of the court of Rome, even when bearing only on individuals, shall be received, published, printed or otherwise executed without permission of the government.

No person, bearing the title of apostolic nuncio, legate, vicar or commissioner, ...

shall, without the same authorization, exercise on the French soil or elsewhere any function in relation to the interests of the Gallican Church....

All cases of complaint by ecclesiastical superiors and other persons shall be brought before the Council of State."[5173] Every minister of a cult[5174] who shall have carried on a correspondence with a foreign court on religious matters or questions without having previously informed the Minister of Worship and obtained his sanction shall, for this act alone, be subject to a penalty of from one hundred to five hundred francs and imprisonment during a term of from one month to two years.

Every communication from high to low and from low to high between the French Church and its Roman head, cut off at will, intervention by a veto or by approval of all acts of pontifical authority, to be the legal and recognized head of the national clergy,[5175] to become for this clergy an assistant, collateral, and lay Pope--such was the pretension of the old government, and such, in effect, is the sense, the juridical bearing, of the Gallican maxims.[5176] Napoleon pro-claims them anew, while the edict of 1682, by which Louis XIV.