FOREWORD

At the beginning of January of this year (1873), I was called upon to give a public course on Church history at Laval University. The subject was left to my choosing. Knowing from the experience I had acquired during my studies at the Roman College how useful it is to throw light on numerous historical questions debated in our times, and upon which so many clouds continue to hover; knowing, on the other hand, that the divine prerogatives of the primacy and the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiffs have been and continue to be the object of the most violent attacks, I believed it necessary to choose this topic, to lay down the facts as clearly and as succinctly as possible, and to thereby show the fulfillment of Jesus Christ’s promises in the annals of history.