Let, then, everyone of our clergy take courage, and the Lord will dispose the hearts of the rich and the poor in his favor;--the hearts of the rich to provide him with means, the hearts of the poor to aid him, by their prayers, in the promotion of so noble a work as is the establishment of good Catholic schools. CHAPTER XV. ZEAL OF THE PRIEST FOR THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION OF OUR CHILDREN. It is a matter of fact that the Protestant movement was chiefly directed against the Papacy, and that it involved a hundred years of so-called religious wars. This movement gave the princes who took the side of the Church an opportunity, of which they were not slow to avail themselves, to extend and consolidate their power over their Catholic subjects, and to establish in their dominions monarchical absolutism, or what we may choose to call modern Cæsarism. Under plea of serving religion, they extended their power over matters which had hitherto either been left free, or subject only to the jurisdiction of the spiritual authority. They were defenders of the faith against armed heretics; and they pretended that this excess of power was necessary, in order to succeed in their undertaking. A habit of depending on them as the external defenders of religion and her altars, of the freedom of conscience, and of the Catholic civilization itself, was generated; the king took the place in the thoughts and affections of the people that was due to the Soverign Pontiff, and by giving the direction to the schools and universities in all things not absolutely of faith, they gradually became the lords of men's minds as well as bodies. In France, Spain, Portugal, and a large part of Italy, all through the seventeenth century, the youth were trained in the maxim--the Prince is the State, and his pleasure is law. Bossuet, in his politics, did only faithfully express the political sentiments and convictions of his age, shared by the great body of Catholics as well as of non-Catholics. Rational liberty had few defenders, and they were excluded, like Fenelon, from the Court. The politics of Philip II. of Spain, of Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV. in France, which were the politics of Catholic Europe, scarcely opposed by any one, except by the Popes, through the greater part of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, tended directly to enslave the people, and to restrict the freedom and influence of the Church. Trained under despotic influences by the skilful hand of despotism, extending to all matters not absolutely of the sanctuary, and sometimes daring, with sacrilegious foot, to invade the sanctuary itself, the people were gradually formed interiorly, as well as exteriorly, to the purposes of the despot. They grew up with the habits and beliefs which Cæsarism, when not resisted, is sure to generate.