Durand de Maillane, reporting on the whole affair, insisted that the state could not let clerical domination and religious abuses continue as it went about the job of cleaning up the other problems. The state could not tolerate any ecclesiastical self-defense from the bishops and priests who were the source of the abuses, no more than it could tolerate any offensive actions against the government. The Catholic Church response could not be taken seriously, because it was offered by “the court of Rome” and not really by the “Holy See.” When False Decretals and new laws unjustly extended Roman authority over the years, “the more learned bishops in these latter days have complained”; and this was one of the glories of the Gallican Church, always holding out against Roman abuses. Durand scorns the lavishness of church ornaments as one major example of clerical self-indulgence.55 Rather, he envisions a new episcopate, elected after the manner of the early church, “half ecclesiastical, half popular.” It appears, too, that Durand would expect that choices could fall outside the regular rostra of bishops and priests: “I thought that if the choice for the episcopate should fall upon others, it could only be by divine inspiration because of outstanding virtues such as those of Ambrose and Augustine, which appeared to me more in conformity with the minds of the church, and electoral liberty, and ancient customs.”56
Gallican bishops had always insisted that their church dignity was founded by Christ and, hence, not arbitrary. Durand insists that, consequently, authority cannot be exercised arbitrarily, and so sets the bishop in the proper context to benefit from his priests: “It is precisely because of the new cathedral arrangement that we have come to place the bishop and his presbytery in a happy and paternal relationship.”57 But the aristocratic French bishops were refusing to countenance any loss of dignity and so rejected everything the Assembly tried to do to return to the discipline of the early church, and to assure the care of souls and the preaching of the gospel. Apropos, Durand is especially concerned to ensure the care of souls and the preaching of the gospel, and consequently, to elevate the wretched state of the country priests.58
As he drafted the document, Durand knew that a principal complaint against election of bishops was based on the possibility of a non-Catholic vote: “But after the explanations that I have given on the real meaning of the acts of election, institution, and consecration, a single response will be enough to refute one or another of the objections.”59 The regular voters can be trusted to supply a good moral and political foundation for the election; then it is up to the hierarchy to decide what best serves the spiritual interests of their people. Inasmuch as the decrees presupposed the celebration of a Mass before the election, one would expect non-Catholics to vote in very limited numbers. Durand builds on the commonplace that a special dynamism resided in the bishops of the early church. And in its carefully maintained freedom, the Gallican Church is a counterweight to the abuses of the Roman court. So, the “pope is neither infallible nor superior to a general council, which alone represents [the church].”60 He has no civil or temporal rights over kings, nor can he insist that people set up any particular form of society or government. The pope is not to make any particular judgments about the French. That is for the local hierarchy to do, and this in conformity with “natural law and ancient custom.”61
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy
The central church reform document, and the subsequent cause of all the strife, was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 12 July 1790 and ratified, in effect, by all clergy who professed the oath of loyalty to the nation, the law, and the king, at the very beginning of the following year.62 Pierre Durand de Maillane and Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, the lay canon lawyers, were the outspoken members of the Ecclesiastical Committee across the weeks of debate in 1790, 29 May to 12 July. But the top orator was Armand-Gaston Camus, lay canon lawyer and polymath, whose theology of the church was the principal inspiration for Adrien Lamourette, the future constitutional bishop, a major influence on Henri Grégoire and Claude Fauchet all along, and on the comte de Mirabeau in the National Assembly.
The Civil Constitution fundamentally restructured French dioceses to coordinate with the new subdivision of the country into departments. Special attention was given to the independence of the French church from outside domination: “No church or parish of France, and no French citizen, may, under any circumstances or on any pretext whatsoever, acknowledge the authority of an ordinary bishop or archbishop whose see is established under the name of a foreign power.”63 Cities of less than six thousand people were to have one parish only; cities of more than six thousand were to have as many parishes as necessary to take care of the needs of the people. All titles and offices were to be abolished.
In providing for the election of church officials, the Civil Constitution revived much earlier custom. Priests who served fifteen years within a diocese were eligible for election as bishop and, if elected, would receive confirmation from the metropolitan bishop; if election was to the metropolitan see itself, confirmation would come from the oldest bishop of the arrondissement. Each bishop with his council constituted the regional church authority. The election of the local curé was to take place in each parish, following the form established for election of members of the district administrative assembly.
Set between the rules for the election of the bishop and the election of the curé were two major elements of the Civil Constitution. First, the bishops were to report in (and only report in) to the pope: “The new bishop may not apply to the Pope for confirmation, but shall write to him as the Visible Head of the Universal Church, in testimony of the unity of faith and communion which he is to maintain therewith.”64 Second, the bishop was to take an oath of loyalty to the nation, the law, and the king: “The bishop-elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal officials, the people, and the clergy, to watch with care over the faithful of the diocese entrusted to him, to be faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king, and to maintain with all his power the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king.”65 All clergy were to be salaried by the state but held to laws of residency: “No bishop may absent himself from his diocese for more than fifteen consecutive days during any year.”66 The same time limits were to apply to curés and vicars in their parishes.
When the time came, the elections themselves were conducted as part of the new governmental electoral structure. Selection of bishops and curés was actually accomplished by electors who were themselves chosen by voters who met in primary assemblies. There would be one elector for every one hundred citizens, and the electors tended to be relatively well-off, with enough leisure time to take part in the somewhat lengthy process. Later constitutional writers seldom acknowledged this two-tier system, but preferred, rather, to evoke a golden age of early church history, when the faithful would in all freedom and innocence choose their clergy, sometimes by acclamation. In fact, the system tended to produce bishops and priests that appealed to the more radical bourgeoisie.67
If one label is to be used to explain the motivations or at least the orientation of the champions of the Civil Constitution, it would be “Gallican,” the grand old tradition of a national church wherein the French bishops would establish and carry out their own agenda, in conformity with