In addition to present troubles there was a perpetual harking back at these meetings to old scores, impelling “the people to wrestle with the serried hordes of their oppressors in the bloody struggles which must intervene” before “the injured, oppressed, and enslaved Canadian” could escape from “the diabolical policy of England.” There was a liberty pole, and Papineau, burning, energetic, flowery of speech, promised all things as crown to laudable effort “in the sacred cause of freedom.” It was a Canada “regenerated, disenthralled, and blessed with a liberal government” which the prophetic speech of Papineau had foreshadowed; and the “lives, fortunes, and sacred honour” of his hearers were there and then pledged with his own to aid in that regeneration. That “Frenchified Englishman,” Dr. Wolfred Nelson, also spoke; and Girod,--a Swiss, who taught agriculture in a Quebec school for boys, got up by that true patriot Perrault,--destined shortly for a tragic fate, was there. At this meeting Papineau thought he had set a ball rolling which would not easily be stopped. Already it was careering in an unpleasantly rapid manner. He deprecated the use of arms, and advised as punishment to England that nothing should be bought from her. This reprisal on the nation of shopkeepers Nelson thought a peddling policy; that the time was come for armed action, not pocket inaction. Papineau’s opinion was disappointing to the fiery wing of the Confederation. Again did Bishop Lartigue warn generally against evil counsels, reminding his flock that a cardinal rule of the Church was obedience to the powers that be; and every one of his clergy echoed him. “Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte” was once oddly applied by a lady who heard a canon of the Church say that St. Piat, after his head was cut off, walked two leagues with it in his hand. She could not gainsay such an authority, so said, “I can quite believe it. On such occasions the first step is the only difficulty.” Alas, many at these meetings were to exhibit the price of a first step; heads were to come off and necks to be broken, and every step in that blood-stained via doloroso which led to the Union, to the righting of Englishmen’s and Frenchmen’s wrongs, to establishing Canadian rights to be French or British, was to cost bitterly,--cost how bitterly only one can know who reads the story in its human aspect, not politically alone. It is a strange thing that privileges so purely British as those asked for, the abolition of the death sentence except in case of murder, “that chimera called Responsible Government,” the unquestioned use of a national language in public affairs, freedom of the press, should have been asked for by Frenchmen, denied by Englishmen, and fought for to the death by many of each nationality. All time from the Conquest to the Rebellion seems to belong to the latter event. For the causes of it reach back by perspective into Misrule, making a vanishing point in Mistake.