_CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY._ On the night of August 4, 1789, the privileged classes abandoned their feudal rights, and the clergy renounced their titles, and the offerings usual at baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This sacrifice, however, did not suffice to appease the revolutionary spirits, and on August 6th, the right of the clergy to hold property was called into question for the first time. It was then that Buzot pronounced that phrase which was soon to re-echo through the halls of the Assembly: "The property of the clergy belongs to the nation." On October 10, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, so soon to become an apostate and indefatigable persecutor of the Church, returned to the charge. After a fawning address to the popular passions he concluded in proposing a law whose first article declared that "the revenues and property of the clergy are at the disposition of the nation," with the condition that the State should recompense the ministers of worship with a suitable salary, which should be solemnly recognized as a public debt. The project of Talleyrand was espoused with fierce eloquence by Mirabeau and became a law on Nov. 2, 1789, framed in these terms: "The National Assembly decrees: First. That all ecclesiastical property is at the disposition of the nation which charges itself with providing in a suitable manner for the expenses of worship, the maintenance of its ministers, and the relief of the poor, subject to the surveillance and according to the instructions of the provinces. Second. That in the dispositions to be made for the maintenance of the ministers of religion, there shall be assured every curé a payment of not less than 1,200 livres a year, not including his house and garden." [Illustration: TALLEYRAND.] On April 9, 1790, Chasset demanded the actual confiscation of all ecclesiastical property, a motion that was voted a law on April 14th following. The possessions of the clergy, valued at $400,000,000, were then put up at auction, and sold to speculators at prices that at once betrayed the venal spirit of the agitators. Indignant protests went up on all sides against a sacrilege whose effect could be nothing less than the destruction of religion; but all efforts to stay the action were unavailing. _PERSECUTION Of THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS._