they had undertaken to make. In their competition
there was hurry and disorder. One characteristic of the time was to be
unintelligent in matters relating to the Church, and they did not know
how far the clergy was affected by the levelling principle, or that in
touching tithe they were setting an avalanche in motion. At one
moment, Lally, much alarmed, had passed a note to the President
begging him to adjourn, as the deputies were losing their heads. The
danger arose, as was afterwards seen, when the Duke du Chatelet
proposed the redemption of tithe.

The nobles awoke next day with some misgiving that they had gone too
far, and with some jealousy of the clergy, who had lost less, and who
had contributed to their losses. On August 7 Necker appeared before
the Assembly and exposed the want of money, and the need of a loan,
for the redistribution of property on August 4 did nothing to the
immediate profit of the Exchequer. But the clergy, vying with their
rivals in generosity, had admitted the right of the nation to apply
Church property to State uses.

On the following day the Marquis de Lacoste proposed that the new debt
should be paid out of the funds of the clergy, and that tithe should
be simply abolished. He expressed a wish that no ecclesiastic should
be a loser, and that the parish clergy should receive an accession of
income. The clergy offered no resistance, and made it impossible for
others to resist. They offered to raise a loan in behalf of the State;
but it was considered that this would give them a position of undue
influence, and it would not have satisfied the nobles, who saw the way
to recover from the clergy the loss they had sustained. In this debate
the Abbe Sieyes delivered his most famous speech. He had no
fellow-feeling with his brethren, but he intended that the tithe
should enrich the State. Instead of that it was about to be given
back to the land, and the landowners would receive a sum of nearly
three millions a year, divided in such a way that the richest would
receive in proportion to his wealth. It would indemnify the laity. Not
they, but the clergy, were now to bear the charge of August 4. There
was one deputy who would be richer by 30,000 francs a year upon the
whole transaction. The landlords who had bought their estates subject
to the tithe had no claim to receive it. As all this argument was
heard with impatience, Sieyes uttered words that have added no little
to his moral stature: "