Three points of the utmost significance demand attention in this, a typical deliverance of the "imperator," uttered at the flood-tide of imperial success: two of them, both negative, are ominous; the third is positive and plain. There is no reference to the financial condition of France, or to the ecclesiastical situation. Russia was openly threatened. The boast of wealth referred to Napoleon's own "extraordinary domain." About this time Metternich reported to his government that France was the richest country in Europe, but that her treasury was empty. The budget of 1811 had nine hundred millions on the credit side, but it had also nine hundred and fifty-four millions on the debit. The previous year had required five hundred and ten millions for army and navy, the present required six hundred and fifty millions. It was a fixed principle of the Emperor to make each generation pay its own expenses. The only source of supply he could find was an increase of the indirect taxes and the institution of a state monopoly in tobacco. His remedy would have been adequate but for two causes--the drought of the ensuing summer and Russia's hostile attitude in regard to French silks and wines. The year 1811 closed with a deficit of forty-eight millions. This fact had a bearing on the political situation because in general the Emperor's remedy for an empty treasury was a new war. The ecclesiastical situation had now become acute. As one bishopric after another had fallen vacant, bishops had been nominated by the Emperor; but the Pope, who was still sitting in captivity at Savona, had from the moment of his incarceration steadily refused to institute them. For a time, as has been explained, the difficulty had been ingeniously avoided by the process of ecclesiastical law, according to which the chapters of the various dioceses elected the imperial candidates as vicars capitular, and thus enabled them to perform episcopal functions without regard to institution. But this could not go on forever, and every effort had been made to induce the prisoner of Savona to yield. In response he took a firmer stand, and indicated to the chapters both of Italy and France that they should no longer elect the imperial nominees as vicars capitular. This was a rupture of the Concordat, and was so regarded by Napoleon. The attitude of all pious Catholics was becoming uneasy, and this new declaration of war by the Church could only serve to heighten the bellicose humor of the Emperor. The Pope was eventually brought to terms, partly by increasing the rigors of his imprisonment, partly by terrorizing his agents in France, but chiefly through the representations made to him by the ablest ecclesiastics of the realm, and by the summoning of a church council, which turned out nearly as subservient to the secular authority as the Jewish Sanhedrim had been.