ppressed by the law) contrived to lead a sort
of underground life--the Protestants meeting by night, and sometimes
by day, in caves, valleys, moors, woods, old quarries, hollow beds of
rivers, or, as they themselves called it, "in the Desert"--they at
length contrived to lift their heads into the light of day, and then
Rabaut St. Etienne stood up in the Constituent Assembly at Paris, in
1787, and claimed the rights of his Protestant fellow-countrymen--the
rights of "2,000,000 useful citizens." Louis XVI. granted them an
Edict of Tolerance, about a hundred years after Louis XIV. had revoked
the Edict of Nantes; but the measure proved too late for the King, and
too late for France, which had already been sacrificed to the
intolerance of Louis XIV. and his Jesuit advisers.

After all the sufferings of France--after the cruelties to which her
people have been subjected by the tyranny of her monarchs and the
intolerance of her priests,--it is doubtful whether she has yet learnt
wisdom from her experience and trials. France was brought to ruin a
century ago by the Jesuits who held the entire education of the
country in their hands. They have again recovered their ground, and
the Congreganistes are now what the Jesuits were before. The
Sans-Culottes of 1793 were the pupils of the priests; so were the
Communists of 1871.[1] M. Edgar Quinet has recently said to his
countrymen: "The Jesuitical and clerical spirit which has sneaked in
among you and all your affairs has ruined you. It has corrupted the
spring of life; it has delivered you over to the enemy.... Is this to
last for ever? For heaven's sake spare us at least the sight of a
Jesuits' Republic as the coronation of our century."

[Footnote 1: M. Simiot's speech before the National Assembly,
16th March, 1873.]

In the midst of these prophecies of ruin, we have M. Veuillot frankly
avowing his Ultramontane policy in the _Univers_. He is quite willing
to go back to the old burnings, hangings, and quarterings, to prevent
any freedom of opinion about religious matters. "For my part," he
says, "I frankly avow my regret not only that John Huss was not burnt
sooner, but that Luther was not burnt too. And I regret further that
there has not been some prince sufficiently pious and politic to have
made a crusade against the Protestants."

M. Veuillot is perhaps entitled to some respect for boldly speaking
out what he means and thinks. There are many amongst ourse