[30]
Consequently, in default of an orthodox clergy, there must no longer
be an orthodox worship; the most dangerous of the two manufactories of
superstition is shut down. That the sale of this poisonous food may
be more surely stopped we punish those who ask for it the same as
those who provide it, and we prosecute not only the pastors, but,
again, the fanatics of the flock; if these are not the authors of the
ecclesiastical rebellion they are its promoters and accomplices. Now,
thanks to the schism among them, we already know who they are, and, in
each commune, the list is made out. We style as fanatics all who
reject the ministry of the sworn priests, the bourgeois who calls him
an interloper, all the nuns who do not confess to him, all the
peasants who stay away from his mass, all the old women who do not
kiss his paten, and all the relations of an infant who do not wish him
to baptize it. All these people and those who associate with them,
whether allied, close relatives, friends, guests or visitors, of
whatever class, either men or women, are seditious at heart, and,
therefore, "suspects." We deprive them of their electoral rights, we
withdraw their pensions, we impose on them special taxation, we
confine them to their dwellings, we imprison them by thousands, and
guillotine them by hundreds; the rest will gradually become
discouraged and abandon an impracticable cult.
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