For national reasons, the Council of the University of Paris has revived an ancient contract under which a religious service was to be celebrated every year on the anniversary of the death of Cardin-Richelieu, the great statesman who may justly be regarded as the founder of French national unity. This contract_was made in 1646 between M. de Sorbon and the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, and it provided that the service should take place in the Sorbonne Chapel, where Richelieu himself lies buried. The chapel, in which no religious service has been celebrated since the separation of Church and State, was re-opened the other day, and the commemoration service took place in the presence of a_ representative of the Minister of Public Instruction, the Rector and professors of the University, and many students. In the absence of the Due de Richelieu, the descendants of the great Cardinal's family were represented by Comte and Comtesse Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld, nee Richelieu (who bears a distinct likeness to her famous ancestor) and their daughter.
Times have indeed changed since the days of M. Combes and the anti-clericals. A chapel re-opened at the very centre of an educational system which is supposed to regard all religions with equal indifference Another sign of the times is a Government proposal to give the St. Sulpice Seminary back to. the ecclesiastical authorities, so that it can revert to its original use. The Government took over the building during the war and converted part of it into offices for the Ministry of Finance. It is now proposed to move these offices elsewhere and allow the black-robed_ theological students to return to St. Sulpice. The Government has found by experience that it cannot afford to do without the assistance! of the Church in extending French influence abroad.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.