FRENCH RELIGIOUS LAW.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9547, 30 September 1902, Page 3

FRENCH RELIGIOUS LAW.

TBtectrio Telegraph—Copyright—United Press Association) PARIS, September 29. Colonel Saint Remy and General Fraser have been placed on half-pay for testifying that the orders senit to Colonel Saint Remy were civil,.. and not military.

A remarkable incident has taken place in France in connection .with the campaign against the unauthorised Orders. Colonel de Saint Henry, when ordered to use. Ilia squadron of cavalry in closing a convent school, refused oil Ihe ground that he was "a Catholic." The disobedient officer was at once put under arrest and ordered to a fortress, and will be tried- by count-martial. Ho will, lm doubt, be dismissed the army for disobedience. His proper course, it as pointed out, would have been to tender his resignation, which would no doubt have been: accepted; but we presume that he wished to make a more signal protest. Meantime, the execution of the decrees continues, and -though, there is a. great deal of local sympathy, and even resistance, France, as a whole, is not greatly stirred. The- Pope's silence is much dwelt on, as .the"hot-heads 'in the Clerical party would, of course, like him to proclaim a. kind of crusade against the Republic. This, however, he refuses to do. He is said to fear very greatly the dissolution of the Concordat. Moderate Frenchmen, we know, also greatly dread the separation of Church and Stale in France,' holding thai it would produce a secular 'nation; -but it is just possible tha.t they are mistaken. The Church dreaded very greatly the effects of the Llw winch, obliged the- seminarists to go into barracks, yet the result was not to de-Christianisa the young priests, but to Christianise the barracks.—Spectator.