Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution From the Rights of Man to Robespierre (38 page)

These measures entailed noble exclusion from the episcopate and massive diminution of the higher clergy generally. All clergy would now be salaried officials of the state and could be only curés or bishops. That every public official in a free state “doit être salarié” (should be salaried), commented Mirabeau’s
Courrier de Provence
in September 1790, was a revolutionary principle many found hard to comprehend. Under the ancien régime, the notion “le salaire déshonore” had prevailed. A salaried position implied public service, a status dishonorable for nobles and senior churchmen. But in revolutionary France, no position could any longer be hereditary, hierarchical, or nonsalaried; judges were now salaried and dismissible, elected in four classes according to the population of the jurisdiction served. Similar rules must apply to all public ministers, bishops and curés included.
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Every public servant must be salaried, in society’s service and subject to dismissal.

King, clergy, and much of the Assembly were aghast at the Ecclesiastical Committee’s swinging plans.
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An immense portion of the ecclesiastical sector was simply abolished, including cathedral chapters, canons, choir schools, and, in part, the study and practice of sacred music.
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Admittedly, some ecclesiastics, influenced by pre-1789 Jansenist arguments, supported extensive reform, and a few, like Fauchet, had proposed election of bishops and priests, and other
sweeping changes, already before 1789.
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But none, apart from the cynical Talleyrand, could accept the philosophique principle that there is no such thing as a spiritual sphere beyond the secular authority’s competence, or that changes should be imposed without consultation with the clergy and their consent. In the Assembly, ecclesiastical resistance was appreciably weakened, though, by a growing and (for the clergy) awkward rift between hard-line conservatives refusing any concession and a more flexible liberal bloc anxious to compromise where possible. The conservatives had mostly walked out by early June. Further prolonged and exhausting debate, lasting more than six weeks, ended in final and total ecclesiastical defeat on 12 July 1790. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy passed decisively, but over the vehement opposition of 290 conservative deputies.

Deemed excessive by many, this drastic measure hardly sufficed for some. In mid-September, several deputies, headed by Alexandre de Beauharnais (1760–94), a veteran of the American Revolution and among the first nobles to join the Third in 1789, whose wife, Josephine, later married Napoleon, proposed abolishing the traditional “costume” of those monks belonging to the still-permitted orders as an undesirable vestige of the past. Hard-liners also urged a prohibition on wearing ecclesiastical dress of any sort while the cult was being celebrated, so that clergy should no longer stand out from other citizens—a most sensible proposal, remarked the
Courrier de Provence
, that should be extended to all public officials.
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“True friends of the moral regeneration of France,” reported the
Chronique de Paris
, “also hoped the Assembly would now allow priests to marry,” even though much lingering prejudice would need to be expunged and many “philosophical truths” asserted before this could happen. Such a reform, protested opponents, would require papal approval. No, answered Mirabeau’s supporters, the Assembly, guided by “the empire of reason, nature and the nation”—not some authority outside France—should determine whether the right to marry can be denied to any citizen.
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That the rift between Revolution and clergy was completely unbridgeable already prior to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy is illustrated by a collective petition to the Assembly on 17 July 1790 by 105 curés of the Nantes region. Social order, properly maintained, they insisted, is inseparable from keeping the spiritual and worldly powers apart. God commanded his Church to be built on “an altogether different basis from that of the governments of this world.” If ecclesiastical hierarchy could be transformed by human command, then it is not
divinely instituted “and we have been deceived.” Neither the people, nor their representatives, can claim an authority higher than the Church’s. The reformers professed to be reviving the
formes primitives
and integrity of the original Church. But research into early texts proves bishops were never elected by the people. According the right to choose their
pasteurs
to the people contradicts canon law and is wholly invalid unless endorsed by the Holy See. The veritable chain of authority, established by Saint Peter, was being ruptured, creating a schism estranging the Church, the path of salvation, from the Revolution. Willingly, they conceded to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but spiritual matters transcend the wishes of men: usurping spiritual authority violates
la volonté suprême
. A national church council must be convened to devise a more canonical and acceptable reform plan than that announced.

