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The Civil Constitution on the Clergy and The Martyrs of September

By: Br. Silas Henderson OSB

On the 2^nd and 3^rd of September 1792, nearly 1400 men, women, and children, were killed by Parisian mobs inflamed by both fear and the ideals of the Revolution.  From among the number those killed, the Catholic Church has chosen to commemorate a special group of priests, religious brothers, and laymen as martyrs of the faith.  In order to fully understand the circumstances surrounding the murder of the Blessed Martyrs of September, it will be helpful to examine the many political and socio-economic forces, particularly the influence of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, at work in France at the end of the 18^th century.

When the French Estates General met in 1789 it was generally agreed that political and administrative reforms were needed.  With this desire for legislative reorganization was a call for ecclesiastical reform that would serve to separate the Church and State who had been intimately connected from medieval times.[1] 

            The Roman Catholic Church in France had gained unprecedented wealth and influence in the period of Catholic Counter-Reformation building on the program of hierarchical and theological reform implemented by the Council of Trent and subsequent Church reformers such as the Cardinal-Saints Robert Bellarmine and Charles Borromeo.  This period of Counter-Reformation also saw the rise of new religious orders that included the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Company of Saint Ursula (Ursulines), the Capuchin Franciscans, the Order of Clerks Regular of the Pious Schools (Piarists), and the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God (Theatines).  The early 18^th century saw the foundation of a number of French communities such as the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians) and the Daughters of Charity by Saint Vincent de Paul, the Christian Brothers by Saint John Baptist de la Salle, and the Society of Saint-Sulpice (which was dedicated to the formation of seminarians according to the precepts of the Council of Trent).   Other, smaller, local religious communities, particularly those of women, were established to serve the needs of the lower classes, with special outreach to young women.  It was these religious congregations who would be responsible for the day-to-day affairs of almost every charitable and educational institution in the Kingdom of France.[2]

            In spite of these grass roots efforts the Church in France was decadent and its ranks seemed to be filled with careerists who showed little concern for their spiritual responsibilities.  Prelates tended to gravitate toward Versailles where the King exerted considerable influence over Church affairs through the appointment of all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Abbesses, and higher members of the clergy as established by the Concordat of Bologna of 1516.[3]  According to the articles of this agreement, the Pope would automatically approve and consecrate all those prelates appointed by the King in exchange for annates, payments amounting to the first year’s revenue of the new prelates.[4]  By this arrangement the Church filled a role as moral leader of the nation while enjoying the protection and favor of the crown.[5] 

            The late 18^th century saw the ranks of the French clergy swell to nearly 150,000 members and these priests and religious were governed by nearly 10,000 prelates.  The Church held about 15 percent of lands in France from which it drew feudal dues.  Each year the Church also collected a tithe which amounted to as much as 130 million livres, which, when combined with its other revenues equaled an annual income about 300 million livres.[6]  In addition to its land-holdings and properties the Church also owned a number of commercial enterprises. In spite of its great wealth, the Church’s clerics and religious were not taxed although a percentage of the Church’s assets did go toward the maintenance of its charitable and educational apostolates including orphanages, hospitals, schools, and even universities.  The Church was also responsible for supporting its own clergy, retired priests, monks, and nuns.[7]

            The great French monasteries and ancient religious congregations came under particular fire from the philosophes and critics.  Voltaire asked, “What does a monk do for a living?  Nothing, except to bind himself by an inviolable oath to be a slave and a fool and to live at the expense of other people.”[8]  This period also saw a decline in the traditional forms of piety among the common people (e.g. fasting, pilgrimage, and religious confraternities and organizations).  “In Paris and Bordeaux, less than half the legal communicants made an annual approach to the altar”[9] while in the countryside however the obligation of the “Easter duty” was observed by most of the population.  At the same time, religion was becoming more formalized.  Church interiors were becoming more ornate with liturgies being celebrated with a certain grandeur even in smaller parishes.[10]  The education level of the clergy was also higher than it had ever been because of a new seminary system.  The cures were typically men of character and leaders of local life having daily contact with their people, sharing their hardships but receiving little support from Church administration.  This would later play an important role in the Third Estate’s rise to power in the early days of the Revolution. 

