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xii their duties as well as upon the question of their rights. With this aim was founded Le Republicain de Loire et Cher, and some surprise was caused at seeing the editorship of the journal confided to a priest by democrats, who had until then passed for enemies of the clergy and of the Church. The confidence of his friends was fully justified in the influence which M. Guettée obtained for this journal by his earnest defense of the principles to which it was devoted, founding and strengthening them upon the authority of the Gospel, and showing them to be in harmony with the principles of revealed religion.

By this service he attached more firmly to him the regard of the Bishop of Blois, who then conceived the design of drawing the Abbé into closer relations with himself by giving him a residence in the episcopal palace; but before this plan could be executed the Bishop was prostrated by the disease that was destined to remove him from life in the following year. M. l'Abbé Garapin, a vicar-general, an intelligent and learned man in the episcopal administration of Blois, who, like the Bishop, felt a strong regard for M. Guettée, informed him secretly of the Bishop's kind intentions, but counselled him to decline them and thereby escape the machinations of his enemies in the administration, who would be certain, as soon as the Bishop's approaching death should put the power into their hands, to signalize it by driving him from the palace. M. Guettée followed this friendly advice, and having resigned the charge of the journal he had edited for eighteen months, because by this change of régime he could no longer edit it with independence, and seeing his friend the Bishop at the point of death, he resolved to quit the diocese of Blois, and demand permission to establish himself at Paris, where he might enjoy more facilities for the completion of his History of the Church of France. Knowing that the first vicar-general would very joyfully seize the opportunity of ridding the diocese of one for whom he cherished so cordial a dislike, he asked and readily obtained a full letter of credit certifying to his learning and piety.

Thus furnished, M. Guettée arrived in Paris, and made no other request of the archiepiscopal administration