By the time the Legislative Assembly met, there were no longer any Estates. The nobles had emigrated, and the exiled ecclesiastical dignitaries were imploring assistance at foreign courts. The lower ranks of the clergy, inspired by anti-revolutionary fanaticism, were inflaming the ignorant multitude. The debates now held in the Assembly were very different in tone from those of the old days. Now the standing grievance against religion was the naïvely formulated one that it did not harmonise with the constitution, and that against the clergy, that their one aim was to recover their property. The lies and violence of the priests had stirred up a feeling of great bitterness against them. A few conciliatory voices were heard, such as that of André Chénier, who maintained that the priests did not trouble the state when the state did not interfere with them, or Talleyrand, who insisted that, as no form of religion was prescribed by law, neither should any be prohibited by law; but Voltairean indignation was long the order of the day. These were the halcyon days of the Girondists, and the Girondists were the practical expression of the ideas of Voltaire. In a public declaration drawn up by their famous leader, Vergniaud, we read: "The rebellious priests are preparing a revolt against the constitution; these insolent myrmidons of absolutism are supplicating all the sovereigns of Europe for money and soldiers wherewith to reconquer the sceptre of France." Roland, as Minister of the Interior, said: "Mutinous and hypocritical priests, concealing their plans and their passions under the sacred veil of religion, do not hesitate to excite fanaticism and to arm their misguided fellow-citizens with the sword of intolerance." When the proposal to banish the priests was under discussion, Vergniaud spoke, half jestingly, half seriously, of the iniquity of bringing evil upon other countries by sending them such a gift. "Generally speaking," he maintained, "nothing can be more immoral than that one country should send into another the criminals of whom it desires to be rid." But he comforts himself with the idea that in Italy they will be received as saints, and that "in this gift of living saints which we are sending him, the Pope will recognise a humble attempt to express our gratitude for all the arms, legs, and other relics of dead saints with which he has favoured our pious credulity during the centuries gone by."