by Jacques Duchemin Cépeaux, he concluded that Jean Chouan spent his time of absence in a distant garrison of the king's army. Jean Chouan was arrested on 18 May 1785 in Bourgneuf-la-Forêt. Under interrogation, he denied any participation in the murder of the customs agent, but he was sentenced to a year in prison anyway. He was more fortunate than his friend, Jean Croissant, who had been apprehended, tried, and convicted earlier. Chouan was not confronted by key witnesses; some were dead, others had recanted, and others were excused from testifying. Therefore, the prosecutor, Enjubault-Laroche, was unable to cobble together a strong case, and when it was heard on 9 September 1785, the result was a disappointing sentence, a single year in prison. Freed on 9 September 1786, Chouan was immediately rendered to the Dépôt de Mendicité in Rennes, under a decree postmarked 2 August 1786, and he stayed there three years. Upon his release, he took work as a servant in the household of Marie Le Bourdais, the widow of Alexis Ollivier, a cousin, then living in Chouan's home parish of Olivet. The widow's son was a priest, Alexis Ollivier, so Chouan took on an air of semi-respectability that helped to deflect any new suspicions about his criminal character. Discontent The French Revolution broke out in 1789, and it soon became apparent that the victorious republicans intended not only to overturn the monarchy but to redefine relations between the State and the Roman Catholic Church as well. Laws were passed by the new National Constituent Assembly (Assemblée constituante) to reform the Church and, little by little, to erode its traditional powers and prerogatives. For example, on 11 August 1789, tithes were abolished. On 2 November 1789, Catholic Church property, chiefly farmland and other real estate, held for the purpose of generating church revenue, was nationalized. On 13 February 1790, monastic vows were forbidden, and all ecclesiastical orders and congregations were dissolved, excepting those devoted to teaching children and nursing the sick. On 19 April 1790, the administration of all remaining church property was transferred to the State. The final stroke was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (Constitution civile du clergé), passed on 12 July 1790, which entirely subordinated the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government. Going forward, bishops (known as constitutional bishops) and priests were to be elected locally, and those casting ballots, the 'electors',