retained the right to plead in that capacity; and I remember the surprise of a president of the Chamber, in discovering one day at the bar, in the robe of an advocate, the priest whose name already began to be famous.” Into these encounters the young man entered with a certain relish and delight which sometimes amazed his friend. “I know not what attraction drew him to those combats,” says M. de Montalembert; “one would have said that he was trying the temper of his arms, and endeavouring to render his blows more sure.” “I am convinced,” he wrote, in issuing from one of his skirmishes, “that the Roman senate would not have frightened me.” And not only did he find enjoyment in the fight for itself, but occasional triumphs rewarded the young orator—triumphs of his frank and open youth over the big popular spectator that loved not the name of priest. One day, in answering an _avocat du roi_ who had ventured to say that the priests were the ministers of a foreign power, Lacordaire cried, “We are the ministers of one who is nowhere a stranger—of God.” Upon which the audience, “composed of that people of July so hostile to the clergy,” applauded, exclaiming, “My priest, my curé, what do you call yourself? you are a brave man!” He was not less frank nor less successful when he appeared as the defendant in a Government prosecution along with Lamennais, on account of some of the plain-speaking of the ‘Avenir’ touching an appointment of bishops. In his speech before this tribunal, Lacordaire defended himself, in his capacity of priest, with a touching simplicity and dignity. “I rise,” he says, “with a recollection that will not leave me. When the priest in former days rose amid the people, something which excited a profound love rose at the same time with him. Now, accused as I am, I know that my name of priest is mute for my defence, and I am resigned to it. The people deprived the priest of that ancient love which they bore him, when the priest deprived himself of an august part of his character—when the man of God ceased to be the man of freedom.... I never knew freedom better,” he continues, with a burst of professional enthusiasm, “than the day when I received, with the sacred unction, the right of speaking of God. The universe opened before me, and I learned that there was in man something inalienable, divine, eternally free—speech! The message of the priest was confided to me, and I was told to bear it to the ends of the world without any one having the right to seal my lips a single day of my life. I went out of the temple with these grand doctrines, and I met upon the threshold, law and bondage!” After this brilliant address, M. de Montalembert comes in with a tender touch of description—a little sketch which in a word or two makes us of the party, and reveals the entire scene in all its agitation and triumph.