can be said of it here is that the visit of the President of the Republic to Rome,* which caused the rupture of diplomatic relations between France and the Vatican, took place at the most unfortunate conjuncture of events it is possible to imagine.

The abrogation of the Concordat and the separation of the Church from the State, which followed from that rupture, was caused not by any irresistible wave of opinion in France, but by a series of accidents. Had sickness and death not removed M. Waldeck-Rousseau† and Leo XIII., it is humanly improbable that the Church in France would now be disestablished. Had not Austria at the Conclave, by its ancient right of veto, prevented the election of Leo's pupil in diplomacy, Cardinal Rampolla, whose friendship for France provoked that veto; and had M. Rouvier, an Opportunist of the school of Gambetta, like Waldeck-Rousseau, become Prime Minister earlier, the Concordat with * April 24, 1904. † d. August 10, 1904.

its peaceful record of a hundred years might have been preserved.

For rarely in the history of free peoples has there been a similar case of legislation, so revolutionary and so wide-reaching in character, being passed without a strong popular demand. been made by the has looked on with indifference while this great change has been effected, in no sense, however, disapproving of it. For when one-third of the Senate submitted to its triennial re-election a few days after the law came into effect, the electoral colleges sent back to the Luxembourg almost without exception the Senators who had voted for the Separation Act. When again the following week the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies united in Congress. to elect a new President of the Republic, they chose one who had distinctly expressed his approbation of the Law.*

No such demand has

French nation, which

* Four months later, at the general election of the Chamber of Deputies, the Law has been approved by Universal Suffrage.

I

LECTURE II.

Associations.

PROMISED that in my second lecture I would say a few words about the general tendency of French law relating to Associations, and about the French mental attitude towards the principle of association, lay as well as religious. It is necessary to understand this, as many English writers, in commenting upon the dissolution of the French monastic Orders, seem to imagine that the position of Associations has been the same in France as in England.

I am less familiar with the English law than with the French, but I believe it to be a fact that in this country individuals are, and for many years have been, perfectly free to associate themselves for any purpose not interdicted by the law of the land, without asking the permission of the Home Office, the police, or any local or central authority.

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If, for example, the company assembled in this room resolved to take vows of poverty, and to live in community for the rest of their lives, the law would not interfere. Nor would it interfere if at the close of this meeting we formed ourselves into a football club, or a choral association, or a Dorcas society. But, until 1901, in either of those cases a similar organisation could not be effected in France without the formal authorisation of the Government. Without such authorisation no society of more than twenty persons, united for any common object, was permitted to exist, and the Government could at any moment dissolve it.

Associations Law of July 1, 1901.

The law of July 1, 1901, "relating to the Contract of Association,' placed religious Associations and those formed for other purposes in two different categories, according liberty to the latter, and laying fresh restrictions on the former. Although the new law declares that Associations are permitted. without the authorisation of the Government, except in the case of those in which

the members live in community, it does not seem that French subjects are free to form societies for a common purpose in the sense that the word freedom is understood in England. The term used in the official title of the Law, Contrat d'association, indicated that its author-M. WaldeckRousseau-intended that the act of "Association " in France should be held to be a contract, subject as all other contracts are to the provisions of the Civil Code. A feature of the Journal Officiel has been the column of “declarations,” made at the prefectures throughout France, of Associations founded for every conceivable purpose. Without such declaration, except in the case of certain classes of societies subject to special laws, no association of more than twenty persons could be formed. Even under the new law no association can enjoy any of the advantages of legal existence, without being thus declared. What makes me think that the Law of 1901 has not the liberating effect which some authorities claim for it, is that the declarations in the