With the same object of conciliating the French portion of the community, he lost no opportunity of manifesting the personal interest which he felt in their institutions. The following letter, written in August 1848, to his mother at Paris, describes a visit to one of these institutions, the college of St. Hyacinthe, the chief French college of Montreal:-- [Sidenote: A French college.] I was present, the other day, at an examination of the students at one of the Roman Catholic Colleges of Montreal. It is altogether under the direction of the priesthood, and it is curious to observe the course they steer. The young men declaimed for some hours on a theme proposed by the superior, being a contrast between ancient and modern civilisation. The greater part of it was a sonorous exposition of ultra-liberal principles, '_Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,' 'Vox populi, vox Dei_,' a very liberal tribute to the vanity and to the prejudices of the classes who might be expected to send their children to the institution or to puff it; with an elaborate _pivot à la Lacordaire_--that the Church had achieved all that had been effected in this genre hitherto. _Au reste_, there was the wonderful mechanism which gives that church such advantages--the fourteen professors receiving no salaries, working for their food and that of the homeliest; as a consequence, an education, board and lodging inclusive, costing only 15 _l._ a year; the youths subjected to a constant discipline under the eye of ecclesiastics day and night. I confess, when I see both the elasticity and the machinery of this church, my wonder is, not with Lacordaire that it should do so much, but that it should not do more. [Sidenote: The Irish question.] More formidable at all times than any discontent on the part of the quiet and orderly French _habitans_ was the chronic disaffection of the restless, roving Irish; and especially when connected with a threatened invasion of American 'sympathisers.' When such threats come to nothing, it is generally difficult to say whether they were all mere vapouring, or whether they might have led to serious results, if not promptly met; but at one time, at least, there appears to have been solid ground for apprehending that real mischief was intended. On the 18th July, 1848, Lord Elgin writes:-- [Sidenote: Irish republicans.] At the moment when the last mail was starting a placard, calling an Irish repeal, or rather republican, meeting was placed in my hands. I enclosed it in my letter to you, and I now proceed to inform you how the movement to which it relates has progressed since then.