In Canada these successive conflicts had found many echoes. During the French regime Gallican principles of the power of the king over the Church had been frequently asserted; governor or intendant had, in a few notable instances, endeavoured to bridle the Church authorities. When the English came, the Church lost its place as the state church, but it consolidated its power, and soon was freer from intervention than it had been under the Most Christian King of France. During the French Revolution Canada was kept {28} isolated from contact with France, but after the Restoration, with ultramontanism in the ascendant, intercourse was favoured; and the most thoroughgoing principles of clerical supremacy, with the most militant methods of controversy, found lodgment here. In both private and public life, among clergy as well as laity, each of the opposing tendencies was stoutly championed. When Wilfrid Laurier went to Montreal in 1861, the leaders of the Liberal or _Rouge_ party had sobered down from the fiery radicalism of their youth, and were content to leave the authorities of the Church alone. But leading authorities of the Church remained suspicious of that party. Bishop Bourget of Montreal, one of the most pious and energetic of ecclesiastics, firm to the point of obstinacy, seemed determined to crush it out. And though many eminent churchmen held out for a broader and more tolerant policy, the ultramontanes, by reason of their crusading zeal, steadily gained the ascendancy. The issues raised in Quebec were manifold. Among them were the right of private judgment, the authority of canon law in the province, civil or ecclesiastical control over marriage, clerical immunity from the {29} jurisdiction of civil courts, and the degree of intervention which was permissible to the clergy in elections. The first question, that of the right of private judgment, concerned the future leader of Canadian Liberalism and became acute in connection with the _Institut Canadien_ of Montreal. This was a literary and scientific society, founded in 1844 by some members of the same group who later organized the _Rouge_ party. It supplied the want of a public library and reading-room in Montreal, and a hundred branches sprang up throughout the province. The _Institut_ soon fell under the suspicion of a section of the clergy. It was declared by Bishop Bourget that immoral or heretical books which had been put on the _Index_ were contained in the library. Rival societies were founded under the auspices of the Church and many of the members of the _Institut_ were induced to secede.