IX.] THE GREAT REVOLUTION. 185^ time was not given up to warfare. In 1802 the constitu- tion was again changed by a popular vote. ^uoB^pa^rte was now made first consul for life . He also did much in the way of restoring order at home. He made a cottcordat with Pope Pius VII. (who had been elected at Venice on the death of his predecessor) for the restoration of union between the French Church and the Papacy. The first National Assembly had abolished the old dioceses, and given the appointment of priests and Bishops to the people, thus making the French Church national and independent of Rome. The pope and a great part of the French clergy had however refused to accept this change. In order to gain the support of the pQpe. and of the priests, who had been so hostile "to~the repubhc, Buona- parte made the concordat with the pope, a b.olishing all the ri ghts of the French people over tkeir jiwn Cliurchj, dividin g all authority between the pope and the first _ r nns^ ]], and driving from their dioceses all bishops who refused to submit themselves to this new order of things. The concordat of 1804 has continued in force ever since. Buonaparte also completed a code of laws which had been drawn up, but not quite completed, by the republican assemblies, and gave to it the name of Code Napoleon. It p^fahVkTipd "ni fnrmity of law from the Channel tg ^Jh^ Pyrenees^ in city and country alike, obhterating all difference between old Roman colonies and communes of the middle ages, and reducing all to uniformity. The criminal code was a fair and just one, and the system of t axat ion and gublk burthens was made to bear on all classes aliTteT THe a ccum ulation of estates was made as_ difficult as pos sible^by a law making it impossible for more Jhan a smaTTproportion of a man's land or property to be bequeathed by wHI t_p one child rather than another. The Code NapoUon has continued in force ever since. The system of government followed by Buonaparte gave all power to the central authority , and left none to local bodies. It has, on the whole, been preserved by all sub- sequent governments of France, thus keeping the whole country under a sort of we b of offices, all dependent on t he central government at Paris, so that whatever change rriay there take place, all the rest must needs helplessly submit for want of any power of independent action. 22. The Empire, 1804. — Everything at home and abroad, except England, lay at Buonaparte's feet. He now deemed that the time was come openly to assume the
