The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the treatment of the Protestants by Louis XIV.[2236] In both cases the oppressed are a superior class of men. In both cases France has been made uninhabitable for them. In both cases they are reduced to exile, and they are punished because they exiled them selves. In both cases it ended in a confiscation of their property, and in the penalty of death to all who should harbor them. In both cases, by dint of persecution, they are driven to revolt. The insurrection of La Vendée corresponds with the insurrection of the Cévennes; and the emigrants, like the refugees of former times, will be found under the flags of Prussia and of England. One hundred thousand Frenchmen driven out at the end of the seventeenth century, and one hundred thousand driven out at the end of the eighteenth century! Mark how an intolerant democracy completes the work of an intolerant monarchy. The moral aristocracy was mowed down in the name of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name of equality. For the second time, an absolute principle, and with the same effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society. The success is complete. One of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great increase in emigration, joyfully exclaims, "SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!" She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood. IV.--Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies. How the State used its right of overseeing and reforming them.--Social usefulness of corporations.--The sound part in the monastic institution.--Zeal and services of nuns.--How ecclesiastical possessions should be employed.--Principle of the Assembly as to private communities, feudal rights and trust-funds.--Abolition and expropriation all corporations. --Uncompensated suppression of tithes.--Confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions.--Effect on the Treasury and on expropriated services.--The civil constitution of the clergy.--Rights of the Church in relation to the State. --Certainty and effects of a conflict.--Priests considered as State-functionaries.--Principal stipulations of the law. --Obligations of the oath.--The majority of priests refuse to take it.--The majority of believes on their side. --Persecution of believers and of priests.