YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

GIFT OF
FREDERICK SHELDON PARKER
B.A., LL.B.
YALE 1873

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND
RELIGIOUS REFORM

THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION AND
RELIGIOUS REFORM

AN ACCOUNT OF ECCLESIASTICAL
LEGISLATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AFFAIRS IN FRANCE
FROM 1789 TO 1804

BY
WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE
L.H.D., LL.D.
SETH LOW PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

BASED ON THE MORSE LEC
TURES FOR I9OO BEFORE THE
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1901

7J*

1 '?

Copyright, 1901, by
Charles Scribner's Sons.
Published October, 1901.

^OloZiZC"!

THE DEVINNE PRESS.

VIRO EGREGIO
SETH LOW, LL.D.
DE RE PUBLICA ALMAQUE MATRE
BENE MERENTI
HAS PRIMITIAS PROFESSORIATUS SUI
DEDICAT SCtflPTOR.

PREFACE
The troubles of a governmental system in which
church and state were for centuries so closely identi
fied that responsibility could be fixed upon neither have
dislocated the proportions of both in the field of his
tory. The ever growing disintegration and disor
ganization of ecclesiastical government in the Teu
tonic or Reformed Church, have in contemporary times
discredited ecclesiasticism still further, and now its
most modern forms appear well-nigh contemptible as
historic forces. No wonder, therefore, that the latest
generations have fallen into the natural but serious
error of establishing for themselves, as a judicial
standpoint, the total separation of church and state,
not alone institutionally but likewise historically. The
stubborn efforts to explain mediaevalism with little or
no consideration for the unifying political influence of
the church are pitiful; the widely heralded discovery
that the Thirty Years' War ended ecclesiastical politics
is fantastic ; the so-called secular history of the revolu
tionary epoch, relegating church influence to a few par
agraphs, utterly fails to satisfy the demand for logical
sequence. When we consider the splendors of the
Roman Church in its long intervals of sanity, the sound

viii PREFACE
views it held of life, the brilliant leadership it exer
cised in philosophy, literature and art, the lofty aims it
exhibited, the ameliorations of social life it secured, the
constancy of its work, the continuity of its life, the com
prehensive bond it was for all civilizing agencies — we
cannot wonder at the hold it kept on men's imagin
ations even during its lapses into worldliness.
It is therefore essential not that we should study
secular history as a discipline of church history, but
that we should give due place to the church as a social
and political force everywhere and at all times. The
Roman hierarchy in France was in the eighteenth cen
tury the most influential estate of the realm. Its in
iquities were long concealed by its traditional prestige.
The masses were scarcely aware of the facts and they
had a racial instinct of devotion to the papacy. During
the long prologue to the Revolution the agitations of
the public mind were confined to a minority of the na
tion; only a still smaller minority was able to draw
distinctions, which appeared at bottom to be metaphysi
cal; and a very few displayed capacity for leadership.
It seems as if there were not even a handful of indi
viduals who had an historic consciousness and the for
ward look essential in great crises.
Nevertheless it is distinctly true that the deeper the
insight we get into the facts of the Revolution, the
clearer it becomes that both in its preparation and in
its initial stages it followed wholesomely and normally
French precedent and tradition. Had its course not
been obstructed, the current might have flowed smooth-

PREFACE

IX

ly, though at best too rapidly, and continuous reform
might have in some measure prevented spasmodic revo
lution. But this was not to be ; the current was dammed, the
barriers were inadequate, and the flood wrought havoc
in its inevitable outbreak. Not one of the causes gener
ally assigned is approximately adequate to explain the
sad phenomenon. It was not solely due to fiscal bank
ruptcy, for the nation found resources which enabled it
to put forth unprecedented exertions in both offensive
and defensive warfare. It was not entirely caused by
the survivals of secular feudalism, for those survivals,
though oppressive, were insignificant in comparison
with the feudal burdens carried by neighboring lands
where no conflagration was kindled. Nor was it even
measurably due to that mysterious, secret upheaval
attributed to mental exaltation, of which so much has
been suggested and hinted, but about which nothing is
known ; the burgher and peasant masses of France were
better instructed and more intelligent than their fellows
elsewhere, but they only worried themselves into re
bellion, exhibiting no comprehension whatsoever of
their plight or their task. Doubtless all these causes
worked together, but the mightiest obstructive force
was ecclesiastical fanaticism, both positive and nega
tive. This at least is what the following lectures are
intended to suggest. The deism and atheism of the
"philosophers" were alike organic and their suppor
ters were sectaries; they may therefore be regarded
as religious forces for the purposes of our discussion ;

x PREFACE
though they belonged neither to the category of re
vealed nor that of natural religions, their votaries were
exact, strict, scrupulous, we may even say conscien
tious, in their devotion.
The narrative of this volume follows as closely as
may be the course of legislation and parliamentary de
bate. For the rather unsatisfactory reports of the lat
ter reliance has been placed in most cases on the
"Moniteur," the "Archives Parlementaires," the volu
minous "Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez and Roux
and the original documents contained in the vast
storehouse of printed sources published by the Muni
cipal Council of the City of Paris. The secondary
sources, though likewise somewhat confusing in their
accounts, are abundant. It is simply a burden to the
reader to distract the attention and disturb the eye
by giving references for every statement of well-known
fact. Accordingly the footnotes have been confined
to points of more special interest. The student who
desires to follow and verify the context by personal
research, can find most of the sources in the above
collections under the corresponding date; those sug
gestions or indications not easily found are designated
by footnotes. By far the largest number of the au
thorities are on the shelves of the Library of Colum
bia University and of the New York Public Library.
For a few others I have been indebted to the National
Collections in Paris, and to the libraries of Harvard
and Cornell Universities respectively. The Andrew D.
White collection of Cornell is especially rich in mate-

PREFACE xi
rial. As to the spelling of proper names there is such
diversity in the original authorities that it seemed best
to follow the modern usage of French writers.
The substance of this book was delivered in the form
of eight lectures before the Union Theological Semi
nary of New York on "The Morse Foundation." It is
printed according to the requirements of the endow
ment, but the text has been expanded to more than
twice the amount actually read. For the courtesy and
good will shown by the officers of the Union Semi
nary in connection with the preparation, delivery and
publication of the lectures the author makes grateful
acknowledgment. W. M. S.
Columbia University, October i, 1901.

CONTENTS

Introduction
Danger of reform in old societies. The changes too swift, XXI. Contrast
between 1780 and 1810. Transitory nature of the Bourbon restoration, xxn.
Why the Revolution exploded in France. Composite forces of the move
ment, xxm. Amalgamation of political with ecclesiastical power. Dangers
of conservatism, xxiv. Dualism of secular and spiritual power in Chris
tendom. Relations of the two, xxv. The fortunes of feudalism and the
popedom. Beneficent action of the church, XXVI. Overthrow of tbe pope
dom. Rise of nationalities, xxvil. Place of Calvinism in the movement.
Its political influence, xxvhi.

Chapter I
REFORM AND REVOLUTION
Split in the European state system. Rise of the revolutionary spirit, 3.
Relations of the churches. The contract theory of government, 4. The
class of professional writers. Influence of Voltaire and Rousseau, 5. The
Physiocrats. Their ideals and sanctions, 6. Respective convictions of
the social classes in France. L'Infdme of Voltaire, 7. Meaning of the
word. Loss of the historic sense, 8. Ecclesiastical organizations in
France. Religion positive and negative, 9. Relations of the French
monarchy and the popedom. Influence of the Jesuits, 10. The theory
of Jansenism. The Jesuits and the Reformation, 11. The Jesuits and
the popedom. Jansen's "Augustinus," 12. The Bull " Unigenitus. " The
power of Jansenism in French life, 13. Attitude of the French masses
toward the hierarchy. Struggle of the parlements, 14. Relation of the
parlements to the people. The clergy demand the assembling of the Es
tates, 15. The grandes remontrances, 16.

Chapter II
VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT OF ECCLESIASTIClSM
Elements of unity in France. Non-conformity a kind of treason, 19. The
Bologna Concordat of 1516. Fall of the Jesuit order, 20. Papal control
of the French episcopate. Disrepute of Jansenism, 21. Temporary dis
grace of the parlements. The privilege of a corrupt church, 22. Con
tributions due from church estates. Malversation of charitable funds, 23.
Fusion of the nobility and prelacy. The principle of beneficent use, 24.
Wealth of the prelacy. Influence of the prelates at court, 25. Voltaire
and the higher clergy. Persecuting spirit of the church, 26. The case

xiv CONTENTS
of Calas. Sirven charged with infanticide, 27. Voltaire as a protector of
the persecuted. The extermination of dissent, 28. Treatment of Catho
lic mischief-makers. The case of Labarre, 29. The victory of a cause.
The edict of tolerance, 30. Emigration of the Protestants, 31.
Chapter III
THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION
" The infamous woman." Desire for emancipation, 35. Forms of oppres
sion. Items of the indictment, 36. Relation of the Protestants to French
life. Their skill in public affairs and relation to the Revolution, 37. How
they were goaded to fanaticism. The classical tendency in France, 38.
The classical spirit and constitutional government. Men as automata, 39.
French theory of liberty. The secular idea identical in spirit with the reli
gious, 40. Corruption of the clergy. The affair of the diamond necklace,
41. Virtues of the lower clergy. Their relation to the prelacy and to the
Revolution, 42. Jansenism and the courts. Power of the lawyer class, 43.
Political theories of the revolutionary agitation. All classes supporters of
monarchy, 44. Idea of a republican monarchy. Awakening of the historic
spirit, 45. Stages of reform. Ignorance of the masses, 46.
Chapter IV
ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY
Attack on the Bastille an act of self-defence. The alarm of the Paris popu
lace, 49. Broglie's mercenary army as a menace. The victory an act of
faith, 50. Religious sentiments of the people. Acts of public worship, 51.
Religious hope a characteristic of 1789. The Revolution as the work of
God, 52. The transition to ferocity. The reactionary temper of the prelacy,
53. It demands the abrogation of the edict of tolerance. Revolt of the
Jansenists and lower clergy, 54. The cahiers of the clergy. The noble
abbots of France, 55. Scandals of the monastic establishments. The pre
texts of the prelates, 56. Rise of popular authority. The populace inaugu
rates reform, 57. The attitude of the prelates a menace to reform. Forced
enthusiasm of the Assembly, 58. The inconsistency of the burghers.
Popular outcry against all clerics, 59- Contrast of social extremes. Revo
lution loses its religious character, 60. Internal causes of social disintegra
tion. Attacks on property, 61. Discrepancies of the tithing system. Amount
ofthe tithes, 62. The burdens lifted, 63.
Chapter V
THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE
Motives for abolishing feudalism. The Assembly as a constituent body, 67.
The unwritten constitution of France. The Tennis Court Oath, 68. The
idea of fundamental laws. The Declaration of Rights, 69. The municipal
revolution. The prelates as anarchists, 70. The Assembly forced to out
run the Ecclesiastical Committee. How tithes were to be abolished, 71.
The propositions adopted. Famine and the ecclesiastical estates, 72. Bit
terness of the radical agitators. The wealth of the prelates, 73. Constitu
tion of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The influential members, 74. Camus
as a lawyer and scholar. His career, 75. Gregoire as a deputy. Excel
lence of his character, 76. Dom Gerle as an enthusiast. Religion in the

CONTENTS xv
Declaration of Rights, 77. The radicals dissatisfied. The call for complete
religious emancipation, 78. The black cockade at the Versailles banquet.
Mob violence against all clergymen, 79. Beginning of clerical emigration.
Debate- on religious liberty, 80. Moderation of the Ecclesiastical Com
mittee, 81.
Chapter VI
SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES
Nature of church property. Voluntary contribution of church silver, 85.
Dupont's inventory of ecclesiastical indebtedness. The heritage and the
heir, 86. Contrast of popular misery and prelatic luxury. Maladministra
tion of public charities, 87. The king requested to confiscate charitable
funds. Abuses in the hospitals and prisons, 88. The Bishop of Autun as
a financier. All church property to be treated as the tithes had been, 89.
Power of the mob. The academic debates on the nature of property, 90.
Mirabeau advocates confiscation. Retort of Maury and counterplea of
Camus, 91. Common sense and juristic dialectic. Malouet as a concilia
tor, 92. Intervention of the mob. " Church property at the disposal of
the nation," 93. History of the idea. Salaries provided for the priests and
prelates, 94. Urgency for action. Exasperation of the higher clergy and
the radicals, 95. The fatal errors of the Assembly. Contrast between
dealings with monarchy and ecclesiastics, 96. The double attack on
French society, 97.
Chapter VII
PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF
THE CLERGY
Dom Gerle as a dramatic element. The rise of democracy, 101. The higher
clergy refuse reform. The lower clergy accept it but suffer, 102. They
reject the new definition of property. Treilhard presents report of Eccle
siastical Committee, 103. Protest from the Bishop of Clermont. Report
adopted and sale of ecclesiastical domains begun, 104. Monasticism at
tacked. New attitude of the Assembly toward Protestants, 105. The
status of Roman Catholicism discussed. The motion of Dom Gerle, 106.
The question formulated. Mirabeau desires Roman Catholicism to be a
national religion, 107. He is hooted down. The substitute for Gerle's mo
tion, 108. Protest of the prelates. Church domains seized and sold, 109.
The Assembly's Poor Laws. Reform inaugurated, 'no. The levelling
process begun. The Third Estate and the proletariat, in. Suffrage lim
ited to active citizens. Eligibility to office, 112. The plan impossible.
Paris overthrows the plan, 113. Recapitulation of Protestant history. The
revival under Antoine Court, 114. Edict of 1724. Organization of wor
ship, 115. The Protestants emancipated. Treatment of the Jews, 116.
Final dispositions as to Jews. The non-Catholic elements of French popu
lation, 117. The new idea of equality, 118.
Chapter VIII
THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY
Confusion in the popular mind as to aristocracy. The notion of representa
tion, 121. English and American precedents. French idea of church es
tablishment, 122. Limitations of popular sovereignty. Selden and Camus,

xvi CONTENTS
123. Religious habits of France. Rousseau's concept of absolute sover
eignty, 124. Confusion of ecclesiastical and secular powers. Imminence
of civil war, 125. The Civil Constitution ofthe Clergy an effort at reform.
The plea of the ecclesiastics, 126. Attitude of the Constitution toward the
Pope. Popular choice of pastors and their ordination, 127. The outline of
the Constitution. Choice of pastors by ballot, 128. The metropolitan
bishop as the source of spiritual mission. The Pope as an expression of
church unity, 129. Relation of the Constitution to the theories of the age.
Hesitation of Pius VI, 130. The king's dilemma. Resistance of the prel
acy, 131. Robespierre's idea of priests as civil servants. Remnants of
medisevalism, 132. Growing opposition ofthe clericals. Outbreak of civil
war, 133. Former theory ofthe relations between kingship and the church.
Change in the episcopate, 134. Pastoral letters of the ultramontanes. All
refractory priests rebels, 135. The oath of allegiance, 136.

Chapter IX
THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY
Reform verges to revolution. Division of opinion among the canonists, 139.
The king's attitude. He signs the Constitution with apparent sincerity,
140. The oath of allegiance required from officiating priests. Demand
that it be obligatory on all priests, 141. The clerical members of the As
sembly withdraw. They are supported by a majority of the laity, 142.
Mirabeau attacks the clergy. The organization of the Constitutional
Church, 143. Deplorable results. Silence of the Vatican and the king's
duplicity, 144. False position of both parties. Character of the new clergy,
145. Renewed rioting. The king turned back from St. Cloud, 146. La
fayette and the non-jurors. Rise of democracy, 147. Leaders of the demo
crats. The word "republic," 148. Classes of democrats. Louis XVI
apparently yields, 149. The Constitutional mass at St. Germain l'Aux-
errois. The Pope's Rhone counties, 150. He condemns the Constitution
and the Revolution. Pronounces the former heretical, 151. Double-deal
ing of the Constitutionals. Resultant outrages, 132. Divergent course of
Constitutional bishops. Death of Mirabeau, 153. The party of the "pa
triots." Disasters incident to the king's flight, 154.

Chapter X
WORSHIP OLD AND NEW
The road to chaos. Final steps, 158. Jesuitry of the king. His plan
thwarted, 138. The king's motives. His arraignment of the Civil Con
stitution, 159. Lafayette and religious liberty. The oath to the two " con
stitutions," 160. The disorders of 1791 due to the "patriot" party.
Nature of the rioting, 161. Reports on the subject. Behavior of the
Constitutional bishops, 162. Mob rule in Paris. Degeneracy of the
Legislative, 163. The clerical oath a source of evil. Violence of the re
fractory clergy, 164. They are styled aristocrats. Renewed ecclesiastical
legislation, 163. The refractory clergy denounced as traitors. Efforts at
conciliation, 166. Violence of the non-jurors. Call for complete disestab
lishment of religion, 167. Increase of scepticism. Idea of a national re
ligion, 168. The public festivals of France. The classical spirit, 169.
Talleyrand's plea for national festivals. Mirabeau and Cabanis 170
Mass celebrated in 1790 at the Festival of Federation. The " altar of the

CONTENTS xvii
country," 171. Beginning of atheistic festivals. Voltaire's remains to be
placed in the Pantheon, 172. Vain protests against the decree. Triumph
of the secularizers, 173. The new saint. Arrival of the procession in
Paris, 174. Enthusiasm of the mob. Secular canonization, 175. Deifica
tion of Reason, 176.
Chapter XI
THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION
State of the monasteries, 179. Strengthened by the law of 1790. A new at
tack, 180. The theory of public safety. The king alienates the legislature,
181. The Girondists at the helm. Rise of the war spirit, 182. Duplicity
of the king. Suspicion aroused, 183. Confusion of secular and religious
duty. The Avignon massacres, 184. No tolerance for the refractory
clergy. The king vetoes the decree, 185. Identification of all priests as
traitors. Religion as treason, 186. Climax of riot and disorder. The
Constitutionals take a fatal step, 187. The country declared to be in dan
ger. The desire for anarchy, 188. Analogy with the English revolution
of 1688, 189. No present hope for religious liberty. The Revolution as_a
movementagainst religion. 190. Defiance of Europeari~opfiiioru The
convents closed- and estates confiscated, 191. Massacre legalized. The
battle of Valmy, 192. The Convention attacks all religion. The new oath
of allegiance, 193. Indecision of~the Pope. Proscription of the clergy,
194. Clerical marriages prescribed. The swift descent to irreligion, 195.
Energy of the radicals. Confusion of public opinion, 196. The notorious
apostacy of 1793. Gre'goire stems the tide, 197. The Festival of Reason,
198. The Festival of the Supreme Being, 199. Attacks on Robespierre,
200.
Chapter XII
A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
All Christians temporarily united against atheism, 203. The horrors of de
portation. The emigration of the clergy, 204. The new conformists. Min
istrations during the Terror, 205. Behavior of the absentees. A faithful
Constitutional, 206. Gregoire's speech on liberty of worship. The French
fury, 207. Robespierre's fall, 208. The Thermidorians as persecutors.
Triumph of moderation in Paris, 209. Gregoire's famous plea delivered.
Effect of his pastoral, 210. Religious liberty decreed. Feeling of relief, 211.
Police supervision of worship. No cessation of persecution , 212. Salaries
and pensions of clerics. The secular cult in preparation, 213. Dises
tablishment of the Constitutionals. Their organization perpetuated, 214.
Celebration of the D&adis. The concept of Theophilanthropy, 215.
Churches reopened. A new stumbling-block, 216. Compromise consid
ered. The royalist folly, 217. Reaction of the Convention. The clericals
dismayed, 218. The Day of the Sections, 219. The Directory favors per
secution. The church bell as a party cry, 220. Revival of royalism, 221.
Chapter XIII
ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY
France and the new system of public law in Europe, 225. Weakness of the
Directory. The White Terror, 226. Its significance. Political power de
pendent on the army, 227. Failure of French armies. New arrangement

xviii CONTENTS
of French society, 228. No religious liberty under the Directory. Jordan's
plea for freedom of worship, 229. Royer-Collard suggests a new concordat.
The radicals again supreme, 230. The oath of hatred to royalty. Religion
openly proscribed, 231. Deportation of priests. The Constitutionals again
strengthened, 232. Revival and survival of religious feeling, 233. Reor
ganization of the Constitutional church, 234. Disintegration of French
society. Meetings held on Decadis, 235. Resistance to the effort. Theo-
philanthropy, 236. Its supporters and festivals. The high-priest and his
assistants, 237. The services and holidays, 238. Complete disorganization
of Protestantism, 239. Tyranny of the Directory, 240. "King and reli
gion" the new watchword. Bonaparte's prestige, 241. Preliminaries of
the Concordat, 242.
Chapter XIV
DESIGN AND FORM OF THE CONCORDAT
The Day of 18 Brumaire. The relief of France, 245. Character of the pro
visional Consulate, 246. The new constitution. Religious parties of the
Consulate, 247. Their relations to each other, 248. The Freethinkers.
Design of Bonaparte, 249. The First Consul's alternatives, 249. Views
concerning the Concordat, 250. Defects of criticism. Views of the Or
thodox Catholics, 251. The Casuists. The system of tolerance, 252.
Ministers of religion as state functionaries. Ideal of the Revolution.
Bonaparte's aim, 253. The Concordat as a compromise, 254. Religious
opinions of Bonaparte, 255. His ecclesiastical diplomacy, 256. Terms
proposed to Pius VII. Change in the episcopate, 257. Reasons for the
change. Negotiations begun, 258. Attitude of the Constitutionals. Dis
position of the church estates, 259. The reconstruction of the episcopate,
260. Conduct of Pius VII, 261. Strength of the First Consul, 262. The
final draft of the Concordat, 263.

Chapter XV
ENFORCEMENT OF THE CONCORDAT
The power of France. The weakness of the papacy, 267. The Council of
the Constitutionals, 268. Wiles of the Papal negotiators. The state of
public opinion in France, 269. The Consular court. Dispersal of radical
forces, 270. Protests against the Concordat. Consalvi's charge of dupli
city, 271. Negotiations broken and renewed, 272. The crucial article
accepted, 273. The Concordat proclaimed. Schism of the "Little
Church," 274. Organization of the new system. The Organic Articles,
:27s. Despotic elements of the latter, 276. Dissenters under the Concor
dat, 277. Importance of the new measures in France and elsewhere, 278.
. Changes in the other Catholic lands, 279. Modifications in France under
Napoleon, 280. Effects of the Concordat in contemporary France, 281.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
Libertas: quae, sera, tamen respexit inertem,
Candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat :
Respexit tamen, et longo post tempore venit, etc.
Vergil's Eclogues, i. 28.
IN less than a single generation of mankind the
French people were transformed; comparing the
close of the eighteenth century with the opening of
the nineteenth, French society was in that short space of
time almost transfigured. It was a pardonable exag
geration with which in 1795 Boissy d'Anglas exclaimed
"We have lived six centuries in six years." The
French nation was already old when the epoch displayed
its first phase ; and, as the Latin poet has expressed his
thought in a curious parallel, while sporting with its
fellows in the thraldom of feudalism, its "hair began
to fall gray under the shears" before it gained its mod
ern liberty. The Revolution, therefore, when it did
come, was quite sure to be as it was, both hasty and
thorough; in consequence there was no smooth trans
formation, but instead there were the roar and crash,
the turmoil and dust of ruin. The contemporary
mind, whether alert or pensive, found these outward
and sensible appearances more interesting than the
inner processes of construction, which were really
more noteworthy. It is perhaps only now that, after
the subsidence of the turbulent agitation, we can enu
merate the astounding results.

xxii INTRODUCTION
In the second decade of the nineteenth century the
old familiar things of the eighteenth were already afar
off. The names of provinces hoary with age survived,
but as memories only; feudalism, still rampant in 1780,
seemed in 18 10 to have been a nightmare that had van
ished with the dawn ; medievalism had been exorcised
like an evil spirit ; titles of ancient nobility still tripped
over men's lips, but as honorific designations merely;
the real distinctions of life bore the names, not of
French landed estates, but of recent battle-fields and
sieges in distant countries ; the most coveted decoration
was the red ribbon of honor controlled by an imperial
democracy. There survived not one of the effete social
habits of France ; every human interchange of relations
in commerce, industry, trade, agriculture, education ; in
the state, the church and the family — all were new and
different from the old. It is true that the confedera
tion of European monarchies which momentarily over
whelmed the French democracy did, a little later, hang
on the walls of Paris an obsolete standard to flap there
idly for a brief hour. Louis XVIII. but served by his
inglorious reign to remind a fervid people of terri
tories lost, of transitory glories, of national shame, of
an antiquated absolutism revived for a time in Europe
as the expression of national unity — elsewhere in real
ity, but at Paris as nominal and shadowy, despicable
and hateful in the popular opinion of all France. Like
other cast-off garments and institutions, the abso
lute Bourbon royalty was destined for the rubbish heap
where it now reposes.
This was the radical nature and these were the
permanent results of a thorough and remorseless revo
lution, justly enough designated French though in
reality European. It burst forth in France because
there it had been longest in preparation and there the

INTRODUCTION xxiii
crust of conservatism was thinnest,1 but its causes are
remotely traceable throughout all Europe and its in
fluences left no European land untouched. The rapidity
of its course is the riddle of modern history, and of all
the swift transformations which it wrought, the quick
and utter disintegration of the social fabric in France is
the most extraordinary. This dizzy movement has
hitherto been studied from various sides, more particu
larly the political and fiscal. Some efforts have been
put forth to examine the social history of the epoch,
and a few valuable volumes have been devoted to the
ecclesiastical revolution as such. But the secular ef
fects of the shocks which gradually shattered Ultra-
montanism in France have not received the attention
they deserve. The feudal church was the cement of
French society to a higher degree than the absolute
monarchy. The overthrow of the feudal church in
augurated the modern era.
The intelligent observer of that interesting philo
sophic toy, the gyroscopic top, is aware that its nod-
dings, turnings and backings are due to the composition
of forces that can be separated and described. Never
theless what actually happens is not what is expected.
Likewise the composition of forces in history produces
results which defy prediction. Revolutions in history,
unlike those in physics, turn moreover on several axes
simultaneously, the hidden ones being generally the
more important. Not until the social history of the
revolutionary epoch has been written in a period
which, considering the intricacy of the subject and the
boundless material to be mastered, must still be far dis-
1 See the remarkable predic- until after the author's death.
tions of Mably, Des Droits et It is a brilliant examination of
des Devoirs du Citoyen, Paris, contemporary thought and ten-
1789. The book, though writ- dencies.
ten in 1758, was not published

xxiv INTRODUCTION
tant, can our analysis be complete; but meantime the
experiences of the French people in its religious life can
at least be outlined. In order to understand them the
threads of one certain process in history must first be
caught up and re-knitted. The ecclesiastical condi
tions of feudal and royal Europe were basic to the en
tire superstructure of fiscal and administrative tyranny,
which disappeared in England and America a century
before it vanished entirely from French soil and par
tially from the rest of Western Europe.
The expansion of social institutions for the sake of
fuller personal life, individual and collective, is clearly
the most desirable of mere earthly things. Slavery
was a marked advance beyond the butchery of captives
taken in war, and serfdom is a state infinitely superior
to that of slavery; the winning of civil and political
liberties by man in the mass has lifted the race to a still
loftier platform; when social liberty too is secured,
when justice is equitably administered and human
nature approaches perfection, the earthly Utopia will
be at hand. But the projection of even the most ad
mirable institution down the ages, until it becomes an
anachronism, is intolerable, for it checks the transition
from uniformity and simplicity to variety and complex
ity, which we call progress. Slavery and serfdom,
though once absolutely good, are to-day abominations
wherever they survive; there are likewise forms of
medievalism equally abominable, to which men cling
with fatal conservatism.
We would not be alone in thinking that the single
greatest fact of secular history was the emergence of
Christianity from behind the veil of persecution, not as
an adjunct of the empire but as a distinct human
power, with a complete, separate organization of its
own. It is well-nigh absurd to speak of church and

INTRODUCTION xxv
state as two in the heathen world, but in the Christian
world they never were and for this reason they never
can be one.1
The single, all important question throughout the
Christian ages, from the day when Christianity was
recognized by the state, has been the relation between
two utterly distinct powers, the spirituaTand the tem
poral, each claiming its share of control over the indi-
viHual man. It is self-evident that this relation can
take only one of three forms : the temporal authority
may control the spiritual, the spiritual authority the
temporal, or_they may endeavor to run equal and par
allel. In general, Byzantium represented the first of
these three relations, Rome the second : the effort to
establish jthe third is represented by th£_serje£j>f_trea-
ties known technically as Concordats, which mark in
succejsjve^tag&.JlLe-Jiail^The survival in some form or other of each or all of
these three ideas within Christendom is the stumbling
block of contemporary life. In the nature of things
we ought no longer to consider the relations of church
and state; our attention should be focussed on some
thing far different, the relations of government and
religion. The thirteenth century is justly regarded as the age
at which the twin systems of feudalism and Roman
ism reached the culminating point of their constructive
work. Thus far they had "assimilated and guided the
intellectual movement of Europe completely, benefi
cently and almost without opposition. But when Pope
Boniface VIII. (1294) reasserted the temporal as well
as the spiritual supremacy for St. Peter's chair, the gen
eral and embittered resistance to his claims revealed the
1 See the epochal book of M. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite
Antique.

xxvi INTRODUCTION
impotence of the papacy.1 It was in vain that re
course was had to physical violence for the repression
of error : spiritual control has no basis except in volun
tary assent, and the change already begun was only
retarded not prevented. Almost simultaneously the
system of land tenure based on defensive military
'. power, which we call feudalism, met with a similar
reverse. Charles the Great, Otto the Great, and the
Crusades mark the successive epochs in which Euro
pean society, regardless of local or class distinctions,
put forth common exertions for the common safety.
One and all, these defensive wars displayed the im
potence of feudalism for the organization of the im
pulses and aims which were common to the West, and
which demanded a political and social system com
petent to realize them in offensive warfare. The care
ful student of history can remark throughout the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a continuous, spon
taneous, though in the main unconscious, evolution
of the forces destined to overthrow feudalism in its
strongholds. In the necessary conflict between the
social and ecclesiastical authorities, as represented by
the church and empire, the former was in the main
victorious; in the scheme of public life it relegated
military force to a level beneath that of moral power,
and for the man it exalted the value of love, charity
and holiness as the aims of private life.
Amid these very conflicts, however, the ecclesiastical,
theocratic regime suffered its final, overwhelming and
1 There is a striking contrast only by the intervention of No-
between Canossa, where the garet, the agent of France in
emperor was humbled by the his overthrow. Yet the corn-
Pope, and Anagni, where the parison halts, for the French
Pope, arrayed in all his eccle- monarchy had then supplanted
siastical pomp, was made to the empire as representative of
feel the rude buffets of Sciarra secular power.
Colonna, and escaped with life

INTRODUCTION xxvii
irreparable defeat. In its struggle for supremacy it
had, unconsciously at times but for the most part con
sciously, assimilated feudalism; quite unwittingly it
found itself doomed to the fate of feudalism. Abso
lute itself in the assertion of spiritual power, it stimu
lated the assertion of absolute temporal power as made
by temporal feudal princes, and when political absolut
ism took the form of princely despotism, the papacy
with its ecclesiastical absolutism became a temporal
power itself. But not of the first order. The secular
spirit had swept humanity with it. Principalities be
came kingdoms and kingdoms became nations and
nations became states throughout the western world.
Imperial Catholicism disappeared in the disruption
of imperial temporal power, Catholic ecclesiasticism
was confronted by the menace of independent national
churches. Local centralization seemed destined to re
place what was left of universal centralization in the
church, just as it had already shattered the universal
state; in the political crash Rome was but a fragment
of feudal absolutism and so far contemptible. The
Pope as a secular prince was but an Italian royalet,
elective at that. The close of the fifteenth century
marked the end of all effort to restore the pagan idea
of unity in church and state. The question ever since
has been one merely of their relations.
As yet, however, neither feudalism nor ecclesiasti
cism had met with organized opposition. This was at
hand. The successive revivals and reforms which con
stituted the new birth of humanity in art, in letters, in
religion and in politics, were, each and several, con
scious opponents of the passing social phase. Though
disdaining it, they were one and all forms of the protest
which found its climax in Calvinism, religious, politi
cal and social. Calvinism was not merely a dogma;

xxviii INTRODUCTION
it was and is a system embracing the totality of life,
intended to supplant entirely the scheme of traditional
authority as exemplified in Roman and feudal society.
From its inception onward to 1650 it represented the
vanguard of the coming age. It attacked the hier
archy, social, political and ecclesiastical, with the sword
of the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and con
duct. Shielding itself behind the buckler called the
right of private judgment and using the watchword
of reform, its battle-cry was the call for a return to
more or less completeness of primitive Christian liv
ing. Its chosen style was "Reformed" not "Protes
tant" ; there was to be no break of historic continuity.
But its recognized enemy was the theology of Rome as
central to the whole despised system of religious and
social tyranny.
In the struggle for ascendancy between Rome
and Reform blood flowed in torrents. In France the
result was the formal defeat of Calvinism which took
its revenge in furnishing the data for the radical phi
losophy of many among those who suffered ; in Holland
the conflict produced the political liberties to a new
nation emancipated from Spain, the land which under
Philip II. represented the extreme reaction of medise-
valism ; in Germany the Thirty Years' War was ended
by a treaty which recognized the rupture of the Euro
pean state-system and established public law not ex
actly on a secular but at least on a political basis;
England, with elements both Anglican and Puritan,
became the foremost Protestant power, just as France,
purged in the furnace of civil war, was thereafter the
most intelligent and vigorous Catholic state.

REFORM AND REVOLUTION

REFORM AND REVOLUTION
THROUGHOUT the ejghteenthcentury the critical
spirit was abroad. Among the Teutons it was
largely positive and constructive because successful in
reforming every department of life ; among the Latins it
was negative and de^toictiyebecause thwartedjn the
spher^s^ijdiiirghj^state, society andlearning. In the
north the social movement was" for the most^art unsys
tematic, practical and adapted to local circumstances ; in
the Roman Catholic state system it grew revolutionary,
sy^ematic and radical in almost exact proportion to
the limitation by royal or ecclesiastical authority set
upon its dimensions as to numbers and permitted scope.
The reply to the Council of Trent, to the Society crf-
Jesus, to the Index, was long in coming wherever the
reactionary influence prevailed; when it did come, it
was in the mordant, defiant language of Voltaire, in
the appeal of Rousseau to an authority which was not
that of Rome, nor of God in his Word, but which was
that of gumanity as represented in a supposed state
of nature! From this destructive criticism emerged
what is specifically known in modern history as the
revolutionary spirit, the central principle of which is
an extreme and perverted conception of what the Ref
ormation called the rigra^f^rJEale^ud^mentr 3

4 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
To the Catholic the Reformer was irreligious, to
the Reformer the Revolutionary was doubly so; yet
the difference between the two latter was essentially
one of degree and religious attitude, while that be
tween the two former was at bottom one of historical
feeling. The Reformed Church gravitates at once in
any moment of uncertainty toward Catholicism rather
than toward the system of the Revolution. It is a
question of accepting or rejecting a supernatural au
thority, of Theism more or less extensive and com
prehensive against Atheism more or less radical.
Bacon and Descartes began the examination of the
eternal verities in the light of reason, compelling the
adaptation of Christian creeds to the truth of science
as far as discovered. Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle
mark the transition into the narrowest conceivable
Theism, discarding alike Christianity and revelation,
setting the temporal power above the spiritual, subject
ing the Bible to the same rules of criticism as would be
applied to profane literature. In Hobbes appears as a
philosophic force the theory extracted by a Calvinistic
reformer, Francis Hotman, from the Bible, and destined
to become the dogma of all political philosophers down
to the threshold of our own time, the theory of a con
tract between ruler and ruled. Used by Hobbes in the
interest of absolutism, it was remodelled by Locke to up
hold the English Revolution of 1688, and in the same
form it is fundamental to the institutions of our own
Revolution of 1776. Finally Rousseau revamped it
as the basis of the extremists of 1786 in France.
The concept of sovereignty in the abstract, royal, eccle
siastical, aristocratic or imperial, formed by Bodin, was
thus gradually transmuted into that of papular sov
ereignty expressed by majorities.
It is to be remembered that the number of thinkers

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 5
who busied themselves with such subjects in the seven
teenth century was very small. But in the eighteenth
this was changed and the institutions of higher learn
ing produced both in Protestant and Catholic countries
a class of men who, with the spread of education, found
their account in writing for the press ; nien-oi-SGieiice,
of Tett£r^xdLp_hjlosophy and politics. Destitute for the
most part of profound convictions, they revelled in the
play of the intellect and deployed a versatility not often
paralleled and never surpassed. The type of this class
was Voltaire, to whom nothing was sacred. In his
hands the theories of Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle were
further debased from a limited Theism, into a system of
vague Deism.
It was here that the unprincipled, uneducated and
unbridled spirit of Rousseau found and seized the rev
olutionary doctrine. Sophist and vulgarizer, he was
the anarchist of the epoch, depicting with fire and
fluency the vices of civilization, extolling the phantasm
which he called the state of nature, and struggling to
undo all that mankind had achieved throughout a long
and painful evolution. It is likely that his influence
would have been slight, if an abler man, the Abbe
Mably, had not introduced into his Utopian dreams
an historic and ethical framework sufficient to give
them some appearance of reality.1 Voltaire was thev
prophet of the Constituents and Girondists, Rousseau/
of the Robespierrists. The former cared for nothing
but emancipation from theology_ and ecclesiasticism,
using their Deism as a means to an end ; the latter were
stanch, convinced J>eis_ts, anxious forJh^_j£ability_.pf
their Utopia, which they felUoa^~rio_toundation except
in their faith. The former were transitional, the latter
1 See Guerrier, M. W : L'Abbe de Mably, moraliste, et
politique, Paris, 1886.

6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
desired to abide in an earthly paradise of their own
making. The former were latitudinarian, the latter
were narrow fanatics.
But what was considered the new knowledge was
not complete either in the scepticism of Voltaire or in
the deistical sectarianism of Rousseau. The Encyclo
pedia of D'Alembert and Diderot contained likewise
the learning of the Physiocrats or Economists : to wit,
the doctrines of Quesnay and Turgot as expounded
by the latter thinker. These men, assisted by the hu
manitarian revolt against legal torture and excessive
punishment, of which Beccari the Milanese is the best
known exponent, were of course concerned with phi
losophy and politics rather than religion. The rising
importance of manufactures and the influence of gen
eral enlightenment on criminal jurisprudence were
substantive factors in the social and political problem.
Great as Montesquieu had been, he clung to royalty
as a focal institution, and suggested reform, the ne
cessity of which already cried to Heaven, along the
lines of the English constitution. With the same con
servatism Quesnay and Turgot believed it an easier
task to reform one man, the prince, than to change the
masses; they too were royalists. But nevertheless
they found the inspiration for their appeals to nature,
by which they meant the nature and nature's God as
described in the Scriptures; neither in Deism nor in
Atheism, but in a clear definition of absolute right and
wrong. What they said was not new, it had been from
the beginning in the consciences of men, and therefore
in literature, both profane and sacred. Their applica
tion of it was electrifying because they showed how
little existing governments, hitherto engaged in mak
ing war and consolidating territories, could fulfil their
function of executing justice without a scientific ex-

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 7
amination of social economy and the enforcement of
that justice which is in the bosom of God. Industry
and morality, it was proven, were at least tantamount
to courts and armies. This attitude of mind cannot
justly be characterized as religious, nor can it on the
other hand be stigmatized as essentially irreligious or
sceptical. But the Physiocrats were enthusiastic, in
flexible, intolerant in a rather neutral creed and almost
as violent sectaries as the extreme radicals.
It is utterly impossible to determine the exact pro
portions in which these three revolutionary schools
secured adherents. Theoretically the nobles in great
majority were under the influence of the Encyclopedia,
advocates of reform, social, political, religious. The
burghers of France in considerable numbers were satu
rated with Voltaire's contempt for Romanism ancr
Rousseau's scorn for monarchical absolutism : in the
mass they were for overthrowing not religion nor
monarchy, but the whole ancient system of alliance be
tween them. The great lowest stratum of artisans/
"laborers ana peasants, was simply discontent. Blindly
aware of the agitation about them they rushed first
in this direction and then in that; now royalist, now
democratic; now Roman, now radical. They groaned
under the inequalities of justice and legal administra
tion, under the heavy hand of the monarchy in taxa
tion, under the tyranny of thejdiurcJi in every social
relation. The word "Infamous" with which the writings of
Voltaire abound does not appear to connote any of the
ideas so continually attached to it by the orthodox.
It is not Romanism, nor Christ,1 nor Christianity, nor
1 There is, I think, but a sin- spelled in full because of an in
gle instance in Voltaire's writ- tervening modifier, and in that
mgS — \\z., in one of his letters instance the article is feminine.
— where the definite article is This would seem to indicate

8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the church, which Voltaire designates by it. Little
as he respected any or all of these, he had in mind the
real and_absolute tyjannv_..secured by a union /of secu
lar and ecclesiastical power. We wonder whether the
perfect adaptability of Romanism to each 'and every
form of human government is its merit or fts fault; the
fact is certain, and the identification of the two pow
ers which was complete in the heathen world was at
tempted with a degree of success so high that it was
not far from complete under the last three Louises in
France. Under it there was no personal liberty, no
equality of civil or political rights, least of all the fra
ternity which is central to the teachings of Christianity.
The bloody centuries of Roman decadence were con
sequently the only ones remembered, while those in
which the many and splendid services of the church il
luminated history were forgotten. The miasmatic
lights of a rationalistic philosophy were chosen by revo
lutionists to be substituted for the ideals-joi^GJiristian-
ity, petty expediency for comprehensive morality, the
despotism of secular power for the systematic tyranny
,0 f an^c^te^iasticaT'hierarchy.
J>The state of society in France about 1786 was there-
*K>re indescribably complex from the irreligious as well
the personification of a system De ses elus cheris noumture vivante,
by the phrase L'Infame, al- ?te^f ha-™™ au,n- * ses yeux ip"das-
., , c -^ • 1 -kt lul decouvre un Dieu sous un pain qui
though of course it is merely a n'est plus.
slight bit of evidence corrobo
rating a general impression. Finally, the strongest proof of
In the Henriade he seems to our contention will be found in
give his real estimate of a true the general tone of two short
church in the well-known pieces, Relation de la Mort du
words : Chevalier de La Barre and, es-
L'figlise toujour* une, et parlout e.endue, ^\ ^ Cri dU 1™%*™°:
Libre, mais sous un chef, adorant en tout cent. tSotn are m the Moland
^ lie,u v ,. j c • , edition of 1883. Tomes xxv.
aelonDiX 's P r S01. and x.xix- 375- They were
Le Christ, de nos peches victime renais- written with an interval of ten
sante, years between them.

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 9
as from the religious point of view. There was the
church, outwardly comprehensive and dominant, over
whelmingly Roman and Ultramontane, but with nu
merous officers and adherents who were saturated with
Gallicanism and .Jansenism. There were the Protest
ants, few in number, but powerful in resources and in
tellect. These two social powers may be reckoned as
conservative and positively religious. Finally, there
were the three secular, revolutionary schools of Vol
taire, Rousseau and the Economists. These may be
reckoned as radical and negatively religious. There
was no stratification horizontally or vertically in the
nation at large. Most of the mass was inert, much of
it was fluid, and there was a portion neither one nor
the other, but like the loose soil rendered friable by
frost and ready for the action of stream and flood.
From this element could be drawn a numerous follow
ing for whatever movement was at any given time most
active and popular. Such disintegration of the lower
social strata was mainly due to the ecclesiastical discord
just mentioned; the factions of Jesuits, Gallicans, Jan-
senists, and Protestants were savagely embittered.
At the close of the seventeenth century the royal
conscience of France was itself uneasy and oversensi
tive. As the ally and supporter of the papacy, Louis
XIV. fell on evil days. The reforming zeal of Inno
cent XI. had spread into France, and, someof^ the
bishops contested the claim of the crown__to_jia,me
^atidMatesJJQr_y£caa£^^ ec
clesiastical revenues^vJiats^evejV--eierLihose-T*ecently
eh&awecT by~s^cuiSf authority_diiring_-episcopal...inter-
segnurg^ — Be±ermi»ed'^Eo^ overthrow nepotism and
simony, the Pope went so far as openly to attack the
secular power, by withdrawing from the French and
other embassies at Rome the cherished right of asy-

10 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
.lum. The king threatened rupture; the clergy and
'jiobles, assembled at Paris in 1682, formulated the prin
ciples of a national church, arM these were promul
gated by royal ordinance. They were the expression
of the religious consciousness and convictions of
France, viz. : > that the popes had divine authority_jn
spiritual but not secular affairs, that even this was
litmte3~Bothby the~conclusions of the Council of Con
stance regarding the~~pjowefs of general councils, and_
by the prescrrpfiohs and usagesof the Gallican_Church j.
finally that'wrFlToljrth^^alicTion of the church the de-
cjsionsjrf; _the_2gTJ5r^e^noT infallible. While these
four propositions were revoked under an agreement
with Innocent XII., and by pressure from the cour
tiers and Jesuits who controlled court opinion, they
represented then, and continue to represent, the attitude
of an immense number of devout but enlightened Ro
man Catholics in France. The Gallican movement
had numerous adherents throughout the eighteenth.
century, beir^in^cjjae^r^sjjectsjinusiially powerful in
1789. "The earlier years of that century marked the climax
and incipient decline of the absolute monarchy. Rich
and intelligent, both court and society in France salved
the wounds to their pride, which had been inflicted
through their military and diplomatic reverses, by the
practice of a voluptuous sestheticism. Their religious
confessors were in the main Jesuits. Their tendencies
were consequently Ultramontane for the most part.
Yet the splendid intellects of the time were sternly
logical rather than authoritarian, and while some like
Fenelon, Massillon, and Bossuet knew how with sweet
reasonableness to steer the middle course, yet even they
were Gallican at heart. The "Telemaque" of Fenelon
was a protest against Jesuit education, and cost its

REFORM AND REVOLUTION n
apostolic author his banishment from court. Bossuet
was Gallican in the king's behalf, but Ultramontane in
his attitude toward the Protestants; such were the
splendor of his style, the beauty of his thought and the
pathos of his mental attitude that his ingenuity as a
trimmer passed almost unobserved. _—_ __^j
There was one manifestation of the religious tem
perament which must be recalled as a movement sjmilar/i
yet apart, that of the Jansenists. The concept of per
fect Imniaji_Jreedbm, as realized only in dependence on
God, had in the early church produced the antipodal
conclusions of Pelagius_ and Augustine : that men un
corrupted in Adam's fall might by the exercise of their
own wills become the subjects of divine grace, that
Adam's fall produced infinite guilt which could be re
lieved only by divine grace prevenient and predestined
for some but not necessarily for all. The Jesuits were
from the outset characterized by intellectuaT versatility
rather than profundity. Nominally vassal to the papal
see, they were as really its master as the feudatory
Charles of Burgundy was once the superior of his tech- •
nical suzerain Louis XI. Devoted to the furtherance
of Christian life, they were in foreign lands successful
missionaries, because of adroitness and adaptability
rather than in consequence of fearless assault; in Eu
ropean lands they deployed their activities as the edu
cators of all classes, notably the great, and in this func
tion such theology as theyprofes^edj£ane^tow^riL±he
§ide of Pelagius,'~whiTe~tHeu- peculiar genius found its
employment in a casuistry which turned the moral law
into a supple and courteous minister of both the states
man and ecclesiastic. Despising consistency, they first
rolled back the tide of the religious Reformation by an
appeal to conservatism, and then completely revolution
ized education by fearless innovation ; they threw their

12 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
adherents into intellectual subserviency but turned scho
lasticism into contempt ; they discredited the Inquisition
throughout enlightened Christendom but established it
in Portugal. In heathendom they displayed still an
other form of inconsistency, for they subordinated the
effectual conversion of men to the interests of their own
corporation. Intelligent, versatile, pure in their living,
the Jesuits discredited the older monastic orders and
rendered contemptible the degraded existence of the
regular clergy as Erasmus depicts them. They were
invaluable guides in every form of government; but,
themselves the creatures of a despotism the completest
ever devised, they had a natural affinity for absolutism.
The kings of France "f retteTr"under their power, but
could not dispense with their assistance.
""" The Augustinian view of divine grace as precedent
to human freedom was focal to the Reformation of the
sixteenth century, and found its most extreme and
logical interpreter in John Calvin, a Frenchman of
Picardy.1 But the ideas of an infallible Bible replacing
the infallible church, and of the God-man, Christ
Jesus, as the sole mediator, replacing both the secular
hierarchy and the Christian priesthood, as alone the
prophet, the priest, and the king, were intolerable to
the great middle classes of Romanism, though most
welcome to vast numbers of the aristocracy. It was
Jansen, the Dutch bishop of Ypres, whose "Augus-
tinus," appearing posthumously in 1640, set forth a
system of fourth-century theology seemingly adapted
to those who wished to remain within the precincts of
'James Russell Lowell has People not for the King, but
an interesting parallel, in his the King for the People; Cal-
essay on Dante, between the vin's Possible to conceive a
political philosophy of Augus- people without a prince, but
tinians in the thirteenth and not a prince without a people.
seventeenth centuries : Dante's

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 13
the Roman Church. Rejecting papal infallibility,
the dominant dogma at Rome, Jansenism accepted
the authority of the ecclesiasticar councils, and_em-
pfia^Lzjed^he high view of election. Innocent X. con
demned the system in 1653 ; a long, embittered quarrel
ensued and even the 'bull ~"Unigenitus" of Clement
XL, issued in 1713, created only the semblance of a
peace. In the assurance of their own election the Jansenists
felt themselves to be a spiritual aristocracy, fitly and
naturally allied with the secular nobility. In this way
at the very outset they became the supporters of Cardi
nal de Retz and made an irretrievable misstep in poli
tics. Socially theyj^ayp an example of austerity at Port
¦ T?oya1; irnpogsihlp of attainment by~societyaf large, and
<thejr_impe<iiate]in^ Bufin the
permanent, enduring7~unstraken forces~~of French life
they have a name to shine ; the age of Louis XIV. claims
as its own the combined renown of Pascal, Corneille, De
Sevigne, and La Rochefoucauld, but one and all these
Olympians were the stern opponents of the royal policy,
both religious and political. It was by the immortal
literature of philosophy, poesy, satire, and wit that Jan
senism survived as a vital force in national life, and
sustained the Gallican party in the Roman Church
throughout the years which were the seed-plot of the
Revolution. Persecuted as they were, mighty names
were yet associated with them; names like those of
the chancellor Pontchartrain or the splendid procura
tor Henri d'Aguesseau; and no less a personage than
Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, protected them. The
abolition and razing of Port Royal, the persecution and
exile of its adherents, the fulminations of the papal see
alike failed in their end ; when the Regency succeeded,
Jansenism took a new lease of life. There was such a

ri4 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
revival of Gallicanism that men on both sides of the
Straits of Dover talked of uniting the Gallicans_and
Anglicans to resist papal usurpations.
The political influence" of the'GalJicans had reached
by the middle of the eighteenth century proportions
that were little short of portentous. The bull "Uni-
genitus" or the Constitution, as it was generally called,
was really the work of Lgtellier, Jesuit confessor of the
king, and emanating from a French prelate was a
measure grateful only to the higher clergy. Never
theless the lower priesthood and the masses of the peo
ple dumbly accepted it by the force of habitual obedi
ence to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Yet, though the Constitutionists were the more nu
merous, those opposed were many ; and on their side as
opposed to the new constitution of the papacy for
France was what may be called, with some strain on
the word, the ancient constitution of the country itself.
According to the ancient custom and manner there still
remained one powerful check on the royal despotism,
the parlemerits-or courts of justice, and that of Paris
was easily the most important of them all. What with
the persecution of Protestants and Jansenists by a royal
absolutism under Jesuit influence, and the exorbitant
taxation incident to court extravagance, and the extor
tions of the higher clergy, the scarcely suppressed and
widespread discontent at last found vent in 1752,
through a decree of the Paris parlement forbidding the
outrageous but common practice of refusing the sacra
ments to those who denied the authority of the papal
bull. This was a home thrust at the legislative power
of the crown, and in 1^53 the parkment was banished.1
1 Isambert, Anciennes Lois historique et anecdotique du
XXII., 251. D'Argenson, Me- regne de Louis XV., Paris,
moires, Paris, 1857, I. lxxviii. 1851, IV. 465.
civ., V. 215. Barbier, Journal

REFORM AND REVOLUTION 15
Nowhere were the Jansenists stronger than in thjLgujld
of- lawyers and the_provincial parlementsToSowcd the
lead thus given! There"was~a sudden outburst of sym
pathy with the guardians of French custom far and
near throughout the land. There were even assertions
of weight that the nation was above its kings.1 It was
clear that a popular upheaval was possible and prob
able ; the Paris parlement therefore was recalled on its
own terms and the clergy suffered for their contumacy.
When, four years later, in 1756, the king declared his
Grand Council to be sovereign, the parlement of Paris
again defied him and promulgated a measure delimiting
sharply the powers of the Grand Council. The third
clash was even more violent. A month later began the
Seven Years' War, the king by edict ordered new taxes,
the parlement refused to register the edict as law and it
was abolished in December.2 But the absolute author
ity of the crown proved to be merely nominal, for with-?
out the action of the parlements not a sou of the taxes
could be collected, and three months later the recalci-|
trant court was restored. IrLtruth public opinion was/
irresistible and by it both parlement and army were
controlled. Not only could no taxes be collected, but,
what was vastly more important in war time, no loans
could be placed without the security, more moral than
real it must be confessed, of a judicial registration. It
was the Ultramontane clergy driven to bay, which, as
early as 1750, began to recall the fact that once there
were estates of the realm, and to demand their assem
bling in order to substitute a more pliant power in
the representation of popular rights and public opinion
for the stern, sturdy Jansenistic parlements.3 The
1 Barbier, Journal Historique, 3 D'Argenson, VIII. 247. Bar-
eta, IV. 424, V. 28, 238. bier, IV. 22.
s Barbier, V. 163 et seq.

1 6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

&

grandes remontrances, the bitter protests of the lat
ter, were too legal, too correct, too terse, too his
torical, to be longer endured. The Estates, however,
were not called until forty years later, and when they
met they proved more obdurate than even the par
lements.

II
VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT OF
ECCLESIASTICISM

II
Voltaire's indictment. " l'infame "
VIEWED from without and in the large, the eccle
siastical machinery of France worked fairly well
during half a century. In spite of friction between the
throne and the Pope, the King of France still deserved
his title of Catholic Majesty ; in spite of the wide cleft
between the princely hierarchy and the plain parish
priests, both professed and practised obedience to the
Roman See ; and in spite of the extreme divergence be
tween Ultramontanes and Gallicans, the powers of
church and state were so closely identified as to present
a wall of almost impregnable defence against dissent or
heresy. This alliance made no pretence of mildness ;
the sword of spiritual and temporal authority was one,
and it was literally a sword. In an age of faith, excom
munication, entire or partial, ecclesiastical or social, is
a deadly weapon; the church used it without stint for
the state, as the state put its police system without
reserve at the service of the church. To be orthodox
was to be a patriot ; to be a heretic, Protestant, philoso
pher, or Jansenist, ^was to be so far a traitor. Thus
thousands upon thousancTs"were terrorized into silence
and compliance; thus throngs of the truest and wisest
were sent into exile; thus the dungeons were packed,
the headsmen kept busy ; and thus the scores of torture
chambers, with their hideous apparatus of rack, boot,
thumbscrew, and furnace, were guarded by the state
19

20 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
through its soldiery, while the vaults of those hells on
earth resounded with the groans of victims, no less
pitiful because they were drowned in the minatory
psalmody of monks and priests.
It requires the free play of a well-trained historic
imagination to apprehend the horrors of that despotic
infamy which as so constituted Voltaire insisted should
be crushed out. The latest agreement nominally in
force between the Pope and the King of France was
the Bologna Concordat of 1516 (Francis I. and^Leo
'XT^T-wEich, as has been explamed^J^lancefLsiJ--e_Yenly
tne powers of chuTclT~aTrd~~state that the latter was
scarceIyI3]^tiHguishaHelirr.ifiJauthority from, the for
mer. Wise men within the hierarchy fretted and chafed
without ceasing under the bonds of a control from
beyond the Alps, and it was Bossuet himself who led
what is variously styled the Cismontane, national, or
Gallican movement of 1682, an_agitatjon ^ which .mate
rially enlarged the kingls_jdght^_jn__eixlesiastical af
fairs {regale). This position of semi-independence
was, however, abandoned almost at once by Louis
XIV. in his dealings with Innocent XI. during 1693,
and thenceforward the teqiporal influence of the
Vatican steadily increased in scope, and to the detri
ment of the secular power, until in 1764 the Jesuits
we^jmpjMxssgji in France as within a short period
they likewise were elsewhere throughout Europe.
Their fall was precipitated largely by the decrepitude
of the order, which had tumbled into the pit digged for
its enemies. In Portugal it meddled with politics, and
was banished by Pombal ; in France it threw itself into
financial speculation, and the ruin it brought on itself
by doubtful money operations in Martinique carried
many great banking-houses down with it and brought
on a panic. In other Catholic lands it was suspected

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 21
both of political meddling and financial trickery.
Final destruction overtook the Jesuits through the re
action due to Clement XIII.'s arrogance. He dared
to excommunicate and depose the Duke of Parma,
feeblest of many foes; for limiting the validity of the
papal rescripts within his duchy. Such was the gen
eral bitterness throughout Catholic Europe that in
J773 Clement XIV. issued the brief abolishing the So
ciety ot Jesus iii "Rome. Frederick the Great and
Catherine of Russia gave asylum to the exiled Jesuits.
The former declared them the best of all the priests;
the latter thought she could use them as political emis
saries. The effort to revive Hildebrand's preposter
ous claims thus failed, but in France, at least, there
was still left under the absolute control of Rome the
question of inducting into their sees bishops appointed
by the crown. This was really the nucleus of the
whole matter. A bishop of the old monarchy in
France was well-nigh a reproduction of the great feu
datories known to Philip Augustus and Louis XI. ; he
was a person of enormous influence. Not without
reason, he was defined to be a great gentleman^ith_a
hundred thousand livres of income.
The overthrow ot the jesuitsTn France was speedily
followed by that of the Jansenists. The latter fell
into a disrepute well deserved. They had degener
ated into mysticsaiidjrnrack-mong^r
feeble religious-activity— .extended. But their true
vigor was still in evidence by the vigilance and vir
tue of the parlements. Pompadour and her minister
Choiseul had measurably favored Voltaire and the
Physiocrats; they saw in the parlements a means of
postponing the deluge predicted by the besotted king.
But when Pompadour died, and the vulgar Du Barry
reigned in her stead, there came a swift reaction, and

22 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Choiseul was disgraced in 1771. Philosophers, poets,
wits, lawyers, reformers of all degrees were thrown
out of court and the parlement of Paris was abol
ished, remaining in atrophy until Louis XVI., in de
spair, recalled its members and' reestablished its or
ganization. France was amazed, but the anarchistic
atheists saw another prop of society fall in the over
throw of the lawyers ; they jeered at this new discom
fiture, and nothing was done. Jesuitry and Jansenism
were both ended in France, and in appearance two
warring factions no longer disturbed the ecclesiastical
peace. The men themselves remained, however, and
carried on their work as best they could. The organic
church lost the aid ofbo^hJ[e^uils--and_JariS£nisis^_and
wtthuut ~aiiy"~adequate intellectual power to guide it,
was compelled to face its destiny.
Si Tbe-fi^st-elejii£iit_of Voltaire's Infdme was the privi
lege, of a corrupt rhnrrh. T^ejandedjmdjcsied^stefes
of the Roman hierarchy in France in his day amounted
in capital to about ten mil Hards of livres, say about two
thousand millions of our money, and the income, in
cluding the tithes, though most disproportionate to the
capital according to ideas then prevalent, and^ ridicu
lously small according to modern expectations, was
still a hundred and forty millions, say about twenty-
five millions of dollars, with a purchasing power at
| least threefold what that sum would have to-day. The
total of the clergy, including monks and nuns, was
over fomiJaundre^_jhousarid^in^262» having dimin
ished by 1789 to something more than a quarter of a
million. These non-producing recipients of the vast
ecclesiastical incomes were actually about one hun
dredth of the population — a monstrous incongruity;
and yet, in spite of the ever-diminishing numbers, they
'continued to consumea filth of 'the total revenues of

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 23
the entire country, a shocking and patent dispropor
tion. Had they paid the secular charges, both those
still legal in 1789 and those for which step by step they
had received dispensation, which alike should have
been collected from their estates and revenues during
the eighty years of the century antecedent to the out-
breakHof the Revolution, their just contributions would
have given a total of more than a thousand million
dollars, and have made the bankrupt monarchy rich.
Such were the numbers of human beings within the
limits of France, and such the sums of money accumu
lated either by genuine piety or by clever extortion
which were, to say the least, quite as much under the
authority of a foreign potentate as within the jurisdic
tion of the native prince.1
The use which this numerous and wealthy corpora
tion, within the state but not under state authority,
made of its enormous power was a sorry one and mat
ter of common knowledge. During the days of its
wholesome, uncontaminated vigor, the church among
its most important functions performed that of
almoner to the poor; it was the organized charities'
association of medievalism. It differed, however,
radically from what we understand by that term, for
with its enforced collections it granted divine grace,
and with its free gifts it dispensed human sympathy
and religious consolation.
But the emoluments of the church gradually became
1 These estimates are based Boiteau. For the original doc-
upon the figures given by con- uments and an excellent re-
temporaries of the highest sume, see Robinet, Mouvement
character: Dupont de Ne- Religieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I.
mours, Chasset, Polverd, and 209 et seq. There has been
others. They do not differ ma- acrimonious debate on the ques-
terially from those determined tion, which continues and seems
by the ablest modern writers, likely to be interminable.
C. Leouzon-Leduc and Paul

24 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
a prey to unworthy men; the court rewarded its crea
tures by the grant of ecclesiastical benefices, the ap
pointment to livings fell into the hands of men without
faith or respect for faith. The ranks of the clergy
were gorged with men indifferent to every ecclesias
tical interest except the selfish enjoyment of church
revenues. Not less than seven£g_p££_££gt. of the mon
asteries in France were ^ornmencTamsj— that is, held by
some courtier, either ecclesiastical or secular, who
performed none of the abbot's duties, but used the reve
nues for his own behoof! The secular organization
of the church had thus become utterly recreant to the
sacred trust of the poor, in a measure because of the
neglect, or, worse, of the priestly hierarchy, but like
wise because a new state of society had succeeded to
the old one, in which all the conditions were changed,
in which neither laity nor clergy held the_old view-s~oiL_
social relations, and in-mhich old methods were worth-

jess. While the church retained all the sources of
supply for charity, the collections and the bequests, the
foundations and the income derived from them — these
moneys did not even measurably reach those for whom
they were intended. Secular opinion now recognized
the validity of a new and revolutionary principle —
that beneficent use is the essential condition of owner
ship — and demanded, in the name of public utility,
that the state should expropriate the clergy_and_seize
the_charitable~endowments. The result of the agita
tion iproveffTMrTilFclergy had no valid counter-plea,
and when, in 1789, the crisis came, to an unexpected
extent they themselves assented to the justice of expro
priating their corporate possessions.
A_fifth_pf the soil of France belonged in 1789 to the
royal domain and to the public domains of the com
munes, a fifth to the burghers or third estate, a .fifth

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 25
to the peasants or country people, a fifth to the church,
and a fifth to the nobles. Hence, in addition to own
ing palaces, chateaux, convents, cathedrals, and the
richest chattels, such as pictures, gems, artistic furni
ture, and the like, the three privileged estates — viz.,
the crown, the nobles, and the great ecclesiastics, to
wit, the bishops, commendatory abbots, and the chap
ters — had in their possession half the landed property
of_the state. Of these privileged orders that of the
higher clergy was the most distinct and the richest.
Accordingly, the second element of the national infamy
was the ecclesiastical in another form, being, however,
moral rather than financial. It was rendered possible,
nevertheless, only by the malversation of ill-gotten
funds. This j^as^he_grj3ss_jwo£WHness of nearly all
the higher clergy.
' Exercising its vast secular authority by treaty with
the crown, the church furnished to the crown a class
of courtiexs which distinguished itself above all others
in the qualities considered most vicious even by the
crowds which haunted the antechambers of the king.
Cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, or abbots, all alike
were not merely well educated, they were accomplished
to the highest degree in the manners and mannerisms
of court life. At every juncture of affairs they in
sinuated themselves by their charm and adroitness, as
well as by the ecclesiastical authority which they
wielded, into the royal closet, and, catching the mon
arch's ear, secured a double privilege — that of their
own order together with that of the affiliated and re
lated society of the aristocrats.
The last and least care of the higher clergy was for
the parish priests or the masses of the population.
They donned for the conflict of wits an armor of out
ward form and splendid ceremony ; they became ,casuis-^

26 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
tic, ritualistic, and formalistic to the extreme, setting
beauty above faith, tradition above reason, prescription
above conviction, form above content in all higher re
lations of man. They were as frivolous and vain as
Voltaire himself, and often as atheistical ; but when they
entered the lists with him to control the use and power
of form in a nation and an age devoted to form he
routed them utterly. He was superficial in his criti-
cism, he was a tardy imitator, of _t.he English deists,
he was ill informed as to historical truth, but he was
downright in earnest, and, above all, he was the su
preme master of style.1 Thus when ecclesiasticism
threwaway its weapons of pure religion and impera
tive morals to fence with the foils of diction, state, or
fashion, it was predestined to utter destruction at the
hands of one who was almost superhuman in the mas
tery of all three. It fought with his own weapons, and
he was the mightier fiend. The tilting amused many
of the frivolous, but it disgusted most of the wise and
good. The lampoon is harmless when directed against
the innocent and true, but it shatters pretence and
sham. But the organized and militant orthodoxy of Rome
was guilty of a scandalous and shocking infamy in its
intolerant and persecuting spirit. The three most fa
miliar and notorious cases are those of Calas, Sirven,
and Labarre.2 These are the classical instances, because
they were particularly the cause of Voltaire's fiery in
dignation. John Calas was a highly respected mer-
*It is an interesting com- March, 1761, Moland's edition.
mentary on the nature and Tome XLI. 251.
quality of Voltaire's mind that 2 For a full account of these
he could find nothing worth notorious and shocking infa-
while in Dante; he stigmatized mies, see Desnoiresterres, Vol-
the Italian poet's imaginings as taire et J. J. Rousseau, pp. 407
stupidly extravagant and bar- et seqq.
barous! Voltaire to Bettinelli,

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 27
chant of Toulouse, noted in the community for his pub
lic and domestic virtues. Being a Protestant, he had
no standing before the law, for after the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes all Protestants were technically
considered as Roman converts. Calas had, to the best
of his ability, trained his numerous family in his own
faith; one of his sons, however, became a Catholic.
Another wished yet feared to do likewise. He became
a gloomy, dissipated man, and ended his sad career
by suicide. The sire, then in his sixty-fourth year
of unblemished life, was almost at once charged with
murder, the motive assigned being that the young
man had desired to embrace the Roman faith. Popu
lar fanaticism was easily aroused to fury, especially
when the Dominicans erected a catafalque and dis
played thereon the skeleton of young Calas. The un
happy father was condemned by the parlement of
Toulouse with the formality of a trial, and publicly
executed by the exquisite torture of the wheel. This
was in March, 1762; the widow fled to Voltaire at
Ferney, and at once the fearless old man began the
agitation which resulted in the appointment of a spe
cial court and the reversal, all too late, of the iniqui
tous sentence.
Pierre Paul Sirven was a Protestant notary of Cas-
tros. His eldest daughter was seized in her home, on
an order of the bishop, and sent to a nunnery, where,
under the efforts to convert her, she became insane. In
that condition she was returned to her family. Their
care in shielding the unfortunate was falsely inter
preted into persecution of a new Roman convert. Ac
quitted by repeated official investigations, the sorrow
ing parents redoubled their cares, but the girl escaped
and drowned herself. Father and mother both were
at once charged with infanticide. In January, 1762,

28 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the entire family, menaced with worse than death, fled
through winter's snows across the mountains to Swit
zerland. They threw themselves likewise on Voltaire's
protection. Though tried in absence and executed in
effigy, they too were acquitted by the pleadings of his
caustic pen, not merely at the bar of public opinion,
for in their case too the sentence of the same parlement
of Toulouse was reversed. "Fancy, fancy," wrote the
sage of Ferney, "fancy four sheep accused by a butcher
of having devoured a lamb !"
These two cases are fair samples of how the state,
under the intolerant stimulus of the church, had tor
tured and shamed such Protestants as either dared or
were forced to remain in France after the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes and the death of Colbert. __ The
whole shocking procedure of exterminating dissent was
supported in the name either of the police or of poli
tics, from fear lest Protestantism should increase and
menace the throne. Bossuet 1 gave the perfect exposi
tion of the method whereby, withdrawn from all re
striction of Rome, ecclesiastical and imperial, church
.and state may combine perfectly to enslave France.
I The king absorbs all temporal power and property, but
gives his treasure and sword to extirpate heresy. It
was this very principle, with the necessary changes,
which, soon after, the radicals sought to use in monop
olizing everything for the secular power. In the case
of the monarchy, as all the facts prove, the funds of
the church went to swell the benevolences paid to the
king just in proportion as persecution by the royal
authority grew more and more severe.
But the case of Labarre had nothing to do with the
attempted identification of Protestants with criminals
or traitors. It was an exhibition of the fierce vindic-
1 See the Politique tiree de l'Ecriture Sainte.

