revolution and anarchy, opposed both with equal wisdom and courage. The aristocracy triumphed at the sight of the difficulties which perplexed the assembly. They imagined that it would be compelled to be dependent on the multitude, or deprive itself entirely of its support; and in either case the return to the ancient régime appeared to them short and easy. The clergy had its share in this work. The sale of church property, which it took every means to impede, was effected at a higher price than that fixed. The people, delivered from tithes and reassured as to the national debt, were far from listening to the angry suggestions of the priests; they accordingly made use of the civil constitution of the clergy to excite a schism. We have seen that this decree of the assembly did not affect either the discipline or the creed of the church. The king sanctioned it on the 26th of December; but the bishops, who sought to cover their interests with the mantle of religion, declared that it encroached on the spiritual authority. The pope, consulted as to this purely political measure, refused his assent to it, which the king earnestly sought, and encouraged the opposition of the priests. The latter decided that they would not concur in the establishment of the civil constitution; that those of them who might be suppressed would protest against this uncanonical act, that every bishopric created without the concurrence of the pope should be null, and that the metropolitans should refuse institution to bishops appointed according to civil forms. The assembly strengthened this league by attempting to frustrate it. If, contrary to their real desire, it had left the dissentient priests to themselves, they would not have found the elements of a religious war. But the assembly decreed that the ecclesiastics should swear fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king, and to maintain the civil constitution of the clergy. Refusal to take this oath was to be attended by the substitution of others in their bishoprics and cures. The assembly hoped that the higher clergy from interest, and the lower clergy from ambition, would adopt this measure.