The Main last Saturday published a long and most impor-
tant conversation held by a member of its staff with the Pope, in which Leo XIIL discusses the relations of France and the Vatican, and, in fact, takes up the challenge flung down by the Bill on the Associations which is about to be introduced into the French Chamber. The Pope cannot consent to allow the French Government to twist the Concordat from its real intent. The religious communities are part of the Church, and therefore it is no argument to say that they are at the disposal of the State because they are not specifically mentioned. In England the religious communities are free to live under the law without molestation, and the State has received no injury. Yet France is preparing to dissolve and despoil the Orders. But, continued the Pope, has the French Government realised the results of such action ? Why does France occupy so prominent a position in China? Because she is the protector of the Catholic missions. And to secure this privileged position to France the Pope refused to receive a Chinese Envoy at the Vatican and to deal directly with China. It is the same in Constantinople and the Levant, in Syria and the Lebanon. After these veiled threats as to what he could do if pressed too far, the Pope insisted upon the intimate way in which French expansion was bound up with the work of the Christian missions. The Pope next points out how be had urged all good Catholics to support the Republic, and asks whether the Republic desires him to renounce such services. " On several occasions," he concludes, "and quite recently, I have been asked by the head of a powerful State to allow disregard of the rights of France in the East and Far East. Although compensations were offered to the Church and the Holy See, I resolved that the right of France should remain intact, because it is an un-
questionable right, which France has not allowed to become obsolete."
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