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 29
tiveness with which Mother Church treated mere
naughtiness in her own faithful children. As such it
had much to do with bringing the sore of revolutionary
feeling to a head. Labarre was a chivalrous, careless
boy of nineteen, who had been raised by his aunt, the
abbess of Villaincourt. The attractions of the latter
were noted by a worthless old rascal whose addresses
were disdainfully repulsed by both aunt and nephew.
Brooding on revenge, the hoary scoundrel learned that
the boy with a friend had failed to salute the host when
carried in procession through the streets, and as almost
simultaneously a great crucifix on the Pont Neuf of
Abbeville was one morning found mutilated, he insinu
ated that young men who could pass the host with in
difference might well be guilty of the other sacrilege.
He likewise learned, through informers, that Labarre,
while in his cups, had spoken scurrilously of Mary
Magdalen. This was enough ; the court would show no
mercy to the waywardness of youth. The boy frankly
admitted a drinking-song referring to the saint before
conversion, confessed the carelessness of his omission
to salute the host, but utterly denied the sacrilege to
the crucifix, and this was not proved or even indicated
by witnesses. Yet he was sentenced to the rackjuntil
he should confess and name his a^compTi^IlfnsTongue
was then to be cut out, or, if not extended, torn out with
pincers ; his right hand was to be cut off and nailed to
the church door ; he was then to be burned at the stake
by a slow fire. This ghastly sentence, pronounced on
February 28, 1766, was based on chansons abominables
et execrables. An appeal was taken to Paris and sup
ported by the ablest lawyers of France, but of the
twenty-five judges before whom it was argued, fifteen
rejected it, "led by political considerations" — in other
words, intimidated by the clergy, as was well under-

30 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
stood. These politico-spiritual judges, however, modi
fied the sentence in so far as to have the martyr
beheaded before he was burned. Voltaire now dis
played all his resources, but the sentence was exe
cuted. The philosopher's defeat was the victory of his
cause. Men did not forget what he solemnly asserted,
that "a drinking-song is, after all, only a song; hu
man blood lightly spilt, torture, the penalty of a tongue
torn out, of a maimed hand, of a body thrown to
the flames — these are the things abominables et exe
crable s."
Public opinion was momentarily overawed by these
horrid cruelties, and the process of exterminating her
esy continued throughout the reign of Louis XV.
[There was for the dissenter or the suspect no freedom
of sp«erAprrerrigrj1ro"f public meeting, no ceremony of
/marriage or celebration of funeral rites^ no recognition
of 'the commonest rights of the subject, except under
special favor of the church, until after the accession
of Louis XVI. Banishment, fines, imprisonment,
every form of disgrace and sorrow, were the portion of
all who shrank before the infamous tyranny exercised
by the union of secular with ecclesiastical authority.
It was not until the ministry of Calonne, at the time
of the assembly of notables, that the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes was disavowed and true tolerance de
clared. The edict of toleranre was isja4f^k-y--the„kir]g
in November, 1787 ; its conception was due to Turgot,
its" f ormm*aTionand support to Rabaud St. Etienne,
Malesherbes, Voltaire, and Condorcet. Lomenie de
Brienne had the honor of presenting it to the king. A
year later the States-General met. The delegates of the
church were instructed to demand a revision of the
edict. There was no reparation ; there was only a ces-

VOLTAIRE'S INDICTMENT 31
sation of scandal, which in such a temper of the clergy
could not long endure. The flower of French life, ar
tisans, manufacturers, aristocrats of birth and ability,
had found refuge in other lands, and they had no in
ducement to return, for there was no change of heart in
the ecclesiastical organization.

Ill
THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION

Ill
the system of oppression
THE three great principles of that organic union
between church" ^ands'tate in_ France which
brought disaster on both were, therefore, the vigilant
and ubiquitous tyraimyixeated Jay a wilful confusion
of temporal with spiritual power^-me monstrous wealth
of the prelacy and its manifest abuses, the persecuting
zeal of the combined powers of church and state.
These three elements, as we have tried to explain,
working in unison, produced the terrible fury personi
fied by Voltaire as "The infamous woman," a phrase
reminiscent apparently of "The scarlet woman." 1
Could there be any true life, religious, moral, or intel
lectual, under such a three-ply cloak of infamy as this
fury had forced on France ? The stern answer is, No.
It is no wonder that the one grim, determined resolu
tion of strong and thoughtful men was for what they
understood to be liberty.
Liberty was in no sense, not even the most restricted,
to be found in this unhallowed alliance; nor could it
have been in either church or state separately, even
1 "To the crosier
The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it,
Because being joined one feareth not the other."
Longfellow's "Dante: 'Purgatorio,' " xvi., 106-112.
35

36 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
though it had been possible by any effort to divorce
them. It was not liberty to be seized under the un
controlled warrant of the king at the behest of eccle
siastical courtiers and imprisoned in the Bastille, miti
gated as was the confinement by courtesy and even
luxury of treatment; it was not liberty to be falsely
accused of murder, under charges formulated by
monks, and broken on the wheel; to be deprived by
force of money and goods under the name of a loan to
the king; least of all was it liberty to be subjected,
under the pain of anathema enforced by the police sys
tem of the state, to all the various and distinct forms of
extortion wielded by the hands of the Roman Church,
no less than forty-seven in number.
These last are of course a most important article in
the bill of indictment; they may be found carefully
enumerated in a volume published at Paris in 1790.1
Some of them are purely secular and may be reckoned
as returns for immunities from exactions by ecclesi
astical feudalism; some are forcible usurpations by
church corporations, continued until finally guaran
teed by the sanction of immemorial custom; the major
ity are systematic demands for sums graded according
to degrees of fear, either for this life or that to come ;
many, alas ! are of a type too debased and savage to be
named, connected as they are with the abuse of Chris
tian marriage evefflo the combined sacrilege and besti
ality of ser-e^rrrf^-Trrysticdl union wiLh~€hTisE NcTef-
fectual attempt has ever been made to destroy Rozet's
credibility. He lived in the very epoch to whose dark
superstitions he bore witness.
Nor did liberty as a cause find a sure refuge among
French Protestants, Calvinistic or Lutheran. The
QRoze>; Veritable Origine des given in Robinet, Mouvement
BieTTSjEcclesiastiques. Text Religieux a Paris, I. 204.

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 37
most inexplicable phenomenon of modern and even of
contemporary French life has been the persistent, bitter
hatred felt by the masses of the nation for the Protest
ants of France. Many causes conspire to produce it,
and of these some are valid, or at least evident enough.
There is tradition, a mournful heritage from the reigns
of Louis XIV. and XV. There is race antipathy, for
large numbers of those who have adhered to the Pro
testant communion in France are of Swiss and Alsatian
origin. There is the difference of genius, for the
Roman Catholic is easy-going and imaginative, yet
home-keeping and hoarding, while his Protestant bro
ther, though thrifty, strenuous, and grave, wanders into
all the earth and risks his savings in commerce for the
sake'of^gain." The former, it is doubtfully claimed,
begets~~tKe~two-child family : it is certain that in gen
eral the latter has his quiver full. While this charge
could scarcely be established except possibly in the
great towns, it is true that the Protestant man is born
to public affairs and exerts powerful influence in the
state; the Catholic, conversely, seems to have only
local interests and little genius for great organizations.
Yet these are not sufficient reasons for the sustained
and bitter animosity which is a lamentable feature
of French life. The main cause lies in the mediating
attitude of Protestantism to the Revolution, an attitude
which unites Radicals and Catholics in their detestation
of those who held it.
The secular conflict with England seemed for the
mass of Frenchmen to draw the sharp line of demar
cation between French patriots and all Protestants ; the
great French Protestant statesmen of the old regime
leaned in their ideals toward a commonwealth which
was at least as aristocratic as their Presbyterian form
of church government, and the Catholic king therefore

38 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
waged relentless warfare on_ them as hostile in politics
tcTabsolutismT The right of priy^te_4udgmsnt was
revolutionary both to abjolutism^and__GaihQlicisni,
while the firm belief in God was prohibitory to every
form of the rationalism invoked by the Revolution in
its extreme form. If the king and the bishop were ter
rible in their self-defence, the societies of the Red-
Crests (Huppes-Rouges) and Black-Throats (Gorges-
Noires), which were Protestant in their origin, met
infamy with infamy, and left in their path throughout
southern France a record of shocking inhumanity and
abominable massacre comparable with the excesses of
the Red and White Terrors in the centre and north of
the country.1 The age destroyed moderation and tol
erance in religion even among many who had them
selves suffered shamefully from their absence in others.
The martyrs were as intemperate and fanatical as their
persecutors. Among neither class was it possible to
form a nidus receptive of either moderate Catholicism
or reasonable Protestantism ; and in an age of fire and
sword, wisdom could not make its voice heard.
Still another element in the working of Voltaire's
infamous system, typically represented by himself as
by no other man, was what has been called and in a
sense isjhejdassical tendency or spirit. The enormous
strides of natural and experimental "science led to the
determined effort, not yet abandoned, to„ apply— taJiu-
manjmd divine scienc£jJie_samepr analogous methods.
These efforts produced the scoffing~ph"ilosophers, a"
small school at best, but one whose influence could not
be measured by the numbers of its adherents. Their
stronghold was the inherited classical spirit which has
saturated the French from the beginning. In the
Greek and Roman world the individual, body, mind,
1 Robinet, Mouvement Religieux a Paris, I. 311.

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 39
and soul, had no place in reference to the State. It
was' only as a memBer-uf family, "gensTcuria, phratry,
or deme, and tribe, that the ancient city-state knew the
men and women which composed it. The same was
true of knowledge: every sensation, perception, and
judgment fell into the category of some abstraction,
and instead of concrete things men knew nothing but
generalized ideals.
This substitution of gubjective for concrete thinking
was the Roman heritage bequeathed to Gaul and to
France; Christianity has never rooted it out. To-day
it banefully asserts itself in all the political and institu
tional life of the country. The science of human prog
ress in France knows nothing of perfecting the individ
ual man for the sake of a nobler public opinion and life ;
but as a pure mathematic its units are abstracted, per
fectible humanities, shorn of personality, reduced to
the lowest norm of inclusive homogeneity, and by com
binations of these unrealities, forsooth, in the ideal in
stitutions set forth by constitutions society is to be
regenerated, progress furthered, and a monstrous,
inhuman, complete automaton substituted for man!
This was, as it remains, the inherent vice of what in
this respect we call by their self-adopted name of Latin
nations. In such a system even justice is abstract; and
if concrete personal security be refused to each man
how much more vague are the obligations of true re
ligion, which knows no organization of human units
church, state, or family, in relation to God, but only
regards the individual soul to be saved, recognizing the
three holy orders of church, state, and family, not!
as ends but as means ! j
This classical feeling was what gave form to every j
piece of institutional, philosophic, or religious raiment
donned by France. Let each of us put on what he

40 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
may, the familiar wrinkles and the troublesome hitch
will assert themselves in due time, in spite of all the tail
or's art, and the constant strain will distort our garment
into familiar shapes, do what we will. This is due
to what we call nature, and classicism has ever been
the nature of France. This distortion is easily dis
cernible in the way she treated the whole philosophy
of emancipation and liberty. The grievances were
real enough and terrible; the remedy sought was ideal
and unhistorical ; and they called this phantasm by
the sacred name of liberty ! Liberty is a thing which
in its very essence is concrete, personal, spiritual, indi
vidual ; dependent on the historic evolution of man,
not socially alone and in the relation to human organi
zation, but on his attitude of restraint toward God and
himself and on the moral order of all authority in
refraining as in compelling. To the French mind
liberty__was either license under a hypothetical law
ofnature^or political equality under politicalTyrariny ;
inSio sense was it the personal InHependence, compat
ible with legal and moral rights and guaranteed by a
forbearing and enlightened public opinion, which is the
resultant of righteousness in the persons forming so
ciety. This Latin concept of liberty was the poison
to be injected into the veins of the body politic as an
antidote to the poison of the prevalent infamy; organ
ized and tyrannical secularism was to destroy organ
ized and despotic ecclesiasticism, monarchical absolut
ism was to make way for democratic absolutism. The
latter was the device of Rousseau, it was his passion
and his fire which entered the soul of France and so
moulded, alas ! the whole Revolution.
In this way the habits of the French mind lent them
selves to the spread of radicalism; similarly they lent
themselves to influences of another kind which radiated
from the lives of the higher clergy. Just as the radicals

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 41
by the force of their public virtue sent the flame of their
scorn broadcast over France, so the latter consumed
all that was good in their cause by the scandals of their
private lives. We have the testimony of Mirabeau,1
the cautious and true reformer; of De Maistre,2 the
Ultramontane but sincere and truthful ecclesiastic; of
Montalembert,3 the authoritative historian; we have
the pamphlets of the sufferers who cried to Heaven in
outraged violence;4 we have the confessions of the
clergy themselves in their most solemn utterances, as to
the awful abuses and scandals prevalent and unchecked
among them.5 We know, not in part but fully, of their
sexual immorality, of their unprincipled self-indulgence
in luxury, of their blasphemous impiety. The affair
of the diamond necklace is incomprehensible to the
student who does not understand that the violent out
burst of public opinion which it caused was owing to
the fact that men saw in Cardinal Rohan a typical eccle
siastic willing to storm even the queen's chamber in
the gratification of his lust.6
Yet there was leaven in the lump and salt that had
1 In his speech of 26th No- Hildebrand onward. The lives
vember, 1790. of the clergy form the satirist's
2 Considerations sur la theme — Boccaccio,Rabelais, and
France, Lausanne, 1796. Montaigne, Bayle, Voltaire, and
8 Les Moines d'Occident. Diderot were all scathing in
4 Chassin, Les Elections et les their denunciations and ruth-
Cahiers de Paris en 1789. Ar- less in their scorn. Their ef-
chives Parlementaires, I.-VII. forts were not without effect.
See likewise the testimony of But there had been ever-recur-
Proyart, Dorsanne, Montgail- ring relapses, and the general
lard, and Desforges, themselves conditions were no better in
priests; the original words are 1789 than they were at the
given in Wallon, Le Clerge de worst. See Darimajou, La
'89, p. 493.- Chastite du Clerge devoilee,
6L. de Poncins, Les Cahiers etc., Rome, 1790. Dulavre, Vie
de '89, pp. 159 et seqq. privee des Ecclesiastiques, Par-
6 It is well known that the is, 1790. Manuel, La Police
corruption of the clergy and de Paris devoilee, Paris, 1792.
the corresponding efforts at re- These sources are quoted in
form were the highest care of Robinet, I. in.
the church from the days of

42 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
not lost its savor. While beneath the outward de
corum of the hierarchical clergy there prevailed such
indifference and vice, while the monasteries were nests
of corruption and bawdry, the parochial clergy, separ
ated from both by an impassable gulf, exemplified the
highest virtues of their class. There were good and
capable bishops, perhaps a hundred and twenty, which
would be the majority; there were a few uncorrupted
abbots and conventual chapters, a pitiful minority; but
there were fifty thousand honest, laborious priests, ear
nest in the care of souls, who were illustrious for the
purity of their lives and their faithful performance of
duty. Nominally they were supported by the tithes ; in
reality a high official (gros decimateur) took the enor
mous sums to which reference has been made and doled
out to each a petty, insufficient stipend (portion con-
grue) — about a hundred and fifty dollars a year; since
they were illegally deprived, not only of all chance for
advancement buteven of seats in the church assemblies,
they had no opportunity tointroduce any Jjejo-on-into-
the system. This was the body of men which at the
outset, by a considerable majority, cast in its fortunes
with the Revolution. There was no redress from their
haughty superiors, no money from the vast ecclesias
tical temporalities wherewith to relieve the poor or for
parish expenses, no means for any purpose, in short,
except for the scandalous luxury of pluralist dig
nitaries. Beside this practical common-sense virtue of fifty
thousand plain men, in daily contact with about nine
millions of other plain men, there remained, as we have
noted in another connection, among the thoughtful
Catholics a very substantial number of Jansenists, men
saturated with Augustinian theology, bitterly hostile to
Ultramontane pretensions, grim in- their fixed resolu-

THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 43
tion to overthrow the infamous alliance of Rome with
France. The constitution "Unigenitus" (1713) hay
ing split the Gallican Church into two warring factions,
even the crown XEouis XV.) could not enforce it, for
his judiciary (parlements) unexpectedly arrayed itself
against him iii" vindicating the majesty of the law.
After an embittered struggle of sixty years the extreme
step of abolishing the parlements was taken, as we have
said, in 1772 (the Jesuits were expelled a year later),
and new tribunals (conseils superieurs) were created.
Thus was arrayed against absolutism and ecclesiasti-
cism all the Jansenist influence, all the animosity of the
powerful lawyer class, all the statesmen concerned to
find some working compromise, and the vast number of
their families, adherents, and dependents. A moment's
thought suggests the powerful Jansenist families of
Arnauld, Le Maitre, Domat, and others, as identified
in feeling and interest with the gens du robe, and
among the statesmen it suffices to mention as typical
instances the influential connections of men like Tur
got, Necker, Calonne, Lomenie de Brienne, and La-
moignon de Malesherbes. This combination of re
formers could count among the representatives of the
Third Estate chosen in 1789 no fewer than two hun
dred and twelve adherents. A sufficiently homoge
neous company themselves, they consorted at once
with another which at first glance appears altogether
heterogeneous, composed of sceptics, Gallicans, and
the parochial clergy. To this motley company flocked
fanatics of every species. All these were determined
to overthrow the feudal status of the church, to de
prive the Pope of his power of instituting the higher
clergy, to secure the broadest" toleration, "and to' sweep
away" all the vast temporalities~of the church, which
were thTone supp!y~oT religious degradation.

44 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Among these, as among all the thinkers of the. eight
eenth century, there was, as we have elsewhere re
marked, not a single convinced republican, much less was
there before 1 792 ' a'TxTdy ot men willing to be called
republicans and act together as a political force. But
there were men in large numbers who were convinced
that the character of the monarchy must be radically
changed"! Voltaire^ in at'tacking'ecclesiasticism, eman-
cipafecT thought, and almost the first free thought of
French patriots was that Roman inflnpnre, as the basis
of the monarchy must be undermined and abolished.
i Criticizing the claim of divine right historically, they
concluded that the king was not above, but subject to
the laws. With this in mind, they examined the his
tories of the more or less popular commonwealths of
Europe sympathetically, and found many republican
institutions which could profitably be engrafted on a
monarchy, provided only it were not ecclesiastical, but
secular and national. Yet whatever the various de
grees of republican sympathy to be found in Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Rousseau, Mably, D'Argenson, and the
great mass of legists, physiocrats, and philosophers,
they were one and all dominated by the conviction that
while democracy might serve small communities, and
aristocracy those of larger size, for a great homo
geneous nation there could be only one possible form
of government — monarchy in some shape. France, in
particular, had no hope for its emancipation under
equal laws and institutions, except by the leadership of
a king. More than ever under a renovated monarchy
the ardent French could cry: "One Faith, one King,
one Law."
"Tt is difficult to distinguish the elements of that em
bittered hostility to the church which is in evidence
from the opening of the Revolution. Thus far it seems

\
THE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION 45
clear that several conclusions may be accepted as cap
ital facts. In the first place, just as the infamous
system of governmental control confounded temporal
with spiritual functions, the attacks of the discontented
were aimed at the existing Ultramontane church as
being not so much the prop as the very foundation of
the monarchy. Secondly, the moderate men of the
upper and middle classes, having long cooperated in
the resistance to a monarchy struggling to act with
out the parlements, were equally zealous for _a_republi-
can monarchy willing to base itself_on the parlements
and act only by their cooperation and assistance. A
third vital consideration is that the historic. spirit. was
awake ; the parlements claimed to be the legitimate suc
cessors, hrstpof the Merovingian Parlementa_or_As-
sernBTies, then of the national gathenngsunder Charle-
"Tnagrlg^and lastly of the medkevaj_estatfis. It was by
the use of these claims that tHeyTbraved the crown when
yielding to Roman influences, forced the unwilling
clergy to administer the sacraments to Jansenists, de
nounced the kjrigls_prjncirjles as despotic, and made
their own assent or dissent determinative of the na
tional credit when indispensable loans were sought by
the crown.2
It is excessively difficult to realize what a small pro
portion of the nation either understood such matters or
was even in the slightest degree concerned about them.
In all probability not more than a tithe even dreamed
1 Charles the Great was sup- For an opinion of their nature
posed even by the intelligent of and value, see La Republique
the times to have been a liberal Franchise, XXXIII. 349 and
monarch reigning by a Teu- 455- Caree, author of the ar-
tonic constitution, a false con- tides, discusses the career of
ceit of which France has never Du Val d'Epremesml, and in-
rid herself. cidentally exhibits the use of
1 For an enumeration of these grievances by a leader of
grievances, see Flammermont, opposition.
Remontrances, etc., II. 447-

46 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
of dangers, much less of their remedies. It is not won
derful, therefore, that the reformers of the first stage in
the Revolution (censitaires, or payers of taxes, especially
those from land) dreamed of a burgher monarchy lim
ited by parlements, of a very restricted suffrage, and
of a national assembly representing what was still a
minority of intelligence, of modification rather than
abolition of privilege. It is perfectly natural that,
whatever their motives, they hated and despised the
?Roman Church as central to the old absolute system, as
its bulwark, its rock of defence. They never dreamed
of Rousseau's democratic tyranny as realizable in a
great state. But the masses had no such ideas; they
were unobservant and habitually faithful, believed and
obeyed by routine ; suffered and complained, but kissed
the rod, and considered the ironclad regulations of fees
and formalities regarding baptisms, marriages, and
funerals that were made and enforced by the church
as the rough places on the otherwise easy road heaven
ward. They could scarcely distinguish the secular
from the spiritual administration, for on the latter de
pended the question of legitimacy and so of property
succession, real or personal; this, after all, was their
chief concern, for their lives moved within limitations
that included little more than the essentials.

IV
ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY

IV
ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY
THE destruction of the Bastille was an act whose
motives were very complex. As has so often
been stated and repeated, it did stand in the minds of
many as a reminder of hated mediaeval institutions ; it
was a fortress in the hands of absolutism, antiquated to
be sure, but yet a fortress and capable of great execu
tion against unarmed people ; it was a prison to which
men were sent, without process of law, by the arbitrary
whim of a prince, a luxurious and well-bred jail, but
still a jail; the associations of most men with the
name and thing were profoundly unpleasant and dis
agreeable. Yet, primarily, the attack was not caused
by any one or all of these associations ; it was a simple
measure of popular self-defence.
On the fall of Necker, July eleventh, 1789, Paris was
deeply moved ; next day the young lawyer Camille Des-
moulins made his stirring call to the advanced spirits
who used the gardens of the Palais Royal as a club;
there were clashes between the king's mercenaries and
the inoffensive but curious burghers on the streets ; the
populace took alarm, seized the arsenals, and assumed
the defensive. At Versailles the National Assembly
declared itself in permanence, applauded the liberal
sentiments 1 of its members, and enthusiastically ex-
1 For example, the cry of archy for France, not France
Mounier : "We love the mon- for the monarchy."
.49

So TFIE FRENCH REVOLUTION
pressed sympathy with Necker. Meantime the king
had formed a new cabinet in which the Marshal de
Broglie was Minister of War and commander of the
forces. Since the native French soldiery had for long-
shown itself disorganized and out of sympathy with
the crown, Broglie's main reliance was upon his nu
merous mercenaries, who were well armed, well sup
plied by an effective commissariat, and trustworthy.
The people of Paris found itself between the guns of
the Bastille and those of the royal forces. With
shrewd strategy they preferred to face the antiquated
fortress. There was a bloody storming on the four
teenth, and many of the attacking force lay dead be
fore De Launay, the governor, surrendered. Though
it was probably by mistake, yet he had fired on the
flags of truce sent forward with the people's sum
mons, and likewise on other non-combatants. The
furious populace judged his intentions by his deeds,
and showed him no quarter; having tasted blood, the
armed citizens grew irresponsible, turned into a mob,
and proceeded to further murders and assassinations.
With dizzy rapidity the initial exploit assumed heroic
proportions, and as the tale was told the interpretations
were prophetic.
Leaving aside for remark in another connection the
political and institutional significance of the event, it is
for our present purposes essential to recall that accord
ing to the expanding legend the persons who overthrew
the Bastille understood the significance of their act to
lie in the destruction of a tyrannical system, not merely
in the annihilation of an antiquated, despotic engine;
whatever they may or may not have understood, as a
matter of fact they did not declare war oh the founda
tions of society, least of all upon the church. It was
their instinct and their joy immediately after their vie-

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 51
tory to celebrate solemnly with a Te Deum a thanks
giving service in the great metropolitan cathedral of
Paris.1 In the same way, during the ensuing first
period of the Revolution the national guards conse
crated their banners, buried their dead, and deposited
their votive tablets before the altars of their parish
churches. Preachers expounded contemporary events
as the realization of the gospel, while officials, civil and
military, used the pulpit as a platform ; great political
meetings were continuously held within consecrated
walls, and no person or class felt any sense of inde
corum as attaching to these facts. This general ob
servance of religious forms continued for some years.
The elections and assembling of the States-General
were preceded and followed by masses ; for the famous
night of August fourth, 1789, devout thanksgivings
were poured forth, and in February, 1790, all Paris
took the solemn oath to support the new order. Ca-
mille Desmoulins used the columns of the "Lanterne,"
the most radical of journals, to reiterate the words of
Pope Benedict XIV. that France was the kingdom of
Providence. On June third, 1790, a gorgeous proces
sion, arranged to represent the totality of the nation,
celebrated the festival of the Holy Sacrament.2
When the States-General of France had assembled

1 Proces-verbal des Seances graph is the eighth : "Ecclesias-
et Deliberations de l'Assemblee tical jurisdiction doth in no
Generate des rilecteurs de way extend over temporal; its
Paris, reunis a l'Hotel de Ville outward exercise is controlled
le 14 juillet 1789, redige par by the laws of the state." The
MM. Bailly et Duveyrier, 3 whole cahier is well worth
vols., Paris, 1790, I. 459. Simi- study, and its comparison with
lar services were held else- the civil constitution is most
where. II. US- In Vol. III., enlightening.
p. 96, may be found the ca- 2Robinet, Mouvement Reli-
hier of the third estate of gieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I., pp.
Paris regarding religion. Per- 105-110.
haps the most interesting para-

52 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
on that memorable fourth of May (1789), a day so
smiling, so sunny, so cheerful, the weather corre
sponded to the temper of the nation and of its dele
gates. The French world was full of hope and of
enthusiasm, expecting the abolition of all personal
misery and all intellectual discontent, not by revolution,
but by the prompt adoption of salutary reforms. Dep
uties of the third estate (661), of the nobles (285),
and of the clergy (308) all had their instructions
(cahiers). The enfeebled religious faith of the eight
eenth century was still represented by a general iner
tia which may be called the habit of the soul, all the
stronger because it was a spiritual, not a physical habit.
With this the fierce and eager philosophers of the
"little club" in the Cafe Procope, and the small but
intense minority they represented, dared not rashly
tamper, still less with the Utopian enthusiasm for lofty
institutions and pure administration which animated
the whole of France. The religion of the masses and
the reforming zeal of the working representatives from
three estates alike prevented a theatrical performance
on Easter Day as late as June second, 1791. On July
thirteenth the National Assembly and all the local au
thorities, civil and military, of Paris gathered in Notre
Dame and gave no sign of dissent when the preacher
designated the Revolution as the work of God. Men
still struggled cheerfully to follow the old paths ; they
were sure that if the thorns and briers which choked
them were once removed, society could pursue its
course more easily and satisfactorily along the beaten
tracks than by having recourse to new highways, how
ever straight and broad they were made by the compass
and square of atheistic reason. Moderation and self-
denial were therefore the order of the day. In spite
of her horrid cruelties, the church was throughout the

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 53
land still regarded as a careful mother who, with gra
cious benediction, was holding the hand and steadying
the toddling first footsteps of the nation toward liberty.
This is admitted almost in these very words by Robinet,
the latest historian of the radical school.
What brought about the swift revulsion of feeling?
Why did the Assembly, so moderate in most things,
display first an unintelligent zeal, then a fierce reform
ing spirit, and finally a savage persecuting temper in
its dealing with ecclesiastical affairs ? Considering this
enigma in the large, the answer has already been given :
it was because the thinkers jmd_reIormer.s of France
had come to despise the monarchy for its political fee
bleness, and saw in the churcrTthj^mainstay of a _gov-
ernmental system which was_rapidly_ degrading their
land into a second-rate power. But so far their belief
had remained in the stage of agitation, and action was
impossible because of the conservative instincts of the
burghers and their guides. But now all this was to be
quickly changed. The opportunity was found in the
haughty reactionary temper, which was partly ecclesi
astical, partly prelatical, and which committed the
hierarchy to a policy of stemming completely the move
ment of reforming thought. At every opportunity the
higher clergy exhibited a persistence of reaction in
church matters which made them the conspicuous rep
resentatives of immobility.1
The first thunderbolt of dismay, therefore, which
agitated the moderates and momentarily paralyzed the
enthusiasm of the people did not fall, as might have been
expected, from the lowering, muttering heavens above
the radicals ; it fell from the lofty presumption of the
'For the attitude of the in La Republique Francaise,
clergy toward the Protestants, XXXIII. 134.
see an article by A. Lods

54 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
higher clergy. We have referred to the degradation of
manners, which amounted to unbridled libertinism in
some cases, that so far characterized many of the pre
lates as to obscure the good fame of the rest. An anon
ymous address to the lower clergy, published in 1789,
charged their superiors with being the most degraded
estate of the realm.1 Its influence was enormous.
Composed largely of men from the estate of the nobles,
the prelacy nevertheless abated not a jot from their
characteristic arrogance in the instructions issued by
them with reference to the States-General. Roman
Catholicism was to be maintained as the sole religion
of the nation, to the exclusion of every degree of re
form; to this end the decree of tolerance was to be
revoked, and every form of public education or instruc
tion was to be controlled by the church so as to mould
the life of the people, spiritual, moral, and intellectual.2
The lower clergy then rose in revolt. They reiter
ated their charges of immorality, their complaints both
as to the misuse of the tithes and their own exclusion
from all control in the affairs of the church. The
Jansenists embodied their position of dissent in a sepa
rate paper prepared by them.3 But the struggle of the
parish clergy and of the Jansenists was on the whole
ineffectual. Though they secured representation
1 Reprinted in full by Robi- hiers de Paris. Also Le Genie
net, I. 122. It opens: "Gentle- de la Revolution, II. 182.
'men, the moment has come to 8 The remonstrance of the
break the chains with which Jansenists was written by
episcopal despotism has so long Pierre Brugieres, an official of
fettered you." It demands the the Church of the Holy Inno-
right of meeting, of choosing cents, and afterward constitu-
curates, of representation, of tional rector of St. Paul's. It
distributing the charitable is a pamphlet of a hundred and
funds, and calls for a church twenty-three pages, given in
council. The language is plain Chassin, and entitled Doleances
and cutting. des Eglisiers, Soutaniers ou
2 Chassin, Elections et les Ca- Pretres des Paroisses de Paris.

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 55
among the delegates of the clerical order, the body
of instructions drawn up for the use of the clerical dele
gates remained as it had been — implacable and Ultra
montane. No worship except the mass, this rule to
be enforced by the secular power, and to that end all
dissent to be suppressed by the force of persecution.
There was to be no alienation or diminution of tempo
ralities, no interference with the power of the estate
except to increase it. To the crown was given a limit
as to its misdeeds : it was to surrender its right to the
income of the vacant abbeys. Two final injunctions
looked in a direction different from the rest : no money
subsidies were to be exacted except with the consent
of the order which paid; there was to be no interfer
ence from without in the affairs of any estate or in the
private concerns of the individuals which composed it.
It must not be forgotten that the orders of the
prelacy and the nobility were in a certain very impor
tant sense one and the same. The process of turning
the monasteries into commendams had long been in
operation. By the terms of the Concordat of 15 16 the
king was always to name as abbot a monk of the order
at least twenty-three years old and never a secular or
simple priest. But by coercion and chicane the crown
forced on the monasteries, as the abbacies successively
fell vacant, one favorite after another, secular priests
and even unordained bachelors. The true cause of the
quarrel of Louis XIV. and Innocent XI. was the lat
ter's refusal to install as commendatory abbot the
king's bastard son by Mme. de Montespan in the rich
monasteries of Saint-Germain des Pres and Saint-
Denis. By.1791 there were in France no fewer than
six hundred and forty-seven^ jsuch  commendatory
abBots","" presiding over establishments with revenues
amounting by the official figures to about two million

56 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
dollars, but in fact to three or four times that amount as
money goes to-day. Against many of these the vilest
charges were brought by their own colleagues. There
were abbots who entertained their mistresses and bas
tard children within the convent walls; there were
others who lived in open scandal with the noble abbesses
of neighboring nunneries, and some who turned their
official residences into haunts of vice for the nobility;
in short, so many abbots were so openly reprobate that
a papal bull on the subject was issued, and threats of
suppression were made. Pluralism was almost a ve
nial fault, and was so common as scarcely to excite
remark. The identity of nobles and prelates to such
an extent as existed tended to fill both orders with a
haughty pride and wicked exclusiveness. They made
no secret of the disdain they felt for the secular parish
priesthood, or for the excellent, God-fearing men of
their own profession, men who conscientiously per
formed their duties and lived humbly in the exercise
of their high calling.1
The real temper of the first among the three estates
was therefore proud and unyielding. It matters not
that it likewise demanded the regular assembling of
the estates, the abolition of servitude in France and of
slavery in the colonies, the publicity of treasury ac
counts and of all debates, the equable distribution of
taxation; that the members expressed a willingness to
pay taxes themselves according to their ability, that
they called for the reform of the codes with the puri
fication of the prisons and galleys, that they desired
the redemption of manorial rights and wanted respon
sible ministers in a free legislature — all this, specious
as it is, matters nothing; they carefully withheld any
statement as to the condition of their own purses, sug-
'Robinet, I., p. 116. Wallon, Le Clerge de '89, p. 493.

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 57
gested no reforms in the gross mismanagement of their
own revenues, and would listen to no meddling with
the immunity from legal control which so long had
opened the way to the most grievous abuses.
It is a serious mistake, also, to belittle the importance
of the attack on the Bastille from the purely political
point of view. Throughout France the effects were
everywhere and instantaneously revolutionary; imme
diately, and to outward appearance spontaneously, elec
tive municipal governments were formed to replace the
crown officials; more menacing still, a volunteer mili
tia of national guards was organized, owning allegiance
to these popular authorities only, and numbering ere
long, as Necker estimated, between three and four
millions of men. Simultaneously the country folk far
and near demanded the destruction of those vexatious
charters, dating from feudal times, which contained
the provisions and guarantee of every abominable priv
ilege under which they groaned. This form of land
tenure still exists in England, and is called copyhold.
Ownership is under it conditioned on several forms of
tribute, payable in kind or in labor. Wherever the
privileged possessors in France resisted, their chateaux
were pillaged, the muniment chambers broken open,
and the dusty parchments given to the flames. In
short, the populace began at once to take certain of
the reforms demanded by the third estate into their
own hands. This was the response of the plain people
to the stubbornness of the ecclesiastics, the counter-
stroke to their haughty fulminations concerning their
church and order. The enthusiasm for moderate pro
cedure hitherto animating all Paris and the delegates
sitting at Versailles got a jog from the energies of pro
vincial France which reminded those charged with
reform that they must be up betimes and doing

58 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
promptly, or reform would soon be revolution. The
attitude so far assumed by the prelacy, and through
them by the estate of the clergy, was a menace to the
true reconstruction of society or even to moderate
change; that of Frenchmen at large was a stern sum
mons to thoroughness and promptness.
The result of all this was a species of panic at Ver
sailles, and in the hot haste to keep_sj£p_jadlh_e^ents,
clergy and nobles, partly enthusiastic, partly terrified,
but entirely in the interest of self-preservation, made,
on August fourth, the well-known holocaust of all that
survfred-4e-tirefn~of feudal privilege. The king alone
remained a stranger to this forced enthusiasm, and
wrote the Archbishop of Aries that it merely slipped
over and off his soul ; that he would never despoil his
clergy. But cold as was the royal inertia, public opin
ion moved right forward; on the tenth of August,
1789, the tithe system was, under this pressure, for
mally abolished, and with it the annates or contribu
tions levied directly by the Vatican. Toward the close
of October was completed a series of enactments, care
fully, dispassionately debated and studied, which pro
vided the practical means for the complete overthrow
both of the feudalism and ecclesiasticism which had
characterized the old monarchy and the ancient regime.
It was far from the intention of the third estate
that the clergy should retain its prerogatives, but how
little the historic sense permeated the burgher class
and its leaders, likewise how destitute of philosophic
insight they were, can be seen in the attitude taken by
their official instructions to their delegates, especially
in regard to ecclesiastical matters. Demanding com
plete liberty, they yet, with perfect fatuity, contem
plated the perpetuation of Roman Catholicism as a
state religion. They were as illogical as the clerics,

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 59
never dreaming that a state religion was already an
anachronism, and supposing that an official religion
could be consistent with freedom of faith and worship.
It is very difficult for readers in this land and age to
realize that but little more than a century ago the
most enlightened portion of the most enlightened Euro
pean people could form no conception of any or
ganized spiritual or intellectual activity performing its
functions without state interference and regulation.
The most conservative prelates, men like Marbceuf,
Archbishop of Lyons, regarded the whole movement
as anarchical; but he and his kind were at least more
logical than the men, like Themines of Blois, who were
ready to sacrifice their privileges if only they could
keep their power; the Archbishop of Bordeaux outdid
even the most liberal, offering to sacrifice half his reve
nue, and preaching peace and good will, but, like all
the rest, he said not one word about liberty of con
science. This thought had no form in the mind of a
single prelate ; there was no word for it in their vocab
ulary. This was why the electors of Paris, why the
populace, which alone had an instinctive grasp of the
situation, why, in short, the sharpened wit of the na
tion shouted: "No clergy, no clergy!" The very men
who embodied in their instructions demands for every
species of ecclesiastical reform — liberty of conscience,
abolition of Peter's pence, of monastic vows, of clerical
absenteeism, of simony in the monopoly of benefices —
in short, of every abuse; who suggested reforms
amounting to revolution and utterly distrusted their
spiritual guides — these were the men who yet fondly
hoped to retain a reformed Roman Catholicism. It
seems impossible, yet this was a phase of national feel
ing as disastrous as the haughty spirit of the prelates.
"Truly," said Plautus, "a man cannot suck and blow

60 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
with the same breath." It required the blast furnace
of Napoleonic imperialism to smelt the stubborn ore
of lingering, unreformed Roman Ultramontanism, but
even that could not melt out of the refractory French
mind the fatal concept that a state religion is indis
pensable. The careful examination of these two extremes, rep
resented by the two classes of the privileged on the one
side — the nobles and the clergy, and by the third estate
on the other, untutored and over-sanguine as it was —
this alone can lead us through the labyrinth of events.
The antinomies of their respective positions were care
fully concealed by both parties alike from themselves
and from each other. But, really though vaguely con
scious of it, they struggled to overcome the obstacle
by debate; lofty as was the tone of their speeches,
they failed in their purpose, and recourse was then had
to riot for composing the irreconcilable extremes ; when
riot showed its impotence, revolution took up the task.
Even revolution was at first mildly religious, but ex
aggeration and exasperation soon gave impiety the
upper hand, and it maintained its power until state and
people were on the verge of disintegration. Then at
last, after the Roman Catholicism, not of France alone,
but of all western and central Europe, had been purged
by Napoleon in the fires of persecution and humilia
tion, the compromise was reached under which France
lives at the present time. The Concordat must be
judged on its merits; it does not work smoothly now,
and many believe the hour has struck for the next ad
vance; but a century ago it saved the existence of
France as a nation, not because it was an ideal com
promise abstractedly, but because it swathed the swol
len veins and bandaged for the time being the flaccid,
flabby muscles of the body politic.

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 61
The disintegration of French society during the
early years of the Revolution, the complete abdication
of its duties by the triple power of family, church, and
state, the crumbling of every institution conservative
in nature or tendency — this not merely was the riddle
of the epoch itself, but continues to be the puzzle of
later investigators. Nothing like it is known to his
tory in the long precedent course of recorded time;
may the world be saved from comparable terrors and
horrors until time shall be no more! The process just
outlined was the internal cause, as the attitude of the
European state system toward the movement was the
external one. The French church withdrew from all
constructive participation in much the same proportion
as the foreign powers endeavored to coerce a jealous
and sensitive people. The sane leadership of the true
aristocrats, the pious, the learned, and the prosperous.
disappeared julst^nr^oportion as a religious hierarchy
dependent on an Italian potentate denied its assistance
to~the control of French affairs. Where calm judg
ment and moderate reform refused cooperation, fierce
energy and radical revolution gained an entrance which
fury widened into first one, then another and an
other breach, until the bulwarks against the ferocity,
fury, and madness of the wicked fell before perni
cious activity in assault. We offer therefore no ex
cuse for reiterating the analysis of the process which
led Voltaire to desire the divorce of church and state,
Mirabeau~to cry aloud for the decatholicization of
France, and the vile Hebert to demand the dechris-
tianizing of the land. The first step was when, under
awful fiscal pressure, the ecclesiastical estates were de-
clared forfeit ; the second was when a recalcitrant hier-
archy~was dissolvecTto~find its substitute in a. primitive
ancTpresbyterial organization ; the third was the attack

62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
on Christian worship, the attempted substitution in its
stead of ail atheistic, deistic, and eclectic heathen cult,
each~m turn; finally, the fourth was the reintegration
oTthe social aHms"under the Concordat ot liioi.
The benevolent despot was the hero of the hour in
politics — all for the people, nothing by the people, was
his motto. It was with the same air that the clergy
and nobles went forward in the work of suppressing
the tithes, long a hateful institution to the masses — the
bloody leech, they called them, which sucked out their
vigor and their very life. One efficient cause of the
French Revolution, as is well known, was the utter
absence of order in the affairs of the kingdom — the
same thing not done in the same way in any two places
throughout the kingdom. Nothing illustrates this
more clearly than the tithing system. Many of the
tithes, by far the largest part, belonged to the monas
teries, which collected them, acting in the role of gros
decimateurs, and, absorbing most, doled out the
wretched portions congrues, ranging from two to five
hundred livres, on which the rectors or parish clergy
starved. Another large portion of the tithes had under
the feudal system been enfeoffed to lay suzerains, so
that they actually formed the revenues of men not even
sentimentally connected with the church or interested
in religious affairs. Nor were there two provinces or
districts where the assessments and collections were
made on the same system, much less equably and
equally administered. In tithing, as in the forms of
taxation, the absence of all order in procedure opened
wide the door to infinite irregularity, abuse, and tyr
anny. Somehow, by hook and crook, tithes to the
amount of seventy millions of livres were collected by
the ecclesiastics and ten by the lay owners. Allow
ance will be made for the high purchasing power and

ATTITUDE OF THE PRELACY 63
value of these sums, and to them must be added about
three hundred thousand livres collected by papal offi
cials directly for tbe Pope and transmitted to him.
These were the annates. Such were the burdens lifted,
with the attitude of benevolent condescension, by the
clergy and noljles ; in reality there was no merit in the
sacrifice, for they dared not act otherwise.

V
THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE

V
THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE
IT is not clear from the records of the memorable
night sitting of August fourth, when the Assem
bly declared "the feudal system utterly abolished,"
how far fear, how far generous impulse, how far a
sense of constitutional pressure were singly and in com
bination the operative forces. Nor probably could the
members of the Assembly have told, had they en
deavored to analyze their motives. In fact, using the
word constitutional in its broadest sense, the decree of
August fourth was simply the formal approval or rati
fication of the municipal revolution just noted, which
had been the work of the French people, scarcely con
scious of its democratic, revolutionary attitude. The
Assembly came into existence as a constituent body by
procedures that were violent and irregular; it claimed
recognition as national, but it could not really be so or
be acknowledged as such, except as it appeared truly
to represent and to lead the nation. Accordingly
there was not a single element of the realm which did
not accede; parlements, offices of taxation and credit,
university, estates, and all the cities, every one hastened
to participate in and approve the movement of the peo
ple. In this way the unity of France secured unmis
takable recognition; the army was required to swear
allegiance to nation, king, and law; the officers, in
presence of their troops and before the municipal
67

68 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
officials, were required to take an oath never to use
force against citizens except on the demand of the civil
authorities. Every vicar and rector was publicly to
announce the fact and to assure the execution of the
decree by the exercise of persuasion and zeal.1
So much of a constitution as existed in France an
terior to 1789 was of course unwritten. This tra
ditional and indefinite quality was a matter of indiffer
ence to the thinking men familiar with the English
constitution; it was equally so to the instincts of the
fairly intelligent, aware of the agitations connected
with the parlements. These had insisted always on
the existence of "fundamental laws," stunted and em
bryonic as they might be, and on the "most essential
and sacred constitution of the monarchy," drawing a
distinction most emphatically between statutory and
constitutional law. Many thoughtful Frenchmen were
likewise well informed as to the original State consti
tutions of our own country and the bills of rights in
some of them. These all had been published in a vol
ume dated 1778. Initial and crucial to the constitu
tional struggle of the Revolution was the question which
arose immediately on the assembling of the estates :
Should the orders vote separately? In the former
case the two higher orders would overrule the single
lower one. Or should the members vote as individuals ?
In the latter the six hundred and sixty-one deputies of
the lower would outvote the combined five hundred and
ninety- three of the clergy and nobility. The momen
tous scene known as the Tennis Court Oath, which
gave the victory to the third estate, was in reality
the climax of a movement by the parlements, lasting
throughout 1788, to formulate the essentials of the
"constitution." The effort at first blush appears ab-
1 Aulard, Histoire Politique de la Revolution Franchise, p. 39.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 69
surd, because it strove to recall anachronisms from the
antique privileges of the feudal provinces. Yet the
struggle had vitality : the idea of a constitution, being
repeated again and again in various quarters, finally
became national. In many of the cahiers forming the
instructions of the third estate it was pleaded that the
"constitutives," or fundamental laws, should now find
a firmer basis than tradition — viz., in justice and the
welfare of the people. Only in this way, it was felt,
could crying abuses be abolished and a return to sound
government be secured.
This was the agitation which had permeated all
France. It partly explains not merely the overthrow
of feudalism, but likewise the nature of the famous
declaration of rights. The classical spirit furnished a
rather foolish confidence in paper reform, but it was a
glimmer of historic sense shining through the darkness
of passion which furnished the items in that document.
They are not all doctrinaire, as so many who know
them only at second hand firmly believe; they are in
large part concrete and real. Some of the paragraphs
enumerate reforms already promised by the king, some
aim to abolish historic abuses hitherto untouched, others
recount the natural and civic rights to be guaranteed
by a constitution, or form of government to be estab
lished for securing all rights in equal measure to all
men. There are some — a few — which are purely theo
retical. These are absurd because based on Rousseau's
contract theory of government; they either enumerate
visionary rights presumed to have existed before man's>
existence as a social being, or else they recount so-called
rights which could be deduced only from the imaginary
contract, and are therefore as much in the air as the
others. In the main, however, the items in the bill re
late, as was said, to existing abuses that are to be abol-

70 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ished. The whole paper is a compromise between
theoretical and historical claims, but the latter, after
all, preponderate.1
This constitutional agitation accounts, moreover, at
least in part, for the curious phenomenon of the mu
nicipal revolution itself. It was the extent of discus
sion about fundamentals and the interest thus awak
ened which alone made it possible. But it did not
break forth by the initiative of its own forces. The
spread of delirium throughout France subsequent to
the destruction of the Bastille was not really sponta
neous ; on the contrary, it was almost certainly due to a
carefully arranged plan made and carried out by some
one in Paris who remains still the Great Unknown:
neither the prime mover nor the principal agents ever
avowed their act. Several claimed the credit or dis
credit, among others Mirabeau, and then disclaimed it
after the sad conseqences were only too apparent. But
the work was thoroughly done, and in the crash of priv
ilege inaugurated on August fourth, the eagerness of
all, from the weakest, who had nothing but expecta
tions, to the most powerful, who had millions, was an
unprecedented illustration of the hysteria which over
powers crowds. Some few there were of the most
experienced and adroit who kept their heads : of these
probably the most were high-minded and sincere, but a
number were beyond peradventure quite the reverse,
anxious to create a chaos — a chaos from which no other
order could be evolved than that which they pretended
to overthrow. This was especially true of many among
the higher ecclesiastical feudatories, whose subsequent
conduct proved that the immolation of their quit-rents
1 See two admirable discus- umes of the Political Science
sions of this question by J. H. Quarterly for 1899 and 1900.
Robinson, published in the vol-

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 71
and mortmains was only a scheme to regain them in
whole or in part on a surer foundation. But the tide
of public opinion without the walls of the assembly
chamber was too strong, and radical changes had to be
made without awaiting the deliberations of the Eccle
siastical Committee.
So it came to pass that the process was accelerated ;
on the sixth, in spite of urgent efforts to save the church
estates from the operation of the sweeping declaration
made two days earlier, all feudal rights and aids were
formally abolished : quit-rents, mortmain, real and per
sonal, together with the remnants of serfage. These
were the very corner-stone of feudalism, and were
wiped out without redemption : such only as were of a
purely economic nature were declared redeemable.
Next day the debate was less bitter and the game laws
were reformed; amnesty was granted to all offenders
under the old system and the punishment of the galleys
was abolished. On the tenth began the debate over the
question of tithes : there was little dissent as to their
abolition, but the widest divergence of opinion as
to how it should be done. Arnauld and Dupont
demanded suppression pure and simple; Lapoule sup
pression, but with a provision for salaries; Lanjui-
nais and the Bishop of Langres pleaded for com
plete indemnity; Jallet, Gregoire, and the Bishop of
Dijon earnestly desired the substitution of landed prop
erty yielding an income sufficient to support public wor
ship; Chasset suggested the redemption of such rights
as were called lay, or infeudated, or impropriate — viz.,
closely akin to private ownership because they could be
transmitted. This latest proposition, that of Chasset,
was warmly supported by Mirabeau, referred to the
committee, and ordered to be put into form. Sieyes
argued forcibly for redemption in money or in kind of

72 , THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
all tithes; Lanjuinais and Montesquiou for their pres
ervation, together with all the ecclesiastical estates;
Garat the younger opposed, and finally Talleyrand so
forcibly urged Chasset's proposition that it was passed
in the form reported by the committee. Measures
were taken to abolish the annates (contributions to
Rome), and thus the whole feudal regime declared
abolished on the fourth was legislated away formally
on the thirteenth. Two days later the decree was laid
before the king; he, however, temporized and delayed
its promulgation until the working details were com
pleted. It finally became a law partly on September
twenty-seventh, partly on November third.
The intolerable burden of the tithes, with its accom
panying scandals, was thus removed ; but there was an
other abuse equally serious. As early as the eighth La
Coste and Alexandre de Lameth, nobles of the upper
and lower castes respectively, had begun to demand
complete religious reform : resumption of ecclesiastical
estates by the nation and the abolition of monasteries,
nunneries, convents, and abbeys. There was compara
tive calm during the ripe, dispassionate speech of the
former, and some excitement under the fervid oratory
of the latter. And well might there be a rising tide
of earnestness, for the nation was swiftly approaching
financial ruin, its people were threatened with starva
tion, and its affairs were on the verge of chaos. Pen
ury, want, hunger, were no longer abstractions, but
realities. The autumn was fast approaching, winter
was just beyond, there were no adequate food supplies
and famine was visible in the near future. The privi
leged classes were still enjoying their revenues and
savings, not in moderation, as might have been endur
able, but in ostentation and wasteful luxury.
The agitators began to express regret that the work

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 73
of July had not been thorough in the erasure of the old
system, the unholy amalgam of monarchy, feudalism,
and ecclesiasticism. Like Hannibal, they said, they
had fallen asleep at Capua. Candles were still burning
at the high altars and Te Deums rang through vaulted
arches ; it was now feared that the clergy might regain
its position as the first estate of the realm, a possibility
to be avoided at any cost. Necker's propositions for
fiscal reform seemed too slow and inadequate : let the
state reclaim its own and put the clergy, who retained
the mien and port of masters, in their true place as
servants. To this end France must resume what was
really its own — viz., all the vast ecclesiastical estates of
the realm. A considerable number stigmatized the
proposition as nothing less than confiscation. There
was much fiery fencing, but in the main an earnest mod
eration prevailed, and efforts were made either to evade
the necessity or at least to find a method not openly
attacking the right of property in either natural or cor
porate persons.
As a proof of the enthusiasm with moderation
which it was hoped and intended should still control
the national representatives in dealing with religion,
an able committee was appointed on August twentieth
to consider carefully and report a plan of reform ; from
its constitution, the liberal Gallicans and Jansenists
alike hoped for such a reorganization as would preserve
the church but at the same time place it under secular
control.1 At the head of the committee was Bishop
1 The list as given in the min- Despatis de Courteilles,
utes is: Lanjuinais, D'Ormes- L'Eveque de Lucon (de Mer-
son,Grandin, Martineau, De La- cy), de Bouthillier. The sec-
lande, Le Prince de Robecq, ond list was Dom Gerle (Char-
Salle de Choux, Treilhard, treux), Dionis du Sejour,
Legrand, Vaneau, Durand- L'Abbe- de Montesquiou, Guil-
Maillane, L'Eveque de Cler- laume, De la Coste, Dupont de
mont (Frangois de Bonal), Nemours, Massieu (cure), Ex-

74 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Frangois de Bonal, a determined conservative, but will
ing to reform abuses; associated with him as clerical
members were the Bishop of Lucon with three cures,
Grandin, Vaneau, and Lalande, all men of power and
fitted to defend the parish priests against the superior
orders of the hierarchy. A lay conservative was D'Or-
messon, the well-known jurisconsult and a powerful
court lawyer. Three liberal laymen were Lanjuinais,
Maillane, and Treilhard : the first a canon-law jurist of
profound erudition, the second a secular and ecclesias
tical jurisconsult of brilliant scholarship, and the third
a convincing orator, still moderate but with leanings
toward radicalism. In November the popular behest
compelled the addition of several others; on February
seventh, 1790, the committee was enlarged to double the
original number by the addition, among others, of Dom
Gerle the Carthusian, an extreme revolutionary ; of the
Abbe Montesquiou, defender of the clergy ; and of Chas
set, a moderate liberal. The most important influence
in shaping the measures eventually adopted was, how
ever, exerted by men not appointed even in the two
first selections, but who began to cooperate later in
the year: by Camus, counsel to the French clergy, an
austere Jansenist, the oracle of the advanced liberals
and therefore a most masterful man in the work; by
Emanuel Freteau de St. Just, nobleman and councillor
of the parlement of Paris; by Henri Gregoire from
Lorraine, afterward the famous Bishop of Blois.
Alas! long ere this excellent committee could report,
the passions of the populace gained in intensity to such
a degree that calm deliberation was impossible either
in its own sessions or in those of the parent assembly.
pilly (cure), Chasset, Gassendi ally refused to act — Bonal,
(cure), Boislandry, Fermont, Mercy, Bouthillier, Robecq,
Dom Breton (Benedictin), La- Salle, Vaneau, Grandin, La-
poule, Thiebaut (cure). Of Iande, and Montesquiou.
the entire thirty, nine eventu-

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 75
Camus was now a man of nearly fifty. Born in
Paris, he had espoused the profession of law with ar
dor, and in early manhood had attained such distinc
tion in the field of ecclesiastical pleading as to be chosen
by the Elector of Treves and Prince Salm-Salm for the
defence of a famous plea they were urging against the
Vatican. His avocation was the science of nature,
and such was its hold upon him that he was perhaps at
one time more famous for his classical translation of
Aristotle's "Researches about Animals" than for his
legal acumen. It was as an ardent liberal that he was
elected a deputy for the third estate of Paris to the
States-General. His talents marked him for distinc
tion, and he was made one of the secretaries of the As
sembly. One of the heroic figures in the Tennis Court,
he sided with Mirabeau in his attitude toward royalty.
His power as a lawyer rendered his appointment to the
Ecclesiastical Committee imperative, and the Civil Con
stitution was largely his work. Later he was a mem
ber of the Convention, by which he was sent as a com
missioner into Flanders. Dumouriez betrayed him to
the Austrians, and during a long captivity he employed
his time in translating Epictetus. Exchanged in 1795
for Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI., he re
sumed the duties of public archivist, was a member of
the Five Hundred under the Directory, but, distrusting
Bonaparte, withdrew from public life on the establish
ment of the Consulate. A Roman Catholic Puritan,
stern, inflexible, and upright, he employed the rest of
his days, until his death in 1804, in the congenial duty
of collecting far and near documents relating to French
history. Second only in importance as moulding the Constitu
tional policy regarding the church, and first as a sup
porter of it, was Gregoire. With Rabaud and Gerle, he
occupies the foreground of David's famous picture of

76 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the scene in the Tennis Court. In his interesting me
moirs he tells but two anecdotes about his youth : one,
that his mind was formed, though attending a Jesuit
college, by two ultra-liberal books, Boucher's "De Justa
Henrici Tertii Abdicatione," and Languet's "Vindiciae
contra Tyrannos" ; the other that, asking the librarian
at Nancy for amusing books, he received a stern rebuke
which he never forgot: "My friend, you have come to
the wrong place; we furnish only instructive books."
His earliest important effort as an author was a power
ful plea for the rehabilitation of the Jews, which at
tracted general attention. A village rector in Lorraine,
he gained the love and confidence of the people far and
near, being chosen as a matter of course to represent the
lower clergy in the States-General. As a deputy he was
a passionate reformer, being foremost in the struggles
against primogeniture and all the feudal privileges;
he seconded Collot-d'Herbois's motion to abolish roy
alty, but did not vote for the execution of Louis XVI.
His work on the Ecclesiastical Committee was largely
critical, but it was his power of persuasion which or
ganized the movement in which so many of the clergy
accepted the Civil Constitution. His character was
spotless. Sent with two colleagues to arrange for in
corporating Savoy into France, he lived with such
economy that he saved a considerable sum from his
slender allowance for expenses, and this he returned to
the treasury, shaking it out of a knot in his handker
chief. When on one occasion at Nice his supper was
two oranges bought for two cents, he expressed joy
that he cost the republic so little. It was he who gave
form to the decree against royalty, and he naively re
lates that on its adoption he suffered from such an
excess of joy that he could neither eat nor sleep.1
1 Gregoire, Memoires, edited by H. Carnot, 2 vols., Paris, 1857.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 77
Gerle the Carthusian was prior of the convent of
Porte-Sainte-Marie. In the Electoral Assembly of
Riom he successfully withstood Bishop Bonal in the
latter's effort to have the cahiers voted by orders, and
was consequently elected to the States-General. His
natural leanings were radical, though he seems at first
to have been a sincere Christian. His erratic course
will be recounted in another connection. It appears to
have been caused by a steady degeneration in a brain
never too strong. He was a puzzled mystic in his asso
ciations with the women prophetesses Suzanne La-
brousse and Catherine Theot. Vague in his ideas and
foolish in his behavior, he seems to have had some con
ception of reform as a return to primitive simplicity.
But he was never taken too seriously either by himself
or by others, and died in obscurity.
A most interesting light is thrown on the condition
of religious sentiment in the Assembly, at the time of
appointing the Ecclesiastical Committee, in a connection
quite different — namely, in the debates on the famous
Declaration of the Rights of Man. These took place on
the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of August. The
preamble itself was a compromise, for an effort was
made by men who were atheists at heart to exclude
from it all mention of God, on the plea that the idea
was either too trite or too universal to need mention.
In the end the clause ran : "The National Assembly ac
knowledges and declares, under the auspices of the Su
preme Being, that the following rights belong to men
and citizens." These rights were quickly enumerated
in the abstract : liberty, property, security, resistance to
opposition. The younger Mirabeau pleaded that the
Ten Commandments be inserted as the first paragraphs
of the new constitution, but this was felt to be superflu
ity ; each faction had a different conception of the reali-

78 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ties underlying the abstractions enumerated. To the
churchman religious liberty, for example, meant a
dominant church with toleration for the sects; to the
moderate reformers it meant absolute equality of
church and sects; to Mirabeau the very word "tolera
tion" was a tyrannical anachronism — in a free system
there could be no authority capable of tolerating.
It might be supposed that the radicals and philoso
phers would have been like minded with Mirabeau.
Not so : they were as intolerant as not even an Ultra
montane churchman dared to be, and desired the utter
abolition not only of ecclesiasticism, but of all reli
gion. While the Declaration was the pet device of
these last, they were compelled to adopt language of
double meaning. Paragraphs sixteen, seventeen, and
eighteen of the paper are as follows : "The law not
being able to reach secret offences, it belongs to reli
gion and morality to supply the deficiency. It is
therefore essential, for the good order of society, that
both should be respected. The maintenance of re
ligion requires a public worship. Respect for public
worship is then indispensable. Every citizen who does
not disturb the established worship ought not to be
molested." Apparently this language gave no legal
existence to non-Catholics : the word religion was still
synonymous with Catholicism to the cleric.
The prelates were satisfied ; the Bishop of Clermont
quoted Plutarch as a commentary, "A city is in the air
without religion ; there can be no commonwealth with
out worship." Laborde was the only one flatly to de
mand entire religious liberty. The debate was brilliant,
but stormy and ineffectual ; the conservatives, supported
by the clergy as a whole, never flinched from the posi
tion that respect for religion is a duty ; the opposition
asserted that religious liberty was a right. At last it

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 79
was evident that there must be a postponement of legis
lation : all that could be gained was a declaration that
there was to be no interference with religious opinion
as long as the order established by law was not violated.
From first to last, so far, the parish clergy had iden
tified themselves with their brethren of the third estate ;
they were all one in this fundamental position. But
thereupon began a movement in public opinion which by
the middle of October was so strong that in the mass
men no longer drew any distinction between the two
grades of the clergy. The feeling of hatred for the
priests was perhaps ill founded, but it existed. It was
due to the printed reports of the ill-omened banquet of
October second, given by the Life Guards to the garri
son of Versailles, a force which had been steadily
strengthened and did not conceal its reactionary temper.
A well-grounded opinion was abroad that the court
party were intriguing to carry the king to the fortress
of Metz, whence he might dictate terms.1 Petitions to
this effect were secretly handed about and numerously
signed by the clergy. When on the very heels of this
intrigue followed the banquet scene in the theatre,
where king, queen, and court were all enthusiastic
spectators, during which the commonwealth cockade
was trampled under foot, at least as reported, and with
the white cockades of the crown the black ones of the
church were widely distributed, the fury and rage of
Paris burst all bounds. Mob violence forced the king
to Paris.
Such were the circumstances which led to a general
reprobation of the whole clergy as alike ecclesiastics at
heart, and in particular of their deputies. The popu
lace began to heap reproach upon them, one and all, ren-
1 See the letter of d'Estaing, quoted in Thiers's History of
the French Revolution, I. 97-98.

