Such were the chief of the organic articles.

Passed under the plea of securing public tranquillity, they proved a fruitful source of discord, which during the Empire became so acute as to weaken Napoleon's authority.

In matters religious as well as political, he early revealed his chief moral and mental defect, a determination to carry his point by whatever means and to require the utmost in every bargain.

While refusing fully to establish Roman Catholicism as the religion of the State, he compelled the Church to surrender its temporalities, to accept the regulations of the State, and to protect its interests.
Truly if, in Chateaubriand's famous phrase, he was the "restorer of the altars," he exacted the uttermost farthing for that restoration.
In one matter his clear intelligence stands forth in marked contrast to the narrow pedantry of the Roman Cardinals.

At a time of reconciliation between orthodox and "constitutionals," they required from the latter a complete and public retractation of their recent errors.