where stands the monument to the victims, was then swampy ground, and it
was literally soaked that year, not with the overflow of the Rhône, but
with human gore. On the beautiful Place Bellecour two guillotines
functioned day and night, but they were inadequate to the bloody task,
and the citizens were mown down in batches on the Place des Jacobins.
The successors of these Freemason Jacobins control the destinies of
France to-day, by means of a Socialist parliamentary majority, obtained
by the means I described in a previous article. They lost no time in
ostracising tens of thousands of France’s noblest sons and daughters,
who may not live as they see fit, nor exercise a profession which is
open to all by law. The law Falloux of 1852 confers on all citizens duly
qualified the right to teach or open schools, and it is still
unrepealed. Millions of parents are deprived of the right to educate
their children as they see fit in their native land. Exile is the price
of liberty. This is the beginning of that diminution of liberty which
must always accompany the elimination of the Christian principle on
which our civilization reposes.
With stupendous cynicism Waldeck Rousseau calls the Associations Bill a
“law of liberty and of appeasement.” One or two passages will exemplify
the character of this infamous Act.
ART. I
All associations can be formed freely and without authorization.
ART. XIII
No religious association can be formed without authorization given
by a law which will determine how it is to function.
One of M. Waldeck Rousseau’s henchmen stated the truth squarely, a few
days ago, when he said “the enemy is God,” improving on Gambetta’s
maxim, “Le clericalisme voilà l’ennemi.”
Already there are symptoms that the Premier is being carried away by his
Socialist advance guard. When they now demand the suppression of the
Concordat he no longer protests as earnestly as he did, affirming his
devotion to the secular clergy, whose interests, he used to declare,
were the main object of the Trouillot or Associations Bill.
The trial of Comte Lur Saluce by a so-called “High Court,” composed of
senators, was a most peculiar episode. Accused of plotting to restore
the monarchy, his defence was one long, incisive, itemized arraignment
of the Third Republic and all its works and ways. His judges listened
with much interest, fascinated, no doubt, by the truth of his
statements, after which they found him guilty with extenuating
circumstances--a tacit admission apparently that his enmity to the Third
Republic was justified. Meanwhile, poor France is threatened with all
the horrors of another revolution, if the same elements compose the next
parliament, as they most certainly will, if opposition candidates are
not even allowed to hold meetings unmolested, as at Toulouse and Lyons
recently.
Religious liberty has however found a new home in a most unexpected
quarter, none other than the realm of the Grand Llama of Tibet, who is
sending a special embassy to the Czar. The latter may follow the good
example and proclaim religious liberty in all the Russias, at the same
time as the Calendar reforms which are being prepared. The two questions
are not as irrelevant to each other as one might suppose at first
sight.
INCONSISTENT JACOBINISM
_11th November, 1901._
In 1894, 1895, and 1896 I contributed several papers on the Eastern
Question to the _Progress_. At that time public opinion was much excited
and indignant over the massacres in Armenia, but none of the Powers who
signed the Berlin Treaty thought fit to interfere. Massacres on a small
scale were renewed from time to time, and a few months ago they reached
considerable proportions; but nothing was done to punish the culprits,
or to protect the victims of Turkish barbarity.
This week a mild surprise has been caused by the sending of the French
fleet to Turkish waters. The callous lethargy, which a sense of duty, a
chivalrous sympathy with the weak and the oppressed, could not dispel,
has yielded to a financial exigency. Two naturalized citizens are
creditors of the Sultan for a large sum. It is true they have been
receiving most usurious interest these last fifteen years, but now
Lorando and Turbini wish to recover their capital; and lo! the might of
France is put forth on their behalf! It is said that M. Waldeck
Rousseau, the Premier, is professionally interested in the matter, and
will receive a fee even bigger than the one he earned when he saved his
clients in the Panama scandal, who are now in the seats of the mighty.
The long-suffering French taxpayer will grudgingly pay the expenses of
this naval demonstration, and the Porte will promptly pay up in order to
be rid of his unwelcome visitors. But France does not mean to be a
simple collector for MM. Lorando and Turbini.
The elections of 1902 are at hand, and the semi-Jacobins in power are
anxious to obtain the suffrages of the better element, and not be
entirely carried away captive by their Socialist and ultra-Jacobin
supporters, through whom they have seized the reins of government.
The Crimean war, as I have shown in _Slav and Moslem_, was partly
brought about by a similar preoccupation on the part of Napoleon III,
who had just made himself emperor by an infamous _coup d’état_.
Voltairean France had allowed her protectorate over the Eastern
Christians to fall into desuetude, and Russia supplanted her. But when
the latter exercised her treaty-acquired rights, France and England
combined against her.
To-day with impudent inconsistency the Third Republic, which has done
its utmost, these thirty years, to dechristianize France, sees fit to
exact from the Porte that French religious schools be allowed to
multiply freely, and that its protectorate over Eastern Christians be
distinctly recognized.
What is more, the Republic demands that the Catholic University of
Beyruth deliver diplomas entitling the recipients to practise medicine
in all parts of the Turkish empire. Now, considering that the Third
Republic has just made a most iniquitous law against religious
congregations, depriving French parents of the means of educating their
children in accordance with their faith, it is a grotesque incongruity
that the Turks should be compelled to harbour these congregations and
their schools, which are being closed in France with a latent view to
establishing a Government monopoly of education.
