in the hands of the bishops, who had been driven by the loss of their revenues into unappeasable hostility to the revolution, an arm of which they were not slow to avail themselves, and by which they created a schism within the Church (November 27). This oath engaged the taker to be faithful to the nation, the law, and the King, and to maintain the constitution. The object which the Assembly had in view was to replace bishops who refused to take part in carrying out the new laws by men attached to the revolution. The fact, however, that the oath might be interpreted to imply acknowledgment of the lawfulness of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the provisions of which were inconsistent with the Papal system, was left out of account. The Pope declared that those who had taken it were schismatics, and cut off from communion with the Church. Passive acceptance of the civil constitution was, therefore, no longer possible to the curés. Of 138 bishops and archbishops only four took the oath, and two-thirds of the secular clergy refused it. Many members of the regular orders, however, took it, so that in the end about 60,000 ecclesiastics, or half of the clergy of France, accepted the new arrangements. By the imposition of this oath discord was aroused in every department. The Assembly granted nonjurors a pension, and allowed them to officiate in parish churches. The result was that in two-thirds of the parishes of France there were two ministers, nominally of the same persuasion, struggling, the one to gain, the other to maintain, influence over the flock. The constitutional priest represented the nonjuror, or former incumbent, as a plotter against the laws and the constitution; the latter represented the intruder as a schismatic, incapable of administering any sacrament, so that persons married or children baptised by him were in reality neither married nor baptised. Here nonjurors were regarded as enemies to the State; there the constitutional clergy as enemies to religion; and whichever side was the stronger proceeded to acts of violence against the other. Generally, in the north of France, the nonjurors had comparatively small influence; and it was only in certain provinces, where they had the support of the peasantry--in Poitou, Auvergne, Alsace, and parts of Artois, Franche-Comté, Champagne, Languedoc, and Bretagne--that any large portion of the population exhibited zeal in their behalf.