This I could not contradict, for while I never heard that President Juarez was himself a 'freemason,' I know, from my conversations with him after the fall of the Empire, in 1871, that, though educated by the priests in Oajaca, as Robespierre was by the priests in Arras, he was an unbeliever of the type of the advanced Encyclopaedists of the last century, and though not such a fanatic as Condorcet, strongly disposed, not only to deprive the Mexican clergy of their 'fueros' under the old Spanish system, but to make an end of Catholicism in Mexico if possible. Nor was he much more friendly to the Protestants, who were then trying, under Bishop Riley, to found a Protestant propaganda in Mexico. 'In France, at all events under the Third Republic,' he went on, 'the "freemasons" are the implacable enemies of religion. It was in full accord with them, and as a battle-cry in their interest, that Gambetta uttered his famous declaration that "Clericalism is the enemy!" And if the "freemasons" of any other country recognise and in any fashion affiliate with the Grand Orient of France, they ought to understand what they are doing, and to what objects they are lending themselves, consciously or unconsciously. You tell me that General Washington was a freemason. Yes, no doubt, but the freemasonry which he accepted was no more like the modern "freemasonry" of France than this Third Republic of ours is like the republic of which he was the founder!' The processes carried on in the great chemical works at Chauny are in their way as interesting as the processes carried on at St.-Gobain or in the glassworks here. But I cannot say they are as pleasant, or even as picturesque. Commercially speaking, the output of the chemical works of this great company is at least as important now as the output of its glassworks. The chemical works grew up out of the necessities of the glassworks. When the company was led, at the beginning of this century, by the pressure of the war epoch, to adopt in its glassworks the use of the artificial soda made by Leblanc, the Director soon found it advisable to have the artificial soda manufactured by the company itself. This led to the establishment of the chemical works at Chauny, and down to 1867 the company itself was the chief consumer of these chemical products. The Exposition of that year widened the horizon, by making France acquainted with the agricultural importance of the English fabrication of 'superphosphates' as fertilisers. At the Exposition of 1878 the Company of St.-Gobain exhibited, and received a gold medal, for superphosphates, which it was then turning out at the rate of 20,000 tons a year from three establishments--one at Chauny, one at L'Oseraie, and one at Montlucon. As the company was then turning out a great production of sulphuric acid, and owned the only important mine of pyrites in France, it went on with increasing energy, and now, in 1889,