For two
years after 1830 a priest in his cassock dared not show himself in
public;[59] he ran the risk of being insulted in the streets; since
1871, the majority of the Parisian electors, through the interposition
of the Municipal Council which they elect over and over again,
persists in driving "Brethren" and "Sisters" from the schools and
hospitals in order to put laymen in their places and pay twice as much
for work not done as well.[60] - In the beginning, antipathy was
confined to the clergy; through contamination, it reached the
doctrine, to include the faith, the entire Catholicism and even
Christianity itself. Under the Restoration, it was called, in
provocative language, the priest party, and under the second Empire,
the clericals. Afterwards, confronting the Church and under a contrary
name, the anti-clerical league was formed by its adversaries, a sort
of negative church which possessed, or tried to, its own dogmas and
rites, its own assemblies and discipline: and for lack of something
better, it has its own fanaticism, that of aversion; on the word being
given, it marches, rank and file, against the other, its enemy, and
manifests, if not its belief, at least its unbelief in refusing or in
avoiding the ministration of the priest.
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