Let it be admitted that the temperament of the people, its irritability or impetuosity, is in a measure responsible for this. But this in itself is not enough to explain the terrible punishments and misfortunes which have fallen upon that nation. You are all familiar with the remark of one of her great statesmen, Gambetta: "The enemy, it is clericalism."

Another statesman, Paul Bert, said: "It is not our domestic[5] discords; it is not England; nor even the trained German legions, that constitute the greatest menace to Frenchmen and the prosperity of France, still bleeding from her wounds, but the man in black." Did these statesmen speak the truth? We shall ask history to answer the question. This much, however, we can say without consulting history, that today the French republic and the Catholic church are at swords' points. After trying to pull together, church and state have . . . Read More