We must here say a few words on the existing relations between the French and the Arabs at the time when Mgr. Lavigerie entered on his episcopate. The French administration in Algiers had always been marked by an unjustifiable opposition to any attempt to christianise the country. The government seemed to imagine that the policy of non-interference would do more to conciliate the natives than the heroic devotion of the Catholic missioners; the clergy, so far from being supported by those in authority in their attempts to establish schools and orphanages and to spread the religion of Jesus Christ, had been discouraged in their zealous and self-denying efforts; the Sisters of Charity and other religious institutions had been established there rather in spite of the French authorities than with their sanction and aid. Even the Archbishop and those around him met with but cold courtesy at the hands of a government which was at best but half-Christian. Its policy was to divide the country into two nationalities, the French and the Arab, and to keep them entirely apart. This had been the system pursued ever since Algeria passed into French hands. One of the leading newspapers, ‘Le Royaume Arabe,’ openly advocated it. It was the representative of a number of generals who were all-powerful at the French Court, and who were opposed to colonisation and the assimilation of the two races, and to the spread of Christianity.