Page:History of Freedom.djvu/443

 DÖLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK 399

il avait la passion des études théologiques com me s'il n'avait été que prêtre, et la passion des études littéraires appliquées aux auteurs anciens et modernes comme s'il n'avait été que littérateur; à quoi il faut ajouter un autre don qu'il y aurait ingratitude à oublier, celui d'une exposition lucide, patiente et presque affec- tueuse, comn1e s'il n'avait accumulé tant de connaissances que pour avoir Ie plaisir de les cOD1muniquer.

For forty years he remained in correspondence with many of these early friends, who, in the educational struggle \vhich ended with the ministry of Falloux in 185 0, revived the leading maxims of the rejected master. As Lacordaire said,on his deathbed: "La parole de l'Ayenir avait germé de son tombeau comme une cendre féconde." Döllinger used to visit his former visitors in various parts of France, and at Paris he attended the salon of Madame Swetchine. One day, at the seminary, he inquired who were the most promising students; Dupanloup pointed out a youth, who was the hope of the Church, and whose name \vas Ernest Renan. Although the men who were drawn to him in this \vay formed the largest and best-defined cluster with which he came in contact, there \vas more private friendship than mutual action or consultation between them. The un- impassioned German, who had no taste for ideas released from controlling fact, took little pleasure in the impetuous declamation of the Breton, and aftenvards pronounced him inferior to Loyson. Neither of the men \vho "rere in the confidence of both has intimated that he made any lasting impression on Lamennais, \vho took leave of him without discussing the action of Rome. Döllinger never sought to rene\v acquaintance \vith Lacordaire, \vhen he had become the most important rrlan in the church of France. He would have a prejudice to overcome against him \vhom Circourt called the most ignorant man in the Academy, "rho believed that Erasmus ended his days at Rotterdam, unable to choose bet\veen Rome and \Vittem- berg, and that the Irish obtained through O'Connell the right to worship in their o\vn way. He sa\v mor of Dupanloup, without feeling, as deeply as Renan, the rare