Even under the Directory, when the first symptoms of a reactionary movement in the lower ranks of society were already perceptible, there were, as we are told by a writer of the day, members of Assembly who had nervous attacks if they as much as heard the word "priest"; and the work of destruction was carried on with avidity. "Every man," says Laurent, "who had a drop of revolutionary blood in his veins laboured with feverish enthusiasm at the destruction of Christianity." In official reports the faithful Catholics are described as "weak-minded." A proclamation of the Directory relating to the elections of the year VI. declares that it is necessary to erase from the lists "the unhappy fanatics, who are blinded by credulity, and who might take it into their heads to throw themselves once more at the feet of the priests."
The priests had continued to be the most terrible enemies of the Revolution. The bloody war in La Vendée was to a great extent their work. The horrors perpetrated during this struggle recall those of the Middle Ages. One priest who had sworn allegiance to the constitution was stoned to death by yelling women, and another was torn to pieces, also by women. Before the Republican President, Joubert, was killed, his hands were sawn off. In one town the Royalists buried their revolutionary enemies alive; when the Republican troops arrived they saw arms sticking up out of the ground, the hands clenching the turf.
The revolutionists were soon compelled to acknowledge that their proceedings had had the opposite effect to what they had wished and expected. Significantly enough, the envoys sent to La Vendée were the first to advise complete separation of church from state. In their opinion this was the only means of tranquillising men's minds and restoring the country to peace. As far back as the days of the Legislative Assembly it had been proposed by a priest that the state should cease to subsidise any religion. But men were too excited then to refrain from violent espousal of one side or the other. The revolutionists hoped, as they often said, "to put an end to all sectarianism" by the aid of universal education. They fondly imagined that the era of dogmas was past, that the time had come when, in the words of Jefferson, the American, the miraculous conception of Christ in the womb of a virgin was to be classed along with the miraculous conception of Minerva in the head of Jupiter. In a report drawn up under the Convention we read: "Soon men will only make acquaintance with these foolish dogmas, the offspring of fear and delusion, to despise them. Soon the religion of Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero will be the religion of the world." And when, in her Memoirs, Madame Roland has occasion to use the word "catechism," she considers it necessary to explain it for the benefit of posterity. She writes: "So rapidly are things moving now that the readers of this passage will perhaps ask: What was that? I will tell them."