created by the National Assembly in 1790, transformed the priesthood from a
society of landowners into a body of salaried officers of the State, and
gave to the laity the election of their bishops and ministers. The change,
carried out in this extreme form, threw the whole body of bishops and a
great part of the lower clergy into revolt. Their interests were hurt by
the sale of the Church lands; their consciences were wounded by the system
of popular election, which was condemned by the Pope. In half the pulpits
of France the principles of the Revolution were anathematised, and the
vengeance of heaven denounced against the purchasers of the secularised
Church lands. Beyond the frontier the emigrant nobles, who might have
tempered the Revolution by combining with the many liberal men of their
order who remained at home, gathered in arms, and sought the help of
foreigners against a nation in which they could see nothing but rebellious
dependents of their own. The head-quarters of the emigrants were at
Coblentz in the dominions of the Elector of Treves. They formed themselves
into regiments, numbering in all some few thousands, and occupied
themselves with extravagant schemes of vengeance against all Frenchmen who
had taken part in the destruction of the privileges of their caste.

[Legislative Assembly. Oct. 1791.]

[War policy of the Gironde.]

Had the elections which followed the dissolution of the National Assembly
sent to the Legislature a body of men bent only on maintaining the
advantages already won, it would have been no easy task to preserve the
peace of France in the presence of the secret or open hostility of the
Court, the Church, and the emigrants. But the trial was not made. The
leading spirits among the new representatives were not men of compromise.
In the Legislative Body which met in 1791 there were all the passions of