would make their children more powerful for good than they themselves had ever been.
It is true that the diocese of Poitiers was by no means free from tendencies of the opposite school. The Bishop received from Catholics of his own flock letters filled with objections against these Roman doctrines with which for twenty years he had indefatigably laboured to feed them. Accordingly, for a while, he steered a diplomatic course between the opposing extremes. When the majority presented a petition, asking the Pope to introduce forthwith the question of Pontifical Infallibility into the Council's discussions, Mgr. Pie was not to be found among the petitioners. There were reasons for this precaution. The immediate introduction of the theme would violate the logical development of thought. For certainly the Church itself should be considered before the subject of the Pope. While, therefore, the Bishop of Poitiers was widely remote from sympathy with those who desired the doctrine's indefinite postponement and ultimate suppression, he fully sympathised with the desire to set the doctrine in its logical place. He thought it would be stronger there than it possibly could be if torn out of its context, and arbitrarily and disconnectedly introduced. Hence he did not explicitly associate himself at first with this urgency movement of the majority. He shared their belief but not their impatience.
However, tactful and sagacious as ever, and keenly alive to the direction in which the stream of popularity flowed with increasing volume, Mgr. Pie was much too prudent to oppose a lengthy reluctance to the wishes of his intimate partisans. His conversion to the view, that so urgent a matter required immediate treatment, was shortly announced. He adopted the vulgar reproach
