ULTRAMONTANISM FROM AN HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW. 181 
large majorities in the Legislature and approved by an over- 
whelming majority of the people. That the rejection of the 
Church involves, for the present at least, the rejection of 
Christianity, must be regretfully admitted. But it is surely 
only fair to contend that the whole blame of this can hardly 
rest on the French people. If a similar event occurred in 
England, we should surely feel ourselves unable to deny that 
the bishops and clergy of the Church must bear at least some 
part of the blame. It seems at least a fair inference that there 
is something amiss with Ultramontane Christianity when it 
finds itself at once suppressed by the Government and abandoned 
by the people. Public opinion in this country appears in this 
matter, as it usually does, very much astray when it discusses 
the ecclesiastical or civil affairs of other countries. It may 
be questioned whether we always understand our own politics. 
Anyhow, we may honestly confess that we give ourselves a great 
deal too little trouble to understand the politics of other peoples. 
Meanwhile, the state of religion in France has grown rapidly 
worse. A large majority of the people profess no religion at all. 
The priests, since 1895, have been steadily seceding from the 
Koman Church, and since their number reached a thousand they 
have ceased to be counted. The Protestant bodies, though 
released from the shackles imposed upon them by the 
Concordat, seem unable to mark out a course for themselves, 
or heal their differences. The English Me A 11 mission, from 
which great things were at one time expected, seems unable to 
gain any permanent hold on the French people. The Chritim 
Frangcds, an organ of the seceding priests conducted by 
M. Bourrier, seems unable to make much way. Another 
ex-Roman priest who came to the front for a moment has 
retired into private life. Mons. Henri des Houx, who adopted 
the very sensible course of forming Associations Cultuclles under 
the new law, which should be served by canonically ordained 
priests independent of the Pope, unfortunately fell in with a 
wandering Archbishop without Suffragans named Vilatte, of 
whom, had I time, I could tell you a great deal, and thus made 
himself ridiculous. And to make oneself ridiculous in France 
is to fail. So that once hopeful plan has been abandoned. One 
ex-priest wrote to me last year from Nantes, in Brittany, to say 
that he had started services in accordance with the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, and that he had been asked to do the same in Paris. 
Amid all this sad scene of confusion and disorder there seems 
only one practicable scheme, that of the Dutch Old Catholics, 
themselves the theological representatives of Port Royal, 
