For a while the Archbishop of Paris interdicted him from preaching; but was eventually induced to withdraw his opposition when a eulogy composed by the Abbé Boulogne on the late Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI, obtained a prize.

The worst of the revolutionary storm had scarcely blown over when he reappeared, contending in the Annales Catholiques, of which he had become the sole editor, with unbelievers and those of the clergy who had taken the oath of the Civil Constitution.

[2] He concluded: Whatever vicissitudes the See of Peter may experience, whatever be the state and condition of his august successor, we shall firmly cling to him with bonds of filial respect and reverence; the See may be displaced, it cannot be destroyed; wherever that See may be, the others will take their stand around it; whithersoever that the See moves, thither all Catholics will follow; for there alone is the last link of true succession; there the centre of the Church's government; there, the deposit of Apostolic tradition.Napoleon, holding Pius VII in captivity away from Rome, was using violence and deception to extort from the assembled prelates a decision that would enable him to do without ecclesiastical investiture for the bishops of his choice.

Yet his displeasure with Boulogne's sermon did not prevent the assembled bishops from choosing the preacher as secretary of the council and member of the committee on the reply to the imperial message.

When this committee reported that there was no authority in France that could supply, even provisionally and for a case of necessity, the absence of the pope's Bulls of episcopal investiture, Napoleon dissolved the council and that very night Bishop Boulogne was arrested and imprisoned.