THE EXPULSION OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN FRANCE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2979, 12 January 1881, Page 3

THE EXPULSION OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN FRANCE.

The work of expulsion of the monks of unauthorised confraternities is almost completed, the comparatively few remaining congregations being evicted in the fashion which has now become the rule. The method adopted by the Government varies as little as the opposition put into force by the monks. A considerable amount of irritation has been displayed, which will go ou rankling and festering for many jears to come, and which may, should a favorable opportunity present itself, burst out into open hostility to the Republic. There is a very strong conviction among educated Frenchmen who have no Royalist proclivities that the priests have done much harm by taking part in the politics of the country. Every reactionary movement during the past ten years, to go no farther back, is traced directly to their intervention, and the great majority of Frenchmen are delighted at the priestly influence being in any way circumscribed. The leaders of the various Monarchical factions, with the exception of Prince Napoleon, are naturally bound to protect the Church which gave them all its powerful aid ; but the more intelligent members of the rank and file, even of the anti-Republican parties, look with more suspicion than sympathy upon Jesuits and monks. Apart from all questions of abstract liberty, it is thought the Government was not well advised iv bidding for the popularity of the masses at the cost of estranging an influential priesthood. But it would be an error to suppose that the recent acts have caused any real or lively indignation. If a plebiscite could be instituted there is not the smallest doubt that the expulsion of the monks would be approved by an immense majority of Frenchmen. With a few exceptions, all the male religious orders aimed at by the famous decrees of March 29 have now been driven from their monasteries and forced to live on the charity of their Catholic sympathisers, who are displaying nnuch devotion in offering their hospitality to the houseless monks. The Government has closed 384 monasteries and dispersed 7,400 of their inmates. This gigantic labour has been accomplished without causing any trouble worthy of the name of revolt, and, if we except the death of the young man at Lyons, without giving rise to any bloodshed. —Mail.