“But these reflections are carrying me too far, and I must conclude. For the interest of the King and of France, I demand a repressive law, and I vote against the censorship.”
OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF AUTUN ON THE SUBJECT OF ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY, DELIVERED IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IN THE YEAR 1789.
[The following extracts comprise the principal points of this address.]
“I have stated, gentlemen, the reasons which lead me to believe that ecclesiastical property is national property. If those reasons, which nothing has for an instant shaken in my own mind, appear to you of some weight in themselves, how much more weighty, how much more decisive must they not appear under all the circumstances of the present juncture? Let us only look around us; the public fortune is tottering—its approaching fall threatens all other fortunes, and in this universal disaster who would have greater cause to fear than the clergy? Invidious comparisons have long been made between the public indigence and the private opulence of many among us; let us silence in one moment these unpleasant murmurs, so offensive to our patriotism. Let us deliver up to the nation both our persons and our fortunes;—the nation will never forget the act.
“Let us not say that the clergy, merely from being no longer landed proprietors, will on that account become less worthy of public consideration. No! the clergy will not be the less revered by the people from their being paid by the nation; for the heads of offices, ministers, and even kings themselves, receive salaries without being the less honoured on that account. No! the clergy will not become odious to the people, for it is not from the individual hands of the citizens that the minister of religion will seek his tribute, but from the public treasury, like all the other mandatories of the government. Do we not constantly see the people consenting to forget that the functionaries of the state are in their pay, and uniting with their generous tributes the personal homage of respect for men whose duties are often opposed to their passions, and sometimes even to their interests? Who shall persuade us to believe that the French people, whose sense of justice is greater than their calumniators would lead us to suppose, would withdraw their grateful esteem from those who ought not, who will not, who cannot inspire them with any but virtuous sentiments; who would pour into their bosoms the consolations of charity, and discharge towards them at all times the most paternal duties?