"Nothing announced so sudden a destruction. The people in general seemed attached to the ceremonies of catholicism; but there are bodies struck with lightning, who seem still to preserve their life and organization, but touch them, and they crumble into dust. The people had the appearance of believing in the mass, in transubstantiation, and in the most received dogmas of the catholic faith; but the people did not believe in them at all. All the sarcasms of Voltaire against the priests, all the pleasantries of the author of the Pucelle, had reached them... There was only a single step to take to lay the revolutionary axe to the root of altars loaded with gold and silver: had they been naked, they would have escaped the destroying hand. It is not their overthrow which ought to astonish, but it is having seen them fall in one day, with all the circumstances of the most profound contempt or hatred. The progress of irreligion was extremely rapid amongst the vulgar, who armed themselves at once with hammers and levers to break the sacred images before which six months back they bent the knee. They were easily persuaded that it was a useful thing to transform the temples into magazines, golden cups and crosses into money, the iron grates into bullets, and the copper cherubim into cannon. The mob thought, that after the decree of national sovereignty, the right of doing every thing, of commanding every thing, and of not obeying, was fully devolved to them alone."