FRANCE Anatole (1844-1924). MANUSCRIT autographe, [Discours prononcé à la

FRANCE Anatole (1844-1924). Autograph MANUSCRIT, [Speech delivered at the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme, 1904]| 8 pages in-4 in a volume of red half-maroquin with corners. Speech in favor of the separation of Church and State. This vibrant political speech, delivered on December 18, 1904 at the "Journée laïque pour la séparation des Églises et de l'État" organized by the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen at the Trocadero, was published in the Bulletin officiel de la Ligue des Droits de l'Homme of January 16, 1905| collected in 1906 in Vers les temps meilleurs (Pelletan, 1906, t. II, p. 89), it was reused and expanded in several chapters of L'Église et la République (Pelletan, 1904). Anatole France included a number of press clippings in his manuscript, written in first draft in black or violet ink. France exposes "the true meaning of the Concordat and the reasons why the Church wants to maintain this detestable convention at all costs"... Strongly attacking the temporal power that the Church of Rome wants to establish in France, he concludes: "But the forces it turns against you, from whom does it get them? From you. It is you who, through the Concordat, maintain its organization and unity. You are its temporal power. [...] Administered by you, it dominates all your administrations. Break the ties by which you bind it to the State, shatter the forms by which you give it the shape and form of a great political body. And you will soon see it dissolve in freedom.