Second Estate in the preservation of official privileges. However, many parish priests and other ‘low clergy’ sided with the Third Estate, representing their own class and the class of their flocks. Things began to change quickly in 1789. On August 4, the newly assembled National Assembly drafted the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,’ and over the next year completely dismantled French society and rebuilt it from the ground up. Part of this included nationalizing all Church lands and transferring ownership to the state. By June 1790 the Assembly had officially abolished the nobility, and on July 12 passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Civil Constitution of the Clergy This new legislation dismantled and restructured the Church along the same lines it had the rest of society. Bishoprics were realigned to correspond with the eighty-three departments France had been divided into, while all additional bishoprics were abolished. All clergy were forbidden from recognizing the authority of any Church officials beholden to a foreign power, and this included the Pope, whose position they were allowed to acknowledge, but not his authority. New bishops were forbidden from seeking confirmation from the Pope, but were allowed to write him to inform him of their position and reassert a unity of faith. The most contentions aspects of the constitution, however, involved how new bishops would be appointed to office and the duties required of them. The Church was now essentially completely incorporated as a branch of government, and bishops were to be elected by popular vote. This was received with outrage by many clergy, as it not only completely up-ended the top-down appointment system of the Church, but would then allow Protestants, Jews, and atheists to directly influence Church matters. What would cause the greatest problems though, was Article XXI of Title II. This required bishops to take an oath before municipal officials asserting their loyalty to the nation of France before all other things, or their office would be declared vacant. Sentiments between the Church and the Revolution began to sour much faster after this. While reform had been the only stated goal by revolutionaries before, anti-religious rhetoric calling for the abolishment of the Church as a whole began to gain prominence. Fabre d’Eglantine described the Church's singular purpose as being to “subjugate the human species and enslave it under their dominion.” In October 1790, the National Convention