In the meantime, while the debate was in progress the great majority of Catholics could hardly believe in the possibility of separation. Events, however, refused to confirm their hopes. The Bill presented by the Government, confided to a Commission, and modified to the point of absolute stringency in the discussions, was finally adopted by the Chamber of Deputies on July 3, 1905. Docile to orders received, the Senatorial Commission, and afterwards the Senate itself, ratified the decision of the Chamber. The haste in putting the new law to a decisive vote was dictated by the fact that a new election was imminent. The law was accordingly voted definitively on December 6, 1905, and at once promulgated. The Council of State was allowed three months delay in order to prepare the details of the rules which should regulate the execution of the law. That delay would end in April, 1906, just a month before the ensuing elections. The Separation would thus be an accomplished fact before the entrance of a new Government. According to the Law of Separation the State assumes the position of a Government professing no religion, though it pretends to guarantee liberty of conscience and the free exercise of religious worship. The Budget of Worship and all public maintenance of any religious church or society was suppressed. By this article the Catholic Church in France was deprived of 37,441,800 francs, or $7,488,360 a year. In order to make the odious item seem less heavy than it actually was, the law made provision for certain pensions. Thus ministers of religion who were not less than sixty years of age at the time the law was passed, and who had passed thirty years in ecclesiastical service, were to receive a life pension equivalent to three-fourths of their former salary. Such as were not less than forty-five years of age at the time, and who had passed twenty years in the religious service, were to receive a life pension of one-half of their former salary. To others less than forty-five years of age it granted pensions extending to from four to eight years, which allowances are to decrease progressively until at the end of eight years they shall be completely extinguished. A third article provides for an inventory of ecclesiastical property by government officials.