t germe
de son tombeau comme une cendre feconde." Doellinger used to visit his
former visitors in various parts of France, and at Paris he attended the
salon of Madame Swetchine. One day, at the seminary, he inquired who
were the most promising students; Dupanloup pointed out a youth, who was
the hope of the Church, and whose name was Ernest Renan.

Although the men who were drawn to him in this way formed the largest
and best-defined cluster with which he came in contact, there was more
private friendship than mutual action or consultation between them. The
unimpassioned German, who had no taste for ideas released from
controlling fact, took little pleasure in the impetuous declamation of
the Breton, and afterwards pronounced him inferior to Loyson. Neither of
the men who were in the confidence of both has intimated that he made
any lasting impression on Lamennais, who took leave of him without
discussing the action of Rome. Doellinger never sought to renew
acquaintance with Lacordaire, when he had become the most important man
in the church of France. He would have a prejudice to overcome against
him whom Circourt called the most ignorant man in the Academy, who
believed that Erasmus ended his days at Rotterdam, unable to choose
between Rome and Wittemberg, and that the Irish obtained through
O'Connell the right to worship in their own way. He saw more of
Dupanloup, without feeling, as deeply as Renan, the rare charm of the
combative prelate. To an exacting and reflective scholar, to whom even
the large volume of heavy erudition in which Rosmini defended the
_Cinque Piaghe_ seemed superficial, there was incongruity in the
attention paid to one of whom he heard that he promoted the council,
that he took St. Boniface for St Wilfrid, and that he gave the memorable
advice: _Surtout mefiez-vous des sources_. After a visit from the Bishop
of Orleans he sat down in dismay to compose the most elementary of his
books. Seeing the inferiority of Falloux as a historian, he never
appreciated the strong will and cool brain of the statesman who overawed
Tocqueville. Eckstein, the obscure but thoughtful originator of much
liberal feeling among his own set, encouraged him in the habit of
depreciating the attainments of the French clergy, which was confirmed
by the writings of the most eminent among them, Darboy, and lasted until
the appearance of Duchesne. The politics of Montalembert were so heavily
charged with conservatism, that in