Its promulgation produced an instant effect upon the weak consciences of the people, which, for a time, was productive of the utmost embarrassment to the establishment and arrangements of the new government, as individuals were prevented from accepting offices, which were open to them, from a dread of the vengeance of the altar. Its mischievous consequences were, however, after a time, defeated by the temperate conduct of the Prince de Mean, the last Prince Bishop of Liege, and subsequently Bishop of Malines, who had not signed the document, and who took the requisite oath, _subject to approval of the Pope_, an example which was speedily followed by all whom the incentive of office inspired with a natural anxiety to avail themselves of so high an authority. The King now administered the law with an apparent oblivion of every previous act of the Roman Catholic clergy. The income which was appropriated by the state for their support, was _augmented_ at his suggestion, the remotest interference with their worship was in no solitary instance attempted, and churches were built for their accommodation in the poorer districts, to which his Majesty himself was a liberal contributor. For some years every pretext for special complaint was successfully avoided, and the country was too rapidly prosperous to be yet ripe for any efforts to excite abstract discontent. But, at length, about 1825, the striking results of the Dutch system of National Education, to which I have referred in a former chapter, were so apparent, that the spread of intelligence and instruction became too alarming to permit the church to be longer quiescent, and resistance was at once commenced, notwithstanding the fact, that the religious education in the primary schools was scrupulously reserved for the superintendence of the priests, and theology was utterly excluded from the courses of the universities, and handed over exclusively to the college of Louvain. But education, even under these limitations, must be instantly suppressed, or unreservedly submitted to the church, without any control from the ministry of the interior. Some concessions upon this point served only to give confidence to the boldness of further demands, and when these were resisted, every other grievance, civil and religious, having in the mean time undergone the necessary process of aggravation and distortion to ripen the passions of the “patrioterie” for revolt, the mine was considered ready for explosion, “and the whole country,” to use the words of Baron Keverberg,[38] “resounded with the cry of the priests, who filled Europe with their denunciations of resentment. To listen to them, one would imagine that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands groaned in the chains of an unrelenting oppression, and that the King had sworn to tear the faith of their fathers from the hearts of his subjects, and to hesitate at no measure, however furious or tyrannical,