It is now quite a commonly-received opinion in England that religion is “odiously and senselessly persecuted” in France, but nothing is said against the Italian Government for its treatment of the monastic orders. Neither does it occur to English writers that this is a case of a mote in the neighbour’s eye and a beam in one’s own. The Catholic Church has been robbed and pillaged by the French secular power, which allows her nearly two millions sterling a year in compensation, and keeps the diocesan edifices in excellent repair. The Catholic Church has been robbed and pillaged by the English secular power, which repairs none of her buildings and allows her nothing a year in compensation. In France the Jewish and Dissenting clergy are paid by the “persecuting” State, in England they get nothing from the State. Catholic street processions are forbidden in many of the French towns; in England they are tolerated in none. In France a Catholic may be the head of the State; in England he is excluded from that position by law. The French Government maintains diplomatic relations with the Holy See; a Nuncio is not received at the Court of St. James’s. The French Government is described as persecuting and tyrannical because it has sent pretenders into exile after tolerating them for sixteen years. The English Government never tolerated pretenders at all, but kept them in exile from first to last--the _last_ being their final extinction on foreign soil. Another very curious and unfortunate anomaly is the instinctive opposition of French Republicans to England. It exists in degrees exactly proportioned to the degree of democratic passion in the Frenchman. When he is a moderate Republican he dislikes England moderately, a strong Republican usually hates her, and a radical Republican detests her. These feelings are quite outside of the domain of reason. England is nominally monarchical, it is true, but in reality, as every intelligent Frenchman ought to know, she has set the example of free institutions. An hypothesis that may explain such anomalies as these, is that the ancient national antipathy which our fathers expressed in bloodshed has now, in each nation, taken the form of jealousy of the other’s progress, so that although each enjoys freedom for herself she can never quite approve of it in her neighbour. There is also the well-known dislike to neutrals which in times of bitter contention intensifies itself into a hatred even stronger than the hatred of the enemy. The French Freethinker is a neutral between hostile religions, and the English lover of political liberty is regarded as a sort of neutral by Frenchmen, since he has neither the virulence of the _intransigeant_ nor the vindictiveness of the _réactionnaire_. In concluding this Preface I wish to say a few words about nationality in ideas.