Let us trace, (say the Jacobins), the progress of this liberating
operation. -- Always timid and at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical
organization, the Constituent Assembly could take only half-measures;
it cut into the bark without daring to drive the ax into the solid
trunk. Its work reduced itself down to the confiscation of clerical
property, to a dissolution of the religious orders, and to a check
upon the authority of the pope; its object was to establish a new
church and transform priests into sworn functionaries of the State,
and this was all. As if Catholicism, even administrative, would cease
to be Catholicism! As if the noxious tree, once stamped with the
public seal, would cease to be noxious! Instead of the old laboratory
of falsehoods being destroyed another one is officially established
alongside of it, so that there are now two instead of one. With or
without the official label it operates in every commune in France and,
as in the past, it distributes with impunity its drug to the public.
This is precisely what we, (the Jacobins) cannot tolerate. - We must,
indeed, keep up appearances, and, as far as words go, we will decree
anew freedom of worship.
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