statue of Strasbourg had become a place of pilgrimage, a sacred shrine, as
it were, adorned with banners and with wreaths innumerable. Yet I
certainly had not expected to see an altar set up and Mass celebrated in
front of it, as if it had been, indeed, a statue of the Blessed Virgin.

At this stage of affairs there was no general hostility to the Church in
Paris. The _bourgeoisie_--I speak of its masculine element--was as
sceptical then as it is now, but it knew that General Trochu, in whom it
placed its trust, was a practising and fervent Catholic, and that in
taking the Presidency of the Government he had made it one of his
conditions that religion should be respected. Such animosity as was shown
against the priesthood emanated from some of the public clubs where the
future Communards perorated. It was only as time went on, and the defence
grew more and more hopeless, that Trochu himself was denounced as a
_cagot_ and a _souteneur de soutanes_; and not until the Commune did the
Extremists give full rein to their hatred of the Church and its ministers.

In connection with religion, there was another sight which impressed me on
that same Sunday. I was on the point of leaving the Place de la Concorde
when a large body of Mobiles debouched either from the Rue Royale or the
Rue de Rivoli, and I noticed, with some astonishment, that not only were
they accompanied by their chaplains, but that they bore aloft several
processional religious banners. They were Bretons, and had been to Mass, I
ascertained, at the church of Notre Dame des Victoires--the favourite
church of the Empress Eugenie, who often attended early Mass there--and
were now returning to their quarters in the arches of the railway viaduct
of the Point-du-Jour. Many people uncovered as they thus went by
processionally, carrying on high their banners of the Virgin, she who is
invoked by the Catholic soldier as "Auzilium Christianorum." For a moment
my thoughts strayed back to Brittany, where, during my holidays the