80 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
dered their persons unsafe, and as a corollary called for
the secularization of all the estates upon which ecclesi
astical power rested. Then, and among the very men
who should have endured unto martyrdom, began prep
arations for the cowardly desertion which was in itself
a confession of corruption. The Archbishop of Paris
(de Juigne), the Bishop of Nantes, and other high
prelates abandoned their posts and began the exodus
known to history as the Emigration. The tide of eccle
siastical nobles having set forth toward lands hostile to
France, that of secular ones was soon to turn thither
also. Panic begets panic.
The ambiguous language of the Assembly on the sub
ject of religious liberty, though it marked the first stage
of victory for the cause, satisfied nobody, and for that
reason wrought disaster in the nation. The disinte
gration of the clerical forces gave new vigor to the rad
icals and emboldened them to dangerous schemes.
With the anarchists they spurred their sympathizers on
to disorder ; disorder completed the dismay of the privi
leged classes. The finest sentiments had been ex
pressed by the sterling men of historic sense — men like
Laborde, Mirabeau, de Castellane, and Rabaud-Saint-
fltienne, who was a son of the famous pastor of Nimes,
the stern and logical, yet eloquent and persuasive leader
of the Protestants. Not one of these men was a fanatic,
and since their memorable utterances not a single idea
has been added to the standard and convincing pleas for
religious liberty ; it was the Protestant representative of
numberless martyrs for conscience sake who, joining
himself to the supporters of Gregoire, pleaded and won
the cause of the outcast Jews.
And it was this passion for the broadest liberty which
likewise animated the Ecclesiastical Committee. In
his excellent history of its career, Durand-Maillane

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE 81
faithfully depicts the behavior and sentiments of its
members.1 Feeling that heroic treatment of the ques
tions submitted to them was imperative, they literally
clasped hands in unity. One and all they had suffered
under the same tyrannical "infamy," however widely
separated the degrees and kinds of tyranny they might
have experienced; but they undertook their task in
charity and harmony. Had the Assembly been like
minded, the course of history would have run in an
other channel. Neither fine words nor a charitable
temper, however, availed in it; the monarchy was sul
len, the privileged classes were either terrified or de
fiant, the masses were eager, the radicals were fanatical.
Step by step the management of affairs slipped from
the control of the judicious : with painful regularity
propositions fair in themselves were elaborated into
extreme theories and urged with defiant haste. The
enthusiasm of May vanished before the gloomy radical
ism of November.
1 Histoire Apologetique du Comite Ecclesiastique de
l'Assemblee Nationale, Paris, 1791.

VI

SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLE
SIASTICAL ESTATES

VI
SEIZURE AND SALE OF ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES
THAT was a perilous appeal which the Bishop of
Uzes (de Bethizy) had made on the night of
August fourth, when he declared that clerical property
and privilege, having been granted by the nation, could
be recalled only by the nation : it was but a few days
later that La Coste flatly said that ecclesiastical property
belonged to the nation. On September twenty-sixth,
de Jesse, deputy of the nobles from Beziers, in discuss
ing Necker's proposal for radical measures of financial
reform, suggested as an immediate resort the superflu
ous silver plate of the churches and monasteries, and
he was supported by the Archbishop of Paris. Both
recalled that under the canon law it could be sold for
the poor — a poverty-stricken nation was surely poor.
For a time they were left almost alone in this posi
tion by their angry, contentious colleagues; but three
days afterward the offer was formally made by the
archbishop and accepted by the Assembly. The eccle
siastical administrators of all ranks throughout all
France were ordered, in conjunction with the munici
palities, to draw up an inventory of the absolutely es
sential communion plate, keep it for use, and to send in
the rest. The estimated value of this contribution was
about twenty-eight million dollars. Thus, in the ab
sence of all coherence among themselves, the clergy
opened the flood-gates to a stream they must have
85

86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
known would sweep away all that the prelates desired
to preserve. The attempted diversion of the current
only deepened the channel.
Second to none of the economists, not even to his
masters, Quesnay and Turgot, was Dupont de Ne
mours. In a memorable address which he delivered
on September twenty-fourth he set forth with imposing
presence and urbane language this thesis : \ that the
clergy, having become in process of time the first estate
of the realm, had established an empire within the state
which was no sooner strong than it flatly repudiated
its obligations to the state, and had continued so to dp
for a period of eighty-three years. Within this period,
had it contributed in proportion to its means, not as
the people did, but even so modestly as their fellows
in privilege, the nobility, had done, the state would
at the moment be in possession of five hundred
and forty million dollars as a reserve capital. The
corporate clergy having been overthrown, the corpo
rate state was of course its heir, lawfully entitled not
merely to its own due, but to the entire heritage.
What the Roman law would have called a deposit must
now return to the true owner for the maintenance of
worship and its ministers ; for the preservation and im
provement of public education and charities. In sup
port of his position he gave a minute and laboriously
combined table of the annual deficits for eighty-three
years past, caused separately and collectively by the
clergy's withholding its just contributions; his deduc
tion he justified by arguments and facts in appalling
array. Twelve hundred million dollars he showed to
be the value of this heritage.1
1 The table is given entire in teenth century the religious as-
Robinet, I. 156. It is very im- sociations of France have accu-
portant to note that in the last mulated, according to the offi-
three quarters of the nine- cial valuation, about one sixth

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 87
With the logic of fierce indignation, the nation was
now asking not merely whence came this monstrous,
swollen treasure : but, what was even more concisely
logical, to what uses were this fortune and its income
put? As has already been reiterated, though not with
the damning iteration which was daily and almost
hourly on the lips and babbling tongues of the myriad
angry agitators throughout the length and breadth of
France, the overwhelming mass was shamelessly abused
for the luxurious living of an overbearing prelacy.
Where should most of that and all the remainder have
rightfully been applied ? The answer was plain : to the
alleviation of sorrow, misery, and suffering throughout
the realm. De Juigne, Archbishop of Paris, was known
as the "father of the poor," and there were scores like
him ; their lofty pity covered true hearts as they doled
their charitable pittances to their humbled and crushed
but embittered fellow-men who existed in penury. But
by right, said the radicals, it all belongs to the poor,
among whom these princely prelates should be the
poorest. And as for the remnant of ecclesiastical
moneys, behold the shocking abuses connected with
their management !
It would indeed require a pen dipped in gall and
pointed with nitre to depict the maladministration of
the public charities with which the estate of the clergy
was charged, both spiritually and financially. Seventy
years earlier Massillon had sternly reminded the eccle
siastics of his diocese that, should the givers of their
ample endowments return to earth, there would be a
of this sum in real estate alone very large, probably five times
—viz two hundred and twenty the value of their landed es-
millio'ns. What their personal tates. Naturally, such another
property in chattels and trea- accumulation of mortmains is
sure may be cannot be discov- thought to menace the state
ered, but it is thought to be

88 ' THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
fearful looking for of judgment. Since his day mat
ters had gone from bad to worse, and an eye-witness,
writing two years before the outbreak of the Revolu
tion, asserted that the religious establishments con
sumed their revenues in luxury, leaving children with
out instruction, the sick without consolation, and the
aged without support. The unparalleled increase of
population in the environs of the monasteries common
fame attributed, and correctly, to the licentiousness of
their inmates. Even after the abolition of money
tithes, abbots and priors still squabbled with the poor
over the possession of the tithe sheaf. The complaints
and instructions (cahiers) of the parishes have only
one tale to tell — that the upper clergy rolled in wealth
while the poor were absolutely destitute. Some begged
the king to confiscate the revenues and apply them to
their proper sources. The reports on the hospitals beg
gar all comparison for a revolting record of misman
agement : corpse's left indefinitely in beds with the liv
ing, fetid wards, filthy operating-rooms, women in
childbirth crowded by threes and fours on the same
couch.1 As to the prisons and houses of correction,
they were simply pest-holes packed with diseased and
corrupted humanity like negroes in the hold of a slaver,
wallowing in the infection of their own filth. The
refuges for the insane were even worse. And all these
institutions were thronged with fiends in the guise of
keepers, who jeered and mocked at the misfortunes of
the miserable objects of their brutality. With even
so bald an outline of horrors before us, — an outline
which can be filled in with the darkest shadows and no
lights, which the pencil of a Rembrandt could shade
with storm and night without suspicion of invention,
1 Tuetey, L'Assistance Pub- lution, Introduction, pp. xxxi.-
lique a Paris pendant la Revo- xxxiii. Also Document No. 39.

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 89
the contemporary official evidence being abundant and
irrefragable, — can we wonder that the plea of the cler
ical deputies against confiscating what they were
pleased to call "the goods of the poor" fell upon deaf
ears and hardened hearts ?
No one was more familiar with the abuses of cler
ical administration than was a certain man of the order.
He knew it root and branch, in all its departments, in
cluding that of public charity. Like scores of others,
he was himself the victim of the infamous system; but
he was more bitter, more able, and more determined
than the rest. This man was the youthful Bishop of
Autun, already prelate and aristocrat in one, later to be
known as the Prince Talleyrand-Perigord. Forced,
against his will and because of a slight lameness, into
the ecclesiastical career, he chafed under its restraints,
and found in the Revolution exactly what he needed
for his emancipation.1 This vindictive personage was
the mouthpiece of a committee of twelve, appointed
August twenty-eighth, 1789, to consider how security
was to be found for a loan of sixteen million dollars.
Some of- the clergy had already offered as a free-will
contribution their own or others' church estates. He
squarely took the ground of La Coste and Dupont, that
the nation should take back its own. Planting himself
firmly and exactly on the ground of Dupont's argu
ment, he proposed, on October tenth, that tfurprinciple
which had been decided by the decree abolishing tithes
be extended to all church property.
His speech was eloquent, adroit, and, to men in the
temper of his auditors, convincing. Already, on the
fifth and sixth of October, the city mob had shown
its temper, as has been previously related, and in dreary
'See his statements to Mme. de Remusat, given in her
Memoires.

90 -THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
triumph had forced the king to return from Versailles
to Paris. It was their power which was in reality
the sanction behind all of Talleyrand's arguments for
secularization; the Assembly uneasily felt that the de
bate within its walls was fast becoming a hollow form.
Still, the matter was postponed until the thirteenth,
and on that day Mirabeau, no doubt after one or more
exhausting sessions with the feeble king and stubborn
queen, brought in the formal motion that the property
of the clergy is the property of the nation. Worship,
he explained, was to be maintained and the salaries of
priests were to be a free parsonage, with garden at
tached, and twelve hundred livres in money.
It is one of the misfortunes of France, although it
be, as it is, the very quality which has made her the
schoolmaster of the ages, that her thinkers can open
no question for discussion without mounting, stage by
stage, to the origins. This is really to discard the
experience of all the ages, and to reduce the practical
logic of past generations to the abstract and inconclu
sive syllogism of one remote from the facts. Al
ready the question not merely of ecclesiastical property,
but of all property, had been hotly debated in news
papers and pamphlets. The contest was now trans
ferred to oral discussion in the Assembly upon the fa
miliar lines — supporters of the old system with reform,
extreme socialistic, even communistic, declarations by
the revolutionaries, and, as usual, the mediating party.
Mirabeau's argument was very specious. Moreover,
it was perfectly adapted to his audience : not so much
that which was within the walls of the assembly cham
ber as the greater one without the precincts which
hung on his words. His first argument was drawn
from Rousseau, and was utterly fallacious. All prop
erty is based on the written law of society; what the

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 91
law gave to the clergy it can take from them. This
perhaps would have some validity in the case of cor
porations, which are artificial persons created by the
law, but it could have none in regard to natural persons,
whose existence and rights are independent of the state.
In the last analysis even corporate persons are com
posed of individual men, moreover, and the argument
is partly anarchistic. Mirabeau, however, asserted in
his second argument that, as opposed to the state, cor
porations can have no existence whatever "if they have
' ceased to be useful." This would of course abolish
the church as well as its property. Finally, pleaded
the orator, since the clergy no longer exists as an order,
it cannot own the ecclesiastical estates. This was a
juristic non-sequitur ; for the church, as such, and the
clergy, as an order, had owned nothing; the artificial
persons, known as parishes, dioceses, monasteries, and
the like, were seized of what had in most cases been
specific gifts to them.
Most of the high clericals were weak and talked aside
from the facts, even suggesting that reforms should
be made "canonically." Two of them, however, had
something real to contribute : The Abbe Maury merci
lessly riddled the arguments of the socialists, who made
all property rights dependent on state support; while
he likewise proved that the separate pieces of the
church estate belonged to persons — moral ones, but still
persons. Camus, the Jansenist, with his precisian se
verity, argued that as the state did not make the church
corporations, it could not destroy them ; the obligations
of one to the other were reciprocal. The offer of state
pay he regarded as an insult, for it subordinated the
church, which, if not superior, was at least historically
coordinate. Incidentally, Maury showed how infi
nitely more dangerous to the state than the accumula-

92 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
tions of the church were the operations and unholy
hoards of the stock-jobbers (agiotage), about which
not one word had been said because these unscrupulous
robbers meant to escape the just penalty of their crimes
by outcries against the church.1
But prescription is a poor cry at the bar of revolu
tion. The lower clergy, represented by Gouttes and
Juliet, emphasized the degrading effect of wealth on
the prelates and the consequent loss of influence by the
whole body. Petion interrupted with a cry that wealth
had ruined their morals, and there were shouts of
"Order," but Camus, then in the chair, said he could
not censure in the rostrum what was printed all abroad.
The lawyers Thouret, Chasset, and Garat showed that
an individual might and did have the imprescriptible
right of property, but not corporations, especially one
so hostile to the nation, the very law-making power
which upheld it. Garat went so far along the path
of Rousseau as to declare that the state could, if it
chose, abolish Christianity and seek a more moral re
ligion. From immemorial times the monarchy had
controlled in various degrees the ecclesiastical corpora
tion ; its successor could, if need be, abolish it and sub
stitute another.
It was on October thirteenth that the weightiest and
wisest speech of the whole discussion was delivered by
Malouet.2 His words were those of the conciliator,
the man of historic instinct struggling to preserve the
continuity of the old regime with the new. With the
followers of Rousseau, however, he confused liberty
1 These debates are given leyrand — a summary never de-
with sufficient fulness in the livered of what he had already
Archives Parlementaires, First said, or said later — on p. 649.
Series, Vol. IX. Mirabeau's "Archives Parlementaires, IX.
most important speech will be 434. For the text, see Appen-
found on p. 604; that of Tal- dix I. infra.

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 93
and popular sovereignty, admitting that religion and
royalty were alike subject to the omnipotence of the
latter. But the Assembly, he pleaded, had no man
date from the general will to deal with so grave a ques
tion; let a commission be appointed to study it. In
the end all surplusage of property not required for the
support of worship should be handed to the civil au
thorities for the public charities ; since poverty was the
curse of the state, let the state administer matters for
its own welfare. Meantime no nominations should be
made to abbeys or other sinecures ; there should be no
increase in the monastic establishments.
The whole argument fell on respectful and receptive
ears, but it could make no impression on the clamorous
mob which now both held the king a prisoner in his
own palace and menaced the Assembly in the hall of the
archiepiscopal palace where it was then sitting. On the
twenty-eighth of October, 1789, a sop was thrown to
Cerberus in a decree for the temporary suspension of
religious vows. Two days later the great Mirabeau
came forth once more and eloquently defended his first
proposition. On the thirty-first the prelates, in affright,
offered eighty million dollars toward the national defi
cit, and promised to accept thorough reforms. The
vote on this proposition was postponed for two days,
and on the second of these, November second, 1789, the
mob appeared, whether by prearrangement or not is
unknown, before the hall of the Assembly. As a last
concession in the interest of unanimity, Mirabeau then
proposed an amendment. The decree should read not
that church property is national property, but "is at the
disposal of the nation." This was carried by a major
ity of five hundred and sixty-eight to three hundred
and forty-six; over two hundred were absent, and forty
abstained from voting.

94 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
It was John Huss who began the agitation for trans
ferring such ecclesiastical property as was in the shape
of landed domains to the control of civil power, and the
Reformation on its secular side was the process where
by the transfer was effected. The same proposition
was early enforced in France by a pamphlet published
in 1 64 1, one copy of which is still extant in the Musee
Carnavalet of Paris; its author was an otherwise ob
scure man, Francois Paulmier. The next statement
of the principle is found in the anonymous volume en
titled "Autorite des Rois," written and circulated in
the highest circles soon after the brochure of Paulmier,
but not printed and published until a century later. It
is a compendium, by a brilliant jurist, of the theory
and practice of the crown in this momentous matter.
Property acquired under civil regulations, runs the ar
gument, can be alienated only likewise, and is held
subject to the charges laid by the state; and for the
expenses of the state the sovereign can supply his
wants, as, for example, the public defense. This was
the tradition of the old monarchy beyond a peradven-
ture, and was published as such by Machault in 1749.
The Assembly therefore was in its heroic measure fully
within the limits of the time-honored claims of the
civil power regarding church property, even though its
action was based on doctrines unknown to the Roman
law as set forth by the jurists of Louis XIV. In pro
viding salaries for those who would otherwise suffer
by its course it unfortunately failed to explain its rea
sons, and the conservatives claimed that in thus paying
for church services it had merely entered into a new
compact with an organization not abolished, but con
tinued on a new basis. This was not true, as was very
quickly proved.
If the Assembly acted cautiously and historically in

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 95
secularizing the ecclesiastical estates, it likewise acted
moderately and wisely, though rapidly and under com
pulsion, in the use it made of them. In judging we
must recollect that the spectre of national bankruptcy
was ever in the background. Its demands were inces
sant and imperative. The first step in meeting them was
to take possession. On November seventh Talleyrand
proposed that seals be placed on the safes in which were
deposited monastic titles ; inventories of them were then
ordered to be taken ; on December fourth it was moved
that the Assembly proceed to the sale of both royal
and ecclesiastical domains ; on December twentieth the
proposition was voted; on March sixteenth, 1790, the
commune of Paris made an offer for forty million dol
lars' worth. Thus the process was considerately in
augurated, but the deed was done, and it thoroughly
aroused the angry passions of the great ecclesiastics.
This exasperation of a powerful class was unfortu
nate. It has been claimed that it was unnecessary.
Possibly this is true. The interdiction of all new foun
dations and of any increase to those still existing,
together with a process of consolidation, would have
furnished six million dollars at once, with a prospec
tive hundred and twenty more in the immediate future,
according to Malouet and his reforming supporters,
men like the Archbishop of Aix. And, further, the
royal or civil foundations might have been secularized,
leaving those due to private bounty untouched — such,
for example, as exist in our own country. But Rous-
seauism was all abroad, and Rousseauism forbade such
a course ; the thought of a free church and a free state
was as abhorrent to its devotees as it was to those of
the scandalous infamy now doomed and already dis
appearing. The financiers secured, on December twen
tieth, the right to sell both ecclesiastical and royal do-

96 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
mains to the extent of eighty millions of dollars as
security for the promissory notes bearing five per cent.
interest — the notorious assignats which in the end
wrought havoc to the republican finances.
It is not difficult at this distance of time and place
to see the fatal errors of the Assembly. Its initial in
tentions appear to have been good, but good inten
tions without wisdom in conduct are the kind with
which hell is paved. Institutions which have been the
growth of ages, whether political or ecclesiastical, may
not be handled like the abstract factors of a mathe
matical problem ; if they are to be reformed, it must be
by a slow process of tentative changes based neither on
logic nor on necessity nor on expediency alone, al
though with due regard to the element of absolute
right which must be continuously operative. The only
possible reformer, moreover, is the friendly one; the
enemies of an institution can become only radical revo
lutionaries when they begin to change it, our human
nature being weak and selfish as it is. The great mem
bers of the Assembly were not friendly, as we have seen ;
many of the most adroit were devotees of the system
of natural religion expounded by Rousseau in his
limile; between them and believers in a revealed re
ligion there could be no peace, not even a truce. One
and all the various sets of reformers could deal moder
ately, as in a sense they did, with the political hierarchy.
For this the reason is plain : as far as knowledge goes
there was not far and near in France a handful of radi
cal democrats at the outbreak of the Revolution. But
moderation in regard to the ecclesiastical hierarchy was
almost impossible because there were scores and hun
dreds of embittered foes — Gallicans, Jansenists, Pro
testants, Deists, and Atheists. It was natural that
men conservative in politics should act as such within

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTATES 97
that sphere, and that the same men, radical in church
matters, should be ruthless, as they were, in deal
ing with the clergy and the ecclesiastical domains.
It was religious radicalism confronted by a haughty,
tactless ecclesiasticism allied with monarchy which in
no extended time created the faction of radical demo
crats in politics. In this quick genesis appeared all
the elements which steadily continued to undermine the
whole structure of French society, fair as the exterior
remained, until at the ripe but unexpected moment it
crumbled into dust, to the dismay of the civilized
universe.

VII

PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTI
TUTION OF THE CLERGY

VII
PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF
THE CLERGY
FEW things happen in France at any time without
the exhibition of a powerful dramatic element.
Least of all could the climax of an attempted compro
mise between God and Belial be reached in a seething
revolutionary epoch without a display of fiery passion.
No more thrilling scene was ever unfolded on the floor
of a legislative body than that which was now to be
caused by the motion of Dom Gerle. Strange com
pound as he was of Carthusian monk and radical revo
lutionary, he believed himself to be taking a step of sim
ple justice when he proposed his resolution. But his
friar's garb was like a theatrical costume in that modern
setting; the accents of his voice, the attitude he struck,
and the well-known character of the man were all of a
histrionic quality. The turmoil which ensued, the fierce
and angry cries of the radicals, the wild enthusiasm of
the conservatives, the hurried consultations, the dismay
of the cautious, the swift resolves, the savage gestur-
ings, the dissolution of the Assembly into a mob, and
the final disruption of the conservative elements —
these were of the highest dramatic force, because they
marked the beginning of a new process, the rise of a
determined democracy, as grim in its political radical
ism as it already was in its ecclesiastical iconoclasm.
IOI

102 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The clergy, occupied exclusively with the preserva
tion of their privilege, had made a fatal mistake in
neither considering nor presenting what became imper
ative after the abolition of tithes, a constructive plan
for the reform of ecclesiastical finances. The sac
rifice of the communion plate was in a sense a free-will
gift. Simultaneously with this voluntary contribution
there arose discussion on the question of paper money.
Mirabeau had then implored further patriotic gifts as a
temporary resource. The next step was the declara
tion that ecclesiastical property was at the disposal of
the nation. Meantime the emission of paper money
continued to be a topic of discussion throughout
France. Then on December fourth Talleyrand pro
posed that money obtained from sales of the royal and
church domains be applied toward securing the national
debt. Thereupon this proposition became the topic
most widely discussed within and without the Assem
bly. On the eighteenth Treilhard supported Talley
rand's proposition in the most powerful speech of an
epochal debate. And thereupon ensued the measures
of alienation and seizure recounted for the sake of con
tinuity in the last chapter.
Those measures were in reality precipitated by the
startling occurrences of the nineteenth, unforeseen
events which brought above the horizon a question hith
erto obscured. Although the prelates shared the pub
lic disesteem as members of the aristocracy, the cures
too, strangely enough as it seemed to them, were
now held in no consideration. Having shown their
faith by taking the earliest measures of relief for the
starving poor of city and country, they had laid aside
all remnants of mediasvalism except their garb, had
been eager to abandon the tithes, to sacrifice all per
quisites, such, for example, as the surplice fees (cas-
uel), had identified themselves with the third estate,

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 103
had steadily supported the proposition that the nation
was bound to supervise the ecclesiastical estates with
a view to seeing the revenues reach the aims for which
they had been destined. Yet they met with the very
harshest treatment on the streets and in public places,
wherever they came under the observation of the Paris
populace. Why? Because they could not conscien
tiously assert that church property was national prop
erty, and would not. Nor as a class could they support
the view taken in the act of November second, that
ecclesiastical property "is at the disposal of the nation."
The people began to ask what really were the funda
mental facts of the discussion. Treilhard found the
test of all property in the power of its holder to alienate
it, and that crucial act the church could not perform
with what it claimed to possess. The deduction seemed
clear to the meanest mind and the whole argument was
to the masses unanswerable. They grew, therefore,
as their want increased, more and more bitter against
those who would not yield to the force of conviction
which they themselves felt.
This pressure explains as nothing else can what hap
pened on December nineteenth. On that day Txeilhaxd
presented what purported to be the first report of the
Ecclesiastical Committee, a paper outlining a plan of
work, and recommending as the first step to be taken the.
entire abolition of religious vows. Some of the founda
tions already existing were to be maintained as places of
refuge for those desiring to continue the monastic life.
A moderate provision in money was to be made for the
men and women who, having been devoted to the re
ligious life of the cloister, now wished to reenter the
world. The chairman of the committee, the Bishop of
Clermont, solemnly declared that he knew nothing
whatever of the report presented, that he had never at
tended a single meeting of the committee where such

104 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
proposals were offered, and was a stranger to what was
now laid before the Assembly in its name — viz., the en
tire document with all its proposals. Thereupon there
was no outburst of honest indignation as might have
been expected, but instead, with little or no disapproval,
the entire proposition was on the twentieth made a law.
There is no indication that there was any chicane or
fraud in connection with the report except the unsup
ported statement of a single man — a man who had
continuously denounced, in the prelatical interest, all
measures to secure by means of inventories accurate
knowledge as to the incomes of the ecclesiastical bene
ficiaries.1 So deep-seated was the distrust of him and
his class, that coincident with the enactment of the law
which virtually abolished convents and nunneries, prep
aration was made for remodelling the committee. Of
this mention has already been made; it was accom
plished on February seventh, 1790, the result being to
make it mare liberal, in fact almost radical. On Feb
ruary thirteenth the course recommended in the report
as presented by Treilhard was finally adopted by the
Assembly. The first great sale of what had been des
ignated royal and ecclesiastical lands was therefore a
sale largely of commendam properties. It was made to
the commune of Paris a month later. The administra
tive measures taken to consummate this important mea
sure brought forward the secular question. Both were
carefully debated, and when finally settled the "mobili
zation of church lands," as it was called, was extended
to those of the crown, and thereupon the first issue of
paper money was made on the security of a national
estate composed of both.
1 Durand-Maillane, Histoire heard him in the committee
Apologetique, p. 31. The au- approve the reform of monastic
thor flatly contradicts the as- establishments, even to the con-
sertions of the bishop. He had fiscation of their estates.

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 105
All sensible Frenchmen had long understood that
the involution of ecclesiastical affairs with the national
finance was such that a wise reticence on disputed and
tender points of religion was the only chance of pre
serving the essentials. The treatment of the monastic
estates should have further enforced the sagacity of
this view. But again the fuse of the revolutionary
bomb was lighted by the churchmen themselves. They
were now profoundly alarmed. It could no longer be
a question of privilege: it was something truly vital
that was in the balance — viz., whether or not there was
to be any state church at all in France ; and if so, was
it to be a Roman church? The very idea created a
panic, and when monasticism was denounced on the
floor as a form of civil suicide, the clerics felt the foun
dations trembling beneath them. This language
seemed profane. It was in such a moment of despair
that, with unconsidered haste, on February seventh,
1790, the Bishop of Nancy called on the Assembly to
declare Roman Catholicism the religion of the state and
nation. A strong majority asserted its devotion to the
state, but evaded the implied religious test by voting the
previous question. Still another element of terror
struck down the hearts of the clergy — viz., the new
attitude of the Assembly toward the Protestants. No
longer regarded with mere toleration, they were at last
in the forefront; on March tenth Rabaud St.-fitienne,
son of the proscribed Protestant pastor of Nimes, suc
ceeded Montesquiou as chairman of the Assembly; as
he wrote to his father in pardonable exultation, "The
president of the Constituent [Assembly] is at your
feet." J
1 Rabaud was noted for his beau. He was a prime mover
refinement, learning, and elo- in the agitation which secured
quence. For the latter gift the edict of tolerance. It is
many compared him withMira- interesting to note that the

106 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
These were the successive steps which led up to the
crisis. The Roman Church had been divorced from
the French nation. The machinery of government
had stripped it first of its tithes and now of its estates.
The hierarchy and the organization still existed, and an
implied contract had been made which was to assure
the support of worship. But what was the status of
Roman Catholicism as a religion? Was it henceforth
to be tolerated as one of several sects, all alike indiffer
ent to representatives of the people governing now by
the rule of a majority hostile not merely to ecclesi
asticism, but to the Catholic religion itself — a majority
which had chosen a Protestant to preside at the coun
cils of the nation ? On the thirteenth the Abbe Montes
quiou, struggling in vain to impress a determined au
dience against its will, left the desk with a despairing
appeal for the divine protection. His words were a
wail which profoundly moved many hearts. The su-
perserviceable Carthusian, Dom Gerle, was completely
overcome and outraged. He leaped to his feet and,
denouncing the charges of his predecessor against the
Ecclesiastical Committee as a vile calumny, moved that
in proof of his assertion the Assembly decree the Roman
Catholic Church the dominant legal church of France.
It was then that pandemonium broke loose. Conser
vatives cheered the proposition as coming from an
advanced opponent; the moderates and radicals alike
watchword proposed by him desired a monarchy with the
for the French Revolution was suspensive veto and a single
"Liberty, Equality, Property," a legislative chamber. He was
cry almost identical with that delegate for Nimes in the As-
heard in England during the sembly, and for Aube in the
revolution of 1688. This was Convention. His special inter-
in July, 1789; in August his ests were education and the
was the most eloquent of the militia. He voted for the ban-
speeches supporting Castel- ishment of Louis XVI., and
lane's motion, the refrain being proposed the public-school law.
"not tolerance, but liberty." He

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 107
protested, the latter in sneering insincerity, that no
such platitude need be asserted. Marshalling all their
sympathizers, the reformers forced an adjournment.1
The night was one of turmoil. The palace of the
Tuileries was closed, its guards were redoubled, and
the radical press breathed fire and slaughter against all
clericals. The Catholics discussed and canvassed, the
Jacobins fiercely denounced Dom Gerle, and, overawing
him by fierce argument, secured his promise to withdraw
the motion. Next morning terrific disputes began at
once. From the tactical standpoint it was bad taste for
Montesquiou to have taken the attitude of sentimental
ity under persecution, but it was fatal for Gerle to have
forced the issue as he did. There could now be but one
question, "Should the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
religion dominate, or should it be subjugated and re
duced to the plane of a sect?" Mirabeau struggled to
hold the middle course ; but, swearing at first to die as a
martyr unless Catholicism were declared the national
religion, he recoiled to almost the antipodal extreme be
fore an appeal to the same end which was made by a
deputy and based — shocking plea! — on the oath of
Louis XIV. taken on January twenty-fifth, 1675, a cen~
tury before ! This was suicidal folly. Mirabeau was
furious. With an awe-inspiring gesture the leonine
orator pointed from the tribune at a window, easily
visible, whence, he reminded his audience, another king,
desiring to mingle temporal with spiritual interests, had
signalled by the discharge of an arquebus for the mas
sacre of Saint Bartholomew.
Still his meaning was plain. Known to be daily
in consultation with the court, he clearly implied that
1 De Pressense, The Church and shall forever remain the
and the French Revolution, religion of the nation, and that
Engl. Trans, by Stroyan, p. its worship shall alone be au-
109 ; Gerle's motion was, "is thorized."

108 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
while others had been faithless, and while therefore
the historic argument was worthless, Louis XVI. was
a man who could be trusted not to commingle spir
itualities and temporalities, a possibility in which the
party of the Revolution would not believe. Mirabeau
was hooted down. Another and extreme conservative
called attention to the presence of the guards as a mea
sure of intimidation, a menace to free discussion; but
he asserted that he himself was not awed — not he.
There were roars of laughter. Lafayette was ap
plauded to the echo when he asseverated the devotion
of his guardsmen to the Assembly; they would shed
the last drop of their blood to see its decrees executed,
he declared. And so with intermingled hoots, cheers,
and laughter was taken a momentous step. The As
sembly refused to vote Catholicism the national re
ligion. After hours of excited talk the majority finally suc
ceeded, therefore, in passing a substitute to Gerle's mo
tion. It was offered by Rochefoucauld. "The National
Assembly, considering that it neither has nor can have
any power over consciences and religious opinions, that
the majesty of religion and the profound respect which
is due to it do not permit it to become the subject of
deliberation; considering, further, that the attachment
of the National Assembly to the Catholic, Apostolic,
and Roman worship should not be put in doubt at the
very moment when this worship is about to be placed
by it in the first class of the public expenses, and when
by a unanimous movement it has proved its respect in
the only way which could be suitable to the character of
the National Assembly, has decreed, and does decree,
that it neither can nor ought to deliberate on the motion
proposed, and that it is about to resume the order of the
day concerning the church domains."

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 109
The high clericals, thirty-three bishops and twenty-
six abbots and canons, then left the hall; with them
went seventy-nine parish priests. Organizing a meet
ing, they at once drew up a passionate address and pro
test.1 They asserted in it that under instructions they
had come to Versailles for the purpose of securing as
an article of the constitution "a declaration that the
Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion is the religion
of the state, and the only one which ought in this king
dom to enjoy the solemnity of public worship." Their
attempts having been fruitless and liberty of speech
having been denied them, they now despaired of suc
cess and wished so to inform their constituents. After
the protest they resumed their seats, but in the main
kept silence. A single proposition was timidly put
forward by one of the archbishops (Boisgelin), that
the clergy advance eighty million dollars and be per
mitted to retain control of the remaining ecclesiastical
funds. But the idea could not even get a hearing. The
Assembly then went forward with its work. On April
fourteenth the fateful decree was finally passed; the
property "at the disposal of the nation" was assigned
to the civil authorities of the departments ; tithes were
to cease after January first, 1791 ; salaries were to be
paid to the clergy in money; relief was voted to the
poor and to those who really suffered in the suppres
sion of the monasteries.
Something should be said in passing, if only a word,
concerning the lofty aspirations of the Assembly in
dealing with poverty; for they display its enlighten
ment and intelligence as much as any of its enactments.
The committee declared the basis of general well-being
*For the scenes of this de- Ferrieres, Memoires, Livre V.
bate, see the Moniteur for 221 ; Hesmivy d'Auribeau, Ex-
April, 1790; Buchez et Roux, trait des Memoires, I. 181.
Histoire Parlementaire, V. 345 ;

no THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
to be the soil, and since agriculture had suffered be
yond measure in the extravagant appropriation of land
to pleasure, while at the same time undue pressure
was brought to bear for the increase of population as
a military resource, their first effort must be to attract
the four or five millions of worthy poor toward the
fields. Professional paupers, sedentary and vagrant,
must be forced to work under severe penalties. The
first class of worthy poor, abandoned children or found
lings, must be removed from the vast houses of refuge,
which were nothing more or less than training schools
of pauperism. Adults must be stimulated to exertion
by the prospect of possession, and to this end the newly
acquired domains of the state should be sold in very
small parcels under the easiest conditions. These mea
sures taken, a vast scheme of relief for the infirm and
aged must be devised, and a thorough reform of abuses
in hospitals and prisons must be undertaken.1 Severe
laws against begging must be enacted, the sedentary
paupers must be kept under surveillance and vagrants
confined in houses of correction, the entire system to
be administered with a view to reforming the inmates.
Every provision must be made to prevent the contagion
of vice as much as the contagion of disease.
The committee was just as strong practically as
theoretically. Commissions of investigation probed
ruthlessly every sore, and finding that about one mil
lion — almost a twentieth — of the population required
aid, either as sick, infirm, aged, or children, as pau
pers able to work and as beggars and vagabonds, they
appropriated about eleven million dollars from the
revenues of the new domains for hospitals, for the
helpless, for shops to train paupers into habits of work,
xThe most important docu- net, Mouvement Religieux, I.,
ments may be found in Robi- pp. 220 et seqq.

CIVIL CONSTITUTION in
for the repression of begging, and for administration.
Two millions per annum were set aside as a reserve.
The work was laborious and slow, but in the end it
was thoroughly done. The foundation thus laid, the
structure of the modern, scientific, and for the most
part admirable system of public charities has been
growing on the same lines for more than a century.
The destruction of the prelatical aristocracy in the
interest of the poor marks a double social process, a
levelling down and a levelling up. It is remarkable as
a revolutionary phase that during this very period
the third estate was busy in the effort to make itself a
privileged class, or at least to confirm itself as such.
Amid the contradictions of thought and conduct which
characterize the time, and probably because of them,
arose the new and most modern political concept — a
concept that was not inaugurated, but certainly was
confirmed by the next move of the Assembly in dealing
with the ecclesiastical question, the idea of manhood
suffrage. The third estate was, at the beginning of
the Revolution, what Sieyes declared it to be — the na
tion. Numerically considered, about one thirtieth of
the population was not comprised within it. Morally,
however, its power was exerted by comparatively few,
those technically known as the burghers — that is, a cer
tain number of landed proprietors and farmers, all the
professional classes, the merchants and manufacturers.
The conception of equality was very clear to these, in
the sense that they were equal to those above them;
but they never dreamed, nor even did Rousseau im
agine, the doctrine of an equality comprising the great
masses who worked with their hands for their daily
bread and possessed no accumulated capital whatever.
These latter proletarians did not themselves conceive
that they could possess equal rights, for they knew they

ii2 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
had not equal responsibilities. The municipal revolu
tion consequent to the fall of the Bastille was inaugu
rated by the wealthy bourgeoisie, who furnished the
intellectual power, while the proletarians lent the work
of their hands and carried it to a successful completion.
Accordingly no amazement was expressed, and but
a very mild opposition was made, to the principle laid
down almost immediately by Sieyes in 1789, that there
were two classes of rights, natural and^civil, or, as he
designated them, active and passive. vVomen, chil
dren, foreigners, in short all who contributed nothing to
the corporate funds of the state, possessed merely civil
or passive rights; equality of all rights existed only
among active citizens, they alone had political rights,
the right to exercise the suffrage. After long debates,
the Assembly, accepting this theory, enacted on Decem
ber twenty-second, 1789, that no person could vote ex
cept a Frenchman twenty-five years old, domiciled in
the voting district for a year, paying a direct tax worth
three days' wages, and who was not a hired servant.
The question of three days' wages at once presented
difficulties, and they were met by adopting a maximum
of twenty sous a day, a modification which tended to
enlarge the suffrage considerably. Some exceptions to
the law were likewise made, such as national guards
who had served at their own expense, and priests.
As to who should be eligible for election the debate
was again long and vigorous, bringing to light a more
powerful and numerous body of men ready to exhibit
the democratic temper than the other measure had done.
It was, however, easily settled that for all offices up to
that of membership in the municipal assemblies the can
didate should pay a direct tax of ten days' wages. For
membership in the National Assembly the committee
proposed not that the candidate should be a landed pro-

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 113
prietor as many urged, but that he should pay a land
tax in some form worth a silver mark, or four ounces
of silver. This was voted only after very considerable
opposition, and in the debate the radicals began to utter
strong democratic sentiments. They were met, how
ever, by overpowering expressions of dissent, and the
first revolutionary constitution was based on a suffrage
limited according to the ideas of the well-to-do bur
ghers. But the plan could not be made to work. Before it
was put into operation many of the most enlightened
and moderate leaders of opinion changed their minds,
and many admirable remonstrances were read before
one and another of the municipal assemblies, notably
one written by Condorcet and sent up to the National
Assembly by the Paris commune. Opposition was
particularly strong in the capital because many of the
high-class artisans paid not a direct, but only a cap
itation tax. The scheme was first put into operation
elsewhere, and in many of the villages it was found
that there were not enough "eligibles" to fill the offices.
Some of the communes evaded the provisions of the law
in order to secure a local government, and in Marseilles
the voting-lists were prepared without any regard to it.
In some of the reported cases there is an element of ab
surdity, always fatal in the French mind to any device ;
for example, a village surgeon refused to educate his
boy for his own profession, since the cost would so re
duce his means as to render the practitioner himself in
eligible for office. Yet it is likely that the people of the
departments would have proved docile. The overthrow
of the system came when Paris saw it in operation.
Under the leadership of Marat was organized the re
sistance to its aristocratic inequalities, and by June,
1790, there was a numerous party favoring universal

114 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
suffrage. This, with the situation in which the Pro
testants and others outside the fold of the Roman
Church now found themselves, created a movement of
public opinion which determined the next step taken
by the Assembly with regard to the clergy of the Cath
olic Church.1
It is not possible to read the hearts of men, but cer
tainly one of the most important reasons for rejecting
the motion of Dom Gerle was, that ever since the open
ing sessions of the Assembly partial measures, not
merely of tolerance but of liberty, had been adopted
one by one with reference to the considerable body of
French dissenters, who had so long been under the ban
of allied church and state. Down to the Edict of
Toleration the exercise of Protestant worship was ut
terly proscribed throughout France. After the revo
cation of the Edict of Nantes, the able and energetic
fled to bestow the benison of their character, skill, and
refinement upon other lands ; of the few who remained
the feeble became delirious and fanatical enthusiasts,
and the timid outwardly conformed. But in 1715,
shortly before the death of Louis XIV., began the won
derful movement, under Antoine Court, which re
strained fanaticism, but infused courage into the faint
hearted. It was a serious revival, with the manifest
result of gathering the scattered remnant into conven
ticles and organizing them under elders, pastors, and
presbyteries. Although worship was conducted under
incredible difficulties, often in remote groves, caves, or
deserted houses, under the safeguard of unarmed sen
tinels, yet organization was maintained, marriages
were celebrated, funerals were decently conducted, and
the sacraments were administered with much regu-
1 For a concise account of the Politique de la Revolution
debates, see Aulard, Histoire Francaise, pp. 60 et seqq.

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 115
larity. The legality of the marriages and the question
of property succession soon came before the parle
ments or courts of law. Every political device and
legal fiction was employed, with philanthropic zeal and
ingenuity, to avoid cognizance of the fact that there
was a Protestant Church in France. But the fact was
stubborn, and too frequent recourse was had to atro
cious persecution for repression. This was done in
obedience to the shocking edict of 1724, which con
demned pastors to death, male Protestants to the gal
leys, women to imprisonment for life, all these and
many other frightful penalties to be accompanied by
confiscation of property.
Persecution reached its height about 1755. There
after intelligent public opinion asserted itself more and
more, until a certain degree of toleration became essen
tial. It was this which finally found expression in the
edict of 1787, a beneficent measure which enabled the
scattered congregations to meet, still in private but in
security, and the organization to do its work without
fear except from the influences of a social ostracism
more or less complete. The Protestants in Paris had
met irregularly in the chapels of the embassies from
Protestant lands, notably that of Holland, in which
there was a regular chaplain, an able man whose name
was Marron. Under him, with the active assistance
of Rabaud St.-fitienne, a congregation was at once or
ganized. It contained many men of mark; some of
them, like Cambon, Jean-Bon, Saint-Andre, Lombard-
Lachaux, and Voulland, followed the fortunes of the
republic to the end ; others, like Claviere, Barnave, La-
source, Servieres de la Lozere, Bernard de St.-Affrique,
Johannot, and Rabaud himself, having enlisted for re
form and not for revolution, withdrew when their ends
were gained. Marat was not a member, although he

116 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
was of Protestant origin and had lived for some time in
Edinburgh; he, with his successor Robespierre, repre
sented the type of fanatical and extreme Calvinistic
mind, which so easily identified itself with the authori
tarian tyranny of Rousseauism. It was not until June
seventh, 1789, however, when the Revolution was
launched, that the Protestants were permitted to rent a
public hall and hold public services. From that mo
ment, with a single interruption to be described later,
they have steadily increased in numbers and have been
in the enjoyment of complete religious liberty. On
December twenty-first, 1789, the deputy Brunet de
Latuque proposed that all "non-Catholics" be eligible
for all public duties and offices like other citizens ; and
on the twenty- fourth this was voted as far as the Prot
estants were concerned. And immediately, as we have
seen, they came to the very forefront ; their views were
heard with respect, their administrative abilities were
recognized, and they were employed in the highest
public offices.1
But the Jews were non-Catholics too, as the unfor
tunate phrase ran, and bigotry began its work the
moment liberty for all forms of worship was demanded.
Even Mirabeau would not support the sweeping posi
tion taken by Gregoire and other apostles of the Jews
when by a final effort he secured the emancipation of
the Protestants. But a vigorous agitation without,
both in Paris and in the departments, made itself
strongly felt within the hall of the Assembly, and
finally the Paris commune made a formal representa
tion in behalf of the Paris Jews. After some hesitancy
the Assembly, on January twenty-eighth, 1790, ex
tended the law of December twenty-fourth to such of
the Sephardim Jews, known as Portuguese, Spanish, or
1 De Felice, Histoire des Protestants de France, p. 549.

CIVIL CONSTITUTION 117
Avignon Jews, as had been born in France. These had
long been distinguished as having settled habits, recog
nized names, and trustworthy characters. The Asch-
kenazim Jews, the German Jews of Alsace-Lorraine and
the northeast generally, were types of what a long and
brutal persecution makes out of men. They were sly,
bore no family names, concealed their occupations of
peddling and money-lending, and evaded the grasp of
the law by easy migration back and forth across the
frontier. It was some years before race hatred and
prejudice were calmed and they obtained any recogni
tion whatsoever ; they were not actually brought under
the regulations or within the pale of civilized life until
Napoleon laid his heavy hand upon them.
But a year after the emancipation of the Huguenots,
on December twenty-fourth, 1790, the Lutheran and
Swiss Protestants living within the borders of France
received the same rights as the Calvinistic, native Pro
testants had received — the rights, namely, of complete
citizenship. In a sense the Protestants were better
treated than other Christians, their ecclesiastical prop
erty being in a measure exempted from the laws con
cerning that of Catholics. It seems like a curiosity of
history that simultaneously with the removal of the ban
from French Protestants in December, 1789, French
comedians for the first time received civil and political
rights. So, too, did all men of color residing in
France, but not those of the colonies.
These events may be considered as having formed
both the prelude and the immediate cause of the next
step taken by theAssembly in dealing with ecclesiastical
affairs. In abolishing the tithes and secularizing the
church estates, they confiscated the entire ecclesiastical
temporality. Forced thus into the dilemma of either
state or voluntary support for worship, they obeyed a

118 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
blind instinct and chose the former. But the struggle
was so severe that every element of aristocratic privi
lege, however slight, was mercilessly exposed to public
view and criticised without pity. The new idea of
equality among men, without regard to estate or con
dition, began to work powerfully in all classes, creating
a political democracy, modifying the views of all Chris
tians except the Ultramontanes, and thus opening the
way for an effort at ecclesiastical democracy.

VIII
THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF
THE CLERGY

VIII
THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 1
ALTHOUGH there was at bottom a radical contra-
il diction between the theories of a secular aristoc
racy and an ecclesiastical hierarchy, the one being
based on birth and privilege, the other on choice and
ability, yet they had long been identified in France, as
we have seen, by the selection of secular aristocrats for
the upper grades of the religious hierarchy. This fact
had utterly confused the inherent and basic distinction
between the two as far as the masses of the people were
concerned. The swift march of the nation toward po
litical democracy, it might be supposed, should have
awakened public opinion to the necessity of applying
the same principles in the solution of the church ques
tion; and this the Ecclesiastical Committee earnestly,
honestly desired to accomplish. It is well to recall, as
somewhat mitigating the blame of its failure, a remark
able historical parallel. By a due consideration of its
attitude of mind and its efforts we may fairly judge
the members, and thereby alone.
The representative bodies then familiar to the civil
ized world were the American Congress and the Eng
lish Parliament. The French delegates did not doubt
that, like the English Houses and like the Conti-
1 The references for this mentaires, the Moniteur, and
chapter are the debates as the Histoire Parlementaire.
given in the Archives Parle-

122 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
nental Congress, their own Assembly was a truly con
stituent sovereign body — in legal theory, the French
nation. They were justified in their opinion, for so
far in history no convention parliament had sat whose
credentials entitled it to be considered more truly na
tional and representative. Now, as was well known,
the Long Parliament, under the influence of Selden,
had formed an ecclesiastical establishment, Presbyte
rian in all but name, completely subordinate to the secu
lar power. The Convention Parliament which restored
Charles II. to the throne, though royalist out and out,
had no thought of restoring an aristocratic prelacy:
that which made William and Mary joint sovereigns
of the three kingdoms had subordinated the established
churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the
state. The various Constitutional conventions of the
United States, federal and State, had gravitated to
ward the most extreme secular view of temporal su
premacy, regarding all religious corporations as in no
respect different under the law from those of a volun
tary secular nature. Was it to be expected that a su
preme, active Assembly like that of France would do
less or take a less advanced position?
True, the French thought of the eighteenth century
was in some respects far in advance of English thought
in the seventeenth, but it was far behind contempora
neous American thought. It could grasp the notion of
equality between church and state as antiquated; it
could not grasp the notion of a legal relation between
the free exercise of religion and governmental admin
istration as a guarantee of the former ; it could not go
further than the concept of Erastianism as existent in
Great Britain — the organic church as a legal person
subject to the state. The possibility of a voluntary
system for church support, of a secular corporation

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 123
recognized by the law and administering such church
concerns as are temporal, of spiritual affairs controlled
only by spiritual authority, of harmonious relations
between spiritual full-powers under a corporate entity
created by them, and a state omnipotent and sovereign
in secular affairs — this has not even yet entered the
general European mind as a workable concept or a
thing to be desired.
Moreover, the limitation of secular authority in
secular affairs by national sovereignty expressed in
constitutions and bills of rights was not thoroughly
understood. It is customary to say that the English
Parliament is omnipotent and irresponsible within the
sphere of law.1 As far as these words have any mean
ing, they mean that English conservatism, as expressed
in legal habit and a strong social hierarchy, prevents
encroachment on individuality and guarantees personal
independence. The national habit of France being
exactly the obverse of this, the secular authority, irre
sponsible and omnipotent exactly as Rousseau consid
ered it to be, might and would encroach on the rights
of persons, whether natural or artificial. Excellent as
the Declaration of the Rights of Man has been shown in
the main to be, the language was hardly penned before
its cardinal principle as to property was whistled down
the wind, and the next step in its violation was still
easier, in that although it imposed an intolerable bur
den on the consciences of most Frenchmen for no valid
reason whatsoever, it seemed abundantly justified by
historical precedent. There was a marked resemblance
in many important respects between Selden and Camus,
between the Long Parliament and the National As
sembly. Finally, it must be remembered that the men of 1789
1 Bryce, American Commonwealth, I. 20.

124 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
were legislating for Roman Catholics. England and
English America were alike Protestant throughout, and
in the main Protestant "root and branch," as the phrase
then ran. It is true that there was a France which was
not Roman "root and branch" — a Gallican, Jansenist,
Protestant, radical France, the France which had cre
ated a body of French thought and literature so im
portant that if it were deducted from the total, what is
left would be only a maimed trunk, a mere torso. But
behind and associated with this was a people — Roman,
faithful, dependent — so swathed with Ultramontane
tradition that it could not loose its bands without dan
ger to its entire religious, moral, intellectual, and social
structure. It was natural that cautious legislators
should seek a course of reform possible for timid
minds, as they believed, and not likely to result in
revolution. Acute critics have long since remarked that in
the threefold watchword of the Revolution — Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity — there is no mention of indepen
dence. This perfectly illustrates our contention ; Rous
seau's idea of a sovereignty constituted by the people
was that while the power came from below, once cre
ated it should be as absolute as was ever that of the
monarch. Accordingly, the men of 1789 made no ef
fort to rid themselves of the old ideas ; in religious ques
tions they had no clear conception of what a free church
in a free state could mean, much less of how to organ
ize it.
The work of the Ecclesiastical Committee was the
joint achievement of the philosophers and the Jan
senists. Neither one nor the other had any higher ideal
than that of toleration, and without much effort to
reach even that low mark they fell into the mortal error
of the old regime — a confusion of ecclesiastical power

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 125
with secular, except that the latter was now to be the
despotic master, not one of the parties to an agreement
deliberately framed by both. The state was to pay the
wages, and was determined to lay down the conditions
of service. But what the committee did not see was
this: these conditions were questions of conscience,
matters purely spiritual. For a representative body,
irregularly chosen, as the Ultramontanes contended, to
assume, as it had done, all the political sovereignty of a
Constitutional convention or constituent assembly had
been a strain on all French royalists, and on most of
the civilized monarchical world as well; that such an
assembly should erect itself into an ecclesiastical coun
cil to determine rules of faith and conduct roused the
faithful everywhere to anxious foreboding, and made
Catholic Christendom at large uneasy. Was political
emancipation to terminate in renovated religious des
potism ?
The high clericals throughout the nation were quick
to take alarm, and asserted their readiness to maintain
Roman Catholic ascendancy even to the shedding of
their blood. The laity, too, especially in the south,
where Protestantism was lifting up its head and gird
ing for the struggle, began a series of demonstrations
which resulted in bloody riots. The infection of dis
order spread, civil war grew imminent, the Assembly
took alarm. Whether or not the Ecclesiastical Com
mittee itself understood the true purport of the plan
they presented in May, 1790, and which was rapidly
enacted into a statute under the style "Civil Constitu
tion of the Clergy," must ever remain a question for
academic debate. What is unquestioned is the fact
that in its entirety it represented the ecclesiastical and
political theory most abhorrent to Jesuitry and Ultra
montanism as hitherto accepted by the majority of

126 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
French Roman Catholics. Of course the Jansenism in
it was not openly avowed; Camus, the chief author of
the plan, concealed both himself and his dogma. The
appeal he made in sanction of his proposition was to
primitive and apostolic conditions ; the idea was osten
sibly to secure regeneration; the civil power posed as
regulating nothing but external details. Considering
the stern uprightness of Camus and the character of
both the committee and the Assembly, it is impossible
to accuse them of insincerity in these professions; as
a matter of fact, the idea of a return to primitive eccle
siastical conditions was just as sophistical as that of a
return to nature put forth by the philosophers.
This can easily be seen. The central concept and
very taproot of Roman Catholicism had been the spir
itual authority of the Pope; the Civil Constitution
denied him all power of instituting prelates; thus de
priving him of every shred of spiritual jurisdiction or
mission, recognizing him merely as an abstract ex
pression of Christian unity. To the overwhelming
majority of the episcopate, minor clergy, and laity this
could and did mean nothing less than the violation of
conscience. The plea of the ecclesiastics was "ultra
vires" : the Assembly was not a national Gallican synod
or council, and, even if it were, its decrees must receive
the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff in order to be
valid. Herein lay the crucial point of contention. Ad
mitting the presence of clerics among its members, the
Constituent Assembly was nevertheless a political body,
and as such could not impose laws upon the church as
an inferior. By the loss of its domains the church was
no longer the first estate in the realm, or in fact an
order at all in any recognized sense of the word. Yet
it still retained its place as the religious organization of
the vast majority of Frenchmen, preserving its historic

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 127
continuity and traditions. As such it was a power con
current in spiritual things with the power of the As
sembly in secular affairs. The power of the church
was from Christ himself ; the state must protect it, but
might never govern it.
The plea of Camus and the committee was equally
vigorous. The people, having resumed their political
and civil rights, had determined likewise to resume
their ecclesiastical rights, foremost among which was
the choice of their spiritual guides; and these, once
chosen and ordained, should have no territorial limita
tion in the exercise of their ministry. Accordingly,
the National Assembly, possessing the unquestioned
right to choose a national religion, and having deter
mined to preserve Roman Catholicism, arrogated noth
ing spiritual in the redistribution of episcopates, which
for convenience were to correspond to the departments.
This abolished fifty bishoprics. As to the vital matter
of institution, the Pope unquestionably was primate,
and as such could counsel all the clergy, but could not
assert or exercise jurisdiction; though they might ask
advice of him, he could neither offer nor force it upon
them ; he was in no sense the dispenser of ecclesiastical
mission. The proposed selection of priests and bishops by pop
ular election was not strongly opposed ; the idea of in
ducting pastors thus chosen by the senior French bishop
or metropolitan was stigmatized by the clerics as noth
ing short of schism. And schismatic it ultimately
proved to be; for the moment the members from the
clergy threatened, and in the main fulfilled their threat,
of taking no further share in the proceedings. During
the rest of the discussion there was therefore little oppo
sition ; parish priests were allowed to appoint their own
curates without the approbation of the bishop, and

128 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
modest stipends, payable in money from national funds,
were fixed for each rank of the hierarchy. The Assem
bly secretly congratulated itself that a national church
was thus constituted, and that the supremacy of the
higher over the lower clergy was so minimized as to
render the whole a homogeneous class.
The Civil Constitution as finally adopted was divided
into four heads. The first abolished the whole pre
existing establishment of archbishoprics, bishoprics,
prebendaries, canonries, abbeys, priories, substituting
ten metropolitan districts or archbishoprics and eighty-
three bishoprics, according to the political arrondisse-
ments and departments, respectively. In each of the
latter was to be a theological seminary. The director
of each seminary, together with the vicars, who were
chosen by the bishop from among the cures of the par
ishes, likewise greatly reduced in number, formed a
council for the diocese, without the assent of which
the bishop could not exercise any jurisdiction what
soever. The fifth article under the first head forbids
every church or parish of France 1 and every French
citizen "to acknowledge in any case and under any pre
text whatsoever the authority of bishops or metropoli
tans whose see shall be established under the rule of
a foreign power, or that of its delegates residing in
France or elsewhere."
Under the second head provision was made for the
appointment and institution of the ministry. The
electors of the departmental assembly nominated the
candidates for bishop; those of the district assembly
made the nominations for parish priests. The choice
was "by ballot and absolute plurality of votes," those
of freethinkers, Jews, and Protestants included; the
attendance of all the electors upon mass was imper-
1 Subsequently enlarged to include the French empire.

