War on Sunday, on the old calendar and on
fasting, obligatory rest on the d?cadi under penalty of fine and
imprisonment,[92] obligatory f?tes on the anniversaries of January 21
and Fructidor 18, participation of all functionaries with their cult,
obligatory attendance of public and private instructors with their
pupils of both sexes at civic ceremonies, an obligatory liturgy with
catechisms and programmes sent from Paris, rules for scenic display
and for singings, readings, postures, acclamations and imprecations.
One might shrug his shoulders at these prescriptions of cuistres and
these parades of puppets, if, behind the apostles who compose moral
allegories, we did not detect the persecutor who imprisons, tortures
and murders. - By the decree of Fructidor 19, not only were all the
laws of the reign of Terror against unsworn priests, their harborers
and their followers, enforced again, but the Directory arrogated to
itself the right of banishing, "through individual acts passed for
cause," every ecclesiastic "who disturbed the public peace," that is
to say who exercised his ministry and preached his faith;[93] and,
moreover, the right of shooting down, within twenty-four hours, every
priest who, banished by the laws of 1792 and 1793, has remained in or
returned to France.
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