Side by side with these violent and insulting invectives leveled at the government of France, the _Avenir_ placed a declaration of respect and submission to the chief of the Church of Rome: "We profess," it said, "the most complete obedience to the authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. We will not have other faith than his faith, other doctrine than his doctrine. All that he approves we approve, all that he condemns we condemn, and without the shadow of a reservation; we, each of us, submit to the judgment of the Holy See all our past, all our future writings, of what nature soever they may be." Here, at least, the revolutionary spirit seemed absent, or, at all events, was in a hurry to disavow itself. {51} I am persuaded that, in holding this language, the Abbé de la Mennais was sincere. When an exclusive idea or passion sways a man's mind, nothing is more unknown to him than his own future conduct; he knows even less what he will do than what he is doing. The Abbé de la Mennais no more suspected in 1831 what he would say and what he would do a few years later, than the most violent leaders of the French Revolution suspected in 1789 what they would be and what they would do in 1793. The court at Rome was clearer-sighted than its fanatical champion; it had been under the influence of the charm of the first works and of the first successes of the Abbé de la Mennais. It had not, however, failed to perceive what pernicious and dangerous seed might thence germinate. {52} The _Avenir_ occasioned it profound disquietude; the principles and the yearnings of modern society found therein a too ready acceptance; the régime which had governed France since 1830 was too much the object of its attacks; it demanded too much liberty, and made too much noise in doing so; for beneath that noise, and in the shadow of that liberty, fermented the anarchical doctrines and tendencies which in all cases and places it is the aim and the policy of the court of Rome to contest. Thus the _Avenir_ and its writers placed her in a position full of embarrassment; Rome was anxious neither in any way to ignore the services that they had rendered and that they might continue to render her, nor to lose sight of the perils that they made her incur; Rome desired to preserve silence respecting these writers--neither to avow nor disavow them--and to leave it to time to terminate their transport and their errors. The Abbé de la Mennais did not, however, permit this expectant policy; he insisted absolutely that the papacy, by pronouncing upon his doctrines and upon his attitude, should publicly either give him her support or withdraw it from him. {53} All the world knows of the journey which he undertook in 1831 to Rome to obtain this result, and of his stay there in company with the Abbé Lacordaire and M. de Montalembert, "three obscure Christians"--to use the words of the Abbé de la Mennais--men who thought themselves called, according to the expression of the