ues,
were afterwards accepted. The denial of papal institution was in the
spirit of Gallicanism; and the principle of election had a great
tradition in its favour, and needed safeguards. Several bishops
favoured conciliation, and wished the measure to be discussed in a
National Council. Others exhorted the Pope to make no concession.
Lewis barely requested him to yield something; and when it became
clear that Rome wished to gain time, on August 24 he gave his
sanction. At the same time he resolved on flight, relying on
provincial discontent and clerical agitation to restore his throne.

On November 27 the Assembly determined to enforce acceptance of the
Civil Constitution. Every ecclesiastic holding preferment or
exercising public functions was required to take an oath of fidelity
to the Constitution of France, sanctioned by the king. The terms
implicitly included the measure regarding the Church, which was now
part of the Constitution, and which a large majority of the bishops
had rejected, but Rome had not. Letters had come from Rome which were
suppressed; and after the decree of November and its sanction by the
king on December 26, the Pope remained officially silent.

On the 4th of January 1791 the ecclesiastical deputies were summoned
to take the prescribed oath. No conditions or limitations were
allowed, Mirabeau specially urging rigour, in the hope of reaction.
When the Assembly refused to make a formal declaration that it meant
no interference with the exclusive domain of religion, the great
majority of clerical deputies declined the oath. About sixty took it
unconditionally, and the proportion out of doors was nearly the same.
In forty-five departments we know that there were 13,426 conforming
clergy. It would follow that there were about 23,000 in the whole of
France, or about one-third of the whole, and not enough for the
service of all the churches. The question now was whether the Church
of France was to be an episcopal or a presbyterian Church. Four
bishops took the prescribed oath; but only one of them continued to
act as the bishop of one of the new sees. Talleyrand refused his
election at Paris, and laid down his mitre and the ecclesiastical
habit. Before retiring, he consecrated two constitutional bishops, and
instituted Gobel at Paris. He said, afterwards, that but for him the
French constitutional Church would have become presbyterian, and
consequently democratic, and hostile to the monarchy.

No