Would she prove responsive to his dream?
Would he, as he had written, find within her the remedy for our impatience and our alarms?
Could Catholicism be renewed, could it return to the spirit of primitive Christianity, become the religion of the democracy, the faith which the modern world, overturned and in danger of perishing, awaits in order to be pacified and to live?
Pierre was full of generous passion, full of faith.

He again beheld good Abbe Rose weeping with emotion as he read his book.

He heard Viscount Philibert de la Choue telling him that such a book was worth an army.

And he particularly felt strong in the approval of Cardinal Bergerot, that apostle of inexhaustible charity.

Why should the Congregation of the Index threaten his work with interdiction?
Since he had been officiously advised to go to Rome if he desired to defend himself, he had been turning this question over in his mind without being able to discover which of his pages were attacked.