Fr. Irby C. Nichols: The first actual use of the term cordon sanitaire was in 1821, when the Duke de Richelieu deployed 30,000 French troops to the border between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains, allegedly in order to prevent yellow fever from spreading from Barcelona into France(3) but in fact mainly to prevent the spread of liberal ideas from constitutional Spain. wordsmith.social/protestation/…