cordat, and it is not I that desire to break them. Not to preach insurrection against your laws? I foment revolution nowhere. Do you wish me to recognise those laws as the crown of social progress, and that I should propose them as such to the imitation of the whole world, and to the admiration of future generations? That is what you will never obtain from me. Speak to me of charity, of necessity, of equity, of accomplished facts to be accepted, of acquired rights to be respected: I hear you and understand you, But do not talk to me either of the ideal or of the absolute; for the ideal for me will never be any other than the future I am awaiting, and, in my eyes, the absolute is the Truth, which I represent.' 'This lays the finger on the substance of the debate. If the society of France is willing to be taken like all its predecessors, as a mixture of good and evil, imperfect as all human things, the peace with the Church will be made, if it be not made already, But if its demand be that it should be held sacred, and all but canonised, I doubt if it will obtain that favour. All the advocates in the world, able or ardent, impassioned or powerful, statesmen and sectaries, will waste upon it their pains and their eloquence.'^[1]

These thoughtful and pointed words are enough to assure anyone how groundless and needless are the fears of politicians in France lest the Œcumenical Council should decree anything inconsistent with the true bases of civil society. And surely no French politician will admit that the principles of 1789 are