under the shade of hostile altars. The churches were
closed; the bells were silent; the shrines were plundered; the silver
crucifixes were melted down. Buffoons, dressed in copes and surplices,
came dancing the _carmagnole_ even to the bar of the Convention. The
bust of Marat was substituted for the statues of the martyrs of
Christianity. A prostitute, seated on a chair of state in the chancel of
Notre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, who exclaimed that at
length, for the first time, those ancient Gothic arches had resounded
with the accents of truth. The new unbelief was as intolerant as the old
superstition. To show reverence for religion was to incur the suspicion
of disaffection. It was not without imminent danger that the priest
baptized the infant, joined the hands of lovers, or listened to the
confession of the dying. The absurd worship of the Goddess of Reason
was, indeed, of short duration; but the deism of Robespierre and Lepaux
was not less hostile to the Catholic faith than the atheism of Clootz
and Chaumette.

Nor were the calamities of the Church confined to France. The
revolutionary spirit, attacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back,
became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied with the Belgian cities
and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the
Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the
great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of
the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the
infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities
succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the
Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the
treasures piled up by the devotion of six hundred years. The convents of
Rome were pillaged. The tricolored flag floated on the top of the Castle
of St. Angelo. The successor of St. Peter was carried away captive by
the unbelievers. He died a prisoner in their hands; and even the honors
of sepulture were long withheld from his remains.

It is not strange that, in the year 1799, even sagacious observers
should have thought that, at length, the hour of the Church of Rome was
come. An infidel power ascendant, the Pope dying in captivity, the most
illustrious prelates of France living in a foreign country on Protestant
alms, the noblest edifices which the munificence of former ages had
consecrated to the worship of God turn