applied them with precision, rigor and minuteness, "is declared the general law of the empire."[5177] There are no opponents to this doctrine, or this use of it, in France.
Napoleon counts on not encountering any, and especially among his prelates.

Gallican before 1789, the whole clergy were more or less so through education and tradition, through interest and through pride; now, the survivors of this clergy are those who provide the new ecclesiastical staff, and, of the two distinct groups from which it is recruited, neither is predisposed by its antecedents to become ultramontane.

Some among these, who have emigrated, partisans of the ancient regime, find no difficulty in thus returning to old habits and doctrines, the authoritative protectorate of the State over the Church, the interference of the Emperor substituted for that of the King, and Napoleon, in this as in other respects, the legitimate, or legitimated, successor of the Bourbons.

The others, who have sworn to the civil constitution of the clergy, the schismatics, the impenitent and, in spite of the Pope, reintegrated by the First Consul in the Church,[5178] are ill-disposed towards the Pope, their principal adversary, and well-disposed towards the First Consul, their unique patron.

Hence, "the heads[5179] of the Catholic clergy, that is to say, the bishops and grand-vicars,...