any way wounding the privilege of nomination conceded to the Government in virtue of the Concordat, conserves intact and assures for the future the expression of the canonical and dogmatic doctrine." This attempt of the Government to stir up a conflict with the Holy See was further accentuated by the suppression of the salaries of eleven bishops; and by the reduction, without any reasonable motive, of the budget of worship in 1904. Two other cases which, provoked by the Government, served as a pretext for urgent separation were the affairs of the Bishops of Laval and Dijon. I prefer to use in its relation the words of M. Faguet as found in his work "_l'Anticlericalism_." "Two bishops, M. Gay, bishop of Laval, and M. Le Nordez, bishop of Dijon, were agreeable to the French Government and suspected, either for their private conduct, or for their administration, by the Curia. M. Le Nordez was advised by Rome to resign his functions. The Roman letter was turned over by the bishop to the French Government, which protested to the Vatican, claiming that, according to the Concordat, the nominations of French bishops ought to be made by the French Government, and only the canonical institution of them was reserved to the Holy See, that their revocations ought to follow the same law as their nominations, and hence, that the Holy See had not the right to depose a French bishop. Exactly the same procedure was followed with regard to M. Gay, and exactly the same protests were made by the French Government in his case. At the same time the French Government commanded M. Gay and M. Le Nordez not to quit their posts. The Roman Under-Secretary of State answered that the deposition of a bishop was one thing, and the notice given to a bishop that he must resign temporally his functions in order to go before the Roman Curia to justify himself, was another; that such notifications belonged of right to the Holy See to which the bishops by it canonically instituted were responsible." "The French Government was headstrong, rushed blindly into the affair, recalled its ambassador, and gave his passports to the Nuncio. War was declared." "The two bishops, who were obliged to choose between their obedience to the French Government and their loyalty to the Holy See, decided for the latter. They set out furtively for Rome, submitted to the Curia, and resigned their French Sees." "M. Combes saw in all this motives sufficient, not only to break all relations with the Holy See, but still more to denounce the Concordat and to pronounce for the separation of Church and State, at the same time formally casting--as he had done a score of times--all responsibility for these grave measures upon the Pontifical Government."