I have read in a work remarkable on many accounts that it was on the occasion of the Concordat of the 15th July 1801 that the First Consul abolished the republican calendar and reestablished the Gregorian. This is an error. He did not make the calendar a religious affair. The 'Senatus-consulte', which restored the use of the Gregorian calendar, to commence in the French Empire from the 11th Nivose, year XIV. (1st January 1806), was adopted on the 22d Fructidor, year XIII. (9th September 1805), more than four years after the Concordat. The re- establishment of the ancient calendar had no other object than to bring us into harmony with the rest of Europe on a point so closely connected with daily transactions, which were much embarrassed by the decadary calendar.
Bonaparte at length, however, consented to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the service was ended.
Whenever the First Consul determined to hear Mass publicly on Sundays in the chapel of the Palace a small altar was prepared in a room near his cabinet of business. This room had been Anne of Austria's oratory.
A small portable altar, placed on a platform one step high, restored it to its original destination. During the rest of the week this chapel was used as a bathing-room. On Sunday the door of communication was opened, and we heard Mass sitting in our cabinet of business. The number of persons there never exceeded three or four, and the First Consul seldom failed to transact some business during the ceremony, which never lasted longer than twelve minutes. Next day all the papers had the news that the First Consul had heard Mass in his apartments. In the same way Louis XVIII. has often heard it in his!
On the 19th of July 1801 a papal bull absolved Talleyrand from his vows.
He immediately married Madame Grandt, and the affair obtained little notice at the time. This statement sufficiently proves how report has perverted the fact. It has been said that Bonaparte on becoming Emperor wished to restore that decorum which the Revolution had destroyed, and therefore resolved to put an end to the improper intimacy which subsisted between Talleyrand and Madame Grandt. It is alleged that the Minister at first refused to marry the lady, but that he at last found it necessary to obey the peremptory order of his master. This pretended resurrection of morality by Bonaparte is excessively ridiculous. The bull was not registered in the Council of State until the 19th of August 1802.
--[The First Consul had on several occasions urged M. de Talleyrand to return to holy orders. He pointed out to him that that course world be most becoming his age and high birth, and premised that he should be made a cardinal, thus raising him to a par with Richelieu, and giving additional lustre to his administration (Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, vol. i. p. 426).
But M. de Talleyrand vindicated his choice, saying, "A clever wife often compromises her husband; a stupid one only compromises herself" (Historical Characters, p.122, Bulwer, Lord Dulling).]--I will end this chapter by a story somewhat foreign to the preceding transactions, but which personally concerns myself. On the 20th of July 1801 the First Consul, 'ex proprio motu', named me a Councillor of State extraordinary. Madame Bonaparte kindly condescended to have an elegant but somewhat ideal costume made for me. It pleased the First Consul, however, and he had a similar one made for himself. He wore it a short time and then left it off. Never had Bonaparte since his elevation shown himself so amiable as on this occasion.
