A movement of some importance is going on among the
French clergy. The younger men, it is said, are anxious to support the present Government and the Republic, and as two, at least, of the prelates, the Archbishops of Bourges and of Besancon, sympathise with them, a " Congres " has been called at Bourges, and is attended by five hundred priests. The Royalists and reactionaries are so furious that they are inclined to declare that Jews have mastered the two Arch- bishops, but they can only scream their annoyance, for the policy of the Archbishops is precisely the policy which Leo XIII. approves. His Holiness's idea is the old and true one that the Church may sympathise with any form of government provided that it is Christian in the Church's sense. The movement may become formid- able to enemies of the Republic, but it is rather hampered by the fact that the younger priests of France, though friendly to the existing form of government, wish for more liberty for themselves as well as for the State. The Bishops do not approve that at all, and in the end will probably con- vince Rome that in such Congresses as that of Bourges there is an anarchical element.
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