The argument with which the Bishop introduced the motion here alluded to has been so often repeated since the period to which I am referring, and has so influenced the condition of the clergy throughout a great portion of Europe, that it cannot be read without interest. “The State,” said M. de Talleyrand, “has been for a long time struggling with the most urgent wants. This is known to all of us. Some adequate means must be found to supply those wants. All ordinary sources are exhausted. The people are ground down. The slightest additional impost would be justly insupportable to them. Such a thing is not to be thought of. Extraordinary means for supplying the necessities of the State have been resorted to: but these were destined to the extraordinary wants of this year. Extraordinary resources of some kind are now wanted for the future; without them, order cannot be established. There is one such resource, immense and decisive: and which, in my opinion (or otherwise I should reject it), can be made compatible with the strictest respect for property. I mean the landed estate of the church.
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“Already a great operation with regard to this estate is inevitable, in order to provide suitably for those whom the relinquishment of tithes has left destitute.
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“I think it unnecessary to discuss at length the question of church property. What appears to me certain is, that the clergy is not a proprietor like other proprietors, inasmuch as that the property which it enjoys (and of which it cannot dispose) was given to it—not for its own benefit, but for the performance of duties which are to benefit the community. What appears to me also certain is, that the nation, exercising an almost unlimited power over all the bodies within its bosom, possesses—not the right to destroy the whole body of the clergy, because that body is required for the service of religion—but the right to destroy any particular aggregations of such body whenever they are either prejudicial or simply useless; and if the State possesses this right over the existence of prejudicial or useless aggregations of the clergy, it evidently possesses a similar right over the property of such aggregations.
“It appears to me also clear that as the nation is bound to see that the purpose for which foundations or endowments were made is fulfilled, and that those who endowed the church meant that the clergy should perform certain functions: so, if there be any benefices where such functions are not performed, the nation has a right to suppress those benefices, and to grant the funds, therefrom derived, to any members of the clergy who can employ them according to the object with which they were given.
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“But although it is just to destroy aggregations of the clergy which are either prejudicial or useless, and to confiscate their property—although it is just to suppress benefices which are no longer useful for the object for which such benefices were endowed—is it just to confiscate or reduce the revenue of those dignitaries and members of the church, who are now actually living and performing the services which belong to their sacred calling?
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“For my own part, I confess the arguments employed to support the contrary opinion appear to me to admit of several answers. I shall submit one very simple answer to the Assembly.