and the unholy maxims of unbelief". Eventually, after twelve years, the French police suppressed "Étrennes catholiqueses" in 1810. The author now made a direct appeal to Félix-Julien-Jean Bigot de Préameneu, the "Minister of Cults" and succeeded in having the suppression of "Étrennes ..." referred for arbitration to Bishop Duvoisin of Nantes. General Buonaparte had in 1804 appointed himself Emperor of the French. Bishop Duvoisin, a pragmatic scholar and who was one of the very few Christian leaders who enjoyed the emperor's confidence, undertook the arbitration as requested and found in favour of Bigex's "Étrennes catholiqueses". Despite this, the suppression of the publication persisted because, it was stated, existing editions "contained some articles touching upon the supremacy of the sovereign pontiff". (As it happened the sovereign pontiff was in Savona as a prisoner of the French at this point.) Concordat Pope Pius VI having died at Valence as a prisoner of the French in August 1799, it became necessary to elect a replacement. Pius VII was crowned on 21 March 1800, in the San Giorgio monastery church in Venice, by means of a rather unusual ceremony, which involved a papier-mâché papal tiara. (Rome remained at this stage out of bounds.) The new pope's first priority was a return to Rome, but in order to gain that objective a comprehensive agreement was needed with the new government in Paris. The result was a complex set of reforms embodied in the Concordat of July 1801 which guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics living in France. (France, between 1792 and 1815, included the duchy previously and subsequently known as Savoy). In many ways the 1801 concordat mirrored changes implemented 260 years earlier in England, although the subordinate role assigned to the church in its dealings with the state was less absolute. One rapid outcome was a "more rational" set of diocesan boundaries, conforming more closely to contemporary secular borders. The Diocese of Geneva in respect of which Bigex still served as vicar general, had for centuries straddled the borders of Savoy, France and the Swiss Confederacy. It was now reconfigured, and Bishop Paget, who had been living in Turin since 1792, was retired. A new larger Diocese of Chambéry and Geneva was created, and on 4 May 1802 René des Monstiers de Mérinville was confirmed as its first bishop. In view of the extent of the new diocese, the new bishop determined that he needed