. The days of the Directoire . he Republican and Directorial period, butentirely failed to secure the allegiance or earn therespect of good Catholics. It will be remembered howthe Queen in her last hours refused to confess to aNational priest, and rejected his proffered consola-tions even on her way to the scaffold. The vastmajority of the clergy showed themselves of sternerstuff, and suffered accordingly. The persecution whichfollowed drove most of them from France; of those whoremained no exact statistics are attainable. It is knownonly that forty-one of the bishops were dead, and thateleven
. The days of the Directoire . he Republican and Directorial period, butentirely failed to secure the allegiance or earn therespect of good Catholics. It will be remembered howthe Queen in her last hours refused to confess to aNational priest, and rejected his proffered consola-tions even on her way to the scaffold. The vastmajority of the clergy showed themselves of sternerstuff, and suffered accordingly. The persecution whichfollowed drove most of them from France; of those whoremained no exact statistics are attainable. It is knownonly that forty-one of the bishops were dead, and thateleven who had lived concealed in France during theTerror were alive in November, 1795. * * * * * * After 9 Thermidor, and under the Directoire, came aperiod of milder measures and comparative tolerationfor religion and the ministers of religion ; though thisbetter state of things came to an abrupt terminationwith the revolution of 18 Fructidor (Sept. 4, 1797),after which date the clergy were again subjected toatrocious EMIGRES AND PRIESTS 241 During the Thermidorian reaction, laws werepassed in September, 1794, and in May, 1795, grant-ing, on paper at least, freedom of worship, andrestoring to the use of any form of religiousobservance desired by the people such churches ashad not been appropriated to State purposes or soldto private purchasers. By twos and threes the clergyhad been returning from abroad or had been creep-ing from their hiding-places, and were now oftenofficiating in their former parishes. A statement inthe Annates de la Religion in July, 1797, estimatesthat public services were then being held in 31,214communes in the country, while forty-one churcheswere open and crowded with worshippers in Paris. Under the government of the Directory thelegal position of a priest who had not taken thecivic oath of 1791 was as follows. Article 354 ofthe Constitution decreed that no one should be pre-vented from the exercise of the religion of his the other
Size: 1353px × 1847px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorallinson, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
