FRANCE
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FRANCE
"Civil Constitution of the Clergy" was a more serious
interference with the life of French Catholicism, and it
was drawn up at the instigation of Jansenist lawyers.
Without referring to the pope, it set up a new division
into dioceses, gave the voters, no matter who they
might be, a right to nominate parish priests and
bishops, ordered metropolitans to take charge of the
canonical institution of their suffragans, and forbade
the bishops to seek a Bull of confirmation in office
from Rome. The Constituent Assembly required all
priests to swear to obey this constitution, which re-
ceived the unwilling sanction of Louis XVI, 26 Decem-
ber, 1790, and was condemned by Pius VI. By Briefs
dated 10 March and 13 .\pril. Pope Pius VI forbade
the priests to take the oath, and the majority obeyed
him. Against these " unsworn " (insermentes) or " re-
fractory" priests a period of persecution soon began.
The Legislative Assembly (1 October, 1791-21 Sep-
tember, 1792), while it prepared the way for the
republic which both the great parties (the Mountain
and the Girondists) equally
wished, only aggravated the
religious difficulty. On 29
November, 1791, it decreed
that those priests who had not
accepted the "Civil Constitu-
tion " would be required within
a week to swear allegiance to
the nation, to the law, and to
the king, under pain of having
their allowances stopped and of
being held as suspects. The
king refused to approve this,
and (26 August, 1792) it de-
creed that all refractory priests
should leave France under pain
of ten years' imprisonment or
transportation to Guiana.
The Convention (21 Septem- ber, 1792-26 October, 1795), which proclaimed the Republic and caused Louis XVI to be executed (21 January, 1793), followed a very tortuous policy towards religion. As early as 13 November, 1792, Cambon, in the name of the Financial Com- mittee, announced to the Con- vention that he would speedily submit a scheme of general re- form including the suppression of the appropriation for religious worship, which, he asserted, "cost the republic 100,000,000 livres annually ". The Jacobins opposed this scheme as premature, and Robespierre declared it derogatory to public morality. During the first eight months of its existence the policy of the Con- vention was to maintain the "Civil Constitution" and to increase the penalties against "refractory" priests who were suspected of complicity in the Vendue rising. A decree dated 18 March, 1793, punished with death all compromised priests. It no longer aimed at refractory priests only, but any ecclesiastic accused of disloyalty {incivisme) by any six citizens became liable to transportation. In the eyes of the Revolution there were no longer good priests and bad priests; for the sans-culottes every priest was a suspect.
Then, from the provinces, stirred up by the propa- ganda of Andr6 Dumont, Chaumette, and Fouchf, there began the movement of dechristianization. The constitutional bishop, Gobel, abdicated in November, 1793, together with his vicars-general. At the feast of Liberty which took place in Notre-Dame on 10 Novem- ber an altar was set up to the Goddess of Reason, and the church of Our Lady became the temple of that goddess. Some days after this a deputation attired in priestly vestments, in mockery of Catholic worship. paraded before the Convention. The Commune of
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Paris, on 24 November, 1793, with Chaumette as its
spokesman, demanded the closing of all clmrches.
But the Committee of Public Safety was in favour of
temporizing, to avoid frightening the populace and
scandalizing Europe. On 21 November, 1793, Robes-
pierre, speaking from the Jacobin tribune of the Con-
vention, protcstetl against the violence of the dechris-
tianizing party, and in December the Committee of
Public Safety induced the Convention to pass a decree
assuring liberty of worship, and forbidding the closing
of the Catholic churches. Everywhere throughout the
provinces civil war was breaking out between the
peasants, who clung to their faith and religion, and the
fanatics of the Revolution, who, in the name of patriot-
ism threatened, as they said, by the priests, were
overturning the altars. According to the locality in
which they happened to be, the propagandists either
encouraged or hindered this violence against religion;
but even in the very bitterest days of the Terror there
was never a moment when Catholic worship was sup-
pressed throughout France.
When Robespierre had sent the partisans of Hubert and of Danton to the scaffold, he at- tempted to set up in France what he called la religion de I'Etre Supreme. Liberty of conscience was suppressed, but atheism wasalso a crime. Quot- ing the words of Rousseau about the indispensable dog- mas, Robespierre had himself acclaimed as a religious leader, a pontiff, and a dictator; and the worship of the Eire Supreme was held up by his supporters as the religious embodiment of patriotism. But after the 9th of Thermidor Cambon proposed once more the principle of sep- aration between Church and State, and it was decided that henceforth the Republic would not pay the expenses of any form of worship (18 Septem- ber, 1794). The Convention next voted the laioization of the primary schools, and the establishment, at intervals of ten days, of feasts called jHes decadaires. When Bishop Gregoire in a speech ven- tured to hope that Catholicism would some day spring up anew, the Convention protested. Nevertheless the people in the provinces were anxious that the clergy should resume their functions, and "constitutional" priests, less in danger than others, rebuilt the altars here and there throughout the country. In February, 1795, Boissy-d'Anglas carried a measure of religious liberty, and the very next day Mass was said in all the chapels of Paris. On Easter Sunday, 1795, in the same city which a few months before had applauded the worship of Reason, almost every shop closed its doors. In May, 1795, the Convention restored the churches for worship, on condition that the pastors should sub- mit to the laws of the State; in September, 1795, less than a month before its dissolution, it regulated lib- erty of worship by a police law, and enacted severe penalties against priests liable to transportation or imprisonment who should venture back on French soil. The Directory (27 October, 1795-9 Novemljer, 1799), which succeeded the Convention, imposed on all religious ministers (Fructidor, Year V) the obliga- tion of swearing hatred to royalty and anarchy. A certain number of " papist" priests took the oath and the "papist" religion was thus established here and there, though it continued to be disturbed by the inces- sant arbitrary acts of interference on the part of the
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