496th ordinary GENERAL MEETING. 



MONDAY, APRIL 19th, 1909. 



Pkofessor E. Hull, LL.D., F.R.S. (Vice-Peesident), in the: 



Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed. 

 The following paper was then read by the author : — 



THE PRESENT POSITION OF CATHOLICS IN 

 FPiANCE. By Arthur Galton, M.A., Vicar of Edenham, 

 Bourne, Lines. 



MY paper was announced on your list of subjects as " Modern 

 Christianity in France," but what I wish to bring before 

 you may be described more accurately, perhaps, as " The Present' 

 Position of Catholics in France." I venture, therefore, to 

 substitute this title for the other, both as a convenience to my 

 hearers and as a guidance to myself, through a tortuous and 

 complicated labyrinth. 



The present position of catholics in France can only be- 

 understood through a knowledge of their past, and I must begin 

 by explaining some of their old positions, as brietiy as I can. 



From the fall of the Roman Empire in the west down to 1789^ 

 the gallican church was the most influential and one of the 

 most wealthy organisations within the papal communion. It 

 was also the most intensely national and, on the whole, the 

 freest. All patronage worth having was at the disposal of the 

 crown. The royal supremacy was more active and arbitrary 

 than it ever was in England. No papal decrees or definitions 

 had any validity until they had been scrutinised and accepted 

 by the lawyers, ratified by the various parliaments, sanctioned 

 by the king and promulgated by his executive. There was no- 