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 129
ative, at least of those who exercised their right of
voting. The metropolitan could examine and induct
a newly elected bishop; a bishop, the newly elected
cures; rejected candidates could appeal to the secular
courts under the form "because of abuse." This, of
course, went to the root of the entire question, destroy
ing the whole system of canonical institution. Under
the third head was fixed the stipend of each clerical
rank. These stipends, as we have said, were modest.
The Paris metropolitan was to receive fifty thousand
francs ; other bishops from twenty to twelve thousand,
according to their importance. This was an enormous
diminution of episcopal revenues and prestige. Finally,
according to the fourth head, all the official clergy were
to remain in residence, and were subject to municipal
authority like other officials. They were to swear that
they would maintain the constitution.1
It may at once be conceded that the reforms thus con
templated were in theory purely external, and that
there was no effort whatever to determine the origin
or nature of spiritual creeds. But the fatal mistake of
guaranteeing the support of Christian worship from
national funds having once been made, the sequence
was a distinct abuse of secular power. The plan ren
dered the connection of the Pope with the church
purely mystical, and turned the clergy into state offi
cials. It matters not that the former ecclesiastical dis
orders due to scandalous favoritism were rendered im
possible ; the way was opened for new ones. When the
church becomes a secular institution its ministers tend
to be time-servers and sycophants. Nor was the
vaunted return to primitive conditions in the election
of apostles and pastors in any degree satisfactory; the
1 The text of the Civil Con- pendix is taken from the min-
stitution as printed in the Ap- utes as given in Robinet, 1. 331.

130 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
electors, being identical with those who voted for secu
lar officers, and the elections being held at the same
time, on Sunday after mass, the door for base intrigue
was opened wide. It is, however, unjust and contrary
to sound procedure to criticise the Civil Constitution
from the standpoint of present-day knowledge. The
men who framed it were well intentioned and acted in
good faith. They were driven to extremes by perverse
opponents, both clerical and radical, whose desire was
to substitute anarchy for reform, bide their time, and
fish from the troubled waters of chaos what they really
desired. The radicals had their turn, and then the
clericals; the former failed utterly, the latter had a
measure of chastened and apparently permanent suc
cess. The work of the legislature was completed on July
twelfth, 1790; the king withheld his assent until Au
gust twenty-fourth. For this he had the best reasons ;
the proposition being repugnant to his whole nature,
and his interests as well, he vacillated and temporized
with himself in this as in all other crucial matters, vir
tually referring his decision to Pius VI.1 And the
Pope himself was scarcely less distracted; as early as
March twenty-ninth he had explained to the secret con
sistory the desperate situation of France, reserving his
decision, because as yet he could appeal to neither bish
ops, clergy, king, nor nation.2 Even in the crisis of
July tenth he had advised the king to consult the arch
bishops of Vienne (Pompignan) and of Bordeaux
(Champion de Circe), both high officials of undoubted
fidelity and learning, and to abide by their decision.
To both of them the Pontiff simultaneously addressed
1 Theiner, Documents Inedits Notre Saint Pere le Pape, 28
relatifs aux Affaires Reli- Juillet, 1790.
gieuses de la France, 1790 a 'Ibid., p. 1.
1800, I. 264. Louis XVI. a

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 131
identical letters, begging them to prevent the king from
assenting to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.1
Both the prelates paltered and concealed from all con
cerned the facts not only of the Pope's attitude, but of
the communications they had received. Thereupon
Louis made a final appeal to Rome ; Pius VI. refused a
direct reply, and referred the matter to a committee of
cardinals.2 Driven to the wall, and hoping for some
ulterior accommodation, Louis yielded to the clamor of
the Assembly and the advice of his friends, who feared
an insurrection, giving his formal consent on August
twenty-fourth.3 He thus alienated not only all the en
thusiasm and loyalty of the church, but likewise that
of Jansenists, Protestants, and philosophers, for his
delay signified his dislike of the measure.
For two months the Catholic party contented itself
with agitation among the parishes ; the Assembly there
fore proceeded with its work of legislating for the ad
ministration of the Civil Constitution without serious
interruption. As yet the clericals firmly believed that
with the aid of the Pope they could assert their power
by overwhelming numbers, overthrow the Civil Con
stitution, and restore peace to the distracted country.
On October thirtieth the Archbishop of Embrun ad
dressed the Cardinal de Bernis, French ambassador to
the Vatican, plainly stating this as a fact ; and possibly
he was right.4 But the oracle of St. Peter's chair was
dumb. Far otherwise his radical opponents. It is a sorry
spectacle when infidelity presides at the debates of em-
1 Theiner, Documents Inedits recommending to the faithful
relatifs aux Affaires Reli- the wisdom of the serpent ; for
gieuses de la France, 1790 a an example, see Theiner, Docu-
1800, I. 7. ments Inedits, I. 14.
'Ibid., p. 16. 'Ibid., p. 297.
8 Pius VI. was at this time

132 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
bittered Christians. This had in a certain sense been
true from the opening discussion of the Civil Constitu
tion, for it was at the very outset that the coming dicta
tor of the Revolution made his debut. Maximilien
Robespierre, deputy from Arras, was not merely satu
rated with the doctrines of Rousseau, he was imbued
with religiosity and was a fanatic. "He will go far,"
said Mirabeau; "he believes what he says." Like his
master, he saw with piercing vision that a sovereignty
constituted by popular will could never be supreme over
conscience, especially the Christian conscience. Rous
seau bestowed on the state the right of imposing a civil
religion upon its citizens, under pain of banishment or
death; Robespierre declared from the tribune that
priests are magistrates, neither more nor less; that
society has the right, on grounds of public utility, to
suppress whatever is superfluous in them or in their
numbers, especially in so far as their power depends
on foreign investiture ; that they, must depend solely on
popular suffrage; he even insinuated that to attach
them to the state they should be forced to marry.
This was the temper which began the war. The
Bastille was gone, but every Parisian saw daily as he
walked the street another symbol of the old "infamy"
more striking even than had been the frowning for
tress — to wit, the mediaeval garb of the priests and
nuns. It was not difficult to direct attention to the
fact; during the debates the archiepiscopal palace was
mobbed, the widely circulated radical journals heaped
abuse on the clergy, and by September it was a common
thing to rabble priests on the streets. Such was the
violence of temper and conduct among the populace
that timid souls could no longer face it, and the emigra
tion of the higher clergy assumed ominous dimensions.
But if the civil war and schism were primarily insti-

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 133
gated in fact by the radicals, the clericals did their
utmost by word and deed to fortify the spirits of the
faithful against all reform. As early as July first the
Archbishop of Toulon stigmatized the movement as
not directed toward regeneration, but toward anarchy.
Steadily and regularly this idea was inculcated among
the Catholics by their trusted leaders to the very end.
Of course as time went on the language of the cler
icals grew more violent and bitter. The Assembly was
called the scourge selected by God to chastise national
sin because it had been the instrument of sin. In Sep
tember, Boissy d'Anglas denounced his colleague, the
Bishop of Vienne, for disloyalty to the body in which
the prelate continued to sit, and thenceforward it was a
daily occurrence that the municipal authorities publicly
denounced the ecclesiastics in all quarters of France for
the violence of their treasonable utterances against the
Assembly. The Bishop of Treguier was actually ar
raigned for high treason. In Nimes and Montauban
the news of Dom Gerle's motion being rejected ini
tiated civil war between Catholics and Protestants. It
was the former who originated the conflict and stigma
tized the election of Rabaud to the presidency of the
Assembly as a crime. Order was partially restored, but
revolution seethed under the surface.
For more than a century the forces of the Roman
Catholic Church in France had been distinctly centrifu
gal as regards the papacy. Le Vayer de Boutigny,
author of the standard treatise on the authority of
kings under the ancient monarchy, had expressly stated
that in the matters necessary to salvation the church
was supreme, in all others the state; and since obedi
ence to the laws of the state is expressly enjoined by
God, they too are essential to salvation. The church
therefore is the support of the state; in what is above

134 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the essentials of salvation the church may counsel per
fection, but not enforce the steps thereto.
The logical consequences of this position had always
been drawn by French prelates. But now, believing
that the foundations of all order were crumbling, they
suddenly discovered the value of ecclesiastical law and
tradition. Asserting their love and fidelity to the Holy
See, they sent more than two hundred pastorals far and
near, exposing the breach in ecclesiastical continuity
made by the Civil Constitution. To suppress more than
fifty-one episcopal chairs and change the boundaries of
the other dioceses was a usurpation of spiritual au
thority by the secular arm ; to make Jews and Protes
tants electors in the choice of bishops and priests was
contrary to the primitive usage cited by the canonists
and contrary to the Concordat, a treaty not to be modi
fied without the assent of both the high contracting
parties ; nor was the form of institution consonant with
primitive usage under which the metropolitan received
his power from provincial councils. Why not call a
national council and negotiate with the Pope, who for
two centuries had exercised the right of institution?
Finally, to make the Pope a mere adviser was to render
the Gallican Church national, a thing contradictory in
itself and schismatic in its effects.
The bishop-deputies to the Assembly set forth, on
October thirtieth, a plain and moderate statement of
this, their position, and transmitted it to the Pope, who
delayed five long months before making a reply. This
was inexcusable, and remains inexplicable. The inter
val was disastrous. As their pastorals passed through
the land they were not merely read, they served as a
text for unbridled license of speech, not only in the
places already mentioned, but in Senez, Auch, Nantes,
Lyons, and scores of other towns scarcely less impor-

CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY 135
tant. Rioting broke out at Strasburg, in the Pas de
Calais, and at Uzes. Resistance to the execution of
the laws, whether concerning the sale of ecclesiastical
estates or the administration of the Civil Constitution,
was made in about forty different cities, ancl in some
of them with temporary success, under the leadership
of great ecclesiastical dignitaries. There was every
variety of form and degree ; the prelates, unaccustomed
to self-determination or independent action, behaved
each according to his temper, and appeared for the
most part to act not on principle, but from motives of
selfishness, as if they were loath to part with place, sta
tion, and wealth.
This at least was the interpretation put upon the
facts when presented to the Assembly by its committee
on November twenty-sixth. Enumerating upward of a
hundred and fifty bishops, chapters, canons, priests, and
curates who, in as many different places, denied the
authority of the Assembly and appealed to the Pope, the
chairman of the united commission, a deputy named
Voidel, proposed that all priests, without exception,
should take what he called a constitutional oath to obey
the laws, the constitution, including the ecclesiastical
provisions, and the king, under penalty of deposition
and loss of salary and citizenship.1 This was tyranny
pure and simple ; those who accepted pay from the gov
ernment, especially when tempted to insurrection by the
example of colleagues high in place, might well be ex
pected to swear allegiance in general ; but to compel an
oath to an abhorrent ecclesiastical constitution, includ
ing matters of conscience, was persecution. As the
Bishop of Clermont tersely put it, the church was re
signed to the loss of her property ; she would never sur
render her liberty. 'Archives Parlementaires, XXIV. 52.

136 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The debate was long and bitter. Mirabeau, reply
ing to the bishops' statement of October thirtieth,
made what was possibly the most eloquent and cer
tainly the most illogical of all his famous orations.
Maury's retort was biting: we are asked to act in a
single role the parts of judge, pontiff, and legislator;
such things are done only at the serail in Constanti
nople. Therewith he began an impassioned review of
the entire legislative procedure regarding the Roman
Church, and sought to reopen the whole question. But
Camus was too shrewd and quick to permit such a par
liamentary stroke ; interposing his austere presence and
interrupting with severe, incisive speech, he swept the
Assembly with him, while at the close he cited with
dramatic fire Augustine's declaration that for the sake
of peace he would resign all his ecclesiastical offices.
The debater then urged the example on his opponents.
Voidel's proposition was carried by an overwhelming
majority.

IX
THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY

IX
THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY
THIS appears to be the conjuncture of events at
which reform verged to revolution. The king
had been untouched by the philosophy of his century,
he was a sincere and humble believer; without opin
ions of his own, he leaned, like the faithful Roman
Catholic he professed to be, on his spiritual advisers
for guidance. Without exception, and during the time
of uncertainty as to the Pope's attitude, those advisers
kept telling him that assent to the Civil Constitution
would mean the perdition of his soul.
Yet he saw clearly that a refusal to comply with
the fierce demands of Assembly and people could
mean nothing short of insurrection and, in the light
of daily experience, the speedy overthrow of the mon
archy. His young queen not unnaturally wished to
remain in her high station; he himself felt the bur
den of his ancestry and what he owed to his name;
possibly he already knew, what is finally clear to the
world, that the Pope's hesitancy was due to the at
titude of the French episcopate, and so hoped against
hope that procrastination might result in toleration for
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. With the ablest
canonists divided among themselves, a distracted mon
arch might thus easily deceive himself and reduce to
practice the precepts of that Jesuitical casuistry in which
139

140 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
he was trained. The force of circumstances, he felt,
was too strong for his conscience. He was surrounded
by aristocratic prelates, concerned more for their bene
fices than for the cure of souls; with and for their
class invincibly fixed on the point of opposition to re
form, they did not warn, but rather abetted him. The
chimera of a national church might otherwise have
had some substance : had the king possessed any force
of character, revolution would either have come sooner
or else have been averted entirely.
But behaving and feeling as Louis XVI. did, the
utter separation of church and state, the complete de
sertion of throne and altar by moderates and radicals
was consummated quickly enough. By the menacing
words and threats of force within and without the
assembly hall, the king had felt compelled to act. He
must either refuse or grant his sanction to the Civil
Constitution. We feel somehow, as if even then, when
giving his formal assent, he might have displayed a
hesitating gravity, like that which he showed when he
took the civic oath at the festival of federation. But
having determined on the role of obliquity, he over
acted his part. He signed the constitution, and he did
it with a Machiavellian appearance of sincerity that is
disgusting.1 Twice, as if to salve the royal conscience,
efforts were made on the floor of the Assembly to show
that in the Civil Constitution there was no intention to
attack conscience, dogma, or spiritual authority. The
plea, which was intended really to justify the decree
compelling all priests to take the oath, was in the main
Gregoire's. But there were rioters without, and the
galleries of the hall groaned under the weight of med
dling spectators. The fatal decree which made the oath
indispensable was enacted on November twenty-seventh,
1 Durand-Maillane, Histoire Apologetique, p. 186.

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 141
1 790. Perhaps it might have been lawful to exact from
the clergy, as from others, a general oath to the king
and the political constitution, especially as the prelacy
far and near were now inciting and leading insurrec
tion; but to exact a definite oath to a definite measure
which violated the consciences of men who were not
state servants was, we repeat, primarily and necessarily
a piece of shocking tyranny. The king's assent to the
decree was obtained by the same menacing violence as
that by which he had been forced to sanction the Con
stitution of the Clergy, and Louis again displayed the
same, unpardonable semblance of humility and com
plaisance.1 His purpose was already fixed. Incited
thereto by D'Agoult, Bishop of Pamiers, he was plan
ning flight, and on December third he addressed Fred
erick William of Prussia, imploring aid against the
French. Although the Assembly could not know this,
they had an instinct of treachery, and even Camus
talked of using force to subdue prelatical recalcitrancy.
Suddenly the bolt fell. On December twenty-seventh
the walls of Paris were placarded with a forged poster,
purporting to emanate from the municipality, which de
clared that the oath should be obligatory on all priests,
without exception, whether functionaries or not, and
that such as refused should be regarded as disturbers of
the peace. Explanations and excuses were offered by
both Mirabeau and Bailly, the mayor, but in vain ; the
placard represented public opinion. Malouet asked, in
vain too, for an inquisition to discover the offenders,
and in vain was an effort made to commit the Assembly
to Mirabeau's explanation that only those taking office
should be required to swear.
Barnave then carried the house in a demand that all
1 For the text of his letter, see Robinet, Mouvement
Religieux, I. 371.

142 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the ecclesiastics of the Assembly should be summoned
to the bar and sworn. This was on January fourth.
The ceremony began at once. An angry roar of ex
cited voices could be heard without. They swelled
into one fierce shout: "The oath! the oath!" Not a
priest was to escape, whether functionary or not. This
closed the door to all accommodation, and then oc
curred the famous scene, second only in its grandeur
to that of the Tennis Court, when, one after another,
two thirds of the prelates and priests refused the oath
with solemn mien, and thereby with impressive dignity
surrendered their places. Of the hundred clerical dep
uties who had subscribed to the Civil Constitution,
twenty retracted two days later, and others followed
at intervals. Only two of the bishop-deputies, Talley
rand and Gobel, accepted the constitution. Four other
bishops not deputies, one of them a cardinal, joined
in the oath :, Lomenie de Brienne, Jorente_of_Orleans,
and_ Lafonte de Savines oT VivTers, with Du Bourg-
Miroudot. GobeT~a}irl-T^~Bomg-Mir6udot were not
true bishops, but merely titular — what are known by a
fiction of the Roman Church as bishops in partibus.1
The hundred and twenty-five nonjuring deputies of
the clergy found themselves at the head of a great ma
jority among the laity, and such was the moral effect
of so powerful a resistance that the Assembly was
forced to adopt harsh and stringent measures. "We
have seized their property," cried Mirabeau, "but they
have preserved their honor." Now "honor" was still a
proud word in France. It was a tremendous help to
the radicals that incumbents for the eighty vacant bish
oprics had to be found among the parish priests, and
Mirabeau composed what was intended to be a con
ciliatory paper, an address to the people, to be printed
1 De Pressense, The Church and the French Revolution, p. 165.

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 143
and published throughout France, explaining that
change in diocesan boundaries was a secular matter,
and appealing for the thousand and first time to prim
itive Christianity as a sanction for the election of pas
tors by popular suffrage. But his main reliance was
continuous and intemperate abuse of the clergy, which,
though having a shadow of reason, so offended even
the Jansenists and Protestants that the paper was sent
to a committee for modification. In its final form the
appeal reiterated the two fundamental propositions and
defended the oath as nothing but a solemn promise of
officials to obey the law. Severe and indefinite penal
ties were to be inflicted on those who undertook to
perform clerical functions without swearing. This
was ordered to be read as a pastoral in all the churches
on January twenty-sixth. It was further decreed that,
contrary to either the primitive or later practice of
Rome, the newly chosen bishops might be inducted
into their sees by any of the sworn bishops without
further institution.
The initial steps by which the Constitutional, na
tional church was organized were destitute of all moral
grandeur. Already the Bishop of Autun was well
known as a man without piety ; Gobel was a notorious
time-server; both were virtual neophytes in apostasy.
Yet it was Talleyrand, assisted by Gobel and Miroudot,
who consecrated the first Constitutional bishop, the
Abbe Expilly, and installed him in his "department of
the Aisne" ; Gobel, alone and unassisted, consecrated
more than half of the total number of new bishops — no
fewer than forty-eight. Under the latest decree these
in turn consecrated the remainder. The municipalities
and Jacobin clubs in the various district capitals re
ceived their official coadjutors with dignity and re
spect. But it was far otherwise with the religious

144 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
houses; in most cases the various monastic orders
closed their doors in the faces of the constitutional
bishops, and in many parts of France their authority
was established and maintained by military force.
During the life of the Constituent Assembly the non-
juring ecclesiastics of the provinces were unmolested;
they even received a slender allowance of money and
were permitted to say mass in some of the churches of
the departments. Later their case was far different.
Thus by a process legally regular but morally im
perfect was formed a complete, though halting and
lame state establishment. The effect was deplorable.
In Paris, where for centuries the Gallican Church had
assembled all that was most learned and brilliant and
devoted among its clergy, high and low, almost two-
thirds — four hundred and thirty from six hundred and
seventy — of the officiating ecclesiastics, and they the
most distinguished, refused the oath. The Paris pop
ulace was so infuriated that, with cries of "The oath or
the gallows !" they mobbed the Church of St. Sulpice,
where the rector was especially outspoken in his obdur
acy. Of the fifty-two rectors of Paris twenty-three
subscribed. Such resistance might have been expected
in the metropolis; but while our knowledge of the
provinces is defective, the records having either not
been kept at all or destroyed later, yet it is reasonably
certain that in the country as a whole the proportion of
recusants was not much lower than in Paris. That a
number relatively so large actually took the oath was
due in part to the silence of the Vatican, but in the
main to the falseheartedness with which the king had
sanctioned the Civil Constitution, an act which, in view
of the now well-known facts, that his court was already
plotting with foreign potentates, that his personal chap
lains had refused the oath, that he himself never at-

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 145
tended a "Constitutional" service, finally, that he was
already contemplating flight to escape further identifi
cation with the general movement, cannot be too se
verely reprobated as Jesuitry.1
It is claimed by the polemics both of the Roman
Catholics and of the radicals that there was already
no freedom of action or debate; the casuistry of one
side lending itself to false representations, the violence
of the other intimidating anxious souls. Both are
right. Jansenism revenged itself on Ultramontanism,
and in so doing committed itself and the Assembly in
particular to a false position. Romanism temporized
in part and in part accepted the role of martyrdom, the
radicals enforced their false doctrine, encouraged vio
lence, and flourished in the dissensions of ecclesiasti
cism, and these culminated in a schism that withdrew
from the cause of reform many, if not the majority, of
those who alone could have guided its steps on a dif
ferent path.
The formal institution of the Constitutional clergy
having been attended with comparatively little difficulty,
the fate of the national church depended largely on the
attitude of the Pope, but in the main and finally on the
character of the new incumbents. Some of these were
unexceptionable. Gregoire of Blois was spotless in
character, wise in administration, and successful in his
pastoral work, for he acted from sincere conviction.
Claude Le Coz, at Rennes, displayed both faith and he
roism, protecting the nonjuring clergy against the most
violent assaults. But the new positions in the prov
inces were too often filled by unworthy self-seekers
who seriously misbehaved themselves in many in
stances, and at the best failed in most places to win
the confidence of their peoples. Several of the new
'Memoires de Bouille, ire ed., II. 42.

146 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
bishops, by a display of unfortunate secular temper,
accepted offices which seemed to the observant masses
utterly incompatible with their spiritual station. Ma-
rolles at Laon,Fauchet in Calvados, and Villar at Laval,
were chosen and served as presidents of the respective
Jacobin clubs in those districts. There was no social
heresy which Fauchet did not proclaim from his pulpit ;
and Gobel, the Paris metropolitan, was an arch dema
gogue, too ignorant to lead in anarchistic movements
and disposed at every crisis to jump with the cat. Si
multaneously with the process of investing the Consti
tutionals, great numbers of the parish clergy in the
country, who had at first taken the oath and still held
their cures, began under various influences to retract.
Violent antagonisms were speedily aroused, expressed
at first in warnings, taunts, and gibes. But actual vio
lence soon broke forth, and the nonjuror Catholics who
worshipped in conventicles or under the protection of
the religious houses still in existence were in many
instances shamefully mobbed. Rioters burst open the
doors of ten or more nunneries belonging to the Sisters
of Charity in Paris, and the termagant women of the
Central Market pitilessly scourged their helpless sis
ters through the streets; like brutalities were seen in
Rochelle, Mans, and Lyons. No one was punished.
When the king and court arranged to spend Easter
week in retirement at St. Cloud, it was whispered abroad
that in this apparently harmless excursion the king's
real object was to receive the paschal eucharist from the
hands of a nonjuror priest. In consequence, the pop
ulace of the capital, suspecting, if not that, at least some
other trick, forced the royal carriages back at the very
gate of the Tuileries.1 Not only was Louis now a
virtual prisoner in his own house, but the authorities
'Archives Parlementaires, XXV. 200.

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 147
of the city burst into menaces, threatening his further
liberty and violently charging him with giving his con
fidence to refractory priests. The Cordeliers placarded
the walls with denunciations of the king himself as a
refractory. It is not incomprehensible that hencefor
ward the desertion of the throne, the effort to sustain
the monarchy on foreign soil, and the abandonment of
loyal hearts to their fate were parts of an irrevocable
revolution. A faint heart and a superstitious faith
form an ill-assorted union.
Lafayette as commander of the National Guard did
what he could to protect the worship of nonjurors in
authorized halls, but his efforts were vain; much less
could he secure liberty of action in the same way for
the king. His troops would not interpret their am
biguous instructions as compelling the protection of
nonjurors, burgher or royal. Thereupon the general
resigned and offered asylum to a congregation of the
churchless in his own house. He resumed his com
mand, however, under strong pressure, but only with
the assurance that the king's personal liberty would not
again be violated. Meantime the nonjurors had hired
the church of the Theatins, but the authorities of the
city, finding that the necessary poster announcing the
place as one of private worship, had not been affixed to
the building, forbade its use, and closed it, under stress
of mob violence. This congregation Lafayette took
under his protection on resuming command of the Na
tional Guard.
We have already noted the effect upon Parisians of
the efforts to secure burgher privileges and a limited
suffrage by Constitutional measures. The first Con
stitutional measure in which the political suffrage was
exercised in such a way as to control the masses of
France was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Be-

148 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
cause this was a religious control, it oppressed the con
sciences of the majority. The consequence of the
king's attitude in regard to it was twofold as far as the
reformers were concerned. The radical thinkers began
to feel that they could dispense with such a smooth and
supple king, and it was neither among the peasantry
nor among the artisans and laborers, but in the very
heart of the burgher class that a nucleus of democracy
was formed, largely under the instigation of Marat and
after his appeals of June, 1 790. Its leaders were men
widely differing from each other in temper and endow
ments, but all able and ardent : Robespierre, Gregoire,
Marat, Condorcet.
When on February fourth, 1790, the king so gra
ciously accepted the new political constitution, there
could be little doubt of his capacity as the leader
of reform, and no question of democracy could exist,
for the nation was royalist, and Louis was personally
popular. The festival of the federation seemed truly
national and it was purely royalist. But the attitude
of the king to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, out
wardly assenting, inwardly raging, was quickly di
vined, and changed the temper of the moderate liberals
completely. They could dispense with such a cowardly
hypocrite as Louis clearly was. For some time men
had used the words "Republic of France" in the sense
purely of "commonwealth." But the very word "re
public" led to further thought, and in December the
newly published pamphlet of Robert, entitled, "Re
publicanism in France," was widely read and approved
by many who could not yet stomach the radical de
mocracy. A further accession to the ranks of those
who distrusted the institution of monarchy because
they despised the monarch came through the suffer
ings and famine of the winter, which led to an examina-

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 149
tion of the bases of society and produced many social
ists. Moreover, from the beginning of the new
regime, especially in the preliminary movement of
municipal reform, the women of France had come to
the front. Certain of them now became leaders in the
democratic-republican movement. Between January
and June, 1791, four social elements — those who were
already suffering from hunger, those who detested the
king for his suspected duplicity, the supporters of the
commonwealth idea, and the femininists, as they were
styled — all drew closer and closer together, until, few
in number as they were and unpopular as were their
tenets, they formed a powerful moral force. Our min
ister, Gouverneur Morris, noted as early as April that
even in the highest circles it was already fashionable
to announce yourself as republican.1
It must be remembered that so far all was suspicion :
even the retreat to St. Cloud was suspected to be only
a ruse. The king was not content to let suspicion die
out, and to continue his underhand dealing behind a
specious inactivity and moderate compliance such as
had been consonant with his character. Had he
merely continued to hunt, to eat, to drink, to play the
clown, to tinker with his toy locks in his toy shop, he
would have shown himself an adroit diplomat. But he
behaved far otherwise. In April, some days after the
Easter fiasco, he caused his diplomatic representatives
throughout Europe to deny emphatically that he was
unhappy, for he could have no happiness except that of
his people, and this was patent to all ; to assert that his
authority was never so strong, since it was now founded
on the law; to deny the base rumor that the king was
no longer free, for it was of his own volition that he
resided among the citizens of Paris, a concession he
* Aulard, Histoire Politique de la Revolution Franchise, p. 114.

ISO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
owed to their patriotism, their anxieties, and their af
fection.1 Not content with this, Louis presented him
self before the Assembly, asserted his fidelity to the new
constitution, including the regulations pertaining to the
clergy, dismissed his chaplains, and attended mass in
company with the queen at St. Germain l'Auxerrois,
the parish church of the Tuileries. This and similar
acts discouraged and infuriated the nonjurors without
winning the slightest liberal support. Disaster to the
church and dissolution of the nation were at hand.
"Your detestable Constitution of the Clergy," said
Mirabeau to Camus, "will ruin the one we are making
for ourselves."
The Pope, moreover, had spoken at last, unfortu
nately not in a dispassionate spirit, but under the in
fluence of a bitter grievance. Two counties of the
Rhone valley, Avignon and Venaissin, had been papal
states for four centuries. Like other portions of the dis
trict, they had been fired with the theory of liberty, and
asserting the cardinal principle of the Revolution, de
manded in the exercise of their popular sovereignty to
be incorporated in France. The Assembly dreaded the
diplomatic troubles sure to arise, but sympathized with
the spirit of the people. In the necessity for preserving
order French troops occupied the counties during Jan
uary, 1 79 1. What the inevitable result would be was
known long before to both Pius and his subjects — at
least as early as March, 1790, when the Avignon riots
began. The end was not actually reached until Sep
tember thirteenth, 1791, when the union was voted.
It was therefore under a sense of impending personal
wrong that Pius, who had as keen a desire for tempo
ralities as any prince in Europe, finally broke silence.
The official utterances of the papal chair are contained
'Archives Parlementaires, XXV. 312, 313.

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 151
in three papers : the preliminary brief, the brief "Cari-
tas," and a letter to the king.1
In private correspondence the Pope had for months
past steadily been urging the French clergy to resist the
Civil Constitution ; in the brief of March tenth the first
official utterance, he did not formally arraign the Civil
Constitution, but with doubtful tact he condemned
every vital principle of the Revolution, including lib
erty of thought and action; moreover, he expressly
threatened all recalcitrants among the clergy with ex
communication. This paper was referred to a coun
cil of the Constitutional ecclesiastics.
In an open letter to the king Pius explicitly con
demned the Civil Constitution. The assembly of the
Constitutional priests replied in a strain far nobler than
that of their spiritual head. Reviewing the means of
conciliation they had suggested in their statement of
principles, they declared their continued adherence to
the principles of liberty and equality, asserted their
belief in toleration as a principle of civil authority
and in the necessity for a separation of the spiritual
from the secular power. If schism could thereby be
prevented, they were ready to resign in a body. On
April thirteenth the Pope issued his rejoinder. The
Civil Constitution of the Clergy he now asserted to
be heresy pure and simple, and all the faithful were
adjured to stand firm by the ancient doctrines. The
document was publicly burned in the Rue Royale on
May first by a contemptuous mob. Thus the war was
declared, conciliation made impossible, and the battle
was joined.
The Paris press began to breathe threatenings and
slaughter. But the Constitutionals were in a serious
' Briefs of Pius VI., I. 126. Theiner, Documents Inedits,
I. 18, 90, 94. 142.

152 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
quandary. For them there was now a choice between
perverse, avowed schism and diplomatic procrastin
ation. They deliberately selected the latter and de
scended to the basest practices. Protesting that since
the communications professing to emanate from the
Pope had not been addressed to the government they
could not be genuine, they surreptitiously issued a
spurious brief in which the Pope was made to sanction
the Civil Constitution.1 When this paper had been
sufficiently circulated to create widespread uncertainty,
they openly distributed an official circular repeating
that since the pretended rescript from Rome had not
received the authority of letters patent from the throne,
as was customary, it could not be genuine. It would
be a scandal should the successor of St. Peter openly
violate a well-known law. He could never have done
it.2 The brief of April thirteenth was then denounced
far and near as a fraud. Camus alone disdained such
subterfuges, and admitting the paper to be genuine,
fiercely assailed all its positions, proving the whole to
be nugatory.3 His logic was irrefutable, but the hour
and the people were incapable of grasping it. The
country resounded with denunciations and counter-
denunciations. For long the Ultramontanes could pro
duce no convincing proof. High words led to high
handed outrage.
As the storm grew more and more menacing, the
important nonjurors of high rank fled across the
border in ever increasing numbers, notably Cardinal
Rohan of Strasburg and others only less important.
Of the Constitutional substitutes in important bishop
rics, many proved to be men of probity, acting accord
ing to the dictates of conscience, and a very few rose to
1 See letter of Bishop of Mar- * Hesmivy d' Auribeau, Ex-
seilles, in Theiner, Documents traits des Memoires, I. 207.
Inedits, I.330. The forgery was 'Observations sur deux
entitled Vrai Bref du Pape. Brefs, Juillet, 1791.

THE CLIMAX OF JESUITRY 153
the heights of marked and real ability. Of course all
of these were not men of great wisdom. Gregoire of
Blois, as was expected, continued the strongest, not
because of learning or eloquence, but because of a char
acter firmly rooted in conviction and courage. Gobel
chose his associates among the basest elements of revo
lutionary radicalism, performed his duties without zeal,
and was finally execrated as a weak vessel tossed by
every wave of popular violence, trimming his sails so
often that he failed to hold any course. He soon iden
tified himself with actual unbelief and ended in the
complete shipwreck of blasphemy and scandal. Tal
leyrand, rapidly preparing his apostasy from the min
istry and from Christianity, was justly famous for
consummate ability and versatility. Lomenie de
Brienne, fickle and perverse, was openly denounced by
the Pope, but not for his real faults : Pius accused him
of preparing toleration for Protestants and of restor
ing the Edict of Nantes! The persecuting temper of
the papacy, thus frankly revealed, was met by a fa
naticism only more dangerous because more powerful,
more active, and more virulent.
Mirabeau had died on April second, a fortnight be
fore the king's attempted retreat to St. Cloud. Al
ready the terrors of the popular passion he had done so
much to excite were before his eyes, and up to the very
moment of his fatal seizure he was engaged with
Malouet and others on a plan to stay the portentous
storm of revolution now on the horizon. In vain.
"Dormir" — to sleep, he wrote with the feebleness of ex
haustion, and died. The Paris magistracy, in a mo
ment of sanity, were simultaneously contemplating
measures to secure liberty of worship for nonjuring
Catholics, but they were as effectually checked by vio
lence as he by death. The stream of persecuting
frenzy fretted against all barriers. Those who sup-

154 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ported the Constitutionals developed into a political
party styling themselves "patriots," while they began
to stigmatize the supporters of those who refused the
oath as aristocrats.
For a moment the reaction against the shocking
inhumanity shown to the Sisters of Charity enabled'
the Assembly calmly to discuss the whole question of
how religious liberty was to be exercised. On May
second, Talleyrand, chairman of the committee to
which the matter had been referred, presented his re
port. It pleaded superbly for complete liberty, and
denounced mere toleration as an unworthy and un
necessary shift. The practical solution of the diffi
culty, he thought, was to be found in permitting non
juror priests to officiate in the state churches at hours
other than those of regular service. The plan was
actually put into operation and worked well in many
parish churches and chapels, but only for a very short
time. On June second an effort was made to reopen
the church of the Theatins for nonjuring worship.
The church was unfortunately most conspicuous on
the Quai des Theatins, now the Quai Voltaire, and
again the mob of Paris intervened and shut the doors.
The cowardly flight of Louis to Varennes on June
twenty-first broke down all restraints. Measure after
measure, each more rigorous than the preceding, was
put into force against the nonjurors. Constitutional
ecclesiastics in many places identified themselves with
the radicals, notably Gobel in Paris and Fauchet in
Calvados. Camus and the Jansenists resisted every
effort at conciliation or accommodation. When the
National or Constituent Assembly gave way to the
newly elected Legislative on September thirtieth, eva
sion, strife, dissension, violence, prevailed over the
whole land.

X
WORSHIP OLD AND NEW

X
WORSHIP OLD AND NEW
THUS Jansenist, philosopher, and Protestant had
inaugurated their work. It was not a good work
because the materials were not good, the structure was
ill adapted to its uses, and those who were to live in it
refused to trust their lives to its shelter. The Jansen
ists under Camus had arranged to depapalize France;
the philosophers under Mirabeau to decatholicize it;
the Protestants under Rabaud to erastianize it ; the rad
icals under Hebert were preparing to dechristianize it.
Decatholicize and dechristianize were the words re
spectively of Mirabeau and Hebert. The estates of
the church were secularized; its ministers were to be
public functionaries; the Bishop of Rome, as Lanjui
nais with exasperating iteration styled the incumbent of
St. Peter's chair, was to be no longer a sovereign pon
tiff, but a personal expression of ecclesiastical unity as
far merely as that unity existed and the parties thereto
assented. The Civil Constitution embodied these ideas,
and ifs makers, seeking with perfect good faith to
inaugurate true reform, inaugurated chaos.
But the finishing touch was put to the work of de
struction, the consummation of dismay and ruin was
achieved, not by the Constitutionals, but by the old
ecclesiastics. Once and again they had forged the bolts
by which the walls of their own Jerusalem were riven ;
they now set the petards which burst open the breaches
iS7

158 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
and admitted the conquering foe. For their instru
ment of final ruin they chose no less a personage than
the king. Louis had become the facile tool of Jesuitry
and prelacy. With "death in his soul," but with joy
in his eyes, he had signed the Civil Constitution, while
simultaneously he was planning to take refuge from
his own acts by escaping to Montmedy. This was in
October, 1790. The scheme having failed, he contin
ued to plot for the same end, though outwardly even
more sympathetic with the movement of the hour.
Turned back from St. Cloud, yet the subsequent circular
of April twenty-third, 1 791, to all the courts of Europe
had asseverated that in all his acts he was entirely free
and perfectly sincere. The Assembly was full of en
thusiasm about his conduct, and to a deputation sent by
it to congratulate him he declared that if they could
read the bottom of his soul they would find there "feel
ings calculated to justify the confidence of the nation.
All mutual distrust would be banished and we would
all be happy." Yet simultaneously and constantly he
was plotting with Bouille and planning flight. Feign
ing, scheming, lying, acting, the king was stable in
nothing except the grim determination not to lose his
soul, and that was exactly what his confessors assured
him he would do if the Civil Constitution should be ac
cepted by the Gallican Church and work smoothly
by royal aid. This was the central motive of the
final effort to leave France, made on the night of June
twentieth, and thwarted by the loose discipline and dis
obedience of Bouille's troops. All France was con
fused and bewildered by the virtual abdication : face
to face with innumerable and awful dangers, the nation
felt itself to be deserted by its head and well-nigh lost.
The consequences from a political point of view are
incalculable. While conservative instinct struggled

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 159
to restore the king and surround him with proper safe
guards, yet royalty in his person was discredited — nay,
more, it was actually suspended for three months;
democrats and republicans made a great gain, if not
in numbers at least in prestige, for during ninety
days their plan was actually put into successful op
eration. Now, the king's motive for such base inconsistency
was rendered perfectly clear in a proclamation made on
leaving Paris, and generally believed to have been
written by himself. If it were, it is his chef-d'oeuvre
of criticism and sincerity, unequalled by any other of
his performances. The scathing arraignment of the
constitution of 1791 which he then made is the final
condemnation of that paper, and no critic since has
had anything substantial to add. But, above all, the
royal document makes clear that second to no other
object in his flight was his determination to regain his
religious liberty. With emphatic detail he recites the
entire process whereby religious anarchy had been
created and his own conscience violated : the dissen
sions of the realm amid which he had been rendered
odious by his attachment to the faith of his sires; his
violent arrest when starting for St. Cloud, and his im
prisonment in the Tuileries; the encouragement of
rioters by the National Guard ; the compulsory dismis
sal of his chaplains, and finally the hated services at St.
Germain l'Auxerrois conducted by a Constitutional
priest.1 It must not be supposed that the conception of a free
church in a free state had never presented itself to
French minds. The example of the United States had
wrought powerfully on public opinion for ten years
past, and Lafayette, though sometimes weak and the-
' Choix de Rapports, Opinions et Discours, IV. 97.

160 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
atrical in trying crises and when removed from Wash
ington's judicious mastery, had in this respect at least
faithfully proclaimed what he had seen and noted. His
simple solution of the whole question was complete lib
erty of worship, and every man to pay for that form
under which he chose to do homage to his Maker.1
The notion began to find supporters even among the
Ultramontanes, and there was agitation in its behalf
even among the Constitutionals. Had the monarchical
constitution of 1791 been modified accordingly, France
might have been spared untold miseries. It went far,
and granted amnesty for all transgressions connected
with the Revolution. Further, the proposition to em
body in it the whole Civil Constitution was rejected.
Consequently many Catholics who abhorred the latter
document took the civil oath to the political constitu
tion with gladness, and the king swore with some sin
cerity to maintain it. Yet it explicitly affirmed in its
first article that "citizens have the right to elect or
choose the ministers of their religion," which is the
basic principle of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy ;
and it provided for the support of those thus chosen.
This last is the essential and vicious principle which
left the door wide open for further iniquity.
The spread- of opinions making for emancipation
was tremendously furthered by the continuation of
disorder under the Legislative Assembly, the newly
elected body of deputies which began its ill-starred ca
reer of mediocrity on October first, 1791. The record
of these ecclesiastical disorders is too long and dreary
' Farewell Address. (Moni- idea of a prescribed and domi-
teur, October 11, 1791.) "Lib- nant cult." For the utter re-
erty could never be firmly es- jection of his plan to adopt the
tablished should intolerance system of the United States,
under the guise of nondescript see his Memoires, III. 62.
patriotism dare to harbor the

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 161
to be chronicled in detail. Indeed, the facts are to this
day somewhat uncertain. But some things are clear —
that there were outrages, and that the area of outrages
extended with every day.
On one hand, the authenticity of the papal briefs
was now denied by many of the nonjurors who still
hoped for peace; on the other, their contents were
accepted by the irreconcilable Ultramontanes, and exe
crated by those of the radicals who, like the ecclesi
astical extremists, saw their account in a civil war.
The sincere and embittered nonconformists inveighed
against the oath-bound priests as defiled, and the emi
grant bishops flooded the country with pastoral letters
giving minute instructions to the faithful how to evade
the law. The Constitutionals steadily identified them
selves to a greater degree with a political party, the
so-called patriots, and as far as possible made their
religion a matter of state.
Tumult and scandal became rife not only in Vendee,
the province whose people were the most profoundly
attached to religion, as they knew it, of any in all
France, but in Deux-Sevres, at the gate of the capital,
in Maine-et-Loire, Calvados, and in short everywhere.
Rumors of rebellious excesses by the nonjurors reached
Paris by every new courier from the departments. It
seemed impossible to secure any exact information, for
apparently the country population was in league with
the rioters. One thing alone was certain : the fact of
the riots. Bands of armed men under the banner of
religion, mostly nonconformists, scoured and terrorized
the country. Even women trooped together in un
bridled frenzy and rabbled the Constitutional priests.
Funeral and marriage processions dispersed at the mere
approach of a Constitutional priest as of a thing defiled.
The general disorganization was so complete that

1 62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the all-important taxes could not be collected. Such
at least were the alarming reports made both to the
Constituent1 and to the Legislative by the regular
civil authorities and by special investigating commit
tees. There seems no reason to doubt the substantial
truth of them, nor likewise the generally accepted ac
count that where they were strong enough the juror
party of the patriots engaged in reprisals of much hor
ror.2 The nonjuring priests in many places were
massacred ; throughout the provinces some of the more
seditious were imprisoned as law-breakers and severely
handled; thousands disguised themselves and worked
as day laborers. The rescript of Louis on his flight
to Varennes had specified all his personal woes; the
most important, as has been explained, was the restraint
of his conscience in the exercise of his religion, and in
this he had expressed, as was now perfectly evident, the
feeling of the vast majority of the Roman churchmen
of France. They could not fly, so they fought like wild
animals at bay; he had tried flight, and when turned
back to Paris, he paltered, trimmed, and hurried on to
his fate.
In the new legislature were ten Constitutional bishops
and seventeen Constitutional vicars. Not one was a
man of mark. One of the bishops was the notorious
Fauchet of Calvados, who, under the guise of pastoral
visitations throughout that department, had so inflamed
the populace by his anarchistic harangues that by order
of the Assembly he had been arrested and ordered to
trial. But a Jacobin mob had first rescued him and then
elected him to the Legislative. Among the lay mem-
1 Especially that of Legrand north, declaring that modera-
on August 4, 1791, which made tion must be discarded for the
a great stir. It demanded sake of the public safety.
prompt and vigorous measures 2 See Barruel Histoire du
to repress the disorders in. the Clerge, p. 44,

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 163
bers were a few moderate men from the defunct Con
stituent, sitting on the right. They were almost lost
among the throngs of new men. The left was com
posed of brilliant but unstable Girondists, and the ex
treme left of a few violent Jacobins, whose adherents
were growing hourly in numbers and strength through
the indecision of their opponents and the support of the
now organized and impatient Paris populace. This
was the engine of tyranny for an unconstitutional, il
legal power — what the Greeks would have called mob
government, or ochlocracy. It regularly crowded the
precincts of the hall, interfering with the feeble efforts
at calm discussion or wise legislation by uproarious
manifestations of assent or dissent. The great mass
of the delegates who occupied the centre were dazed
and inconstant, showing little interest in any real prin
ciple. Their mediocre powers were fully occupied in
a feeble alertness as to how events would turn. The
body as a whole understood its commission to be the
overthrow of every hindrance to the Revolution; it
developed into the servile instrument of clubs, cabals,
and violent agitators.
Whatever the faults of the Constituent had been, at
least it contained men whose eloquent pleading com
manded the attention of the nation, and it never in
all its thirteen hundred and nine enactments at
tacked personal liberty or conscience, as the members
understood the words. The record of its debates
clearly shows that nonjuring was never held to be a
crime against the state. The Legislative had some
members distinguished by piety, wisdom, and modera
tion ; it had many Girondists of insight, brilliancy, and
courage; but its better element could not assert itself,
its shrewdness was not translated into action, and the
dull homogeneity of its vast majority had no motive

1 64 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
power except blind zeal. A persecuting spirit, though
embryonic, existed among the extreme men of both
left and right, and for its development it found a per
fect nidus in such a body.
When the legislature began its sessions many of
what were now called refractory priests continued to
minister in their respective parishes. The committees
appointed to investigate the ecclesiastical troubles of
the various departments brought in reports which were
temperate and fair. They admitted that all the trouble
came from the imposition of the clerical oath as pro
vided in the constitution, and from the complete con
fidence which the simple folk reposed in their pastors.
The latter were now alienated from the Revolution, and
while some of them were content to let politics severely
alone, yet others were beyond peradventure conspiring
to discredit the government by a senseless resistance to
all the ecclesiastical measures of the Assembly. The
sometime Bishop of Lucon appealed to his faithful
clergy to regard the decree of May seventh as a trap to
lead unwary orthodox into cooperation with heretical
schismatics; if ministering in the parish church, the
dissident priest was to fly on the appearance of a Con
stitutional, and taking refuge in any barn, shed, or
other shelter, was to celebrate the mass, even with ves
sels of pewter and chasubles of calico. They were,
however, to assert themselves as the sole legitimate in
cumbents, and keep in secret careful minutes of all
cases of intrusion. The Constitutionals, it was asserted,
could perform no valid act : marriage, sepulture, or bap
tism. Any one refusing to acknowledge this and asso
ciating himself in any form with the schismatics was
guilty of mortal sin.1 This was a typical instance and
1 See the report of Gallois vember 12, 1791. The report
and. Gensonnee, Moniteur, No- of Veirieu, given in the Ar-

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 165
displayed the universal tenor of the instructions given
by the irreconcilable propaganda throughout France.
At that time the old parish priests, as was said, still
formed a great majority of the country clergy. The
simple reason was that as yet but few Constitutionals
had been installed. Where they had been inducted
and had been honestly striving to perform their func
tions, probably not one in fifty of their parishioners
could be induced even to attend church; the peasantry
in flocks followed their old pastors to the Ultramon
tane conventicles. Almost without exception, the re
fractory priests abstained from their legal privilege of
using the church edifices at irregular hours, and the
reason they gave was fear of pollution. This led to
the almost universal use of the term aristocrat as an
opprobrious epithet for them and their followers. The
civil authorities were in most places only too ready
to banish the nonjuring priests ; but they shrank from
using force, for that would be the signal for civil war.
These were briefly the facts as laid before the Legis
lative. Putting aside all secular business, it began
its sessions by stirring debates on religious affairs.
On one side it was argued that such conditions involved
the safety of the state ; since the courts were in the main
inimical to the Civil Constitution, legal remedies were
vain; it would be well, therefore, to force the nonjurors
into the capital cities of the departments, where they
could be under surveillance. Further ecclesiastical leg
islation, it was clear, must be the first concern of the
Legislative. The nonconformist clergy must be de
prived of all their stipends, unless they could prove that
chives Parlementaires, XXXV. found guilty of this offence a
42, recites the use of their reli- penalty amounting to double
gious assemblies by the refrac- the sum total of their real and
tories to foment sedition. It personal taxes.
was proposed to lay upon those

166 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
they had taken the civil oath. "Their religion," said
one orator, "consists in counter-revolution. Their God
is not your God ; their God is beyond the Rhine."
This idea caught at least a large minority of the Leg
islative, and Fauchet received close attention when he
denounced the nonjurors as a traitorous, bloodthirsty
pack, concocting underhand schemes, furthering the
emigration of prelates and aristocrats, and secretly re
mitting French treasure across the borders to be spent
in efforts to overthrow the existing government and
undo the Revolution. He proposed that money sup
port in every form be withdrawn from all ecclesiastics
who would not take the oath, except from the aged
and infirm; the nonjurors might worship in their own
hired halls, but not in the churches; and if they dis
turbed the public worship in any way they might be
imprisoned. But at first the majority of the Legislative were for
moderation. In the main they were still royalists, and
they could not imagine a monarchical state without a
state religion. It was with contentment that they heard
the counter-pleas for broad tolerance and for further
efforts to smooth the way. Peaceable citizens respect
ing the law, it was said, must under the most elemen
tary principles of the constitution be let alone, and could
not be deported from their domiciles without violence
to the whole character of the Revolution. It was
Torne, Constitutional bishop of the Cher, who assever
ated that refusal of the oath was not a criminal act.
As long as these implacable and unsociable refractories
merely held aloof they were well within their rights.
Sedition, of course, was another matter ; and they, like
all citizens, must take the consequences under the law.
Let them worship at their own cost, not merely in their
own buildings, but in the churches at such hours as

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 167
the local directories might determine. Authority could
not control religious differences, but the Legislative
might set forth some such plan as reconciling perfect
religious liberty with the public order.
Alas! the nonjuring clergy were truly refractory.
At Caen some hundreds of female furies stoned the
Constitutional priest, drove him to the sanctuary of his
altar, and were there proceeding to hang him to the
sanctuary lamp when, bruised, cut, and almost sense
less, he was rescued by the National Guard. In the
department of Maine-et-Loire, under the instigation of
the nonjuring priests, armed bands numbering some
thousands scoured the land, assassinated the Constitu
tional priests in their own churches, and hewed down
the doors of those which had been closed. In the pre
vailing hot and growing lust for destruction even secu
lar buildings were destroyed.
In the midst of these excesses, while messenger after
messenger was bringing news of outrage to the door of
the Legislative, Gensonnee, a moderate Girondist, finally
proposed a complete separation of religion and govern
ment, and urged a virtual repeal of the Civil Constitu
tion. It is likely that the consternation of those who
had framed it was great; their fine-spun theories, like
all others not grounded in experience, were now utterly
discredited. Ere long there arose a clamor, even among
the Constitutionals themselves, for the right of every
communion to regulate its own internal affairs without
government help or interference. "Why," exclaimed
De Moy, Constitutional vicar of the church of St. Lau
rent in Paris — "why make the religion of Rome Consti
tutional at all? Let the nation cease to nominate the
Roman ministers, and treat Catholics as it does Jews
and Protestants, who call each their own rabbis and
pastors. The Roman Catholics should do likewise."

1 68 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Somewhat later he expressed these views in a powerful
pamphlet, and denounced the Civil Constitution as the
feet of clay to the image of gold.1
Meantime, without the walls of the Assembly discon
tent with all ecclesiasticism, of whatever form, was
rapidly growing. Perfidiously, but successfully, the
sceptical element far and near confused the public
mind until tens of thousands could not distinguish be
tween ecclesiasticism and Christianity. For both a
substitute was in preparation.
Rousseau's doctrine of national boundaries as deter
mined by nature, and of the regeneration of man by a
return to nature, corresponded in a high degree to the
inarticulate longings which characterized western Eu
rope throughout the whole decline of feudalism. The
one all-sufficient answer, under the monarchies, for any
deed of violence always was : reasons of state. This
direful phrase descended to the Rousseau democrats
in undiminished vigor. The fanatical idealists were
quite as ready for political and civil violence as for
religious persecution. The passion for unity and
homogeneity in territory and institutions was of the
very essence of revolutionary hearts; spiteful against
the old "infamy," and clearly apprehending Pius's
meaning when he identified himself and Roman Cathol
icism in France with the monarchy, the radicals passed
easily to the concept of fatherland — one not only in
territory and institutions, but in a national religion.
They had identical views with those who justified the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes as a measure, not
against the heretics, but against rebels; magnifying
in a high degree the religious sentiment as indispensable
in life, they asserted that for a perfect nation there must
' Bibliotheque Historique de la Revolution, Vol. CXLIL,
quoted in Jervis, p, 192,

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 169
be a national religion, Christian possibly, certainly
not Roman; in the last resort broad enough, even
though pagan, to include all Frenchmen; the majority
having chosen it, all recusants would be traitors. For
the agitation and support of this doctrine there was at
hand an institution as old as France itself — that of
the public festivals, primevally sprung from the cult of
natural or pagan religions, but incorporated and mod
ified into the system of Roman Catholicism by the ap
plication of a very thin gloss indeed.
Under the earlier monarchy, these public ceremonies
were celebrated by rites of the church in honor of the
king or of God. The scenic effects were highly elab
orate, representing for the most part scriptural sub
jects. As years rolled by the secular influence of
heathen Rome became predominant in art, letters, and
law. Even the church was not free from the aesthetic
power of classicism, and the public festivals were per
meated by it. There arose the strangest and most
fantastic confusion in the public mind between classi
cal and scriptural subjects, concerning both persons
and places. Since the very corner-stone of absolutism
was the Roman law, secular life in France grew contin
uously more and more classical in its judgments and
ideals, until beneath the veneer of ecclesiasticism it was
the heir, not only of Graeco- Roman morals and learning
in their best pagan form, but of Graeco-Roman vices
too; so-called good society, it has been charged, culti
vated certain of the shocking and unnatural, nameless
and semi-oriental practices which characterized the se
cret cults of both Athens and Rome in the years of
their decline. This influence was felt in the festivals,
which too often were thus either turned into or accom
panied by orgies and saturnalia. At the best they be
came more secular than religious, even on the high

170 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
feast days of the church. The thought of eliminating
the religious element entirely was therefore not far
fetched. The first proposal to that effect was made
anonymously in 1789, that an annual secular holi
day should be decreed in honor of the Fourth of
August. The project received no general or spontaneous sup
port, but Talleyrand, in his memoir on public instruc
tion dated September tenth, 1791, dwells at length on
the advantage of national festivals like those of anti
quity, stripped, however, of all religious character or
significance. Their aim should be purely moral — that
is, of all except two, recurring annually, to confirm lib
erty under law and equality, on July fourteenth and
August fourth; the others should not be periodical.
Appointed and celebrated according to the needs of a
free people to commemorate any event which might
confirm the precept most needed at the moment, they
should be adorned with all the human brilliancy which
the fine arts, music, the stage, contests of strength and
skill and splendid prizes for success could call forth —
to render better and happier the aged by recollection,
the young men by triumph, the children by expectation.
A similar paper on the same topic was written by Ca-
banis for Mirabeau ; but, on account of his death, it was
never delivered by the great orator, or even used in any
way by him for the basis of a speech, as was his custom.
This essay takes the matter even more seriously. The
practice of liberty being complicated and difficult, provi
sion must be made for all of man's desires, physical and
moral. The physical wants of man are easily supplied,
but his moral cravings for sympathy and friendship,
his devotion to country, the gratification of all the sweet,
ennobling yearnings which make for humanity, how
shall these be satisfied? Religion neglects the wants

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 171
of "here below," preaching self-denial, renunciation,
and solitude for the sake of closer companionship with
God. In this majestic thought the state can have
no share; the object of national festivals must be far
different — viz., the gratification of human longings, the
furtherance of mirth, joy, and contentment, the wor
ship of liberty, the worship of law. Such documents
as these two, though not widely circulated, expressed
the common mind and to some extent formed it.
But the fatal error of French thought was so in
grained into every religious and philosophic sect that
when the great Festival of Federation, as it was called,
was celebrated in Paris on July fourteenth, 1790, by
six hundred thousand persons, Talleyrand, as Bishop
of Autun, said mass before the assembled multitude.
The numerous celebrations throughout the country
were also of a religious character; the Constitutional
clergy marched first to the "altar of the country,"
and after them the National Guard. Yet it would
be altogether wrong to consider the holiday as hav
ing had a religious character beyond its having
preserved in the celebration an outward respect for
religion. The local reunions and the general assem
bling of like-minded men throughout and from all
parts of France certainly produced an enormous ef
fect in unifying and consolidating the movement of
the Revolution. The oath to the constitution gave
solemnity to the whole. Enthusiasm caught the vast
multitudes, and it was not without reason that recourse
was had again and again to similar celebrations for
the rousing and strengthening of patriotism. The
festivals of the Revolution became a fact of the first
importance, for they supplied one element of wor
ship, the common assembling of men ; at the same time
they insidiously directed the quasi-religious enthusiasm

172 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
of the multitude toward the idea of country as a sub
stitute for God.
The love of pageantry had displayed itself a month
earlier, on June nineteenth, 1790, when the Baron Ana-
charsis Cloots of Cleves presented himself before the
bar of the Assembly at the head of a deputation com
prising men of some twenty different countries, each in
his particular national costume, that they might con
gratulate France on the fall of despotism. This scene
has always been represented as theatrical and absurd ; in
reality it was effective and impressive both among those
present and the people at large. It was the precursor of
numerous minor civic celebrations in and about Paris,
and of a considerable number in the provinces. All
these were destitute of religious character — utterly so.
One of the common mottoes displayed on the banners
was Requiescat infemis, i. e., the aristocracy; and the
favorite symbol was the torch of liberty. This move
ment made rapid progress and within a year culminated
in what might be called a truly national festival.
In 1778 the Paris clergy had refused burial to the
remains of Voltaire, and by permission of the min
istry they were buried at the Abbey of Sellieres in
Champagne. In 1791 this property, confiscated and
sequestered a year earlier, was sold to a private person.
Several requests were made that the body be brought to
Paris, and on May eighth the Assembly so ordered ; on
the thirty-first they decreed a public funeral and the de
posit of the remains in the Church of St. Genevieve,
which had been secularized as a Walhalla or Pantheon
for the great men of France. The directory of the De
partment of Paris was charged with arrangements and
details; it in turn appealed to the city wards, and they
appointed a committee representative of the capital.
This aroused a storm of fierce, indignant opposition

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 173
among pious people; many of the clerical and lay ad
herents of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy joining
in a powerful protest. The charge — now, alas ! only too
true — was flatly made that the friends of the Constitu
tion were no longer the friends of religion. But noth
ing could call a halt. A superb catafalque forty feet in
height, designed by David and made of bronze, con
veyed the body toward Paris stage by stage, amid the
acclamation of the thronging populace. An enormous
and costly ceremony was arranged at the metropolis,
and carried through in spite of tempestuous rain. On
July eleventh the corpse was deposited in the Pantheon
with honors of parade, eloquence, and solemnity such
as recall nothing short of an apotheosis.1
Nothing illuminates the swift secularization of
French society, or at least a large stratum of it, like the
contemporary accounts of Voltaire's mortuary prog
ress. There is no reason to suppose that the circum
stances would have been substantially different in any
other part of the land. The coffin was opened at
Romilly and the features were found to be unmarred,
scarcely more ghastly than in life. Fathers, mothers,
young men, maidens, and children heaped garlands
about the bier as they gazed a moment in tearful silence
and passed on. As the procession moved from place
to place, it was headed by the village mayors in full
civic costume, and long files of national guards, with
branches of oak and laurel in the muzzles of their mus
kets, surrounded the funeral chariot. Thousands of
pilgrims flocked from far and near, many touched the
sarcophagus with their kerchiefs and then devoutly
kissed the fabric, now something sacred, to be stored
up as a cherished keepsake.
1 The original papers may be found in Robinet, Mouvement
Religieux a Paris, 1789-1801, I. 527,

174 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
In hamlet after hamlet triumphal arches were erected
over the highway at the entrance, and children in white
strewed the streets with roses, jasmine, and amaranth,
moving rhythmically to soft strains of music from
choruses and bands of rustic players. Throughout the
countryside the idolatry of ecclesiastical relics was
transferred to those of the secular saint. In the out
skirts of Paris the throngs were immense, and cries of
chastened gladness resounded from every side as the
remains were carried to the site of the Bastille. There,
on a pile constructed from the ancient ruins and
adorned with myrtle could be read the inscription:
"Voltaire, on the spot where tyranny enchained thee
receive the homage of the fatherland." For the night
was set a guard of honor, twelve hundred "Voltairians,"
professors of the rising cult. As the masses thronged
to gaze, a priest in one of the groups cried out in bitter
ness : "O God, thou shalt be avenged !" The quick re
joinder was a cheer for the mayor and citizens of Rom
illy, "who have preserved for us the body of Voltaire."
Next day the line of march was thronged with a vast
concourse, whose curiosity and enthusiasm not even
the wrath of the elements could check. In the proces
sion were companies of soldiers, of Jacobins, of arti
sans, of men from the St. Antoine quarter carrying the
banner riddled at the taking of the Bastille, of students,
of provincial citizens, of the workmen who razed the
Bastille, of members of the Academy and literary
guilds, of magistrates, ministers, and deputies. There
were also rank on rank of players and artists, repre
senting the stage, sculpture, and painting. Among
the emblems borne aloft were busts of Mirabeau,
Rousseau, Franklin, and Desilles ;J a model of the Bas-
' Desilles was the young offi- Nancy who besought his fel-
cer in a mutinous regiment at lows not to fire on the troops

WORSHIP OLD AND NEW 175
tille; a shelf of Voltaire's works given by Beaumar-
chais; and banners with clever inscriptions and de
vices. Among the ranks was one composed of Charles
Villette with his wife and little daughter, the family
of Voltaire, and another formed by the Calas sisters.
The catafalque was superb. Above the sarcophagus
was a canopy on which reposed a half-reclining figure
of the philosopher, over whose head Immortality held a
crown of stars; from vases at each corner blazed the
flames of delicate perfumes. "To the Manes of Vol
taire," ran the inscription on the front; that opposite
was: "He defended Calas, Sirven, La Barre, Mont-
bailly" x ; on one of the two sides, "He fought atheists
and fanatics, he reclaimed the rights of man against
slavery and feudalism" ; on the other, "Poet, historian,
philosopher, he enlarged the human mind and taught
that it should be free."
A pause was made before the house where the sage
had last resided on the quay of the Theatins, now the
quay Voltaire. There the catafalque was in full view
of the Tuileries windows. Perhaps the royal captives
saw what occurred. Mme. Villette, adoptive daugh
ter of Voltaire, advanced toward the car, greeted the
statue, and dedicating her child to her divinity, "her
of Bouille which had been sent way. Both were falsely charged
to quell the insurrection. Find- with the murder of Montbailly's
ing his plea of fraternity in aged but sottish mother, who
vain, he threw himself in front appears to have died in a
of the guns of his own men, drunken stupor. The son was
and fell mortally wounded. The executed, after mutilation. The
Assembly in 1790 formally daughter-in-law, after long im-
voted that he had deserved well prisonment, escaped death by
of his country, and his man- the personal intervention of
hood was widely celebrated Voltaire with the chancellor
both in the pulpit and on the who reviewed the case and, all
stage. too late, pronounced both the
1 The case of the Montbaillys, victims innocent. The date
husband and wife, was a sim- was 1770. See Voltaire, Oeu-
ple miscarriage of justice, with- vres Completes (ed. Moland),
out reference to religion in any XXVIII. 429 and XXX. 577.

176 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
papa great man," fell in a rapture amid the wild din of
the trumpets playing a funeral march and the chanting
of the choirs. It was ten at night when, under the glare
of flickering torches, the remains were solemnly de
posited in the Pantheon, to remain forever ! Less than
the time reckoned as a generation of men had elapsed
when they were violently torn from the stately tomb
and cast with quicklime into an unmarked, unhallowed,
and unknown grave. Yet at the moment Voltaire
ruled supreme in the "diocese of free thought," a cir
cumscription widening with every hour. Men by scores
of thousands believed that at last theology and philos
ophy were divorced; they saw and were drawn to the
adoration of human grandeur as a substitute for divine.
Now, as then, rationalists mark that day as the deifi
cation of the human reason. The broad highway to
blasphemy and scandal was thenceforth opened wide,
and thousands thronged to enter it.

XI
THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION

XI
THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION
THE monasteries of France were an Ultramontane
bulwark quite as formidable as the prelacy. Yet
at the outbreak of the Revolution they had a far
stronger resemblance to a stolid, passive earthwork than
to an aggressive fire-spitting fortress. The first at
tacks upon these bastions, as made in the decree of
February thirteenth, 1790, only rendered them the
stronger, by reason of the iron which entered into
their mass, as it were. Under the old monarchy nei
ther monk nor nun had any standing before the law,
except as the law enforced the vows of chastity, pov
erty, and obedience. They could neither marry, in
herit, nor make testamentary disposition of property;
fugitives could be returned by force to the monasteries
and nunneries from which they had escaped. The
Revolution began, as we have elsewhere noted, by dis
pensing with the validity of monastic vows and for
bidding any further administration of such oaths,
under penalty of suppressing the establishment where
they were taken. Monks and nuns could leave their
monasteries by making a simple declaration of their
desire before the nearest municipal authorities. In
that case they would receive a "suitable" pension.
Monks who desired to continue their secluded life were
assigned to certain establishments ; nuns might remain
where they were if they so desired. "Nothing is to be
179

180 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
changed," ran the decree, "in respect to the houses con
cerned with public education or with regard to charit
able establishments until a course regarding these mat
ters has been decided upon."
The existence of monasteries, nunneries, and con
vents was thereafter neither legal nor illegal, but their
inmates were completely emancipated from "civil
death." Other measures, six in all, were taken subse
quently, but they were purely administrative. While
considerable numbers of the "regulars" abandoned
their cells, yet the majority held their vows to be bind
ing, continued wearing their distinctive garb, and re
mained in the exercise of their monastic functions, not
loosely and listlessly, as of old, but with zeal and en
ergy, because they had now a moral stimulus. They
appear to have undergone a corresponding spiritual
reform, to have cleansed their hearts and mended their
ways. They were, of course, nonjurors.
This was the situation until after the king's forced
return from Varennes. On August fourth Legrand, a
deputy further unknown to fame, reported in the name
of the Ecclesiastical Committee that conditions in north
ern France had become intolerable. With the time-
honored plea of the public safety, used in all its usurpa
tions by the old monarchy, he proposed that all active
members of religious orders should immediately pre
sent themselves at Paris for assignment to safe quar
ters; that all the rest, together with the nonjuring
parish priests, be banished to a distance of thirty
leagues, about eighty-five miles, from the frontiers of
their departments. The proposition was not enthusi
astically received by the Constituent, which was really
aghast at the consequences of its own course, and afraid
of such wholesale proscription ; after much bitter talk the
report was relegated to the obscurity of the committee-

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 181
rooms.1 It was therefore in connection with ecclesi
astical affairs that the terrible theory of "public safety"
dear to the old monarchy again lifted its direful head.
It was on the plea of the "public safety" that severe
penalties were almost at once enacted against all
Frenchmen who should endeavor to leave France, even
the king. Thus far the emigrants, successful or un
successful, were in the main prelates, aristocrats, and
members of the royal family.
Meantime political affairs, both internal and exter
nal, were growing more and more entangled. On
July sixteenth a company of "patriots," including Dan-
ton and Camille Desmoulins, who desired to memorial
ize the legislature in a monster petition for the king's
demission, unwittingly involved themselves in a riot on
the Champ de Mars. The royalists on that day mas
sacred hundreds of innocent persons, and the republi
cans bore all the blame. The moderate royalists grew
stronger and stronger during the summer, and when,
on October sixth, Louis presented himself before the
legislature he was received with wild enthusiasm. His
smooth speech and brazen forehead had a soothing
effect throughout France, and except for the religious
chaos there was a marked improvement in the relations
of the crown and the legislature. On the thirty-first the
Comte de Provence was formally summoned to reenter
France under penalty of losing his hereditary rights.
On November ninth Frenchmen foregathering and col
loguing in foreign lands were declared to have placed
themselves under suspicion of treason, and were threat
ened with loss of all rights if they did not return home
before January first, 1792. The king dared to veto
this enactment, but summoned his brothers to return.
They mockingly refused.
' Moniteur, August fourth, 1791.

1 82 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The absolute monarchies of Europe now stood aghast.
During the earlier years of the Revolution they were
like crows about carrion; but now the carcass of Po
land was nearly dismembered, and further aggression
upon the Orient was postponed. As far as the French
nation knew, the political reforms inaugurated by them
had aroused elsewhere a curiosity which was in the
main sympathetic and in some instances enthusiastic.
But the plainest Frenchman understood that from the
moment of Louis's arrest kings and royal chancelleries
were furious at the duress put upon him. The influ
ence known later as the Girondist, but still styled Jaco
bin, was now paramount in the Legislative, and was
steadily growing in France.1 These men and their
friends were outraged by the reception of the emi
grants at foreign courts and the success of emigrant
efforts in forming an armed resistance to France by the
connivance of rulers in neighboring countries. The
German-Roman empire, of which Austria was the
head, was furious at the assaults made by France on
the feudal rights of German princes in Alsace, de
manded the suppression of Jacobinism at Paris, and ex
acted the emancipation of the king. Royalists and
"patriots" throughout France were alike eager for war,
the former to liberate Louis, the latter to extend the
Revolution, to array peoples against their absolute
rulers, and "municipalize" Europe. Robespierre and
his followers alone dreaded the conflict. The Giron-
' At the outset there was no that of Paris. They came from
essential difference between the nearly every district of France,
factions of the "Mountain," not especially from the south,
and when the split actually oc- as has so long been taught.
curred it had nothing to do See Aulard, La Societe des
with religion, nor, strictly Jacobins, V. 533, for the volun-
speaking, with politics. Those tary identification of the Jaco-
who were finally styled Giron- bins, by themselves, with the
dins desired a preponderance "Septembriseurs."
of provincial influence over

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 183
dist ministry was formed, demanded either war or a
stable peace, and summoned Austria to desist from her
courses. She retorted by a disdainful refusal.
What no Frenchman then knew, but what both Robes
pierre and Marat suspected and shrewdly followed,
was the tortuous course of Louis. On December third,
I79i,"the king of the French, the Constitutional king,"
swearing again and again to support the new constitu
tion, civil and ecclesiastical, secretly suggested to Fred
erick William of Prussia a European congress, backed
by armaments, to intervene in French affairs. Austria
and Prussia drew together to protect absolutist and
feudal Europe; and Russia, hoping for a free hand in
Poland, encouraged them. Louis sent a secret agent
to Vienna disavowing all the procedures of his govern
ment, and went in person to the hall of the Legislative
to propose war. Of all black crimes known to history,
none could be blacker. With a headlong folly which
was nothing short of criminal, the formal declaration
of hostilities was made by that fatuous Assembly.
The first French column which took the field fled
in panic before the Austrians, but, being themselves un
prepared for war, the victors did not follow up their
advantage, and the French court, during an interval of
two months in the active operations on the field, put
forth in secret herculean efforts to stimulate the in
vaders of France and inaugurate the counter-revolution
on the ruins of French defeats. Finally an inkling was
given of the truth, and suspicions began to dawn in the
minds of the deputies, who then, and right quickly,
grew furious and so were ready in their cowardly panic
for any excesses. They took the hint from a strange
boldness displayed by Louis in repeated refusals to
sanction decrees enforcing the Civil Constitution of the
Clergy. For such a prince to defy such a legislature

1 84 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
at such a moment in such a matter was indeed por
tentous. The strides toward religious anarchy made by
France within the two short years from 1791 to 1793
can be understood only by two considerations : that of
discord and schism in the church, that of temporary
concord and union among the radical Rousseauists.
The solemnities of Christianity had steadily lost their
meaning, while those of the fatherland cult were con
tinuously arrogating a religious and binding character
to themselves. To a people rendered incapable of dis
tinguishing religious from secular, public from private
duties, the secular and public obligations they felt so
strongly were easily erected into a system of worship
excluding the other. It was not a very long step to
the festival of Reason.
On the other hand, the Pope had now announced
himself as rigid in his position, for he had refused to
receive a successor to the Cardinal de Bernis on the
ground that a representative of the Revolution would
be an apostle of anarchy. His followers therefore
went on with their resistance, and in consequence the
leader of the Avignon "patriots" was killed. Hun
dreds of the faithful were massacred in brutal retalia
tion; the murders were committed within the ancient
palace of the popes on October sixteenth, and, on the
plea that Avignon was not a part of France until No
vember eighth, the murderers were in March of the
following year (1792) virtually amnestied by the Legis
lative. Louis was appalled, but, expecting speedy re
lief, he stood firm. The situation was terribly strained,
and only a single noble voice, that of Andre Chenier,
the poet, was lifted with fervor to demand that the
quarrels of priests should thereafter be let alone and
so ended. But the Legislative did not hearken, and

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 185
continued amid the din of arms to occupy itself with
ecclesiastical riots, to the exclusion of its regular busi
ness. Before the end of its first quarter, on November
twenty-ninth, at the instigation of one of its fiery and
unreasonable members, Isnard, it flatly took the utterly
untenable position that there could no longer be toler
ation for nonconformists; that though nonjuror lay
men might continue to worship in private places, all
nonjuring priests should be deprived of their pension
and considered "suspect of sedition and revolt."
This was the real turning-point of religious affairs.
The king boldly vetoed the decree on December nine
teenth, and the veto, widely discussed as a piece of
royal effrontery, was in general ignored. The famous
Constitution of 1791 was thus assassinated in the house
of its so-called friends. No measure was a law unless
with the royal assent. By the royal veto every mea
sure of the legislature was invalidated. This decree
therefore was constitutionally null and void. Yet pop
ularly it had, and continued to have, great force. Per
secution was, if not legalized, at least no longer with
out a partial sanction. Riot and bloodshed grew more
and more frequent. Serious efforts were made at re
pression by criminal prosecution, and the Assembly ap
plauded a suggestion to enforce the constitution with
the least possible reference to the Constitution of the
Clergy. But in vain. Reason asserted itself in a few
quarters by a steadily growing conviction that under
the existing ecclesiastical charter, with a paid clergy,
religious liberty was impossible. But reason was no
longer a guide for the fanatical radicals now ascen
dant in the legislature; disdainful of common sense,
they determined to meet the fanatical priests with fur
ther severity.
The debates on the decrees of November and May

1 86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
exhibit how the radical determination to "decatholi
cize" France became pivotal to the subsequent secular
policy of the Revolution. Isnard, though a deputy from
Provence, the hotbed of extreme radicalism, was him
self a Girondist. He argued that seditious priests were
the worst possible rebels because of their numerous fol
lowers and consequent influence. From this they
should be removed by deportation and punished, like
other criminals, with rigor and justice. The infliction
of fitting penalties was in no sense martyrdom, for
martyrs die for conscience sake, not for offences against
public order, a class of purely secular transgressions
which honest men can easily avoid. Not priests alone,
but all Frenchmen should be forced to take the civic
oath, for such a measure is the sole preventive of an
archy. "I would punish alike all fanatics, all agitators ;
such is my creed ; the law is my God ; I have no other.
I am interested in and inspired by the public welfare,
and by that alone." x This, although it was retracted
later by the speaker, is the whole matter in a nutshell.
No obligations of truth or justice in view of the public
safety, and of this the legislature is the sole judge!
Francois de Nantes furnished the corollary in asserting
that all ecclesiastical agitators were mere hypocrites,
prompted in reality by political motives, by unswerv
ing hatred of the constitution.2 On the other hand,
there were numerous protests from the departments,
and one, most notable, from the Paris Directory, a paper
1 Moniteur, November four- be endangered, I declare to you
teenth, 1791. This is the same in the name of all France that
who, two years later, when soon men will be searching on
president of the Convention, the banks of the Seine to dis-
hurled at the Paris commune cover whether Paris ever ex-
the famous threat: "If it isted." See Aulard, Histoire
should happen by means of Politique, etc., p. 435.
these recurring riots that the * Jervis, The Gallican Church
national representation should and the Revolution, p. 193.

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 187
which was probably the work of Talleyrand. It was
a plea for liberty of worship and a remonstrance
against intolerance. Such, however, was the general
contempt of the king's veto that by February, 1792,
the state of the entire country was deplorable. The
Minister of the Interior, Cahier-Gerville, was ordered
to report on it. This he did by frankly acknowledging
the facts ; as the only possible remedy, he appealed for
obedience to the constitution, including the Civil Con
stitution of the Clergy. The report was a confession
of helplessness, and De Moy's plea for utter disestab
lishment, with a complete voluntary system, which was
speedily published, merely exasperated further the ex
tremists of both sides, who desired no reconciliation.1
On March nineteenth the Pope issued two briefs, one
refuting the Constitutional statement of principles, the
other continuing the powers of the nonjuring bishops,
and thus perpetuating the orthodox church. In May a
special committee of twelve on the state of the nation
reported. Pointing out that since all the nonjurors
were acting in harmony there must be a conspiracy,
that not one of the conspirators had been brought to
justice, and that therefore in the present state of af
fairs there was only one possible remedy, its conclusion
was that all the disaffected priests must be banished.
This was the signal for an exhibition of the temper
which now controlled the Constitutionals. With brazen
effrontery they asserted through their mouthpiece, a
Constitutional bishop, Ichon by name, that the non
jurors were merely traitors, a permanent Austrian com
mittee, denouncing by secret propaganda all Constitu
tional principles, and that, everywhere throughout
France. The charge was coincident with the panic
over the Austrian successes in arms, and the decree of
1 See above, p. 162.

188 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the twenty-seventh, rushed through with headlong
speed, provided for the banishment of any and all non
conformists. Next day, in a state of utter distraction
over the defeat, treachery, and cowardice of the troops,
the Legislative declared the country in danger and
itself the permanent authority. The king's guard was
then disbanded and a revolutionary army was ordained.
It seemed a preternatural and suspicious boldness that
the king should dare to veto this decree of the twenty-
seventh. His truest friends begged him to yield, but
he stood defiant as a rock.
Of all the interesting and instructive comparisons or
contrasts which could be made between the respective
courses of the English and French revolutions, sepa
rated as they were by a century, none is more instruc
tive or more interesting than the differing fates of two
monarchs, both of whom relied on foreign aid for sup
port ecclesiastically and institutionally. The English
nonjurors wanted James to remain, the Whigs desired
nothing so much as his flight; the French Ultramon
tanes were eager for Louis's escape, the fiery radicals
were determined either to bend the monarchy or break
the monarch. Both English and French conservatives
labored for anarchy in the belief that finally old condi
tions would be restored. "Box it about, it will come
to my father" was the Jacobite password to a chaos
from which must reemerge the absolutism of James;
that of the French Ultramontanes, though identical,
was scarcely a secret, and therefore required no form
of thieves' patter to conceal it. In the end the refrac
tories of both nations got the same lessons : there can
be no religious liberty without free discussion, and
there can be no free discussion in a volatile, disorgan
ized, and distracted body of representatives, whether
it be called a free parliament or a Constitutional legis-

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 189
lative ; there can be no civil liberty without perfect reli
gious freedom, and this last is utterly inconsistent with
an Erastian establishrrent.
A careful student of the English Revolution might
almost have foretold the successive stages of the
French Revolution. But there was not one. The
French believed they were working out a new problem
in a French way, and with few exceptions disdained
the lessons of English history. Though engaged in
a work as beneficent as that done in the British Isles at
the close of the seventeenth century, they avoided no
shallow, no reef, no whirlpool in their course by means
of their neighbor's experience. English opinion dis
dained them for their indifference, and represented
their revolution as a series of cataclysms, a judgment
which has too long imposed on credulous readers. In
fact, the climax of the French transition, as we have
reached it, was almost identical with that of the Eng
lish; and this in spite of the fact that the Grand Alli
ance of William III., being mainly continental, pre
vented such direct interference of strangers in the Eng
lish Revolution as that which violated French soil and
roused the French to unreasoning passion. The riots
which began in London a century earlier were quite as
menacing as the earliest disorders in Paris ; they were
checked by the approach of a wise man, a prince of
Stuart blood, whose trivial military feats on English
soil merely put Irish papists, hated foreigners, beyond
the power of evil doing.
The temptation to recount other analogies and con
trasts well-nigh innumerable is almost irresistible, but
perhaps a single one may suffice to fix a landmark of
human experience. Had not the acquittal of the bish
ops clearly foreshadowed religious liberty, there would
have been in England a cataclysm quite equal to that

190 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
which was thought to have occurred in France when
the Legislative, in the name of civil liberty, destroyed
all hope of religious liberty as it did by the steps it
took throughout the close of 1791 and the whole of
1792 to repress a social disorder which was purely
religious. Necessarily matters in France took exactly the turn
which human passion, whether in England or else
where, would have forced them to take under identical
conditions. The evolution in France was swift and
terrible, but it was a natural historic evolution for all
that. It appeared like a cataclysm, but it was a his
toric process. The riots of June twentieth and the
awful day of August tenth were both parts of the fierce
lawlessness engendered throughout France by the on
set of the Legislative and the resistance of the king.
The first was an awful menace to Louis by the riotous
populace; the storming of his palace, with the aid of
the terrible federates or Marseillais, was the fulfilment
of the threat; the conclusion was his deposition from
an office he ought to have abdicated long before of his
own accord. The subsequent massacres of September
second, wherein, according to the most careful esti
mates, about three hundred nonjuring priests foully
perished, were, though virtually legal, yet in reality the
foulest assassinations of revolutionary madness.1
This marked the final and complete rupture between
the remnant of disordered government struggling on
at Paris and the nonjuring Catholics ; and although the
shameful deed took place after the deposition of the
king, as if in consequence of it, yet in reality it was
the sequence of events antecedent. The king and royal
family were imprisoned in the Temple on August thir-
1 See Barruel, Histoire du Clerge, p. 593, for the list
of the killed.

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 191
teenth. The work of sacking the Tuileries, initiated
by an insurrection, was recognized as regular and legal
by the Legislative, and the dregs of Paris society now
wielded the sceptre. It was felt by the masses that
France could not now be betrayed by her king, but, on
the other hand, there was the certainty that all Europe
would immediately join Austria to compel the Jacobin
mob of Paris to abdicate.
The Legislative, however, was committed to Jacobin
support. An awful war was inevitable, men and re
sources must be found without a moment's delay.
There still remained to the nation a quick asset in the
property of the monasteries. Monks and nuns alike
had swollen the ranks of the refractory nonjurors, but
they alone of the ecclesiastics had retained their pos
sessions. On August seventeenth the legislature de
creed urgency, shut the convents, and put an end to
monastic life. Next day it suppressed all religious
orders, even those devoted exclusively to nursing, char
ity, and education. Further, and this was a measure
of vital importance in the public mind, it forbade as a
criminal offence the wearing of all and any monastic
costumes whatsoever. Finally, all the estates of the
monasteries were to be sold as national property.
Women were to receive a small pension without condi
tions, but the same restrictions — to wit, the taking of
the civic oath — were put upon the regular priests as on
the secular. These measures were coincident with the
invasion of French soil and the investment of Verdun
by foreigners — Prussians under French guidance. No
extreme of retaliation or of injustice was too violent, if
advocated in the name of public safety.
This was the spirit which led Marat to call for
vengeance on the traitors in French prisons before ad
vancing to repel the invaders and French traitors at the

192 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
front. The holocaust of mob vengeance was declared
a purge; it was a purge in the main of ecclesiastics,
ruthlessly administered by those who now abhorred
Christianity in any form. The Legislative feebly dis
claimed the responsibility and virtually abdicated. To
Danton and a dictatorial committee was entrusted the
national defence. Though the September massacres
were hateful to Danton, yet nobody was punished.1
His energies were successfully directed to organizing
an army, and though the battle of Valmy, on Septem
ber twentieth, was a small affair, yet after it the Prus
sians retreated, and such was the moral effect that
Goethe but formulated European opinion that revolu
tionary France could and would resist all interference
by her neighbors when he declared that a new era
opened on that day. The Legislative Assembly almost
at the same hour which saw the Prussians retreat com
pleted its work of ecclesiastical legislation by taking
from the parochial authorities the registration of births,
marriages, and deaths. Vital statistics have since been
kept by the local secular authorities. This was consid-
1 The process whereby the coincident with the massacres.
radicals of Paris extinguished One was splendid, the other
the influence of the provincial excusable. The events of Au-
radicals in the legislature was gust were a blow for father-
gradual. The Jacobins of Paris land and liberty, those of Sep-
were ostensibly royalist until tember assured their victory.
1793, and shrewdly cast the Thus, although the massacres
odium of the king's execution were the work of a wild and
upon the Girondists. It was not maddened populace, the radi-
until they expelled Philippe- cals assumed responsibility for
Egalite from their club and them. When Danton, on March
turned the tables by proscribing tenth, 1793, described the days
both him and the Girondists of September as a bloody out-
that they were recognized as rage he fixed the stigma for all
republicans. To justify this at- future time on the Jacobins.
titude they chose to connect Eventually the Girondists prof-
the events of August tenth and ited by their momentary ob-
September second as insepara- scuration. See Aulard, La So-
ble because of the volunteer ciete des Jacobins, V. 533, and
movement for national defence Histoire Politique, p. 416.

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 193
ered to complete the emancipation of the state from
church control.
The National Convention was a very different body
from its two predecessors. Elected under the consti
tution of 1 79 1 as an "assembly of revision," it marked
the downfall of all burgher privilege, the sovereign
control of affairs by democratic-republican opinion.
Abolishing monarchy and executing the king, it .was
concerned primarily with the defence of the country and
further purging the state of all traitors at home. These
ends it sought to gain by revolutionary means, and at
the earliest moment after appointing revolutionary
tribunals and executive committees it proceeded to
carry on the work of complete separation between
church and state — what is called the "laicization" of
France. In this ruthless process it was not content to
deal with nonjurors, but, openly irreligious, it began
to attack all worship, including that of the Constitu
tionals themselves.
It was decreed that thenceforth all public servants,
ecclesiastic and secular, should swear the purely secu
lar and political oath — "to maintain to the utmost of
their power liberty and equality or to die at their post."
Many of the surviving hierarchy gladly complied, for
they felt this to be a complete relief from the heretical
declarations required under the Civil Constitution;
others declared that since the law emanated from a
Godless body so perjured and unhallowed as the
regicide Convention, it must be of the devil and
an impossible burden to be laid on Christian con
science. The leader of the former group was a wise,
strong man, Abbe fimery, who stuck to his post;
the other camp followed the violent Abbe Maury,
now safe in Rome; like their leader, they emigrated.
For the most part these men, literally by thousands,

194 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
sought refuge in England as martyrs for conscience
sake. Pius VI. was himself careful not to pronounce on
the character of the oath, finally explaining, in July,
1794, that since the Holy See had not declared itself,
those concerned should examine their consciences in
regard to swearing, and that no one who had already
sworn was bound to retract. This inexcusable inde
cision, combined with the shocking conduct of the Con
vention, completed the schism which shivered the eccle
siastical fabric; there were those who had taken both
oaths and those who had taken neither, while some had
sworn to one and not to the other. In its mad rage
the Convention drew no distinctions, and proscribed
men from each of the four classes; even the Abbe
fimery was haled before the Bloody Tribunal, and
barely escaped with his life. For seventeen long
months he was the ghostly comforter of the sorry and
wretched company behind the bars of the Conciergerie,
and gave the final consolations of religion to scores
among the terror-stricken groups of men and women
who daily passed its doors to be murdered by the guil
lotine. Meanwhile the Convention was revelling in
atrocity. By the decree of April twenty- fourth, 1793, all eccle
siastics, seculars, regulars, brothers lay and menial,
who had not taken the oath, were banished to French
Guiana. Leaving the Constitutionals for a short time,
but most grudgingly, in the enjoyment of their legal
status, it authorized the marriage of any who so de
sired without disturbance of their office. Many con
tracted matrimony. They were protected against arro
gance by three statutes, passed respectively in July,
August, and September. The feeling against a priestly
caste was steadily growing stronger, and there were

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 195
symptoms of a desire to abolish Catholicism utterly in
all its forms. Even a Constitutional, it was enacted in
October, if not married could be denounced for "in-
civism" like the nonjurors. The guilty were banished
to the African coast between the twenty-third and
twenty-eighth degrees of latitude. From September
onward there were lay burials; local festivals were
given a distinctly heathen character; many churches
and sacred vessels were desecrated, and one church
building at least was transformed into a "Temple of
Truth." 1 The course of the sovereign assembly was
correspondingly a swift descent to hell, in which every
type of extreme fanatic heathen took his turn at the
helm and was swept into perdition to make room for
another, until the engulfing maelstrom was reached and
the faint-hearted, shallow Robespierre sounded the
alarm. The pleas for the Convention so constantly reiterated
are all alike pitiful — all except one : it was the in
carnation of energy. While it was revelling in polit
ical and religious massacre, it was forsooth talking
philanthropy; while it was gorging itself on the dis-
1 It is important to note the January eleventh, 1793. A few
receding pulsations of conser- days later the legates of the
vatism which were intercalated Convention declared in a proc-
with the stages of rising irreli- lamation to the Vendeans that
gion. On November thirteenth, the republic was founded on
1792, Cambon proposed to abol- the moral system of the gospel.
ish the support of public On May thirtieth the Fete-
worship and reduce secular tax- Dieu was publicly celebrated
ation by the twenty million dol- in Paris without disorder, and
lars thus to be saved. Robes- in June it was decreed that the
pierre flouted the idea as an salaries of the ecclesiastics
attack on public morals, and were a part of the public obli-
there were threats of rioting. gations. But these acts made
Danton secured a vote to the no impression. Public atten-
effect that the Convention had tion was fixed on the ruthless
never seriously considered such treatment meted out to the re-
a course, and this was em- fractories by the Convention.
bodied in another resolution of

196 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
membered limbs of the social organism, it was dis
cussing elementary schools; while it claimed to repre
sent the noble principles of 1789, it violated each and
all of them, covering every crime by the Jesuitical plea
of the "public safety." The Jacobins were madmen,
the Girondists were temporizers, and fury conquered.
The growing tide of desperation showed itself clearly
within the walls of the riding-school where the Con
vention sat, in the treatment of its own members, the
seventeen Constitutional bishops and twenty-two priests
who sat as deputies. These all, with one exception,
were so overawed by the relentless bloodshed in the
French cities, on the one hand, and by the unparalleled
deeds of courage shown by the French armies, on the
other, that they were stunned. Both these extraordi
nary phenomena were considered by the people to be
the work of the same men. They appeared to be in
spired and stimulated by Robespierre, Danton, Billaud-
Varenne, Collot-d'Herbois, Couthon, Marat, Lindet,
and their ubiquitous proconsuls at home and abroad.
So profound was this conviction and so widespread,
that the Constitutionals were fain to accept it as a truth.
It was this disastrous confusion of ideas which for
a moment gave an otherwise incomprehensible and irre
sistible renown to the clever scoundrels.1 Foolish men
1 On July twenty-second, 1793, priests, discarding altogether
the Convention ordered that ali the distinction between good
church bells should be cast into and bad priests so long held,
cannon, leaving only one for as harlequins and puppets, and
use in each parish. The surplus all services as superstitious
church plate had already been and hypocritical. Over the
coined ; the use of churches for lich-gates of cemeteries Fouche
secular meetings was common ; inscribed : "Death is eternal
in consequence, churches and sleep." The church at Roche-
church services had suffered in fort was transformed into a
the public esteem. By October, Temple of Truth ; eight priests
1793, the representatives of the and a Protestant minister un-
Convention at Abbeville and frocked themselves. The festi-
Nevers began to stigmatize all val of August tenth in the

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 197
holding important positions made a mad dash to imi
tate the all-powerful leaders. On November seventh,
1793, a cure named Parens began the downward rush,
renouncing Christianity in a letter to the Convention
and asking for a pension. His request was granted,
and at once the miserable Gobel, archbishop enthroned
at Notre Dame, appeared amidst his vicars and many
curates to follow the wretched example in words so
vile that a wild extremist, Chaumette, was moved to
rise in his place and celebrate the hour when Reason
had resumed her seat in France. The heathen calen
dar of ten-day weeks had been adopted a month ear
lier;1 steadily it had been emphasized that priests were
to marry and Sundays were to be days of labor — en
forced, if necessary — while the Decadis were to be
holidays without labor and heathen festivals. The ses
sion of November seventh was a carnival of passion;
Catholics and Protestants alike renounced their reli
gion, and the process of apostatizing would have swept
the hall but for the sudden appearance of the grave and
noble Abbe Gregoire, who entered, gained the tribune,
and, calmly declaring himself a sincere, convinced
Christian, exposed the motives of the apostacy and in a
measure stemmed the tide. In a measure only, for
there was yet one priest who, by permissive decree of
the Convention, changed his name of Erasmus for that
of Apostate, and some scores of his kind, including
thirteen bishops, unfrocked themselves, married, and
swelled the flood of anarchy and apostacy.
same year was destitute of all saint and put Brutus in his
religious observances, and in place as their divinity.
November M. J. Chenier pro- ' Romme declared to Gre-
posed to the Convention that goire that the revolutionary
the religion of the fatherland calendar had been invented by
be substituted for that of Christ. him with the express purpose
In a country village the people of abolishing Sunday. See
discarded St. Blaise as a patron Memoires de Gregoire, I. 341.

198 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The climax of scandal was reached by the machina
tions of Chaumette and Hebert; Danton's share in the
movement remains uncertain. On November tenth,
1793, a public festival was celebrated in Notre Dame,
newly consecrated to be a Temple of Reason; at the
impassioned moment a notorious opera-dancer dressed
for the part was saluted with the fraternal kiss by the
president of the legislature. Reason was now the en
throned divinity of France.1 Her worship was there
upon inaugurated in many other churches throughout
the land, and those not thus used, or rather desecrated,
were closed. One with another, the high priests of
this cult vied in devising and organizing new kinds
of orgies, and the shocking saturnalia were continu
ously celebrated until June eighth, 1794. The only
mitigation of the horror is that half at least of the depu
ties refused all participation in the sacrilege.
When, after seven long months, the savage voluptu
aries who sought their account in social chaos were
sated, and when revolutionary France could no longer
endure the espionage and tyranny of its own ma
chinery — viz., the committees of observation, of up
heaval, of execution, of court-martial — could no longer
stomach the groans of prisoners from every convent
building far and wide throughout the desolate land, nor
endure the reek of blood which flowed from guillotines
in every market-place — when, in short, hell had no un-
1 Within twenty days nearly their respective communities,
twenty-five hundred churches noted for their spotless charac-
were transformed into Temples ters. In Paris the whole move-
of Reason. (See A. Gazier, ment partook of the mocking
Etudes sur l'Histoire Religieuse contempt so natural to a French
de la Revolution, p. 314.) It is urban population; throughout
but just to add that the women the country it was taken seri-
chosen elsewhere to represent ously and regarded as a part of
the divinity of Reason were the national defence against Ul-
not ordinarily hetairas ; as a tramontane reaction. See Au-
rule, they were the favorites of lard, Culte de la Raison, p. 112.

THE CARNIVAL OF IRRELIGION 199
spent fury for suffering humanity, then at last the lean
and bilious Robespierre came forward with the propo
sition to restore the Supreme Being to his place, and
for that purpose instituted another festival, burning an
effigy of atheism at the stake.1
But the saturnalia connected with the festival of the
"Eternal" were scarcely less impure than those they
replaced. The high priest himself offered the bloody
sacrifice of all who could and would dispute his dicta
torship. Strangely enough, it was "the crazy perver
sion of his system by an aged, destitute, visionary bel
dame which ruined him. A certain Catherine Theot,
assisted by the discredited Dom Gerle, celebrated in her
dreary garret profane rites to the mystery of the
"mother of God." It was this sacrilege which gave
the first impulse to Robespierre's overthrow. A domi
ciliary visit of the police to this unhallowed shrine dis
closed two documents, one an address to the dictator
as "son of God," the other a certificate of "civism"
1 Robespierre's confession of when danger is past he alone is
faith is contained in his ad- in view ; Robespierre is a priest,
dress to the Convention, made and will never be anything
on April tenth, 1793. He posed else." Robespierre was sensi-
as the inexorable, unchanging, tive to such satire, and grimly
consistent, upright man. Au- cherished the purpose of re-
lard (Histoire Politique, p. venge until his radical foes
423) quotes the pen portrait were destroyed. He was a pro-
attributed by some to Condor- nounced, avowed proselyte to
cet, by others to Rabaud: "He the religious system outlined
' has all the marks not of a in Rousseau's Vicar of Savoy,
religious but of a sectarian secretly cherishing the hope of
leader ; he has cultivated a rep- imposing that hazy dogma
utation for austerity, such as upon France as a state creed.
suggests sanctity ; he climbs The claim is now widely made
upon a chair to prate of God by French historians that the
and Providence; he calls him- Reason cult was deistic, and
self a friend of the poor and that of the Supreme Being neo-
the weak; he collects a follow- Christian or Unitarian; but as
ing of women and feeble- yet adequate proof in support
minded persons; he solemnly of the contention is lacking.
accepts their homage; when Danton certainly was an
danger threatens he disappears, avowed atheist.

200 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
issued by the person thus addressed to his old friend
the whilom Carthusian. These were the weapons first
used by his enemies to discredit the man whom poor
old Theot had styled the "Redeemer of mankind, the
Messiah of the prophecies," and who was the self-con
stituted apostle of God and Immortality as a national
creed. Viewed from the standpoint of a state religion,
Robespierre's deism was a distinct advance on Chau-
mette's atheism. But the majority of Frenchmen drew
no distinction whatever between the two; they still
wanted no other state religion than a reformed and
regenerate Roman Catholicism ; the numerous minority
of intelligent liberals had come to understand that any
state religion or national cult whatsoever meant perse
cution and anarchy. Both these parties were weary
of the unending fiasco. The enemies of Robespierre
therefore found unlimited support in their effort to
overwhelm him with mocking contempt. His last ef
forts in public life saved both Theot and her acolyte,
Dom Gerle, from the guillotine ; but, reeling under this
first blow which associated with him such blasphemous
absurdities and made him ridiculous, he staggered
under the next and fell under the last — the scapegoat
of the Revolution. Posing as the Incorruptible, his
devotees, chiefly women, undid him by their sentimen
tal and distorted acceptance of his claims, and thus
permitted his destruction by a desperate band of crea
tures worse than their victim. The events of Thermi-
dor were the work of scoundrels, but they put an end
to national cults for a time, brought about a temporary
separation of church and state, and caused a marked
reaction in favor of true religion.

XII
A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

XII
A GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
AMONG the "patriots" and generally, throughout
±\. the Terror, a blind, unquestioning loyalty to the
system of the Convention was expressed by the newly
coined term "civism." To be accused of "incivism" by
undoubted terrorists was equivalent to attainder, with
the penalty of death, outlawry, or exile. This accusa
tion was the murderous weapon which fanatic radicals
used throughout the term of horrors to destroy priests
of every kind. Many of the Constitutionals, finding
their position of functionaries no protection, but rather
the contrary, since they were plain targets for infidels,
recanted and faced the guillotine as orthodox papists.
This was particularly true of those sentenced to the
Conciergerie.1 The utterly ferocious edicts of March
seventeenth, April twenty-first, and October twenty-
third, 1793, had gone far to amalgamate once more the
earnest Christian men of all creeds, for the edicts virtu
ally regarded piety as "incivism," and subjected those
who harbored priests to the penalties enacted against
their guests.
All who had emigrated or who were found either
with foreign passports or with "counter-revolutionary
badges," or who by hiding in France sought to avoid
banishment, were to be shot within twenty-four hours.
1 See the letter of Emery to the Pope, given in Theiner,
Documents Inedits, I. 441.
203

204 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
All who desired to make clear their "civism" were re
quired to be spies and informers, and those who in
pity protected fugitives were considered as partakers
in crime. The rigorous execution of the laws collected
thousands for banishment; but since the French flag
was no longer safe at sea, the vessels on which they
were crowded could not sail except in a few instances.
The prison-ships therefore lay indefinitely off St-
Malo, Rochefort, and Aix.1 It is impossible to say
which suffered the worse fate — those who, in spite of
British cruisers, reached the torrid, malarial shores of
Africa and French Guiana, or the far greater number
who endured buffetings, starvation, and the horrors
of pestilence between decks in the craft that idly rocked
in French roadsteads. Six hundred of the latter are
known to have rendered up the ghost within a sin
gle year; the atrocities of their jailers are indescrib
able. But the majority of the attainted class threw them
selves on the fidelity of their friendly parishioners.
Thousands were provided with safe and comfortable
hiding-places at home, and thousands escaped from
France. Two thousand of the voluntary exiles sought
refuge in the Papal States ; they were treated with be
nevolence, and enjoyed a liberal hospitality. About
the same number were distributed throughout the vari
ous dioceses of Spain, where likewise the archbishops
and bishops vied one with another in generosity. In the
Austrian portion of the Netherlands — what is now Bel
gium — great numbers were likewise entertained, and
it is related that in Switzerland the refugees were re
ceived as household guests of the peasantry, the daugh-
1 For Carrier's report on this Salut Public, VII. 286. Those
subject, see Documents Inedits in his charge were sent to the
sur l'Histoire de France. Re- dungeons of Mont-Saint-Mi-
cueil des Actes du Comite de chel.

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 205
ters of the host vacating their chambers and taking-
places as servants to support the added expense. But
there is no more beautiful page in the history of hu
manity than that which records the reception and treat
ment of the French emigrant clergy in England. Dif
fering radically in every point from their hosts, except
that of their common Christianity, the Ultramontane
refugees were treated like brothers. About five thou
sand were lodged, clothed, and fed, under no restric
tions of any sort except that proselytism was discour
aged. The monthly outlay for their entertainment
rose as high as forty thousand dollars, and about four
hundred thousand dollars all told were raised by pri
vate subscriptions and public collections.1
Among those who took the Convention oath to main
tain liberty and equality by far the most conspicuous
was that M. fimery who was the ghostly father of the
poor souls incarcerated at the Conciergerie. From the
extended account of his life which he has given 2 we
learn that while he and others composing a new class
of conformists were considered as schismatic and des
picable, at first by the emigrant priests and finally by
the Pope himself, yet the people of France were not
so minded. In many scattered places the sacraments
were administered and worship maintained by them
according to orthodox standards. And this situation
continued down to the Concordat of Napoleon.
There was thus a substantial body of Ultramontanes
ministering regularly in important places during the
years of dominant atheism. Satisfied merely to be un
molested, these men were the strictly spiritual com
forters and guides they should have been. Like the
'See Jervis, The Gallican Meric, Histoire de M. Emery,
Church and the Revolution, p. I. 373, for the argument of the
222. latter in a letter to Romeux.
2 Vie de M. Emery. See also

206 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Abbe fimery, they received the retractions of repen
tant Constitutionals, giving absolution and comfort to
them and to thousands of the faithful. M. fimery,
charged with "incivism" by enemies, but preserved
from the mockery of trial by friends, roused his fellow-
prisoners to repentance, strengthened the faith of the
wavering, and supported the weak on the eve of their
execution. He conducted four of the Constitutional
bishops — Lamourette, Fauchet, Montault, and Savines
— back into the fold. Had the fugitive Ultramontanes
behaved with the same discretion and Christian charity,
the results of Thermidor would have been far different
from what they were. But the absentees, supported
by Rome, poisoned the arrows of their wit and logic
with a bitterness of hatred corresponding to that of the
triumphant Convention, and were ready for every rash
extreme of language and conduct as soon as circum
stances permitted their return.
The typical instance of the faithful Constitutional is,
of course, Gregoire. It must not for a moment be
imagined, in consequence of certain dramatic scenes in
his life already recounted, that he stood alone. Far
from it. His numerous associates, like the old Catho
lics of modern Germany, stood firm in their protest
against papal control of temporalities, and steadily
denounced the corruptions of the papal court. They
ministered in many churches and regularly performed
their pastoral duties in a spirit of humble but faithful
devotion. It is not possible to form any estimate
as to the number of their adherents, but their flocks
were at least as numerous as those of the conforming
Ultramontanes. Like Gregoire, they asserted their
Christian faith in season and out of season. To the
hail of calumnies rained upon them they answered
nothing and went their quiet way, enduring every form

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 207
of persecution, even to martyrdom, without flinching.
They were neither irascible nor contentious.
The Jacobins brought the charge against them of seek
ing to "christianize the Revolution" 1 as a crime. They
gloried in it, and from among the most violent radicals
made converts not a few. Those very persons later
on became blind devotees, and lived to throw in Gre
goire's face the reproach that he had remained "too
much a republican." Throughout the reign of cruelty
and delirium Gregoire and a few faithful friends regu
larly attended the sessions of the Convention, noting
every turn and coolly awaiting their opportunity. It
could not long be postponed, and the Bishop of Blois
finally revised the discourse he had long since prepared
on liberty of worship. The organ of the Constitu
tionals, "Annales de la Religion," remains in several
files to witness their high character taken as a body.
The leader and his forces were ready for the coming
emergency. Unfortunately, no historical generalization is strictly
true. The madness of radicalism, whether atheistic or
deistic, was not fomented in direct ratio by the menace
from without to French national life and independence.
By the middle of 1794 the national existence was not
in any degree threatened. Civil war in the west was
temporarily ended by the exploits of Kleber and Mon-
ceau in the Vendee; the federal and royalist insurrec
tions of the east and south were crushed in the
victories which culminated at Toulon. The foreign in
vaders had been driven over the Rhine, and Alsace was
safe. Yet there was no end to radical ferocity. Like
Kronos in the fable, the Revolution had successively
swallowed its children ; the orthodox church, the Eras-
tian Constitution of the Clergy, the irreligious Danton-
' Memoires, II. 52.

208

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

ists had all been engulfed in chaos. One single feeble
guarantee of personal safety and liberty remained : the
revolutionary tribunal still demanded written proofs
and living witnesses, at least in form, for the condem
nation of those haled before it. On June twelfth (24
Prairial),by Robespierre's behest, this one slender safe
guard was swept away, and, as has been said, a new
Terror was organized within the old. This did not
pass unnoticed by guilty souls; the affair of Catherine
Theot opened wide the door, Thermidor was the result.
Once again chaos engulfed its own, and left nothing
but a last vile remnant behind.1
The Thermidorians were a degraded sort of Robes-
pierrists : Tallien, Barras, Freron, Merlin de Thionville,
Fouche, Thibaudeau, Barere were the leaders. They
ended the Terror in Paris, for the prisons were gradu-

' Scattered throughout the
ninth volume of the Acts of
the Committee of Public Safety
may be found letters from the
conventional envoys in the
provinces which indicate a cer
tain cowardice on their part
when brought face to face with
the genuine piety of the people.
Their ruthless efforts to "de-
christianize" were in many
places fruitless. Churches were
kept open, the services were
fairly regular, the church bell
rang. In one case the popu
lace rose in frenzy against the
agents of the Convention, and
forced them to drink holy
water. Even when the civic
festivals were celebrated, Te
Deums were chanted as part of
the programme. It is not en
tirely clear whether these Cath
olic heroes of the provinces
were Constitutionals or Ultra
montanes, but it is certain that,
while some effort was spas

modically exerted to treat the
former with a fair considera
tion, in the main no distinction
whatever was drawn. The
priests of both camps were re
garded as fomenters of sedi
tion, and under the plea that in
most cases, at least, religious
assemblies were subterfuges for
the meeting of traitors, the
Convention agents, wherever
they dared, included in their
denunciations all priests, not
excepting Protestant ministers.
While it is true that the avowed
policy of the Convention, as
stated again and again on the
floor of its hall, was intended to
be conciliatory to all French
men of any and every faith, it
is equally true that it was only
under intimidation that its
agents were actually fair-
minded and moderate. Their
violence was boundless, their
watchword was the dangerous
phrase, "public safety."

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 209
ally delivered, and the guillotine at once ceased from
the shedding of blood. But while in political matters
they quickly divided into a right and a left, yet in reli
gious matters the whole party was revolutionary to the
core, and not a single one of the Draconian statutes
against religious liberty was repealed. The force of
circumstances compelled a grudging moderation. The
Jacobin club was closed until it purged itself and dis
avowed Robespierre; renewing its sessions, it soon
again exhibited something of the old fierce radical tem
per, and was permanently closed. In the irreconcilable
commune of Paris was substituted for the old a new
police administration composed of chosen moderates.
The radical representatives of the Convention who had
been sent to control the armies in the field and to over
see every department of local administration in the land
were replaced by new men. The terrible revolutionary
central committee was completely reorganized. The
old system remained in form, but was thoroughly
changed in character. This so-called revolutionary
government survived until the Convention was re
placed by the Directory.
The moderates or revolutionaries who had formed a
coalition with the extreme radicals of the Mountain,
the former terrorists, now struggled continuously for
mild measures, and were finally successful. But they
had always to reckon with the embittered fanatics, and
their progress was slow. Beyond the limits of Paris
the prisons remained gorged with hundreds of priests,
juror and nonjuror alike, doomed to transportation;
thousands more were under official supervision. For
more than a year the prisoners were subjected to every
form of indignity and persecution, kept in close asso
ciation with the vilest criminals, starved, manacled,
and even executed without process of law. Within a

210 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
few months nearly half of the poor victims were dead
under the agonies of suffering to which they were
doomed. But the martyrs were no longer without advocates
in the legislature: once more and with glowing logic
the noble Gregoire began to plead the cause of reli
gious liberty, nor did he feel the slightest tremor before
the yells and execrations of the bedlamites among
the deputies who opposed him. His one repeated cry
was for complete liberty of thought and worship, a
total emancipation of religion from the tyranny of the
state. His most powerful effort was that speech which
he had ready for the decisive moment. It was" deliv
ered on December twenty-first, 1794, and immediately
thereafter widely distributed throughout the country in
pamphlet form.1 The contents of this document re
acted vigorously on public opinion, and finally served
to cement the elements of a sane and wholesome feel
ing for thorough reforms in existing conditions. In
February, 1795, from about four hundred priests who
had been imprisoned in the departments less than a
hundred survived, and these were liberated.
In the introduction to his pamphlet Gregoire de
clared that, having been calumniated in the past for
insisting on toleration for Jews, Protestants, and Ana
baptists, he had vowed to denounce all oppressors, and
that none were more intolerable than those who, having
applauded atheism at the bar of the Convention, could
not forgive a man for holding the same religious prin
ciples as those of Pascal and Fenelon. Soon after he
issued a pastoral of the same tenor, advocating the
reestablishment of worship. As a result of his agita
tion, the fanatical radicals found no support for their
' The text of this speech may Religieuse de la Revolution
be found in Gazier, Histoire Franchise, p. 341.

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 211
indignant protests. With Paris thus in equilibrium, the
departments soon made themselves heard, and Boissy
d'Anglas, Protestant by origin but infidel by profes
sion, demanded, in the name of the three all-powerful
committees — of Public Welfare, of General Safety, and
of Legislation — that "all citizens be permitted to wor
ship with whatever ceremonies their own taste and
judgment approved." He mercilessly exposed the
errors of persecuting atheism, and it was finally de
creed, on February twenty-first, 1795, that all public
support, pensions, salaries, or the use of public build
ings, be withdrawn; that within such edifices as were
set apart for the purpose all forms of worship should
be unmolested.1
Formally this law was not to be interpreted as con
flicting with that which required the oath to maintain
iiberty and equality; this was very significant, since it
maimed the principle and left a vent for the persecut
ing temper of the radicals. But otherwise it was a
remarkable statute as regards its language. Would that
it had expressed the national purpose ! Its short-lived
validity accomplished something, but the ineradicable
propensity of mankind to unload every burden possible
upon the social organization was, and is, nowhere so
strong as among the French. It is the most dangerous
survival of the primeval curse. Yet France was pas
sionately eager for momentary relief, and ready, for
the sake of a respite from galling fetters, to abandon
the public crib for a time.
Referring to the principles laid down in the Declara
tion of the Rights of Man and in the constitution, it was
enacted by the decree that all worship should be unmo
lested and might be celebrated, at the cost of the par
ticipants, in places without external marks of distinc-
' The text of this law is most accessible in Gazier, p. 255.

212 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
tion, hired by the congregations occupying them. There
was to be no ecclesiastical garb, no public ceremony, no
public summons to any exercise. Every gathering was
subject to state supervision, but only for the guarantee
of public safety by the police. This was another phrase
destined to notoriety in the next epoch. One of the
most striking paragraphs of the decree forbade the
accumulations of endowments for the support of wor
ship. France had seen the disasters consequent upon
mortmain, secular and ecclesiastical; the Convention
was grim in its determination that they should not
again overtake remote generations.
As a consequence of this remarkable series of enact
ments, persecution did not cease even for a moment;
wherever it was possible, the Jacobin authorities stood
on legal technicalities, which were easily discoverable
among the swollen volumes of legislation enacted by
the irresponsible revolutionary assemblies; contradic
tions were on every page, and the most wary could not
avoid the innumerable pitfalls.
Thus ostensibly was accomplished in theory what
had been the aim of a few careful observers and pro
found thinkers for years past: the divorce of state
and church. To this hour it is claimed that the Revo
lution actually inaugurated religious liberty in France,
and that wicked men overthrew the beneficent institu
tions erected to protect it. The matter is worthy of
careful examination. The impulse to this momentous
act was complex. We have noted the poet call of
Andre Chenier and the prophetic fire of Gregoire.
Both might have had no results except for the entangle
ment in the finances caused by the course of ecclesias
tical legislation since the Revolution began its course.
Of all the denominational and sectarian fragments that
have been enumerated only one had a legal standing

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 213
— that of the Constitutionalists. Its adherents could,
as public functionaries, demand pay from the treas
ury; but so likewise, after Thermidor, could almost
every priest, monk, and nun, for under one legislative
body or another to each and all had been promised pen
sions.1 To be sure, there was in every case some re
striction or other in connection with profession and
conduct, but proof was impossible, and the clamor
would soon be intolerable.
Besides all these obligations, both atheistic and deis-
tic ceremonies had been elaborately celebrated at the
public expense, and it was morally certain that the min
isters of the secular cult, which was determined to
make itself national by forcing the observance of the
national ten-day festival, would likewise demand sup
port from the nation in whose interest they would so
ostentatiously be working. All this expense the bud
get could not support, and Cambon, on September
twentieth, 1794, brought this fact to the attention of
the Convention. Exasperated with Robespierre, the
Thermidorians, radical and moderate, were well dis-
'We have indicated else- incumbents with twelve hun-
where that the entire clergy dred livres. When recanting
had in one of two forms been grew common the apostates
promised a measure of state were also pensioned with twelve
support. Those who were dis- hundred livres. But financial
placed by the confiscation of stress put an end to all pay-
the ecclesiastical estates and the ments whatsoever for pensions
working of the Civil Consti- or salaries some months before
tution were to receive pensions, the revolution of Thermidor.
others a salary. On September It was because of the demands
twenty-seventh, 1792, pensions made by the Constitutionals,
were fixed at a thousand livres ; who had still a legal claim, that
the salaries varied according Cambon suggested finally the
to provisions of the law. But complete separation of church
on the plea of suspected dis- and state ; the measure had no
loyalty, the Convention, in relation to the convictions of
September, 1793, reduced the radicals, philosophers, or even
salaries of bishops to six thou- the moderate reformers ; it was
sand livres and abolished all purely a matter of public econ-
the vicariates, pensioning the omy.

214 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
posed to reject whatever he had advocated, and a na
tional religion with functionary ministers in state pay
had been his pivotal doctrine. Hence, for the moment
all conflicting elements could unite in nullifying the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the disestablish
ment of the church. It was the fixed conviction of the
few and the sense of expediency felt by the many which
enacted the famous decree we are discussing, best
known as that of 3 Ventose, year III.
Nevertheless, in general the effect of the Ventose de
cree was electrical. Chapels were opened to throngs
of worshippers both in Paris and in the departments.
In April the Convention signed a treaty with the Ven-
dean rebels, and at once worship was restored in the
churches throughout the western districts. For the
most part there was no opposition ; but in places where
radical Jacobins were numerous a few successful efforts
were made to restrain the priests by fine or imprison
ment, on the ground that they were desecrating the re
publican calendar and defying the republican laws. In
truth, the situation was in theory most abnormal. The
Civil Constitution had not been formally repealed; the
churches had not been legally reopened. There was
great uneasiness, therefore, among the Constitutionals
and their supporters.
By a supplementary decree of 11 Prairial (May
thirtieth, 1795) all churches which had not been sold
were restored to the communes, to be used as halls of
assembly for all purposes, including worship, and no
priest was to officiate who had not taken the oath.
This gave great comfort to the Constitutionals, and vir
tually perpetuated their organization. But there arose
even greater confusion than before; it was in the
churches that the Decadi was celebrated. This was a
desecration. It had been the intention that the celebra-

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 215
tion of the Decadis should be essentially secular.
There were to be, and already there were, lectures on
such themes as "civism," the culture of the potato, the
nature of the constitution, and so on. Even the radi
cals felt the intolerable tedium of such performances — a
dreariness not relieved in the slightest by the singing
of national songs, as was ordered. Boissy d'Anglas
wildly suggested that the ceremonies should be enliv
ened and made interesting by the presentation of a rose
to innocence, or similar naive parodies of worship.
Chenier boldly advocated the further evolution of great
national festivals, and calls were made in the sessions
of the legislature for the speedy accomplishment of
the work. One deputy absent in the provinces noted
with dismay the religious revival, and demanded a
radical cure, partly by public instruction and partly by
the tenth-day feasts. A formal bill to this effect was
presented in January. It was nearly a year before the
civic banquets and festivals were organized. They
were predestined to failure because the popular feeling
had rebelled against all the republican-democratic inno
vations which they typified. Many already understood
that such devices were hollow and of no avail.
Recognizing how abhorrent to nature even a reli
gious vacuum is, the radical sectaries were busy organ
izing the so-called religious movement, in the national
interest, of which we have spoken. It was to be styled
Theophilanthropy, and its inventors desired to retain
general observance of the tenth day, in order to render
truly national their contemplated absurdity of a cult.
These spurious religionists and the so-called patriots
in general wished to quench "the reviving fanaticism,"
and in order to gain time and place for their own plans
desired a penalty of six months' imprisonment to be
imposed on any one reestablishing worship in the

216 TFIE FRENCH REVOLUTION
churches. They made some headway on the ground of
"public safety," but the victory over the uprising of
i Prairial (May twentieth, 1795) reassured the Con
vention as to the reality of its power; and Lanjuinais,
citing the example of Vendee, proposed and had en
acted a decree which reopened such churches through
out France as had been in use before the second year
of the Republic ( September twenty-second, 1793).
This law was passed on September twenty-seventh,
1795. It subjected, "in behalf of public security," all
gatherings for worship to the oversight of the police,
and forbade all attempts to restrain liberty of con
science or interfere in any way with any form of wor
ship whatever.1 It required but a single guarantee,
namely, that every minister of religion should affirm:
"I acknowledge that the totality of the French people
is sovereign, and I promise obedience and submission
to the laws of the Republic." Although in this there
is a complete acknowledgment of secular supremacy,
yet it would seem that, even including the last clause,
it would, if generally obeyed, have secured a free
church and have inaugurated the voluntary system of
support. But this last clause, though generally acceptable and
accepted in Paris as a mere recognition of the powers
that be, proved a stumbling-block to the clergy of the
departments. Their recalcitrancy led to further ob
scurantist legislation, which soon eclipsed all the light
shed by the Convention on the problem of complete re
ligious liberty. The Abbe fimery pleaded, as head of
the archiepiscopal council, and pleaded earnestly, for
submission without approval, as priests perforce must
'These phrases of "public tose and repeated here, were
security" and "police power," destined to be pivotal to Napo-
first used in the decree of Ven- leon's Concordat.

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 217
do in Protestant and Mohammedan countries. But, as
he admitted, the fewest ecclesiastics had even rudimen
tary ideas of political jurisprudence, and the rest re
fused all compromise or conciliation. In the west
numerous nonjuring priests made formal reservation
of their religious principles and complied with the law,
though they refused to officiate in buildings used by the
jurors, as being temples defiled. The officials accepted
this solution because already the mutterings of further
insurrection were audible. But in Lyons the Conven
tion agents demanded compliance without reservation,
though they winked at a wide-spread reopening of
churches without any formal assertion of principle by
the vicars and curates.
Possibly some arrangement might have been reached
throughout the country in varying compromises suited
to the respective localities. But a royalist expedition,
outfitted in England under Pitt's auspices, landed at
Quiberon only two short months after the pacification
of Vendee, and with it were forty priests, led by the
emigrant Bishop oi Dol. The invasion was momen
tarily successful, but Hoche suppressed it with piti
less severity, and by order of the Convention seven
hundred persons, including sixteen priests, with the
bishop and his coadjutor, were shot on July thir
tieth, 1795. Simultaneously the government claimed,
and probably with right, to have discovered a wide
spread conspiracy among the ecclesiastics for the resto
ration of royalty and Catholicism as held by the Ultra
montanes. Certain it is that the "refractory" priests
throughout France continued to treat their conforming
brethren with contempt, descending even to scur
rilous and fierce attacks, written and physical. Emi
grants, too, began to reenter France from all direc
tions, inciting their friends and such others as they

218 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
could influence not only to restore royalty, but to mas
sacre the representatives of the people — all, they as
serted, for the greater glory of God and the safety of
the republic ! To this end there was a series of bloody
and successful efforts, fuller mention of which is best
made in another connection, at Lyons, Marseilles,
Nimes, Tarascon, and generally throughout the south.
This shocking and shameful conduct of the clericals
and the clerical factions was met by a fierce rebound on
the part of the radicals. On September sixth the Leg
islative Committee issued a series of rescripts in which
recusant priests were forbidden to reenter France
under pain of banishment. Those still resident who
refused the declaration under the law of Prairial were
to be imprisoned. Every conceivable check was de
vised to bring recalcitrants to terms. Any one who
promulgated any document emanating from a minister
of religion not residing in France (the Pope) or his
delegate was to be imprisoned, and any person advo
cating royalty or the betrayal of the republic was to be
imprisoned for life. Even censure of measures already
taken to regulate ecclesiastical affairs was to be pun
ished by fine or imprisonment.
This pronunciamento was received by the clericals
with a dismay paralleled only by that with which they
had received the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and
fierce dissensions split their ranks. The moderates,
under the leadership of the Abbe fimery, held up the
past folly of those who had refused the earlier test of
mere submission to the laws. As to the phrase of "sov
ereignty residing in the universality or totality of the
French people," the leader declared that he could and
did accept the statement as a fact, though he could not
support the implied theory ; moreover, the most ortho
dox Roman publicists of comparatively recent times, he

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 219
said, had even maintained the statement as a thesis —
men like Suarez, Salmeron, and Navarre. Discussion
raged and bitterness supplanted all Christian charity
until even the archiepiscopal council was sundered and
the ranks of the clericals shattered. Schism was uni
versal and complete. The most stubborn reactionaries
held together in a small group known as the "Little
Church." Once more the royalists and discontented of every
type drew together into a formidable coalition against
the Convention, and once more the rebellion was ruth
lessly suppressed by an army. In the conflict of Oc
tober fourth, known as the Day of the Sections, a
shrewd, intelligent, observant adventurer, an officer
already of some renown in the revolutionary armies of
France, was the man of greatest importance. It was
on that day that Napoleon Bonaparte was launched on
his grand career.1 Meantime, with strange fatuity, the
political theorists had concocted another idealistic con
stitution, providing for many details of government
far removed on the one hand from radical concepts,
and on the other from the political habits of the people.
It, too, was abortive even without the short trial of life
it was destined to have, because it rested on military
force for its basis, and no civil constitution can stand
unless it be the expression of strong general conviction
and of habits both political and social. Since blood had
filled the gutters of Paris through the intrigues of re
actionary priests but lately returned to France, the Con
vention, on October twenty-fifth, ordered that all laws
against such should be put into execution within twen
ty-four hours. On October twenty-sixth, after extend-
1 An admirable study of this Lettres de l'Universite de Paris,
"Day" may be found in the Vol. VI. Zivy, Le Treize Ven-
Bibliotheque de la Faculte des demiaire An IV.

