Only the ancient world had been enfranchised in the name of Christ, whilst the modern world was freed in the name of the rights which every human creature has received from the hand of God; and from both flowed the enfranchisement of God or nature.

The political philosophy of the Revolution could not have invented a word more true, more complete, more divine than Christianity, to reveal itself to Europe, and it had adopted the dogma and the word of _fraternity_.

Only the French Revolution attacked the form of this ruling religion; because it was incrusted in the forms of government, monarchical, theocratic, or aristocratic, which they sought to destroy.

It is the explanation of that apparent contradiction of the mind of the 18th century, which borrowed all from Christianity in policy, and denied, whilst it despoiled, it.

There was at one and the same time a violent attraction and a violent repulsion in the two doctrines.