Showing posts with label Napoleon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Napoleon. Show all posts

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Napoleon on Religion.

According to his secretary Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne:

During the negotiations with the Holy Father Bonaparte one day said to me, "In every country religion is useful to the Government, and those who govern ought to avail themselves of it to influence mankind. I was a Mahometan in Egypt; I am a Catholic in France. With relation to the police of the religion of a state, it should be entirely in the hands of the sovereign. Many persons have urged me to found a Gallican Church, and make myself its head; but they do not know France. If they did, they would know that the majority of the people would not like a rupture with Rome. Before I can resolve on such a measure the Pope must push matters to an extremity; but I believe he will not do so."--"You are right, General, and you recall to my memory what Cardinal Consalvi said: 'The Pope will do all the First Consul desires.'"--"That is the best course for him. Let him not suppose that he has to do with an idiot. What do you think is the point his negotiations put most forward? The salvation of my soul! But with me immortality is the recollection one leaves in the memory of man. That idea prompts to great actions. It would be better for a man never to have lived than to leave behind him no traces of his existence."
Hitler never shared his views on religion, but if you follow Hitler's religious twists and turns, you can see something very similar.
 
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