The Assembly assumed that these treasures had been intrusted to the Church for the benefit of the people; that the luxurious ecclesiastics, by unfaithfulness to their trust, had forfeited the right of farther dispensing the charity. After a very fierce strife, a motion was made by Mirabeau, that the possessions of the Church were at the disposal of the state. Many of the lower clergy voted for the resolution, and it was adopted by a majority of 568 against 346. Forty deputies refused to vote. This measure placed at once immense resources in the hands of the Assembly, and necessarily exasperated tenfold the privileged classes, and rolled a wave of alarm over the whole wide-spread domain of the Pope. It was the signal for Catholic Europe to rise in arms against the Revolution. As it was impossible, under the pressure of the times, to force the sale of the enormous property of the Church without an immense sacrifice, bonds were issued, called assignats, assigned or secured on this church property.
Thus was the haughty Gallican Church deprived of its ill-gotten and worse used wealth. The dignitaries of this Church had ever been the most inveterate foes of popular elevation. Treasure which had been wrested from the poor and extorted from the dying, as a gift to God for the promotion of human virtue, they were using to forge chains for the people, and were squandering in shameless profligacy.
Nearly all the nobles were infidels, disciples of Voltaire. For years, while reveling in wine and debauchery, they had held up religion to contempt. But they now suddenly became very devout, espoused the cause of their boon companions, the bishops, and remonstrated against laying unholy hands upon the treasury of the Lord. All over Europe the two most formidable forces, secular and religious aristocracy, were now combined against popular reform. It was this principle which led the Protestant English noble and the papal Austrian bishop to make common cause against the regeneration of France.
There were some French nobles and French bishops who recognized, whatever may have been their motives, the rights of the people, and espoused their side. Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, introduced the measure, and Mirabeau supported it with all the energy of his eloquence.
The degradation of the people is the condemnation of the papal Church. For many centuries the office of elevating the people had devolved upon the clergy. Instead of instructing their congregations, the forms of worship had been converted into a senseless pantomime; the prayers were offered in an unknown tongue; the word of God was excluded from their sight. The rich became infidels and atheists, and by robbing the poor luxuriated in profligacy. The poor became brutalized and savage, and were held under restraint only by the terrors of a soul-hardening superstition.
There is no hope of peace for the world but in that doctrine of Christ which promotes the brotherhood of man. Where this fraternity is recognized and its sympathies circulate, there is peace. The aristocratic Church in France had been the tool of the court in degrading and enslaving the people. The awful day of retribution was but the inevitable progress of the divine law. Man, crushed and trampled upon by his brother man, may endure it for an age, for a century, but the time will come when he will endure it no longer, and the ferocity of his rising will be proportionate to the depth and the gloom of the dungeon in which he has been immured.[242] The progress of the world is toward justice, equality, and nature. If that progress be not peaceful it will be violent and bloody. The vital energies of the soul of man can not forever be repressed.
France had for some time been divided into thirteen large provinces, incorporated at different periods and possessing different immunities and a diversity of customs and laws. The Assembly broke down all these old barriers that a character of unity might be given to the nation. The kingdom was divided into eighty-three departments, each department being about fifty-four miles square. These departments were divided into districts, and the districts into communes. This division somewhat resembled that of the United States, into states, counties, and towns.
The right of suffrage was extended to all male citizens twenty-five years of age, who had resided in the electoral district one year, who had paid a direct tax amounting to the value of three days' labor, about sixty cents, who were not in the condition of servants, and who were enrolled in the National Guard. These were called active citizens. The rest of the population were deemed passive citizens. To be eligible to office either as a magistrate or a representative, it was required that one should pay a direct tax of about ten dollars, and also be a landholder. The aristocrats considered this extension of the right of suffrage as awfully radical and democratic. On the other hand the democracy, from its lower depths, exclaimed with the utmost vehemence and indignation against the restriction of the right of suffrage and of office to tax-payers and property-holders.
"There is but one united voice," cried Camille Desmoulins, "in the city and in the country, against this ten-dollar decree (le décret du marc d'argent). It is constituting in France an aristocratic government, and it is the most signal victory which the aristocrats have yet gained in the Assembly. To demonstrate the absurdity of the decree it is necessary but to mention that Rousseau, Corneille, Mably, under it could not have been eligible. As for you, ye despicable priests, ye lying cheating knaves, do you see that you make even your God ineligible?[243] Jesus Christ, whom you recognize as divine, you thrust out into the ranks of the mob. And do you wish that I should respect you, ye priests of an ignominious God (d'un Dieu proletaire), who is not even an active citizen? Respect that poverty which Jesus Christ has ennobled."[244]
Such fierce appeals produced a profound and exasperating impression upon the army of two hundred thousand beggars in Paris and upon the millions utterly impoverished in France. "We have overthrown the aristocracy of birth," the orators of the populace exclaimed, "only to introduce the still more hateful aristocracy of the purse." The working clergy, who were among the foremost in favor of reform, were almost to a man efficient members of the moderate party, and cordially co-operated with La Fayette in the endeavor to prevent liberty from being whelmed in lawlessness. The clergy had great influence, and hence the venom of the popular speakers and writers was perseveringly directed against them.[245]