M. Briand with remarkable impudence asserted that, since thirty-five years, the country had sighed after “Separation,” though he well knows that no one thought about it but the Grand Orient. He himself admitted, in the same session, that the question did not exist (_n’était pas posée_) at the beginning of this legislature (1902), and was only raised by the Pope’s violations of the Concordat. This lie, which tends to become historic, was amply exploded, when M. Combes was convicted in the Chambers of having suppressed a document, which amply justified Pius X’s action in the case of the Bishops of Dijon and Laval, which the lodges used as a _casus belli_. Moreover, we must remember that the current Jacobin thesis is that the Seventeen Articles of the Concordat, which alone were signed by Pius VII, and the Seventy-six Organic Articles, added _ex parte_ by Napoleon, in violation of every code of honour and equity, form an intangible whole. Nevertheless, the Seventeen Articles of the Convention which were alone signed by Pius VII and Napoleon, in Messidor l’an IX, took effect as soon as the ratifications were exchanged. The churches, seminaries, etc., were immediately “placed at the disposal of the Bishops,” and the stipulated indemnities were forthcoming. It was not till Germinal l’an X that the Seventy-six Organic Articles were promulgated, together with the Convention. Now no one surely can be accused of violating articles regarding which he has never been consulted. Yet this is precisely the ground taken by the Jacobins. A senator of the Right alleged, in defence of the Concordat, Art. 1134 of the Code Civil: “Conventions legally formed are a law to those who make them. They can only be revoked, by mutual consent, by those who make them, and for causes which the law recognizes.” Thereupon the reporter replied: “There was a Convention between Pius VII and Napoleon; this Convention formed a whole (_un ensemble_) with the Seventy-six Organic Articles.” And as no Government has ever been able to enforce these articles, some of which are rankly heretical, the reporter alleged Art. 1184 of the Code against Art. 1134 to defend the Government’s _ex-parte_ denunciation of the Concordat. This Art. 1184 declares that “a Convention is rescinded when one of the parties does not keep his engagements.” In other words, they say Pius VII and his successors have always protested against the Seventy-six Organic Articles which the former did not sign, therefore we are justified in denouncing, _ex parte_, the Convention or Concordat of Seventeen Articles signed by Pius VII and Napoleon. It is by this sophism that the Third Republic justifies the repudiation of a portion of the National Debt; for the payment of annual indemnities to the Catholic clergy was undoubtedly placed on the “Grand Livre” of France by the Constituante, and recognized as part of the National Debt by succeeding legislatures, before and since 1801.