ned their attention from the attack on the church to that on the state;
and had already made such impression on the government, that it joined
them in expelling the Jesuits.(584) For more than a quarter of a century
before the revolution the literary writers were infidel. At length the
evils of the state grew incurable, and the storm of the revolution burst.

It is possible in the present age to take a much more dispassionate view
of that vast event than was taken by contemporaries.(585) It can now be
adjusted to its true historic perspective, and its function in the scheme
of history can be clearly perceived. The vastness of the movement
consisted in this, that it was at once political, social, and
religious.(586) It aimed at redressing the grievances under which France
had suffered, and reconstructing society with guarantees for future
liberty. It sought not merely to destroy the feudalism which had outlived
its time, and to equalize the unfair distribution of the public burdens,
as means to accommodate society to modern wants; but it tried to effect
these changes among a people whose minds were fully persuaded both that
the privileges of particular classes and the existence of an established
religion were the chief causes of the public misfortune. When so many
movements combined, the catastrophe was intensified. It is indeed possible
now to see that in the end the solid advantages of the revolution were
reaped, while the mischief was temporary; but the severity of the storm
while it lasted was increased by the infidel views with which society had
become impregnated. For the revolution attempted to embody in its
political aspect those poetical but wild theories of society which
sceptical students had taught; and was founded on the false assumption of
the perfectibility of man, and the perfect goodness of human nature,
except as depraved by human government.

At first, under the National Assembly,(587) the attack was only made on
the property of the church; but on the establishment of the Convention,
when the nation had become frantic at the alarm of foreign invasion, to
which the king and clergy were supposed to be instrumental, the monarchy
was overthrown, and religion also was declared obsolete. The municipality
and many of the bishops abjured Christianity; the churches were stripped;
the images of the Saviour trampled under foot; and a fete was held in
November 1793,(588) in which an opera-dancer, impersonating Reas