de Segur and de Castries had retired, refusing to serve under a man whom they did not esteem.

Alone, shut up in his closet, the archbishop listened without emotion to the low murmur of legal protests, the noisy tumult of insurrections.

"I have foreseen all, even civil war.

The king shall be obeyed, the king knows how to make himself obeyed," he kept repeating in the assured tones of an oracle.

Resolved not to share the responsibility of the reverse he foresaw, Baron de Breteuil sent in his resignation.
Meanwhile the treasury was found to be empty; Brienne appealed to the clergy, hoping to obtain from ecclesiastical wealth one of those gratuitous gifts which had often come in aid of the State's necessities.
The Church herself was feeling the influence of the times.