dent
of the others, all are equal, and, if all agree in the forming of an
association, their common-sense will stipulate that its first article
shall secure the maintenance of this primordial equality.--Such is man,
as nature made him, as history has unmade him, and as the Revolution is
to re-make him.[2127] One cannot batter away too vigorously against the
two casings that hold him tight, one the positive religion which narrows
and perverts his intellect, and the other the social inequality which
perverts and weakens his will;[2128] for, at every effort, some band is
loosened, and, as each band gives way, the paralyzed limbs recover their
action.

Let us trace, (say the Jacobins), the progress of this liberating
operation.--Always timid and at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical
organization, the Constituent Assembly could take only half-measures; it
cut into the bark without daring to drive the ax into the solid trunk.
Its work reduced itself down to the confiscation of clerical property,
to a dissolution of the religious orders, and to a check upon the
authority of the pope; its object was to establish a new church and
transform priests into sworn functionaries of the State, and this
was all. As if Catholicism, even administrative, would cease to be
Catholicism! As if the noxious tree, once stamped with the public seal,
would cease to be noxious! Instead of the old laboratory of falsehoods
being destroyed another one is officially established alongside of it,
so that there are now two instead of one. With or without the official
label it operates in every commune in France and, as in the past, it
distributes with impunity its drug to the public. This is precisely
what we, (the Jacobins) cannot tolerate.--We must, indeed, keep up
appearances, and, as far as words go, we will decree anew freedom
of worship.[2129] But, in fact and in practice, we will demolish the
laboratory and prevent the drug from being sold; there shall no longer
be any Catholic worship in France, no baptism, no confession, no
marriage, no extreme unction, no mass; nobody shall preach or listen
to a sermon; nobody shall administer or receive a sacrament, save
in secret, and with the prospect before him of imprisonment or the
scaffold.--With this object in mind, we do one thing at a time. There
is no problem with the Church claiming to be be orthodox: its members
having refused to take the oath are outlaws; one excludes oneself
from an association w