It was that Church which, with the patient tactics of a tenacious worker, had barred the roads, and gradually seized on all those poor dense minds which others had tried to wrest from its domination. She had always fully understood that she must remain the master of the educational system in order that she might create night and falsehood as she listed, if she desired to keep the bodies and souls of the masses in subjection. Thus it was on the battlefield of the schools that she had once again waged hostilities, displaying marvellous suppleness in her hypocritical craft, pretending even to be Republican, and availing herself of the laws of freedom to keep within the prison house of her dogmas and superstitions the millions of children whom those same laws had been devised to liberate. And all those children were young brains won over to error, future soldiers for the religion of spoliation and cruelty which reigned over the hateful society of the era. The crafty old Pope was seen leading the campaign, that turning movement which was to drive the Revolution from its own land of France, and, in the name of liberty, filch and appropriate all its conquests. The founders of the existing _régime_, the early Republicans, in presence of the feigned disarming of the Church, had been simple-minded enough to regard themselves as victors, to lapse into tranquillity, and even to smile upon the priests. They celebrated a new spirit of concord and pacification, the union of all beliefs in one sole national and patriotic faith. As the Republic was triumphant, why should it not welcome all its children, even those who, again and again, had tried to throttle it? But, thanks to that benevolent grandeur of views, the Church went on prosecuting her subterranean march, the Congregations which had been expelled[4] came back one by one, the everlasting work of invasion and enthralment was pursued without an hour's rest. Little by little the colleges of the Jesuits, the Dominicans, and other Congregations peopled the civil service, the magistrature, and the army with their pupils and creatures, while the secular schools were dispossessed by those of the Brothers and Sisters. Thus, on suddenly awaking with a great start, the country had found itself once more in the hands of the Church, the best posts of its governmental organisation being held by the Church's men, while its future was pledged, since the children of the masses, the peasants, artisans, and soldiers of to-morrow were held beneath the rods of the Ignorantines. [Footnote 4: This is not an allusion to the recent expulsions of the religious Orders, but to those carried out a score of years ago.--_Trans._]