“The horseman who rides forth at the hour appointed by God, and who is called now Shalmanezar, now Nebuchadnezzar, then Cyrus, Cambyses, Memmius, Titus, Alaric, Attila, Mahomet II., or William, had ridden with fiery trail across France. Humiliated, bleeding, and mutilated, she raised her eyes to Heaven. May that moment be counted to her for righteousness! She seemed to understand, and along with her faith to recover her intelligence, to recognise the value and the use of her vast and providential woes. She aroused her just men, her Christians, to form a sovereign assembly. Then appeared the spectacle of that assembly, renewing a solemn custom and consecrating France to the heart of Jesus. We saw, as in the times of Saint Louis, churches rising on the mountains, before the gaze of penitent cities; we saw the foremost citizens preparing for the restoration of the monarchy.” M. BERGERET (_sotto voce_): “1. The Assembly of Bordeaux. 2. The Sacré-Cœur of Montmartre and the Church of Fourvières at Lyons. 3. The Commission of the Nine and the mission of M. Chesnelong.” M. LANTAIGNE: “What do you say?” M. BERGERET: “Nothing. I am filling in the headings in the _Discours sur l’Histoire universelle_.” M. LANTAIGNE: “Do not jest and do not deny. Coming along the roads sounded the white horses that were bringing the king to his own again. Henri Dieudonné was coming to re-establish the principle of authority from which spring the two social forces: command and obedience; he was coming to restore human order along with divine order, political wisdom along with the religious spirit, the hierarchy, law, discipline, true liberty and unity. The nation, linking up its traditions once more, was recovering, along with the sense of its mission, the secret of its power and the pledge of victory. … God willed it not. These great designs, thwarted by the enemy who still hated us after having satisfied his hatred, opposed by a great number of the French, miserably supported even by those who had formed them, were brought to naught in one day. The frontier of our country was barricaded against Henri Dieudonné, and the people subsided into a Republic; that is to say, they repudiated their birthright, they renounced their rights and their duties, in order to govern themselves according to their own inclinations and to live at their ease in that liberty which God curbs and which overturns both law and order, the temporal images of Himself. Henceforth evil was king and proclaimed its edicts. The Church, exposed to incessant vexations, was perfidiously tempted on the one side to an impossible renunciation and on the other to revolt involving punishment.” M. BERGERET: “You doubtless reckon among the vexatious measures the expulsion of the fraternities?”