"Paul Bert," he said, "remarked to me, when we were together on the Commission of 1882, and when we were examining just such questions as these, that he came from a department in which nearly everyone demanded the separation of Church and State, where a candidate could not be elected unless he should put that in his platform; but if one should do so, he was sure that the deputies who should vote for it could not be re-elected." _M. Villejean._--"Times have changed since then." _M. Buisson._--"Twenty years after." _M. Bienvenu-Martin._--"We have made headway since then." _M. Ribot._--"Yes, I understand. Times have changed; we have made headway. But are you sure that you have done enough in all the regions of this country to prevent a terrible misunderstanding following in the wake of the reforms you have made imprudently? Are you sure that you will be understood by those peasants who perhaps have voted for your programme, but who tomorrow will be profoundly troubled in their customs and in the customs of their families? Some years ago Littré spoke of Catholicism with a view to universal suffrage. He showed very clearly that there are contradictions in the public spirit, that those very men who are anti-religious in politics may be men of religious habits, or the heads of families in which such religious habits are constantly practised. Faith may be sleeping; but it has its sudden awakenings; all habits are living; and, I repeat it, habit holds a firmer place in the life of French families than politics or electoral programmes ever will hold." Further on in his speech M. Ribot referred to the relations of M. Combes with the Holy See on the question of the nomination of bishops, and that of the suspension of the bishops, Monseigneurs Gay and Le Nordez, declaring that "all these griefs which you call up were not sufficient reasons for making such great changes without taking the indispensable precautions." "We are here to make politics," he said, "we are not here for mere events and secondary incidents. When you set out to hunt up incidents, when in place of following your own ideas and awaiting the hour fixed by prudence, and by your knowledge of political affairs, you take up a pretext for precipitating us into an adventure, you do not act as a statesman; you act as a man of passion, as a man who is determined to carry out his own conceptions, and who without asking if he may not tomorrow be convicted of falsehood by his country, takes upon himself a heavy responsibility. Is it statesmanship to strike directly at the secular clergy and to put into their hands a means of agitation far more dangerous than that which was in the hands of the congregationists?...