220 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ing amnesty to all except the plotting priests, it handed
over the reins of government to the most feeble and
contemptible administration ever set to rule a great
country — that of the Directory.
The earliest acts of the executive committee which
now wielded the sovereignty were an effort to exhaust
the scanty forces of the disheartened, disintegrated, and
prostrate Church of Rome. Persecution was renewed
with frightful bitterness, and in the effort to discoun
tenance worship the ringing of church bells was pro
hibited. In this way the church bell became the shib
boleth of parties.1 Fighting and strife were openly
renewed in many quarters. Within a few months
twenty-six priests were done to death, with or without
what was called due process of law. The new consti
tution was so far anti-radical as to provide for two
houses in the legislature. In the lower one, where Ja
cobinism was rampant, the most extreme measures were
passed; the older, graver men of the upper one threw
them out on the ground that they were a breach of sol
emn promises, and would surely rekindle the flames of
civil war. Count Portalis, ere long to exert a para
mount influence, pleaded vigorously for religious tol
eration. Recalling the prediction of Rousseau, that
philosophers, once in power, would become more relent
less persecutors than the ecclesiastics, he proved con
clusively, in an eloquent speech, that liberty of con-
1 All the contemporary records Catholic religion. I do not see,
abound in discussions about the therefore, why you should for-
church bell. One which is bid the common means of call-
perhaps as short and enlighten- ing the citizens to worship. It
ing as any may be found in the was formerly used, and is still
Moniteur, June seventeenth, used for public assemblies."
1797, No. 269. Said Parisot, Several members cried : "These
one of the debaters : "You can- assemblies are constitutional,
not conceal from yourselves religious service is not." Amid
that almost the totality of the tumult the meeting adjourned.
French people professes the

GLIMPSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 221
science was the only remedy for fanaticism. Within a
year and a half public opinion throughout the country
veered once more, officials grew timid, the measures of
the Convention were not enforced, and by 1797 one of
the five directors (Barthelemy) was a royalist, while a
group of intelligent, moderate men in both houses con
trolled legislation, against a majority of radicals in the
lower, against a minority of the same in the upper.
The dominant force was a body of moderate republi
cans and royalists combined in the upper house.

XIII
ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY

XIII
ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY
FOR the period of three years, from 1792 to 1795,
the resources of France had seemed boundless; in
her supreme effort of self-defence the superbly inex
haustible reservoirs of nature's primeval forces were
apparently at her disposal. Under the republic the
nation had been unified; out of raw plebeian material
had been created a resistless army, generals by the
score who were the peers of Turenne, of Luxembourg,
of Tallard, diplomats superior to Mazarin or Barillon,
administrators who could vie with Colbert and Lou-
vois. At Bale the European coalition against her was
disbanded, the national frontiers of ancient Gaul were
secured, and the cherished policy of natural boundaries
which the monarchy could flaunt only as an ideal was
now brilliantly realized. Though Great Britain and
Austria were implacable, yet the one seemed exhausted
and the other contemptible. Finally, in the constitu
tion of the year III. a new system of European public
law was announced, for thereafter France was to re
main what she had become by an unpremeditated con
juncture of circumstances — a republic.
But in erecting the political structure known as the
Directory the social structure of France was disre
garded and its religious conditions ignored. From 1789
onward the successive phases of political and social
change had been marked by convulsions euphemistically
225

226 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
known as "Days." These exhibitions of mob violence
were steadily growing more frequent. The Convention
had been forced to identify itself with the Paris riots
of May thirty-first and June second, 1793; it had suc
ceeded in suppressing the hostile insurrections of the
south and west by its citizen armies. Under the Terror
its difficulties were intestine, and Thermidor was a
reaction. But no sooner were all the factions reunited
in Paris than the Days recurred with ominous celerity.
The Day of 12 Germinal (April first, 1795) over
threw the surviving terrorists; the Day of 1 Prairial
(May twentieth) and its successors virtually extermi
nated them. The prisons of France were now gorged
with radicals, as they had been formerly with royalists.
A new Terror reared its awful head, and in the south
east its excesses were ghastly. Organizing secret asso
ciations, under the style of Companies of the Sun, of
Jesus, of Jehu, the Ultramontane party formed again
like magic, many emerging from their retreats on
French soil, many of the emigrants reappearing as if
from the regions under the earth.1 At Lyons and at
Roanne they made a general jail delivery of the repub
licans and massacred all. Brought to trial, the assas
sins were triumphantly acquitted, and hailed by the
populace as heroes. At Aix the prisoners were tor
tured with horrid barbarity and then murdered by roy
alists from Marseilles. The fort at Tarascon was
broken open by a band of armed men, and the pris
oners were flung into the Rhone. The workmen of
Toulon rose in defence of their republican faith, and
a royalist army, drawn together with almost preter
natural celerity, overwhelmed them completely, show
ing no quarter. The final scene of this short and awful
1 Rapport de M. J. Chenier a la Convention. Moniteur,
An III., No. 279.

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 227
carnage was the murder, on June fifth, 1795, at Mar
seilles, of all the republicans incarcerated at Fort St.
John. This carnival of murder was the White Terror. It
had political significance only in so far as the irrecon
cilable ecclesiastics instigated it, identifying themselves
with the royalist revival and with monarchy itself.
Simultaneously the Comte de Provence, then at Ve
rona, announced that Louis XVII. having died in the
Temple on June eighth, he himself now reigned as
Louis XVIII., and would restore the old regime. This
and similar acts were most ill advised from every point
of view, for even the most ardent royalists were by
this time aware that in the new era Constitutional mon
archy and a reformed church could alone have any
chance for life. There was a distinctly noticeable anti-
royalist reaction both in Paris and in the departments.
Thus encouraged, the Convention had taken heart,
and on the Day of 13 Vendemiaire, year IV. (October
fourth, 1795), the most famous Day of all, the Day
of the Sections, it suppressed, by a detachment of its
invincible army, a mutiny in Paris caused by an ever
growing distrust of the Convention in general, in par
ticular by the Convention decree requiring two thirds of
the next legislature to be members of the existing one.1
This use of the army was a new departure, and the
Directory took the lesson to heart. It was a Conven
tion army which "pacified" Vendee; it was the pres
tige of a Convention army which suppressed the com
munistic revolt of Babeuf, and it was the ruthless work
of another which accomplished the Jacobin revival on
the Day of 18 Fructidor, year V. (September fourth,
1797). Still another Day, that of 22 Floreal, year
VI. (April eleventh, 1798), was carried through by
1 Zivy, Le Treize Vendemiaire, p. 15.

228 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
the awe of the military as incarnated in Bonaparte,
then present in Paris. The legislature was at one
stroke purged of some sixty radical democrats who
had been duly elected. By this time the system of
the Directory was thoroughly discredited, for military
force was now manifestly paramount in politics.
The elections of the year VIL, though peaceable
and regular, were profoundly influenced by the failures
of the Directory abroad. Jourdan's army had been de
feated and driven back across the Rhine, and, as indi
cating a wide-spread contempt for the republic, the
French plenipotentiaries in the Congress of Rastatt had
not only been overwhelmed with obloquy, but, as the
sequel proved, were in danger of their lives. Hence
the new legislature was distinctly unsympathetic with
the new constitution. By the menace of exposing its
inefficiency the wretched Directory was delivered to its
enemies, and by them thrown into a panic. The Day
of 30 Prairial, year VII. (June seventeenth, 1799), saw
the withdrawal from the Directorate of its two sin
cerely republican members — Merlin, under the charge
of a disgusting Machiavellianism, and La Revelliere-
Lepeaux, under that of attacking liberty of conscience
in order to favor Theophilanthropy. The charges are
as significant as the fact of withdrawal. One is of
immorality, the other of irreligion. Once more it
seems as if the political condition of France was deter
mined by religious forces.
In any case, there was a gradual and permanent re
arrangement of social elements. The moderate repub
licans and royalists of the new type alike favored some
form of constitution which should be really expressive
of the new French temper, symptoms of which could
now be seen. These symptoms were, in fact, not
merely visible, they had already brought into promi-

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 229
nence a class of men which was effectively asserting its
power. That power was based in the sad experiences
of so-called religious liberty under the contemptible and
impotent Directory. Its inefficiency in war and diplo
macy was of a piece with its impolitic and feeble con
duct at home. This fact had deeply impressed the
politicians destined to sway the men of the coming gen
eration. The most trustworthy of this class were Ca-
mille Jordan, Royer-Collard, Boissy d'Anglas, Portalis,
Pastoret, Simeon, and Barbe-Marbois ; Barthelemy and
the great Carnot, though less active, were not ill dis
posed to the strivings of their colleagues.
Some of these men — Royer-Collard and Camille Jor
dan, for example — were newly elected, and had taken
no share in the fiercer strife of the Revolution. The lat
ter, in an epochal oration1 delivered on June fifteenth,
1797, began the movement of transition by an attack
on the entire legislation of the successive assemblies,
National, Legislative, and Convention, which, together,
in feverish precipitancy, had in six years enacted no
fewer than fifteen thousand four hundred and seventy-
nine laws ! With clarion call he demanded a revision
of the statute-books, based on the firm foundation
which was now laid — viz., the national consciousness
of right and wrong. Declaring that religion should no
longer be proscribed, but protected, he reiterated the
solemn promise that worship should be free in France.
In his peroration he called for the restoration of all
the outward symbols of faith, including the church
bell. These, he declared, spoke to the popular heart
and evoked the noblest sentiments of mankind. The
step actually taken in consequence of his plea was to
abrogate all the penal laws against the clergy and re
store them to citizenship without exacting any decla-
' Moniteur, June twenty-second, 1797- (An V, Nos. 274 and 275.)

230 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ration of conformity to the law of Prairial. It was
held that because the priests were no longer function
aries paid by the state they were not bound to measures
not applicable to all citizens.
This remarkable result was, however, achieved in
part by the fire and eloquence of Royer-Collard. His
speech was doubly interesting because he already pre
dicted that for the restoration of public order some
form of concordat was essential.
The prospects for true reform were thus most prom
ising, but once more the good work was undone by the
incredible temerity of the intended beneficiaries. The
proscribed classes, clerics and laics, reappeared, as has
been previously noted, by thousands and tens of thou
sands. They were not content to live unmolested, but
pushed the fact of their return into public notice by
every form of effrontery — vaporing, boasting of their
intentions, and even announcing the return of the Bour
bons with the old system. The White Terror, although
elsewhere the excesses were not comparable to it, was
only one exhibition of their ferocity. Thus moderate
republicans and royalists were alike checkmated in the
fulfilment of their intentions; the radicals secured the
ministry by the violence of the Ultramontanes, and with
the aid of the army — an army now commanded not by
Bonaparte, but by his lieutenant, the fiery Augereau —
on September fourth, 1797 (18 Fructidor), coerced the
two houses of the legislature. Augereau had boasted,
though without foundation, that he was sent to Paris to
"kill the royalists." There may have been a grain of
truth in his statement, but Bonaparte always practised
a specious reserve in speaking of Fructidor. In view of
the succeeding events and the work of the 18 Brumaire
(November ninth, 1799), no one can doubt the mea
sure of his foresight; the former day, however, was

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 231
the victory of a cause, and the latter was the victory
of the man.
The religious consequences of Fructidor were imme
diate.1 The legislature reenacted the terrorist laws,
and demanded from all officiating ministers an oath still
more radical than the last — "Hatred to royalty and
anarchy, attachment and fidelity to the republic and to
the constitution of the year III." This oath the juror
priests could easily take, for to them royalty was a
monstrosity; but the nonjurors, almost to a man, re
coiled. A certain number of the recusants, perhaps a
majority, finally yielded. This was due to an official
declaration plausibly representing that in the language
of the oath there was no reflection on the person of
kings ; this must be so, for the republic was constantly
transacting business with them ; the words were aimed
against the reestablishment of royalty and monarchical
government in France.2
But compliance was of no avail; the motto of the
Fructidorians was "Thorough." Encouraged by the
turn of the weathercock at Paris, Jacobin demagogues
at once came out of their burrows in every district of
France. The rural governments, based on popular
choice, were overthrown; elections were either can
celled or suspended ; the primaries were by subdivision
adroitly surrendered into Jacobin hands; the radicals
seized every office. The proscription of religion ad
vanced with equal step, and this time priests were ar
rested, imprisoned, and transported, not under the stan
dard charge of being traitors to the state, but avowedly
as the agents of an abhorrent superstition. The guil
lotine was not set up again, but the church bell was
1 Mallet du Pan, Memoires et lessly forced on all the depu-
Correspondance, II. 320 et seq. ties, see the Moniteur, Septem-
2 For an idea of how the oath ber fourteenth, 1797. (An V.,
of hatred to royalty was ruth- No. 357.)

232 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
once more prohibited; the celebration of Sunday as a
holy day was made almost impossible by the pains of
persecution; the celebration of the Decadi as a reli
gious festival was pronounced imperative, and recalci
trants were arrested by hundreds tipon hundreds. The
most refractory of the priests were treated like crimi
nals, and sent in shoals to the penal establishments at
Oleron, Rhe, and Mont-Saint-Michel ; the overflow of
these jails was banished to the torrid shores of the Sin-
namari, a fate worse than death, because (and this is
but one example out of many) from a single consign
ment of exiles, between four and five hundred in num
ber, only twenty survived their cruel sufferings for six
months. This death-rate was not exceptional in simi
lar instances.
The most impenitent advocates of what they them
selves persistently styled tolerance and philosophy had
by this time realized what they had already feared —
that in religion, as in physics, nature abhors a vacuum.
Accordingly, they made ready to bring into full promi
nence what was already prepared in theory, the fledg
ling sect of Theophilanthropy. They acted vigorously,
with a view to substituting that strange congeries of
dogma and ritual in place of Roman Catholicism as a
state religion. In their opinion there was urgent need.
Thirty- two thousand churches, as estimated by Gre
goire, were open for worship. The ministers were in
part the old Constitutionals, in part the new conform
ists. But far and near worship was celebrated in one
way and another. Moreover, the Constitutional bishops
had entered on a path of moderation and wisdom, sug
gesting methods of organization and procedure for the
Gallican Church which it now seems, and seemed to
some of their contemporary opponents, should have ap
pealed to every right-minded Roman Catholic. They

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 233
had issued two important and sensible encyclicals ; then,
assembling in a national ecclesiastical council at Notre
Dame, they likewise addressed Pius VI., begging for
his assistance and advice. To their prayer his ear was
deaf. Equally so were the mass of nonjuror brethren
to whom they turned beseechingly for reconciliation
and harmony. For the most part the initiative and
form of these measures were the work of Gregoire.
Due tribute must be paid to both branches of the
Roman Church during the closing years of the revolu
tionary epoch, at least for sincerity and perseverance,
if not for wisdom. Both were fearless and both de
sired the welfare of true religion. The Ultramontanes
suffered persecution and martyrdom like saints, sacri
ficed all worldly advantage with true heroism, and
neglected not a single opportunity, even the most trou
blesome or secret, to observe their ordinances and cele
brate their worship, in the teeth of an opposition which
was fanatical and terrible. They retained some form
of organization throughout; with full liberty they
would have been completely successful. On the other
hand, the Constitutionals avowed their devotion to re
publican institutions and sought the restoration of reli
gion in consonance with them. They were no less
zealous and self-sacrificing. They were glad to be
freed from state control and state support. They like
wise renounced papal supremacy as a binding dogma,
and instituted a semi-presbyterian form of organiza
tion. The faith of their adherents was kept alive and
fervent by frequent revivals. Their able journal ("An
nates de la Religion") secured unity of thought and
action; the clergy and laity alike inculcated and prac
tised a strict morality. The clergy were simply inde
fatigable ; with scarcely an exception, they lived meanly
and practised a rigid economy. A typical example of

s

234 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
this is a touching incident, told by various authors, of
how, when a venerable priest was found mending his
old black stockings with white thread, and rallied upon
the fact, he could see nothing extraordinary or curious
in his expedient. Like their refractory brethren of the
Roman cult, the juror priests neglected no opportunity
for public worship or pastoral service, baptizing chil
dren, performing marriage ceremonies, and burying
the dead, all with courageous defiance of every petty
annoyance and public opposition.
In the council of 1797 the Constitutionals, as they still
were called, though of course the Civil Constitution
was no longer operative, took the last step of reform.
They reorganized their church on the basis of a com
plete voluntary system under the law of Ventose. With
the broadest charity, they recognized the standing of
every minister, no difference what his attitude toward
public questions had been in the past. Deploring
schism, they called on the Pope to confirm them in their
assertion that the briefs of 1790, 1791, and 1792 had
been apocryphal, and promised in advance to submit
themselves to the decrees of an ecumenical council,
which they begged him to call right speedily. In a
second council, assembled in 1801, they went further,
and made careful preparation for a complete reorgani
zation of the entire Gallican Church on the broadest
lines. In 1798 there were forty-six of the Constitu
tional bishoprics vacant. By herculean efforts all but
fifteen of these were quickly filled. It seemed as if the
fragmentary organization might be completed, but the
Concordat cut short the labors of this council almost
before they were inaugurated.
To us it appears that the bitter antagonism between
the two warring camps, each claiming to be soldiers
of the cross, ought in this period to have been obliter-

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 23 5
ated before a common foe. France was utterly demor
alized. A mad passion for pleasure now dominated
society. Every vice was rampant. The family as an
institution was almost disintegrated under the law of
marriage and divorce. Designing infidels had con
vinced the masses that, like spurious ecclesiasticism,
Christianity itself was incompatible with democracy.
The papacy, alas! was impotent. Pius VI. was per
sonally an excellent man. He was the representative
of a power ostensibly moral, but, if so, strangely sapped
by the decay of its temporalities; the foundation of
sand was slipping away, the edifice itself was crum
bling before an implacable foe, and the spiritual forces
inherent in the ancient institution could not be rallied
either to moderate the implacable or to stimulate the
wavering. Meantime the secular authorities were busy adopting
and enforcing stringent regulations for the observance
of the Decadi by cessation from work and trade, and
for the relegation of Sunday to labor or amusement.
The decrees were as stringent as they could be drawn.
By those of August and September, 1798, business,
public and private, could not be transacted on the De-
cadis. In the public hall or church the magistrates were
on those days to make all official announcements, cele
brate marriages, grant divorces, and register births and
deaths. All school-children were to attend these edi
fying exercises, and, as a relief from the tedium, they
were to have games and sports thereafter. If any pre
ferred the ceremonies of the church, they were de
nounced as so far unfaithful to the republic, and a
strict watch was kept on all who were irregular in
attending the official secular meetings. The nonjurors
proved utterly recalcitrant; the former Constitutionals
complied occasionally, through fear, but in the main

236 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
they, too, disobeyed. Gregoire denounced these de
crees from his seat in the hall of the Five Hundred (or
lower house) in a fierce arraignment of the public good
faith, for he recalled that the new calendar had been
adopted purely as a civil matter. All efforts, there
fore, to enforce it as a part of religion and to discour
age Christian worship on the regular day were clearly
an attempt to treat one, and only one, religious society
as an exception. His sentiments were applauded by
all Christians. To those who were bent on the com
plete "laicization" of France it was plain that threats
and blandishments were alike ineffective. For the mo
ment the two warring camps of Roman Catholics were
firmly united in a common resistance. There were
now only two political parties, and it was disastrous
that at bottom royalists and republicans were separated
by the religious question. The former adopted as their
battle-cry : "The king and religion."
A phenomenon so strange quickly and easily brought
the theophilanthropists into temporary prominence;
this was exactly the crisis they desired ; for they alone,
it was claimed, repeated, and asseverated, could abolish
Sunday by substituting for the dry and meaningless
harangues or proclamations of laws by which the Deca-
dis had hitherto been and still were to be celebrated,
a veritable religious observance from which no man,
not even the atheists, should be excluded. The amaz
ing and preposterous monstrosity of Theophilanthropy,
which was to work this miracle, is traceable to the
deism of Robespierre. Its parent mind was that of a
wild enthusiast named d'Aubermenil ; its sponsors were
a number of apostate priests, and its promulgator was
a certain hack-writer named Chemin. Only a few men
of eminence were associated with it — Dupont de Ne
mours, Marie Joseph Chenier, Bernardin de Saint-

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 237
Pierre, and the painter David. Two others of less note,
Roederer and La Revelliere-Lepeaux, were its active
supporters. Its official publications were a manual, a
ritual, a religious year-book, and some volumes of
moral platitudes.1
The official style of the religious invention was "In
stitute of Morals." It was professedly organized to
comprehend all that was oldest and best in the history
of the world. On the feast day of Tolerance its devo
tees marched under banners inscribed with the names
of all preexistent religions, including one that never
had existed, a cult consecrated to morality. Their
first formal act was to hold a council in Notre Dame ;
the second was a schism, for a body of the original
founders seceded, and, holding its sessions in the
Church of Thomas Aquinas, denied the jurisdiction of
the parent assembly.
Both sects, however, used the same ceremonies when
met for the observance of the Decadis. In all their
ordinances the directing high priest was the notorious
busybody, the absurd member of the Directory named
La Revelliere-Lepeaux. He himself had no distinctive
garb, and remained generally in the background. His
assistants, however, had beautiful regalia. The offi
ciating director of each local celebration was clad in
white, with a rose-colored girdle. He stood on a dais,
'The original authority on jures the principles of any one!
Theophilanthropy is a short Mallet, p. 369, also notices a
treatise by Gregoire, published poster with which the walls of
originally in German: Ge- Paris were placarded by per-
schichte des Theophilanthropis- mission of the police, begin-
mus, Hanover, 1806. See also ning, "Les hommes sans Dieu
Mallet du Pan, Correspon- professent un culte: la vertu
dance II. 368, and Moniteur, seule en sera l'objet." He asks,
An V 9 Floreal. The notice with great pregnancy of mean-
in the' Moniteur declares that ing, "Could other powers make
Theophilanthropy is not a sect, a treaty with such a govern-
since it neither denies nor ab- ment?"

238 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
with bared head, opposite an altar ornamented with
fruits or flowers, according to the season. Reciting
an invocation, he paused, and the worshippers repeated
his words in a low tone; then followed a moment of
silent cross-examination. Thereupon one short hom
ily after another was read or delivered, each on some
topic of a moral nature. These were interspersed with
hymns and chants, for the most part of high artistic
character both as to words and music. There followed
a number of prayers to the god of nature. The exer
cise was in each case limited to an hour and a half.
Special services were devised for consecrating in
fants, for funerals, and for marriages. In these last
the pair used a ring, with a medal as a token of union,
and were bound together by enfolding floral garlands ;
at interments a funeral urn, set beneath drooping palms,
was the centre of interest; the corpse was kept else
where out of view. The high holidays, set apart for
general observance, were in honor of Socrates, Rous
seau, Washington, and St. Vincent de Paul ! Such ab
surdities as these were little regarded beyond the walls
of Paris ; the only successes of Theophilanthropy without
the capital were in Bourges, Poitiers, and the depart
ment of the Yonne. The sect had an unhonored career
and a short shrift, for in 1801 the use of churches was
forbidden to it, and on the withdrawal of government
sanction the clumsy system came to an end. During
its existence the so-called services might be held, and
sometimes were held, in a church on the same day
as Christian worship, provided, as often happened, that
Decadi and Sunday fell together. Thus, in the same
building on the same day would be three celebrations —
that of mass in the morning, of the governmental
Decadi service at noon, and of the theophilanthropists
in the afternoon. Absurdity could go no further.

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 239
The general religious disorder was not relieved by a
single focus of living force ; there was not one fulcrum
for the leverage of constructive power. Protestantism
was scarcely alive. Paul Rabaud died in 1795, under
the weight of years and suffering; of the pastors who
had seen the opening of the Revolution but a handful
of exhausted, discouraged men was left. The ranks of
the laity had been continuously decimated by shameful
apostacies, for the deism of England and Germany had
reacted on them and sapped their faith. The Re
formed Church knew nothing of the throes which shook
Roman Catholicism, for after the action of the Con
stituent it was free ; yet, almost the only faithful were
either the plain people in towns like Nimes and Mon-
tauban, who retorted on the violence of radicals and
Catholics with blow for blow, or else the moderate and
timid of the middle class, who nourished their faith in
secret and took refuge from trouble behind an outward
conformity. During the orgies of Hebert and Chau
mette in honor of Reason the Protestants, like all Chris
tians, were persecuted and terrorized. Many aban
doned their faith and cause. The organization of the
church was substantially destroyed. Spasmodic efforts
to reconstitute the Protestant congregations were made
under the Directory, and in some cases they met with
success. It may possibly be said that there actually
was an organized Protestant church when the Con
sulate came into existence, but it could barely maintain
itself, and played no decisive role in religious affairs.
Its seminaries were closed, its people disheartened, its
pastors dismayed, its voice almost hushed.1
The complete disintegration of religious society was
' G. de Felice, Histoire des completely absorbed in the lib-
Protestants de France, p. 568. eral ranks. See his speech,
Boulay de la Meurthe spoke of quoted in Aulard, Histoire
the Protestants as having been Politique, etc., p. 649.

240 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
reflected in the confusion of French life, social, civil,
political, and even military; for the army, as reorgan
ized under the republic, was in a high sense national.
The contentiousness of theFructidorians was a fatuous,
but a fierce imitation of the wild savagery displayed by
the conventionals. After Prairial the Five Hundred
restored the Committee of Public Safety under the
name of a "Commission of Eleven," authorized domi
ciliary visits, and, in view of the now imminent inva
sion of France, decreed the "levee en masse," that
every able-bodied man could be drafted into the army.
To provide funds the "class in easy circumstances" was
summoned to furnish a hundred million francs, and
the money was collected by a progressive land tax. To
check the brutal excesses of the royalists there was en
acted a hideous law, known as the law of hostages,
whereby in every troublesome district all the relatives,
male and female, of emigrants, nobles, and rebels were
to be held as hostages ; at every outbreak of the family
culprit the entire body of hostages was to contribute
five thousand francs as a fine, and four individuals were
to be deported. It is well to remember that deporta
tion was now a horror so well recognized that in com
mon parlance it was known as "the dry guillotine."
Of course such frightful severity defeated itself. The
"red spectre" of Jacobinism was not slow to reappear.
Evading the laws against political associations, a so-
called Jacobin club was formed. The members were
avowed communists and anarchists, to such extremes
had persecution driven them, and the government was
forced to close their rooms after they had been in ex
istence for something over a month. Of the royalist
outbursts we have spoken in another connection. The
law of hostages did not diminish them. Brittany, Poi-
tou, and Normandy were almost as troublesome as the

ULTRAMONTANE FOLLY 241
south, and at Bordeaux the most formidable of all the
uprisings openly shouted the significant watchword of
"The king and religion." To such a pass had matters
come — danger from without, anarchy within — that the
multitudes longed for a deliverer. The circumstances
which caused utter confusion both in religion and in
politics were simultaneous and seemed to the million
identical. The most dangerous of all shallow conclu
sions had been slowly forced on all Frenchmen except
the few — to wit, that political reaction could alone save
the cause of religion.
It is impossible to foresee what might otherwise have
happened ; but at this particular juncture the overpow
ering fact was Bonaparte's return from Egypt. Here
was a deliverer. His prestige as regards the Egyptian
campaign was enormously inflated. But at least, even
though the turn had come and the French arms were
already winning some victories, there was still a
marked contrast between the reputed oriental con
queror and the discredited men of the Directory. More
over, his relations to the papacy were in vivid contrast
to theirs. Bonaparte's Italian campaign had been di
rected against Austria. In his successes the Directory
saw an opportunity to destroy the papacy. The young
general, on the other hand, was mainly actuated by
strategic considerations, a desire to leave no powerful
foe on 'his flanks as he pressed on to the northeast; he
therefore entered into negotiations with the central and
south Italian states, including the papal power, with
that single object well in view. The armistice of Bo
logna (1796) was denounced when Pius VI. refused
the terms of the Directory, but Bonaparte, on his own
authority, renewed the negotiations through Mattei.
The treaty ofJTolentjm^
thoughTt strirrped the papacy of its territorial strength

242 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
and its wealth, left the Pope a free agent to keep the
implied promise he made~tKat some arrangement_be-
tween the two factions of the French Romanists and
the republic in France should be considered and ma
tured when _the_time_w.as. ripe; Fhat social order should
be restored, and the scandals of wide-spread debauchery
banished by a renewed combination of the spiritual
and secular powers. On August third, 1797, Bona
parte outlined the policy of renewing the GarcofdaYTri
some form by a letter addressed to Caleppi, the papal
legate at Florence. It was assuredly no work ot Bona-
parte's which, during his absence in Egypt, fomented
revolutionary violence at Rome and compelled the de
portation to France of Pius VI. The aged prelate
did not long survive the sorrow. He died a prisoner
in Valence, at the age of eighty-two, on August twenty-
ninth, 1799. For this shameful treatment of a harm
less old man the Directory bears the blame entire.

XIV
DESIGN AND FORM OF THE
CONCORDAT

XIV
DESIGN AND FORM OF THE CONCORDAT
THE Day of Brumaire 18, year VIII. (November
ninth, 1799) did not differ from its parent Days
in motive and execution. Once again an intolerable
government came to an end by the use of military
force. But this time the army had not many masters ;
it had only one, a favorite young general who was at
the same time a national hero. Napoleon Bonaparte
did not secure the chieftaincy of France^ at thirty be
cause" of TnTjrjroyefi '^capacities, but J^causejEejialion
believed itself in urgent need of him. Brumaire exem
plified contempt for law under the shallowest pretence
of observing legal forms. There was no concealment
of this fact, and in a high degree France was as
tounded. But her astonishment indicated relief and not indig
nation. Any change directed_^y^a_n_effecdve_power
would be an improvement,"" for under the conditions
prevalent^Jn^e'Tructm'or France had sounded_the
depTnl^jrvfJeehleness. and c-°nsequentlv-g-ljQ.(:l^.L jlsltl"
tegration^d_degraJation. There had been during
that period"an"average of one divorce for every eleven
marriages ; whether a child were legitimate or not was
to many minds a matter of indifference, for some
thought civil marriage sufficient, some were content
with the marriages of the Constitutionals, some only
with those of the nonjuring refractories. Thousands
245

246 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
were united only in Theophilanthropy, and other thou
sands were utterly indifferent to marriage in any form ;
Paris and the great towns were almost brothels, and
the Palais Royal, then the very heart ot the capi
tal, was one vast exchange for all the known forms of
vice. The validity of land sales and business trans
actions of every sort was constantly in question, for
the future still hung in the balance; the law was un
certain and courts were venal. State and family being
therefore menaced at every point, and the ecclesias
tical situation being such as has been already outlined,
things could not be worse ; they must grow better.
The provisional Consulate had no sooner come into
existence "than evidence oTIhl^conviction accumulated
in~evef y direction. " A heavyjiand was laid, wherever
it wa~s~po~s5ible, on all violations of public decency, and
on~"si3Ch practices as could not be instantly checked
enormous contributions were levied. The fear of a
tried army, loyal to a single man, and of a semi-mili
tary police weighed upon the spirits of the malefactors.
The administration of justice, civil and criminal alike,
was momentarily changed as if by magic; business
revived, and the public credit rose by leaps and bounds.
In less than two months three peremptory decrees were
issued by the provisional Consulate which overturned
all compulsory legislation regarding the offensive De-
cadis, substituted a. mere promise of fidelity "tb~tfi"e"cbn-
stitution f or the odious oath of hatred to royalty so far
required of all_ officiating, priests, and enjoined on all
magistrates Jfae enforcement of the laws securing free
dom of religious worship. Almost as a matter of
course such churches as had not been sold were re
opened for services, and the ashes of Pius VI. were
decently interred w'th the splendid r)
Church.

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 247
The work of seven lean years — years of violent over-
turnings, of confiscations, of social devolution, of reli
gious persecution, of political anarchy and chaos —
seemed already to the great masses of the French to
have been undone effectually and permanently. For
years Bonaparte had been discussing with Sieyes and
other political philosophers the nature of constitu
tions. From their thoughts and his own he had
evolved a charter which was not only novel and origi
nal, as he and the devotees of his cause believed, but a
panacea for the troubles of French democracy. When
theConstitution of the Year VTTT. was promulgated,
cumbrous, complex, and absurd as it is, a worried, har
ried, superficial people hailed it as a wonder, and ac
cepted it but too gladly. At least it guaranteed the
achievements of the Revolution regarding civil TiBerEy,
and it was self-evident that religious liberty in some
degree would be secure under its aegis. To its utter
disregard of political liberty only a few thoughtful and
patriotic men gave serious heed.
Now religious liberty was no better understood in
France on the falT of the contemptible DirectoTyThan
it ha^'beenby the enlightened and generous Constitu-
enr7^jiembTyT"~TEe various points of view still held
were much what they had always been. The only per
ceptible change was in the readjustment of the num
bers who supported them. The great mass of the
French people appeared, in its latest adjustment and
in spite of all vicissitudes, to be absolutely unchanged,
for_ thousands had rrv"^* tn-thp Prrnrri tradition of
thirteen hundred years — viz.. that all ecclesiastical le-
gitirr^"lay in the spiritual mission of the Pope and
in the canonical institution of all ministers through
him: — Tn^esrwrreTTfronrse ecclesiastical aristocrats in
a~ense, because, in order to secure what they likewise

248 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
firmly held as a part of French tradition, namely, the
dependency of the ecclesiastical on the secular author
ity, they considered popular election abominable and
the appointing power to be just as inherent in the state
as investiture was in the papacy.
These conservatives enjoyed the hearty support not
merely of those who had religious convictions identical
with theirs, but likewise of a powerful royalist partv
which was secretly agitating, if not for the restoration
of the Bourbons, at least for the establishment of mon
archy in some form. The Constitutionals, no longer
so in reality, but still designated by the well-worn term,
were, on the other hand, evangelistic and consequently
dembcratic~fo~"the core ; they relished the oath ot hatred
to royaTfyT and believed both in the popular choice of
ministers and in qualified Presbyterianism as a form of
church polity. But they were Roman Catholics nev-
ertheless; their last official utterance was an invoca
tion to the Pope for unity in the Catholic, Apostolic,
Roman Church, a call for canonical mission as a con
dition precedent to the ministerial service and an ex
pression of willingness to accept the authority of non-"'
juring bishops and priests consecrated before 1791,
provided only that the incumbent already inducted
under the Civil Constitution should have the succession
in office.1 They deplored the existence of schism, and
vainly entreated Pius to heal the breach. There are
no trustworthy*statistics as to their numbers,2 but prob
ably their adherents included a third nf the prnfp^gprl
Catholics. Of fifteen ^churches open for worship m
Pa7is7~they occupied five.
'Annales de la Religion, V. claims and on very doubtful
524. Theiner, Doc. Ined., ' I. indications. Gregoire, Me-
463- moires, II. 94, claimed the ma-
2 These very uncertain ap- jority of the faithful as ad-
proximations are based solely herents of the Constitutional
on the most widely conflicting Church.

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 249
^JkewiseIJfliere_was still the small body, also in
determinate, of the FreetEElrersrTErTliey-Tamt-to-be
styled orTflo^elylTcrwere^ and- of
theJ^sTtHsFwlre7 all "toJo7pelliaps~nve~per cent. of~
the nation. What they lacked^lmmbers they "sup
plied by brains, wit, and fiery resolution. They ab
horred the idea of another bargain with the now
irregular and contemptible papacy, and they were still
in high places where they could make their abhorrence
a power to be reckoned with.
Here, then, was the most complicated_.anrl difflrnlt
problem which could confront a budding statesman.
The solutioiyof course, turned solely on the question of
his own choice, for Bonaparte's battalions" could entorce
his wiU. That choice was determined by several corF
siderations. To win France there must be a display at
least of moral courage as well as of military force, and
to that end it was w^TT discreetly to antagonize all par
ties ecclesiastical as well as political. To sustain a
power once won a chief of state must have the hearty
support not of hack politicians and worn-out partisans,
but of the vigorous rising stock of younger Frenchmen.
These were best represented by Royer-Collard, who
had announced to the Five Hundred the absolute neces-
sityot a compact between the religious hierarchy, which
controlled the consciences nf the vast number of
Frenchmen, and any government which might hope to
c6nt£oj_their persons and estates.
This was a most unpalatable announcement to the
French liberals, and was, moreover, both fallacious and
untrue. But-it represented the conviction of the nation
as a whole ; government must either support or destroy
the religious confession of the majority. RecuDrocity__
or destruction. The various governments of tnTKevo-
lution had refused reciprocity; their fate was well
known. One thing the First Consul did — this particu-

2S0 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
lar Scylla he avoided; did he in choosing Royer-Col-
lard's alternative fall into Charybdis? Before seeking.
an answer to this question we must note one more ele
ment in Bonaparte's choice which appeared later — that
which may be designated the international. The intes
tine disorders of France onre- rpg-nlatprl, the position of
her ruler in relation to the European sovereigns would
be enormously strengthened by the support of the
papacy, especially inregard to hexnearest neighbors—
bpafn7~Ttaly, and the Empire. These, with numerous
minor considerations, such as speed, instinctive lean
ings, facility of ruse in prospective negotiation, deter
mined the First Consul's choice.
The final act, therefore, in the religious history of
France during the revolutionary epoch was the Con
cordat of 1 80 1, arranged between Bonaparte and Pius
VIL, a treaty which still seems a wonder of statesman
ship to many, for it held good under the Empire, was
overthrown, then reestablished, and, after various vi
cissitudes, was incorporated in the fundamental law of
France, remaining operative to this day under repub
lican government substantially as it was finally adopted
under a monarchy. Concerning this arrangement, as
might be expected, two antipodal views have been and
still are held. Some see in it a stroke of imperial
Napoleonic policy — the restoration of Christianity and
the overthrow of infidelity with no other than a purely
political purpose — the adroit use of this spiritual tri-
umph by an usurper to bolster his assumption of auto
cratic power, the return for this end to a system which
fifteen years earlier was already an anachronism. The
Concordat, as matters have arranged themselves, has
enabled the church to crush both Gallicans and Jan
senists. But, on the other hand, its abolition would
make clericalism triumphant,

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 251
Others uphold the Concordat as an act of far-seeing
state1mam"h1pT~ttlE-rlesliiicli(Hi of mumI i.luus al one-
blow, thej-estoration of religious liberty to the French
ina_form suited to their habits and convictions, a
wise_compromise between the, warrinp- factions of the-
church, the consequent guarantee of religious indepen
dence to Protestants. Jews, and Frperhinkers
"Rnfh views disregard the most important element
and overlook the "organic laws" which were and re
main part and parcel of the system inaugurated by the
Concordat; both alike mistake the historic facts, con-
sidering the_rad7cal but admirable theory of a free
chufcrTin a free state as having been anaccomphshed
fact^mdone by the Concordat, whereas^ as we have
seen, the reality behind the screen of theory was a
tyrannical persecution practised on alT who~strove to"
secure the exercise of religious liberty as an operative
system. Both, therefore, are entirely unhistorical.
To a just understanding of the Concordat of 1801 a
geneTaTview of ecclesiastical conditions at that time~ is
essential! The mediaeval system of an independent, in-
clusive church organization, enforcing its commands
*• by assistance from the temporal power, was represented
and upheld by the orthodox conservative Romanists'
of afHgnW; they regarded the church as the source of
secular power," or at least as preexist ent to all secular
powerj and this was the firm conviction of at least a
small majority of Frenchmen. Alone among the na-
tions of Europe, Spam and Italy successfully main
tained a divine-right political system and unity of the
faith with tolerance.
Tj^EretwOi-mQriarchv had exerted itself to the ut-
most in behalf of this theory. But it had failed be-
causelts subjects~were too enlightened to accept the
doctrines taught by the Casuists. It was the Casuists

252 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
who had wrought thecounter-Ref ormation elsewhere in
Europe,~and who won to their convictions the crown,
the higher aristocracy, and the prelacy in France. But,
as we have seen at the outset, the common, sense of
other Frenchmen, the burghers, the lower aristocracy,
the prFfelslofiaT'cTasses, and the lawyers particularly,
rejected~H!sTIisYry"wItli disgust. Some of these men
took"TeFuge~in a plain biblical ethic, others in the stern
logic of the Roman law, a system whose precepts had
permeated much that was best in French life.
The modified system of tolerance inaugurated by
whafiiTcalled the age ot enlightened despotism made
the sovereign the official head of the church (Caesaro-
papism) both in .Protestant and Catholic countries.
In France, Germany, and Austria the attempt was made
to establish a national church, with local organization
and liturgy, Catholic in its union with the church uni
versal, by the admission of spiritual supremacy as resi
dent in the Pope, and by a common faith. The practical
workings of this system, however, had destroyed eccle
siastical sovereignty by means of certain rigid restric
tions, under which alone the secular power enforced
the practice of religion and obedience to the clergy.
N° decision could be published without secular authori
zation ( place f) j ...nor_ executed without governmental
confirmation ( exequatur) , and lay courts could reverse
the ecclesiastical sentences (recursus ab abusu). This
secular control was further extended by tolerating any
form of faith and worship as subordinate to the state
church, or even still further enlarged by putting sev
eral state churches on a parity.
These measures really turned ecclesiastics into state
officials. They were selected by the government, anST
as its agents only held and retained their privileges —
viz., precedence, estates, endowments, special taxation,

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 253
freedom from military service, regulation of educa
tion, control of the laity, censorship of books, regula
tion of marriage, and the right to record vital statis
tics. Such was the system for which Gallicans and
Jansenists had contended in France, and which was
still supported by the Constitutional clergy of France;
they were sustained in their contention by a large mi
nority of Frenchmen. The plan was substantially that
of the Reformation in Protestant lands. The Revo
lution, however, had sought utterly to ignore "thTeccIe-
siastical organization in all lands, to withdraw alTstafe^
support, to hayejhe government organize" and control
ecrucation, to secularize all ecclesiastical estates, to "3ip~
stroy^ll^ccle^iastjcaljcoiirts, to cancel j^hj^ious vows,
to" regulate by secular legislation thTTawsoflriarr'iage,
to have the administration keep all vital statistics — in
short, absolutely and mmplpfply to gppsro^ Hiurrn
and state.
Had the realization of this revolutionary ideal been
entrusted to the friends of Christianity, or had there
been in France any truly vigorous body of conserva
tive religious men with a just conception of the prob
lem, true progress of substantial value might have been
made. But the fanatical radicals who agitated in favor
of ecclesiastical freedom had not the vaguest conception
of real liberty, either political or religious. Acting in
the heathen spirit of disdain for every form of Chris
tianity, they united all other Frenchmen against them.
Bonaparte had made himself the man of the hour:
men saw him in the glamour produced partly bv the.
prodigies of his military surress and partly by the equal
prodigy of his polific-al skill in securingjmdholding a
non-partisan attitude at Paris. He had a single~end~rn
view,J:he reunion of French hearts in the largest pos-
siblenaajority. He must make himself indispensable

254 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
to France, fulfil her hopes, show himself the promised
saviour of society. To this and this alone he was for
the moment devoted.
Accordingly, he devised a compromise between the
system of enlighte'ned'Hespotism and that of the ad
vanced Freethinkers" The law he framed was not in
any sense, however, a mere social convem'ence; it was
aToundation stone in his new political structure. De
termined to suppress alike the White and~~the Red
Terror, as he himselt expressed it, he aimed to re-
store"the hierarchy in name anrl form, hut in so doing
he"~intended to make it subject to the secular power
without reserve, keeping intact, as he wished men

toThlnk, both the immemorial tradition of secular
supremacy and the fundamental principle of the Revo
lution — absolute religious liberty and equalityJ_jy_ith-
OUt leaving a shred of Hpriral authority nr a yestio-p
ofme~canon law. By the "organic laws," with which
Pope and church had nothing to do, and which he
made in direct contravention of canon law, he regu
lated most stringently the general relations of the
church with the state laws and the police. Under these
rigid rules the secular power was intended to be su
preme, controlling clerical authority, the publication
of papal decrees, the sending of nuncios, the holding
of councils, the creation of bishoprics and parishes,
even the establishment of public religious festivals.
This is the point to which attention must be drawn
in considering the events prior to the reestablishment
of the Roman Catholic Church in France under the
Concordat. In Italy. Bonaparte pnserl ac an r.rrhr»r1nv
Roman Catholic Christian, in Egypt as a Moslem, in
France as a radical ; he was all things to all men! He
felt trleThystery ot religion to be purely social, as does
the advanced liberal theology of our day. These are

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 255
almost his ipsissima verba. He dwelt especially on
Christianity as an equalizer, and 'preferred its Found
er's teachings to those of any other prophet, since by
them the longing for the unknown was more safely
gratified, as he said, than by those of Cagliostro, Kant,
or any German dreamer. The levelling systern_x>f
primitive Christianity was the 'remedy tor sooaldis-
COntent; the" black army ot priests was the guarantee
of internal peace, as the white or soldier army was the
safeguard against foreign aggression.
When, therefore, he was once more on European soil
he behaved accordingly. At Milan, on the morrow of
Marengo (June, 1800"). he professed the CatholicT"
Apostohg^and 'Roman faith "as the only- religion which
gives the state a firm and durable support." At Mal-
maison he had already confessed the profound emotion
he felt on hearing the church bell of Rueil, "so strong
isTEe power of habit and education.7^ Finally, he was
evidently determined to have the sacred vial broken
over his head as himself constituting and representing
the supreme power in both state and church. To crush
social anarchy, to make religion a prop to the govern
ment, to preserve the focal revolutionary principle of
religious liberty by the parity of sects under state p_a-
trqnag° and n"^ the law=lhese were the ends of the
Concordat.2 How were victories so amazing, a triumph so com
plete, to be wrested from the papacy? How was a reli
gious charter to be forced upon a France that was
1Mercier, Paris pendant la Aulard, Histoire Politique,
Revolution, II. 443. "Les p. 734. Bonaparte held that but
cloches n'ont jamais fait tant for religion social inequalities
de bruit depuis qu'on les a fait could not exist. He wanted
taire." religion for the sake of ''sci-1
^ee Roederer, CEuvres, III. vSntes, cordonniers," and the
335. Likewise the manuscript like— that is, to keep the com-
note of Gregoire quoted in mon people content.

256 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
reactionary and radical in about equal proportiot.is?
The facts are briefly these. By the Treaty of Tolen-
tino, Bonaparte, though stripping ' lhe__paj
eaTthfv~~grjrjd'gr~haTr~feft the "skeleton of its secular and
tenTpoTaT'powerlntact. During his- absence in Egypt
the Directory, having revoTutiOTiized both centraTahd
southern Italy, had first lost its strength there, then
elsewhere and everywhere, at ~ho"me~~and abroad. In
particulaiTby a serieTT5f~rjver^Eglming disasters to the
French armies, Austria had reestablished control over
all northern Italy. Pope Fius VI. having died in exile,
the college oTcardinals had hppn dispersed ; there was
pending what seemed likely to be a long interregnum
in the chair of St. Peter's.
Seizing the opportunity of his transient victories in
Italy, Francis, the emperor at Vienna, convened thirty-
five of the cardinals in conclave at Venice on November
thirtieth, 1799. After a series "of unseemly intrigues
and disgraceful wrangles, which for week after week
endangered the very existence of the ecclesiastical sys
tem the members were met to perpetuate and sustain,
Cardinal Chiaramonte was finally chosen Pope; on
March ^fourteenth. 1800. he was proclaimed as Pius
VII. The procedure from first to last was irregular
in canon law and unsupported by ecclesiastical tra
dition. As Bishop of Tmola the new Pope had issued a pas-
toral letter during the French invasion of 17Q0 arguing
that between Roman Catholicism and revolutionary-in
stitutions there was no essential incompatibility. He
was therefore hailed as a liberal, and proved to be one.
From Milan, Bonaparte, whose Marengo campaign
had just confirmed his mastery in France, made known
at Rome, by the intermediation of Cardinal Martiniana.
his desire for a solution of the French ecclesiastical

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT

257

problem.1 ThePope eagerly despatched two envoys,
who followed Bonaparte to Paris : these were Arch
bishop Spina, a capable npgotTalo7^?n7r h' ( 'aTeli;, an
adroit theologian. The negotiators on the other side
were quickly chosen ; they were the bland and versatile
Talleyrand .and the Abbe Bernier,2 an able, supple, and
accomplished Vendean, who had been instrumental in
establishing the" authority of the Consulate throughout
the troubled district in which was his home.3
The terms proposed by Bonaparte were: first, the
voluntary resignation of the entire FrencfTepiscopate ;
second, the sanction of the sale of ecclesiastical, now
called national, properties, as decreed~by the National
Assembly; third, the reapportionment of dioceses so
as to diminish the episcopate one half (to fifty bishops
and twelve archbishops) : and, fourth, the recognition
ofthe Constitutional Hprgy in trip new arrangptnpnt.
The first of these points was, in Bonaparte's opinion,
the most vital. He could not restore religion except
"under circumstances that would neither wound the
general sense of propriety nor disturb the public peace.
To secure such conditions it was essential "to exclude

"Tt was immediately after
Marengo that the Consulate
began to discourage the cele
bration of the Decadi, whether
by the secular exercises or by
those of the Theophilanthro-
pists. Up to that time little
more than a change of atti
tude had been noticeable in
the religious administration
under the new government.
"In spite of what our Paris
atheists might say," Bonaparte
wrote to his colleagues, "a Te
Deum was chanted at Milan
for the victory."
2 Cretineau-Joly. L'Eglise Ro-
maine en Face de la Revolution,

I. 239. Bernier had an extrav
agant admiration for Bona
parte: "Never has any man
more thoroughly grasped the
meaning of events," was his
judgment. See his extended
opinion quoted as above.
3 Theiner, Deux Concordats,
2 vols., Paris, 1869, is a store
house of original documents,
given mostly in the text, but
many likewise in an extended
appendix. Even more com
plete is the collection of Bou-
lay de la Meurthe, Documents
sur la Negotiation du Con
cordat.

258 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
fromoffice those of the former hishops-who.ic mflueilcri"
wouTcTtend to disturb the present situation, and wvho
since the Revolution seem to have identified their epis
copate with one or another government in such a way
that they neither keep nor use one except to gain the
other, a course which would be a source of new trouble
and new anguish to France."
The First Consul also desired that the titular bishops
of the new circumscriptions should not be annoyed By
those whose former titles would now be attached to
the new bishoprics ; the old incumbents must therefore
resign as a condition antecedent. Finally, in the case
of such former bishops as had shown their sterling
worth and moderation amid all the bygone convulsions
of France, and who therefore might be continued in
offic^he was determined that they should owejEeTr
offire_and know that they so owed if to the "freejAoice
of thegovernment, ratified by His Holiness, and that
to tKeTrpromised fidelity they must add the sacred
bond of a just and proper gratitude." These were the
three cogent reasons given for the demand which of all
others would prove most trying to the Pope — a demand
which destroyed the historic continuity of the French
episcopate: IrTTupport of his requirement Bernier'
cited the demission of the bishops at the time of the
Donatist schism. As was expected, Spina expostu
lated vigorously and argued eloquently, but the French
negotiators were steadfast and unyielding.1
From the very outset the cardinal-archbishop in
volved the papal diplomacy in tortuous courses. His
emissaries were chosen, with suspicious facility, among
men of every grade in belief, and even among men of
no faith whatsoever. It was a singular lack of tact
1 Theiner, Les Deux Concordats, prints Bernier's notes as
original document, No. XIV.

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 259
which induced him to send the atheist astronomer
Lalande to act as a mediator with Gregoire. If the
regular bishops were not to resign, it was essential that
the Constitutionals should; and in a shrewd circular
Spina begged each and all to see eye to eye witfi him.
Gregoire's response1 was a plain-spoken statement
of facTsTas he saw them ; but one and all, he witlTthe
rest, the Constitutional bishops resigned. Thev under
stood " that preliminary to all reorganization there
would be a virtual act of oblivion, whether the Pope
so willed or not, and they yielded to what they felt was
chicane for the sake of principles they had so vigor
ously enunciated; they could not hold up their heads
as honest men while persisting in any course that would
perpetuate the schism. But the diplomatic wiles of
the papal envoy were noted; and, being clearly under
stood by two men who were no tyros in the same arts,
their influence and example were held in reserve to
provide and offset a fitting climax. At the last fateful
moment the papacy was defeated by a simple parry.
The original bishops, like the Constitutionals, had to
lay down their staves and mitres ; anct*when but a cer
tain number resumed the symbols of their office, it was
at the behest of the state and not of the church.
Possibly the most searching question in the whole
procedure was, as Bonaparte maintained, the disposi
tion of the clerical estates. It was so at least from the
social standpoint, for a great prelate must needs change
his heart and his garment both if the ecclesiastical es
tates were to remain sequestered. Here the advice of
Gregoire appears to have been determinative. He
spent much time at Malmaison with Bonaparte, pacing
the shrubberies and garden-paths, reasoning of the
papacy, its essence, its purpose, and the means of
1 Annates de la Religion, XIV. 31. "ted in Gregoire, II. 97.

260 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
negotiating with it. Noting that the serious delin
quencies of the popedom were one and all due to the
secular character of its court, which, moreover, was
narrowly Italian and not catholic at all, he proposed
to meet its worldly guile with the nicest punctilio, and,
while pressing essentials, yield in all possible points to
nervous sensibility. Accordingly, by his advice the
Pope was requested not to ratify, approve, nor sanction
the sale of ecclesiastical estates, but merely to recognize
the legality and validity of such sales. Spina assever
ated the sinfulness of sequestrating church property,
and hoped the sin might be diminished by a restoration
in part at least. Bernier was again unmovable; the
actual owners were in legal possession, and to unsettle
what was done in this respect would arouse such gen
eral animosity as to render ecclesiastical reorganization
impossible. The other perplexities were met in exactly the same
way. Bernier insisted that more than half of the an
cient dioceses should disappear; Spina protested, and
schemed to thwart his imperious opponent, but all in
vain. The episcopate as reconstructed should consist of
sixty-two prelates, twelve archbishops and fifty bishops,
one for each of the new dioceses. Similarly, both Bona
parte and Talleyrand took the ground that the interests
of the Constitutionals were just as dear to them as
were those of the nonjurors to His Holiness. Political
peace had been reestablished in France by disregard of
the near past, of its parties, its quarrels, and its bit
terness ; peace was speedily to be restored among Con
tinental nations by the treaty in negotiation at Lune-
ville, likewise by consigning the past to oblivion; in
no other way could religious peace be established than
by forgetting and forgiving the past, and then equally
distributing the reconstituted power. "Religious

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 261
peace," wrote the sometime Bishop of Autun, "cannot
be effected except by reuniting all consciences and every
denomination of ecclesiastics under the benign and
paternal authority of the Holy See." x This attitude
Spina declared to be totally impracticable, and so firm
was he that the question — the only one of the four
which was so treated — was not urged, and its discus
sion was suspended.
During the two months of preliminary negotiations
at Paris, Bonaparte maintained as resident plenipoten
tiary in Rome a sometime republican named Cacault,
the same whom in 1796 he had ordered to "dodge the
old fox," Pius VI. The minister was now instructed
to treat Pius VII. "as if he were master of two hun
dred thousand men." During this period four suc
cessive drafts of a treaty embodying the French de
mands were sent to Rome, and, in spite of Cacault's
intimidation, rejected by the Pope. Pius and Con-
salvi, his confidential Secretary of State, were as in
tractable as the French ministers. Considering the
irregular source of Pius's office and power, — an irregu
larity which he tacitly admitted in excusing his ulti
mate compliance with distasteful demands, — he dis
played great courage. His tenacity was to a certain
extent diplomatic. He had little purchase for resisting,
for he must have recalled that the earliest religious act
of the Consulate (3 Nivose) was a virtual restoration
of such among the transported priests as were not
hardened political agitators. He must have remem
bered how, next, the body of Pius VI. had been re
stored to Rome with appropriate churchly services ; and
how, finally, as has been told, for the terrible oath ex
acted under the Directory was substituted a simple
promise of loyalty to the constitution; he was well
'Talleyrand to Bernier. Theiner, Deux Concordats, I. 101.

262 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
aware that in early summer the still existing church
edifices were reopened for orthodox worship. In spite
of Fouche's too voluble assertions that all this meant
little, only one interpretation could be put on these
facts, and this Pius saw. There was complete eman
cipation, even for the refractory clergy.
The end of papal procrastination was reached in a
way characteristic of the budding emperor, the dicta
torial Napoleon. In May the Pope was notified by
Bernier that no further modifications to the proposed
Concordat would even be considered at Paris, and that
if there were further delays the French minister would
be recalled within five days and negotiations ended.
Cacault suggested as a last resort that Consalvi be dele
gated to make personal representations to the First Con
sul. The proposition was eagerly accepted, and Bona
parte's menace was so far fulfilled that the papal and
French diplomats left Rome together, the latter taking
up his abode temporarily in Florence, while the former
proceeded to Paris. Consalvi composed his memoirs
eleven years after the events which he records and
under the influence of resentment ; they are not reliable.
In his despatch to Cardinal Doria, written at the time,1
he states that in his very first interview with Bonaparte
he was cordially received, and obtained the promise
of certain modifications, and this in spite of the wide
spread public opinion in Paris bitterly opposing recon
ciliation with Rome, a fact noted by the envoy himself.
The regular succession of gains made by France both
in war and diplomacy went far to strengthen Bona
parte. After the victory of Hohenlinden he withdrew
his offer to declare the Gatholic religion that of the
1 Theiner, Deux Concordats, 241. Consalvi's memory was
I. 173, gives the original. Cf. worthless, or else his motives
the Memoires of the cardinal were questionable.
as quoted in Cretineau-Joly, I.

FORM OF THE CONCORDAT 263
state; he merely admitted it to be "that of the great
majority of French citizens."
That the Pope's plenipotentiary might clearly^ under
stand how uncertain his position really was, the second
ecclesiastical council of the Constitutionals was opened
at Paris on June twenty-ninth. Consalvi diplomati
cally ignored all that was passing before his eyes, and
drew up a memorandum repeating the papal counter-
demands already made by Spina — viz., that the govern
ment should make public profession of adherence to
Roman Catholicism, guarantee the public exercise of
Roman Catholic worship (reestablishing it thus as the
state religion), and not depose the present bishops,
some eighty or ninety in number. Bonaparte proved
to be long-suffering. He permitted not five days, but
more than a fortnight to pass in so-called negotiations ;
but for all that he remained obdurate on the vital
points; all that could be construed as the promised
modifications he would tolerate were certain softenings
of phraseology. Step by step Consalvi yielded, and
finally the seventh draft was accepted. It was to be
signed by the plenipotentiaries of both sides as of July
fourteenth at the mansion of Joseph Bonaparte. Irt
the evening of the same day, and in order to counteract
the effect on public opinion, the consuls were to give a
public banquet commemorating the fall of the Bastille,
for it was the anniversary of that occurrence.

XV
ENFORCEMENT OF THE
CONCORDAT

XV
ENFORCEMENT OF THE CONCORDAT
THE course and character of the negotiations be
tween the high contracting parties of the Con
cordat give little or no clew to the extraordinary events
subsequent to its negotiation and just precedent to its
signature. Charges and counter-charges of duplicity
and fraud rolled over the ecclesiastical sky, and their
mutterings are still heard. Viewed from one stand
point, all the diplomacy employed on one side and the
other was hollow, for at home the First Consul unques
tionably had the power to enforce any commands he
chose to lay upon the Gallican Church, while abroad
the papacy had lost its last great prop by the utter
humiliation of the Austrian emperor in the Peace of
Luneville. Francis II. uttered a cry of anguish in the
confession that he had exhausted his monarchy, that
thus lie had lost the imperial position in the European
balance of power, and that he now was so weak that
he had not a single trustworthy ally.
What was loss to the Austrian monarchy was almost
the annihilation of the papacy's secular power, for the
temporalities granted by the treaty to the successor of
St. Peter did not include the legations and the Ro-
magna, while the continuance of temporal power in any
form was due solely to the good will of a young gen
eral who was very slippery indeed when dogma was
the matter in hand. The Treaty of Luneville bore the
267

268 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
date of February ninth, 1801. In view of irregulari
ties in his election, in view of the Hapsburg humilia
tion, in view of his complete dependence on France,
which now had not a single Continental power in arms
against her — considering all this, Pius VII. and his
agents had shown, amazing tenacity of purpose and
reliance on such purely moral supports as they could
discern. Great daring was manifest throughout their
negotiations, especially in their defiance of the time
limits set by Bonaparte, who was in hot haste and im
patient of resistance.1
Consalvi, moreover, had at the close to face and
reckon with what was the reality of a new ecclesiastical
organization, the nucleus and possibility of a schism
that would be almost as disastrous to Rome as was the
Reformation of the sixteenth century. There before
his very eyes sat a "national council," comprising not
only forty-three prelates, but likewise other delegates
who claimed to represent fifty-two dioceses. The
leader of the body asserted that for three years past no
fewer than thirty-four thousand churches had been
under its auspices; eighty synods and eight metropoli
tan councils had preceded this second national coun
cil.2 Surely and steadily, the Constitutionals claimed,
this organization was adapting itself to the national
wants, conceding the choice of its pastors to the people,
unifying and enriching the liturgy, and exhibiting its
patriotism by summoning the Bishop of Lyons to pre
side as Primate of the Gauls.
Shut his eyes as he might and did to such a portent,
1 The authorities for this Concordat ; de Pradt, Quatre
chapter are as before : the orig- Concordats ; Portalis, Concor-
inal documents printed in dat de 1801 ; Cretineau-Joly,
Theiner, Documents Inedits L'figlise Romaine en Face de
and Deux Concordats, and in la Revolution.
Boulay de la Meurthe, Docu- 2 Gregoire. Memoires, II. 91,
ments sur la Negotiation du 99.

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 269
Consalvi could not misunderstand the first consul's al
lusion when he jokingly referred to this synod in the
remark that "when terms cannot be had from God
you must come to an understanding with the devil." x
The papal secretary kept a bold front, but inwardly he
was sore afraid, and his fear was exhibited in his guile.
Exclaiming that he was willing to advance to the gates
of hell, but not further, Pius, with the assent of the
Sacred College, had on his secretary's departure aban
doned resistance to the momentous but inevitable step
initial to all progress — the resignation of the Ultramon
tane bishops; Consalvi stooped to reopen this very
question, and astutely distorted for his purpose the
vaunted Gallican liberties of 1687. Bernier must have
been disgusted at such wiles, but the First Consul,
though immovable as to essentials, grudgingly acceded
to the suggestion that the Pope might frame his own
address to his faithful bishops, French officials though
they were. Bonaparte further consented to the omis
sion of several rude expressions and the modification
of some trying phrases.' There he paused and stood
firm. But the despotism which was latent in the Direc
tory and carefully arranged in the constitution of the
Consulate was still potential rather than real. The
new chief executive of France had his own troubles.
Only nine years had elapsed — and in military glory
they had been years of wonder — since the time when
a godless commonwealth, radically democratic, close-
knit in its centralization and as zealous to be all-inclu
sive as were ever the political systems of Romanism
and Calvinism, had been the ideal of a majority of
ardent Frenchmen. While most of the old-line radi
cals of eminence had fallen into the pit they had digged
1 Quoted in Jervis, Gallican Church, p. 346.

