Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/87

 dismissed, others suspended ; finally, Parliament was presented with a Liberal law in favour of the Press.

Still more amazing was the religious policy of the Cabinet. First roughly handled by the Revolution, then severely restricted by Napoleon, religion had been reduced to the level of a public institution, like the Board of Works or the Post Office. A reaction in its favour could not fail to arise ; it arose about 1848, and it might have arisen any time after 1815 but for the disastrous alliance, by which " the throne and the altar " managed to compromise each other. Clergy and noblesse, victims alike of the Revolution, joined together in mutual adulation and support. The religious orders, at any rate the more active and powerful of them, worked hard to repair their fortunes. The experiment was enough to make Voltaire turn in his grave. It so happened that an anti-religious tendency set in, and it grew. The extraordinary indiscretions of the other side helped to strengthen it ; notably the interference of the Congrégation in political matters. The most absurd fictions have been invented on this subject, there being no limit to the credulity of the public.