The French Profanations

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 17, 26 April 1906, Page 2

The French Profanations

Set a lyeggar on horseback and he will gallop. And 1 lodge is a greater lout in a palace than in a hut. Who does not) Know the familiar German story of the duke and the ploughman '! It tells How Hans was taken drunk from his furrow, brought to the castle, and put to bed ; how, on awakening, he was dressed in the ducal robes, w-aited upon by liveried servants, and regaled with bumpers of Burgundy and champagne and all the luxuries of the season ; and tiow he gorged and guzzled and swilled and bullied, and made himself an abomination to ;decent) lolk, till he fell asleep under tlu table, was decked again in his old- rags, and left in th( furrow from which he had i^een lilted on the previous day. Hans the ploughman would, — other things being equal— be a mild sort of a pig in a palace compared with some of the specimens of aggressive atheist pmcials that were lately turned loose, with indeterminate powers of offenca and outrage, in rthe Catholic churches of France. Many of the agents entrusted with the preliminary work of confiscation accomplished their repulsive work with a decent show of respect for the religious sentiments oi the people. Uthers appear to - have been coarser than Hans the ploughman, when dressed in a little trie! authority. It was, for instance, a needless outrage for a uniformed ruffian in Lyons , to

point to a large crucifix and as'c : ' How much is this god worth,? ' ' Thirty pieces of silver, Judas,' was the ieady rejoinder that came from a pious woman who was kneeling close at hand. Tafles of horrible profanation and sacrilege by official and non-official barbarians come from L.q JNouvelle* in the Department of Aude. The details published iby ' JL'Kciair,' of Montpellier, would scarcely bear reproduction in our columns.