Enacted by the French Government, 1901, providing that no religious congregation of men or of women could be formed without a legislative act, which should determine the functions of such a congregation. This enactment was part of the scheme laid down previously by the Grand Orient Freemasons, by which the Catholic Church and Catholics as such in France were to be deprived of their rights. Further attempts to this effect were made in 1905, but, though the Church was seriously hampered in its activities for a while, it succeeded in carrying on until in 1928 these restrictions and others became inoperative.