RELIGION IN THE LIFE OF NATIONS. 03 



those old cloisters l)y Avhiuli it -was tbiuided, but Avhich 

 it has overthrown. 



If it has been for a Catholic hist(jrian to remind Enîr- 

 land that she is the handiwork of her monks, it has 

 been for an .Miiii-lisli Protcsiaiit historian to show l^'j-ance, 

 in the conrse of tlie last centnry, that she is the handi- 

 work of her bishops. On a field of battle, in the heart 

 of a hero, the patriotism of Franks became wedded to 

 the faith of Christians. Their alliance was sealed by 

 the hand of Saint Remigius, and from the soul of 

 Clovis it passed to the soul of the whole nation. From 

 that time forth this alliance has run the gauntlet of the 

 centuries, defying prosperity to corrupt, and misfor- 

 tune to subdue it. . . . Let me call to mind Joan of 

 Arc — a name that can never grow commonplace to the 

 ears of Frenchmen. " When Paris falls, all history 

 shows that France is fallen." When Chateaubriand 

 wrote these words, he did not remember Joan of Arc. 

 The king of England was reigning here almost uncon- 

 tested, and Charles VIL, settled down into the " king of 

 Bourges," was gayly celebrating the funeral of the 

 French monarchy by the inauguration of the era of 

 royal mistresses. Who shall be the savior of France ? 

 A countrj^-girl, simple and pure as nîiture and the 

 jK'ople in whose bosom she had been reared, and, like 

 tiiem, religious. She listened to the murmur of the 

 bells ; she gazed into the sky. Beneath the beech-tree 

 of Domremi she heard voices speaking to her of God 

 and France, and commissioning her, not to bring back 

 the king to Paris, but to cause him to be anointed at 

 Rheims. 



[lu order to completeness, it would Le ncedtlil to run over the 

 entire history of the Christian nations in their best epochs. This 

 would demonstrate at every turn the alliance, or rather the fasion 



