de Paul, and by doing so destroyed the central bond that kept the society together, the latter counted more than 3000 local conferences; it consisted of about 30,000 members, who visited in their homes more than 100,000 indigent families, and had already introduced into the greater part of the principal cities a system which exercised a control over the interests of apprentices and of prisoners. {98} During the course of the same epoch the Sisters of Charity, whose number, a century after their foundation by St. Vincent de Paul, had not exceeded 1500, already reached 18,000, of whom 16,000 were Frenchwomen; and at this moment they are plying throughout the world their works of piety and charity. Another society, "Les petites sœurs des pauvres," was founded in 1845, in imitation of Jeanne Jugan, a poor servant, a native of Brittany, who had been just crowned by the French Academy. This society receives and succors in their establishment nearly 20,000 aged men. Another association, "Les Frères de la doctrine Chrétienne," which had in the year 1844, 468 schools, maintains this year (1865) 920, and the number of the pupils has increased from 198,188 to 335,382. State and ecclesiastical documents attest, that by concurring causes of encouragement on the part of the State, of local subventions and of private donations, ten thousand churches have been, during the last fifty years, built, rebuilt, or suitably adapted for the performance of the services of the Church of Rome. {99} I might cite many similar facts. In all the directions and under all the forms in which piety and charity manifest themselves, faith and liberty, and faith and science have, since the awakening of Christianity and since the cause of religion has been separated from politics, drawn nearer to one another, and faith and its manifestation by charity have made a simultaneous advance and a like progress. Had the Government of 1830 remained standing; had State and Church each retained reciprocally the same situation and the same attitude, the facts to which I have just alluded might have long remained unobserved. Society does not, any more than individuals, render an account to itself of the intimate relations of its existence, or of the transformations to which these give rise; but Providence has its moments when it suddenly lightens up the stage of the world and reveals to all actors and spectators the import and the effect of what is passing around them. {100} The Revolution of 1848 threw upon the progress of the Catholic Church and its relations with French society since 1830 the clear light of such a revelation.