gave rise to trouble in many minds, agitation in
consciences, division in the temples. The great majority of parishes had
two ministers,--the one a constitutional priest, salaried and protected
by the government, the other refractory, refusing the oath, deprived of
his income, driven from the church, and raising altar opposing altar in
some clandestine chapel, or in the open field. These two ministers of
the same worship excommunicated each other, the one in the name of the
constitution, and the other in the name of the Pope and of the church.
The population was also divided according to the greater or lesser
degree of revolutionary spirit prevailing in the province. In cities and
the more enlightened districts the constitutional worship was exercised
almost without dispute. In the open country and the less civilised
departments, the priest who had not taken the oath became a consecrated
tribune, who at the foot of the altar, or in the elevation of the
pulpit, agitated the people and inspired it, in all the horror of a
constitutional and schismatic priesthood, with hatred of the government
which protected it. This was not actually persecution or civil war, but
the sure prelude to both.

The king had signed with repugnance and even constraint the civil
constitution of the clergy: but he had done so only as king, and
reserving to himself his liberty and the faith of his conscience. He was
Christian and Catholic in all the simplicity of the Gospel, and in all
the humility of obedience to the church. The reproaches he had received
from Rome for having ratified by his weakness the schism in France,
wounded his conscience and distracted his mind. He had never ceased to
negotiate officially or secretly with the pope, in order to obtain from
the head of the church either an indulgent concession to the necessities
of religion in France, or prudent temporising. It was on these terms
only that he could restore peace to his mind. Inexorable Rome had only
granted him its pity. Fulminating bulls were in circulation by the hands
of nonjuring priests, cast at the heads of the population, and only
stopping at the foot of the throne. The king trembled, to see them burst
one day on his own head.

On the other hand, he felt that the nation, of which he was the
legitimate head, would never forgive him for sacrificing it to his
religious scruples. Placed thus between the menaces of Heaven and the
threats of his own people, he procrastinate