In December 1814, the gendarmerie of the Loire reported that thieves had broken into the parish church in Buissières (canton of Néronde) and stolen about seventy francs. But, the report noted, “the silver Chalice was in a drawer that was opened, but [the Chalice] was not taken.” A month later the subprefect of Saint-Etienne wrote to the prefect about a robbery in the church of Saint-Romain-en-Jarret. Thirty francs had been stolen, but “they opened the door of the sacristy, forced open several armoires, but took nothing; it seems that money was the only aim of their crime.” These thefts seem to be confirmation that, as another police report in the Year 13 (1803) suggested, “those who make a trade of theft and brigandage seem to have placed their hopes on the riches of the Church.”

The entry of thieves into the churches of the Loire is a strikingly appropriate representation of the position in the countryside of that building and the religion it housed, for the Church as a cultural site was certainly invaded in the century after 1789. If the school was a newly prominent site of contact between French and rural cultures, the parish church was one of the oldest places in which representatives of French culture instructed country dwellers in the forms of social, political, and cultural discourse, and they in their turn negotiated with their social betters over these issues.