            While the lesser clergy shared the hardships of their people, members of the upper clergy often lived in luxury.  In 1789 the hierarchy was composed entirely of nobles.[11]  The people seldom saw the ranking clergy and the practice of holding multiple benefices was common.  However, on the whole the hierarchy was as not corrupt nor were all bishops the careerists they have been made out to be.  Historians note that many prelates who did begin their careers in this way did, over time, become sincerely religious.[12]

            As the nation faced the severe financial crisis of the late 1780s, many realized that reform had become necessary and the burden of restructuring and reorganizing fell to King Louis XVI who was ultimately unequal to the challenge.[13]  Among the nobles and clergy there was an almost universal call for the convocation of the Estates General, which had almost always been controlled by these two estates.  The Church used its financial influence to force the hand of the King, when in June, 1788, the hierarchy voted to give the king an insultingly small don gratuity, a periodic free-will offering given in acknowledgement of the crown’s protection of the Church.[14]  In August 1788, Louis XVI, surrendering to his nobles and clergy, announced that he would call the Estates General to meet in May 1789.  Ironically, in their actions the First and Second Estates had set the scene for their own destruction.[15] 

Prior to the convocation of the Estates General, Louis commanded the preparation of cahiers de doleances (bills of grievances and request) to provide the government with a guide as to how it might more effectively satisfy public demands.  These however ultimately proved to be a poor gauge of public opinion.[16]  Despite the unrest among the Third Estate, none of the general cahiers went so far as to even hint at the abolition of the monarchy or nobility, and only the most glaring abuses of the Church (e.g. the plurality of offices) were mentioned.[17] 

During the meetings of the Estates General the unrest and dissatisfaction of the Third Estate continued to increase and on May 6, 1789, they passed a resolution refusing to recognize the three Estate organization.  The clergy and nobles voted against the resolution and the Estates was deadlocked for six weeks.  During this time the Third Estate continued to meet and in June both cures and liberal bishops began to join the Third Estate.  On June 17, the Third Estate proclaimed itself the National Assembly of France.[18]  On June 20, the deputies of the Third Estate, being locked out of their meeting place, met at an indoor tennis court where they pledged to continue their work of forming a constitution for France.[19]  On June 22 another 120 of the 300 representatives of the clergy joined the new National Assembly.  At a royal assembly on June 23 the King declared that the Estates consisted of three orders yet he allowed certain concessions in voting policies, provided the rights of the nobles and clergy were not effected.  The following day a majority of the clergy went to the National Assembly.  Finally, on June 27 the King, being left with no other alternative, ordered the remaining nobles and clergy to join the National Assembly.

The new Assembly began its work of reform immediately.  On August 4, 1789, it voted to abolish the privileges of the nobles and clergy.  The tithe was abolished and on October 10, the Bishop of Autun introduced a plan for the confiscation of Church property.  On November 2, the Assembly voted (510 to 346) that all Church property was “at the disposal of the nation.”[20]   At the same time it was agreed that the state would assume the responsibility of supporting the clergy and the poor.  By May 10, 1790, the confiscations were complete.[21]  At the same time the Assembly began its attack on monasticism and religious life.  A decree of February 13, 1790, withdrew official recognition of existing canonical vows and gave religious men and women a chance to “choose freedom.”[22]  “At last, the reformers said, the armies of shiftless monks and nuns would be turned into useful citizens… The response of the two sexes to this sudden opportunity was however, quite different.”[23]  Most of the nuns and monks in Paris decided to stay.  The Benedictines of Saint-Martin-des-Champs voted in September 1789 to give up their property against allowances paid by the state but decided in 1790 to retain their monastic vows.  As the Carmelite nuns of Paris declared, “if there be happiness on earth we enjoy it in the shelter of the sanctuary.”[24]  Ironically, however, a great exodus did occur from the great abbeys of Clairvaux, Cluny, and Cîteaux; the very abbeys that had been the center of the great monastic revivals and reform of the twelfth century.

