With these convictions Consalvi took his place at the meeting, on the result of which hung the spiritual interests of so many millions of souls. We shall not follow out in detail the shifting phases of the negotiation, but we will come at once to its closing passage. The French commissioners declared that the state had no wish to enslave the Church; that the word _police_ did not mean the government, but simply that department of the executive charged with the maintenance of public order, which order was as much desired by the Church as by the state. Now it was absolutely necessary to preserve public order, and no law could stand in the way of such a result. _Salus populi suprema lex._ It was impossible, they said, for public order to last throughout parts of France, if unrestricted publicity were once permitted in religious ceremonies; and as no other power save the government could judge where such publicity might be safe and where dangerous, it should be left to the discretion of the government to impose, for the sake of peace, such restrictions as the general good required. The Cardinal admitted that public tranquillity was by all means to be preserved, but he contended that the article did not restrict, either in point of object or of time, the power it assigned to the government; that such unrestricted power was dangerous to the Church; and therefore some clause should be added to determine more plainly the precise nature and bearing of the authority to be given to the police to regulate public worship. At length he urged a dilemma which completely vanquished the commissioners. "I objected", says he, "thus: either the government is in good faith when it declares the motive which forces it to subject religious worship to police regulations to be the necessary maintenance of public tranquillity, and in that case it cannot and ought not refuse to assert so much in the article itself; or the government refuses to insert such an explanation; and then it is not in good faith, and clearly reveals that its object in imposing this restriction on religion is to enslave the Church".