May 4th, 1901.

A YEAR ago I wrote in these columns as follows: “For twenty years the Government has been running its educational machine at immense loss, compelling the French to support their own schools as well as those they will not patronize. Nevertheless, State schools and colleges are so neglected that laws are being devised to compel parents to send their children to them. If all other means fail, the congregations of both sexes occupied in teaching will be suppressed.”

Now this is the true object of the Associations Bill; all the rest is merely padding. Liberty of association for Freemasons, Socialists, and all friends of the Third Republic will be untrammelled as heretofore. The blow aimed at religious teachers is of peculiar interest at this hour, when Christians, all over the world, are recognizing the immense importance of the religious education of the young, if we would preserve the structure of Western civilization, so laboriously built up during 2000 years, and save its deep foundations from being sapped by the returning tide of barbarism and paganism. For the revolutionary spirit of to-day is simply another version of that renaissance of paganism which culminated in the Protestant revolt. As in the past, it will be met by a great Catholic revival like that of the sixteenth century, which Macaulay has so eloquently described in his Essay on Ranke’s Papacy. This is the counter-revolution against which the self-styled government of “DÉfense Republicaine” is dressing its batteries. Already the effects of this revival are felt and, as Macaulay has pointed out, revivals of the religious spirit, this everlasting factor in the history of humanity which our pseudo-scientists so unscientifically ignore, always redound to the benefit of Catholicism. When men like BrunetiÈre, Bourget, LemaÎtre, FranÇois CoppÉe, become standard-bearers of truth, we are consoled for the vociferations of any number of Vivianis, Trouillots, etc., in and outside the French Chambers, for whom “the eternal decalogue” is but an antiquated superstition that must be swept away.

The law against the Congregations has been opposed in the Chambers by many Republicans who have no religious scruples, and one may safely affirm that there is not a respectable Frenchman, outside the coterie in power, who does not condemn the Bill.

A few days before its passage, a mass meeting of many trade unions, presided over by Leroy Beaulieu, was held in Paris to protest against the projected suppression of the Congregations. The eminent economist declared that the proposed legislation was one of “national suicide.” If the law is so repugnant to the French in general, how is it that the Government always obtains a majority? it may be asked.

The explanation lies in the fact that while honest Frenchmen have been attending to their business and leaving politics strictly alone, this anti-religious campaign has been carefully prepared since many years by the enemies of Christianity. Like all notable persecutions, it is the work of secret societies. The Boxers of China are a congeries of these societies. In the days of Julian the chief instigators and abettors of persecution were the secret societies of Mithra, whom Renan declared to have been “veritable Masonic lodges with their initiations, passwords,” etc.

Since 1875 the “Grand Orient,” in which the Jewish element predominates, has gradually been gathering into its hands all the reins of government; not a very difficult task, seeing that as a rule respectable, industrious Frenchmen will not touch politics, while the emissaries of the lodges go out into the slums of mining and industrial centres, and organize primaries and Socialist clubs that defeat any respectable candidate who dares to enter the lists against the candidate of the Government. Jules LemaÎtre, in the Echo de Paris, states that there are 400 deputies and 10 ministers who are Freemasons. As these latter number about 25,000 in France, it follows that there is one representative in Parliament for every 50 Freemason electors, whereas there is only one representative for every 1800 votes who are not affiliated to the “Grand Orient.” With a house packed in this way, any legislation is possible. Madame Sorgues, lately sub-editor of JaurÈs’ Socialist organ, La Petite Republique, has published some interesting revelations, showing how the Judeo Freemasons have made tools of the Socialists in order to seize the reins of government. “In combating the combats of Dreyfus,” she writes, “JaurÈs and his friends brought about a singular rapprochement of the two most irreconcilable camps ... the presents of the kings of capital were accepted. The first service rendered was to restore the tottering Socialist Press.... All the advanced [meaning anti-clerical Socialist] dailies have passed into the hands of the great barons of finance; they are their journals now, not the journals of the workers.... Then they cast their eyes on Waldeck Rousseau, the clever rescuer of the Panamists.... The agent of the Dreyfus politics had the happy thought of introducing into the Cabinet, Millerand, the Socialist leader, with the consent of his party. Socialism become ministerial would be domestiquÉ, and rendered inoffensive against capital,” etc. Last fall, the President, Loubet, when at Lyons, dared to be the guest of the Chamber of Commerce, in spite of the Socialist mayor, Augagneur, and his gang. Immediately, the Aurore, a Socialist organ of Paris, clamoured for his suppression in these terms: “As he is not subject to the same accidents as Felix Faure, we must defend ourselves without waiting for the good offices of Judith.” M. Faure, M. Loubet’s predecessor, it will be remembered, is said to have died suddenly after a cup of tea at a soirÉe given by a rich Jewess, and the present ministry of the Dreyfus revision, to which he had been steadfastly opposed, came into power almost before the country knew what had happened, bringing in their political wallet another Dreyfus trial and this notorious Associations Bill.

If I insist, it is because I wish that it may be clearly understood that the French people are not guilty of the criminal legislation of which they are the victims, owing to their incurable reluctance to touch the mire of politics, left, as a rule, to the most unworthy and unscrupulous.

M. Waldeck Rousseau is a smart, wily politician; so was Camille Desmoulins, an obscure, ambitious lawyer, who saw in the Revolution of 1790 a grand opportunity of reaching a proud eminence. This accomplished, he had no further use for Revolutionists. “The Revolution is over,” he said; but it went on and on, until his own head rolled into the fatal basket.

How long will all this last? How long will the mad dogs of Socialist anarchy be held in leash?