When the Concordat came to be celebrated by a pompous pagan ceremonial in the cathedral of Notre Dame, it required all of his authority to compel a respectful attendance, as it had required the utmost exercise of his power to secure the sanction of the state authorities to the Concordat itself. More than one saddened Frenchman thought what General Delmas is reported to have said, when Napoleon asked his opinion of the ceremonial at Notre Dame; “It is a fine harlequinade, needing only the presence of the million men who died to do away with all that.” Yes, a million Frenchmen had died to do away with that,--the worst feature of the Old Order,--and now it had all come back again. Once more the children of France were to have their brains put under the spell of superstition. They were to be taught the loveliness of swallowing every marvel the priest might utter, and the damnation of thinking for oneself upon any subject ecclesiastical. They were to be crammed from the cradle, on one narrow creed, and incessantly told that hell yawned for the luckless wight who doubted or demurred. With a line of writing, with a spurt of the pen, Napoleon reënslaved the nation. So well had the image breakers of the Convention done their work that it appeared to be only a question of time when France, “having by her own exertions freed herself, would, by the force of her example, free the world.” As Méneval states, “Catholicism seemed at its last gasp.” Rapidly Europe was being weaned from a worn-out creed, a threadbare paganism. Idols had been broken, miracles laughed out of countenance, the bones of alleged saints allowed to rest, and the mummeries of heathen ceremonial mocked till even the performers were ashamed. A few bigots or fanatics, chained by an education which had left them no room for unfettered thought, longed for the return of the old forms; but the mass of the French people had no more wish for their reëstablishment than for the restoration of the Bourbons. France was religiously free: every citizen could believe or not believe, worship or not worship, just as he pleased. Of all rulers, Napoleon had the best opportunity to give mental independence an open field and a fair fight. No ruler less strong than he could have achieved the task of lifting the Church from the dust, and frowning down the ridicule which had covered with discredit idol, shrine, creed, and ceremonial rite. He did it--he alone! And verily he reaped his reward. The forlorn prisoner of St. Helena, sitting in misery beside the cheerless hearth in the night of endless despair, cursed himself bitterly for his huge mistake.