of the government, which he could not hope to possess as mere minister of religion.

Accordingly, to bring the clergy into the magistracy and the ministry, and to place the clergy at the head of education-such was the plan of those who wished to priestride the people

-while to oppose this plan became clearly the object of the people, if they did not wish either themselves or their children to be priestridden. But directly the government meant to employ the church in worldly matters, and that the church itself meant to engage in the affairs of the world, that body of the catholic priesthood, which since the time of its institution has been most adroit in uniting clerical interests with political ability, rose at once into notice and power.

I can join in none of the ungenerous abuse with which the Jesuits have been frequently overwhelmed. The great and wise, and learned reformers, who, humanizing religion mixed with mankind, who succeeding the templars, possessed it is true the avarice and ambition of that military order, but who, as bold and crafty, were neither so cruel nor intolerant as their predecessors ;-not less adventurous than those daring knights-but founding the society of Paraguay, instead of desolating the East with the sword-the decried Jesuits were a body

of men to whom humanity owes much; and whose cunning and duplicity are at least as pardonable as the ignorant and violent, and blood thirsty spirit of their contemporaries. Remark, however! this society when it appeared, had to defend the church against the sword; the power of the mind against the power of brute force; and in order to govern the monarch, it was necessary to have the

But when the church

affection of the mass. instead of contending against princes, had to look to princes for its support, the policy, the conduct, and the bearing of the order of Loyola changed, in accordance with the change that had taken place in the world around it.

The Jesuits then, under the restoration, were what they had never been before: no longer popular and pliant, they were proud and insolent; no longer bowing to the commons, they flattered the crown; and appearing in front of the party that was odious to the nation concentrated upon themselves, as it were, the national hatred.* And now, just at

* If an opinion was to be maintained, it was antiJesuitical; if a minister was to be destroyed he was a Jesuit! à bas les Jésuites resounded from one end of France to the other, and such is the danger of an odious ally, that because the monarchy was supported by the Jesuits-it was only necessary to support the monarchy

the moment most likely to receive its impressions, appeared the famous book of Abbé de la Roche Arnaut.

This young man, illustrious as a renegade from his order, revealed and invented facts which raised into a yell of indignation the long smothered murmurs of public opinion. Such was the fever of men's minds, such the horror and the anxiety excited among all classes by this remarkable production, that 50,000 copies were sold in a few days. The plans, the rules of the holy society, and the names of its members were unscrupulously unveiled. The colleges of Mont-Rouge (near Paris), of St. Achard (near Amiens), the two famous institutions charged with the education of the more pious and illustrious royalists, had their system exposed and their intentions explained.

France thought itself the victim of a religious conspiracy, of a second Popish plot. The Jesuits were suspected of every thing,

in order to be cried down as a Jesuit. But this was not all the Jesuits and that party, which acted with the Jesuits, finding themselves thus hated and attacked, saw that there was no middle course to take-they had to conquer or be conquered; there was no alternative, then, between the ordonnances of Louis XV, and the ordonnances of Charles X.

and every body was suspected of being a Jesuit; nor, was it long before the government (then under M. de Martignac) finding it impossible to set the storm any longer at defiance, passed the edict, which, prohibiting all persons from belonging to a society unsanctioned by law, dissolved the different Jesuitic establishments. But the cry against the Jesuits was a cry against the clergy and its par.tisans in general, and I am sure I shall not be accused of exaggeration, when I say that the most influential part of the French nation, which, as we have seen, was rather favorable than hostile to the church in 1814, held it in a state of actual abhorrence and execration in 1830.

Strange to say, since the revolution which then took place- the revolution received with so much horror by the more pious catholics -the revolution which has admitted even Jews within the pale of state protectionsince that fatal revolution, the faith which it was to have destroyed, has lost a great part of its unpopularity; and with the exception of one bacchanal and disgraceful disorder which if it insulted the cross, was excited by the fleur-de-lis-the doctrines of christianity have been extolled as a philosophy, and its ceremonies respected as a religion.

CHAPTER VI.

Opinions of a country-Mistakes of Foreigners-Anecdote -State of Christianity in France at the present moment -Revenue of the French Clergy-Has Religion lost or gained by the Wealth of its Minister?-Rural Clergy in France-Ecclesiastical Statistics-Self-denial of a French Priest-Advantages derived from a poor Priesthood— Classes of the Catholic Clergy-The Abbé de la Mennais -Les Paroles d'un Croyant.

IN speaking of the opinions of a country, our first care should be to ascertain the ideas and sentiments of those who form what is called the public opinion in that country.

But even here it is easy for a foreigner to be mistaken.

An Englishman visiting Paris and seeing as much of the French as an Englishman in that situation generally does see, might be too apt to think that in Mr. Owen's romantic vision, coming events have indeed but briefly cast their shadows before them, and that he has only to stay out another carnival, in order