But graver than its errors in regard to judicial and military reform were the Assembly's errors in regard to the Church. The attack upon the Church has been viewed in many quarters as the most conspicuous example of its unwisdom. The lower ranks of the French clergy had shared to a very large extent the enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the Revolution. Some of them were among the most enlightened members of the Assembly, and were prepared to co-operate heartily in the work of reform. But the financial difficulties of the State were never absent from the minds of the Assembly, and the great possessions of the Church seemed to offer a way out of those difficulties too tempting to be overlooked. It was on this side that the attack began. As early as the 4th August, 1789, tithes had been summarily abolished, and a portion of the income of the Church had thus been cut away, without, as Sieyès vainly pointed out, relieving anyone except the proprietors of land. In the following autumn, Mirabeau carried through the Assembly a decree declaring the possessions of the Church to be the property of the nation, and early in the new year the work of reconstitution began. In February, 1790, the monasteries and religious houses were suppressed, and their property appropriated. In April it was proposed to vote a budget for the maintenance of the clergy. In June, going further still, the Assembly undertook to re-organise the whole ecclesiastical system, and after long and animated debates the Civil Constitution of the clergy was adopted in the month of July. In August the Assembly formally took over the management of the property of the Church.