M. de Freycinet has carried out the decrees of May,
and has expelled the Jesuits throughout France from their establishments by force, giving other non-anthorised societies a month's grace. Actual force was not, of course, needful, but the Fathers in all instances required that the inner doors of their buildings should be forced, and that hands should be laid on them before they yielded, so that the legality of the decrees might be tested before the Courts. Their bearing appears to have been everywhere quiet and dignified, and the sympathy of their friends was most marked. In all places their expulsion was watched by considerable crowds, usually favourable to them ; and at Toulouse and Nancy, two very different places, they were loudly cheered ; but -there was nowhere any popular resistance. This is most for- tunate for their cause, as their demeanour brings before all France the fact that men entirely without material resources or the means of exciting tumults have been prohibited from teach- ing, and expelled from their schools, solely because their doctrines were unacceptable to the majority of the Deputies.
A better-defined or clearer violation of the principle of religions liberty never occurred, and it is made worse by the fact that """`• the teaching denounced differs so little from that of the ""■.,....Church still protected and subsidised by the State.
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