The revolutionists were soon compelled to acknowledge that their proceedings had had the opposite effect to what they had wished and expected. Significantly enough, the envoys sent to La Vendée were the first to advise complete separation of church from state. In their opinion this was the only means of tranquillising men's minds and restoring the country to peace. As far back as the days of the Legislative Assembly it had been proposed by a priest that the state should cease to subsidise any religion. But men were too excited then to refrain from violent espousal of one side or the other. The revolutionists hoped, as they often said, "to put an end to all sectarianism" by the aid of universal education. They fondly imagined that the era of dogmas was past, that the time had come when, in the words of Jefferson, the American, the miraculous conception of Christ in the womb of a virgin was to be classed along with the miraculous conception of Minerva in the head of Jupiter. In a report drawn up under the Convention we read: "Soon men will only make acquaintance with these foolish dogmas, the offspring of fear and delusion, to despise them. Soon the religion of Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero will be the religion of the world." And when, in her Memoirs, Madame Roland has occasion to use the word "catechism," she considers it necessary to explain it for the benefit of posterity. She writes: "So rapidly are things moving now that the readers of this passage will perhaps ask: What was that? I will tell them." The men of the Revolution had failed to comprehend that the great body of the people, profoundly ignorant, and imbued with ideas and feelings which had been transmitted from generation to generation for centuries, were irresponsive to their appeals, terrified by their acts of violence, and prepared, from old habit, to give themselves over into the hands of the priests again, as soon as opportunity offered. In 1800, in a letter to Bonaparte, General Clarke writes: "Our religious revolution has been a failure. France has become Roman Catholic again. It would take thirty years' liberty of the press to destroy the spiritual power of the Bishop of Rome." He is mistaken only in his computation of thirty years. Three hundred would be more nearly the number required, and even this would only suffice if to liberty of the press were added good, free, and entirely secular education.