The Concordat of 1801: A Study of the Problem of Nationalism in the Relations of Church and State

JACQUES-ANDRÉ EMERY'S public career,¹ which began with the Revolution, became so closely identified with the policy of the moderate clergy, that the history of the one is the history of the other. In cases of conscience, he was the adviser to that large body of churchmen who desired to accommodate themselves to the political changes that took place in France after 1789; in times of conflict he was their fearless leader. During the Terror, when any communication with Rome was well-nigh impossible, he had to take upon himself the duties of a patriarch; and the reliance of his followers on his good judgment was so implicit that his decisions were accepted as almost infallible. He generally gave his voice for submission to the powers that be, as far as such submission was not incompatible with the fundamental doctrines of the Church. Consequently, he, perhaps more than any other ecclesiastic, paved the way for the reestablishment of the Catholic Church in France in 1802.

Yet it was in no spirit of enthusiasm for the political principles of the French Revolution that he took his stand for conciliation. The son of a king's councillor, who was also the mayor of the city of Gex in the diocese of Geneva, he was by sentiment attached to the forms of the old régime.

-146-