If this long conflict had been between believers and the indifferent, it could not have lasted, for indifference is always tolerant; but the struggle was really between two different beliefs. The lay Church very soon assumed a religious aspect, and its pretended rationalism has become, especially in recent years, a barely attenuated form of the narrowest clerical spirit. Now, we have shown that no conciliation is possible between dissimilar religious beliefs. The clericals when in power could not therefore show themselves more tolerant towards freethinkers than these latter are to-day toward the clericals. These divisions, determined by differences of belief, were complicated by the addition of the political conceptions derived from those beliefs. Many simple souls have for long believed that the real history of France began with the year I. of the Republic. This rudimentary conception is at last dying out. Even the most rigid revolutionaries renounce it,[10] and are quite willing to recognise that the past was something better than an epoch of black barbarism dominated by low superstitions. [10] We may judge of the recent evolution of ideas upon this point by the following passage from a speech by M. Jaures, delivered in the Chamber of Deputies: ``The greatness of to-day is built of the efforts of past centuries. France is not contained in a day nor in an epoch, but in the succession of all days, all periods, all her twilights and all her dawns.'' The religious origin of most of the political beliefs held in France inspires their adepts with an inextinguishable hatred which always strikes foreigners with amazement. ``Nothing is more obvious, nothing is more certain,'' writes Mr. Barret-Wendell, in his book on France, ``than this fact: that not only have the royalists, revolutionaries, and Bonapartists always been mortally opposed to one another, but that, owing to the passionate ardour of the French character, they have always entertained a profound intellectual horror for one another. Men who believe themselves in possession of the truth cannot refrain from affirming that those who do not think with them are instruments of error. ``Each party will gravely inform you that the advocates of the adverse cause are afflicted by a dense stupidity or are consciously dishonest. Yet when you meet these latter, who will say exactly the same things as their detractors, you cannot but recognise, in all good faith, that they are neither stupid nor dishonest.'' This reciprocal execration of the believers of each party has always facilitated the overthrow of Governments and ministers in France. The parties in the minority will never refuse to ally themselves against the triumphant party. We know that a great number of revolutionary Socialists have been elected to the present Chamber only by the aid of the monarchists, who are still as unintelligent as they were at the time of the Revolution.