The French Revolution of 1789.
All the various forces indicated in the preceding chapter came together in one appalling union towards the year 1789, forming a veritable cauldron seething with malign influences. An unhappy public opinion had been created, "a power vague and terrible, born of the confusion of all interests, strong in its opposition to every power, constantly caressed by princes who feared it, and feared by those who pretended to defy it." The masses of France, provoked by the arbitrary government of Louis XIV., angered by the feeble and scandalous rule of Louis XV., broke out into license and destruction under the gentle and paternal administration of Louis XVI. The latter monarch had come into an inheritance vitiated by the extravagances and follies of his predecessors; with all the virtues and noble characteristics of a sincere Christian and refined gentleman, he was destined to bear the punishment for the sins of his fathers. He had long foreseen the hastening storm, and trembled before its coming. The exhausted state of the treasury and the diminution of credit gave the excuse for demands of the most far-reaching extent. The nobility, regarding the situation with indifference, remained inert before the approaching ruin of the social order. Unwilling to be disturbed in their round of pleasure, they permitted the evil to grow until the very moment of the crisis.
The royal government betrayed its weakness when it convoked the States General, which held its first session on May 5, 1789. It was an assembly constituted of the three classes of the French nation—the nobility, the clergy, and the common people. Of its 1148 members, the Third Estate was represented by 598; there were 308 members of the clergy, of whom forty-four were bishops, 205 curés, fifty-two abbes or canons, and seven religious; the remaining 242 comprised the representatives of the noble class. The States General was an event of rare occurrence in French history, and was called together only in the most extreme crises of the State. It was now nearly two centuries (1615) since a gathering of a similar nature had been convoked, and from its unusual character and the gravity of its purpose much was expected on all sides. In the heat of its first debates, and in the rancor aroused in the public mind through the foolish and humiliating etiquette of the aristocratic elements, a strong sentiment of hostility made itself manifest between the people and their former masters. The popular element was conscious of its power, and made it felt almost from the beginning: in the space of a few months it was master of the situation: it had inaugurated a revolution before which the court, the nobility, the clergy, and every order that stood for law and decency went down in ruin. With the political phases of this great crisis we are not particularly concerned at present; the religious aspects of the conflict will suffice for our consideration.
MEETING OF THE STATES GENERAL.
CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.
On the night of August 4, 1789, the privileged classes abandoned their feudal rights, and the clergy renounced their titles, and the offerings usual at baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This sacrifice, however, did not suffice to appease the revolutionary spirits, and on August 6th, the right of the clergy to hold property was called into question for the first time. It was then that Buzot pronounced that phrase which was soon to re-echo through the halls of the Assembly: "The property of the clergy belongs to the nation."
On October 10, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, so soon to become an apostate and indefatigable persecutor of the Church, returned to the charge. After a fawning address to the popular passions he concluded in proposing a law whose first article declared that "the revenues and property of the clergy are at the disposition of the nation," with the condition that the State should recompense the ministers of worship with a suitable salary, which should be solemnly recognized as a public debt. The project of Talleyrand was espoused with fierce eloquence by Mirabeau and became a law on Nov. 2, 1789, framed in these terms:
"The National Assembly decrees: First. That all ecclesiastical property is at the disposition of the nation which charges itself with providing in a suitable manner for the expenses of worship, the maintenance of its ministers, and the relief of the poor, subject to the surveillance and according to the instructions of the provinces. Second. That in the dispositions to be made for the maintenance of the ministers of religion, there shall be assured every curé a payment of not less than 1,200 livres a year, not including his house and garden."