The various Assemblies, the Convention notably, were composed of conflicting parties. Napoleon understood that to dominate them he must not belong to any one of these parties. Very well aware that the value of a country is disseminated among the superior intelligences of the various parties, he tried to utilise them all. His agents of government--ministers, priests, magistrates, &c.--were taken indifferently from among the Liberals, Royalists, Jacobites, &c., having regard only to their capacities. While accepting the assistance of men of the ancien regime, Bonaparte took care to make it understood that he intended to maintain the fundamental principles of the Revolution. Nevertheless many Royalists rallied round the new Government. One of the most remarkable feats of the Consulate, from the psychological point of view, was the restoration of religious peace. France was far more divided by religious disagreement than by political differences. The systematic destruction of a portion of the Vendee had almost completely terminated the struggle by force of arms, but without pacifying men's minds. As only one man, and he the head of Christianity, could assist in this pacification, Bonaparte did not hesitate to treat with him. His concordat was the work of a real psychologist, who knew that moral forces do not use violence, and the great danger of persecuting such. While conciliating the clergy he contrived to place them under his own domination. The bishops were to be appointed and remunerated by the State, so that he would still be master. The religious policy of Napoleon had a bearing which escapes our modern Jacobins. Blinded by their narrow fanaticism, they do not understand that to detach the Church from the Government is to create a state within the State, so that they are liable to find themselves opposed by a formidable caste, directed by a master outside France, and necessarily hostile to France. To give one's enemies a liberty they did not possess is extremely dangerous. Never would Napoleon, nor any of the sovereigns who preceded him, have consented to make the clergy independent of the State, as they have become to-day.