The Confiscated Property.
Reasons for the concordat .-- Napoleon's economical organization of the Church institution .-- A good bargainer.
-- Compromise with the old state of things.
How withstand such a just complaint, the universal complaint of the destitute, of relatives, and of believers ?--The fundamental difficulty reappears, the nearly insurmountable dilemma into which the Revolution has plunged every steady government, that is to say the lasting effect of revolutionary confiscations and the conflict which sets two rights to the same property against each other, the right of the despoiled owner and the right of the owner in possession.

This time, again the fault is on the side of the State, which has converted itself from a policeman into a brigand and violently appropriated to itself the fortune of the hospitals, schools, and churches; the State must return this in money or in kind.

In kind, it is no longer able; everything has passed out of its hands; it has alienated what it could, and now holds on only to the leavings.

In money, nothing more can be done; it is itself ruined, has just become bankrupt, lives on expedients from day to day and has neither funds nor credit.

Nobody dreams of taking back property that is sold; nothing is more opposed to the spirit of the new Regime: not only would this be a robbery as before, since its buyers have paid for it and got their receipts, but again, in disputing their title the government would invalidate its own.