The process of taking inventories of Church property throughout France,
a logical preliminary to the enforcement of the Separation Law, has led to painful disturbances in some of the churches in Paris. The inspectors of the Exchequer were mobbed in several instances, and, in particular, the church of S. Roch was the scene of a violent riot, in which the police were very roughly handled by the large crowd which had assembled in expectation of the visit of the officials. In only a dozen out of the twenty-eight churches visited did the inspectors succeed in carrying out their mission, but the effectiveness of the protest has been largely impaired by the fact that it was not the police but the champions of the Church who were the aggressors. The riots begun on Wednesday were continued with increased violence on Thursday. At the church of S. Clotilde the resistance—partly clerical, partly an organised effort of the Nationalists—assumed so serious a character that the Prefect of Police, M. Lepine, himself received a blow on the head from a loaded cane. Ultimately the doors of the church were broken down by the soldiers and police amid the yells of the mob, and while the bells of S. Clotilde sounded the tocsin the taking of the inventory proceeded. The church, however, was much damaged,. some hundred and fifty arrests were made, and fifty policemen and Republican Guards were injured, but not seriously.
