constitutionals was to avail them little: during the Terror their
stipends were unpaid, and the churches were for the most part closed.
After a partial respite in 1795-6, the _coup d'état_ of Fructidor
(1797) again ushered in two years of petty persecutions; but in the
early summer of 1799 constitutionals were once more allowed to observe
the Christian Sunday, and at the time of Bonaparte's return from
Egypt their services were more frequented than those of the
Theophilanthropists on the _décadis_. It was evident, then, that the
anti-religious _furor_ had burnt itself out, and that France was
turning back to her old faith. Indeed, outside Paris and a few other
large towns, public opinion mocked at the new cults, and in the
country districts the peasantry clung with deep affection to their old
orthodox priests, often following them into the forests to receive
their services and forsaking those of their supplanters.

Such, then, was the religious state of France in 1799: her clergy were
rent by a formidable schism; the orthodox priests clung where possible
to their parishioners, or lived in destitution abroad; the
constitutional priests, though still frowned on by the Directory, were
gaining ground at the expense of the Theophilanthropists, whose
expiring efforts excited ridicule. In fine, a nation weary of
religious experiments and groping about for some firm anchorage in the
midst of the turbid ebb-tide and its numerous backwaters.[153]

Despite the absence of any deep religious belief, Bonaparte felt the
need of religion as the bulwark of morality and the cement of society.
During his youth he had experienced the strength of Romanism in
Corsica, and during his campaigns in Italy he saw with admiration the
zeal of the French orthodox priests who had accepted exile and poverty
for conscience' sake. To these outcasts he extended more protection