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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

his history was to be made. To such a mind, therefore, the forced revelation of this divergence from the doctrines of a party who for that reason solely demanded his retractation and unquestioning submission, could only increase the dissidence, and so it proved. The first seven volumes of the History, approved by more than forty bishops, and six of them published under the direction and with the sanction of the Bishop of Blois, were placed in the Index of books prohibited by the court of Rome. Mgr. Sibour gave his approbation to the resistance made at once by M. Guettée to this decree. The author was immediately attacked with great violence by the Univers and other Jesuit journals, and defended himself with great spirit and ability, all his replies being first submitted to Mgr. Sibour and approved by him. During this struggle the eighth and ninth volumes of the History appeared. Mgr. Sibour charged one of his vicars-general, M. l'Abbé Lequeux, with the mission of submitting them to the "Congregation of the Index," with the request that its objections might be made known to the author before they were censured. The author had furnished M. Lequeux with letters bearing a similar petition. This ecclesiastic had himself suffered by the censure of the Congregation, passed upon his Manual of Canon Law, a classic of many years' standing in the seminaries. He had submitted, and was on his way to Rome for the purpose of learning the objections of the Congregation and correcting his work. But he obtained no satisfaction either for himself or for M. Guettée, whose two new volumes were placed arbitrarily in the Index without a word of explanation as to the grounds of censure. Thus M. Guettée was baffled in his many respectful and patient endeavors to obtain the desired communication with the Congregation at Rome. He resolved, therefore, to pursue his work without concerning himself about censures so tyrannical and unreasonable. But matters were about to change their aspect at the archiepiscopal palace. In the course of the year 1854, the bishops were called to Rome to be present at the promulgation of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Mgr. Sibour was not invited. He had addressed to Rome a paper in which he proved that