encroached on the spiritual authority. The pope, consulted as to this
purely political measure, refused his assent to it, which the king
earnestly sought, and encouraged the opposition of the priests. The latter
decided that they would not concur in the establishment of the civil
constitution; that those of them who might be suppressed would protest
against this uncanonical act, that every bishopric created without the
concurrence of the pope should be null, and that the metropolitans should
refuse institution to bishops appointed according to civil forms.

The assembly strengthened this league by attempting to frustrate it. If,
contrary to their real desire, it had left the dissentient priests to
themselves, they would not have found the elements of a religious war. But
the assembly decreed that the ecclesiastics should swear fidelity to the
nation, the law, and the king, and to maintain the civil constitution of
the clergy. Refusal to take this oath was to be attended by the
substitution of others in their bishoprics and cures. The assembly hoped
that the higher clergy from interest, and the lower clergy from ambition,
would adopt this measure.

The bishops, on the contrary, thought that all the ecclesiastics would
follow their example, and that by refusing to swear, they would leave the
state without public worship, and the people without priests. The result
satisfied the expectations of neither party; the majority of the bishops
and cures of the assembly refused to take the oath, but a few bishops and
many cures took it. The dissentient incumbents were deprived, and the
electors nominated successors to them, who received canonical institution
from the bishops of Autun and Lida. But the deprived ecclesiastics refused
to abandon their functions, and declared their successors intruders, the
sacraments administred by them null, and all Christians who should venture
to recognise them excommunicated. They did not leave their dioceses; they