The instrument by which the deception was exercised was the infamous Associations Law of 1901. The Congregations had ever been the _bete-noir_ of the anti-clericals. They represented Religion in its perfection. In 1892, when the Fallières-Constans bill against the religious congregations was broached, and M. Carnot, its spokesman, had presented it before the Chamber, the _Temps_ remarked: "Its purpose was to resolve the difficult problem of according the right of association to everyone, with such reserves, however, that the Catholics might not benefit by it, and that the Congregations might by it be destroyed." In the bill of Waldeck-Rousseau-Trouillot, prepared in June, 1900, such embarrassments were simply set aside. It was determined "to take the bull by the horns." The new project was, therefore, twofold; the first part assured a large liberty to associations _non-suspected_; the second part gave the Government a means of suppressing all religious orders. It read as follows: "No religious congregation can be formed without an authorization given by a law which shall determine the conditions of its workings. It cannot found any new establishment except in virtue of a decree emanating from the Council of State.--The dissolution of a congregation, or the closing of an establishment can be pronounced by a decree rendered by the Council of the ministers." [Illustration: EX-PRESIDENT LOUBET.] The project which bore the names of Trouillot and Waldeck-Rousseau began by declaring all religious congregations "illicit," under the pretext that the members of these associations live in community, that they make the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and that Article 1118 of the Civil Code declares that "only such things as enter into commerce can be made the object of a convention," and that poverty, chastity and obedience are things which do not enter into commerce. M. Emile Faguet in his _L'Anticlericalism_ (Paris, 1905) scourges this method of persecution: This argumentation was seething with sophisms. In the first place it transposes into the Penal Code a disposition of the Civil Code and it makes a crime of that which is only a judiciary incapacity: the party who makes a contract upon something which does not enter into commerce cannot judicially exact the execution of that contract if his co-contractor should refuse. That is all that is meant by Article 1118, and there is no penalty against a man who makes a contract not conformable to Article 1118 of the Civil Code. Indeed, if such were the case, marriage would be illicit, for it is a convention of obedience, fidelity and protection between two persons, and obedience, fidelity and protection are not matters of trade; hence marriage would be contrary to Article 1118.