Concordat with Pius VII

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 had split France into two churches, jurors against refractories; the dechristianisation of Year II closed the parishes and the Terror guillotined or deported thousands of priests. Bonaparte, a man without faith but with a keen sense of public order, wanted to defuse the religious divide feeding the Chouan insurgency: "A society without religion is like a ship without a compass."

Talks with Pius VII, opened in November 1800, lasted eight months and twenty-one drafts. The text signed on 15 July 1801 recognised Catholicism as "the religion of the great majority of French citizens" — not as a state religion. The First Consul appointed bishops, whom the pope canonically instituted; every incumbent, constitutional or refractory, had to resign. The clergy became salaried by the state and swore an oath; in exchange, Rome definitively renounced the sold church lands.

On promulgation in April 1802, the government unilaterally attached seventy-seven Organic Articles that Rome had never seen: control of seminaries, catechisms and processions, and prior government approval for every papal bull. Pius VII protested without breaking off.

The Concordat nonetheless outlived every regime: it governed religion in France until the separation of 1905, and remains in force in Alsace-Moselle.