O'Connell had studied for some time at the College of St. Omer, in France. What he saw and learned in that country is ably described by the Italian orator:
"He saw with his own eyes monarchy compelled to degrade itself, and to inflict its death-wound with its own hand; he saw the throne that base courtiers had dragged through the mire defiled by the grip of parricidal hands, and buried, fathoms deep, beneath a sea of blood; he saw the best of kings expire upon a scaffold, the victim not less of other men's crimes than of his own weakness; he saw that vice was hailed, as if it were virtue, wickedness uplifted, as if it were morality atheism, proclaimed aloud, as if it were religion; that the 'Goddess of Reason' (or rather a vile strumpet) was recognized as the only Deity, and honored with hecatombs of human victims; the people decimated and oppressed by cruel tyrants, in the name of the people; whilst beneath the shade of the tree of liberty was instituted universal slavery; and that the most Christian, as well as the most civilized of all nations, had fallen down to the lowest limits of impiety and barbarism.
"Now, God having so disposed that the young O'Connell should be witness of these events--the most celebrated and the most instructive to be found in the annals of history--they served to inspire him with the greatest horror for tumults and rebellion; they persuaded him that there is nothing more insane, and, at the same time, more pernicious than to proclaim the rights of man, in trampling upon those of heaven--in establishing liberty on the ruins of religion--in making laws, under the dictation of passion, or through the inspiration of sacrilege--and, finally, they convinced him, that to _regenerate_ a people, religion is omnipotent--philosophy of little or no avail."
In alluding to the well-known piety of O'Connell, the preacher said: "What more moving spectacle than to see the greatest man in the United Kingdom--to see him, who was the object of Ireland's devotion, of England's fear, and of the world's admiration, kneeling with the people before the altar, practicing the piety of the people, with that humble simplicity, that recollection, that devoutness, and that modesty, which supercilious science and stolid pride abandon as things fit only to be followed by those whom they disdain as the people?"
