But Talleyrand’s interest in the constitutional clergy of France—Napoleon is reported to have called them “a pack of dishonourable brigands”—found expression in the Concordat. The Pope was requested to secure the resignation of the orthodox emigrant bishops, so as to begin the foundation of the new church on a clear ground. The unhappy Pope was forced at length to ask this resignation, and the emigrant clergy cast off all restraint, and a good deal of theology, when the invitation reached them. While forty-five of them agreed to do so a large number sent a fiery and defiant reply to the Pope. Pamphlets circulated at London and at Rome in which priests described Pius VII as a Jew, or Judas, and declared it to be blasphemy to mention his name in the mass. The prospects of Catholicism in England had to be reassured by a counter fulmination from twenty-nine Irish Catholic Bishops and English Vicars Apostolic. At the same time the Pope was told that he must sanction the national appropriation of the estates of the Church in France. “The difficulties you raise,” Talleyrand wrote to Rome, “are imaginary. The Church has been stripped of her possessions in every age, and the despoilers have never been touched—unless weak.” And as the Vatican still lingered over these formidable demands Napoleon angrily summoned Talleyrand, Bernier, and Spina to Malmaison, formulated his ultimatum, and declared that if Rome did not comply within five days he would throw it over and erect a national Church.