"We have no hidden design whatsoever, we never had; we mean exactly what we say. Hoping, therefore, to be believed in all good faith, we say to those whose ideas differ upon several points of our creed: 'Do you sincerely want religious liberty, liberty in educational matters, in civil and political affairs and liberty of the press, which, do not let us forget, is the guarantee for all types of liberty? You belong to us as we belong to you. Every kind of liberty that the people in the gradual development of their life can uphold is their due, and their progress in civilisation is to be measured by the actual and not the fictitious, progress they make in liberty!'" It was at this juncture that the transformation tool place of the Abbé DE LA MENNAIS to the Abbé de LAMENNAIS. His opinions and his talents and his name entered upon a new era; he was no more the stern and gloomy priest pronouncing deadly sentence on the human intellect over the tomb of Faith; but a prophet shaking the shrouds of dying nations in the name of liberty, and crying aloud to the dry bones to "Arise!" Now, among the young editors of _l'Avenir_ it is worth noticing that the most distinguished of them for talent and for the loftiness of his democratic views, was Comte Charles de Montalembert, whose imprudent impetuosity the stern old man was obliged, more than once, to check. Presently, we shall have to relate the story of the sacking of the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the profanation of the sacred contents. The situation was an embarrassing one for _l'Avenir_: that journal had advised the young clergy to put faith in the Revolution, and here was that self-same Revolution, breaking loose in a moment of anger, throwing mud at the Catholic temples and uprooting the insignia of religion. It was Comte Charles de Montalembert who undertook to be the leader of the morrow. Instead of inveighing against the vandals, he inveighed against the clergy and priests, whose blind and dangerous devotion to the overturned throne had drawn down the anger of the people upon the Christian creed. He had no anathemas strong enough to hurl at "those incorrigible defenders of the ancient régime, and that bastard Catholicism which gave birth to the religion of kings!" The crosses that had been knocked down were those branded with the fleurs-de-lis; he took the opportunity to urge the separation of the Church from the civil authority. Without the fleurs-de-lis, no one--the Comte Charles de Montalembert insisted emphatically--had any quarrel with the Cross.