Some who defend the Concordat say that it enabled Napoleon to make alliances which otherwise he could not have made. The facts do not support the assertion. He was at peace with Continental Europe already, and Great Britain was certainly not influenced to peace by France’s agreement with the Pope. No alliances which Napoleon ever made after the Concordat were stronger than those he had made before; and as the restorer of Catholicism in France, he was not nearer the sincere friendships of monarchs and aristocracies abroad than he had been previous to that time. In the murk of modern politics the truth is hard to find, but even a timid man might venture to say that the question of religion is the last of all questions to influence international relations. Comparing the prolonged security which Turkey has enjoyed with the fate which recently befell Catholic Spain and Protestant South African republics, the casual observer might hazard the statement that it is at least as safe to be Mahometan as Christian, so far as winning international friendship is concerned. “Don’t strike! I am of the same faith as you--both of us hope for salvation in the blood of the same Savior!” is a plea which is so worthless among Christians that the weaker brother never even wastes breath to make it. CHAPTER XXIV To say that the French were pleased with the consular government, would convey no idea of the facts. France was delighted, France was in raptures. Excepting the inevitable few,--some royalists, some Jacobins and some lineal descendants of the Athenians who grew tired of hearing Aristides called _The Just_,--all Frenchmen heartily united in praise of Bonaparte. As proudly as Richelieu, in Bulwer’s play, stands before his king and tells what he has done for France,--a nation found lying in poverty, shame, defeat, deathly decay, and lifted by the magic touch of genius to wealth, pride, victory, and radiant strength,--so the First Consul could have pointed to what France had been and what she had become, and justly claim the love and admiration of his people. What reward should be given such a magistrate? In 1802 his consulship, which had already been lengthened by ten years, was, by the almost unanimous vote of the people, changed into a life tenure. Consul for life (August, 1802), with the power to name his own successor, Napoleon was now virtually the king of France. * * * * * In St. Domingo, the Revolution in France had borne bitter fruit. The blacks rose against the whites, and a war of extermination ensued. The negroes, immensely superior in numbers, overcame the whites, and established their independence. Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the blacks, and a great man, became president of the black republic, which he patterned somewhat after Napoleon’s consulate.