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Council of Paris (1811)

Council hold in Paris in 1811

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ2992014 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Council of Paris or National Council was an abortive council of the church that attempted to impose Napoleon I's will on Pope Pius VII on a number of church issues. Held in two key phases from June 17 to August 5, 1811, at Notre-Dame de Paris, the council occurred while the Pope was imprisoned in Savona before being secretly transferred to Fontainebleau on June 12, 1812.

Napoleon sought to transfer the right to approve new bishops from the Pope to the metropolitan bishop, but he faced opposition from the prelates, who insisted that all decisions must be personally approved by the Pope.

Proceedings of the Council

Preliminary negotiations

Before the council convened, Napoleon dispatched three prelates—Louis-Mathias de Barral, Jean-Baptiste Duvoisin, and Charles Mannay—along with Stefano Bonsignore to Savona to negotiate with Pope Pius VII. Despite pressure from this delegation, the Pope refused to consider the "note" they drafted as a formal agreement, viewing it instead as a proposal for discussion. After their departure, Pius VII formally rejected two clauses of the note, declaring, "Fortunately, we have signed nothing." The note suggested that the Pope would: "institute the bishops already appointed" and allow metropolitans to institute bishops not receiving papal bulls within six months.

First Phase (June 17 – July 10)

The council began on June 17, but initial sessions focused on drafting an address to the Emperor. These discussions were prolonged, as Italian bishops resisted incorporating Gallican doctrines from the Declaration of the Clergy of France of 1682.

Eventually, a majority of prelates sided with Pope Pius VII, though they requested permission to present the dire state of the Empire's churches to the Pope before reporting their decision to Napoleon. This angered the Emperor.

On July 7, Napoleon referred to his "agreement" with the Pope—an assertion the Pope had previously refuted.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Council of Paris (1811)” as council hold in Paris in 1811. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1811, 1812, 1682—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Council, Paris and hold can be independently traced.
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This entry incorporates text from “Council of Paris (1811)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.