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, it is the Pope who, in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed and Italy will once more become a nation.

Napoleon prepares the way, and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the principal cult authorized in the empire.
V.State domination of all religion.
Services which Napoleon desires or expects from the French clergy .-- His Roman idea of civil power .-- Development of this conception by the jurists .-- Every religious association must be authorized .-- Legal statutes which fix the doctrine and discipline of the four authorized Churches .-- Legal organization of the Catholic Church .-- Its doctrine and discipline to be that of the old Gallican Church .-- New situation of the French Church and new role of civil power.
-- It sets aside its ancient obligations .-- It retains and augments its regalian rights .-- The Church of France before 1789 and after 1802 .-- Increased preponderance and complete dominion of the civil power.
In carrying out this plan, he will use the French clergy in mastering the Pope, as the Pope has been made use of in mastering the French clergy.

To this end, before completing the Concordat and decreeing the Organic Articles, he orders for himself a small library, consisting of books on ecclesiastical law.

The Latin works of Bossuet are translated for him, and he has drawn up an exposition of the Gallican parliamentary doctrine.

The first thing is to go down to the roots of the subject, which he does with extraordinary facility, and then, recasting and shaping all theories to suit himself, he arrives at an original, individual conception, at once coherent, precise, and practical; one which covers the Caesar and which he applies alike to all churches, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and even Jewish, to every religious community now existing and in time to come.