DE PKESSENSK ON MEN AND rARTIES. 183 



liberal ultramontanism, and Gallirnnism in its various shades 

 more or loss distinctly marked. There is no need of inquiring 

 concernin:^ the first party. Its answer is known beforehand. Its 

 shouts had all the insolence of triumph and rcvenc^e. The two 

 newspapers, the. Univers and the Monde, abused without stint the 

 advantage they had gained. They saw the sacred shield of in- 

 fallibility stretched out over their favorite doctrines, and over 

 that whole system of civil and religions tyranny which they never 

 tired of preaching up. The Head of the Churcli, in fact, declared 

 that they alone had truly known his mind, and that the apolo- 

 gists of the Inquisition and the dragonnades were the real organs 

 of eternal truth. 



The second party, the liberal Catholicism of the Correspondant, 

 at first bent its head ])efore the storm, all the time inwardly gnaw- 

 ing at its bonds. The pontifical condemnation struck it fairly 

 between the eyes. It is enough to put the Encyclical alongside 

 of the manifesto of l\l. de Montalembert at Malincs. Either hu- 

 man language has ceased to be the equivalent of the thoughts it 

 undertakes to express, or the contradiction between these two 

 documents is just as clear as it could be. The Correspondant party 

 ought to have continued its attitude of silence. After all, an en- 

 cyclical is not a dogma ; it tolerates a mental reservation. Un- 

 luckily the bishop of Orleans did not see his wa}' to practise the 

 part of piiidence, which was also the part of dignity. Vexed at 

 seeing what a handle the enemies of the Church Avcre making of 

 the Encj'clical, he wrote a pamphlet to show that it was all right, 

 til at wliat the holy father had been condemning was license, not 

 liberty. With a diversion from the main question which showed 

 no little smartness, the fiery prelate began with dashing head first 

 into political controversy, discussing in an excited way the con- 

 vention of September 15, 18G-1, between France and Italy, accord- 

 ing to which, the French occupation of Rome was to be promptly 

 ended. After firing hot shot against a treaty which he deemed a 

 treason, he approached the Encyclical, and went into a thousand 

 subtleties of interpretation to show that there was a hidden mean- 

 ing, and a reasonable one, in the holy father's anathemas. It was 



