age there are two schools, and that
these two schools sum up in themselves the two opposed currents which
draw civilisation, the one towards the future and the other towards the
past. One of these schools is called Paris and the other Rome. Each of
them has its book; the one has the "Declaration of the Rights of Man,"
the other has the "Syllabus"; and the first of these books says "Yes" to
progress, but the second of them says "No." Yet progress is the footstep
of God.

Paris means Montaigne, Rabelais, Pascal, Corneille, Moliere,
Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mirabeau, Danton. Rome, on the
other hand, means Innocent III., Pius V., Alexander VI., Urban VIII.,
Arbuez, Cisneros, Lainez, Guillandus, Ignatius.

To educate is nothing less than to govern; and clerical education means
a clerical government, with a despotism as its summit and ignorance as
its foundation.

Rome already holds Belgium, and would now seize Paris. We are witnesses
of a struggle to the death. Against us is all that manifold power which
emerges from the past, the spirit of monarchy, of superstition, of the
barrack and of the convent; we have against us temerity, effrontery,
audacity, and fear. On our side there is nothing but the light. That is
why the victory will be with us. For to enlighten is to deliver. Every
increase in liberty involves increased responsibility. Nothing is graver
than freedom; liberty has burdens of her own, and lays on the conscience
all the chains which she unshackles from the limbs. We find rights
transforming themselves into duties. Let us therefore take heed to what
we are doing; we live in a difficult time and are answerable at once to
the past and to the future. The time has come, in this year 1876, to
replace commotions by concessions. That is how civilisation advances.
For progress is nothing other than revolution effected amicably.

Therefore, legislators and citizens, let us redouble our good-will. Let
all wounds be healed, all animosities extinguished; by overcoming hatred
we shall overcome war; let no disturbance that may come be due to our
fault. Our task of entering into the unknown is difficult enough without
angers and bitterness. I am one of those who hope from that unknown
future, but only on condition that we make use from the first of every
means of pacification that is in our power. Let us act with the virile
kindness of the strong.

Let us then calm the nations by peace, and the hearts of