DE rKESSENSÉ ON MEN AND PARTIES. 171 



haiLl of hearing uhcn called upou to listen to instructions from 

 the court of Rome. This was in their eyes an incurable malady. 

 But that wing of the Gallican party which was most openly ac- 

 cused and most distinctively liberal, was shut up within the nar- 

 row attic of a hermit-philosopher, ^r. Bordas Dcmoulin, known 

 by his admirable philosophic works upon Descartes. "With his 

 disciple, M. Iluet, he constituted the entire school ; but it made 

 up for its numerical feebleness by the indomitable energy, tho 

 courageous i^iith of its head. ]M. Bordas Dcmoulin lived in re- 

 tirement and poverty, not willing in any way to compromise his 

 ju-oud independence, uttering imprecations like an indignant 

 prophet against the humiliation of the Church, and declaring em- 

 phatically that all was over with her if she failed to ally herself 

 openly with democracy. He insisted above all upon her duty of 

 breaking off all connection with temporal powers, in order to 

 begin again with a wooden cross in her bauds and a word of lib- 

 erty on her lips, the conquest of a world wdiich is slipping out 

 of her hold. M. Bordas Dcmoulin has developed these great 

 thoughts in his book on " The Constituent Powers of the Church" 

 {Des Poucoirs constituants de V Eglise), in which he has set forth 

 his whole system. ]\I. Iluet has given these ideas greater pub- 

 licity by means of short and sprightly papers anunated by the 

 same stern and liberal spirit. The school of M. Bordas Dcmou- 

 lin will certainly always be considered one of the most interest- 

 ing and honorable manifestations of the time. 



Such Avas the situation of minds in the Catholic Church of 

 France on the morrow of the coup cVétat of December, and in 

 part under the influence of those gloomy events. ^Yc are ac- 

 ciuainted now with its principal parties, and the men who play 

 a controlling part in them. "We are prepared to understand the 

 troubles and conflicts which are to be provoked, in coming years, 

 by the decisions into which the court of lîome has allowed itself 

 to be drawn. 



The first of these decisions was the proclamation of the dogma 

 of the Immaculate Conception, in 1804. It is altogether unneces- 

 Baiy to emphasize the gravity of this audacious stroke of tlie 



