In the Province of Vendée the majority of the clergy refused to take the oath, and carried with them the immense majority of the simple and superstitious peasants. The churches in which they had ministered were immediately assigned to other priests who had taken the oath. The great mass of the people abandoned the churches and followed their nonjuring pastors to private houses, barns, and into the fields. Great enthusiasm was excited, and the nonjuring priests endeavored to excite the people against their colleagues who had taken the oath, and against the people who accepted their ministrations. Acts of violence were frequent and civil war was imminent. The Legislative Assembly was alarmed, and endeavored to meet the difficulty by adopting measures totally hostile to the free spirit of the Constitution. They resolved that the nonjuring priests should again be called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution; that, if they refused, they should be not only deprived of all salary, but should be removed from their parishes, and even imprisoned, if need be, that they might not excite their former parishioners to civil war. They were also forbidden to exercise the privilege of private worship. The administrative bodies were required to transmit a list of such priests to the Assembly, with notes relative to the conduct of each one. These decrees were surely unconstitutional. The bishops and the priests who were endangered by them sent to the king an earnest remonstrance against them. Many of the most influential of the Constitutionalists were opposed to them as both tyrannical and cruel. The king was so moved that he said to his ministers, who coincided with him in opinion, "They shall take my life before they shall compel me to sanction such decrees." The king returned the bill with his _veto_, and aggravated the odium this would naturally excite by retaining, contrary to the solicitations of his best friends, nonjuring ecclesiastics to perform the religious services of his chapel. Though we can not commend the _prudence_ we must respect the _spirit_ which impelled him to say, "The Constitution decrees freedom of religious worship for every body. The king is surely entitled to that liberty as much as his subjects." All argument was on one side, but peril, more powerful than argument, on the other. "The nonjuring priests," it was exclaimed, "are exciting civil war. The law of self-defense renders it imperative that we should strike them down."