Constitution of the Clergy in 1791. On 2 July 1699 Bishop de Berthier created two Archdeacons, who were added to the dignities of the Cathedral Chapter. At the beginning of the Revolution, the Constituent Assembly decided that the number of dioceses in France was excessive, and that approximately fifty of them could be eliminated. Those which survived would have their boundaries changed to coincide with new political subdivisions of France, called 'départements'. This was contrary to Canon Law. Blois belonged to the Department of Loire-et-Cher in the Constitutional Church erected by the National Constituent Assembly and its successor the Legislative Assembly. On 18 February the electors of the department elected Henri Gregoire as Bishop of Loire-et-Cher, who liked to call himself Bishop of Blois, even though the legitimate Bishop of Blois, Alexandre-François de Mazières de Thémines was alive and in exile. Religion was abolished during the Reign of Terror, and the Constitutional Church along with it. When religion was restored in 1795, Gregoire made considerable efforts to revive what was left of the Constitutional Church; he held a diocesan synod in September 1800. The Concordat of 1801 gave Loir-et-Cher to the Diocese of Orléans, and the Diocese of Blois was canonically suppressed by Pope Pius VII. When Pius called for the resignations of all the bishops of France, Constitutional and non-juring both, Bishop de Thémines refused, and entered into schism himself. On 27 July 1817 the Diocese of Blois was canonically re-established by Pius VII, though difficulties between the Vatican and French National Assembly retarded the full implementation of the new Concordat. Before the French Revolution, the Diocese of Blois was less extensive than at present, almost the entire arrondissement of Romorantin having been subject to the Bishopric of Orléans, and the Bas-Vendômois to the Bishop of Le Mans previous to 1817. Bishop Alexandre-François de Thémines, who was Bishop of Blois in 1776 and died in exile in Bruxelles in 1829, was one of the most obstinate enemies of the Concordat. It was not until 1823 that Pius VII appointed a new Bishop of Blois. Bishops David-Nicolas de Berthier (1 July 1697 – 20 August 1719) Jean Paul François Le Févre de Caumartin (4 March 1720 – 30 August 1733) Charles-Henri Phélypeaux (1734) (nominated, never instituted) François de Crussol d'Uzès (17 November 1734 – 26 September 1753) Charles-Gilbert de May de Termont (10 December 1753 – 22 July 1776) Alexandre-François