The condition of society and of the human mind is now very different, and the monastic orders cannot take the same position or produce the same effects. But whatever we may think of the opportuneness of their reconstruction, of the right there can be no doubt. Under a system sanctioning freedom of conscience and free institutions, associations for religious purposes cannot be worse treated than those for purposes of industry, commerce, or literature. The State is required to exercise upon combinations of every kind a certain degree of surveillance; but doubtless the union of souls and of lives under one rule and in one costume, with a view to eternal interests, is not a juster cause for disquietude than a union of purses and of labor for the purpose of economizing both, with a view to worldly interests. {65} In 1829, some young Catholic Liberals, MM. de Carné, de Cazalès, de Champagny, de Montalembert, Foisset de Meaux, Henri Gouraud, founded a periodical, _Le Correspondant_, devoted to the reconciliation of Catholicism with the free social institutions of the age. The _Correspondant_ had been suspended in 1835, but reappeared in 1843, under the editorship of M. Charles Lenormant, one of those friends I have lost who retain in my memory the place they occupied in my life. In conducting this work, he kept ever in view the principles in which it had originated, and among other positions, he defended in 1845, with the frank intrepidity both of a Catholic and of a Liberal, the rights of those religious associations which were at the time the object of violent debate. [Footnote 7] [Footnote 7: Des associations religieuses dans le catholicisme; de leur esprit, de leur histoire et de leur avenir; par Charles Lenormant, de l'Institut. Paris: 1845.] {66}