Pope, as supreme and universal Governor of the Church, and then he proceeds to strip him one by one of all the powers and privileges which he claims in that capacity, making the Pope an Epicurean Deity, with nothing to do, and with no power to do anything; just as Lucretius begins his poem, De Rerum Naturá, with an invocation to a goddess, and then shows that both gods and goddesses are all nonsense?.

Saturday, Aug. 17.-To-day again at the Bibliothèque. M. Hase, conservator of MSS., conversing very earnestly on a topic which now engrosses universal attention, viz. the sudden dismissal of the whole of the Polytechnic School, consisting of 300 students! I will not enter into the arguments pro and con concerning this summary act of ministerial authority, or rather of royal power, on the representation of the minister of war, Marshal Soult; but the event is one of the numerous unhappy symptoms of the fact, that the present dynasty, having exhausted its popular resources, and outlived the prestige of the republican enthusiasm which created it, is now placed in the critical posture of transition from a democratical character to one of military rule. But it is much to be feared, that having been raised on the popular principle, and having been impelled to encourage that principle in all the great institutions of the country, and especially in those of education, and

7. See extracts from the Semeur, in note to p. 25, at end.

to act in a republican spirit in its relations to the rising generation,-witness, for instance, the adulatory language which Louis Philippe employed to this same Ecole Polytechnique (which he has now disbanded) in his ordonnance of 1830, on account of its services in defending Paris, that is, ejecting Charles X. and overturning the monarchy;-it is, I say, to be feared that the present Government will hardly have strength, with all its prudence and power, to stem the revolutionary torrent which it has let forth; and that it will feel the force of retributive justice from those powers which it has used for its own aggrandizement, if not in its own person, yet in that of its immediate successors.

The national education of the country appears to be administered upon principles quite as unfavourable to loyalty, as to religion and morality.

At the Bibliothèque, to return from this digression, one of the keepers of the MSS., who has been very obliging to me, described to me the present condition of classical learning in France. A great deal of stress being laid upon the ancient languages in the school education of this country (and there are very strong passages in the recent Rapport of M. Thiers and his commission to the Chamber of Deputies, on the necessity of maintaining and advancing these studies in what is called secondary education), a considerable proficiency is made in them in the earlier stages of instruction; but in consequence of the variety of

study which distracts the students in the higher classes, and especially from the miscellaneous character of the examination for the degree of Bachelor of Letters, and from the separation of the clergy, the learned or should-be-learned class of the community, from the University and the schools of France, the amount of solid classical learning is extremely small. My friend says that M. Hase and M. Boissonnade, are the only two existing savans who are qualified to write on critical subjects in Latin. He might have added himself, (he has presented me with two critical works which show his ability as a scholar,) and also M. Duebner, well known as the editor of several volumes of Didot's Bibliotheca, who is deservedly esteemed for his sagacity and learning.

Much jealousy seems to subsist between the privileged aristocrats of learning, viz. the members of the Institut, the Rédacteurs of the Journal des Savans, &c., and the laborious but less renowned students, who do not belong to the liveried and salaried literary corporations of the country. A gentleman mentioned to me that the faculties at the University had lately abandoned the habit of debating their theses, &c., in Latin. On the other hand, however, there seems to be great hope for these studies, from the increased interest now felt in France concerning the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and the literary monuments of Christian antiquity. At the re

9 See note to p. 91, at end.

cent distribution of prizes at the celebrated College of Juilly, which I hope to visit, the Abbé Goschler, one of the professors, made some excellent observations on the uses of classical studies in education. M. Miller has been before mentioned as the conductor of a Literary Review. I may here insert, by the bye, the titles of two theological periodicals, which are said to exercise much influence on the opinions of the clergy, the one entitled "Le Correspondant," edited by M. Audley (formerly a professor of Juilly), assisted (as is asserted in the prospectus) by Count Montalembert', and others, and publicly encouraged by the Archbishop of Paris; the other, called "Bibliographie Catholique," published at Rue de Bac, Passage Ste. Marie, No. 3, which, on account of the short notices it gives of all the theological books that appear, and its great cheapness, it being only ten francs a-year, and appearing monthly, has a very wide circulation among the clergy of France.

Sunday, Aug. 18.-At the English Church. Both services well attended, especially the morning. Dined afterwards in the Rue des Vignes, No. 19.

Monday, Aug. 19.-I find the serious people here

1 M. Audley n'est pas assisté par le comte de Montalembert (qui n'a jamais écrit une seule ligne dans le Correspondant), mais il est l'assistant, l'employé, ou le secrétaire des rédacteurs du Correspondant. M. Lenormant est le principal rédacteur de cette revue, qui donne des articles de M. le Comte Beugnot, de l'Abbé Maret, de M. de Carné et d'un ou deux autres membres de la Chambre des Députés. [M. Audley has written an article in the Number for Dec. 25, 1845, On the Conversions in England.]

very much elated by conversions which have recently taken place from Protestantism to Romanism. Calling this morning upon M. Gondon, I found him very full of the news from Rome of the reconciliation, as it is called, to the Church, of M. Hurter, late President of the Protestant Consistory of Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, and celebrated in Germany and France for his History of Pope Innocent III., and for his work on the papacy subsequent to Innocent's time. The impression naturally is, that his historical researches have led him to abjure Protestantism, and to espouse the tenets of the Church of Rome. In the Tablet newspaper I saw this morning an advertisement of an English translation, by the Rev. Charles Seager, late of Oxford, of the Père de Ravignan's Defence of the Jesuits, the same work as was given me the other day by the Provincial of the Order, whom I visited again this morning. He told me that there had been three translations made of that book, and then he passed rapidly to the question, Eh bien, M. le Docteur, quand est-ce que l'Angleterre va retourner à l'unité de l'Eglise ?" In reply to which I begged to inform him that she had never left it. I do not recount the greater part of our conversation, being a repetition of what has been before stated in other words; but I must observe that the main principle for which he contended, was the necessity of some one visible authority, to which, for the sake of peace and unity, all the members of the Church