I answer thus to those who repeat what I heard retorted here on the Abbe Maury, that nothing is more dangerous than to make martyrs.

This danger only exists when you have to strike fanatics in earnest, or men really pious, who believe the scaffold to be the nearest footstool to heaven.

This is not the present case; for if there be priests who earnestly reject the constitution, they will not give any trouble to public order.

Those who really trouble it, are men who only weep over religion in order to recover their lost privileges; those who should be punished without pity; and be assured that you will not thereby augment the strength of the emigrants: for we know that the priest is cowardly--as cowardly as vindictive--that he knows no other weapon but superstition; and that, accustomed to combat in the mysterious arena of confession, he is a nullity in every other battle-field.

The thunders of Rome will fall harmless on the bucklers of liberty.