His unorthodox view of the Catholic religion is shown by the fact that in 1797 he endeavoured to get Pius VI. to suppress the Inquisition throughout Europe.  The Pope, in his reply, addressing the General as his “very dear son,” urges him to abandon the idea and assures him that the charges made against the Holy Office are false.  He further says that the Inquisition is not tyrannical, and that sooner than remove the Holy Office he would part with a province.  Napoleon for a time gave way, and it was not until 1808 that he issued a decree suppressing the institution in France and confiscating its property.  This incident is another proof of Napoleon’s humane attitude towards his people and his abhorrence of religious intolerance.

The basis for such an attitude towards an accepted institution of the Roman Catholic Church was Napoleon’s belief that “Faith is beyond the reach of the law and the most sacred property of man, for which he has no right to account to any mortal if there is nothing in it contrary to social order.”

Unquestionably he had pride in impressing his auditors with the vastness of his information, acquired by reading and study.  He had, moreover, a kind of childlike vanity in making men feel that he was not only extraordinary, but greatly their superior, even when they got him to talk on their own subjects.  This habit was especially pronounced at St. Helena.

But this in no way impairs the evidences of his spiritual character.  One of his first acts when his authority was established in France was to face the most hostile declamation against the Concordat, but believing that no good government could be assured without religion, he carried his convictions through in spite of it being a reversion of one of the cardinal doctrines of the Revolution, and there is abundance of proof that when he was faced with the last great problem, he accepted it without a sign of superstitious dread, believing in the immortality of the soul which should reveal all things.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF SOME OF THE BOOKS REFERRED TO OR CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR

Correspondence of Napoleon. 
Last Letters of Napoleon. 
Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, by Bingham. 
Napoleon’s Miscellanies. 
Napoleon’s Own Memoirs. 
Napoleon Anecdotes, Ireland. 
Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena, by Count Gourgaud. 
Napoleon’s Correspondence with King Joseph. 
Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine, by H.F.  Hall. 
Letters from the Island of St. Helena. 
History of Napoleon, by Lanfrey. 
Life of Napoleon, by Sir Walter Scott. 
Life of Napoleon, by J.H.  Rose. 
Napoleon, by Phyfe. 
Private Life of Napoleon, by Levy. 
Life of Napoleon, by Bourrienne. 
Short Life of Napoleon, by J.R.  Seeley. 
Life of Napoleon the Third, by Blanchard. 
Life of Napoleon, by W. Hazlitt. 
History of Napoleon, edited by R.H.  Horne.