Humiliation and impoverishment were being inflicted on the priesthood by “a too accredited philosophy.” The petitioners renounced all desire to stir up popular resistance, or oppose “losing our property, since Christianity teaches us to make sacrifices.” But freedom of thought and unrestricted religious toleration were impermissible.
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The Revolution, rejecting “unity of cult in the French monarchy,” permitted a “monstrous variety of cults,” something indefensible and wrong. Protestants had devastated France during the Wars of Religion when they were permitted no freedom at all. What will happen when their audacity enjoys unlimited freedom? Hatred and strife will erupt everywhere. For all the odious
libelles infâmes
continually “vomited on” the clergy, the Assembly itself was responsible. The Revolution sought to force opinions on the clergy contrary to the Rights of Man, menacing them with losing their salaries if they resisted, imposing the “terrible choice of violating our consciences or dying of hunger.” Without status and dignity, what service can clergy render religion?

Clergy win their parishioners’ respect, contended the Assembly, through “virtue alone.” Yet the apostles
were
“virtuous” but incurred thereby only insults, imprisonment, and execution. The world’s conversion to Christianity resulted from astounding miracles, “not virtue.” Without miracles what can today’s clergy hope for from the people?
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The petitioners abhorred the revolutionaries’ “proud indifference for eternal truths” and “thoughtless license of arbitrary beliefs,” making “reason our idol.” Religion alone makes men free. The alternative is “un pyrrhonisme inextricable.” When a man fears nothing beyond what his own reason reveals, possesses no other brake than nature, men’s reciprocal rights have little force. That all men are by nature brothers may be a
principle of la philosophie but only religion can persuade the people of this. Religion consecrates fraternity’s precepts; without religion fraternity lacks force. The Assembly cultivated a
culte adultère
, a total reorganization vitiating a spiritual power based on principles wholly different from those governing the worldly sphere.

