never be brought into question. What England has obtained by the
development of her pride and self-interest (a part of her creed) cannot
be obtained in France but through sentiments due to Catholicism, and
none of you are Catholics! Here am I, a priest, obliged to leave my own
ground and argue with arguers. How can you expect the masses to become
religious and obedient when they see irreligion and want of discipline
above them? All peoples united by any faith whatever will inevitably
get the better of peoples without any faith at all. The law of public
interest, which gives birth to patriotism, is destroyed by the law
of private interest, which it sanctions, but which gives birth to
selfishness. There is nothing solid and durable but that which is
natural; and the natural thing in human policy is the Family. The family
must be the point of departure for all institutions. A universal effect
proves a universal cause; and what you have just been setting forth as
evident on all sides comes from the social principle itself; which is
now without force because it has taken for its basis independence of
thought and will, and such freedom is the parent of individualism. To
make happiness depend on the stability, intelligence, and capacity of
all is not as wise as to make happiness depend on the stability and
intelligence of institutions and the capacity of a single head. It is
easier to find wisdom in one man than in a whole nation. Peoples have
heart and no eyes; they feel, and see not. Governments ought to see,
and not determine anything through sentiment. There is, therefore, an
evident contradiction between the impulses of the multitude and the
action of power whose function it is to direct and unify those impulses.
To meet with a great prince is certainly a rare chance (to use your
term), but to trust to a whole assembly, even though it is composed
of honest men only, is folly. France is committing that folly at this
moment. Alas! you are just as much convinced of that as I am. If all
right-minded men, like yourselves, would only set an example around
them, if all intelligent hands would raise, in the great republic of
souls, the altars of the one Church which has set the interests of
humanity before her, we might again behold in France the miracles our
fathers did here."

"But the difficulty is, monsieur," said Gerard,--"if I may speak to you
with the freedom of the confessional,--I look upon faith as a lie we
tell to our