ent with the divine in the Holy
See was destined to be tried by the severest of all tests; and his
exaggeration of the infallibility of the Pope proved fatal to his
religious faith.

In 1831 the Roman Breviary was not to be bought in Paris. We may hence
measure the amount of opposition with which Lamennais's endeavours to
exalt Rome would be met by the majority of the French bishops and
clergy, and by the school of St. Sulpice. For him, on the other hand, no
terms were too strong to express his animosity against those who
rejected his teaching and thwarted his designs. The bishops he railed
at as idiotic devotees, incredibly blind, supernaturally foolish. "The
Jesuits," he said, "were _grenadiers de la folie_, and united imbecility
with the vilest passions."[342] He fancied that in many dioceses there
was a conspiracy to destroy religion, that a schism was at hand, and
that the resistance of the clergy to his principles threatened to
destroy Catholicism in France. Rome, he was sure, would help him in his
struggle against her faithless assailants, on behalf of her authority,
and in his endeavour to make the clergy refer their disputes to her, so
as to receive from the Pope's mouth the infallible oracles of eternal
truth.[343] Whatever the Pope might decide, would, he said, be right,
for the Pope alone was infallible. Bishops might be sometimes resisted,
but the Pope never.[344] It was both absurd and blasphemous even to
advise him. "I have read in the _Diario di Roma_," he said, "the advice
of M. de Chateaubriand to the Holy Ghost. At any rate, the Holy Ghost is
fully warned; and if he makes a mistake this time, it will not be the
ambassador's fault."

Three Popes passed away, and still nothing was done against the traitors
he was for ever denouncing. This reserve astounded him. Was Rome herself
tainted with Gallicanism, and in league with those who had conspired for
her destruction? What but a schism could ensue from this inexplicable
apathy? The silence was a grievous trial to his faith. "Let us shut our
eyes," he said, "let us invoke the Holy Spirit, let us collect all the
powers of our soul, that our faith may not be shaken."[345] In his
perplexity he began to make distinctions between the Pope and the Roman
Court. The advisers of the Pope were traitors, dwellers in the outer
darkness, blind and deaf; the Pope himself and he alone was infallible,
and would never act so as to injure the faith, though meanwhile he was