.... Each new dogmatic
definition produces its own advantages: that of the Immaculate
Conception has given us Lourdes and its truly oecumenical wonders."

Nothing of all this is too much, and, in the face of the exigencies
of modern times, it scarcely suffices. Now that society has become
incredulous, indifferent or, at the least, secular, the priest must
possess the two intense and master ideas which support a soldier abroad
among insurgents or barbarians, one being the conviction that he is of
a species and essence apart, infinitely superior to the common herd;
and the other is the thought that he belongs to his flag, to his chiefs,
especially to the commanding general, and that he has given himself
up entirely to prompt obedience, to obeying every order issued without
question or doubt.[5283] Thus, in that parish where the permanent cure
was once installed, especially in the rural districts,[5284] the
legal and popular governor of all souls, his successor, the removable
desservant, is merely a resident bailiff, a sentry in his box, at the
opening of a road which the public at large no longer travel. From time
to time he hails you! But scarcely any one listens to him. Nine out of
ten men pass at a distance, along a newer, more convenient and broader
road. They either nod to him afar off or give him the go-by. Some are
even ill-disposed, watching him or denouncing him to the ecclesiastic or
lay authorities on which he depends. He is expected to make his orders
respected and yet not hated, to be zealous and yet not importunate, to
act and yet not efface himself: he succeeds pretty often, thanks to
the preparation just described, and, in his rural sentry-box, patient,
resigned, obeying his orders, he mounts guard lonely and in solitude, a
guard which, for the past fifteen years, (from 1870-1885) is disturbed
and anxious and becoming singularly difficult.

*****

[Footnote 5201: Artaud, "Histoire de Pie VII.", I., 167.]

[Footnote 5202: Comte d'Haussonville, "L'Eglise romaine et le premier
Empire, IV.,378, 415. (Instructions for the ecclesiastical commission of
1811.) "The Pope exercised the authority of universal bishop at the time
of the re-establishment of the cult in France.... The Pope, under the
warrant of an extraordinary and unique case in the Church, acted, after
the Concordat, as if he had absolute power over the bishops." (Speech by
Bigot de Preameneu, Minister of Worship, at the national council, June
20