I am convinced that Catholicism, Protestantism, and Philosophy, in the bosom of the novel state of society in France under the Charter, can live peaceably, both as regards themselves and society; in peace not only material but moral, not only obligatory but voluntary,--without submission, without abasement,--both with truth and with honor. I wish to prove it. I repeat my first position. This peace must be established; it is necessary. Look at the state of things. Catholicism, Protestantism, Philosophy, and modern French society can neither destroy one another, nor change nor remodel themselves as they wish. They are facts, old, powerful, living, and indestructible from the remotest times. They have resisted the longest and most severe trials, ages of order and days of chaos. For ages has new France, the France of the Charter, been forming itself and increasing. Every thing has opposed it, yet everything has contributed to its triumph, the church, nobility, royalty, the court, the greatness of Louis XIV., the inactivity of Louis XV., the wars of the empire, the peace after the restoration. She has surmounted even her own faults, as well as the efforts of her enemies. {79} Catholicism was born at the same time and in the same cradle as modern Europe. It has associated itself with all the labours of European civilization. It has survived all its transformations. In our own days it has sustained the most terrible shock that has ever been encountered by a creed and a church. It has been raised up again by the hands of the very destroyers themselves. It appears again. Enter the family circle, traverse the country, then will be seen what the power of Catholicism is, in spite of the lukewarmness of many of the faithful members--even of many of the priests. The lot of Protestantism in France has been hard. It has had against it the king and the people, the literati of the seventeenth, the philosophers of the eighteenth century; at one time it appeared as if extirpated by Catholicism, at another as absorbed by philosophy. It has yielded neither to persecution nor ridicule. It still exists, and is no sooner restored to liberty than it exhibits all its ancient fervour. As for Philosophy, she has sustained many checks amidst her triumphs. It is easy to set forth her follies and mistakes. She has much to amend in what is past, but nothing to fear for the future. Most of the principles which she proclaimed have become rights. The rights have become facts. The new social condition to which philosophy has given rise will not be more averse to her than the old one which she has overcome. These are all clearly powers full of life, and which a long futurity awaits. They have struggled roughly but in vain. They have been unable to destroy each other. {80}