Societe Republicaine des Conferences Populaire ~ MAGIC LANTERN ~ 37mm Hi Relief

Description

A nice medal, a beautiful bronze high relief by H. DuBois.  Please see the images and make your own judgment.  For twenty or thirty years before the First World War there were two groups contending for the hearts and minds of the people of northern France and Belgium, especially those of the young.  On the one hand were the priests, assailed by numerous enemies "who never cease to traverse our villages":  most especially the masons ("freethinkers") but also socialists, Protestants, Jews, Liberals.  The weapon of both sides was the magic lantern, with appropriate slide sets.  People would attend these shows at the parish church both because the priest asked everyone to come, and because there wasn't a lot of entertainment alternatives in your average agricultural village.  On the other side were those who sought to spread knowledge throughout the land, and to loosen the grip of the Clerical Party in politics, and this other side did include many of those who had made the Church's list of enemies.  The Republican Society of Popular Conferences was on the anti-Clerical side of this schism.  One presumes they had to find a venue other than the parish church.
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