Clemenceau's task was therefore an exceedingly hard one. He had ever in mind the old eighteenth-century watchword which, from his point of view, is the foundation of the French Republic--Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. And the greatest of these is liberty! He throughout forgot, or overlooked, that, even according to his own pronouncements, liberty in any real sense is impossible for the weaker--the majority who own no property--against the stronger--"Les Plus Forts," the minority who own all the property. This triune fetish Clemenceau, with all his keenness of criticism, might be said to worship: yet to worship in a more or less reasonable way. He could not shut his eyes to the truth that, for men and women whose livelihood was at the mercy of capitalists, there could be no real liberty, dominated as the workers were by their daily compulsion to obtain the wherewithal for the necessaries of life. The only way by which even partial justice could be secured, under the system of payment of wages, was combination among the wage-earners. Hence he recognises the liberty to strike. But he was equally determined, as he puts it, to defend the liberty of those who would not strike. It was logical: it was in harmony with the law; but it was a virtual help to the employers none the less. On the occasion of his second visit he enforced his view in his usual emphatic way. Three miners who would not join the strike were being paraded through the town by the strikers with an insulting placard hung around their necks: "_Nous sommes des poires cuites; des faux frères._" Clemenceau insisted that they should be released, and succeeded in freeing them. The very fact, however, that it was possible for the strikers to act in this way, without protest, showed how small was the minority and how strong the feeling against these claimants of the liberty of taking the other side. Clemenceau likewise acted with vigour against all who were guilty of any violence. But the strikes still spread. Speaking at Lyons on May 3rd, he explained the difficulties of the situation:--"My position is between the political demagogues of the Church, the clericals and the reactionaries on one side, who tried hard to hound on the troops I was forced to call in to fire upon the strikers, who greatly provoked them. This the ecclesiastics and restorationists did with the hope of fomenting a revolt against the Republic--a revolt supported by certain military chiefs, inspired by the clericals and their shameless lack of discipline." The Separation of Church and State was being decided while all this was going on. "Their object was to bring about a massacre in the interest of the Catholic Church and the monarchy. This plot was frustrated. Butchery was avoided.