The efforts made and the debates instituted at this epoch by the most eminent champions of the Church are remarkable, because they no longer proposed to restore any fragment of its ancient power, but to insure to it its place and its share in the new public institutions of liberty. The little militant party of Catholic Liberals quitted the arena of the ancient political regime, and took up their position on that of the new constitution, claiming for the Church, for its ministers, and for its faithful subjects, the exercise of all the rights and the free development of all the power that, under the constitution, either belonged, or ought to belong, to all citizens. {87} They made no reservation of opinion, no effort more or less covert, in furtherance of any pretensions of bygone times, whether dynastic, aristocratic, or theocratic; the frank acceptance of the present age and actual society, provided that Christian faith, Christian morals, and Christian institutions, might have free room to work; such was, in the midst of all the factions and political plottings of this period, the constant attitude of the Catholic Liberal party, that is, of M. de Montalembert, the Père Lacordaire, M. Charles Lenormant, Frederic Ozanam, and of the friends in small number grouped around them. Whoever feels astonished that their number was so small, shows little acquaintance with our country or our times. The enterprise which they undertook was singularly bold and difficult; to drag France out of its rut of incredulity and irreligion, and at the same time to extricate Catholicism from its rut of impolicy, its alliance with absolutism, its timorous immobility in the presence of liberty; to proclaim and simultaneously to defend, in spirituals, the Christian faith, and, in temporals, the regime of liberty. {88} Certainly in France, and in the 19th century, the devotion of men to such a task supposes an enthusiasm and an energy of conviction of which few are capable; and if the new Christian Liberals flattered themselves that success would be easy, events must soon have disabused them. Attacked with ardor by the opponents of all religion, they were also assailed by Catholics devoted to the ancient régime of the Church, and alarmed at the new system pressed upon their acceptance. The former of these two attacks caused the Catholic Liberals neither surprise nor embarrassment; but the latter brought with it bitter annoyance and disappointment, for they found directly opposed to them members of their own faith. Soon they were to have as their adversary a man who, by his vigorous talents--employed with equal violence against the incredulous of all shades of opinions, and against the Catholic Liberals--too exercised an influence upon a great number of Catholics, whether of the laity or priesthood, and indisposed them to any reconciliation with that modern society which he irritated still more against them. {89} I knew M.