squares of the lower town as reminds one vaguely of Quebec,
the Channel coming into the landscape like the St. Lawrence. As at
Quebec, too, the two civilisations of France and of England meet without
mingling; and at Boulogne, as at Quebec, the French type, if not the
stronger of the two, certainly proves itself to be the subtler, and
decides the local physiognomy.

I spent an hour at Boulogne, with a friend who now fills an important
ecclesiastical position in one of the provinces of Central France, and
who was passing a few weeks on the Channel for his health. He is one of
the few French churchmen I personally know who heartily agree with
Cardinal Manning in thinking that the abolition of the Concordat would
greatly strengthen the Church in France, even if it involved a further
serious sacrifice of the proprietary rights of the clergy. 'The way in
which the people have come forward to the support of the congreganist
schools against, the oppressive measures adopted in the law of 1886,' he
said, 'confirms my old conviction, that a complete separation of the
Church from the State in France, whatever its effect might be upon the
State, would strengthen the Church.'

He cited a number of instances within his own knowledge in which rival
communes had established, and were carrying on, at the direct expense of
the local farmers and residents, free or congreganist schools, while, of
course, at the same time they were paying taxes for the lay public
schools to which they would not send their children. 'And this in
spite,' he said, 'of the ingenious devices with which the law of 1886
bristles for making the establishment of free and Christian schools
difficult and expensive. For example, to begin with, the legislature
actually tried to prevent us from calling our schools free schools,
though as schools supported by the free subscriptions of the people they
were distinctly "free" schools, as distinguished from the schools
established by the law at the expense of the taxpayers. We were gravely
informed that it was an act of war to call a free school free! In this
same petty and childish spirit the congregations are called
"associations" in the text of the law. When a free school is to be
opened, the teacher who is to have charge of it must run the gauntlet of
a series of public officers, all of them, if they are on good terms with
the Government, presumably hostile to him as a Christian. He begins with
the mayor of the Commune,