out. The alliance of a Jesuit Church
with the Empire, and the subserviency of education to their common
objects, were typified by the presence of the _sous-prefet_ and the
_maire_ in their gold-laced coats of office, who arrived escorted by a
guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets. The harangue of the reverend head
of the establishment was highly political, and amply merited by its
recommendations of the duty of obedience to authority the eulogy of the
_sous-prefet_ on "the good direction" which the brotherhood were giving
to the studies of youth. There is no garrison at Avranches. But all the
soldiers in the place seemed to have been collected to give a military
character to the scene. Other incentives of military aspiration were not
wanting; and the boy who delivered the allocution told us, amidst loud
applause, that he and his companions were being brought up to be, "not
only good Christians, but, in case of need, good soldiers."

In France under the Empire a military character is studiously given to
every act of public, and almost of social life. There you see
everywhere the pomp of war in the midst of peace, as in America you saw
everywhere peace in the midst of civil war. The images of war and
conquest are constantly kept before the eyes of a people naturally full
of military vanity, and now, by the decay alike of religious and
political faith, almost entirely bereft of all other aspirations. There
is at the same time a vast standing army, which is not occupied, as the
army of the Roman Empire was, in defending the frontiers, nor, as the
Austrian army is, in holding down disaffected provinces, and which is
full of the memory of the Napoleonic conquests, and longs again to
overrun and pillage Europe in the name of "glory." There is no
restraining influence either of morality or of religion to keep the war
spirit in check. The French priesthood are as ready as any priests of
Jupiter or Baal to bless national aggression, if by so doing they can
gain political power. In what can all this end? In what but a European
war? The children in the schools of the Christian Brothers are no doubt
faithfully taught the precepts of a religion of peace; but there is a
teaching of a different kind before their eyes, which, it is to be
feared, they more easily imbibe and less easily forget.

It was amusing, on this and other occasions, to see the state which
surrounds the subordinate officials of the Empire. I had found the head
of