body could be more violently opposed to royalism than some of the
elected prelates, such as Fauchet, Bishop of Calvados, who acted with
the Girondins and perished with them, or Gregoire, the Bishop of
Blois, Gregoire was the most conspicuous, and is still the best known
of the constitutional clergy. He was a man of serious convictions, and
as much sincerity as is compatible with violence. With much general
information, he was an inaccurate writer, and in spite of the courage
which he manifested throughout the Reign of Terror, an unimpressive
speaker. He held fast to the doctrines of an elementary liberalism,
and after the fall of the Terrorists he was active in the restoration
of religion and the establishment of toleration. He was absent on a
mission, and did not vote for the death of the king; but he expressed
his approval, and dishonoured his later years by dissembling and
denying it. Gobel, the Bishop of Paris, was far inferior to Gregoire.
Hoping to save his life, he renounced his office under the Convention,
after having offered his retractation to the Pope for L12,000. For a
time it was believed that the clergy of the two churches could
co-exist amicably, and a moderate pension was granted to the
nonjurors. But there was disorder and bloodshed at Nimes, and in other
parts of France, and it was seen that the Assembly, by its
ecclesiastical legislation, had created the motive and the machinery
for civil war. The nonjuring clergy came to be regarded as traitors
and rebels, and the mob would not suffer them to celebrate mass in the
only church that remained to them at Paris. Bailly said that when the
law has spoken conscience must be silent. But Talleyrand and Sieyes
insisted on the principle of toleration, and succeeded in causing the
formula to be adopted by the Assembly. It was not observed, and was
entirely disregarded by the second legislature.

The Civil Constitution injured the Revolution not only by creating a
strong current of hostile feeling in the country, but by driving the
king to seek protection from Europe against his people. The scheme of
negotiation which led to the general war in 1792, having been delayed
by disunion among the powers and the extreme caution of the Emperor
Leopold, began in the midst of the religious crisis in the autumn of
1790. The problem for us is to discover why the National Assembly, and
the committee that guided it, did not recognise that its laws were
making a breach in the e