The Civic Constitution of the Clergy thus established in France not only a schism, by depriving the bishops of the right of recourse to the Pope, but heresy also in denying the effective primacy of the Pope and his sovereign power in the direction of the Church and the nomination of her ministers. _SORROW OF PIUS VI._ When the news was brought to Pope Pius VI. that the Assembly was actually engaged in voting the several articles of the Civil Constitution, his sorrow knew no bounds. Public prayers were at once ordered in the churches of Rome, while at the same time the Holy Father addressed an impressive appeal to Louis XVI., insisting on his refusing his sanction to the impious measures. Letters were also sent by the Pope to the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Vienne, requesting them to use their good offices in dissuading the king from sanctioning the law. Unhappily these two prelates betrayed the trust reposed in them and used their influence to the opposite end. It is to their credit that they soon perceived their error and repented bitterly for it. In the meantime Louis XVI. wrote to the Pope beseeching him to approve, at least provisorily, of the first five articles to which he was in a manner forced to give his sanction. The Holy Father placed the matter in the hands of a commission of cardinals for examination. On October 30, of the same year, the thirty bishops who occupied seats in the Assembly subscribed their names to a carefully prepared memorial entitled _Exposition of Principles Concerning the Civil Constitution of the Clergy_, wherein the new code of laws was unequivocably condemned. In this position the episcopal deputies were supported by the adherence of nearly all the French bishops. Their expression of disapproval, however, came too late, as the civil constitution had already received the royal sanction (August 24, 1790), and thereby became a law of the realm. [Illustration: MIRABEAU.]