ck dared not show himself in
public;[5359] he ran the risk of being insulted in the streets; since
1871, the majority of the Parisian electors, through the interposition
of the Municipal Council which they elect over and over again, persists
in driving "Brethren" and "Sisters" from the schools and hospitals in
order to put laymen in their places and pay twice as much for work not
done as well.[5360]--In the beginning, antipathy was confined to the
clergy; through contamination, it reached the doctrine, to include the
faith, the entire Catholicism and even Christianity itself. Under the
Restoration, it was called, in provocative language, the priest party,
and under the second Empire, the clericals. Afterwards, confronting the
Church and under a contrary name, the anti-clerical league was formed by
its adversaries, a sort of negative church which possessed, or tried
to, its own dogmas and rites, its own assemblies and discipline: and for
lack of something better, it has its own fanaticism, that of aversion;
on the word being given, it marches, rank and file, against the other,
its enemy, and manifests, if not its belief, at least its unbelief in
refusing or in avoiding the ministration of the priest. In Paris, twenty
funerals out of a hundred, purely civil, are not held in a church; out
of one hundred marriages, twenty-five, purely civil, are not blessed by
the Church; twenty-four infants out of a hundred are not baptized.[5361]

And, from Paris to the provinces, both sentiment and example are
propagated. For sixteen years, in our parliaments elected by universal
suffrage, the majority maintains that party in power which wages war
against the Church; which, systematically and on principle, is and
remains hostile to the Catholic religion; which has its own religion for
which it claims dominion; which is possessed by a doctrinal spirit, and,
in the direction of intellects and souls, aims at substituting this new
spirit for the old one; which, as far as it can, withdraws from the
old one its influence, or its share in education and in charity; which
breaks up the congregations of men, and overtaxes congregations of
women; which enrolls seminarians in the army, and deprives suspect cures
of their salaries; in short, which, through its acts collectively and
in practice, proclaims itself anti-Catholic. Many of its acts certainly
displease the peasant. He would prefer to retain the teaching "brother"
in the public school and the