It is all very disheartening, but it is an honest part of our story and must be told. No doubt the intentions of those who were directly responsible for the great French upheaval were of the best. The Declaration of the Rights of Man had laid down the principle that no citizen should ever be disturbed in the peaceful pursuit of his ways on account of his opinion, “not even his religious opinion,” provided that his ideas did not disturb the public order as laid down by the various decrees and laws. This however did not mean equal rights for all religious denominations. The Protestant faith henceforth was to be tolerated, Protestants were not to be annoyed because they worshiped in a different church from their Catholic neighbors, but Catholicism remained the official, the “dominant” Church of the state. Mirabeau, with his unerring instinct for the essentials of political life, knew that this far famed concession was only a half-way measure. But Mirabeau, who was trying to turn a great social cataclysm into a one-man revolution, died under the effort and many noblemen and bishops, repenting of their generous gesture of the night of the fourth of August, were already beginning that policy of obstructionism which was to be of such fatal consequence to their master the king. And it was not until two years later in the year 1791 (and exactly two years too late for any practical purpose) that all religious sects including the Protestants and the Jews, were placed upon a basis of absolute equality and were declared to enjoy the same liberty before the law. From that moment on, the rôles began to be reversed. The constitution which the representatives of the French people finally bestowed upon an expectant country insisted that all priests of whatsoever faith should swear an oath of allegiance to the new form of government and should regard themselves strictly as servants of the state, like the school-teachers and postal employees and light-house keepers and customs officials who were their fellow-citizens. Pope Pius VI objected. The clerical stipulations of the new constitution were in direct violation of every solemn agreement that had been concluded between France and the Holy See since the year 1516. But the Assembly was in no mood to bother about such little trifles as precedents and treaties. The clergy must either swear allegiance to this decree or resign their positions and starve to death. A few bishops and a few priests accepted what seemed inevitable. They crossed their fingers and went through the formality of an oath. But by far the greater number, being honest men, refused to perjure themselves and taking a leaf out of the book of those Huguenots whom they had persecuted during so many years, they began to say mass in deserted stables and to give communion in pigsties, to preach their sermons behind country hedges and to pay clandestine visits to the homes of their former parishioners in the middle of the night.