When the hour of action came, the spirit of the masters appeared in their disciples. Like Fénélon and Massillon, the bishop of Arles, and the royalists of his character, thought it a sacrilege to touch either the altar or the throne. Like Voltaire, the Malouets, Mouniers, and Lallys, wished much alteration in the church, and some in the state; but like him, they wished these alterations effected without violence; and were ready to fly at the first beat of a democratic drum :-to use an expression attributed to Mirabeau, they wished une révolution à la Grandison.-The jacobins despised halfreforms and half measures; they thought nothing would be quite right till the church and state were destroyed, and the golden year should arrive, when, according to the expression attributed to Diderot, the last king should be strangled with the bowels of the last priest. In the schemes of the jacobins, the monarchists and constitutionalists unfortunately co-operated; but it was unintentionally; they were the first to appeal to the people; but their appeal was certainly accepted beyond their wishes.

Of all the charges, which have been brought against the catholic religion, that, which required the greatest intrepidity, was, its being the cause of the French revolution.-So far was this from the fact, that Mirabeau, than whom no one most assuredly was better acquainted either with the means or aim of the revolutionists, expressly declared, that before the revolution could be effected, France must be uncatholicised, il faut premièrement décatholiser la France. In conformity with this opinion,

the religious persecution which ensued, was solely directed against the catholic clergy and laity. The writer does not recollect the name of a single person, professing a conscientious adherence to that religion, who was actively engaged in the revolutionary measures: Necker, Chenier, Barnave, Emeri, Rabaud, were not catholics *.

LXXVIII. 5.

Reception in England of the French persecuted
Clergy.

THE writer has attempted to give, in his Historical Memoirs of the Church of France†, some account of the massacres and banishment of the French nonjuring clergy. To this we beg leave to refer our readers.

Towards the end of the month of August 1792, the national assembly of France passed a decree, which ordered that all ecclesiastics, who had not taken the civil oath,- an oath, which no conscientious and well-informed ecclesiastic could lawfully take, or who, having taken it, had retracted it, should within the term of eight days quit their dioceses, and, within the term of fifteen, leave the kingdom, under pain of imprisonment for ten years.

This decree, the massacres of the second and third of the following September, the subsequent massacres, a subsequent decree of deportation, and

*See "Les véritables Auteurs de la Révolution de France, "de 1789, à Neufchatel, 8vo. 1797."

+ Ch. xvii.

finally, the French invasion of Holland, where large numbers of the lay emigrants and deported priests had taken refuge, occasioned the arrivals of them, in large numbers, in England; so that, in the end, the number of deported priests exceeded eight thousand; and that of lay emigrants, exceeded two thousand; we may add to them, the foreign and English nuns who took refuge in this country.

At the respectable and afflicting spectacle, which so many sufferers for conscientious adherenee to religious principle, presented, the English heart showed all its worth. A general appeal to the public was resolved upon. The late Mr. John Wilmot, then member of parliament for the city of Coventry, took the lead in this work of beneficence. The plan of it was concerted by him, Mr. Edmund Burke, and sir Philip Metcalfe. An address to the public was accordingly framed by Mr. Burke, and inserted in all the newspapers. It produced a subscription of 33,775l. 158. 9 d. This ample sum, for a time, supplied the wants of the sufferers. At length, however, it was exhausted; and in the following year, another subscription was set on foot. The venerable name of king George the third, appeared first on this list. This subscription amounted to the sum of 41,304l. 12s. 6d. But this, too, was exhausted.

The measure of private charity being thus exceeded, parliament interposed; and from December 1793, voted annually a sum for the relief of the ecclesiastic and lay emigrants. This appears, by an account which the writer received from Mr.

Wilmot, to have reached, on the 7th day of June 1806, the sum of 1,864,825l. gs. 8d. The management of these sums was left to a committee, of which Mr. Wilmot was the president; and the committee confided the distribution of the succours of the clergy, to the bishop of St. Pol de Léon. A general scale for the distribution of the succours was fixed: the bishops and the magistracy received an allowance somewhat larger than others; but the largest allowance was small; and none was made to those who had other means of subsistence. The munificence of parliament did not, however, suspend the continuance of private charity. Individual kindness and aid accompanied the emigrants to the last. Here, the writer begs leave to mention an instance of the splendid munificence of the late earl Rosslyn, then chancellor of England. It was mentioned at his lordship's table, that the chancellor of France was distressed, by not being able to procure the discount of a bill, which he had brought from France. "The chancellor of Eng"land," said lord Rosslyn, " is the only person "to whom the chancellor of France should apply "to discount his bills." The money was immediately sent; and, while the seals remained in his hands, he annually sent a sum of equal amount to the chancellor of France.

At Winchester, at Guildford, and in other places, public buildings were appropriated for the accommodation of the clergy. In the hurry în which they had been forced to fly, many of them had been obliged to leave behind them their books

of prayer. To supply, in part, this want, the university of Oxford printed for them two thousand copies of the Vulgate version of the New Testament, from the edition of Barbou; and the late marquis of Buckingham printed an equal number of copies, of the same sacred work, at his own

expense.

Every rank and description of persons exerted itself for their relief. There is reason to suppose, that the money contributed for this honourable purpose, by individuals, whose donations never came before the public eye, was equal to the largest of the two subscriptions which have been mentioned. To the very last, Mr. John Wilmot continued his kind and minute attention to the noble work of humanity.-It adds incalculably to its merit, that it was not a sudden burst of beneficence: it was a cool, deliberate, and systematic exertion, which charity dictated, organized, and continued for a long succession of years; and which, in its last year, was as kind, as active, and as energetic, as in its first.

Among the individuals who made themselves most useful, one unquestionably holds the first place. "At the name," says the abbé Barruel," of Mrs. Dorothy Silburn, every French priest raises his " hand to heaven, to implore its blessings on her." The bishop of St. Pol took his abode in her house; and it soon became the central point, to which every Frenchman in distress found his way. It may easily be conceived, that, great as were the sums appropriated for the relief of the French clergy,