The mass was celebrated with due solemnity by the Bishop of Autun; but there is a tradition which, for the honour and character of Talleyrand, we will believe to be unfounded, that when Mirabeau passed beside the altar the officiating pontiff addressed to him some expressions of mockery and irreligion, which must have weighed heavily upon his conscience on his death-bed. There are, unfortunately, seasons of youth and evil passions, when people give way to anti-Christian ideas, and at that time a degree of impiety was the fashion. Was it not then considered good taste to ridicule the holy and noble ceremonies of the Catholic religion? Talleyrand took a part in all the anti-religious proceedings of the Constituent Assembly upon the situation of the clergy in France, and he was commissioned to apply the civil constitution to his diocese, but the powerful opposition of his clergy did not permit him to accomplish his purpose, for the greater part of the parish priests refused to take the oath. He was present at the consecration of the first constitutional bishops, and, if this devoted conduct was considered deserving of praise by the assembly, it was regarded in a very different light elsewhere, and drew upon him the excommunication of the holy see. Pope Pius VI. published a bull against the Bishop of Autun, in which he declared him out of the pale of the Church, for having become an adherent of the civil constitution of the clergy. This step needs no explanation, such a constitution being in its very essence subversive of all Catholic faith. It was a work of the ultra-Jansenist party, and so thoroughly overstepped all the established rules, that it allowed the Jews and Protestants belonging to various districts and corporations to participate in the election of the Catholic clergy. A bishop or a schoolmaster was appointed in the same manner that a deputy was elected for the National Assembly, for the whole electoral body discharged their duties in the same manner. An absurd principle of equality had levelled every thing; the people appointed the mayors, the bishops, the parish priests, the deputies, and the municipal officers. It was disorder in equality; the levelling principle had trampled down society.