186 APPENDIX. 



have this distinction set forth Avith a good deal of emphasis, in 

 order to neutralize the unhappy effect of these pontifical declara- 

 tions ; for the effect of them had been immense. The French 

 government had liit upon a notable plan for giving them the ut- 

 most possible notoriet}', which was, to prohibit the official pub- 

 lication of them, on the ground that the}' conflicted with the 

 rights of the nation. This interdict, coming after the press, with 

 its thousand voices, had scattered the Encyclical in every direc- 

 tion, served only to interest liberal sentiment in favor of a docu- 

 ment b}' which that sentiment was condemned in the most frantic 

 strain. The State, by putting its big hand into this business, took 

 the surest means of turning it into a muddle and a quibble. 



To one of the most eminent representatives of liberal Gallican- 

 ism the Encyclical was the last drop in a fall cup. 51. Huet, 

 who had stood alone in the breach since the deatli of ]\I. Bordas 

 Demoulin, had had no small troublé in keeping up any sort of 

 concord between his bold liberalism and the Catholic Church. 

 This concord became wholl}^ impossible when the Pope had 

 openly quarrelled with modern society with a frankness and au- 

 dacity which surpassed everj^thiug of the sort that had thus far 

 been seen. Unfortunately, M. Huet suffered the reaction to 

 which he gave himself up, to cany him beyond Christianity 

 itself, and enlisted into the ranks of the enemies of revelation, 

 as may be easily seen by that deeply interesting book in which 

 he recounts the histor}^ of his course of thought, under the title, 

 " The Religious Revolution of the Nineteenth Centur}'." 



" Our age has known only one Catliolic who could be called 

 liberal, in the sense in which this title is given to the modern 

 reformers of Protestantism and Judaism. This Catholic was 

 Bordas. He was a man to resist the successors of Peter face to 

 face. He conceived the bold design, over the ruins of existing 

 aljuses, of restoring to the various orders of the Church, -the laity 

 iufluded, the i)rimitive Christian liberty. But the event has only 

 to.) well proved that Bordas was living after his time. He ought 

 to have been born in the sixteenth century. He died a Catholic 

 in name : in reality he was the truest and most thorough Pro- 

 testant of his age. 



