Paris as It Was and as It Is / A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution

by Francis William Blagdon

This civil constitution served as a pretext to the dignified clergy, irritated at the loss of their estates, for concerting a combined resistance to the new laws, in the hope that this resistance would lead to a subversion which would restore to them their riches. Thence the refusal of the oath "to be faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king, to guide faithfully the flock intrusted to their care, and to maintain with all their power the constitution decreed by the assembly, and sanctioned by the king." Thence the line of division between the clergy who had taken the oath and those who had not.

The Constituent Assembly, who had decreed the above oath, declared, that the refusal of giving this pledge of fidelity should be considered as a voluntary resignation. The royal sanction had rendered the above decree a law of the State. Almost the whole of the bishops, a great number of rectors, and other ecclesiastics, refused to take this oath, already taken by several among them who were deputies to the assembly.

They were, in consequence, declared to have resigned; and measures were taken for supplying their place. The people proceeded to effect this by electors authorized by law. A respectable number of ecclesiastics, who had already submitted to the law, accepted the elections. These priests thought that obedience to the national authority which respected and protected religion, was a catholic dogma. What resistance could be made to legitimate power, which neither attacked the dogma, nor morality, nor the interior and essential discipline of the church? It was, say they, resisting God himself. They thought that the pastor was chosen, and sent solely for the care of the flock intrusted to him; that, when difficult circumstances, flight, for instance, voluntary or forced, the prohibition from all functions, pronounced by the civil power, rendered the holy ministry impossible, or that the pastor could not exericise it, without declaring himself in open insurrection, the pretended unremoveable rights then ceased with the sacred duties which they could not discharge, without being accused of rebellion.

The dissentient bishops drew many priests into their party. Most of them spread themselves over Europe, where they calumniated at their ease the patriotic clergy. Those of their adherents who had remained in the interior of this country, kindled a civil war, tormented people's consciences, and disturbed the peace of families, &c. This conduct, which engendered the horrible scenes in La Vendée, provoked repressive measures, emanated from legislative authority.

Enemies without and within, say the constitutional clergy, wished to create a disgust to liberty, by substituting to it licentiousness. And, indeed, the partisans of the dissentient clergy were seen to coalesce with the unbelievers, in order to produce the sacrilegious disorders which broke out every where in the year 1793.

The clergy who had taken the oath had organized the dioceses; the bishops, in general, had bestowed great pains in spreading in every parish the word of the gospel; for they preached themselves, and this was more than was done by their predecessors, who, engaged only in spending, frequently in a shameful manner, immense revenues, seldom or never visited their dioceses. The constitutional clergy followed a plan more conformable to the gospel, which gained them the affection of the well-disposed part of the nation.

These priests were of opinion that the storm which threatened religion, required imperiously the immediate presence of the pastor, and that, in the day of battle, it was necessary to be in person at the breach. They were of opinion that the omission or impossibility of fulfilling minute and empty formalities, imposed by a Concordat, rejected from the beginning by all the public bodies and the church of France, and annihilated at the moment by the will of the representatives of the nation, sanctioned by royal authority, could not exempt them from accepting holy functions presented by all the constituted authorities, and on which evidently depended the preservation of religion, the salvation of the faithful, and the peace of the State.

But, when persecution manifested itself, the clergy who had taken the oath, became equally the victims of persecuting rage. Some failed in this conjuncture; but the greater number remained intrepid in their principles. Accordingly several constitutional bishops and priests were dragged to the scaffold. If, on the one hand, the dastardly GOBEL was guillotined, the same fate attended the respectable EXPILLY, bishop of Quimper, AMOURETTE, bishop of Lyons, and GOUTTES, bishop of Autun, &c.

The dissentient clergy reproach some constitutional priests with having married, and even with having apostatized; but they say not that, among the dissentient, there are some who; have done the same. If the number of the latter is smaller, it is because the greater part of them were out of France; but what would they have done, if, like the constitutional clergy, they had either had the axe suspended over their head, or the guillotine accompanying all their steps?

In England, where the French priests were not thus exposed, there are some who have likewise married, and even some who have apostatized.