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Insermentes or Refractaires

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Insignia of Clergy

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a title of those of the French Roman Catholic clergy who were disloyal to the Revolution. August 10, 1789, the National Assembly proposed to appropriate the property of the Church, which then covered about one fifth of the surface of France, yielding an annual revenue of three hundred million francs, and by an act of Feb. 13, 1790, this became a law. Thus the great body of the clergy, who, patriotic in their aspirations, and suffering from the abuses of power, had hailed the advent of the Revolution with joy, now finding their dearest interests and privileges assailed, were forced into the position of reactionaries, and soon became the objects of suspicion and of persecution. To determine those who opposed the Revolution, the progressives devised a test-oath obligatory on all ecclesiastics, and lists were kept to distinguish. between loyalists' and disloyalists. "Harmless as the oath was in appearance when it was tendered in Dec. 1790, five sixths of the clergy throughout the kingdom refused it. Those who yielded to the pressure were termed asserments, the recusants insermentis or refractaires, and the latter, of course, at once became the determined opponents of the new regime, the more dangerous because they were the only influential partisans of reaction belonging to the people. To their efforts were attributed the insurrections which in La Vendee and elsewhere threatened the most fearful dangers. They were accordingly exposed to severe legislation. A decree of Nov. 29, 1791, deprived them of their stipends and suspended their functions; another of May 27, 1792, authorized the local authorities to exile them on the simple denunciation of twenty citizens. Under the Reign of Terror their persons were exposed to flagrant cruelties, and a prefire refractaire was generally regarded, ipso facto, as an enemy of the Republic."-Lea, Hist. of Sacerdotalism, p. 547 sq.; Pressense, Reign of Terror (transl. by Prof. Lacroix), p. 60 sq.