The religion of a country must always play a great part in modifying its social and political condition. It is not easy to give any clear or reliable account of the influence which either faith or the priesthood exercise in France. That influence has undergone many changes, has suffered rude reverses, has survived the most terrible and apparently fatal shocks. It seemed to have been utterly extinguished by the fearful storm of the first revolution; it scarcely recovered more than a formal and soulless existence under the smothering patronage of Napoleon; the decorous indifference of Louis XVIII., and the weak fanaticism of Charles X., rather hindered than assisted its restoration to command over the nation; nor could the universal materialism fostered by the Orleans régime have done much to augment its expansion or its vigour. The government of Louis Philippe, however, it should be said, aided it indirectly by keeping the clergy in official obscurity and in the background;-for it is an important fact which should be constantly borne in mind, that in France the priests are powerful only when neglected by or in opposition to the government; the instant they rally round the government, or are petted by it, they become objects of suspicion and contempt to the people. They are déconsidérés (as the phrase is) by the alliance. Still it is undeniable that, by some means or other, Catholicism has recovered much of its sway over at least a considerable portion of the French nation. Not only are the priests and the Church again powerful, but belief is once more sincere and widely diffused. This, however, is true, unfortunately, chiefly, though not exclusively, of one class. Many among the higher classes-legitimists in political opinion for the most part-adhere with earnestness of affection, and sometimes with real conviction, to the religion of their ancestors. It is du bon ton to be a good Catholic; cela sent le gentilhomme, as the phrase is. But it would be unjust to say that there is not something beyond this. A more serious tone has spread among these people. The severe sufferings they have undergone, the bitter humiliations they have had to endure, the startling vicissitudes which have come over their fortunes,-have in many instances worked a salutary change, have taught them to estimate more truly the trifling value and the uncertain tenure of all worldly goods, and have turned their thoughts insensibly to those feelings and doctrines whence man in his need is ever driven to seek strength and consolation. But even here it is chiefly the ladies who are observant of the rites and serious in the belief of their religion. The gentlemen are acquiescent and decorous; but something of the old, prevalent, half-unconscious notion that devotion is a feminine concern or occupation, like housekeeping or the care of children, seems still to linger among them.

Among the Orleanists those who are active believers are, we understand, most usually Protestants-a sect which in France maintains its ground, but does no more. The politicians, the middle classes, four-fifths of the ouvriers of the cities, and the Buonapartists, the army, and the government employés, are, we suspect, almost to a man indifferent or unbelievers. To them religion is a subject about which they know nothing and care not to interest themselves; and a priest is not a pastor or teacher to be listened to with deference, but simply the wielder of a certain political or social power who must be counted with. The case, however, is altogether different in some of the provinces, especially of the south and west, and among the peasantry. There the ignorance of the people is excessive, and the influence of the curés occasionally great; though the peasant, acute, shrewd, and keen, where his own affairs are concerned seldom allows priestly interference.

Louis Napoleon probably overestimated their influence. At the commencement of his career he courted them, and played into their hands in many ways, especially in the case of the law du libre enseignement, which virtually threw the education of the country into the hands of the Church. The priests, in their turn, seeing or fancying that they could make use of him for their own future purposes, political or ecclesiastical, laboured most zealously for his elevation. He has rewarded them for this, but by so doing has caused a strong reaction against them, as the tools and supporters of the constituted authorities; the Voltairian spirit is reviving, and dislike to priestcraft is beginning to re-diffuse a suspicion of religion. The Emperor, too, finds himself somewhat fettered in his policy by the necessity of retaining the adherence of these depositaries of local and secret power. In the affairs of Rome especially is this difficulty felt; and in the case of certain contingent possibilities it will probably be felt still more noxiously and keenly. The French troops were sent to restore the self-banished Pope, mainly no doubt with the view of maintaining and extending the influence of France in the affairs of Italy, but partly also as a bribe to the Church and the priesthood. The papal restoration was to have been accompanied with certain securities and promises of good government in future, and there appears to have been some sort of tacit understanding to this effect; but when once he was replaced by foreign arms upon his forfeited throne, Pio Nono laughed at his restorers, and refused to take a single step towards the realisation of their just hopes. Under the influence of bad advisers - his own terrors the worst advisers of all - he determined to govern exactly as he pleased; and he has governed as badly as possible. The French Government is understood to have petitioned and re

monstrated, but in vain. The Pope is well aware, that as long as Rome is garrisoned by French troops he is safe from the vengeance or turbulence of his own subjects. He knows that Louis Napoleon will not withdraw his troops, however scandalously he (the Pope) may abuse the protection which their presence gives him; because if he withdrew them simply, they would be instantly replaced by Austrians, and Pio Nono would wish nothing better; if in withdrawing, he at the same time prohibited and prevented the Austrians from entering, he has been warned that a general massacre of the priests would be the immediate result; and such a catastrophe would raise a fearful and dangerous outcry against the Emperor among all the Catholics of France. In either case, too, the original object of the occupation-the maintenance of French influence in the Peninsulawould be effectually sacrificed, and the national pride and ambition would be severely mortified. The Emperor, therefore, is in a sort of cleft-stick, in a practical dilemma of the most painful character. He is nearly in the same position in which we find ourselves in Oude, the upholder of the most noxious and wretched government in the world. He cannot retire without humiliation and peril to his popularity at home; he cannot remain without seeing himself daily degraded into the real agent-because the permitting and enabling witness-of some of the lowest and silliest atrocities ever perpetrated by an ecclesiastical administration. If he were to give way to the disgust which we believe he feels, and say, "I will no longer aid or tolerate such things; I will either compel the Pope to govern well, or will leave him to the fate which he has earned," he would, indeed, relieve his conscience of a great crime and gladden the hearts of all the patriots in Europe; but he would incur the deadly enmity and the active opposition of the whole priestly party throughout France; and we doubt whether he could afford to do so.

