d with all his might the
denunciations of Rome and the votes of the Assembly. The Constitutional
Assembly understood this anxiety of the king's feelings and the dangers
of persecution. It had given time to the king, and displayed forbearance
to men's consciences: it had not intermeddled with the faith of the
simple believer, but left each at liberty to pray with the priest of his
choice. The king had been the first to avail himself of this liberty,
and had not thrown open the chapel of the Tuileries to the
constitutional worship. The choice of his confessor sufficiently
indicated the choice of his conscience. The man in him protested against
the political necessities which oppressed the monarch. The Girondists
wished to compel him to declare himself. If he yielded to them, he
infringed upon his dignity; if he resisted, he lost the remaining shreds
of his popularity. To compel him to decide was a great point for the
Girondists.

The public feeling served their designs. Religious troubles began to
assume a political character. In ancient Brittany the conforming priests
became objects of the people's horror, and they fled from contact with
them. The nonjuring priests all retained their flocks. On Sundays large
bodies of many thousand souls were seen to follow their ancient pastors,
and go to chapels situated two or three leagues from any dwelling, or in
concealed hermitages, sanctuaries which had never been stained by the
ceremonies of a constitutional worship. At Caen blood had even flowed
in the very cathedral, where the nonjuring priest disputed the altar
with the conforming pastor. The same disorders threatened to spread over
all parts of the kingdom: every where were to be seen two pastors and a
divided flock. Resentment, which already displayed itself in insult, of
necessity soon arrived at bloodshed. The one half of the people,
disturbed in its faith, reverted to the aristocracy out of love for its
worship. The Assembly must thus alienate the popular element, which it
had so recently caused to triumph over royalty. It was highly necessary
to provide against this unexpected peril.

There were only two means of extinguishing this flame at its source:
either by freedom of conscience, stoutly maintained by the executive
power, or persecution of the ministers of the ancient faith. The
undecided Assembly wavered between these two parties. On a report of
Gallois and Gensonne, sent as commissioners into the departments of