that a great institution, which has charge of souls in all the world, should hesitate to commit itself to a symbol of ideas so wanting in precision as to lend itself in fifty years to the Constitution of '91, the Charter of 1830, and to the Plébiscite of 1862.'
He then points out the ambiguity and uncertainty of a document which may be interpreted in four or five ways. ' Is it indeed the same principle which adapts itself to two interpretations so contrary to each other? In the matter of religious liberty, how many commentaries have we not had? There is the administrative interpretation, which recognises no other worships than those of which the State pays the heads, and fixes the legal status. … There is the liberal interpretation, which is much more respectful to the rights of individuals. … There is the revolutionary interpretation, which gives free course to all aberrations of thought. … So many schools are there, all sheltering under the common name of liberty of thought, of which the doctors and disciples, intolerant enough for each other, pretend alike to exclusive orthodoxy.'
'Imagine face to face our social elements, still in effervescence and in struggle, and that old power, resting on the immovable base of dogma clearly defined, which has seen crumbling at its feet the ruins of a hundred peoples and the dust of twenty ages.' He then imagines a dialogue 'between that antique spiritual power and the impatient sons of modern France. What do you ask of me? it seems to say to them. To live in peace with your governments? But I have already signed with them more than one con-
