The house of the clergy was the theatre of stormy scenes, which broke out between the high dignitaries and the curés living on the _portion congrue_. These latter had a numerical advantage; they formed a majority of thirty to one. On the evening of the 16th, instead of bearing to the episcopal palace the expression of their deference, they assembled, to the number of three hundred, in a chapel. There, disdaining all moderation of language, a curé of the diocese of Évreux boldly said that the inferior clergy had groaned too long under the oppression of the bishops, and that it was time to shake off a yoke which had become as odious as it was intolerable. A second orator, a curé of the diocese of Lisieux, no less energetically expressed the same opinion. A third priest, having risen to speak, began to defend the episcopate, whereupon he was silenced by the clamour of the throng of priests, and his cassock was torn off his back. When, on the 17th of March, the official deliberation of the clergy was opened at the Seminary of S. Taurinus, the Bishop of Évreux proposed to nominate a secretary, and mentioned his choice; but his nomination was rejected with a firmness which let him understand that the vast majority of his clergy were antagonistic to his wishes. Every proposition made by this prelate and his colleague met with a similar fate, and the memorial addressed to the Crown was drawn up without their participation, and in a spirit hostile to the high clergy. On March 21, the Bishop of Évreux, smarting under the humiliations to which he was exposed, wrote a letter to M. Necker, Minister of Finances, filled with complaints. It contained the following passage:--‘It is impossible for me, say what I will to them, to keep this assembly of wild, excited curates in control. I am cast, like a Christian of old, _ad leones_. These priests, calculating on their numbers, are inflated with pride, and bear down all remonstrance. And these are the men we are to send to the States-General, without a shadow of knowledge of our ecclesiastical affairs; without a trace of interest in the maintenance of our prerogatives; without a glimmer of sympathy for our rights, jurisdictions, fiefs, and our territorial possessions. They are prepared to overturn everything; they are indifferent to the spoliation of the Church; they are even prepared to hail its disestablishment, if one were fool enough to suggest such a possibility.