The peculiarity which we have noticed above-the restriction, namely, of religious faith and sentiment in France principally to the lowest class-is one fraught with social mischief and peril of the saddest kind. It operates a separation between the different orders of society, which can never exist in a country without consequences of the deepest and widest significance. Not only does it divide them in their most intense and elevated sentiments; not only does it, therefore, pave the way for those jealousies and animosities of class which already exist with such fearful virulence in France; but it takes the people out of the hands of their natural chiefs, and places them under the guidance of self-chosen and artificial leaders. It severs them from the aristocracy, whether of rank, wealth, or talent, and delivers them over, easy victims, to the demagogue or the priest,-when the

priest happens to be in opposition to the government. That happy harmony, that safe political well-being, which exists where the higher ranks lead and influence the lower without being able to oppress them, is no longer possible in France. The peasants no longer look for advice, assistance, and leadership to the noble and the great, to the men of eminent ability and superior education, or to those large landed proprietors who still exist in many provinces. The popular sceptre has passed, we hope not irrevocably, into the hands of mere agitators, who will exploiter their power for their own personal objects or passions. There is nothing to wonder at in all this, though there is every thing to deplore: we note it merely as one of the bad symptoms in the social state of France; and that it arises much, if not mainly, from the cause we have assigned appears, among other indications, from this that wherever we find instances of proprietors and nobles exercising their proper influence over the peasantry and ouvriers around them, they usually belong to families who are either hereditarily Catholic or individually pious.

To this last statement, however, we must admit one important and increasing exception, to which our attention has more than once been called by some of the most thoughtful politicians of France, and which they regard as likely largely to influence the future destinies of that country, and to influence them in a salutary direction. In former times, as is well known, the great families of France lived the chief part of the year on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, leading them during war, governing them during peace, and exercising over them an authority which, whether for good or evil, was little short of absolute, and an influence which was nearly irresistible. Sometimes their rule was benevolent and paternal, sometimes it was harsh, selfish, and extortionate; sometimes they were beloved, sometimes they were dreaded; but in all cases they were looked upon as a superior order of men, against whose sway-intellectual, moral, fashionable, or material—no one dreamed of rebelling. The same was true in a lesser degree of the smaller landed proprietors—of all, in fact, who belonged to the class of nobles or, as we should call it, of gentry. In the course of time, however, this state of society was gradually disturbed and undermined. More and more these families became attracted to the court; and once habituated to the refined luxuries and perpetual excitements of the metropolis, the dullness and coarseness of provincial life grew distasteful to them, and they lived year by year a longer time in Paris and a shorter time at their chateaux in the country. The sovereigns, bent upon humbling and superseding the vast power of the provincial nobility, encouraged this tendency by every means within their reach; residence at court was the proof of

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loyalty, and the path to honours and employment; retirement to their provincial estates was considered to indicate disaffection, and was at length inflicted as a sign of disgrace. Under Louis XIV. this silent but momentous social revolution may be considered to have been consummated. In proportion as the nobles thus deserted their vassals and lived at a distance from their territorial possessions, their personal influence necessarily declined; they were seldom seen and little known; their peasantry were left to the tender mercies of stewards, who extorted from them in order to supply the increasing demands of their absentee lords; the estates were heavily mortgaged, and sometimes passed in portions into the hands of money-lenders. At last the aristocracy, great and small, of France, took to residing entirely in Paris; the tie between them and the poorer classes of the community was either wholly broken or became one of oppression only, and their political and social influence in the provinces was gone. This state of things reached its culminating point when the first revolution broke out; and we all know what the consequences were. After that, for a long series of years, political and military interests overpowered all others: Paris was the centre and the scene of these; and every one who either was or aspired to be any thing, found Paris the only possible dwellingplace.

Of late years, however, a slow but significant reaction has been taking place. Successive revolutions, and the increasing luxury and extravagant expenditure of metropolitan society, have worked their natural effects. The year 1830 saw the downfall of the ambitious projects and retrospective hopes of the legitimist nobility, many of whom retired in melancholy and disgust to such diminished estates as still remained to them. The revolution of 1848 did something of the same kind for the proprietors and politicians whose predilections were Orleanist; they found themselves ousted from their places, fallen from their high estate; and so they bowed to the storm, and went into the country to grow cabbages till the return of better days. Finally, the coup-d'état of December 1851 added yet a third class to these retiring and abdicating grandeurs. Numbers whose principles or connections would not allow them to "bow the knee to Baal," as they called it, or in any way to countenance the usurping dynasty, and to whom a Paris in which they had been somebody and were now nobody was hateful, retired in bitterness of spirit to try the fascinations of a rural life. In addition to these men, there were many families who had long been living beyond their means and were no longer in a condition to meet the expenses of a life in one of the gayest and most costly of citiesa city in which bankers, agens de change, and other nouveaux