A remarkable incident has taken place in France in connec-
tion with the campaign against the unauthorised Orders. Colonel de Saint Remy, when ordered to use his squadron of cavalry in closing a convent school, refused on the ground that he was " a Catholic." The disobedient officer was at once put under arrest and ordered to a fortress, and will be tried by Court-Martial. He will, no doubt, be dismissed the Army for disobedience. His proper course, it is pointed out, would have been to tender his resignation, which would no doubt have been accepted; but we presume that he wished to make a more signal protest. Meantime, the execu- tion of the decrees continues, and though there is a great deal of local sympathy, and even resistance, France as a whole is not greatly stirred. The Pope's silence is much dwelt on, as the " hot-heads " in the Clerical party would, of course, like him to proclaim a kind of crusade against the Republic. This, however, he refuses to do. He is said to fear very greatly the dissolution of the Concordat. Moderate Frenchmen, we know, also greatly dread the separation of Church and State in France, holding that it would produce a secular nation; but it is just possible that they are mistaken. The Church dreaded very greatly the effects of the law which obliged the seminarists to go into barracks, yet the result was not to de-Christianise the young priests, but to Christianise the barracks.
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