We regret, however, to perceive signs that the French Cabinet,
which relies in part on a Radical vote, is more than half inclined to conciliate extremists by letting them loose against the Church. The police have already been sent to search the Convent of the Assumption, where they found, it is said, many papers, and M. Waldeck-Rousseau in his speeoh of Thursday hints that all the illegal Orders will be dissolved or compelled to quit France. The old threat, moreover, of suppressing the Budget of Public Worship is revived, and though this will not be done, a new discussion of the proposal will produce great irritation among Catholics. Their belief is that, as peasants will never sub- scribe, such a course might deprive large country districts of the services of religion. There can be little doubt that the Clericals, in their hatred of the Republic, which they think will make France infidel, are provoking new assaults ; but the Government will make a fatal blunder if it yields to the temptation. The Church will ally itself with property, and having all the women of France for preachers, will overthrow the Republic. One would have thought the French Radicals might have learned more wisdom from their own history. They cannot do more than kill all priests and their open devotees, and the Terrorists, who tried that extreme course, though they developed a generation of infidels, developed also a reaction which enabled Napoleon to set up the Church again.
Previous page
