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Thesis Apnroved By 3 or Advisor C ? ^ € r > _________ _D e a n RELIGION AND THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION OF 1791 BY ALFRIDA JOSEPHINE HARTER, R.S.C.J. A THESIS Submitted to the Faculty of The Creighton University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History OMAHA, 1929 Contents. 1. The Privileges of the Clergy _ Wealth of the Church __ The Hierarchy. 2. Signs of Unrest _ General Spirit _ Philoso phers _ Redeeming Feature. 3. The Meeting of the Estates-General Destruc tion of the Monasteries_Renunciation of the Tithe _ Declaration of the Rights of Man. 4. Spoliation of Church Property _ Confiscation Depopulation _ The Religious Men and Women. 5. The Civil Constitution _ Rome _ The King The Oath _ The King’s Sanction and the Pope's Condemnation. X The privileged classes in Prance meant the First and Second Estates, the Clergy and the no bility. Theoretically, all the clergy were pri vileged. The Church had been part of the feudal system; her bishops, abbots, members of cathedral chapters, and university professors often ranked among the feudal lords. The dominating will of Richelieu had brought territorial possessions di rectly under the royal sway, but many feudal rights were still retained by the feudal lords. The Clergy were exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary civil courts. They were exempt from direct taxes - all, from the taille and, with the exception of the Clergy of new Prance, from the poll and the income tax. The exemption from the poll and income taxes was rather an exoneration than an exemption, since the Clergy had made themselves free by a large gift early in the eighteenth century, and again every ten years, at the exaction of the royal commissioner, they voted a subsidy to the state, under the name of gratuitous gift. The Church also had the privi lege of honor and the privilege of exclusive public worship. As far back as Merovingian times, the ecclesiastical order had been preeminent, and in the rare assemblies of the Estates General, the Clergy had held the first rank. This primacy was sanctioned by royal edict in 1695. Ten years be fore, by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Louis XIV. proclaimed that the state acknowledged the public exercise of her worship alone. The wealth of the Church consisted of farm land, vast open country, large forests and exten sive pastures. It would be difficult to estimate the value of these domains enriched by intensive cultivation and benefited by being parcelled out to serfs. In addition to revenue from the land, the Church had the tithe — originally one-tenth, later one-eighteenth of the produce.1 It was provided for by Charlemagne, had come down through the centuries with considerable variation accord ing to time and place. In certain provinces, not only varieties of grain, but also animals were in cluded in this tax. The tithe was usually farmed, and the agent of the clergy was not exempt from it, 1. Pierre de la Gorce, Histoire Religiose de la Revolution Française Vol. I. p.ll. but he deducted his share from the collection. How did the Church come into possession of such wealth? The archives of the great estates contain maps and detailed accounts of how these domains had become the patrimony of the Church. Original grants had been added to and large gifts were made in thanksgiving for benefits received or for dangers averted, in fulfillment of a vow, in offerings that formed but part of the more com plete holocaust of the whole being in religion. Again many a large grant was made with certain stip ulations, that worked out for the benefit of human ity in the form of relief for the poor, education for the children, hospitality for the traveller, health for the sick, the wounded, and in the many other forms that our present day philanthropy glories in as though it had found new fields for its efforts. In northern and eastern Prance the larger and richer ecclesiastical estates point to another craving of the human heart _ the need of expiation. The Norman lords stood before the world as plunderes and pillagers and before facing Eternal Justice, they sought to win mercy by pay- 2 2. Ibid. I. p . 12 ing their ransom in terms of large estates to the Church. Not only did the living benefit by such generosity, but the dead had their share, when great bequests kept their memory ever fresh by prayer and by the lasting good that resulted for 3 mankind. This double duty, of charity for the benefit of the living and of prayer for the dead, had come to be but imperfectly fulfilled or to be misunder stood in the eighteenth century. The King had taken it on himself to put at the head of these benefices men of his own choice, or human concu piscence was clever enough to insinuate itself in high places. What they wanted was honor and the enjoyment of the revenues. They took these and left the duties of charity and of prayer to others. Thus there were two classes of clergy; the higher and the lower. The bishops and the commendatory abbots were practically all from the nobility and so many that the bishops outnumbered the dioceses. They had social prestige, formed part of the court, lived in Versailles, spent their days in the sa- 3 3. Louis Madelin, The French Revolution, page 8. Ions. They governed their dioceses by agents or auxiliary bishops.'*’ They were not conspicuous for their learning, but were courteous, polite gentle men, often highly educated in secular matters. They took things easy and kept just enough of the ecclesiastic in their manner and their dress to justify their title. They were humanitarian in their views and appreciations and hoped that re forms would work out automatically. The revenues of the Church went unequally to the higher clergy, chiefly to the greater ones. The cures, or country pastors,were the lowest in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but the first in in fluence, for they alone were in direct, permanent and intimate contact with their flocks. They lived in their country presbyteries usually all their whole lives. The right of their appoint ment was not confined to their bishops, but might be exercised by right of patronage, that is, by those who created the parish, built the church or endowed it. Thus in the diocese of Boxilogne, the bishop named only sixty-nine of the two hundred 1 1. de la Gorce, op. cit. p.17 and eighty six country parish priests. The King named one and the other appointments were made by the bishops of Saint-Omer, of Hesdin, of Saint-Pol, by the administrators of the hospital of Boulogne, by various abbots, priors or even by lay patrons.1 In neighboring dioceses, the episcopal right was more restricted still, and in five parishes the old system of election by the parishioners had even been maintained. In cases when the bishop had not made the nomination, he kept the right of "institution” of the cures and this he refused to exercise only when points of faith or morals im paired the worthiness of the candidate. The cure7 was the center of village life, and lived in enviable independence. If he was given a vicaire, an assistant, he had the right to choose him. He was not only priest, but also mag istrate, in a way. The parish had borrowed its unity from the religious orders: its town bell was the Church bell, _ its forum, the Church yard, and its meeting place, the Church Itself. The cure kept the civil records and the royal intend- 1. de la Oorce, op. cit. p.21 ant did not hesitate to consult him on agricul ture, on the economic condition of the country, on the material and moral needs of the people. He supplied whatever statistics were required. His Sunday announcements further revealed his double character of shepherd of souls and of civil offi cer. After the feasts and fasts, he made known the royal decrees, the bulletins of victory, the contents of treaties. He thus instructed the ig norant on all lines. He even became an auxiliary of justice when he proclaimed from the pulpit the monitoire, or advice, to his parishioners to furnish evidence of guilt, _ a practice that was abused in the hands of the civil power and had to be re stricted to exceptional cases. These country pastors were at the same time humble in rank and important in their mission. They were recruited from the middle classes of the towns and oftener still from the sons of the far mers. As a rule they were good morally; in some cases, a free life and false spirit were the re sult of the bad example of the higher prelates. Some had received their training for the priestly life by seminary professors of Jansenistic trend. 8 A relish for work was created and maintained among the cur^s by the practice of concursus established by their bishops. In certain parts of the country, chiefly in the dioceses of Rouen and Besancon, the clergy were renowned for their learn ing. In other parts they were more alive to the material improvements that stirred the eighteenth century. They were alert for the best methods of agriculture; they distributed seed and advanced money, when they could, for the purchase of im plements. They thought of the hemp that could occupy the women during the long winter months.

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