Napoleon

As general commanding the French army in Italy, Bonaparte concluded the treaty of Tolentino with the envoys of Pius VI on 19 February 1797 (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 52B, pp. 257–258). The constitution of December 1799 named him First Consul (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 58 (dated 13 December 1799, p. 270), art. 39, p. 275). The Concordat of 1801 with Pius VII allowed Catholic worship to be public again in France (Concordat of 1801, art. 1) and gave the First Consul the naming of bishops, who were to swear fidelity to the government (Concordat of 1801, arts. 4–6). The Organic Articles of 1802 added that no papal document, legate or council might act in France without the government’s permission (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 64B, Title I, arts. 1–4, pp. 299–300).

A senatus-consultum of 18 May 1804 declared him Emperor of the French (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 71, arts. 1–2, p. 343). By a decree given at his camp at Vienna on 17 May 1809 he united the Papal States to the French Empire, giving as his reason that the union of spiritual and temporal power had been a source of discord (Anderson, Constitutions and Documents of France, no. 84A, pp. 425–426). See the French Revolution and the Church.