Such was the disposition of the clergy, when, in the months of June and July, 1790, the assembly turned its attention to its internal organization. The clergy waited with impatience for this opportunity of exciting a schism. This project, the adoption of which caused so much evil, went to re-establish the church on its ancient basis, and to restore the purity of its doctrine; it was not the work of philosophers, but of austere Christians, who wished to support religion by the state, and to make them concur mutually in promoting its happiness. The reduction of bishoprics to the same number as the departments, the conformity of the ecclesiastical circumscription with the civil circumscription, the nomination of bishops by electors, who also chose deputies and administrators, the suppression of chapters, and the substitution of vicars for canons, were the chief features of this plan; there was nothing in it that attacked the dogmas or worship of the church. For a long time the bishops and other ecclesiastics had been nominated by the people; as for diocesan limits, the operation was purely material, and in no respect religious. It moreover generously provided for the support of the members of the church, and if the high dignitaries saw their revenues reduced, the curés, who formed the most numerous portion, had theirs augmented. But a pretext was wanting, and the civil constitution of the clergy was eagerly seized upon. From the outset of the discussion, the archbishop of Aix protested against the principles of the ecclesiastical committee. In his opinion, the appointment or suspension of bishops by civil authority was opposed to discipline; and when the decree was put to the vote, the bishop of Clermont recapitulated the principles advanced by the archbishop of Aix, and left the hall at the head of all the dissentient members. The decree passed, but the clergy declared war against the revolution. From that moment it leagued more closely with the dissentient nobility. Equally reduced to the common condition, the two privileged classes employed all their means to stop the progress of reform.