270 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
for others, and had perished miserably under various
pretences, yet there remained a few even of them, and
there were enormous numbers of Freethinkers who had
been nourished on modifications, more or less complete,
of the radical doctrine. To all these the very thought
of a composition with Rome was abhorrent. The
Consulate began as a civilian government — even Bona
parte wore a frock coat; as such it professed amity
for all classes, with a deprecatory preference as far as
possible for republicans.
But as time passed and the constitution adopted by
the popular vote gave the First Consul a firmer seat,
the republicans grew uneasy, and finally sore. A rigid
censorship of the press was established, the old repub
lican simplicity of manners disappeared, forms of po
liteness associated with the monarchy were revived ; as
the consular court was gradually organized in osten
tatious modesty, persons long in hiding were seen to be
preferred in honor; contrasting the case of the old
nobility with the stiffness of the republicans, Bona
parte sneered that only the former possessed the art of
domestic service, and pleaded that fact as an excuse
for surrounding himself with them.
Finally the attempted assassination of the chief mag
istrate, on December twenty- fourth, 1800, was falsely
attributed not to the real culprits, the royalists, but to a
radical conspiracy that never existed; consequently a
hundred and thirty irreconcilable republicans were pro
scribed and transported to various tropical prisons1;
some thirty more were placed under police supervision,
and four were executed for treasonable utterances. It
was not until April, 1801, that the real assassins, a
royalist named Saint-Regeant and his accomplice Car
bon, were guillotined. The royalists and republicans
alike suspected a coming monarchy; as a substitute

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 271
for the legitimate Bourbons it would be as great an
abomination to the former as any monarchy whatso
ever would be to the latter.
Both these antipodal factions, therefore, were fierce
and alert. If the Consulate were to survive it must
win the Roman Catholic masses by a Concordat, meet
papal guile with equal wiliness, and if it were to with
stand the active politicians its agreement must handle
the papacy with no consideration. As the great anni
versary of the republican calendar, July fourteenth,
drew near there was much agitation in Paris over the
idea of a Concordat as inseparable from a return to
monarchy in some form. It showed itself in the legis
lature, in the administration, among the social leaders,
the men of science, letters, and art. On July thir
teenth the Constitutional clergy instigated a formal
and vigorous protest against it — a protest so menacing
that when it was shown to Consalvi even he was awed
by the situation of the consular government.1
These are the conditions which explain the curious
and interesting interlude which was played by clever
actors between the negotiation and formal signing of
the Concordat. The facts as far as given to the world
are most dramatic. For greater convenience the actual
signing was to be done on the thirteenth of July. The
negotiators therefore met on that day at the appointed
hour and place. On the table lay what was ostensibly
an engrossed copy of the paper as arranged by Con
salvi and Bernier. The papal envoy took up his pen,
and before yielding to inevitable fate ran his eye hastily
over the document. According to his own account, he
was dumfounded; the copy was in the unmodified
1 See Theiner, Deux Concor- spatches are in Boulay, III. 223
dats; Consalvi, Memoires. et seq.
The cardinal's original de-

272 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
form of the original demands ! Joseph Bonaparte ex
amined the paper, and was sincerely amazed. Bernier
asseverated that the paper was just as he had received
it from the hands of the First Consul. Apparently both
cardinal and abbe were filled with horror and dis
may. But, according to the account of Bernier's
friends, Consalvi already knew what he had to expect,
and was acting a part. In any case, the papal legate
threw down his pen and declared himself the victim
of a fraud. If the genuine document were not to be
signed he thought the sitting should end at once.
It does not seem possible to prove or disprove the
charge of attempted fraud; diplomacy as practised by
all parties had its own devious ways throughout the
revolutionary epoch. It is denied as well as asserted
that moderate republicans and radicals had joined that
very day in another violent remonstrance to the First
Consul against the Concordat. Nor is it possible to
prove what is asserted, that, yielding to his own in
clination, Bonaparte had restored the terse language
of his original demand, and that Consalvi was aware
of the fact. In any case, what followed is unprece
dented if Consalvi were sincere in his professions of
ignorance. How could that have been possible which
is certain, that under Joseph Bonaparte's calming in
fluence negotiations were renewed then and there, last
ing for nineteen unbroken hours, until noon of the next
day ? By that time agreement was reached as to every
article except one, that which stipulated the liberty of
the Catholic worship and the publicity of its exercise.
This was referred to Napoleon, and the little congress
of six plenipotentiaries adjourned in complete ex
haustion.1 1 For France : Joseph Bonaparte, Bernier, Cretet ; for
Rome: Consalvi, Spina, "and Caselli.

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 273
The public festival was held, as arranged, on the
evening of the fourteenth. Consalvi appeared at the
Tuileries, and when greeted by the First Consul in a
tone of menace courageously signified his intention to
depart at once ; he had not desired the rupture, for he
had assented to all the articles except one, and that em
bodied a principle concerning which he must consult
the Holy Father. It was by the friendly intervention
of Cobentzl, the Austrian ambassador, who was a de
vout adherent of the papacy, that arrangement was
made for a last conference on the morrow. Twelve
weary hours were again spent in debate, and finally the
crucial article was by mutual consent worded as fol
lows : "The Catholic worship shall be public, but in
conformity with such police regulations as the govern
ment may judge necessary to the maintenance of the
public peace (pro tranquillitate publico). ." The signa
tures were affixed at midnight of July fifteenth-six
teenth, 1 80 1.
Next morning the First Consul was induced by his
brother Joseph to accept the treaty, apparently with
great difficulty.1 To us who know Napoleon's dra
matic ability, who are familiar with the "Articles Or-
ganiques" which gave the final form to the Concordat,
and who recall the contrasts between the gory Terror
or the ruthless paganism of the Directory and the
France which thenceforth heard the Catholic, Apos
tolic, and Roman religion officially proclaimed as the
faith of the great majority of French citizens, which
saw the order go forth that Catholic "worship should
be freely and publicly exercised under protection of
the law," — to us, in short, who view the scenes in the
perspective of history, it appears as if Napoleon Bona
parte felt sure he had gained a personal triumph, and
1 Memoires du Roi Joseph, X. 285.

274 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
as if he must have rejoiced inwardly, despite his show
of impatience.
The rest of his task was comparatively easy; with
both the French and Italian J malcontents he felt that
he knew how to deal. Apparently, however, he was
seriously hindered. There were trouble and delay at
every stage, ostensibly.
It was on August sixth that Bonaparte in person
proclaimed the Concordat to the council of state. The
announcement was received with the icy silence of dis
approval. So, too, the Pope found not only small
encouragement in the college of cardinals as a whole,
but a determined resistance on the part of several.
Nevertheless, on August thirteenth he issued a brief
containing the motives of his action, and on the fif
teenth, in the bull "Ecclesia Dei," called on the refrac
tory bishops of the French dioceses to resign. Ratifica
tions were exchanged between the contracting parties
on September tenth. It was almost a year later — not
until April fifth, 1802 — that all preliminaries for put
ting the law into execution were arranged and the Con
cordat was finally accepted by the legislature. Of
eighty-one bishops surviving from the old regime, for
ty-five resigned and the rest were deposed ; thirteen re
fused to acquiesce in their deposition, and, persisting in
the assertion of an empty dignity, formed the "Little
Church" already mentioned. In spite of repeated ef
forts by Leo XII. and Gregory XVI., the schism of the
"Little Church" was not extinguished until 1893 by
the letter of Leo XIII. to the Bishop of Poitiers; and
to this day there is still a little band of irreconcilables
in France, although they have no organization.
1 For the movement inaugu- Botta, Storia d'ltalia, dal 1789
rated in Lombardy and Pied- al 1815.

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 275
The new bishops of the Concordat, sixty in number,
including the ten archbishops,, were presented by the
government and instituted by the Pope; of the entire
number only fifteen were former Constitutionals.
Thereupon the whole system, episcopal, diocesan, and
parochial, was unified and reorganized. At the close of
service in every church the prayer ascended : "Domine,
fac salvam rempublicam ; Domine, salvos fac consules."
Proper salaries were paid by the state to all ecclesiastics,
church estates were confirmed to their actual posses
sors, and Pius granted to the consuls all the rights of
sovereigns — to wit, exemption from the jurisdiction
of the Ordinary, absolution by their own confessors in
cases otherwise reserved to the Pope, the right of vis
iting monasteries, of not being excommunicated with
out special papal authorization, and of being canons
in the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome. The
temporal power of Pius VII. was recognized, a nuncio
took up his residence in Paris, and a French ambassa
dor in Rome. This was the performance of what the
lawyers call a synallagmatic contract, going into
operation by the mutual or reciprocal fulfilment of
obligations. The Concordat was at one and the same time a law
of the state and of the church. Quite otherwise the
"Organic Articles of the Catholic Cult," which were
voted simultaneously as a purely secular measure and
were never submitted to Pius VII. Under the pre
tence of "police regulation" Napoleon harked back to
the Gallican Declaration of 1682 as the norm of state
action, his object being to exclude the Pope com
pletely from all direct interference in the affairs of the
church throughout France, and to centralize ecclesias
tical administration in his own hands. This legacy
of the old monarchy had been utterly discredited by

276 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
experience. Under its provisions all acts of the Vat
ican and of foreign synods were subject to state veri
fication, no council could be held without state author
ization, prelates could not even visit Rome without
state permission, and the right of appeal ab abusu
to lay courts was asserted. So far we can find noth
ing to blame. A foreign power as such should not
intervene in the affairs of any state except through the
government; it was likewise well to separate spiritual
from temporal affairs, to regulate marriage as a civil
contract, and to charge the administration with keep
ing vital statistics.
But the rest has been justly stigmatized as adminis
trative despotism. Liberty of organization, of forms
in worship, of ecclesiastical dress, of teaching and
preaching, of all that makes for freedom, was utterly
cut off. Even the Protestants, whose ecclesiastical
affairs were regulated by another set of organic ar
ticles and who had no religious head, were virtually
stripped of the right of free choice in unessentials ; as
Pastor Vincent of Nimes remarked, religion became a
department of government, a subject of administration.
The minister of state, Count Portalis, who endeavored
to justify the Concordat in a famous speech, was ac
cused of an effort to turn God himself into a French
functionary, and this is literally what was attempted
later under the First Empire. Discipline, doctrine,
and even dogma were alike placed under state control.
It was indeed a remarkable series of regulations to
secure what the Concordat styled "public tranquillity."
Wherever there was a Protestant church the Catholics
were forbidden to celebrate their rites without the
walls of their own churches or to march in procession
through the streets with ecclesiastical pomp. Pius
VII. was of course outraged at being so overreached.

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 277
He at once began a series of protests, which continued
for fifteen years, under the Consulate and the Empire
with no results, and under the Restoration with almost
negligible success.
To the Protestants perfect toleration with state sup
port was assured. Both the Calvinists and the Luther
ans of France were organized into state churches by
their own "organic laws," passed simultaneously with
the others. Their parishes, consistories, and synods
were formed and regulated under state control, and
their officers began to receive state pay. So, too, a little
later, the Jews, by the device of a Grand Sanhedrim
summoned to meet at Paris, were organized into syna
gogues and consistories; the rabbis were to be paid a
sum fixed by the state, but at first these moneys were
raised by voluntary contributions ; they were not made
a charge on the public treasury until 183 1. All Jews
were forced to adopt and use family names, perform
military service, forswear polygamy, and subscribe the
oath of national allegiance. For other forms of wor
ship, Greek, Anglican, and Mussulman being the only
ones known to have any substantial numbers of adher
ents, complete protection was assured under a volun
tary system of support.
With the unavoidable breach between the full-blown
despot, the Emperor Napoleon, and the Pope we have
here nothing to do, for it was an historic episode with
out historic results of any weight as regards the revolu
tionary epoch. For the subsequent epoch it had con
siderable importance. The Napoleonic system was by
its author extended for an appreciable period over both
Italy and Spain, as well as over the French Empire
proper. In the Italian Concordat of 1803 it was stipu
lated that the Catholic religion should be the state
religion. This was a bitter disappointment to the

278 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Italian liberals. Yet the results were almost insignifi
cant. The affairs of the Roman Church were man-
' aged by shifts and uncanonical expedients throughout
not only the Catholic but the Protestant lands of west
ern and central Europe. The secular authorities med
dled at their will, partly because of a general loss of
respect for the papacy and partly because the Pope was
in captivity ; he was a prisoner, even though his prison
was the palace of Fontainebleau.
This situation lasted until 1814, and the conse
quences in France itself, but especially elsewhere in
Europe, were far reaching. Jacobinism had pene
trated Germany in the camp equipage of the French
armies, and altars had been erected to Reason in many
towns, notably Mentz, Treves, and Cologne.1 When
the left bank of the Rhine became French the secular
princes were indemnified, as long before by the Treaty
of Westphalia, in the vast ecclesiastical estates which
were permanently secularized and incorporated into
the modern states of Europe. These were for the
most part ruled by Protestant princes, or at least by
such as were ready to break with Rome. Roman Ca
tholicism lost everything in the nature of effective secu
lar protection throughout the Continent, except in the
single case of Dalberg, who secured from Napoleon the
primacy of Germany and retained for a time as an ec
clesiastical prince such portions of Mentz, Treves, and
Cologne as were on the right bank of the Rhine. The
estates of all chapters, monasteries, and abbeys passed,
by authorization of the imperial "deputation" held at
Ratisbon in 1803, into the hands of the secular author
ity, to be used for the support of worship, education,
'For an interesting discus- see Venedey : Die Deutschen
sion of what was done by the Republicaner unter der Fran-
secret societies of the Illu- zosischen Republik, p. 91,
niinati in preparing the way,

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 279
and the like public interests, or for reestablishing the
public finances.
In consequence of these measures there was a wide
spread eclipse of faith among Roman Catholics in
every place, and consequently a decline both in the
organized Roman Church and in true religion. Sep
arate German states, Bavaria in particular, struggled
to imitate their master and negotiated concordats of
their own; these papers represented the public temper,
but they were not law, for they were never signed.
The same was substantially true of the Roman Church
both in Italy and in Spain. Monasteries and convents
were closed, — two thirds at least of the whole number,
— their estates were confiscated, and the clergy in gen
eral was either forced to accept secular control or to
abdicate its functions. During the whole period the
secular power assumed in all places ecclesiastical func
tions, and the memory of those days survives yet in
every European capital as affording a possible solution
of knotty problems at acute crises. The power of the
papacy has never been the same since the days of the
first French Empire.
It is, however, the common experience of mankind
that measures enacted in principle are constantly nulli
fied in administration. The cries of Pius VII. were
incessant and apparently justified. Himself a prisoner
in France, French priests were either subservient func
tionaries or were reduced to helplessness by persecu
tion. Spiritual tyranny was unabated ; for a season the
most sacred duties of the church were performed within
the limits of the severest statutory law. Yet, as time
passed, Bonaparte felt so strong that little by little se
verity was relaxed, until a sense of grateful relief began
to arise among the faithful. In the first year of the
Concordat only one million dollars were appropriated

280 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
for the support of the Roman Church; by 1807 the
sum was increased to eight millions ! More than this,
in the same interval considerable portions of the eccle
siastical estates had been restored to church uses.
Other things even more strange had likewise occurred.
The radical members of the National Institute were re
duced to inactivity. The Imperial University was in
structed to base all education on Catholic principles!
Napoleon's own hand wrote Catholic where Christian
had first been suggested. The schools of the Chris
tian Brethren were reorganized as an offset to the secu
lar primary schools. The rules as to religious pro
cessions were relaxed, the republican calendar was
abolished, and, although without specific authorization,
certain religious communities were reestablished and
tolerated. Under the Restoration and subsequently
the powerful democracy of France was galled by its
chains, and in its repeated efforts at emancipation un
did much of this. But for what survived the papacy
has expressed gratitude.1
In some sense, therefore, French liberals are justi
fied in their contention that the Concordat was a reac
tionary measure. The religious associations were
never more powerful morally than now; secular edu
cation, both secondary and primary, was never less in
fluential ; the absence of sectarianism within the Roman
Church was never more conspicuous. Yet, on the
other hand, what is to the French government a stum
bling-block is a religious condition quite different
from the Ultramontanism of the eighteenth century;
the Roman hierarchy of contemporary France is al
most Gallican in the broad sense of that word, and the
1 Theiner's volumes were a maine et le Premier Empire)
retort to the charge of M. that Catholics owed nothing to
d'Haussonville (L'Eglise Ro- Napoleon.

ENFORCEMENT OF CONCORDAT 281
Vatican follows rather than leads the ecclesiastical
opinion of the country in its attitude toward French
politics. While, therefore, neither Protestantism nor
radicalism has proportionately made gains of impor
tance one over the other in the number of avowed ad
herents, yet within the Roman Church there has been
a persistent and marked current of true reform due to
the secular revolution, and its permanent gains in moral
force may be noted scarcely less within than without
the fold of Rome.
Finally, what is to-day a menace to governmental
authority in France — namely, the extraordinary power
and wealth of uncontrolled and invading religious
orders — was unforeseen by the makers of the Con
cordat. The monasteries had been annihilated, their re
organization seemed impossible. No provision, there
fore, was made against a contingency of which no
one dreamed. But the unexpected came to pass, and
the new orders which to-day conduct the education
of the upper classes almost entirely, care for the sick
very extensively, and print the most widely circulated
journals of the country, being unknown to France in
1 80 1, defy all authority except that of Rome. The
situation, therefore, seems utterly abnormal to both the
government and its supporters, including the majority
of those Catholics living under the Concordat. That
such powers within the state will eventually be placed
in some measure under state control cannot be doubted.
Should a new and more comprehensive Concordat be
substituted for the old, or a supplement to the Articles
Organiques be enacted into a law controlling the new
orders, the present ecclesiastical system may take a
new lease of life. Otherwise France must move on
ward to complete disestablishment.

APPENDIX

MORSE LECTURESHIP
Founded by Professor S. F. B. Morse, May 20, 1865, in the sum
of $10,000.
"The general subject of the lectures I desire to be the rela
tions of the Bible to any of the sciences, as geography, geology,
history, and ethnology; the vindication of the inspiration and
authority of the Bible against attacks made on scientific grounds,
and the relation of the facts and truths contained in the Word
of God to the principles, methods, or aims of any of the sciences.
"Upon one or more of these topics a course of ten public lec
tures shall be given at least once in two or three years by a lec
turer ordinarily to be chosen two years in advance of the time
for the delivery of the lectures. The appointment of the lecturer
shall be by the concurrent action of the founder of the lecture
ship during his life, the board of directors and the faculty of the
said seminary.
"The funds shall be securely invested, and the interest of the
same shall be devoted to the payment of the lecturer and to the
publication of the lectures within a year after the delivery of
the same.
"The copyright of the lectures shall be vested in the seminary."

APPENDIX
The following documents are printed to indicate: I. The possi
bilities of true reform. II. The plan actually adopted. III. The
inconsistencies of the radicals in a pretended religious emanci
pation. IV. The final compromise and its defects.

MALOUET'S PROPOSALS. See p. 92
13 October, 1789
Je considere d'abord d'ou proviennent les proprietes appelees
biens du clerge. Qui est-ce qui a donne, qui est-ce qui a recu,
qui est-ce qui possede? Je trouve des fondateurs qui instituent,
des eglises qui recoivent, des ecclesiastiques qui possedent sous
la protection de la loi. Je trouve que le droit du donateur n'est
point conteste; qu'il a stipule les conditions de sa donation avec
une partie contractant l'engagement de les remplir; que toutes
ces transactions ont recu le sceau de la loi, et qu'il en resulte
diverses dotations assignees aux frais du culte, a l'entretien de
ses ministres, et au soulagement des pauvres.
Je trouve alors que ces biens sont une propriete nationale, en
ce qu'ils appartiennent collectivement au culte et aux pauvres de
la nation.
Mais chaque beneficier n'en est pas moins possesseur legitime,
en acquittant les charges et conditions de la fondation.
Or, la possession, la disposition des revenus, est la seule espece
de propriete qui puisse appartenir au sacerdoce, c'est la seule qu'il
ait jamais reclamee.
Celle qui donne droit a l'alienation, a la transmission du fonds
par heritage ou autrement, ne saurait lui convenir, en ce qu'elle
serait destructive des dotations de l'Eglise; et parce qu'elle a des
proprietes effectives, il fallait bien qu'elles fussent inalienables ;
285

286 APPENDIX
pour qu'elles ne devinssent pas excessives, il fallait bien en limiter
I'etendue; mais comme I'incapacite d'acquerir n'est pas celle de
posseder, l'edit de 1749 ne peut influer sur la solution de la ques
tion presente, et j'avoue qu'il me parait extraordinaire qu'on
emploie contre le clerge les titres meme conservateurs de ses pro
prietes, ainsi que toutes les raisons, tous les motifs qui en com-
posent le caractere legal.
Un des preopinants a dit que les corps etaient aptes a acquerir,
a conserver des proprietes, mais qu'elles disparaissent avec leur
existence ; qu'ainsi le clerge, ne formant plus un ordre dans l'£tat,
ne pouvait etre aujourd'hui considere comme proprietaire.
Mais il ne s'agit point ici de biens donnes a un corps. Les
proprietes de l'Eglise sont subdivisees en autant de dotations dis-
tinctes que ses ministres ont de services a remplir; ainsi, lors
meme qu'il n'y aurait plus d'assemblee du clerge, tant qu'il y aura
des paroisses, des eveches, des monasteres, chacun de ces etab-
lissements a une dotation propre qui peut etre modifiee par la loi,
mais non detruite autrement qu'en detruisant l'etablissement.
C'est ici le lieu de remarquer que plusieurs des preopinants
etablissent des principes contradictoires, en tirant neanmoins les
memes consequences. Tantot, en considerant le clerge comme
un etre moral, on a dit: les corps n'ont aucun droit reel par leur
nature, puis qu'ils n'ont pas meme de nature propre, ainsi le clerge
ne saurait etre proprietaire. Tantot on le considere comme dis-
sous, en qualite de corps, et on dit qu'il ne peut plus posseder
aujourd'hui de la meme maniere qu'il possedait pendant son
existence politique, qui lui donnait droit a la propriete.
Enfin, un troisieme opinant a dit, dans une suite de faits, "que
le clerge n'a jamais possede comme corps; que chaque fondation
avait eu pour objet un etablissement et un service particuliers,"
et cette assertion est exacte. Mais je demande si Ton peut en
conclure qu'il soit juste et utile que cet etablissement, ce service
et ceux qui le remplissent soient depouilles de leur dotation? Or,
c'est le veritable et la seule question qu'il faillait presenter, car
celle de la propriete pour les usufruitiers n'est point proble-
matique. Le clerge possede, voila le fait. Ses titres sont sous la
protection, sous la garde et la disposition de la nation; car elle
dispose de tous les etablissements publics, par le droit qu'elle a
sur sa propre legislation et sur le culte meme qu'il lui plait
d'adopter; mais la nation n'exerce par elle-meme ni ses droits
de propriete, ni ceux de souverainete ; et de meme que ses rep-
resentants ne pourraient disposer de la couronne qui lui appar-

APPENDIX 287
tient, mais seulement regler l'exercice de l'autorite et des pre
rogatives royales, de meme aussi ils ne pourraient, sans un man-
dat special, aneantir le culte public et les dotations qui lui sont as
signees, mais seulement en regler mieux l'emploi, en reformer les
abus, et disposer pour les besoins publics de tout ce qui se trouve-
rait excedant au service des autels et au soulagement des pauvres.
Ainsi, Messieurs, l'aveu du principe que les biens du clerge sont
une propriete nationale n'etablit point les consequences qu'on en
voudrait tirer. Et comme il ne s'agit point ici d'etablir une vaine
theorie mais une doctrine pratique sur les biens ecclesiastiques,
c'est sur ce principe meme que je fonde mon opinion et un plan
d'operations different de celui qui vous est presente.
Le premier apergu de la motion de M. l'eveque d'Autun m'a
montre plus d'avantages que d'inconvenients ; j'avoue que dans
l'embarras ou nous sommes, 1,800,000,000 disponibles au profit
de l'Etat m'ont seduit ; mais un examen plus reflechi m'a fait voir,
a cote d'une ressource fort exageree des inconvenients graves,
des injustices inevitables; et lorsque je me suis rappele le jour
memorable ou nous adjurames, au nom du Dieu de paix, les
membres du clerge de s'unir a nous comme nos freres, de se con-
fier a notre foi, j'ai fremi du sentiment douloureux qu'ils pou-
vaient eprouver et transmettre a leurs successeurs, en se voyant
depouilles de leurs biens par un decret auquel ils n'auraient pas
consenti. Que cette consideration, Messieurs, dans les temps orageux ou
nous sommes, soit aupres de vous de quelque poids. C'est pre-
cisement parce qu'on entend dire d'un ton menacant: il faut
prendre les biens du clerge, que nous devons etre plus disposes
a les defendre, plus circonspects dans nos decisions. Ne souf-
frons pas qu'on impute quelque jour a la terreur, a la violence,
des operations qu'une justice exacte peut legitimer, si nous leur
en imprimons le caractere, et qui seront plus profitables a l'Etat
si nous substituons la reforme a l'invasion et les calculs de l'ex-
perience a des speculations incertaines.
La nation, Messieurs, en nous donnant ses pouvoirs, nous a
ordonne de lui conserver sa religion et son Roi ; il ne dependrait
pas plus de nous d'abolir le catholicisme en France que le gou-
vernement monarchique ; mais la nation peut, s'il lui plait, detruire
l'un et l'autre non par des instructions partielles, mais par un
voeu unanime, legal, solennel, exprime dans toutes les subdivisions
territoriales du royaume. Alors les representants, organe de cette
volonte, peuvent la mettre a execution.

288 APPENDIX
Cette volonte generale ne s'est point manifestee sur l'invasion
des biens du clerge ; devons-nous la supposer, la prevenir ? Pou-
vons-nous resister a une volonte contraire de ne pas ebranler les
fondements du culte public? pouvons-nous tout ce que peut la
nation, et plus qu'elle ne pourrait?
Je m'arrete a cette derniere proposition, parce qu'en y repondant
je reponds a toutes les autres.
S'il plaisait a la nation de detruire l'Eglise catholique en France,
et d'y substituer une autre religion en disposant des biens actuels
du clerge, la nation, pour etre juste, serait obligee d'avoir egard
aux intentions expresses des donateurs, comme on respecte en
toute societe celle du testateur ; or ce qui a ete donne a l'Eglise
est, par indivis et par substitution, donne aux pauvres ; ainsi tant
qu'il y aura en France des hommes qui ont faim et soif, les biens
de l'Eglise leur sont substitues par I'intention des testateurs, avant
d'etre reversibles au domaine national ; ainsi, la nation, en de-
truisant meme le clerge, et avant de s'emparer de ses biens pour
toute autre destination, doit assurer dans tout son territoire, et
par hypotheque speciale sur ses biens, la subsistance des pauvres.
Je sais que ce moyen de defense de la part du clerge, tres-
legitime dans le droit, peut etre attaque dans le fait. Tous les
possesseurs de benefices ne sont pas egalement charitables, tous
ne font pas scrupuleusement le part des pauvres.
Eh bien ! Messieurs faisons-la nous-memes. Les pauvres sont
aussi nos creanciers dans 1'ordre moral comme dans l'etat social
et politique. Le premier germe de corruption, dans un grand
peuple, c'est la misere : le plus grand ennemi de la liberte, des
bonnes moeurs, c'est la misere; et le dernier terme de l'avilisse-
ment, pour un homme libre, apres le crime, c'est la mendicite.
Detruisons ce fleau qui nous degrade, et qu'a la suite de toutes
nos dissertations sur les droits de l'homme, une loi de secours
pour l'homme souffrant soit un des articles religieux de notre
Constitution. Les biens du clerge nous en offrent les moyens en conservant
la dime, qui ne peut etre abandonnee dans le plan meme de M.
l'eveque d' Autun, et qui cesserait d'etre odieuse au peuple, lors-
qu'il y verrait la perspective d'un soulagement certain dans sa
detresse. Je ne developperai point ici le plan de secours pour les pauvres,
tel que je le concois dans toute son etendue; je remarquerai seule
ment qu'en reunissant sous un meme regime, dans chaque pro
vince, les aumones volontaires a des fonds assignes sur la percep-

APPENDIX 289
tion des dimes, on pourrait facilement soutenir l'industrie languis-
sante, prevenir ou soulager l'indigence dans tout le royaume.
Et quelle operation plus importante, Messieurs, peut sollicker
notre zele? Cet etablissement de premiere necessite ne manque-
t-il pas a la nation ? les lois sur les proprietes remontent a la f on-
dation des empires, et les lois en faveur de ceux qui ne possedent
rien sont encore a faire.
Je voudrais done lier la cause des pauvres a celle des creanciers
de l'Etat, qui auront une hypotheque encore plus assuree sur
l'aisance generate du peuple frangais que sur les biens-fonds du
clerge, et je voudrais surtout que les sacrifices a faire par ce
corps respectable fussent tellement compatibles avec la dignite et
les droits de l'figlise, que ses representants pussent y consentir
librement. Ces sacrifices deviennent necessaires pour satisfaire a tous les
besoins qui nous pressent, et je mets au premier rang de ces
besoins le secours urgent a donner a la multitude d'hommes qui
manquent de subsistance.
Ces sacrifices sont indispensables sous un autre rapport: si la
severite des reformes ne s'etendait que sur le clerge, ce serait
un abus de puissance revoltant ; mais lorsque les premieres places
de l'administration et de l'armee seront reduites a des traitements
moderes, lorsque les graces non meritees, les emplois inutiles
seront reformes, le clerge n'a point a se plaindre de subir la loi
commune, loi salutaire, si nous voulons etre libres.
Enfin, ces sacrifices sont justes; car au nombre des objections
presentees contre le clerge, il en est d'une grande importance:
c'est la compensation de l'impot, dont il s'est affranchi pendant
nombre d'annees.
La liberte, Messieurs, est une plante precieuse qui devient un
arbre robuste sur un sol feconde par le travail et la vertu, mais
qui languit et perit entre le luxe et la misere. Oui, certes, il faut
reformer nos moeurs encore plus que nos lois, si nous voulons
conserver cette grande conquete.
Mais s'il est possible, s'il est raisonnable de faire des a present
dans l'emploi des biens ecclesiastiques d'utiles reformes, de de-
doubler les riches benefices accumules sur une meme tete, de
supprimer les abbayes a mesure qu'elles vaqueront, de reduire
le nombre des eveches, des chapitres, des monasteres, des prieures
et de tous les benefices simples, l'alienation generate des biens
du clerge me parait impossible. J'estime qu'elle ne serait ni juste,
ni utile.

2oo APPENDIX
Si l'operation est partielle et successive a mesure des extinctions
ou des reunions, je n'entends pas comment elle remplirait le
plan de M. l'eveque d'Autun, comment pourraient s'effectuer
le remplacement de la gabelle, le remboursement des offices de
judicature, celui des anticipations, des payements arrieres qui exi
gent, pour nous mettre au courant, une somme de 400 millions.
J'estime que toutes les ventes partielles et successives ne pour
raient s'operer en moins de trente annees, en ne deplacant pas
violemment les titulaires et les usufruitiers actuels, et en obser
vant de ne pas mettre a la fois en circulation une trop grande
masse de biens-fonds, ce que en avilirait le prix.
L'operation sera-t-elle generate et subite? Je n'en congois pas
les moyens, a moins de congedier a la fois tous les beneficiers,
tous les religieux actuels, en leur assignant des pensions. Eh!
qui pourrait acheter? Comment payer une aussi grande quantite
de biens-fonds ? On recevra, dit-on, des porteurs de creances sur le
Roi ; mais on ne fait pas attention qu'aussitot que la dette pub-
lique sera consolidee, il n'y aura point de capitaux plus recher-
ches, parce qu'il n'y en aura pas de plus productifs ; ainsi, peu de
creanciers se presenteront comme adjudicataires.
Croit-on d'ailleurs que la liquidation des dettes de chaque corps
ecclesiastique n'entrainera pas des incidents, des oppositions et
des delais dans les adjudications, et que l'adoption d'un tel plan
n'occasionnera pas tres-promptement la degradation de ces biens,
par le decouragement qu'eprouveraient les proprietaires, fermiers,
exploitants actuels?
Si dans ce systeme il n'y avait ni difficulte ni injustice, relative-
ment au clerge, e'en serait une, Messieurs, que de faire dis-
paraitre le patrimoine des pauvres, avant de l'avoir remplace d'une
maniere certaine.
Qu'il me soit permis de rappeler ici toute la rigueur des prin-
cipes ; pouvons nous aneantir cette substitution solennelle des
biens de l'Eglise en faveur des pauvres?
Pouvons-nous, sans etre bien siirs du vceu national, supprimer
generalement tous les monasteres, tous les ordres religieux, meme
ceux qui se consacrent a l'education de la jeunesse, aux soins des
malades, et ceux qui par d' utiles travaux ont bien merite de l'£glise
et de l'Etat? Pouvons-nous, politiquement et moralement, oter
tout espoir, tous moyens de retraite a ceux de nos concitoyens
dont les principes religieux, ou les prejuges ou les malheurs, leur
font envisager cet asile comme une consolation?
Pouvons-nous et devons-nous reduire les eveques, les cures, a

APPENDIX 291
la qualite de pensionnaires ? La dignite eminente des premiers, le
ministere venerable des pasteurs, n'exigent-ils pas de leur con-
server, et a tous les ministres des autels, les droits et les signes
distinctifs de citoyens, au nombre desquels est essentiellement la
propriete ?
Je crois, Messieurs, etre en droit de repondre negativement a
toutes ces questions.
i° L'alienation generate des biens du clerge est une des plus
grandes innovations politiques, et je crois que nous n'avons ni des
pouvoirs, ni des motifs suffisants pour l'operer.
On vous a deja represents qu'une guerre malheureuse, une in
vasion de l'ennemi, pourrait mettre en peril la subsistance des
ecclesiastiques, lors qu'elle ne serait plus fondee sur des im-
meubles, et cette consideration doit etre d'un grand poids, rela-
tivement a l'Eglise, et relativement aux pauvres que lui sont
affilies. On objecte que l'etat ecclesiastique est une profession qui doit
etre salariee comme celle de magistrat, de militaire; mais on
oublie que ces deux classes de citoyens ont assez generalement
d'autres moyens de subsistance ; que les soldats reduits a leur paye
n'en sauraient manquer tant qu'ils sont armes.
Mais quelle sera la ressource des ministres des autels, si le
Tresor public est dans l'impuissance de satisfaire a tout autre
engagement que la solde de l'armee? et combien de chances mal-
heureuses peuvent momentanement produire de tels embarras !
2° En vendant actuellement tous les biens du clerge, la nation
se prive de la plus-value graduelle qu'ils acquerront par le laps
de temps, et elle prepare, dans une proportion inverse, l'augmen-
tation de ses charges.
3° Je doute que 1'universalite du peuple frangais approuve l'ane-
antissement de tous les monasteres sans distinction. La re-
forme, la suppression des ordres inutiles, des couvents trop
nombreux, est necessaire; mais peut-etre que chaque province et
meme chaque ville desirera conserver une ou deux maisons de
retraite pour l'un et l'autre sexe.
4° II est impossible que chaque diocese ne conserve au moins un
seminaire, un chapitre et une maison de repos pour les cures et
les vicaires qui ne peuvent continuer leur service.
Si Ton ajoutait a toutes ces considerations celle de l'augmenta-
tion necessaire des portions congrues, et enfin, s'il vous parait
juste, comme je le pense, de ne deposseder aucun titulaire, non-
seule'ment la vente generate des biens du clerge devient actuelle-

292 APPENDIX
ment impossible, mais meme dans aucun temps il ne serait profi
table d'en aliener au dela d'une somme determinee, que j 'estime
eventuellement au cinquieme ou au quart ; et le remplacement de
cette alienation doit etre rigoureusement fait au profit des pauvres
dans des temps plus heureux; car selon tous les principes de la
justice, de la morale et du droit positif, les biens du clerge ne
sont disponibles que pour le culte public ou pour les pauvres.
Si ces observations sont, comme je le crois, demontrees, il en
resulte :
i° Que, quoique les biens du clerge soient une propriete na
tionale, le Corps legislatif ne peut, sans un mandat special, con
verter en pensionnaire de l'fitat une classe de citoyens que la
volonte interieure et speciale de la nation a rendus possesseurs de
biens-fonds, a des charges et conditions determinees.
2° Que l'emploi de ces biens peut etre regie par le Corps legis
latif, de telle maniere qu'ils remplissent le mieux possible leur
destination, qui est le culte public, l'entretien honorable de ses
ministres et le soulagement des pauvres.
3° Que si, par la meilleure distribution de ces biens et par une
organisation mieux entendue du corps ecclesiastique, les ministres
de l'figlise peuvent etre entretenus et les pauvres secourus, de
maniere qu'il y ait un excedant, le Corps legislatif peut en disposer
pour les besoins pressants de l'fitat.
Maintenant, Messieurs, la transition de ces resultats a une ope
ration definitive sur les biens du clerge est necessairement un
examen reflechi des etablissements ecclesiastiques actuellement
subsistants, de ce qu'il est indispensable d'en conserver, de ce
qu'il est utile de reformer.
II faut ensuite fixer les depenses du culte et de l'entretien des
ministres, proportionelkment a leur dignite, a leur service, et
relativement encore a I'intention qu'ont eue les fondateurs des
divers benefices. Cette fixation determinee doit etre comparee
aux biens effectifs du clerge, leur produit en terres, rentes, mai-
sbns, et a leurs charges d'apres des etats authentiques.
Alors, Messieurs, apres un travail exact et un classement cer
tain des rentes et des depenses, des individus, des etablissements
conserves, apres avoir assigne dans de justes proportions, ce qu'il
est convenable d'accorder aux grandes dignites et aux moindres
ministeres de l'figlise, ce qui doit etre reserve dans chaque canton
pour l'assistance des pauvres; alors seulement vous connaitrez
tout ce que vous pouvez destiner aux besoins de l'£tat; mais ils
sont actuellement si pressants, que j'ai cru pouvoir, par des opera-

APPENDIX 293
tions provisoires, determiner une somme de secours, soit pour les
pauvres, soit pour les depenses publiques.
En estimant a 160 millions, y compris les dimes, le revenu du
clerge, je pense que les reformes, suppressions et reductions pos
sibles permettent de prelever une somme annuelle de 30 millions
pour les pauvres, et une alienation successive de 400 millions
d'immeubles, qui serait, des ce moment-ci, le gage d'une somme
pareille de credit ou d'assignation.
Cette ressource etant estimee suffisante, d'apres le rapport du
comite des finances, pour eteindre toutes les anticipations et ar-
rerages de payement, et la balance etant ainsi retablie avec avan-
tage entre la recette et la depense, la vente des domaines Hbres
et la surtaxe en plus-value de ceux engages faciliteraient tous les
plans d'amelioration dans le regime des impots, et suffiraient en
partie au remboursement des offices de judicature.
Je resumerai done dans les articles suivants les dispositions que
je crois actuellement praticables relativement aux biens du clerge.
J'observe que je n'entre dans aucun des details qui doivent etre
l'objet du travail de la commission ecclesiastique, tels que l'aug-
mentation indispensable des portions congrues; mais on concevra
qu'elle ne peut s'effectuer actuellement que par des reductions sur
les jouissances des grands beneficiers.
La maniere d'operer ces reductions ne doit point etre arbitraire
ni violente ; il me semble que, sans deposseder aucuns titulaires, on
peut etablir des fixations precises de revenus sur toutes les classes
du ministere ecclesiastique, et tout ce qui excederait cette fixation
sera paye en contributions, soit pour le Tresor public, soit pour
toute autre destination.

Articles Proposes
Art. ler- Les biens du clerge sont une propriete nationale dont
l'emploi sera regie conformement a sa destination, qui est le
service des autels, l'entretien des ministres et le soulagement des
pauvres. Art. 2. Ces objets remplis, l'excedant sera consacre aux besoins
de l'Etat, a la decharge de la classe la moins aisee des citoyens.
Art. 3. Pour connaitre l'excedant des biens du clerge disponible
et applicable aux besoins publics, il sera forme une commission
ecclesiastique, a l'effet de determiner le nombre d'eveches, cures,
chapitres, seminaires et monasteres qui doivent etre conserves,

294 APPENDIX
et pour regler la quantite de biens-fonds, maisons et revenus qui
doivent etre assignes a chacun de ces etablissements.
Art. 4. Tout ce qui ne sera pas juge utile au service divin et a
I'instruction des peuples sera supprime, et les biens-fonds, rentes,
mobiliers et immeubles desdits etablissements seront remis a l'ad-
ministration des provinces dans lesquelles ils sont situes.
Art. 5. En attendant l'effet des dispositions precedantes, et pour
y concourir, il sera sursis a la nomination de toutes les abbayes,
canonicats et benefices simples, dependant des collateurs particu-
liers, jusqu'a ce que le nombre des chapitres et celui des pre-
bendes a conserver soit determine.
Art. 6. II est aussi defendu a tous les ordres religieux des deux
sexes de recevoir des novices, jusqu'a ce que chaque proyince ait
fait connaitre le nombre de monasteres qu'elle desire conserver.
Art. 7. La conventualite de chaque monastere de l'un et l'autre
sexe sera fixee a douze profes, et il sera procede a la reunion de
toutes les maisons d'un meme ordre, qui n'auront pas le nombre
de profes prescrit par le present article ; les maisons ainsi va-
cantes par reunion seront remises a l'administration des pro
vinces. Art. 8. Tous les batiments et terrains, autres que ceux d'habi-
tation, non compris dans les biens ruraux des eglises, monasteres,
hopitaux et benefices quelconques seront, des a present, vendus
par les administrations provinciates, et il sera tenu compte de
leur produit, a raison de 5%, a ceux desdits etablissements qui
seront conserves : le prix des immeubles ainsi vendus sera con
serve dans la caisse nationale; et lors de l'extinction des rentes
consenties pour raison desdites alienations, la somme en sera em
ployee a la decharge des contribuables de la meme province qui
auront moins de 100 ecus de rente.
Art. 9. Aucun autre bien vacant par l'effet des dispositions
ci-dessus ne pourra etre mis en vente jusqu'a ce qu'il ait ete
pourvu dans chaque province a la dotation suffisante de tous les
etablissements ecclesiastiques, a l'augmentation des portions con-
grues, et a la fondation, dans chaque ville et bourg, d'une caisse
de charite pour le soulagement des pauvres.
Art. 10. Aussitot qu'il aura ete pourvu a toutes les dotations
et fondations enoncees ci-dessus, les dimes dont jouissent les
differents beneficiers cesseront de leur etre payees, et continueront
jusqu'a nouvel ordre a etre pergues par les administrations pro-
vinciales, et municipales en deduction des charges imposees aux
classes les moins aisees de citoyens.

APPENDIX 295
Art. ii. II sera preleve sur le produit des dimes et des biens du
clerge reunis aux administrations provinciates une somme an-
nuelle de 26 millions pour faire face aux interets de la dette an-
cienne du clerge, et d'un nouveau credit de 400 millions, lequel
sera ouvert incessamment, avec hypotheque speciale sur la totalite
des biens ecclesiastiques. II
CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY. See p. 126
12 July, 1790
L'Assemblee nationale, apres avoir entendu le rapport de son
Comite ecclesiastique, a decrete et decrete ce qui suit, comme ar
ticles constitutionnels :
TITRE PREMIER
Des offices ecclesiastiques
Article Premier. Chaque departement formera un seul diocese,
qui aura la meme etendue et les memes limites que le departe
ment. Art. 2. Les sieges des eveches des quatre-vingt-trois departe-
ments du royaume seront fixes, a savoir: (Here follows a list of
the towns in which the bishops have their residences.)
Tous les autres eveches existant dans les quatre-vingt-trois
departements du royaume, et qui ne sont pas nommement compris
au present article, sont et demeurent supprimes.
Art. 3. Le royaume sera divise en dix arrondissements metro-
politains, dont les sieges seront : Rouen, Reims, Besangon, Rennes,
Paris, Bourges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Aix et Lyon.
Ces metropoles auront la denomination suivante :
Celle de Rouen sera appetee. metropole des cotes de la Manche
Celle de Reims  metropole du Nord-Est
Celle de Besangon  metropole de l'Est
Celle de Rennes  metropole du Nord-Ouest
Celle de Paris  metropole de Paris
Celle de Bourges  metropole du Centre

296 APPENDIX
Celle de Bordeaux  metropole du Sud-Ouest
Celle de Toulouse  metropole du Sud
Celle d'Aix  metropole des cotes de la Medi-
terranee
Celle de Lyon  metropole du Sud-Est
Art. 4. L'arrondissement de la metropole des cotes de la
Manche comprendra les eveches des departements de la Seine-
Inferieure, du Calvados, de la Manche, de I'Orne, de I'Eure, de
l'Oise, de la Somme, du Pas-de-Calais.
L'arrondissement de la metropole du Nord-Est comprendra les
eveches des departements de la Marne, de la Meuse, de la
Meurthe, de la Moselle, des Ardennes, de l'Aisne, du Nord.
L'arrondissement de la metropole de l'Est comprendra les
eveches des departements du Doubs, du Haut-Rhin, du Bas-
Rhin, des Vosges, de la Haute-Saone, de la Haute-Marne, de la
Cote-d'Or, du Jura.
L'arrondissement de la metropole du Nord-Ouest comprendra
les eveches des departements de l'llle-et-Vilaine, des C6tes-du-
Nord, du Finistere, du Morbihan, de la Loire-Inferieure, de
Mayenne-et-Loire, de la Sarthe, de la Mayenne.
L'arrondissement de la metropole de Paris comprendra les
eveches de Paris, de Seine-et-Oise, d'Eure-et-Loir, du Loiret, de
l'Yonne, de l'Aube, de Seine-et-Marne.
L'arrondissement de la metropole du Centre comprendra les
eveches du departement du Cher, de Loir-et-Cher, de l'lndre-et-
Loire, de la Vienne, de l'lndre, de la Creuse, de l'Allier, de la
Nievre. L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud-Ouest comprendra
les eveches des departements de la Gironde, de la Vendee, de
la Charente-Inferieure, des Landes, du Lot-et-Garonne, de la
Dordogne, de la Correze, de la Haute- Vienne, de la Charente et
des Deux-Sevres.
L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud comprendra les
eveches des departements de la Haute-Garonne, du Gers, des
Basses-Pyrenees, des Hautes- Pyrenees, de l'Ariege, des Pyrenees-
Orientates, de l'Aude, de l'Aveyron, du Lot, du Tarn.
L'arrondissement de la metropole des cotes de la Mediterranee
comprendra les eveches des departements des Bouches-du-Rhone,
de la Corse, du Var, des Basses-Alpes, des Hautes-Alpes, de la
Drome, de la Lozere, du Gard et de l'Herault.
L'arrondissement de la metropole du Sud-Est comprendra les

APPENDIX 297
eveches des departements de Rhone-et-Loire, du Puy-de-D6me,
du Cantal, de la Haute-Loire, de l'Ardeche, de l'lsere, de l'Ain,
de Saone-et-Loire.
Art. 5. II est defendu a toute eglise ou paroisse de France et
a tout citoyen frangais, de reconnaitre en aucun cas, et sous
quelque pretexte que ce soit, l'autorite d'un eveque, ordinaire ou
metropolitain, dont le siege serait etabli sous la domination d'une
puissance etrangere, ni celle de ses delegues residant en France
ou ailleurs : le tout sans prejudice de l'unite de foi et de la com
munion qui sera entretenue avec le chef visible de l'Eglise uni-
verselle, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres.
Art. 6. Lorsque l'eveque diocesain aura prononce dans son
synode sur des matieres de sa competence, il y aura lieu au re-
cours au metropolitain, lequel prononcera dans le synode metro
politain. Art. 7. II sera procede incessamment, et sur l'avis de l'eveque
et de l'administration des districts, a une nouvelle formation et
circonscription de toutes les paroisses du royaume. Le nombre
et I'etendue en seront determines d'apres les regies qui vont
etre etablies.
Art. 8. L'eglise cathedrale de chaque diocese sera ramenee a
son etat primitif d'etre en meme temps eglise paroissiale et eglise
episcopate, par la suppression des paroisses et le demembrement
des habitations qu'il sera juge convenable d'y reunir.
Art. 9. La paroisse episcopate n'aura pas d'autre pasteur im-
mediat que l'eveque; tous les pretres qui y seront etablis seront
ses vicaires et en feront les fonctions.
Art. 10. II y aura seize vicaires de l'eglise cathedrale dans les
villes qui comprendront plus de 10,000 ames, et douze seulement
dans celles ou la population sera au-dessous de 10,000 ames.
Art. ii. II sera conserve ou etabli dans chaque diocese un seul
seminaire pour la preparation aux ordres, sans entendre rien
prejuger, quant a present, sur les autres maisons destruction et
d'education. Art. 12. Le seminaire sera etabli, autant que faire se pourra,
pres de l'eglise cathedrale et meme dans I'enceinte des batiments
destines a l'habitation de l'eveque.
Art. 13. Pour la conduite et I'instruction des jeunes eleves
regus dans le seminaire, il y aura un vicaire superieur et trois
vicaires directeurs subordonnes a l'eveque.
Art. 14. Les vicaires superieurs et vicaires directeurs seront
tenus d'assister avec les jeunes eleves ecclesiastiques du seminaire

298 APPENDIX
a tous les offices de la paroisse cathedrale et d'y faire toutes les
fonctions dont l'eveque et son vicaire jugeront a propos de les
charger. Art. 15. Les vicaires des eglises cathedrales, les vicaires supe
rieurs et vicaires directeurs du seminaire formeront ensemble le
conseil habituel et permanent de l'eveque, qui ne pourra faire
aucun acte de juridiction, en ce qui concerne le gouvernement
du diocese et du seminaire, qu'apres en avoir delibere avec eux.
Pourra neanmoins l'eveque, dans le cours de ses visites, rendre
seul telles ordonnances provisoires qu'il appartiendra.
Art. 16. Dans toutes les villes et bourgs qui ne comprendront
pas plus de 6000 ames, il n'y aura qu'une seule paroisse ; les autres
paroisses seront supprimees et reunies a l'eglise principale.
Art. 17. Dans les villes ou il y aura plus de 6000 ames, chaque
paroisse pourra comprendre un plus grand nombre de paroissiens,
et il en sera conserve autant que les besoins des peuples et des
localites le demanderont.
Art. 18. Les assemblies administratives, de concert avec
l'eveque diocesain, designeront a la prochaine legislature les
paroisses, annexes ou succursaks des villes ou des campagnes
qu'il conviendra de reserver ou d'etendre, d'etablir ou de sup-
primer, et ils en indiqueront les arrondissements, d'apres ce que
demanderont les besoins des peuples, la dignite du culte et les
differentes localites.
Art. 19. Les assemblies legislatives et l'eveque diocesain pour-
ront meme, apres avoir arrete entre eux la suppression et reunion
d'une paroisse, convenir que, dans les lieux ecartes, ou qui, pen
dant une partie de l'annee, ne communiqueraient que difficile-
ment avec l'eglise paroissiale, il sera etabli ou conserve une cha-
pelle, ou le cure enverra les jours de fetes et dimanches un vicaire
pour y dire la messe et faire au peuple les instructions necessaires.
La reunion qui pourra se faire d'une paroisse a une autre
emportera toujours la reunion des biens de la fabrique de l'eglise
supprimee a la fabrique de l'eglise ou se fera la reunion.
Art. 20. Tous titres et offices, autres que ceux mentionnes en
la presente constitution, les dignites, canonicats, prebendes, demi-
prebendes, chapelles, chapellenies, tant des eglises cathedrales que
des eglise collegiales, et tous chapitres, reguliers et seculiers, de
l'un et l'autre sexe, les abbayes et prieures en regie ou en com-
mende, aussi de l'un et l'autre sexe, et tous autres benefices et
prestimonies generalement quelconques, de quelque nature et sous
quelque denomination que ce soit, sont, a compter du jour de la

APPENDIX 299
publication du present decret, eteints et supprimes, sans qu'il
puisse jamais en etre etablis de semblables.
Art. 21. Tous les benefices en patronage la'ique sont soumis a
toutes les dispositions des decrets concernant les benefices de
pleine collation ou de patronage ecclesiastique.
Art. 22. Sont pareillement compris auxdites dispositions tous
titres et fondations de pleine collation la'icale, excepte les chapelles
actuellement desservies dans I'enceinte des maisons particulieres
par un chapelain ou desservant, a la seule disposition du pro
prietaire. Art. 23. Le contenu dans les articles precedents aura lieu, non-
obstant toutes clauses, meme de reversion, apposees dans les actes
de fondation.
Art. 24. Les fondations de messes et autres services acquittes
presentement dans les eglises paroissiales par les cures et par les
pretres qui y sont attaches, sans etre pourvus de leurs places en
titre perpetuel de benefices, continueront provisoirement a etre
acquittes et payes comme par le passe, sans neanmoins que, dans
les eglises ou il est etabli des societes de pretres non pourvus du
titre perpetuel de benefices et connus sous les divers noms de
filleuls, agreges, familiers, communalistes, mipartistes, chape-
lains ou autres, ceux d' entre eux qui viendront a mourir ou a se
retirer puissent etre remplaces.
Art. 25. Les fondations faites pour subvenir a l'education des
parents des fondateurs continueront d'etre executees, conforme-
ment aux dispositions ecrites dans les titres et fondations, et, a
l'egard des autres fondations pieuses, les parties interessees pre-
senteront leurs memoires aux assemblies de departement, pour,
sur kur avis et celui de l'eveque diocesain, etre statue par le
corps legislatif sur leur conservation ou leur remplacement.

TITRE II
Nomination aux offices ecclesiastiques
Article Premier. A compter du jour de la publication du pre
sent decret, on ne connaitra qu'une seule maniere de pourvoir aux
eveches et aux cures, c'est a savoir la forme des elections.
Art. 2. Toutes les elections se feront par la voie du scrutin et
a la pluralite absolue des suffrages.
Art. 3. L'election des eveques se fera dans la forme prescrite

300 APPENDIX
et par le corps electorate indique dans le decret du 22 decembre
1789, pour la nomination des membres de l'assemblee du De
partement. Art. 4. Sur la premiere nouvelle que le procureur general
syndic du departement recevra de la vacance du siege episcopal,
par mort, demission ou autrement, il en donnera avis aux procu-
reurs syndics des districts, a l'effet par eux de convoquer les elec-
teurs qui auront procede a la derniere nomination des membres
de l'Assemblee administrative, et, en meme temps, il indiquera le
jour ou se devra fairs l'election de l'eveque, lequel sera, au plus
tard, le troisieme dimanche apres la lettre d'avis qu'il ecrira.
Art. 5. Si la vacance du siege episcopal arrivait dans les quatre
derniers mois de l'annee ou doit se faire l'election des membres
de l'administration de departement, l'election de l'eveque serait
differe et renvoye a la prochaine assemblee des electeurs.
Art. 6. L'election de l'eveque ne pourra se faire ou etre com-
mencee qu'un jour de dimanche, dans l'eglise principak du chef-
lieu du departement, a l'issue de la messe paroissiak a laquelk
seront tenus d'assister tous les electeurs.
Art. 7. Pour etre eligible a un eveche, il sera necessaire d'avoir
rempli, au moin pendant quinze ans, les fonctions du ministere
ecclesiastique dans le diocese en qualite de cure, de desservant
ou de vicaire, ou comme vicaire superieur, ou comme vicaire
directeur du seminaire.
Art. 8. Les eveques dont les sieges sont supprimes par le pre
sent decret pourront etre elus aux eveches actuellement vacants,
ainsi qu'a ceux qui vaqueront par la suite, ou qui sont eriges en
quelques departements, encore qu'ils n'eussent pas quinze annees
d'exercice. Art. 9. Les cures et autres ecclesiastiques qui, par l'effet de la
nouvelle circonscription des dioceses, se trouveront dans un dio
cese different de celui ou ils exergaient leurs fonctions, seront
reputes les avoir exercees dans leur nouveau diocese, et ils y
seront en consequence eligibles, pourvu qu'ils aient d'ailkurs le
temps d'exercice ci-devant exige.
Art. 10. Pourront aussi etre elus, les cures actuels qui auraient
dix annees d'exercice dans une cure du diocese, encore qu'ils
n'eussent pas auparavant rempli les fonctions de vicaire.
Art. ii. II en sera de meme des cures dont les paroisses
auraient ete supprimees, en vertu du present decret; et il leur
sera compte, comme temps d'exercice, celui qui se sera ecoule
depuis la suppression de leur cure.

APPENDIX 301
Art. 12. Les missionnaires, les vicaires generaux des eveques,
les ecclesiastiques desservant les hopitaux, ou charges de l'educa-
tion publique, seront pareillement eligibles, lorsqu'ils auront rem
pli leurs fonctions pendant quinze ans a compter de leur promo
tion au sacerdoce.
Art. 13. Seront pareillement eligibles, les dignitaires, chanoines,
et en general tous beneficiers et titulaires qui etaient obliges a
residence, ou exergaient des fonctions ecclesiastiques, et dont les
benefices, titres, offices ou emplois se trouvent supprimes par le
present decret, lorsqu'ils auront quinze annees d'exercice comp
ters, comme il est dit des cures dans l'artick 11.
Art. 14. La proclamation de l'elu se fera par le president de
l'assemblee electorak dans l'eglise ou l'election aura ete faite, en
presence du peuple et du clerge et avant de commencer la messe
solennelle qui sera celebree a cet effet.
Art. 15. Le proces-verbal de l'election et de la proclamation
sera envoye au roi par le president de l'assemblee des electeurs,
pour donner a Sa Majeste connaissance du choix qui aura ete fait.
Art. 16. Au plus tard dans le mois qui suivra son election,
celui qui aura' ete elu a un eveche se presentera en personne a
son eveque metropolitain, et s'il est elu pour le siege de la metro
pole, au plus ancien eveque de l'arrondissement, avec le proces-
verbal d'election, et il le suppliera de lui accorder la confirma
tion canonique.
Art. 17. Le metropolitain ou l'ancien eveque aura la faculte
d'examiner l'elu en presence de son conseil, sur sa doctrine et
ses mceurs; s'il le juge capable, il lui donnera l'institution cano
nique; s'il croit devoir la lui refuser, les causes du refus seront
donnees par ecrit, signees du metropolitain et de son conseil,
sauf aux parties interessees a se pourvoir par voie d'appel comme
d'abus, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres.
Art. 18. L'eveque, a qui la confirmation sera demandee, ne
pourra exiger de l'elu d'autre serment, sinon qu'il fait profession
de la religion catholique, apostolique et romaine.
Art. 19. Le nouvel eveque ne pourra s'adresser au pape pour
en obtenir aucune confirmation, mais il lui ecrira comme au chef
visible de l'Eglise universelle, en temoignage de I'unite de foi et
de la communion qu'il doit entretenir avec lui.
Art. 20. La consecration de l'eveque ne pourra se faire que
dans son eglise cathedrale, par son metropolitain, ou, a son de-
faut, par le plus ancien eveque de l'arrondissement de la metro
pole' assiste des eveques des deux dioceses les plus voisins, un

302 APPENDIX
jour de dimanche, pendant la messe paroissiale, en presence du
peuple et du clerge.
Art. 21. Avant que la ceremonie de la consecration commence,
l'elu pretera, en presence des officiers municipaux, du peuple et
du clerge, le serment solennel de veilkr avec soin sur les fideles
du diocese qui lui est confie, d'etre fidele a la nation, a la loi et
au roi, et de maintenir de tout son pouvoir la Constitution de
crete par l'Assemblee nationale et sanctionnee par le roi.
Art. 22. L'eveque aura la liberte de choisir les vicaires de son
eglise cathedrale dans tout le clerge de son diocese, a la charge
par lui de ne pouvoir nommer que des pretres qui auront exerce
des fonctions ecclesiastiques au moins pendant dix ans ; il ne
pourra les destituer que de l'avis de son conseil, et par une de
liberation qui y aura ete prise a la pluralite des voix en con-
naissance de cause.
Art. 23. Les cures actuellement etablis en aucune eglise cathe
drale, ainsi que ceux des paroisses qui seront supprimees, pour
etre relinks a l'eglise cathedrale et en former le territoire, seront
de plein droit, s'ils le demandent, les premiers vicaires de l'eveque,
chacun suivant l'ordre de leur anciennete dans" les fonctions
pastorales. Art. 24. Les vicaires superieurs et vicaires directeurs de semi
naire seront nommes par l'eveque et son conseil, et ne pourront
etre destitues que de la meme maniere que les vicaires de l'eglise
cathedrale. Art. 25. L'election des cures se fera dans la forme prescrite
et par les electeurs indiques dans le decret du 22 decembre 1789
pour la nomination des membres de l'assemblee administrative du
district. Art. 26. L'assemblee des electeurs pour la nomination aux cures
se formera tous les ans a 1'epoque de la formation des assemblies
de district, quand meme il y aurait une seule cure vacante dans
le district, a l'effet de quoi les municipality seront tenues de
donner avis au procureur syndic du district de toutes les vacances
de cures qui arriveront dans leur arrondissement par mort, de
mission ou autrement.
Art. 27. En convoquant l'assemblee des electeurs, le procureur
syndic enverra a chaque municipalite la liste de toutes les cures
auxquelles il faudra nommer.
Art. 28. L'election des cures se fera par scrutins separes pour
chaque cure vacante.
Art. 29. Chaque electeur, avant de mettre son bulletin dans le

APPENDIX 303
vase du scrutin, fera serment de ne nommer que celui qu'il aura
choisi en son ame et conscience, comme le plus digne, sans y
avoir ete determine par dons, promesses, sollicitations ou me
naces. Ce serment sera prete pour l'election des eveques comme
pour celle des cures.
Art. 30. L'election des cures ne pourra se faire ou etre com-
mencee qu'un jour de dimanche, dans la principale eglise du
chef-lieu du district, a. Tissue de la messe paroissiale, a laquelk
tous les electeurs seront tenus d'assister.
Art. 31. La proclamation des elus sera faite par le president
du corps electoral dans l'eglise principale, avant la messe solen-
nelle qui sera celebree a cet effet, et en presence du peuple et du
clerge. Art. 32. Pour etre eligible a une cure, il sera necessaire d' avoir
rempli les fonctions de vicaire dans une paroisse, ou dans un
hopital et autre maison de charite du diocese, au moins pendant
cinq ans.
Art. 33. Les cures dont les paroisses seront supprimees en exe
cution du present decret pourront etre elus, encore qu'ils n'eus
sent pas cinq annees d'exercice dans le diocese.
Art. 34. Seront pareillement eligibles aux cures, tous ceux qui
ont ete ci-dessus declares eligibles aux eveches, pourvu qu'ils
aient aussi cinq annees d'exercice.
Art. 35. Celui qui aura ete proclame elu a une cure se pre-
sentera en personne a l'eveque avec le proces-verbal de son elec
tion et proclamation, a l'effet d'obtenir de lui l'institution cano-
nique. Art. 36. L'eveque aura la faculte d'examiner l'elu en presence
de son conseil sur sa doctrine et ses moeurs; s'il le juge capable,
il lui donnera l'institution canonique; s'il croit devoir la lui re
fuser, les causes du refus seront donnees, par ecrit, signees de
l'eveque et de son conseil, sauf aux parties le recours a la puis
sance civile, ainsi qu'il sera dit ci-apres.
Art. 37. En examinant l'elu qui lui demandera l'institution
canonique, l'eveque ne pourra exiger de lui d'autre serment, sinon
qu'il fait profession de la religion catholique, apostolique et
romaine. Art. 38. Les cures, elus et institues, preteront le meme ser
ment que les eveques dans leur eglise un jour de dimanche, avant
la messe paroissiale, en presence des officiers municipaux du lieu,
du peuple et du clerge; jusque-la, ils ne pourront faire aucune
fonction curiale.

