Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/277

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the name of the nation, acting as chief mourners, they decided to forget him and wax exceedingly and patriotically wroth over the fate of his glorious assassins. Why were Voulet and Chanoine killed? Who had dared to kill so sacred a thing as a French officer? It must be the Government, the wicked, infamous, Jew-paid Government. M. Loubet, of course, gave the order, and M. Waldeck-Rousseau transmitted it, and then, lest anyone should live to tell the tale, Waldeck-Rousseau wired instructions to kill off anyone else belonging to the mission. My Catholic friends are ever lamenting the lack of freedom under the Third Republic. I wonder if any Catholic Government has ever tolerated its enemies in the very heart of its rule writing daily in a hostile Press that it traffics in assassination. And nobody seems to find the charge in this case laughable. Nationalism is certainly in direct hostility to all sense of humour.

But France is too sound and honest and sober a race to live contented with no other public influence than that of her untrustworthy Press. The Catholics have always understood that religious ideas are most happily and lastingly spread by direct personal influences, hence the prestige of their clergy. Catholic clubs and societies abound, but the want of liberal education in the working-man was deeply felt in the revelations of the Affaire. To write of France