BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXV 



sought the car of tlio (Jcucial of the Order; l)ut it was not until 

 after the cars of the absolutists of Paris had tingled with the ter- 

 rible concluding words of the last Conference of Notre Dame in 

 January, 18G9, that renewed against the Pharisaism of the nine- 

 teenth century the woes uttered by our Lord against that of the 

 first century, that " the intrigues of a parly omnij)()t('nt at Ilome" 

 at last succeeded.* 



The convenient occasion for the rel)uk(; and punishment of 

 Father Hj-acinthe was not long to seek. On the tenth of July, 

 1809, was held a meeting, in Paris, of the '" Permanent Interna- 

 tional Peace League," a socict}* of liberals in ])olitics, assembled 

 to devise means for the preservation of îhat which long and 

 bloody history has satisfied all liberal minds in Europe is the 

 best hope of liberty for the people — civil and international peace. 

 Doubtless it w\as a strange place and platform for a Carmelite 

 friar. French lil)erals are not, as a class, very orthodox, nor very 

 religious, and especially not very Catholic. On the other hand, 

 Catholic priests, as a class, arc not very liberal. It is l>oth pitiful 

 and true, that love of freedom and progress and humanity, in Eu- 

 rope, and especially in France, is largely identified with infidel- 

 ity; and that, while Christianity is identified with Catholicism in 

 the popular mind of France, Catholicism (as a whole) is inextri- 

 cably implicated with " Cesarism" and enmity to popular liberty 

 and rights. It was a step in advance of Lacordaire, when Father 

 Hyacinthe took his place on the rostrum of the Peace League. 

 Lacordaire had brought the infidels to the church to hear the 

 vindication of religion. Hyacinthe carried the gospel to the very 



* The conclnding paragraphs of this invective are contained in the article, 

 by De Pre?senpé, appended to this volume. The words*, with all the dif- 

 c«urses which they conchule, were preached in Rome, in the Lent of 18G8, in 

 the church of " St. Louis of the French," to throngs of Frenchmen, and other 

 foreigners, and seemed to be heard with universal respect ; and at the close 

 of the series, the preacher was received by the Pope with every testimony of 

 honor and good-will. But when, at the next Advent, the same words were 

 repeated before the Ultramontancs of Paris, " they perceived that he epako 

 of them," and took counsel from that hour more elTectually to silence him. 