3o4 APPENDIX
Art. 39. II y aura, tant dans l'eglise cathedrale que dans chaque
eglise paroissiale, un registre particulier sur lequel le secretaire-
greffier de la municipalite du lieu ecrira, sans frais, le proces-
verbal de la prestation de serment de l'eveque ou du cure ; il n'y
aura pas d'autre acte de prise de possession que ce proces-verbal.
Art. 40. Les eveches et les cures seront reputes vacants jus
qu'a ce que les elus aient prete le serment ci-dessus mentionne.
Art. 41. Pendant les vacances du siege episcopal, le premier,
et, a son defaut, le second vicaire de l'eglise cathedrale, rem-
placera l'eveque, tant pour les fonctions curiales que pour les
actes de juridiction qui n'exigent pas le caractere episcopal ;
mais, en tout, il sera tenu de se conduire par les avis du conseil.
Art. 42. Pendant les vacances d'une cure, l'administration de
la paroisse sera confiee au premier vicaire, sauf a y etablir un
vicaire de plus, si la municipalite le requiert; et dans le cas ou
il n'y aurait pas de vicaire dans la paroisse, il y sera etabli un
desservant par l'eveque.
Art. 43. Chaque cure aura le droit de choisir ses vicaires ; mais
il ne pourra fixer son choix que sur les pretres ordonnes et admis
dans la diocese de l'eveque.
Art. 44. Aucun cure ne pourra revoquer ses vicaires que pour
les causes legitimes jugees telles par l'eveque et son conseil.

TITRE III
Du traitement des ministres de la religion
Article Premier. Les ministres de la religion exergant les pre
mieres et les plus importantes fonctions de la societe, et obliges
de resider continuellement dans le lieu du service auquel la con-
fiance des peuples les a appeles, seront defrayes par la nation.
Art. 2. II sera fourni, a chaque eveque, a chaque cure et aux
desservants des annexes et succursales, un logement convenable,
a la charge par eux d'y faire toutes les reparations locatives, sans
entendre rien innover, quant a present, a l'egard des paroisses et
par les cures. II leur sera, en outre, assigne a tous le traitement
qui va etre regie.
Art. 3. Le traitement des eveques sera, savoir:
Pour l'eveque de Paris, de 50,000 livres;
Pour les eveques des villes dont la population est de 50,000
ames et au-dessus, de 20,000 livres;

APPENDIX 305
Pour tous les autres eveques, de 12,000 livres.
Art. 4. Le traitement des eglises cathedrales sera, savoir:
A Paris, pour le premier vicaire, de 6000 livres ;
Pour le second, de 4000 livres;
Pour les autres vicaires, de 3000 livres.
Dans les villes dont la population est de 50,000 ames et au-
dessus :
Pour le premier vicaire, de 4000 livres ;
Pour le second, de 3000 livres ;
Pour touts les autres, de 2400 livres.
Dans les villes dont la population est de moins de 50,000 ames :
Pour le premier vicaire, de 3000 livres ;
Pour le second, de 2400 livres ;
Pour touts les autres, de 2000 livres.
Art. 5. Le traitement des cures sera, savoir:
A Paris, de 6000 livres;
Dans les villes dont la population est de 50,000 ames et au-
dessus, de 4000 livres ;
Dans celles oil la population est de moins de 50,000 ames et de
plus de 10,000 ames, de 3000 livres ;
Dans les villes, dans les bourgs dont la population est au-
dessous de 10,000 ames et au-dessus de 3000 ames, de 2400 livres;
Dans tous les autres villes et bourgs, et dans les villages, lors
que la paroisse offrira une population de 3000 ames et au-dessous
jusqu'a 2500, de 2000 livres ; lorsqu'elk en offrira une de 2500
ames jusqu'a 2000, de 1800 livres ; lorsqu'elk en offrira une de
moins de 2000 et de plus de 1000, de 1500 livres, et lorsqu'elk en
offrira une de 1000 ames et au-dessous, de 1200 livres.
Art. 6. Le traitement des vicaires sera, savoir : a Paris, pour le
premier vicaire, de 2400 livres ; pour le second, de 1500 livres,
et, pour tous les autres, de 800 livres.
Dans les villes ou la population est de 50,000 ames et au-dessus,
pour le premier vicaire, de 1200 livres ; pour le second, de 1000
livres, et pour tous les autres, de 800 livres.
Dans tous les autres villes et bourgs, ou la population sera de
plus de 3000 ames, de 800 livres pour les deux premiers vicaires,
de 700 livres pour tous les autres.
Dans toutes les autres paroisses de ville et de campagne, de 700
livres pour chaque vicaire.
Art. 7. Le traitement en argent des ministres de la religion
leur sera paye d'avance, de trois mois en trois mois, par le
tresorier du district, a peine pour lui d'y etre contraint par corps,

306 APPENDIX
sur une simple sommation; et dans le cas oil l'eveque, cure ou
vicaire, viendrait a mourir ou a donner sa demission, avant la fin
du quartier, il ne pourra etre exerce, contre lui ni contre ses
heritiers, aucune repetition.
Art. 8. Pendant la vacance des eveches, des cures et de tous
offices ecclesiastiques, payes par la nation, les fruits du traitement
qui y est attache seront verses dans la caisse du district, pour
subvenir aux depenses dont il va etre park.
Art. 9. Les cures qui, a cause de leur grand age ou de leurs
infirmites, ne pourraient plus vaquer a leurs fonctions, en don-
neront avis au directoire du departement qui, sur les instructions
de la municipalite et de l'administration du district, laissera a
leur choix, s'il y a lieu, ou de prendre un vicaire de plus, lequel
sera paye par la nation, sur le meme pied que les autres vicaires,
ou de se retirer avec une pension egale au traitement qui aurait
ete fourni au vicaire.
Art. 10. Pourront aussi les vicaires, aumoniers des hopitaux,
superieurs des seminaires et tous autres exergant les fonctions
publiques, en faisant constater leur etat de la maniere qui vient
d'etre prescrite, se retirer avec une pension de la valeur du traite
ment dont ils jouissaient, pourvu qu'il n'excede pas la somme de
800 livres.
Art. ii. La fixation qui vient d'etre faite du traitement des
ministres de la religion aura lieu a compter du jour de la publi
cation du present decret; mais seulement pour ceux qui seront
pourvous, par la suite, d'offices ecclesiastiques. A l'egard des
titulaires actuels, soit ceux dont les offices sont conserves, leur
traitement sera fixe par un decret particulier.
Art. 12. Au moyen du traitement qui leur est assure par la pre
sente constitution, les eveques, les cures et leurs vicaires exer-
ceront gratuitement les fonctions episcopates et curiales.

TITRE IV
De la loi de la residence
Article Premier. La loi de la residence sera regulierement
observee ; et tous ceux qui seront revetus d'un office ou emploi
ecclesiastique y seront soumis sans aucune exception ni dis
tinction. Art. 2. Aucun eveque ne pourra s'absenter, chaque annee, pen
dant plus de quinze jours consecutifs, hors de son diocese, que

APPENDIX 307
dans le cas d'une veritable necessite, et avec l'agrement du direc
toire du departement dans lequel son siege sera etabli.
Art. 3. Ne pourront pareillement les cures et les vicaires s'ab-
senter du lieu de leurs fonctions, au dela du terme qui vient
d'etre fixe, que pour des raisons graves, et meme, en ce cas,
seront tenus les cures d'obtenir l'agrement tant de leur eveque
que du directoire de leur district; les vicaires, la permission de
leur cure.
Art. 4. Si un eveque ou un cure s'ecartait de la loi de la resi
dence, la municipalite du lieu en donnerait avis au procureur
general syndic du departement, qui l'avertirait par ecrit de ren-
trer dans son devoir, et, apres sa seconde monition, le pour-
suivrait pour le faire declarer dechu de son traitement pour tout
le temps de son absence.
Art. 5. Les eveques, les cures, les vicaires, ne pourront accepter
de charges, d'emplois, ou de commissions qui les obligeraient de
s'eloigner de leur diocese ou de leur paroisse, ou qui les enleve-
raient aux fonctions de leur ministere, et ceux qui en sont ac
tuellement pourvus seront tenus de faire leur option dans le
delai de trois mois, a compter de la notification qui leur sera faite
du present decret, par le procureur general syndic de leur departe
ment, sinon et apres Texpiration de leur delai leur office sera
repute vacant, et il leur sera donne un successeur en la forme
ci-dessus prescrite.
Art. 6. Les eveques, les cures et les vicaires pourront, comme
citoyens actifs, assister aux assembkes primaires et electorates,
y etre nommes electeurs, deputes aux legislatures, elus membres
du conseil general de la commune et du conseil des administra
tions du district et des departements. Mais leurs fonctions sont
declarees incompatibles avec celles de maires et autres officiers
municipaux et des membres des directoires de district et de de
partement; et, s'ils etaient nommes, ils seraient tenus de faire
leur option.
Art. 7. L'incompatibilite mentionnee dans l'article 6 n'aura effet
que pour l'avenir, et si aucuns eveques, cures ou vicaires ont ete
appeles par les voeux de leurs concitoyens aux offices de maire,
et autres municipaux, ou nommes membres des directoires de dis
trict et de departement, ils pourront continuer d'en exercer les
fonctions. C.-F. de Bonnay, president.
P. de Delley, Robespierre, Populus, Dupont (de
Nemours), Garat AfNE, Regnault (de Saint-
Angely), secretaires.

308 APPENDIX III
ATTITUDE OF THE CONVENTION
In its public manifesto of December 5, 1794, the Convention
asserted :
"Vos maitres vous disent que la nation frangaise a proscrit
toutes les religions, qu'elle a substitue le culte de quelques hommes
a celui de la Divinite. Ils nous peignent a vos yeux comme un
peuple idolatre ou insense. Ils mentent. Le peuple frangais et
ses representants respectent la liberte de tous les cultes et n'en
proscrivent aucun. Ils honorent la vertu des martyrs de l'hu-
manite, sans engouement et sans idolatrie ; ils abhorrent Intole
rance et la superstition, de quelques pretextes qu'elles se couvrent ;
ils condamnent les extravagances du philosophisme comme les
folies de la superstition et comme les crimes du fanatisme."
On the seventh it passed the following law:
"La Convention nationale, considerant ce qui exigent d'elle les
principes qu'elle a proclames au nom du peuple frangais et le
maintien de la tranquillite publique, decrete:
Article Premier. Defend toutes violences ou mesures con-
traires a la liberte ;
Art. 2. La surveillance des autorites constitutes et Taction de
la force publique se renfermeront, a cet egard, chacune pour ce
qui les concerne, dans les mesures de police et surete publique;
Art. 3. La Convention, par les dispositions precedentes, n'en-
tend deroger en aucune maniere aux lois repressives, ni aux pre
cautions de salut public contre les pretres refractaires ou turbu-
lents et contre tous ceux qui tenteraient d'abuser du pretexte de
la religion pour compromettre la cause de la liberte.
Elle n'entend pas non plus fournir a qui que ce soit aucun pre
texte d'inquieter le patriotisme et de ralentir Tessor de Tesprit
public. [Two days later these words were added : La Convention
n'entend pas non plus improuver ce qui a ete fait ces derniers
jours en vertu des arretes des representants du peuple. Inasmuch
as the measures to which they refer were expressly aimed against
religion, the inconsistency and irony of the whole document are
self-evident.] La Convention invite tous les bons citoyens, au nom de la patrie,
a abstenir de toutes disputes theologiques ou etrangeres aux
grands interets du peuple frangais, pour concourir de tous leurs
moyens au triomphe de la Republique et a la ruine de ses ennemis.

APPENDIX 309
L'adresse en forme de reponse aux manifestes des rois ligues
contre la Republique, decretee par la Convention nationale le
15 fnmaire [December fifth], sera reimprimee par les ordres des
administrations de district pour etre repandue et affichee dans
I'etendue de chaque district; elle sera lue, ainsi que le present
decret, au plus prochain jour de decadi, dans les assemblies de
commune ou de section, par les officiers municipaux et par les
presidents des sections." The decree of Ventose (February,
1795) was the expansion of this idea, a stroke of foreign policy.

IV
THE CONCORDAT. See p. 263
Du 18 Germinal, an X de la Republique une et indivisible.
Au nom du peuple frangais, Bonaparte, premier Consul, Proclame
loi de la Republique le decret suivant, rendu par le Corps legis
latif le 18 germinal an X, conformement a. la proposition faite
par le Gouvernement le 15 dudit mois, communiquee au Tribunal
le meme jour. Decret
La convention passe a Paris, le 26 messidor an IX, entre le
Pape et le Gouvernement frangais, et dont les ratifications ont ete
echangees a Paris le 23 fructidor an IX [10 septembre 1801], en
semble les articles organiques de ladite convention, les articles
organiques des cultes protestans, dont la teneur suit, seront pro-
mulgues et executes comme des lois de la Republique.
Convention entre le Gouvernement frangais et Sa Saintete Pie
VII, echangee le 23 fructidor an IX [10 Septembre 1801]
Le premier Consul de la republique frangaise, et sa Saintete le
souverain Pontife Pie VII, ont nomme pour leurs plenipotentiaires
respectif :
Le premier Consul, les citoyens Joseph Bonaparte, conseilkr
d'etat, Cretet, conseilkr d'etat, et Bernier, docteur en theologie,
cure de Saint-Laud d' Angers, munis de pleins pouvoirs;
Sa Saintete, son eminence monseigneur Hercule Consalvi, car
dinal de la sainte £glise romaine, diacre de Sainte-Agathe ad
Suburram, son secretaire d'etat; Joseph Spina, archeveque de

310 APPENDIX
Corinthe, prelat domestique de sa Saintete, assistant du trone
pontifical, et le pere Caselli, theologien consultant de sa Saintete,
pareillement munis de pleins pouvoirs en bonne et due forme;
Lesquels, apres Techange des pleins pouvoirs respectifs, ont
arrete la convention suivante:
Convention entre le Gouvernement frangais et sa
Saintete Pie VII
Le Gouvernement de la Republique frangaise reconnait que la
religion catholique, apostolique et romaine, est la religion de la
grande majorite des citoyens frangais.
Sa Saintete reconnait egalement que cette meme religion a retire
et attend encore en ce moment le plus grand bien et le plus grand
eclat de Tetablissement du culte catholique en France, et de la
profession particuliere qu'en font les Consuls de la Republique.
En consequence, d'apres cette reconnaissance mutuelle, tant
pour le bien de la religion que pour le maintien de la tranquillite
interieure, ils sont convenus de ce qui suit :
Art. Ier- La religion catholique, apostolique et romaine, sera
librement exercee en France : son culte sera public, en se con
formant aux reglemens de police que le Gouvernement jugera
necessaires pour la tranquillite publique.
II. II sera fait par le Saint-Siege, de concert avec le Gouverne
ment, une nouvelle circonscription des dioceses frangais.
III. Sa Saintete declarera aux titulaires des eveches frangais,
qu'elle attend d'eux avec une ferme confiance, pour le bien de la
paix et de I'unite, toute espece de sacrifices, meme celui de leurs
sieges. D'apres cette exhortation, s'ils se refusaient a ce sacrifice com
mands par le bien de l'£glise (refus neanmoins auquel sa Sain
tete ne s'attend pas), il sera pourvu, par de nouveaux titulaires,
au gouvernement des eveches de la circonscription nouvelle, de
la maniere suivante.
IV. Le premier Consul de la Republique nommera, dans les
trois mois qui suivront la publication de la bulle de sa Saintete,
aux archeveches et eveches de la circonscription nouvelle. Sa
Saintete conferera l'institution canonique, suivant les formes etab-
lies par rapport a la France avant le changement de gouvernement.
V. Les nominations aux eveches qui vaqueront dans la suite,
seront egalement faites par le premier Consul, et l'institution
canonique sera donnee par le Saint-Siege, en conformite de Tar-
ticle precedent.

APPENDIX 3H
VI. Les eveques, avant d'entrer en fonctions, preteront directe-
ment, entre les mains du premier Consul, le serment de fidelite
qui etait en usage avant le changement de gouvernement, exprime
dans les termes suivans :
"Je jure et promets a Dieu, sur les saints evangiles, de garder
obeissance et fidelite au Gouvernement etabli par la Constitution
de la Republique frangaise. Je promets aussi de n'avoir aucune
intelligence, de n'assister a aucun conseil, de n'entretenir aucune
ligue, soit au-dedans, soit au-dehors, qui soit contraire a la tran
quillite publique; et si, dans mon diocese ou ailleurs, j'apprends
qu'il se trame quelque chose au prejudice de l'Etat, je le ferai
savoir au Gouvernement."
VII. Les ecclesiastiques du second ordre preteront le meme ser
ment entre les mains des autorites civiles designees par le Gou
vernement. VIII. La formule de priere suivante sera recitee a la fin de
Toffice divin, dans toutes les eglises catholiques de France:
Domine, salvam fac Rempublicam ;
Domine, salvos fac Consules.
IX. Les eveques feront une nouvelle circonscription des pa
roisses de leurs dioceses, qui n'aura d'effet que d'apres le con-
sentement du Gouvernement.
X. Les eveques nommeront aux cures.
Leur choix ne pourra tomber que sur des personnes agreees
par le Gouvernement.
XI. Les eveques pourront avoir un chapitre dans leur cathe
drale, et un seminaire pour leur diocese, sans que le Gouverne
ment s'oblige a. les doter.
XII. Toutes les eglises, metropolitaines, cathedrales, parois-
siales, et autres non alienees, necessaires au culte, seront remises a
la disposition des eveques.
XIII. Sa Saintete, pour le bien de la paix et Theureux retab-
lissement de la religion catholique, declare que ni elle, ni ses
successeurs, ne troubleront en aucune maniere les acquereurs des
biens ecclesiastiques alienes, et qu'en consequence, la propriete de
ces memes biens, les droits et revenus y attaches, demeureront
incommutables entre leurs mains ou celles de leurs ayants-cause.
XIV. Le Gouvernement assurera un traitement convenable aux
eveques et aux cures dont les dioceses et les paroisses seront
compris dans la circonscription nouvelle.
XV. Le Gouvernement prendra egalement des mesures pour

312 APPENDIX
que les catholiques frangais puissent, s'ils le veulent, faire en
faveur des eglises, des fondations.
XVI. Sa Saintete reconnait dans le premier Consul de la Re
publique frangaise, les memes droits et prerogatives dont jouissait
pres d'elle Tancien gouvernement.
XVII. II est convenu entre les parties contractantes que, dans
le cas ou quelqu'un des successeurs du premier Consul actuel ne
serait pas catholique, les droits et prerogatives mentionnes dans
Tarticle ci-dessus, et la nomination aux eveches seront regies,
par rapport a lui, par une nouvelle convention.
Fait a Paris, le 26 Messidor an IX.
Signe Joseph Bonaparte [L.S.]. Hercules, Cardinalis Consalvi
[L.S.]. Cretet [L.S.]. Joseph, archiep. Corinthi [L.S.]. Bernier
[L.S.]. F. Carolus Caselli [L.S.].

THE ORGANIC ARTICLES
Articles Organiques de la Convention du 26 Messidor an IX
TITRE I"
Du regime de l'eglise catholique dans ses rapports generaux
avec les droits et la police de l'£tat
Art. Ier. Aucune bulle, bref, rescrit, decret, mandat, provision,
signature servant de provision, ni autres expeditions de la cour
de Rome, meme ne concernant que les particuliers, ne pourront
etre regus, publies, imprimes, ni autrement mis a execution, sans
Tautorisation du Gouvernement.
II. Aucun individu se disant nonce, legat, vicaire ou commis-
saire apostolique, ou se prevalant de toute autre denomination,
ne pourra, sans la meme autorisation, exercer sur le sol frangais
ni ailleurs, aucune fonction relative aux affaires de l'eglise gal-
licane. III. Les decrets des synodes etrangers, meme ceux des conciles
generaux, ne pourront etre publies en France avant que le Gou
vernement en ait examine la forme, leur conformite avec les lois,
droits et franchises de la Republique frangaise, et tout ce qui,
dans leur publication, pourrait alterer ou interesser la tranquillite
publique.

APPENDIX 313
IV. Aucun concile national ou metropolitain, aucun synode dio
cesain, aucune assemblee deliberate n'aura lieu sans la permis
sion expresse du Gouvernement.
V. Toutes les fonctions ecclesiastiques seront gratuites, sauf les
oblations qui seraient autorisees et fixees par les reglemens.
VI. II y aura recours au conseil d'etat, dans tous les cas d'abus
de la part des superieurs et autres personnes ecclesiastiques.
Les cas d'abus sont, Tusurpation ou Texces de pouvoir, la con
travention aux lois et reglemens de la Republique, Tinfraction
des regies consacrees par les canons regus en France, Tattentat
aux libertes, franchises et coutumes de l'eglise gallicane, et toute
entreprise ou tout procede, qui, dans Texercice du culte, peut com-
promettre Thonneur des citoyens, troubler arbitrairement kur con
science, degenerer contre eux en oppression ou en injure, ou en
scandak public.
VII. II y aura pareillement recours au conseil d'etat, s'il est
porte atteinte a Texercice public du culte et a la liberte que les
lois et les reglemens garantissent a ses ministres.
VIII. Le recours competera a toute personne interessee. A
defaut de plainte particuliere, il sera exerce d'office par les prefets.
Le fonctionnaire public, Tecclesiastique ou la personne qui vou-
dra exercer ce recours, adressera un memoire detaille et signe,
au conseilkr d'etat charge de toutes les affaires concernant les
cultes, lequel sera tenu de prendre, dans le plus court delai, tous
les renseignemens convenables; et, sur son rapport, Taffaire sera
suivie et definitivement terminee dans la forme administrative, ou
renvoyee, selon Texigence des cas, aux autorites competentes.

TITRE II
Des Ministres
Section premiere
Dispositions generates
IX. Le culte catholique sera exerce sous la direction des arche-
veques et eveques dans leurs dioceses, et sous celle des cures dans
leurs paroisses.
X. Tout privilege portant exemption ou attribution de la juri-
diction episcopate, est aboli.

314 APPENDIX
XI. Les archeveques et eveques pourront, avec Tautorisation du
Gouvernement, etablir dans leurs dioceses des chapitres cathe-
draux et des seminaires. Tous autres etablissemens ecclesias
tiques sont supprimes.
XII. II sera libre aux archeveques et eveques d'ajouter a leur
nom, le titre de Citoyen ou celui de Monsieur. Toutes autres
qualifications sont interdites. Section II
Des Archeveques ou Metropolitans
XIII. Les archeveques consacreront et instalkront leurs suf
fragans. En cas d'empechement ou de refus de leur part, ils
seront supplees par le plus ancien eveque de l'arrondissement
metropolitain. XIV. Ils veilkront au maintien de la foi et de la discipline
dans les dioceses dependans de leur metropole.
XV. Ils connaitront des reclamations et des plaintes portees
contre la conduite et les decisions des eveques suffragans,
Section III
Des liveques, des Vicaires generaux et des Seminaires
XVI. On ne pourra etre nomme eveque avant Tage de trente
ans, et si on n'est originaire Frangais.
XVII. Avant Texpedition de Tarrete de nomination, celui ou
ceux qui seront proposes, seront tenus de rapporter une attesta
tion de bonne vie et mceurs, expediee par l'eveque dans le diocese
duquel ils auront exerce les fonctions du ministere ecclesiastique ;
et ils seront examines sur leur doctrine par un eveque et deux
pretres, qui seront commis par le premier Consul, lesquels adres-
seront le resultat de leur examen au conseilkr d'etat charge de
toutes les affaires concernant les cultes.
XVIII. Le pretre nomme par le premier Consul fera les dili
gences pour rapporter l'institution du Pape.
II ne pourra exercer aucune fonction, avant que la bulk por-
tant son institution ait regu Tattache du Gouvernement, et qu'il
ait prete en personne le serment prescrit par la convention passee
entre le Gouvernement frangais et le Saint-Siege.

APPENDIX 315
Ce serment sera prete au premier Consul; il en sera dresse
proces-verbal par le secretaire d'etat.
XIX. Les eveques nommeront et institueront les cures. Nean-
moins ils ne manifesteront leur nomination et ils ne donneront
l'institution canonique, qu'apres que cette nomination aura ete
agreee par le premier Consul.
XX. Ils seront tenus de resider dans leurs dioceses; ils ne
pourront en sortir qu'avec la permission du premier Consul.
XXI. Chaque eveque pourra nommer deux vicaires generaux,
et chaque archeveque pourra en nommer trois: ils les choisiront
parmi les pretres ayant les qualites requises pour etre eveques.
XXII. Ils visiteront annuellement en personne une partie de
leur diocese, et, dans Tespace de cinq ans, le diocese entier.
En cas d'empechement legitime, la visite sera faite par un
vicaire general.
XXIII. Les eveques seront charges de Torganisation de leurs
seminaires, et les reglemens de cette organisation seront soumis
a Tapprobation du premier Consul.
XXIV. Ceux qui seront choisis pour Tenseignement dans les
seminaires, souscriront la declaration faite par le clerge de
France en 1682, et publiee par un edit de la meme annee: ils se
soumettront a y enseigner la doctrine qui y est contenue, et les
eveques adresseront une expedition en forme de cette soumission,
au conseiller d'etat charge de toutes les affaires concernant les
cultes. XXV. Les eveques enverront, toutes les annees, a ce conseiller
d'etat, le nom des personnes qui etudieront dans les seminaires,
et qui se destineront a. Tetat ecclesiastique.
XXVI. Ils ne pourront ordonner aucun ecclesiastique, s'il ne
justifie d'une propriete produisant au moins un revenu annuel de
trois cents francs, s'il n'a atteint Tage de vingt-cinq ans, et s'il
ne reunit les qualites requises par les canons regus en France.
Les eveques ne feront aucune ordination avant que le nombre
des personnes a ordonner ait ete soumis au Gouvernement et par
lui agree. Section IV
Des Cures
XXVII. Les cures ne pourront entrer en fonctions qu'apres
avoir prete, entre les mains du prefet, le serment prescrit par la

316 APPENDIX
convention passee entre le Gouvernement et le Saint-Siege. II
sera dresse proces-verbal de cette prestation, par le secretaire
general de la prefecture, et copie collationnee leur en sera delivree.
XXVIII. Ils seront mis en possession par le cure ou le pretre
que l'eveque designera.
XXIX. Ils seront tenus de resider dans leurs paroisses.
XXX. Les cures seront immediatement soumis aux eveques
dans Texercice de leurs fonctions.
XXXI. Les vicaires et desservans exerceront leur ministere,
sous la surveillance et la direction des cures.
Ils seront approuves par l'eveque et revocables par lui.
XXXII. Aucun etranger ne pourra etre employe dans les fonc
tions du ministere ecclesiastique sans la permission du Gouverne
ment. XXXIII. Toute fonction est interdite a tout ecclesiastique,
meme frangais, qui n'appartient a aucun diocese.
XXXIV. Un pretre ne pourra quitter son diocese pour alter
desservir dans un autre, sans la permission de son eveque.

Section V
Des Chapitres cathedraux, et du gouvernement des Dioceses
pendant la vacance du SiSge
XXXV. Les archeveques et eveques qui voudront user de la
faculte qui leur est donne d'etablir des chapitres, ne pourront le
faire sans avoir rapporte Tautorisation du Gouvernement, tant
pour T etablissement lui-meme, que pour le nombre et le choix des
ecclesiastiques destines a les former.
XXXVI. Pendant la vacance des sieges, il sera pourvu par le
metropolitain, et, a son defaut, par le plus ancien des eveques
suffragans, au gouvernement des dioceses.
Les vicaires generaux de ces dioceses continueront leur fonc
tions, meme apres la mort de l'eveque, jusqu'a son remplacement.
XXXVII. Les metropolitains, les chapitres cathedraux, seront
tenus, sans delai, de donner avis au Gouvernement de la vacance
des sieges, et des mesures qui auront ete prises pour le gouverne
ment des dioceses vacans.
XXXVIII. Les vicaires generaux qui gouverneront pendant
la vacance, ainsi les metropolitains ou capitulaires, ne se permet-
tront aucune innovation dans les usages et coutumes des dioceses.

APPENDIX 317
TITRE III
Du Culte
XXXIX. II n'y aura qu'une liturgie et un catechisme pour
toutes les eglises catholiques de France.
XL. Aucun cure ne pourra ordonner des prieres publiques ex-
traordinaires dans sa paroisse, sans la permission speciale de
l'eveque. XLI. Aucune fete, a Texception du dimanche, ne pourra etre
etablie sans la permission du Gouvernement.
XLII. Les ecclesiastiques useront, dans les ceremonies reli-
gieuses, des habits et ornemens convenables a leur titre: ils ne
pourront dans aucun cas, ni sous aucun pretexte, prendre la
couleur et les marques distinctives reservees aux eveques.
XLIII. Tous les ecclesiastiques seront habilles a la frangaise et
en noir.
Les eveques pourront joindre a ce costume, la croix pastorale
et les bas violets.
XLIV. Les chapelles domestiques, les oratoires particuliers, ne
pourront etre etablis sans une permission expresse du Gouverne
ment, accordee sur la demande de l'eveque.
XLV. Aucune ceremonie religieuse n'aura lieu hors des edifices
consacres au culte catholique, dans les villes oil il y a des temples
destines a differens cultes.
XLVI. Le meme temple ne pourra etre consacre qu'a un meme
culte. XLVII. II y aura, dans les cathedrales et paroisses, une place
distinguee pour les individus catholiques qui remplissent les auto-
rites civiles et militaires.
XLVIII. L'eveque se concertera avec le prefet pour regler la
maniere d'appeler les fideles au service divin par le son des
cloches. On ne pourra les sonner pour toute autre cause, sans la
permission de la police locale.
XLIX. Lorsque le Gouvernement ordonnera des prieres pub
liques, les eveques se concerteront avec le prefet et le comman
dant militaire du lieu, pour le jour, Theure et le mode d'execution
de ces ordonnances.
L. Les predications solennelles appelees sermons, et celles con-
nues sous le nom de stations de Tavent et du careme, ne seront
faites que par des pretres qui en auront obtenu une autorisation
speciale de l'eveque.

318 APPENDIX
LI. Les cures, aux prones des messes paroissiales, prieront et
feront prier pour la prosperite de la Republique frangaise et pour
les Consuls.
LII. Ils ne se permettront dans leurs instructions, aucune incul
pation directe ou indirecte, soit contre les personnes, soit contre
les autres cultes autorises dans TEtat.
LIII. Ils ne feront au prone aucune publication etrangere a
Texercice du culte, si ce n'est celles qui seront ordonnees par le
Gouvernement. LIV. Ils ne donneront la benediction nuptiale qu'a ceux qui
justifieront, en bonne et due forme, avoir contracte mariage
devant Tofficier civil.
LV. Les registres tenus par les ministres du culte, n' etant et ne
pouvant etre relatifs qu'a Tadministration des sacremens, ne pour
ront, dans aucun cas, suppleer les registres ordonnes par la loi
pour constater Tetat civil des Frangais.
LVI. Dans tous les actes ecclesiastiques et religieux, on sera
oblige de se servir du calendrier d'equinoxe etabli par les lois de
la Republique; on designera les jours par les noms qu'ils avaient
dans le calendrier des solstices.
LVII. Le repos des fonctionnaires publics sera fixe au dimanche.

TITRE IV
De la circonscription des Archeveches, des E~veches et des
Paroisses; des edifices destines au Culte, et du
traitement des Ministres

Section Ire
De la circonscription des Archeveches et des Eveches
LVIII. II y aura en France dix archeveches ou metropoles, et
cinquante eveches.
LIX. La circonscription des metropoles et des dioceses sera
faite conformement au tableau ci-joint. (The table of dioceses
and diocesan towns is too long for insertion here. It can be
found in all the standard hand-books.)

APPENDIX 319
Section II
De la circonscription des Paroisses
LX. II y aura au moins une paroisse dans chaque justice de
paix. II sera etabli autant de succursaks que le besoin pourra Texiger.
LXI. Chaque eveque, de concert avec le prefet, reglera le
nombre et I'etendue de ces succursales. Les plans arretes seront
soumis au Gouvernement, et ne pourront etre mis a execution
sans son autorisation.
LXII. Aucune partie du territoire frangais ne pourra etre erigee
en cure ou en succursale sans Tautorisation expresse du Gou
vernement. LXIII. Les pretres desservant les succursales sont nommes par
les eveques. Section III
Du traitement des Ministres
LXIV. Le traitement des archeveques sera de 15,000 fr.
LXV. Le traitement des eveques sera de 10,000 fr.
LXVI. Les cures seront distribues en deux classes.
Le traitement des cures de la premiere classe sera porte a
1500 francs ; celui des cures de la seconde classe, a 1000 francs.
LXVII. Les pensions dont ils jouissent en execution des lois
de TAssemblee constituante, seront precomptees sur leur traite
ment. \
Les conseils generaux des grandes communes pourront, sur (
leurs biens ruraux ou sur leurs octrois, leur accorder une aug
mentation de traitement, si les circonstances Texigent.
LXVIII. Les vicaires et desservans seront choisis parmi les
ecclesiastiques pensionnes en execution des lois de TAssemblee
constituante. Le montant de ces pensions et le produit des oblations forme
ront leur traitement.
LXIX. Les eveques redigeront les projets de reglement relatifs
aux oblations que les ministres du culte sont autorises a recevoir
pour Tadministration des sacremens. Les projets de reglement
rediges par les eveques, ne pourront etre publies, ni autrement

320 APPENDIX
mis a execution, qu'apres avoir ete approuves par le Gouverne
ment. LXX. Tout ecclesiastique pensionnaire de l'Etat sera prive de
sa pension, s'il refuse, sans cause legitime, les fonctions qui pour
ront lui etre confiees.
LXXI. Les conseils generaux de departement sont autorises a
procurer aux archeveques et eveques un logement convenabk.
LXXII. Les presbyteres et les jardins attenans, non alienes,
seront rendus aux cures et aux desservans des succursales. A
defaut de ces presbyteres, les conseils generaux des communes
sont autorises a leur procurer un logement et un jardin.
LXXIII. Les fondations qui ont pour objet l'entretien des mi
nistres et Texercice du culte, ne pourront consister qu'en rentes
constitutes sur l'£tat; elles seront acceptees par l'eveque dio
cesain, et ne pourront etre executees sans Tautorisation du Gou
vernement. LXXIV. Les immeubles, autres que les edifices destines au loge
ment et les jardins attenans, ne pourront etre affectes a des titres
ecclesiastiques, ni possedes par les ministres du culte a raison de
leurs fonctions. Section IV
Des Edifices destines au Culte
LXXV. Les edifices anciennement destines au culte catholique,
actuellement dans les mains de la nation, a raison d'un edifice
par cure et par succursale, seront mis a la disposition des eveques
par arretes du prefet du departement. Une expedition de ces
arretes sera adressee au conseiller d'etat charge de toutes les
affaires concernant les cultes.
LXXVI. II sera etabli des "fabriques pour veiller a l'entretien et
a la conservation des temples, a. Tadministration des aumones.
LXXVII. Dans les paroisses oil il n'y aura point d'edifice dis-
ponible pour le culte, l'eveque se concertera avec le prefet pour la
designation d'un edifice convenabk.

INDEX

INDEX

D'Agoult, incites the king to
fly. 141.
d'Aguesseau, Henri, connection
with Jansenists, 13.
Aix massacre, 226.
d'Argenson, 44.
Arnauld, 43, 71.
Assembly, National, declares it
self permanent, 49.
Atheism, alienates Reformed
Church from principles of the
Revolution, 4.
d'Aubermenil, invents Theophi
lanthropy, 236.
Augereau, coerces the legisla
ture, 230.
Augustine, interpretation of his
doctrines by Calvin, 12.
Avignon, demands incorpora
tion in France, 150; riots at,
184.
Babeuf, suppression of his re
volt, 227.
Bacon, science and religion con
nected in his system, 4.
Bailly, his attempt to explain
forged poster, 141.
Barbe-Marbois, 229.
Barere, 208.
Barnave, 115 ; proposes the mo
tion that all priests in Assem
bly must take civil oath, 142.
Barras, 208.
Barthelemy, turns royalist, 221 ;
desires a new constitution,
229.
Bastille, 36; its fall, 50; politi
cal significance of its fall, 57.
70.
Bayle, nature of his philoso
phy, 4-

Beccari, the Milanese, protests
against torture, 6.
Benedict XIV, quoted by Des-
moulins, 51.
Bernier, appointed by Bona
parte to confer with papal en
voys, 257 ; his arguments with
Spina, 260, 262.
de Bemis, Pope refuses to re
ceive his successor, 184.
de Bethizy, views on clerical
property, 85.
Bible, its place in Calvinism,
xxviii.
Billaud-Varenne, his renown in
1793, 196.
Bodin, his political philoso
phy, 4-
Boisgelin, his proposition as to
church property, 109.
Boissy d'Anglas, transformation
of France, xxi ; denounces
the Bishop of Vienne, 133 ;
demands freedom of worship,
211; his suggestions for De
cadi celebrations, 229.
de Bonal, Frangois, placed at
head of Ecclesiastical Com
mittee, 74; decries Civil Con
stitution of the Clergy, 164.
Bonaparte, Joseph, his part in
negotiating the Concordat,
272, 273.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, his Con
cordat, 60; on the Day of
Sections, 219, 228; and the
events of Fructidor, 230; his
influence after returning from
Egypt — ends the Directory,
245 ; Constitution of the year
VIII— the Concordat of 1801,
250; his religious character,

323

3?4

INDEX

254, 255 ; asks the Pope to
confer, 256; his proposals to
Pius VII, 257, 258; negotia
tions with Consalvi, 262, 263,
269 ; beginnings of despot
ism, 269, 270; assents to final
draft of Concordat, 273 ; pro
claims it to council of state,
274; despotic effect given by
means of "Organic Articles"
of various cults, 277; his
Catholic policy during the
empire, 279, 280.
Boniface VIII, Bull Unam
Sanctam, xxv.
Bordeaux, Jacobin uprising at,
241.
Bossuet, his Gallicanism, 11;
leads Gallican movement, 20;
explains the system of en
slaving France by combina
tion of church and state, 28.
Bouille, assists Louis to fly, 158.
Bourbon, House of, its fate,
xxii.
Brienne, Lomenie de, presents
edict of tolerance to the king,
30, 43 ; takes civil oath, 142 ;
character, 153.
Broglie, reorganizes king's ar
my, 50.
Byzantium, relation of church
and state in, xxv.
Cabanis, his essay on public
festivals, 170.
Cacault, appointed resident
plenipotentiary to Rome, 261 ;
his suggestion to the Pope,
262.
'Caen, riot by the women of,
167.
'Cahier-Gervilk, his report on
the king's veto, 187.
'Calas, his torture and death, 27.
•'Calas sisters in Voltaire's fu
neral procession, 175.
Calendar, adoption of revolu
tionary, 197.
7Calonne, tolerance declared
(during 'his ministry, 30, 43.

Calvin, John, his interpretation
of Augustine, 12.
Calvinism, nature of its protest,
xxviii.
Cambon, 115; reports to the
Convention on ecclesiastical
expenses, 213.
Camus, his influence on the
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74,
75 ; in the debate on church
property, 91, 92; reputed au
thor of Civil Constitution of
the Clergy, 126, 127, 141 ; ref
utation of the Pope's brief —
his radicalism, 154, 157.
Carnot, desires a new consti
tution, 229.
Caselli, sent to Paris as envoy
by Pius VII, 257.
de Castellane, pleads for reli
gious liberty, 80.
Catherine of Russia, harbors
Jesuits, 21.
Catholicism menaced by the
Assembly, 125.
Champ de Mars riot, 181.
Charity, maladministration of
church funds, 87 ; considered
by the Ecclesiastical Com
mittee, no.
Charles the Great, his epochal
importance, xxvi.
Chasset, his plan for abolition
of tithes, 71, 72, 74, 92.
Chaumette, celebrates the re
turn to reason, 197; in the
festival at Notre Dame, 198.
Chemin, his promulgation of
Theophilanthropy, 236.
Chenier, Andre, demands tol
eration for priests, 184.
Chenier, Marie Joseph, favors
national festivals, 197 ; sup
ports Theophilanthropy, 236.
Choiseul, favors Voltaire, 21 ;
disgraced by Du Barry, 22.
Christianity, place in history,
xxv; its relation to temporal
power, xxvi.
Church and state, their alli
ance in France, 19; principles

INDEX

32S

of their union, 35 ; their re
lation in France, England,
and America respectively, 122,
123.
Church estates redeemed from
feudalism, 71.
Civil Constitution of the Cler
gy, the law enacted, 125 ; its
provisions, 128, 129; violent
antagonism aroused, 164 ; dis
cussed by the Legislative,
165 ; resisted throughout
France, 175 ; text, 295.
Claviere, moderate revolution
ary, 115.
Clement XIII, his reactionary
temper, 21.
Clement XIV, abolishes Jesuit
society at Rome, 21.
Clermont, Bishop of. See de
Bonal.
Cloots, his celebration on June
19, 1790, 172.
Collot d'Herbois, his renown
in 1783, 196.
Commendams, bestowed on un
worthy nobks, 24.
Concordat, meaning of the
term, xxv ; that of Bologna,
20; that of 1801, 62, 250, 309;
reasons for it, 250-255 ; sev
enth draft accepted by Con
salvi, 271 ; charges of fraud on
the day set for signing, 272 ;
final revision and signing,
273 ; ratification and final
execution, 274; its effect in
France up to the present,
281 ; that of 1803, 277 ; those
between German States and
the papacy, 279.
Condorcet, supports edict of
tolerance, 30; as a leader of
the burghers, 148.
Consalvi, sent to Paris by Pius
VII — his negotiations, 262,
263 ; problems he had to meet,
268; his struggle with Ber
nier, 269 ; charges fraud when
about to sign Concordat, 272 ;
comes near to rupture with

Bonaparte, but finally signs,
273-
Conseils superieurs, created, 43.
Constance, Council of, its re
sults as regarded by the Gal-
licans, 10.
Constitution or bull Unigeni-
tus — its effect in France, 14.
Constitution of the year VIII,
247.
Consulate, the provisional, its
beginnings and early activity,
246.
Convents, broken up, 104, 180.
Corneille, opposed to monarchy,
13.
Couthon, his reputation in 1793,
196.
Crusades, their epochal impor
tance, xxvi.
Dalberg, becomes primate of
Germany, 278.
Danton and the Champ de
Mars riot, 181 ; his dictator
ship, 192; his renown in 1793,
196.
David, his association with
Theophilanthropy, 237.
"Days," their nature, 225, 226.
Decadi celebrations, 25 ; legis
lation concerning them re
pealed, 246.
Declaration of Rights, 69; de
bated in the Assembly, 77, 78.
Deism, Voltaire's, 5.
Delaunay, surrenders the Bas
tille, 50.
Descartes, relations of science
and religion discussed by, 4.
Desmoulins, Camille, his speech
at the Palais Royal, 49, 51 ; in
the Champ de Mars riot, 181.
Directory, its inauguration, 220 ;
falls into discredit, 228; its
end, 245.
Dol, Bishop of, leads royalist
expedition from England, 217.
Domat, family opposed to ab
solutism of church and state,
43-

326

INDEX

Du Barry, her reactionary in
fluence, 21.
Du Bourg-Miroudot takes civil
oath, 142 ; assists at installa
tion of Expilly, 143.
Dupont de Nemours, his eco
nomic propositions, 86; sup
ports Theophilanthropy, 236.
Durand-Maillane, placed on the
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74.
"Eccksia Dei," Bull, 274.
Ecclesiastical Committee, its
formation, 73.
Edict of tolerance of 1787, 30.
Eligibility for office, determined
by the Assembly, 113 ; scheme
opposed by the communes,
- JI3-
Emery, his attitude toward the
political oath, 193 ; his trial.
194; takes the Convention
oath, 205 ; his work during
the Terror, 206; pleads for
submission to the oath of
September, 1795, 216; views
on new laws against non-
juring priests, 218.
Emigration, the, 80.
Encyclopedia, of d'Akmbert
and Diderot, 6.
English Revolution contrasted
with French, 189, 190.
Erasmus, discredits old monas
tic orders, 12.
Estates of the realm, idea of
calling, suggested by the
clergy, 15, 16. See States-
General.
Expilly, installed as first consti
tutional bishop, 143.
Fauchet, becomes president of a
Jacobin club, 146; his radi
calism, 154; elected to the
Legislative, 163 ; denounces
Ultramontane clergy, 166 ;
converted back to orthodoxy,
206.
Festival of Federation, 171.

Festivals, their revival, 169,
170, 171.
Fenelon, as a Gallican, 10.
Feudalism, beginning of its
downfall, xxvii ; voluntarily
abolished by the nobility in
France, 58, 67.
Financial corruption of the
church, 23.
Fouche, one of the Thermi-
dorians, 208; his assertions
to Pius VII, 262.
France, Catholicism as there
represented, xxviii; its con
dition in 1796, 233.
Francis, Emperor of Austria,
convenes cardinals to elect a
successor to Pius VI, 256;
admits loss of his power, 267.
Francis I (the Bologna Con
cordat), 20.
Frederick the Great, harbors
Jesuits, 21.
Frederick William of Prussia,
relations with Louis XVI,
141, 183.
Freethinkers, 249; liberty of
conscience given them by the
Concordat, 251.
Freron, one of the Thermidori-
ans, 208.
Gallicanism, origin of the move
ment and influence on the
Roman Church in 1786, 9, 10;
its connection with Angli
canism, 13, 14.
Garat, in the debate on clerical
property, 92.
Gensonne, advocates repeal of
the Civil Constitution, 167.
Gerle, Dom, placed on Eccle
siastical Committee, 74, 77;
his motion on church property
in the Assembly, 101, 102;
denounces Montesquiou, 106 ;
withdraws his motion, 108;
his connection with Theot,
199-
Gobel, takes civil oath, 142 ; as
sists at installation of Ex-

INDEX

327

pilly and other bishops, 143;
his character, 153; declares
himself a radical, 154; re
nounces Christianity, 197.
Goethe, his opinion on the bat
tle of Valmy, 192.
Gorges-Noires, Society of, its
activities, 38.
Gouttes, in the debate on church
property, 92.
Grand Council, its powers lim
ited by the Paris parlement,
IS-
Grandes remontrances, made by
the parlements, 16.
Grandin, on Ecclesiastical Com
mittee, 74.
Gregoire, 71, 74, 75, 76, 116;
justification of civil oath for
the clergy, 140 ; his character,
145, !53 ; as a leader among
the burghers, 148; checks
apostasy, 197 ; remains faith
ful to constitutionality, 206,
207; his speech for religious
liberty, 210 ; efforts to reor
ganize Gallican Church, 232,
233 ; denounces decrees for
religious observance of De-
cadis — his influence on Bona
parte and the Concordat, 259,
260.
Gregory XVI, vain efforts
to suppress "Little Church"
schism, 274.
Hebert, 61 ; his desire to de-
christianize France, 157; the
cult of Reason, 198.
Hildebrand, impossible to re
vive his claims, 21.
Hobbes, influence of his philos
ophy, 4.
Hoche, suppresses Quiberon ex
pedition, 217.
Holland, its emancipation,
xxviii.
Hospitals, their shocking condi
tion before the Revolution, 88.
Hotman, Francis, originator of
social contract theory, 4.

Humanity, in the appeals of
Voltaire and Rousseau, 3.
Huppes-Rouges, Society of, its
activities, 38.
Ichon, accuses nonjuror priests
of treason, 187.
Index, reply to the, 3.
Inf&me, meaning of the term
in Voltaire's writings, 7;
privilege of corrupt church,
22; threefold principle of
union between church and
state, 35 ; classical movement,
38; other connections, 81, 95,
132.
Innocent XI, contests with
Louis XIV, 9, 20, 55.
Inquisition, attitude of Jesuits
toward it, 12.
Isnard, demands that nonjuring
priests be considered traitors,
185; his argument for their
banishment, 186.
Jallet, in the debate on tithes,
71-
Jansen, his "Augustinus," 12.
Jansenism of the Roman
Church in 1786, 9 ; its nature,
n; its fall, 21; struggle of
its adherents with parochial
clergy, 54; takes its revenge
by Civil Constitution of the
Clergy, 145.
Jean-Bon, ardent republican
and Protestant, 115.
de Jesse, proposes confiscation
of silver plate belonging to
the church, 85.
Jesuits, reply to, 3 ; embittered
against other factions, 9 ; their
influence in the declining
monarchy, 10 ; their adher
ence to the doctrines of Pe-
lagius, n; their fall, 20.
Jews, their character and his
tory in France, 116, 117; as
affected by Bonaparte's "or
ganic laws," 277.

328

INDEX

Johannot, moderate revolution
ary and Protestant, 115.
Jordan, Camille, his great ora
tion, 229.
Jorente of Orleans, takes civil
oath, 142.
Jourdan, defeat of his army,
228.
de Juigne, his flight, 80; his
charity, 87.
Juliet, in the debate on church
property, 92.
Kleb^r, in Vendee, 207.
Labarre, tortured and killed,
28, 29.
Laborde, in debate on the Dec
laration of Rights, 78 ; pleads
for religious liberty, 80.
Labrousse, Suzanne, her influ
ence on Dom Gerle, 77.
La Coste, demands reform of
ecclesiasticism, 72.
Lafayette, speech on devotion
of his guards, 108; protects
worship of nonjurors, 147;
advocates religious liberty,
160.
Lafonte de Savines, takes civil
oath, 142; becomes orthodox,
206.
Lalande, placed on the Eccle
siastical Committee, 74.
de Lameth, Alexandre, demands
state ownership of church
property, 72.
Lamoignon, 43.
Lamourette, 206.
Lanjuinais, 71, 72, 74, 157, 216.
Lanterne, La, 51.
Lapoule, in the debate on tithes,
71-
La Revelliere-Lepeaux, his
withdrawal from the Direc
tory, 228 ; high priest of The
ophilanthropy, 237.
Lasource, Protestant, moder
ate revolutionary, 115.
Latins, critical spirit among
them, 3.

Latuque, Bernard de, his mo
tion for religious tolerance,
116.
Le Coz, 145.
Legislative Assembly, its start,
160 ; receives reports on riots,
162; its composition, 163;
Girondin influence, 182; de
clares its permanent author
ity, 188; sanctions sacking of
the Tuileries and abolishes
religious orders, 191 ; takes
their property, 191 ; its virtual
abdication, 192; takes keep
ing of vital statistics from
the clergy, 192.
Legrand, his report on eccle
siastical matters and his prop
osition, 180.
Le Maitre, 43.
Leo X (the Bologna Concor
dat), 20.
Leo XII, vain efforts to sup
press "Little Church" schism,
274.
Leo XIII, his letter heals "Lit
tle Church" schism, 274.
Letellier, his work in the bull
"Unigenitus," 14.
Levoyer de Boutigny, views on
church and state, 133.
Liberty, French concept of, 40.
Life Guards banquet, its ef
fects, 79.
Lindet, 196.
Locke, 4.
Lombard-Lachaux, 115.
de la Losere, 115.
Louis XIV, difficulties with the
papacy, 9, 20, 55.
Louis XV, torture during his
reign, 30.
Louis XVI, abatement of tor
ture in his reign, 30 ; forced
from Versailles to Paris, 79,
90 ; his attitude toward church
and state, 108; yields as to
Civil Constitution of the
Clergy, 131 ; motives for as
senting to civil oath for the
clergy, 139, 140; plans flight,

INDEX

329

I41 ; effect of his treachery,
144; charged with confiding
in refractory priests, 144, 147 ;
alienates the moderate liber
als, 148; his hypocrisy, 149,
150; his flight to Varennes
and its effects, 154, 158; pow
er of the Jesuits over him,
158; his message on leaving,
159; speech before the legis
lature, October sixth, 181 ;
desire for his liberation by
royalists, 182 ; his treason,
183 ; suspicion aroused to
ward him, 183; appalled by
Avignon riots, vetoes decree
against nonjuring priests,
184; vetoes decree of Legis
lative against nonjurors, 185;
likewise that making itself
permanent, 188 ; desire of Ul
tramontanes for his flight,
188; his palace stoned and
himself and his family de
posed and imprisoned, 190,
191 ; his execution, 193.
Louis XVIII, xvi; title as
sumed by Comte de Provence,
227.
Lugon, Bishop of. See de
Mercy.
Luneville, Peace of, 267.
Lyons massacre, 226.
Mably, Abbe, embraces doc
trines of Rousseau, 5 ; his
monarchical convictions, 44.
de Maistre, testifies as to im
morality of the clergy, 41.
Malesherbes, supports edict of
tolerance, 30; opposition to
absolutism in church and
state, 43. , • ,
Malouet, his speech on clerical
property, 92, 93, 95, 285; his
indignation at placards, 141 ;
plans with Mirabeau to avert
revolution, 153- , , ,.
Marat, opposes Assembly s eli
gibility rules, 113; Ws reli
gion, 116; his influence on

the burghers, 148; his suspi
cions of Louis, 183 ; his re
nown in 1793, 196.
Marbceuf, views on liberty of
conscience, 59.
Marolks, becomes president of
a Jacobin club, 146.
Marseilles massacre, 227.
Martinique, money scandals of
Jesuits in, 20.
Massillon, as a Gallican, 10 ; his
arraignment of the monks,
87-
Mattei, mediator between Bona
parte and Pius VI, 241.
Maury, in the debate on church
property, 91 ; in the debate
on the civil oath for the cler
gy, 136; his attitude toward
the political oath, 193.
de Mercy, Charles, resists Civil
Constitution of the Clergy,
164,
Merlin, his withdrawal from
the Directory, 228.
Mirabeau, his testimony as to
immorality of the clergy, 41 ;
other connections, 61, 70, 71,
78, 80; agitates for seculari
zation of church property, 90,
91, 93, 102, 107, 108, 116, 132;
reply to the Bishop of Cler
mont, 136, 141, 150; his death,
J53. . ,
Mirabeau, the younger, in the
debate on the Declaration of
Rights, 77.
Monasteries, resist constitu
tional bishops, 144 ; their sup
pression, 180.
Monceau, in Vendee, 207.
Montalembert, testimony as to
immorality of the clergy, 41.
Montault, converted to ortho
doxy, 206.
Montesquiou, his support of
royalty, 44, 72, 74. i°5; re
signs presidency of Assem
bly, 106.
Morris, Gouverneur, his obser
vations at court, 149.

33Q

INDEX

de Moy, advocates repeal of
the Civil Constitution, 167;
his plea for disestablishment
of the church, 187.
Nantes, Frangois de, argues
that religious agitators are all
seditious, 186.
Napoleon. See Bonaparte.
National Convention, its reli
gious attitude, 193 ; the po
litical oath demanded, 193 ;
execution of the king, 193 ;
its atrocities, 194-6; attempts
to defend it, 195 ; prestige of
its armies, 1795-8, 227.
Navarre, 219.
Necker, his plan of reform, 43 ;
his fall, 49, 50, 57, 73.
New knowledge, its nature, 6.
Noailles, his protection of Jan
senists, 13.
Orders, religious, abolished,
191..
Organic articles of the Catholic
cult, 275, 276, 312.
D'Ormesson, on Ecclesiastical
Committee, 74.
Otto, the Great, his epochal im
portance, xxvi.
Palais Royal Club, 49.
Papacy, failure to secure tem
poral power, xxvii ; deprived
of power by Civil Constitu
tion of the Clergy, 128; its
historical position in France,
132, 133-
Paper money, first issue, 104.
Parens, renounces Christianity,
197-
Parlement, the Paris, its oppo
sition to power of crown and
church, 14, 15 ; abolished and
reestablished, 22.
Parlements, the provincial, fol
low the lead of that of Paris,
JS-
Parochial clergy, their griev

ances and high character, 42 ;
protest against higher clergy,
54-
Pascal, his opposition to royal
authority, 13.
Pastoret, 229.
Paulmier, Frangois, influence of
his pamphlet, 94.
Pauperism, considered by Ec
clesiastical Committee, in.
Pelagius, his doctrines followed
by the Jesuits, n.
Philip Augustus, 21.
Physiocrats, their creed, 7.
Pius VI, consulted by the king
as to the Civil Constitution
of the Clergy, 130; his fatal
mistakes in negotiations with
the Assembly, 134; his so-
called reply to Civil Consti
tution of the Clergy, 152;
denounces constitutional bish
ops. !53 ; identifies himself
with monarchy, 168; his sup
port of French orthodox
church, 187; his attitude to
ward the political oath, 194;
refuses to assist in reorgani
zation of the Gallican Church.
234; his position in France,
235 ; armistice of Bologna
and treaty of Tolentino, 241 ;
his deportation to Frange and
his death, 242; interment of
his remains, 246.
Pius VII, 250 ; his election and
accession, 256; sends envoys
to confer with Bonaparte.
257 ; his resistance to Bona
parte, 268; gives effect to
provisions of the Concordat,
275 ; his indignation at effect
given to organic laws, 276;
breach with Napoleon, 277;
his captivity, 278, 279.
Pluralism, 56.
Pombal, banishes the Jesuits
from Portugal, 20.
Pompadour, favors Voltaire, 21.
Pontchartrain, his connection
with Jansenism, 13.

INDEX

33i

Portalis, pleads for toleration,
220; desires a new constitu
tion, 229.
Port Royal, 13.
Portugal, Inquisition estab
lished by the Jesuits, 12;
Jesuits banished, 20.
Press, professional writers for
the, 5.
Priests, their troubles under
Civil Constitution of the
Clergy begin, 132.
Private judgment, meaning of
term in Reformation, 3.
Property of church, declared at
the disposal of the nation,
109.
Protestantism, embitterment of,
against Catholic factions in
1786, 9; its adherents hated
by the rest of the French,
37 ; emancipation and rise of
its supporters, 105 ; its vicis
situdes and final emancipa
tion in France, 114-117; be
comes almost extinct in
France, 239; Bonaparte's or
ganic laws, 276, 277; effect
throughout Europe of the
breach between Napoleon
and Pius VII, 279.
Provence, Comte de, summoned
to reenter France, 181 ; as
sumes title of Louis XVIII,
227.
Quesnay, his doctrines given in
the Encyclopedia, 6.
Rabaud, Paul, death of, 239.
Rabaud St. Etienne, formulates
edict of tolerance, 30; in the
Assembly, 80; made chair
man, 105 ; organizes Protes
tant congregation, 115; desire
to erastianize France, 157.
Rastatt, Congress of, treat
ment of French plenipoten
tiaries, 228.
Reason, adopted as the divin

ity of France — the festival at
Notre Dame and its effects,
198.
Reformation, results in various
countries contrasted, xxviii.
Religious liberty, decreed, 211.
Representative government, its
religious aspect in France,
121, 122.
Republicanism, idea of the term
as first used in France, 148.
Restoration, Concordat under
the, 280.
Retz, Cardinal de, supported by
the Jansenists, 13.
Revolution, American, influ
ence of philosophy on, 4.
Revolution, English, influence
of Locke, 4.
Revolution, French, its nature,
xxi ; its inception, xxii, xxiii ;
influence of Jansenism, 13 ;
religious zeal in early stages,
52.
Roanne massacre, 226.
Robert, influence of his pam
phlet, 148.
Robespierre, his Rousseauism,
116; on Civil Constitution of
the Clergy, 132; a leader of
the burghers, 148; desires to
avert war, 182 ; his suspicions
of Louis, 183 ; his renown in
1793, !9S ; seeks to restore
cult of the Supreme Being,
199; discredited by discov
eries, 199, 200; his final fall,
200; abolishes necessity of
written proofs before the
Revolutionary tribunal, 208;
disavowed by Jacobin Club,
209.
La Rochefoucauld, opposed to
monarchy, 13 ; his motion on
church property, 108.
Rohan, Cardinal, effect of the
affair of the diamond neck
lace, 41 ; his flight, 152.
Romanism, its union of secular
and religious power attacked
by Voltaire, 8.

332

INDEX

Rome, theory of the two pow
ers, xxvii.
Rousseau, nature of his appeal,
3 ; use of social contract the
ory, 4; his philosophy, 5, 44,
69, 124.
Rousseauism, 168; the father
land cult, 184.
Royer-Collard, 229; effects of
his speech, 230; proclaims
necessity of an agreement
with the papacy, 249.
Rozet, his indictment of the
church, 36.
St. Affrique, Bernard de, 115.
Saint Andre, 115.
de St. Just, his influence on the
Ecclesiastical Committee, 74.
Saint-Pierre, supports Theo
philanthropy, 236-237.
Salmeron, views on sover
eignty, 219.
Schism in French church
wrought by Civil Constitu
tion of the Clergy, 128.
de Sevigne, Madame, her op
position to royal authority, 13.
Sieyes, 71, in; his views on
human rights, 112; his influ
ence on Bonaparte, 247.
Simeon, his desire for a new
constitution, 229.
Sirven, his persecution and
murder, 28.
Spina, sent as envoy to Paris
by Pius VII, 257; objects to
French proposals, 259, 260.
Spinoza, nature of his philos
ophy, 4.
States-General, convoked, 30 ;
contest with the clergy, 54.
Suarez, his views on sover
eignty, 219.
Talleyrand, 72 ; advocates con
fiscation of clerical property,
89, 95, 102; takes civil oath,
142; installs Expilly, 143; his
character, 153; pleads for

liberty of conscience, 154;
his views on public festivals,
170; says mass on July four
teenth, 171 ; writes plea of
Paris Directorate for toler
ance, 187; appointed by Bon
aparte to confer with papal
envoys, 257; his arguments
with them, 260.
Tallien, 208.
Tarascon massacre, 226.
Tennis Court Oath, 68.
Terror, its effects on sincere
Christians, 203-205.
Teutons, critical spirit among
them, 3.
Theism, binds the Reformed
Church to Catholicism, 4.
Themines of Blois, inconsis
tency of his position on
church privileges, 59.
Theophilanthropy, its inception,
232; its origin, nature, and
spread, 236, 237, 238; its ef
fect on social status and busi
ness, 246.
Theot, Catherine, her influence
on Dom Gerle, 77.
Thibaudeau, 208.
de Thionville, 208.
Third Estate of 1789, its com
position, 43.
Thirty Years' War, xxviii.
Thouret, in the debate on
clerical property, 92.
Tithes, 62, 71 ; abolished, 72,
88.
Tolentino, Treaty of, 241.
Torne, protests against enforce
ment of the civil oath, 166.
Toulon, fight between laborers
and royalist army, 226.
Treguier, Bishop of, arraigned
for treason, 133.
Treilhard, on Ecclesiastical
Committee, 74; his speech on
clerical property, 102-104.
Trent, Council of, 3.
Turgot, his doctrines in the
Encyclopedia, 6; agitates for
the edict of tolerance, 30 ; op-

INDEX

333

posed to absolutism of com
bined church and state, 43.
"Unigenitus," Bull, 14.
Valmy, battle of, 192.
Vaneau, placed on the Eccle
siastical Committee, 74.
Venaissin, demands incorpora
tion in France, 150.
Vendee, rebellion in, 161.
Verdun, besieged, 191.
Villaincourt, Abbess of, guar
dian of Labarre, 29.

Villar, while bishop, becomes
president of a Jacobin club,
146.
Villette family in Voltaire's fu
neral procession, 175.
Voidel, proposes constitutional
oath for the clergy, 135.
Voltaire, nature of his appeal.
3 ; his use of the term "Infa
mous," 7, 20, 21, 22, 26, 28.
30, 38, 44, 61 ; his remains in
the Pantheon, 172-6.
Voulland, 115.
White Terror, 226, 227.

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