The first attempts had been made on the very morrow of the great defeats, amid the grief arising from the loss of the two provinces. Then already the Church had availed herself of the public confusion to endeavour to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart--France, which after being chastised so heavily by the hand of God, repented of her sins. And at last, on the highest summit of that great revolutionary city of Paris, the Church had reared that Sacred Heart, palpitating and gory red like the hearts which one sees hanging from hooks in butchers' shops. From that summit it bled over the entire land, to the farthest depths of the country districts. And if at Montmartre it kindled the adoration of the gentility, of ladies and gentlemen belonging to the administrative services, the magistracy and the army, with what emotion must it not infect the simple, the ignorant, and the devout of the villages and hamlets! It became the national emblem of repentance, of the country's self-relinquishment in the hands of the Church. It was embroidered in the centre of the tricolor flag, whose three colours became mere symbols of the azure of heaven, the lilies of the Virgin, and the blood of the martyrs. And huge, swollen, and streaming with gore, it hung thus like the new Deity of degenerate Catholicism, offered to the base superstition of enslaved France. At first it had been Father Crabot's idea to triumph at Maillebois, the chief place in the canton, by consecrating that little town to the Sacred Heart. But he had become anxious, for at Maillebois there was a manufacturing suburb inhabited by some hundreds of working men who were beginning to send Socialist representatives to the Municipal Council. Thus, in spite of the Brothers and the Capuchins, he had feared some sensational repulse. All considered, it was better to act at Jonville, where the ground appeared well prepared. If successful there, one might always repeat the experiment on a larger stage, some other time.