Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1861

pg 424       will listen to him that the Congregation does not pay its rent and 
             should consequently retire.
                  There is certainly reason to be surprised that the 
             Congregation held out so long against such opposition; but if we 
             consider the expenses it had gone to and the considerable debts it 
             had made to establish itself respectably in Chicago, relying on 
             the promises of two Bishops on which it tried to hope, spes contra 
             spem, we shall perhaps better understand what was only too plain, 
             namely: that the Bishop would hold to his declaration, that he was 
             not bound by his predecessor's act, and that he would take back 
             the college without any regard to what losses the Congregation 
             might thereby suffer.
                  To gain his end he did not hesitate to adopt measures that he 
             himself would have unhesitatingly condemned in others.  Nothing 
             was easier than for him to place the Congregation in a position to 
             pay the rent, supposing he ought to have exacted such a sum, which 
             many called a "permission to do good in his diocese."  The school-