y the
persecuted. "Where the government has put in an apostate priest, he
celebrates mass to empty benches: we set up our altar in a barn, and it
is full to overflowing." So far as this city is concerned, the statement
is correct. The place of worship to which the Ultramontanes retired when
driven from the cathedral of Notre Dame may, if they choose, be called a
barn--a large one--and it is furnished with a goodly congregation,
whereas the forty or fifty persons who assemble in their former church
look no more than "a handful of corn upon the mountains." It must be
admitted also that in sowing after the manner of the martyrs the
Ultramontanes are ready and willing, and should the official rigors be
insufficient they will perhaps do a little private bloodletting for the
sake of contributing handsomely to the support of their cause. The
Sisters of Charity, expelled from Geneva last year as exercising a
pernicious influence, are said to have opened all their veins before
they went. Excepting that blood, however, it is not apparent that they
lost a great deal: they merely crossed the boundary into France, can
revisit the scene of their martyrdom whenever they please, and moreover,
in their present quality of strangers, the government has lost the right
of interference with their apparel, so that the stiff white bonnets may
now walk with impunity under the very nose of a _conseiller d'etat_. The
inhabitants of the canton are severely restricted as to costume under
the present regime. No native priest is permitted a distinctive dress,
and where a couple of large hats and long skirts are seen strolling
through the streets, you know they are from over the border. Jesuitism
is not to parade in full uniform, nor is it to lurk privily under never
so humble a roof. In their struggles with the hydra-headed monster the
men in the high places of this canton found themselves lately face to
face with an odd set of opponents. An association of servant-girls,
animated by the spirit of party, had stepped into the vacant quarters of
the Sisters--a locality already confiscated by the government. The
object of the society is praiseworthy: it provides a home for servants
out of place, and nurses and maintains such as are sick or destitute.
Still, the powers that be thought such Christian charity might be
exercised as well elsewhere, and sent a notice to quit, of which the
domestics, with a traditional contempt for lawful authority, made no
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