No other revolutionary measure cost the king such soul-searching as approving the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Though highly reluctant to do so, on 24 August 1790, Louis provisionally sanctioned the measure, officially requesting the pope’s endorsement despite (or perhaps because of) prior papal rejection (so far only private). Royal assent greatly dismayed those hoping Louis would lead the Church’s crusade against the Revolution. But with or without the monarch, the clergy’s opposition continued. A key protest was the
Exposition of Principles
by Archbishop Boisgelin of Aix on 30 October, endorsed by thirty bishops and ninety-eight other clerical Assembly deputies. Though diplomatically worded, this text rejected all talk of abolishing bishoprics and other reforms without papal approval as lacking canonical validity. Approved eventually by 119 prelates, the manifesto summoned France’s clergy to oppose the Revolution, albeit solely via passive resistance.
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Only after further long hesitation, as the king himself admitted, did he formally ratify the Civil Constitution on 27 December, feeling he had no alternative. Hugely applauded in the Assembly with rousing cries of “Vive le roi!” his belated assent plunged the antirevolutionary deputies into “despair.” By deferring his definitive assent for months, Louis had undoubtedly sought to encourage priests and monks to resist, bind them closer to the royal cause, and mobilize “all the enemies of liberty,” as Marat bluntly put it, “and all feeble minds, the pious and imbéciles.”
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The king would never have sanctioned such a measure, protested the ultraroyalist press, were he really a free agent. It is contrary to Christian tradition for the Church to be subordinate to the state, held the
Gazette de Paris
, and a fundamental principle of all Christian values and society, that religious authority presides over society. Religion should receive the state in its bosom, not vice versa. Only diffusion of pernicious republican ideas (backed by Protestantism) could possibly have produced such an outcome.
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A revolution in religion commenced. Suppressing cathedral chapters, a considerable undertaking in itself, began at Notre Dame in Paris with immediate effect. Dozens of canons lost their positions and incomes. Within days, all precious metal objects not strictly required for celebrating Mass were removed from the cathedral and all other Paris
churches.
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Meanwhile, on 27 November, the Assembly had promulgated a supplementary decree, moved by the fierce anticlerical Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau (1756–1828), poet, playwright, and member of four academies, requiring all clergy exercising public functions in France to swear allegiance to the Constitution, in accord with provisions in the Constitution of the Clergy.
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All ecclesiastics had to swear loyalty to the nation, law, and king, and to uphold the Constitution. Except those who were Assembly deputies who took the oath there, curés and bishops had to take these oaths on Sunday, after mass, in their parish churches or cathedrals with the local town councils present, on dates agreed upon with municipal officials and publicly announced beforehand. Clergy refusing or subsequently retracting would be “rebels against the law,” forfeiting their positions, salaries, pensions, and rights as “active citizens.” Nonjurors would also lose their eligibility for other public office. This edict caused further outrage, but again, the clergy found it hard to resist effectively. On 27 November, Barnave, as “president” of the Assembly, distributed so many president’s “white cards,” admitting “paid idlers” specially “recruited” by Jacobins to deride the clergy, held the ultraroyalist press, that holders of opposition “red cards” could find scarcely any seats. Packing the galleries created an intimidating atmosphere, which contributed to the Right’s defeat. The decree on oaths passed, albeit with the king prevaricating as to whether to assent.
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The next day, Abbé Grégoire, appearing in the Assembly and leading sixty other curés, took the new oath, swearing to “maintain with all my power the French Constitution and especially the decrees relative to the Constitution of the Clergy.” There was nothing in the Civil Constitution, affirmed Grégoire, that contradicted Catholic doctrine.
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But most clergy disagreed, since the oath’s wording failed to mention either spiritual supremacy or the papacy. An alternative “serment civique” was proposed in the Assembly on 2 January by the bishop of Clermont, a leading opponent on the Assembly’s Ecclesiastical Committee (and vehement foe of Jewish emancipation). Under his proposed formula, ecclesiastics would swear to uphold both the Constitution and the Constitution of the Clergy “excepting those points depending fundamentally on the spiritual authority.” This prompted a tumultuous debate in the Assembly on 3 and 4 January 1791. The Assembly must stipulate that the reforms would not infringe the Church’s “spiritual authority,” demanded the Right, led by Cazalès. “Impossible,” retorted Mirabeau, since what the clergy calls “spiritual” the Assembly terms
“temporal.”
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Consequently, apart from Talleyrand and another prelate, the remaining forty-four prelates in the Assembly all refused the oath. A far larger proportion of the lower clergy in the Assembly fell into line, swayed partly by Grégoire, but most refused, joining the bishops in a mass walkout. Altogether, only one-third of the clergy in the Assembly, eighty-nine allowing for several agonized retractions in subsequent days, acquiesced. These then became the leadership of the new “constitutional” Church.
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Rejecting the bishops’ protests, on 4 January 1791, the Assembly ruled that the positions of all “ecclesiastical functionaries” refusing the
sermon civique
would be declared vacant and their places and salaries transferred to clergy who
were
willing to swear. This was a decisive moment, for most of the old episcopate and much of the priesthood were now breaking permanently with the Revolution. The bishops’ compromise formula was rejected outright just as firmly by the center under Barnave and Charles Lameth, it should be noted, as by the democratic republicans. For both center and Left, acknowledging any authority as overriding the Constitution was simply inadmissible. Only seven out of France’s 135 bishops complied, among them Louis XVI’s former chief minister, Cardinal Loménie de Brienne, archbishop (now reduced to bishop) of Sens who, however, had been a friend of the philosophes and was a notorious nonbeliever.
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With all “ecclesiastical functionaries” in the now twenty-four Paris parishes required to take the oath on Sundays 9 and 16 January 1791, tension in the capital remained acute for weeks. According to the journal
Le Creuset
, published by the Cordeliers firebrand, James Rutledge, there was no religious motive behind the nonjuring clergy’s resistance, only worldly calculation.
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On 9 January, the churches were packed. To prevent disturbance, infantry and cavalry detachments were stationed outside all the main churches. Surrounding streets were patrolled from six in the morning. Twenty-eight of the fifty-two curates in Paris, a bare majority, swore allegiance initially, though some afterward retracted, placing the nonjurors slightly in the majority.
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