number. The dioceses of the Catholic Church were to be reduced in number, to coincide as much as possible with the new departments. Since there were more than 130 bishoprics at the time of the Revolution, more than fifty dioceses needed to be suppressed and their territories consolidated. Clergy would need to take an oath of allegiance to the State and its Constitution, specified by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and they would become salaried officials of the State. Both bishops and priests would be elected by special 'electors' in each department. This meant schism, since bishops would no longer need to be approved (preconised) by the Papacy; the transfer of bishops, likewise, which had formerly been the exclusive prerogative of the pope in canon law, would be the privilege of the State; the election of bishops no longer lay with the Cathedral Chapters (which were all abolished), or other responsible clergy, or the Pope, but with electors who did not even have to be Catholics or Christians. All monasteries, convents and religious orders in France were dissolved, and their members were released from their vows by order of the National Constituent Assembly (which was uncanonical); their property was confiscated "for the public good", and sold to pay the bills of the French government. Cathedral Chapters were also dissolved. A protest against the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was drawn up by the archbishop of Aix, Jean-de-Dieu-Raimond de Boisgelin de Cucé, and it was published on 30 August 1790 with the signatures of twenty-four bishops. A new civil department, called "Bouches du Rhône", was created by the French Legislative Assembly, as part of a new Metropolitanate called "Métropole des côtes de la Méditerranée". The old diocese of Aix was suppressed, and a new "Diocese of Bouches du Rhône" was created, with its center at Aix; the head of the new diocese was named the metropolitan of the "Métropole des côtes de la Méditerranée". On 15 February 1791 the specially chosen electors met at Aix, and on 23 February elected the curé of Eyragues, Charles-Benoît Roux, as their bishop, by a vote of 365 out of a total of 510 electors. None of the Catholic bishops of the Midi had been willing to take the oath to the Constitution of 1790, and therefore Roux had to be consecrated in Paris, on 3 April, by the Constitutional Bishop of Paris, Jean-Baptiste