All of these reforms introduced such profound changes in the structure of the French Church that the Assembly was forced seek out ways to maintain some semblance of the traditional structure.  It envisioned supplying a religious foundation for this new National unity and the Ecclesiastical Committee, which had been established in August 1789, presented a plan to reorganize the French Church.  The clergy were seen as an integral part in helping spread the cause of the Revolution, to “help the people, especially in the countryside, to comprehend the revolutionary legislation.”[25]  The Pulpit became the place for reading decrees and disabusing people of false rumors. 

While not inspired directly by the anti-religious sentiment of the Enlightenment, the ideas of the Ecclesiastical Committee did reflect the independent attitude of the Gallican Church toward Rome.[26]  The Assembly considered it beneath them to consult the Holy See.  However between May 29 and July 12 of 1789 numerous attempts were made by conservative representatives to seek Papal Assent without which the law would be unacceptable.  Pope Pius VI, while being aware of these events, remained silent in the hopes that the King would refuse to accept the newly proposed Constitution on the Clergy.[27]  The King however approved the Civil Constitution on the Clergy on August 24, 1790.

            The Civil Constitution on the Clergy is a long document divided into four sections.[28]  These deal with 1) ecclesiastical offices, 2) the appoint of benefices, 3) payment of ministers (including a detailed pay scale), and 4) obligations of ecclesiastics as public functionaries.[29]  Ecclesiastical boundaries were redrawn to coincide with new secular administrative divisions with one diocese per department, and it recognized one parish for every 6,000 souls.  The only ecclesiastical offices recognized were those of bishop, pastor (cure) and curate (vicaire).  The Constitution suppressed Cathedral and Monastic Chapters and ignored any kind of religious or monastic congregation.  Bishops and pastors were to be elected and new bishops did not need to solicit any kind of investiture or consecration from the Pope. 

            Defenders of these laws stressed that the Catholic Church had been given the honor of being the state religion and that it ended long-standing abuses.  However, in reality the Civil Constitution on the Clergy represented the final step in the State’s assumption of control of the Church.[30]  Adversaries argued that the Holy See would never accept any changes to ecclesial boundaries and an elective process that allowed Protestants and non-believers to elect Bishops and Pastors.[31]

            French bishops were nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the Civil Constitution on the Clergy and in their allegiance to Rome.[32]  However, a vast majority of the local clergy seemed to welcome the new law.  Finally, after eight months of silence, Pope Pius VI issued a brief on March 10, 1791, and the Bull Charitas[33] on April 13, each addressing the situation in France. In Charitas he suspended all secular and regular clergy who had taken the oath and who did not recant within forty days.  He also threatened to excommunicate any rebel prelates who did not recant.  Finally, he strongly called for an alliance of European princes to come to the aid of King Louis XVI.  It was only in later bulls that he blatantly condemned the Revolution itself. 

On June 9, 1791, the National Assembly issued the Decree Restricting the Publication of Papal Documents in France.  It declared that no “briefs, bulls, rescripts, constitutions, decrees, or dispatches of the Court of Rome, under any denomination whatsoever, may be recognized as such, received, published, printed, posted, or otherwise put into effect within the Kingdom” and threatened that cleric or public functionary who read or distributed such a document would be punished with the penalty of “civil degradation.”[34]

            The clergy obedient to the Pope came to be known as the “Refractory” Clergy and the Church was soon divided into two camps.  The Constitutional Church stood for the State and the Refractory Church remained loyal to the Papacy.  However, after the Pope’s condemnation, all bishops (except three) and a majority of priests renounced their oaths.[35]  The Pope, almost the entire French episcopate and many priests and religious turned against the Revolution.[36]  According to a decree issued by the National Assembly in November 1791, any clerics who had not taken the oath were “suspect of revolt against the law” and were to be deported.  Nearly 30,000 priests and religious fled or were driven from France.  Those who remained did so at the peril of the lives.[37] 

            Over the next several months, the political situation became more tense.  In July 1792, the Prussians threatened to attack the French in protest of their treatment of the French monarchs and in August the Parisian mob stormed the residence of the royal family and imprisoned the King and Queen.[38]  On August 11, municipal authorities received permission to arrest suspected rebels, including refractory priests.[39]  In Paris these supposed rebels were herded into prisons and improvised jails, some of which were located in former monasteries, convents, and seminaries.[40]  Panic began to spread and when false rumors began to circulate on Sunday, September 2 that the Prussians were preparing to invade and the prisoners were planning to rebel, Parisian mobs invaded the prisons and executing hundreds of prisoners.[41]  Of the almost 1400 men and women killed, nearly 200 were priests and religious murdered for their refusal to take the oath of allegiance. 

