History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. M. Mignet
the sacrifice would be for the advantage of those who were oppressed by them. Accordingly, after declaring they were redeemable, on the night of the 4th of August, they were suppressed on the 11th, without providing any equivalent. The clergy opposed the measure at first, but afterwards had the good sense to consent. The archbishop of Paris gave up tithes in the name of all his brethren, and by this act of prudence he showed himself faithful to the line of conduct adopted by the privileged classes on the night of the 4th of August; but this was the extent of his sacrifices.
A short time after, the debate respecting the possession of ecclesiastical property began. Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed to the clergy that they should renounce it in favour of the nation, which would employ it in defraying the expenses of worship, and liquidating its debt. He proved the justice and propriety of this measure; and he showed the great advantages which would accrue to the state. The property of the clergy amounted to several thousand millions of francs. After paying its debts, providing for the ecclesiastical services and that of hospitals, and the endowment of its ministers, sufficient would still remain to extinguish the public debt, whether permanent or annuities, and to reimburse the money paid for judicial offices. The clergy rose against this proposition. The discussion became very animated; and it was decided, in spite of their resistance, that they were not proprietors, but simple depositaries of the wealth that the piety of kings and of the faithful had devoted to religion, and that the nation, on providing for the service of public worship, had a right to recall such property. The decree which placed it at its disposal was passed on the 2nd of December, 1789.
From that moment the hatred of the clergy to the revolution broke out. At the commencement of the states-general it had been less intractable than the nobility, in order to preserve its riches; it now showed itself as opposed as they to the new régime, of which it became the most tenacious and furious foe. Yet, as the decree placed ecclesiastical property at the disposal of the nation, without, as yet, displacing it, it did not break out into opposition at once. The administration was still confided to it, and it hoped that the possessions of the church might serve as a mortgage for the debt, but would not be sold.
It was, indeed, difficult to effect the sale, which, however, could not be delayed, the treasury only subsisting on anticipations, and the exchequer, which supplied it with bills, beginning to lose all credit on account of the number it had issued.
They obtained their end, and proceeded with the new financial organisation in the following manner: The necessities of this and the following year required a sale of this property to the amount of four hundred millions of francs; to facilitate it, the corporation of Paris made considerable subscriptions, and the municipalities of the kingdom followed the example of Paris. They were to return to the treasury the equivalent of the property they received from the state to sell to private individuals; but they wanted money, and they could not deliver the amount since they had not yet met with purchasers. What was to be done? They supplied municipal notes intended to reimburse the public creditors, until they should acquire the funds necessary for withdrawing the notes. Once arrived thus far, they saw that, instead of municipal notes, it would be better to create exchequer bills, which would have a compulsory circulation, and answer the purpose of specie: this was simplifying the operation by generalising it. In this way the assignats had their origin.
This invention was of great utility to the revolution, and alone secured the sale of ecclesiastical property. The assignats, which were a means of payment for the state, became a pledge to the creditors. The latter by receiving them were not obliged to accept payment in land for what they had furnished in money. But sooner or later the assignats would fall into the hands of men disposed to realise them, and then they were to be destroyed at the same time that they ceased to be a pledge. In order that they might fulfil their design, their forced circulation was required; to render them safe, the quantity was limited to the value of the property proposed for sale; and that they might not fall by too sudden a change, they were made to bear interest. The assembly, from the moment of their issue, wished to give them all the consistency of money. It was hoped that specie concealed by distrust would immediately re-appear, and that the assignats would enter into competition with it. Mortgage made them quite as sure, and interest made them more profitable; but this interest, which was attended with much inconvenience, disappeared after the first issue. Such was the origin of the paper money issued under so much necessity, and with so much prudence, which enabled the revolution to accomplish such great things, and which was brought into discredit by causes that belonged less to its nature than to the subsequent use made of it.
When the clergy saw by a decree of the 29th of December the administration of church property transferred to the municipalities, the sale they were about to make of it to the value of four hundred millions of francs, and the creation of a paper money calculated to facilitate this spoliation, and render it definitive, it left nothing undone to secure the intervention of God in the cause of its wealth. It made a last attempt: it offered to realize in its own name the loan of four hundred millions of francs, which was rejected, because otherwise, after having decided that it was not the proprietor of church property, it would thus have again been admitted to be so. It then sought every means of impeding the operations of the municipalities. In the south, it raised catholics against protestants; in the pulpit, it alarmed consciences; in the confessional, it treated sales as sacrilegious, and in the tribune it strove to render the sentiments of the assembly suspected. It excited as much as possible religious questions for the purpose of compromising the assembly, and confounding the cause of its own interest with that of religion. The abuses and inutility of monastic vows were at this period admitted by every one, even by the clergy. At their abolition on the 13th of February, 1790, the bishop of Nancy proposed incidentally and perfidiously that the catholic religion alone should have a public worship. The assembly were indignant at the motives that suggested such a proposition, and it was abandoned. But the same motion was again brought forward in another sitting, and after stormy debates the assembly declared that from respect to the Supreme Being and the catholic religion, the only one supported at the expense of the state, it conceived it ought not to decide upon the question submitted to it.
Such was the disposition of the clergy, when, in the months of June and July, 1790, the assembly turned its attention to its internal organization. The clergy waited with impatience for this opportunity of exciting a schism. This project, the adoption of which caused so much evil, went to re-establish the church on its ancient basis, and to restore the purity of its doctrine; it was not the work of philosophers, but of austere Christians, who wished to support religion by the state, and to make them concur mutually in promoting its happiness. The reduction of bishoprics to the same number as the departments, the conformity of the ecclesiastical circumscription with the civil circumscription, the nomination of bishops by electors, who also chose deputies and administrators, the suppression of chapters, and the substitution of vicars for canons, were the chief features of this plan; there was nothing in it that attacked the dogmas or worship of the church. For a long time the bishops and other ecclesiastics had been nominated by the people; as for diocesan limits, the operation was purely material, and in no respect religious. It moreover generously provided for the support of the members of the church, and if the high dignitaries saw their revenues reduced, the curés, who formed the most numerous portion, had theirs augmented.
But a pretext was wanting, and the civil constitution of the clergy was eagerly seized upon. From the outset of the discussion, the archbishop of Aix protested against the principles of the ecclesiastical committee. In his opinion, the appointment or suspension of bishops by civil authority was opposed to discipline; and when the decree was put to the vote, the bishop of Clermont recapitulated the principles advanced by the archbishop of Aix, and left the hall at the head of all the dissentient members. The decree passed, but the clergy declared war against the revolution. From that moment it leagued more closely with the dissentient nobility. Equally reduced to the common condition, the two privileged classes employed all their means to stop the progress of reform.
The departments were scarcely formed when agents were sent by them to assemble the electors, and try new nominations. They did not hope to obtain a favourable choice, but aimed at fomenting divisions between the assembly and the departments. This project was denounced from the tribune, and failed as soon as it was made known. Its authors then went to work in another way. The period allotted to the deputies of the states-general had expired,