It is evident that the President of the Council (M. de Freycinet) believes in a hostile attitude of the clergy towards the Republic. That hostile attitude I deny formally. Already, on a former occasion, I was not afraid, from the height of this tribune, to defy our adversaries to produce one single pastoral letter in which a member of the clergy shows himself in favor of the monarchy against the Republic. That challenge has remained unanswered. For, Monsieur President, to simply demand the modification of certain laws as unjust or anti-religious is not sufficient to merit even for an instant the epithet of an enemy to the Republic. We are certainly allowed to form a different conception of the Republic than yours; that is the right of every one. It is certainly permissible not to identify in principle the republican idea or form with atheism, anti-Christianism, or Freemasonry. One may combat these errors or these institutions without having thereby an attitude hostile to the Republic itself. All that you have the right to exact is that in no pastoral writing and by no pastoral act shall a member of the clergy pronounce against the actual form of the Government. The French cardinals, January 16, 1892, presented the same ideas: To resume: respect for the laws of the country, where they do not conflict with the exigencies of conscience; respect for the representatives of power; the frank and loyal acceptation of political institutions; but, at the same time, a firm resistance to the encroachments of the secular power upon the spiritual domain ... such are the duties which, at the present hour, are imposed upon the conscience and patriotism of the French Catholics. _POPE LEO XIII. AND THE REPUBLIC._ It is sufficiently evident that all these declarations were in perfect conformity with the instructions of the Holy See; yet, that there might be no doubt as to the authoritative teaching of the Church in that matter, the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., addressed on February 16, 1892, an encyclical letter to the Catholics of France, wherein he pointed out the basis and conditions of a possible peace--provided it was sincerely wished for--between Catholicism and the republican Government. [Illustration: GAMBETTA.] After denouncing the "vast plot which certain men have formed to annihilate Christianity in France, and the animosity they display in striving to realize their design," he proceeds: