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FRENCH CLERGY.

The Minister of general police, to the prefects of the departments.

Paris, July 20.

Since the eighteenth of Brumaire (9th November) Citizens Prefects, all the acts of the government, with respect to the catholic priests, have had for their principle and their object the liberty of worship; hoping to bring back, by indulgence, men whom it conceived only led astray, it permitted many of them to return into the bosom of their country; and even authorized them to exercise their worship. Their exile was terminated on this single condition; that they should promise to be obedient to the laws, that is, that they would not disturb the order to which they are indebted for their return to France: and that they would not tear the bosom of that generous family which forgot their faults, and held forth its arms to receive them.

Although the government could not have expected that gratitude would bind to it all those to whose misfortunes it put an end; it had at least a right to believe, that the sanctity of their engagements would have retained in passive submission men who had shewn such a scrupulous respect for what they called the laws of their conscience.

This expectation has been disappointed; and more than one priest, after having experienced the clemency of the government, has persisted in a state of rebellion against it. I do not speak of those who have constantly refused to promise fidelity to the constitution; they have passed judgment on themselves: they should be banished from the bosom of the republic, for it is renouncing a country to refuse to acknowledge its laws. I point out to you here
Those priests whose conduct is a continued perjury from the moment when they made the promise of humility to the laws. Because the republican government does not appear to them to be favorable to their ambition, they think that they may, with impunity, betray the oaths which they have made; and if any person observe to them that the maxims of the Gospel itself reprobate this impiety, they say, that it is better to obey God than to obey men. Thus the ministers of lies make their God warrant perjury and anarchy. With them discord entered into the communes. They have sown division among the citizens and hatred in families; revived party quarrels, alarmed the consciences, fanaticised the ardent minds, abused the credulity of the weak; and, in fine, renewed, in the age of light and liberty, all the ridiculous and scandalous notions of the ages of ignorance and superstition. It is particularly in the communes where they find themselves opposed to the priests who have conformed to the laws, that the disturbances are in the extreme; they cannot forgive them their obedience to the civil power; and they proclaim them enemies of God, because they have been at all times friends to the republic.

In vain has it been attempted to apply the law of the 11th Prairial (May 31) and to assign to the different priests, distinct hours for the use of the same temple. The combatants are always engaged; and in their violent debates the public authority is frequently insulted. Take care, Citizens Prefects, that the liberty of worship shall no longer be, to some individuals, the licentious conduct and arbitrary power of their own particular mode. It is necessary to place a barrier between men whom it is impossible to bring in contact without danger. The measures which I am about to prescribe to you appear to me likely to attain this end. If, in some instances, they seem to grant a kind of pre-eminence to the priests who are obedient to the laws, this preference is unquestionably due to men who, being born of the revolution, have always continued faithful to it; who do not stand in need of any pardon; who have united their fate to that of the republic; and who do not cease, even now, to hold up the love and respect due to the government, by their discourses, and by their example.

I charge you, therefore, Citizens Prefects,

1. To ferret out the seditious priests, who have hitherto refused to promise fidelity to the constitution, and to oblige them to quit the territories of the republic without the smallest delay.

2. To order provisionally, and as a measure of police, every priest who has re-entered upon a commune, where, before his exile, he exercised the functions of bishop, of curate, or vicar, and where his presence would be injurious to the public tranquillity, to retire immediately to such a district, as that his influence can no longer cause any disturbance.

3. To enjoin the Mayors of such communes as have but one building consecrated to the exercise of worship, to allow the use of it only to the priest who officiated there at the period of the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9.) and, in case the church should have been then vacant, to maintain exclusively the priest first called by the will of the majority of the Inhabitants.

If you think, Citizens Prefects, that these regulations admit of some exceptions, you will submit them to me; and you will give me an account of such provisional decisions as you shall think it necessary to make, in order that I may confirm or annul them.

I salute you.

(Signed) FOUCHE.