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       Acknowledgments

      In my prologue I praise—and none too much, I might say—the colleagues and friends whose books have provided the bases and parameters essential for the structuring of my own research. To add thanks to praise, I want to express my gratitude to Rodney J. Dean, who carefully read through earlier versions of my book; Timothy Tackett, who instantly responded to all my questions about his own extensive research sans pareil; and Paul Chopelin, whose support, encouragement, and generous welcome to his own remarkable private library facilitated my manuscript revisions these past few years. Paul and his wife, Caroline Chopelin-Blanc, also a leading scholar of the Revolution, graciously received me into their home, where I made new contacts, Michel Biard in particular; renewed old contacts, Daniel Moulinet in particular; and met members of the Université de Lyon III group RESEA (Religions, sociétés et acculturation). Bernard Hours, director of RESEA when I arrived, assuming thereafter the headship of the more extended LARHRA (Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes), arranged my situation as a guest associate of RESEA and LARHRA with generosity and great good humor. Thanks to the Chopelins, Bernard Hours, Yves Krumenacker, and Christine Chadier, we were able to arrange for a colloquium on the constitutional bishops, the springboard for our continuing work on both bishops and priests of the Revolution. It is not possible to name all the participants here, but I do wish to note the patronage of the virtual dean of church–state studies of the revolutionary era, Bernard Plongeron, whose unparalleled erudition I was finally able to encounter face to face; the assistance of Jacques-Olivier Boudon, the Sorbonne scholar who years ago encouraged the pursuit of any useful prosopography of the clergy of the era; and the expertise of Philippe Bourdin, cordial érudit of the Université Blaise Pascal. It was also the occasion to integrate into a wider framework the accomplishments of our original research group for the study of the constitutional bishops, Rodney Dean, Jean Dubray, Emmanuel Lecam, Michel Deblock, Valérie Murger, and Guillaume Colot. Both Valérie Murger and Fabien Vandermarcq of the Bibliothèque de Port-Royal were the principal insurers of my successful work at that veritable shrine of Constitutional Church sources.

      I have had several extended conversations with Jacques Guilhaumou, to whom I am especially indebted for interpretation of the complexities of the early career of the abbé Sieyès and for delivering me from the redoubtable task of transcribing all of Sieyès’s Sur Dieu ultramètre, the centerpiece of my study of Sieyès in chapter 1. Alyssa Sepinwall graciously supplied guidance at every turn on the career of the abbé Grégoire—along with encouragement and the example of a scholar at the service of the field of history and the fellow scholars who work there.

      This is not my first experience publishing with Penn State University Press: in fact, brief

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