_M. Gayraud._--"I have already said in this house: I defy any member of this Assembly to show me that in the Organic Articles there is any regulation concerning the publicity of worship, or to show me a single organic article that has anything to do with it. Hence you cannot appeal to Article 1, of the Concordat to legitimatize the Organic Articles. Some have tried to do this, and why? Because the Holy See would not recognize them, and it was necessary to find some means of justifying them before the Pope." It might seem as if the contention of M. Gayraud did not pertain intimately to the subject in hand. Yet that it was eminently apposite is evident from the whole course of the subsequent discussions. The supporters of separation had continually accused the Church of causing the rupture by her violations of the Concordat. Indeed, one can hardly restrain his tears as he reads the sorrowful complaints of Combes, Briand, Clemenceau and the others. The Church was so wicked in the face of these immaculate champions of civic morality! The facts of the case are very simple. The Church in France has always stood loyally to the observance of the Concordat, in spite of its many hampering restrictions. That she has often acted in disregard of the Organic Articles cannot be denied, nor does she wish to deny it. The reason for this is, that the Concordat was a real law; the Organic Articles was neither a law of the State nor of the Church, nor of both together. If these Articles had been put forth independently of the Concordat, we might for the sake of argument, concede that they would have a value. But they were promulgated as a part of a law enacted mutually by two parties, when one of the parties was actually ignorant of their existence until after publication. It is a falsehood thus to assert that they form a part of the Concordat. And since they do not form a part of that law, having their value only upon such an assumption, they were no law at all. In disregarding them, therefore, the Church could not be accused of violating either an independent law or a part of the Concordat. Moreover, the Church could not observe the Concordat without violating the Organic Articles, and vice versa. To accuse the Church therefore of precipitating the conflict because she acted within the limit permitted her by the Concordat, is one of the species of false reasoning which the anti-clerical party endeavored to force down the throats of all its hearers. It was well, therefore, that this should be rightly understood in the very beginning of the discussion. Among the speeches delivered during the general discussion upon the Bill, that of M. Ribot deserves to be reproduced in part. It is well, however, to note in advance that this orator, though a foe to anti-clericalism, is not, however, a Catholic either in name or conviction. _M. RIBOT'S SPEECH._