            The massacre of the clergy began at the prison at L’Abbaye.  The crowd seized twenty-four priests who had been marked for deportation and called for immediate judgment.  When the priests refused to take the oath, they were handed over to the crowd who literally hacked them to death.[42]  Five of these survived offering their accounts of what happened.  Among those killed was the king’s confessor, the ex-Jesuit Alexandre Lenfant, and the Abbé Roch, Ambroise Sicard, who had founded a school for deaf-mute children in Paris.[43]

            Later that day, the mob attacked the Carmelite Church in the rue de Rennes, where more than 150 bishops and priests were being held.[44]  Several bishops and some priests were saying vespers in a chapel when the mob broke into the garden and murdered the first priest they met.  The Archbishop of Arles, Jean-Marie du Lau, came out of the chapel and was executed as soon as he identified himself.[45]  The mob began firing into the group of gathered priests but soon stopped and appointed a “judge” to pass sentence.  As he sat in a passage between the Church and the sacristy the prisoners were brought before him in pairs.  None took the oath and each was hacked to death as he moved down the passage.[46]  Among those killed were the Superior General of the Maurist Benedictines, Ambroise Augustin Chevreux, François Hébert, another former confessor of King Louis XVI, a layman Charles de la Calmette, and representatives of the Jesuits, Sulpicians, Franciscans, members of the Diocesan Clergy (including three transitional deacons and an acolyte), and Solomon LeClerq, the Superior of the Christian Brothers.[47]  The general massacre continued until nightfall; the authorities made no attempt to put an end to the killing.[48]

            At the prison of La Force on the rue Saint-Antoine, no one survived to give an account of what happened.[49]

            The Lazarist (Vincentian) seminary of Saint-Firmin was attacked at 5:30 in the morning on September 3.[50]  Their first victim was the former Jesuit, Pierre Guerin, who was thrown from a window and mutilated when he refused to take the oath.  The superior of the seminary, Louis Joseph Francois, was offered a chance to escape but refused to leave.  Also included in this group was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Paris, Ivo Guillon de Keranrun and three laymen who had been imprisoned because of  assistance they offered the refractory clergy.[51] 

            Following the September massacres, the authorities were satisfied and congratulated themselves that there were now only “good members of the Republic.”[52]  For days after the sites of the murders were scrubbed and doused with vinegar, though in some places, like La Force, some of the bloodstains could not be removed.[53] 

As the revolution progressed the influence and remaining power of the Church was decimated.  It was only in 1795 that the Church and State were formally separated and the Civil Constitution abandoned.[54]  Catholics in France had continued to show a preference for the “good” refractory priests and outside France Catholics supported the faithful refugee priest.  Eager to re-establish peace with the Church as a necessary part restoring order in France, Napoleon agreed to the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII which restored the French Church to the authority of the Papacy.[55]

            The death of the “Martyrs of September” captured the imagination of the faithful of France and while there were many martyrs during the French Revolution[56], this group remained distinct; their decision to face death did not come in September 1791 but months before when they had agreed to reject the Civil Constitution on the Clergy.  Their deaths during the massacre of September 2nd and 3rd were the result of that decision. 

On October 17, 1926, Pope Pius XI issued the decree of Beatification for the Martyrs of September.  In it he called these men “true martyrs who were faithful to the Catholic Faith.”[57]  Listing each martyr by name and diocesan or congregational affiliation he named 191 bishops and priests who died for their religious convictions.[58]  While the story of these martyrs is little more than a footnote in the story of the French Revolution and little known outside of France, this group represents an unflinching loyalty to the Church and her authority, even under the most extreme circumstances.  The Liturgical Commemoration of the Martyrs of September is celebrated on September 2.   

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