Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/351

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 309 strength to put the two asunder.* Iu Prance, it chap, . XIV is true, the Church no longer wielded the authority 1 which had belonged to her of old ; but besides that the virtues of her humble and labouring priesthood had gained for her more means of guiding men's minds than Europe was accustomed to believe, she was a cohering and organised body. Therefore, at a moment when the whole temporal powers of the State had been seized by a small knot of men slyly acting in concert, and when the Parliamentary and judicial authority which might restrain their violence had been all at once over- thrown, the Church of France, surviving in the midst of ruined institutions, became suddenly in- vested with a great power to do good or to do evil. She might stand between the armed man and his victim ; she might turn away wrath ; she might make conditions for prostrate France. Or, taking a yet loftier stand, she might resolve to choose — and choose sternly — between right and wrong. She chose. The priesthood of France were, upon the whole, a zealous, unworldly, devoted body of men ; but already the Church which they served had been gained over to the President by the arrangements which led to the siege and occupation of Rome. Therefore, although the priests perceived that Maupas, coming privily in the night-time, had seized the generals and the statesmen of France, and had shut up the Parliament, and driven the between Russia and her Church.
 * See Arthur Stanley's admirable account of the relations