But the most remarkable thing here for the historian, is that the imposition of military service on ecclesiastics does not appear to arouse any protest from the Church. Certain Church teachers even assert (Mgr Battifol, _L’Eglise et le Droit de la guerre_): ‘There is no further doubt about the legality of military service.’[179] It is also curious to see in the _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ (Art. ‘Paix et Guerre’) the strenuous efforts of the author (Father de la Brière) to prove that bearing arms, even by ‘clerks’ in holy orders, is in no sense contrary to Christian law. However, the opinion of these theologians does not seem to be shared, at least publicly, by the higher ecclesiastical authorities; for every ‘clerk’ who bears arms is laid under an interdict, as he was in the past--only the interdict is taken off a few minutes after it has been declared. The modern laymen (Barrès for example) praise this patriotism of the ecclesiastic and his willingness to fight. The laymen of the past tried to make him ashamed of it, and liked to exhort him to sentiments which they considered more in harmony with his sacred ministry. The warlike ardours of John XII and Julius II were severely condemned by their contemporaries. Apart from Erasmus--the type of the man of letters fully aware of the ‘clerk’s’ high function, who was continually saying: ‘Their tonsure does not warn them that they ought to be free from all the passions of this world and think only of the things of Heaven’--the Italian Tizio wrote: ‘It is astonishing that the Pontiffs, whose part is to be pacific and independent, should take part in the shedding of Christian blood.’ The French poet Jean Bouchet shows the weeping Church imploring Julius II to end the war (though it is true that Julius II was fighting France): ‘Your patron is my Lord Saint Peter, Who never warred for worldly goods.’ In _Le Songe du Verger_, a kind of summary of moral doctrines current in France in the fourteenth century, there is a dialogue between a Knight and a Clerk, when the Clerk claims for his caste the right to make war, and the Knight tells him that ‘the arms of the “clerks” are prayers and tears’. It is suggestive to see a soldier urging a minister of the spiritual to perform his true function and seeming to think that the performance of this function is necessary to the good order of the world. Here is a feeling for ‘clerkdom’ and its social value which is very seldom to be found among the modern laymen, even the non-military ones--I nearly said, especially the non-military ones.[180] Note G (Page 53) _That self-examination to which every spectator is impelled by a representation of human beings which he feels to be true and solely pre-occupied with truth._ Let me quote the following passage concerning the civilizing effects of such representation:--