Independent of the others, all are equal, and, if all agree in the forming of an association, their common-sense will stipulate that its first article shall secure the maintenance of this primordial equality .-- Such is man, as nature made him, as history has unmade him, and as the Revolution is to re-make him.[2127] One cannot batter away too vigorously against the two casings that hold him tight, one the positive religion which narrows and perverts his intellect, and the other the social inequality which perverts and weakens his will;[2128] for, at every effort, some band is loosened, and, as each band gives way, the paralyzed limbs recover their action.
Let us trace, (say the Jacobins), the progress of this liberating operation .-- Always timid and at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical organization, the Constituent Assembly could take only half-measures; it cut into the bark without daring to drive the ax into the solid trunk.
Its work reduced itself down to the confiscation of clerical property, to a dissolution of the religious orders, and to a check upon the authority of the pope; its object was to establish a new church and transform priests into sworn functionaries of the State, and this was all.

As if Catholicism, even administrative, would cease to be Catholicism! As if the noxious tree, once stamped with the public seal, would cease to be noxious! Instead of the old laboratory of falsehoods being destroyed another one is officially established alongside of it, so that there are now two instead of one.

With or without the official label it operates in every commune in France and, as in the past, it distributes with impunity its drug to the public.

This is precisely what we, (the Jacobins) cannot tolerate .-- We must, indeed, keep up appearances, and, as far as words go, we will decree anew freedom of worship.[2129] But, in fact and in practice, we will demolish the laboratory and prevent the drug from being sold; there shall no longer be any Catholic worship in France, no baptism, no confession, no marriage, no extreme unction, no mass; nobody shall preach or listen to a sermon; nobody shall administer or receive a sacrament, save in secret, and with the prospect before him of imprisonment or the scaffold .-- With this object in mind, we do one thing at a time.

There is no problem with the Church claiming to be be orthodox: its members having refused to take the oath are outlaws; one excludes oneself from an association when one repudiates the pact; they have lost their qualifications as citizens and have become ordinary foreigners under the surveillance of the police; and, as they propagate around them discontent and disobedience, they are not only foreigners but seditious persons, enemies in disguise, the authors of a secret and widespread Vendee; it is not necessary for us to prosecute them as charlatans, it is sufficient to strike them down as rebels.