woman, who is a Protestant, but her religion does not impair mine."
He was admitted to the honours of the sitting, but does not seem to have obtained any grant, for at the end of 1792 a subscription was started for Lydia. The appeal stated that the family occupied a room in a cottage in Montmartre Quarries, and that Bernet was reduced to working on the land. Our old friend Nicholas Gay, "known for his love of liberty and as a worthy cosmopolite," had been one of the first to subscribe (40 francs), and it was proposed to buy a cottage and piece of ground, so that the children would be taught by this honest couple to study two books only, that of Nature and the French Constitution. Lafayette gave 25 francs, Cloots 20 francs, the actor Talma 10 francs, and Manneville of Boulogne 5 francs. Bernet is next heard of in December 1793 as vicar of Ecottes, near Calais. Questioned by Lebou or his satellites, he protested that he had long ago unfrocked himself by marrying a Protestant, and had no altar but Nature. He was nevertheless, in April 1794, denounced as one of the priests who had been clandestinely celebrating mass, but does not seem to have been arrested, and poor Lydia disappears from history.
Bernet was not the first priest to contract matrimony. In December 1791, a priest in the Hérault wrote a letter to the Jacobin Club, stating that in
