ote by the way that these Brethren, thus expelled summarily,
were refused payment of their already fixed salaries for the month of
September.

A debate ensuing, the question was finally remitted to M. Jules Ferry,
'Grand Master of the University of France,' who decided that the
salaries were indeed due and the property of the Brethren, but that, as
the work could not be done by reason of their expulsion, the salaries
need not be paid!

Furthermore, the municipality appraised the school furniture, which had
been bought and paid for by the Brethren, and having ascertained its
value, decided--that it belonged to the municipality!

Will my readers think the expression of M. Fleury, an accomplished
journalist of Amiens, to whom I am indebted for these details, at all
too vigorous, when he described these proceedings as 'exactly defined in
the French Dictionary, and in the 379th article of the Penal Code, under
the word "theft"'?

In August 1880, on the refusal of the Sisters in charge of the girls'
school to take their pupils to an 'obligatory festival' during the time
fixed on Sunday for divine service, M. Petit, the municipal Emperor
Julian of Amiens, moved for 'the immediate laicisation of all the girls'
schools in Amiens.' This was too much even for M. Goblet, who, to his
credit, not only protested but voted against the proposition. It was,
however, carried. M. Goblet and six other councillors withdrew,
including the mayor, M. Delpech; and M. Petit thus became, by seniority,
mayor of Amiens.

'When this happened,' said a citizen of Amiens to me, 'and M. Petit was
thus put in charge of the rights and the property of the Sisters, it had
been perfectly well known for ten years that, by the Parliamentary
Inquest of 1871 into the story of the Commune of Paris, M. Petit had
been proved to be the founder at Amiens of the secret society known as
the "International," and yet he was never prosecuted, and he is now a
senator of the Republic. How do you expect honest people, who respect
the ordinary laws of order and civilisation, to support a Republic which
accepts and promotes the members of such a society?

'On October 2, 1880, this remarkable mayor went in person with a
locksmith and some others to the communal girls' school of St.-Leu, then
managed by the Sisters. The Sisters had been already that day notified
to leave the school-buildings "the next day." M. Petit ordered them to
go out immediately. They showed the notif