“All of us in the Grandes-Écuries are agreed to fight the Freemasons,” replied Joseph Lacrisse. “The church-goers reproach them for not being Catholics. The Nationalist Socialists reproach them for not being anti-Semites, and all our meetings adjourn to the cry of ‘Down with the Freemasons!’ to which Citizen Bissolo yells: ‘Down with the Cassocks!’ Immediately he is knocked on the head, thrown down, trampled upon by our friends and dragged off to the police-station by the police. The spirit of the Grandes-Écuries is excellent, but there are false ideas which we shall have to eliminate. The small shopkeeper does not yet understand that the Monarchy alone will bring him any happiness. He does not yet feel that in bowing to the will of the Church he increases his own stature. The shopkeeper’s mind has been poisoned by bad books and bad newspapers. He is against the abuses of the clergy and the intrusion of priests into politics. Many of my electors call themselves anti-clerical.”
“Really?” cried Madame de Bonmont, saddened and surprised.
“Madame,” said Jacques de Cadde, “it is the same in the provinces. And I call that being against religion. Anti-clericalism spells anti-religion.”
“We must not attempt to disguise the fact,” Lacrisse continued. “We have still a great deal to do. And how? This is what we have to find out.”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Jacques de Cadde, “I am in favour of violent measures.”
“What measures?” asked Henri Léon.
There was a moment’s silence, and Henri Léon continued:
“We have had prodigious successes—but so had Boulanger, and he wore himself out.”
“He was worn out,” said Lacrisse. “But we need not fear that we shall be worn out in the same way. The Republicans, who put up a very good defence against him, are defending themselves very badly against us.”
“Besides,” said Léon, “it is not our enemies that I fear; it’s our friends. We have friends in the Chamber. And what are they doing? They haven’t even provided us with a nice little ministerial crisis complicated by a nice little presidential crisis.”