There is the indefinite prolongation of the present system, by which opposite religions are endowed. This may continue for a long time, but it is not likely to last for ever. The annual payment of a tribute to the clergy is, like all tributes, a constantly-recurring vexation. In itself it is enough to revive hostility, which might otherwise pass into indifference. It will not let sleeping dogs lie. If it should ever happen, which is by no means impossible, that the opponents of the _budget des cultes_ can unite a small majority, the clergy will open their newspapers one morning and see a brief announcement that their salaries are stopped. [Sidenote: Project of M. Yves Guyot.] A more probable event is that, according to the proposal of M. Yves Guyot, the State will disembarrass itself of responsibility by handing over the payment to the _communes_. According to this system the money would be given to the municipal council in each commune, to be expended either in the payment of the clergy, or for any other purpose of public utility that the majority of each council might prefer. There could then be no complaint against the Government, which would escape all responsibility. That would fall upon the municipal electors in each commune separately, who would have themselves to thank if they were deprived of religious ministrations. [Sidenote: Practical Result of M. Guyot’s Project.] The result of this, in practice, would be a partial and perhaps progressive disestablishment. The clergy would be paid in some communes, perhaps in the majority, but not in others. The change would therefore come without any general shock. This scheme may be agreeable to the numerous enemies of the clergy, who will have the wit to perceive that it offers a kind of bribe to the municipal councils, which are seldom rich, and almost invariably desire to do more than their limited means permit.[36] The more prudent republicans might accept it as affording a ground of complaint less advantageous, polemically, to the clergy. [Sidenote: Difference between Disestablishment in France and in England.] [Sidenote: Religious and Social Jealousy.] It is unnecessary for me to go into detail about the question of disestablishment in England. Every English reader knows the present state of that question in his own country, and a few years hence whatever could be written in this book would only be out of date. I may, however, in a book of comparison between the two countries, point to the essential difference between disestablishment in France and England. In France it is desired by the aggressive secular spirit which is doing all it can to _laïcise_ the country thoroughly. In England it is the unestablished religious communities that supply most of the motive power, and the spirit which animates them is not the secular spirit at all, but religious and social jealousy. [Sidenote: Dissenters Naturally and Excusably Jealous.]