of his Church; and he
surrendered a considerable income. Some have doubted whether Gobel was
equally disinterested. They say that he offered his submission to the
Pope in return for a modest sum, and it is affirmed that he received
compensation through Cloots and Chaumette, to whom his solemn
surrender was worth a good deal. The force of his example lost
somewhat, when the bishop of Blois, Gregoire, as violent an enemy of
kings as could be found anywhere, stood in the tribune, and refused to
abandon his ecclesiastical post. He remained in the Convention to the
end, clad in the coloured robes of a French prelate.

Three days after the ceremony of renunciation, Chaumette opened the
Cathedral of Notre Dame to the religion of Reason. The Convention
stood aloof, in cold disdain. But an actress, who played the leading
part, and was variously described as the Goddess of Reason or the
Goddess of Liberty, and who possibly did not know herself which she
was, came down from her throne in the church, proceeded to the
Assembly, and was admitted to a seat beside the President, who gave
her what was known as a friendly accolade amid loud applause. After
that invasion, the hesitating deputies yielded, and about half of them
attended the goddess back to her place under the Gothic towers.
Chaumette decidedly triumphed. He had already forbidden religious
service outside the buildings. He had now turned out the clergy whom
the State had appointed, and had filled their place with a Parisian
actress. He had overcome the evident reluctance of the Assembly, and
made the deputies partake in his ceremonial. He proceeded, November
23, to close the churches, and the Commune resolved that whoever
opened a church should incur the penalties of a suspect. It was the
zenith of Hebertism.

Two men unexpectedly united against Chaumette and appeared as
champions of Christendom. They were Danton and Robespierre.
Robespierre had been quite willing that there should be men more
extreme than he, whose aid he could cheaply purchase with a few
cartloads of victims. But he did not intend to suppress religion in
favour of a worship in which there was no God. It was opposed to his
policy, and it was against his conviction; for, like his master,
Rousseau, he was a theistic believer, and even intolerant in his
belief. This was not a link between him and Danton who had no such
spiritualist convictions, and who, so far as he was a man of theory,
belonged to a diff