uples as intelligence might
have prompted, and persuaded himself that once again Christ would work
the redemption of suffering humanity. At last a precise idea took
possession of him, a conviction that Catholicism purified, brought back
to its original state, would prove the one pact, the supreme law that
might save society by averting the sanguinary crisis which threatened it.

When he had quitted Lourdes two years previously, revolted by all its
gross idolatry, his faith for ever dead, but his mind worried by the
everlasting need of the divine which tortures human creatures, a cry had
arisen within him from the deepest recesses of his being: "A new
religion! a new religion!" And it was this new religion, or rather this
revived religion which he now fancied he had discovered in his desire to
work social salvation--ensuring human happiness by means of the only
moral authority that was erect, the distant outcome of the most admirable
implement ever devised for the government of nations.

During the period of slow development through which Pierre passed, two
men, apart from Abbe Rose, exercised great influence on him. A benevolent
action brought him into intercourse with Monseigneur Bergerot, a bishop
whom the Pope had recently created a cardinal, in reward for a whole life
of charity, and this in spite of the covert opposition of the papal
_curia_ which suspected the French prelate to be a man of open mind,
governing his diocese in paternal fashion. Pierre became more impassioned
by his intercourse with this apostle, this shepherd of souls, in whom he
detected one of the good simple leaders that he desired for the future
community. However, his apostolate was influenced even more decisively by
meeting Viscount Philibert de la Choue at the gatherings of certain
workingmen's Catholic associations. A handsome man, with military
manners, and a long noble-looking face, spoilt by a small and broken nose
which seemed to presage the ultimate defeat of a badly balanced mind, the
Viscount was one of the most active agitators of Catholic socialism in
France. He was the possessor of vast estates, a vast fortune, though it
was said that some unsuccessful agricultural enterprises had already
reduced his wealth by nearly one-half. In the department where his
property was situated he had been at great pains to establish model
farms, at which he had put his ideas on Christian socialism into
practice, but success did not seem to follow hi