Restoration of Religion, Concordat Proclaimed, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "RÉTABL.T DE LA RELIGION" in open capitals above the image. The scene is the interior of a great Gothic cathedral, seen past a round column with a carved capital at the left toward the choir and apse, with lancet windows above and a crucifix at the right. At the center a priest holding a monstrance walks before a canopy crowned with plumes, with bishops in miters around him. Grenadiers in bearskin caps form a lane through a dense crowd of officials, soldiers and onlookers.

The caption below the image reads: "Les Consuls, accompagnés des premiers corps de l'état se rendirent à la métropole où le Cardinal légat officia et où le concordat fut promulgué avec un grand appareil." In English: The Consuls, accompanied by the chief bodies of the state, went to the metropolitan church, where the Cardinal Legate officiated and where the Concordat was proclaimed with great ceremony.

Vie de Napoléon was published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon at Saint Helena, with plates lithographed by the Belgian artist Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after the first painters of the French school. This plate comes from the first volume, which runs from Brienne to the camp of Boulogne.

The Concordat and its Organic Articles became law in April 1802. On Easter Sunday, 18 April 1802, the three Consuls, with the ministers, the Senate, the Tribunate and the Legislative Body, attended a solemn Mass and Te Deum at Notre-Dame de Paris, the metropolitan church of the capital. The papal legate, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Caprara, officiated, and public Catholic worship was formally restored after the upheavals of the Revolution.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.