XXIV. 1791. to his resignation, but certainly not by his advice, BOOK a decree had passed the Assembly, imposing an oath upon the whole body of the clergy" to maintain to the utmost of their power the new constitution of France, and particularly the decrees relative to the civil constitution of the clergy." oath im the clergy. By the former decrees of the Assembly relative-Civic to the clergy, all connection with the See of posed upon Rome, spiritual and temporal, was virtually abolished; and the oath was upon other accounts so obnoxious, that it could not possibly be taken by the majority of the clergy ex animo. It was, in fact, productive of the most pernicious consequences. The pope by a bull denounced the sentence of excommunication against those of the clergy who took the civic oath : it was refused by multitudes in the church; and those who submitted to it became, in resentment of the outrage offered to their feelings, far more inimical to the constitution and dangerous to the state than before. A most severe and unjust decree was subsequently promulgated, about the close of the year, by which the non-juring clergy were not only deprived of their benefices, but subjected to heavy penalties for non-compliance; in consequence of which numerous emigrations of that unfortunate class of men took place, and the public animosities were inconceivably heightened. The decree itself was opposed in the Assembly by the principal XXIV. 1791. BOOK speakers of the coté droit with all the force of eloquence and argument. "I do not think (said M. Montlausier) that the bishops can be forced to quit their sees. If they are driven from their episcopal palaces, they will retire to the huts of the cottagers who have fed upon their bounty. If golden crosses be denied them, they will find wooden-crosses-it was a cross of wood which saved the world."-" Would to Heaven (said M. Cazalés) that these walls could expand and hold every individual of the nation assembled! the people of France would hear and judge between us. I tell you that a schism is preparing. I tell you that the whole body of the bishops of France, and a great majority of the inferior clergy, believe that the principles of religion forbid them to obey your decree-that this conviction grows stronger from contradiction, and that those principles are of an order superior to your laws-that expelling the bishops from their sees, and the priests from their parishes, in order to overcome this resistance, is not the way to overcome it. You will be but at the commencement of the course of persecution that lies before you.' Leopold king of Hungary elected em peror. On the 22d of January, 1791, the king of France communicated to the Assembly a letter from Leopold king of Hungary, now advanced to the dignity of emperor, containing strong protestations of amity towards France, but at the XXIV. 1791. same time intimating, that, to consolidate that BOOK friendship, the revocation of the decree of August 4, 1790, will be necessary; that all innovations in virtue of that decree be abolished, and matters put upon their antient footing. This was the famous decree which annihilated all feudal and seignorial rights, and in the scope of which several of the petty princes of Germany, possessing fiefs in Lorraine and Alsace, were comprehended; and so far as the right of property was affected by the decree, compensations had been offered by the Assembly, and by the dukes of Wirtemberg and Deux-ponts, the princes of Lowenstein, Hohenloe, &c. actually accepted. Others however, incited by the court of Vienna, refused to listen to any Inimical terms of accommodation. The conduct, never- of the court theless, of the National Assembly in decreeing the suppression of the seignorial rights, appeared perfectly regular, and in no respect derogatory to the articles of the treaty of Westphalia, by which Alsace was ceded to France with all the rights of sovereignty appertaining thereto. "Ad coronam Gallia' pertineant," such are the express words of this famous treaty," cum omnimoda jurisdictione et superioritate supremoque dominio, absque ulla reservatione." This just and equitable decree, however, now served as a pretext and cover for the measures in contemplation of the court of Vienna, which had already stationed cordons of troops on the Suabian disposition of Vienna. XXIV. 1791. BOOK frontier, and northward from the circles of the Rhine to the banks of the Meuse. The Assembly, on this occasion, voted a large augmentation of military force, regardless of the intimation of the king, that the emperor had, in this instance, acted merely officially, in conformity to the decrees of the Diet. The king himself did not escape the suspicion of entertaining a private and dangerous correspondence with the imperial court; and he was entreated by the Assembly, formally and explicitly to announce the revolution which had taken place to the different courts of Europe. That monarch, who well knew how to assume the most specious and imposing air of sincerity, had derived great advantage from the solemn and voluntary declaration which he had, in the month of February last year (1790), made in person to the Assembly, of his perfect approbation of their -proceedings, and of the cordiality with which he concurred with them in the arduous task of forming a constitution upon the most solid and extenTreachery sive basis of freedom. But this measure was well known by those in his confidence to be the result of the most profound dissimulation; and it astonished and highly offended the more generous and virtuous of the royalists themselves. "For how (as M. Bouillé, one of the most distinguished of them, indignantly asks) could he retract such a step thus voluntarily taken, without that degradation of cha of Louis XVI. XXIV. 1791. racter than which a king can incur no greater BOOK misfortune?" In the succeeding month of October (1790), Louis communicated to M. Bouillé the design he had formed, "of quitting Paris, and retiring to one of the frontier towns, where he meant to collect around him such of his troops and subjects as still retained their fidelity. And in case other means should fail, to call in the assistance of his allies, for the restoration of order and tranquillity in the kingdom. The king declared, that with respect to this plan he acted in perfect concert with the emperor, and his other allies, who insisted on his being at liberty before they took any steps in his favor." M. Bouillé, a man of great talents and sagacity, declared himself totally adverse to the project, as fraught with danger, probably with ruin; but he found he had nothing left but to obey. At the latter end of January, 1791, the king notified to M. Bouillé, that he hoped to accomplish his departure from Paris in the month of March or April. But Suspicion has an hundred eyes, which no magic wand is of efficacy to close.* • In a letter written about this period, February 3, 1791, by the king to the famous abbé Maury, the monarch highly applauds that bold and undisguised adversary of the newly established constitution, " as possessing the zeal of a true minister of the altar and the heart of a Frenchman of the old monarchy, entirely devoted to the cause of his king.-But learn |