Meanwhile the loi Falloux, 1850, is still extant; nevertheless thousands of citizens are placed _hors la loi_, because they live and dress in a certain way. The Concordat, a solemn pact and contract between the Holy See and the French Government in 1801, is still supposed to be in vigour, and one of its most important clauses provides for the “free exercise of the Catholic religion in France,” and Guizot affirms that no Church is free that may not develop and function according to its genius and traditions. Teaching and preaching religious associations have, from the beginning, formed an integral part of the Catholic Church. The suppression of her schools was one of the first means resorted to by Julian the Apostate when he undertook to restore paganism. The Third Republic invents nothing. Its next step will be to attack the secular clergy and establish a department of State known as the National Church, ministered to by servile state functionaries, recruited among apostate excommunicated priests, of whom there are always a few lying around. It is erroneously supposed that the Catholic Church in France is an established or state Church; that the clergy receive a salary and are functionaries. This is absolutely false. Two decisions of the Court of Cassation have decided that they are not functionaries. To understand their position we must recall that the Convention confiscated all Church property and lands, the pious donations of kings and people which had accumulated during fifteen centuries of national progress and prosperity. Not satisfied with this act of spoliation, they threw these lands on the market with the precipitation and greed that characterize all revolutionary iconoclasts, fondly believing that the whole nation had sloughed off Christian superstitions regarding _ipso facto_ excommunications of all, who seized or even acquired Church lands. They were mistaken. These holdings became a drug on the market. From common prudence and honesty, if not from higher motives, few could be found willing to traffic in the pious gifts and foundations of their ancestors. Ten years of massacres, of civil and foreign wars, and anarchy, did not improve matters. Two classes of landed proprietors, two standards of valuation were created, and civil and religious discord was perpetuated in this material form. When Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction, his first care was to restore normal conditions in the real estate market by obtaining a clear title to the confiscated lands of the Church. There was but one person who could give this clear title. To him Napoleon appealed, and the Concordat was signed.