The great majority of parishes had two ministers,--the one a constitutional priest, salaried and protected by the government, the other refractory, refusing the oath, deprived of his income, driven from the church, and raising altar opposing altar in some clandestine chapel, or in the open field.

These two ministers of the same worship excommunicated each other, the one in the name of the constitution, and the other in the name of the Pope and of the church.
The population was also divided according to the greater or lesser degree of revolutionary spirit prevailing in the province.

In cities and the more enlightened districts the constitutional worship was exercised almost without dispute.

In the open country and the less civilised departments, the priest who had not taken the oath became a consecrated tribune, who at the foot of the altar, or in the elevation of the pulpit, agitated the people and inspired it, in all the horror of a constitutional and schismatic priesthood, with hatred of the government which protected it.

This was not actually persecution or civil war, but the sure prelude to both.
The king had signed with repugnance and even constraint the civil constitution of the clergy: but he had done so only as king, and reserving to himself his liberty and the faith of his conscience.