504 THE RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS IN FRANCE.
We should be overwhelmed with the deepest sorrow if, in the evening of Our days, We should discover that We had been deceived in these hopes, deprived of the price of Our fatherly solicitude, and condemned to watch in the country which We love a rancorous struggle between party passions, with no power to know how far their excesses would extend or to ward off the misfortunes which We have done all We could to prevent, and for which We decline, in advance, to be held in any way responsible.
In any case the duty which is at present incumbent on the French bishops is to labor in perfect harmony of thought and action to prevail upon the people to save the rights and interests of the religious congregations, which We love with all Our fatherly heart, and whose existence, hberty, and prosperity concern the Catholic Church, France, and humanity.
May the Lord vouchsafe to hear Our ardent prayers and to grant success to the efforts which We have now for so long made in this noble cause. And as a token of Our benevolence and of divine favors We grant you, dear Son, and to the whole episcopate, clergy, and people of France, the Apostolic Benediction.
II. Letter of His Holiness Leo XIII., June 29, 1901, to the Superiors of the Religious Orders and Institutes in France.
At all times the religious families have received from the Apostolic See particular assurance of loving and considerate solicitude, whether they were in the enjoy- ment of the benefits of peace, or, as in our days, under- going such trials as those which now assail them. The onslaught which, in certain countries, has been recently made against the orders and the institutes subject to your authority, cause Us the profoundest grief, and holy Church is bowed down in sorrow because of it, for it
