er.

In the eighteenth century, when a cure was obliged to report to the
"intendant" the number of inhabitants of his parish, he had only to
count his communicants at the Easter service; their number was about
that of the adult and valid population, say one half or two fifths of
the sum total.[5355] Now, at Paris, out of two millions of Catholics who
are of age, about one hundred thousand perform this strict duty, aware
of its being strict and the imperative prescription of which is
stamped in their memory by a rhyme which they have learned in their
infancy;[5356] out of one hundred persons, this is equal to five
communicants, of which four are women and one is a man, in other words,
about one woman out of twelve or thirteen and one man out of fifty. In
the provinces,[5357] and especially in the country, there is good reason
for doubling and even tripling these figures; in the latter case, the
most favorable one and, without any doubt, the rarest, the proportion of
professed Christians is that of one to four among women and one man
out of twelve. Evidently, with the others who make not attend Church
regularly, with the three women and the eleven other men, their faith is
only verbal; if they are still Catholics, it is on the outside and not
within.

Besides this separation from the main body and this indifference, other
signs denote disaffection and even hostility.--In Paris, at the height
of the Revolution, in May and June 1793, the shopkeepers, artisans
and market-women, the whole of the common people, were still
religious,[5358] "kneeling in the street" when the Host passed by, and
before the relics of Saint Leu carried along in ceremonial procession,
passionately fond of his worship, and suddenly melted, "ashamed,
repentant and with tears in their eyes, when, inadvertently, their
Jacobin rulers tolerated the publicity of a procession. Nowadays,
among the craftsmen, shopkeepers and lower class of employees, there
is nothing more unpopular than the Catholic Church. Twice, under
the Restoration and the second Empire, she has joined hands with a
repressive government, while its clergy has seemed to be not merely an
efficient organ but, again, the central promoter of all repression.--
Hence, accumulated bitterness that still survives. After 1830, the
archbishopric of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois is sacked; in 1871 the
archbishop and other ecclesiastical hostages are murdered. For two
years after 1830 a priest in his casso