This university of Beirut, and practically all the French schools and
hospitals in Turkey, are under the direction of Jesuits, Dominicans,
Assumptionists, etc., and they are of great importance to French
influence, as they implant this language and the love of a nation that
has such admirable sons and daughters.
I have no doubt that railroad concessions will also be demanded, and
that all details were discussed during the Czar’s recent visit to Paris.
Russia is using France to checkmate Germany in her Bagdad railway
scheme, and to undermine her influence with the Sultan.
The deaths of Abdul Hamid and the Emperor of Austria may at any moment
precipitate the European crisis which all expect and fear.
Meanwhile, neither China nor the Moslems have said their last word. In
the heart of China, Tung-fu-Siang and Prince Tuan may, even now, be
engaged in founding a new Mohammedan power. A China galvanized by that
dangerous vitality of Islam would mean the extinction of Europe in
China. And if any great Moslem chief should succeed in combining the
interests of the faithful in Africa and Turkey, the European nations may
all look to their laurels.
The self-conceit and self-complacency of the white races are simply
immense. This self-complacency is unparalleled, except perhaps by that
which distinguished the Jewish people. Because Providence had chosen
them for the accomplishment of certain designs which were to embrace the
whole human race in their ultimate scope, the Hebrews flattered
themselves that the Gentiles only existed for their benefit, as the
yellows, browns, and blacks do for us to-day. When the chosen people had
filled their cup of iniquity, heedless of that last pathetic appeal,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” etc., there came that terrible siege (A.D. 70)
which made them henceforth a people without an altar, without a country.
Another proud empire arose, intoxicated with material and military
greatness, and we all know how the barbarians, our forefathers,
overthrew the mighty empire of the Cæsars.
We, their descendants, flatter ourselves that because we wield the
sceptre of civilization and science, we do so in virtue of some inherent
race-qualities, and that our candlestick can never be moved, whatever
may have happened to the rushlights of antiquity. But if we have been
in the vanguard of civilization and science since many centuries, it is
merely because we were Christendom. To-day Protestantism has devoured,
one by one, all the vital truths of Christianity, till it is strictly
true to say of many so-called Christian peoples and individuals, “Thou
hast a name”--for Christian beliefs with their practical sides have been
almost eliminated.
When the apostasy of the governments of Christian peoples shall have
been consummated, when unlimited divorce, which is successive polygamy,
shall be generalized; when monogamy shall vanish from our codes, which
forms, with freedom from slavery, the line of demarcation between
Western and Eastern civilization--then indeed shall we be ready for the
burning.
The modern barbarians are at our gates, nay, in our midst. Godless
education and the peculiar political methods of unscrupulous, educated
proletariat are rapidly preparing what may be termed government by
anarchy.
Yesterday I spent a few hours at Nice, and was waiting for a tramway to
return home, when a youth of about fifteen, with a candid, ingenuous
countenance, waved his newspapers just out with the cry: “Voilà la lutte
sociale. Buy _La lutte sociale_.” I took the extended copy, asking the
youth if he believed in the _lutte sociale_.
“Oh yes, of course I do,” he replied with a most convinced air.
“What is this _lutte sociale_?” I inquired. This he “did not know.”
Glancing through the leading article, I read a virulent denunciation of
the clergy, and a most contemptuous diatribe against the masses, _à la
Voltaire_. “They [the masses] are formed of vicious, ignorant, covetous
individuals.... What writers call ‘the soul’ of the multitude is in
general nothing but an immense horrible cry of wild beasts, an
accumulation of the lowest instincts of the human brute ... they do not
reason, they howl and they strike.”
It is these masses that unscrupulous politicians and secret societies
are preparing to hurl against organized society as in 1789, after having
destroyed in them from infancy all reverence for God or man: _Ni Dieu ni
maître_--neither God nor master.
In self-defence, society will be compelled to restore Christianity, or
slavery--or perish.
UNAUTHORIZED CONGREGATIONS
_25th April, 1902._
I hesitate to write anything more on religious conditions at the present
time, because I shall have to repeat what I have written in these
columns since two years. My worst previsions have been realized. The
Budget of Cults which I had hoped would be thrown as another sop to
Cerberus, has been voted by a compact Ministerial majority.
If the clergy of France, with the Holy See, do not themselves reject all
connexion with a distinctly pagan government, and hold their own as the
Church did in the first three centuries, I fear this fair land may
revive the experiences of the Byzantine or Bas Empire, as it is aptly
called, for there is a distinct determination to enslave or to destroy
the Church.
The French are an optimistic people. From year to year they keep
repeating that matters will soon improve, that the next elections will
make everything right and restore liberty.
France’s great misfortune is, I repeat, that respectable people will
not, as a rule, touch politics, or soon give them up in disgust, while
denaturalized Frenchmen and naturalized foreigners do nothing else for a
living.
In 418 the Emperor Honorius wished to establish a representative
government in Southern Gaul. “But,” writes Guizot, “no one would send
representatives, no one would go to Arles.” This same state of mind is
working the ruin of France to-day.
On March 17th, 1900, I wrote: “Thus the bad element captures the votes
of the labouring masses by the circulation of vile newspapers and
brilliant promises of the Social Utopia that is coming. Consequently
both Houses are packed with this element, whose war cry is _Vive la
Sociale_, and whose emblem is the red flag of anarchy which was waved
under the very nose of President Loubet at a recent Republican fête.
With a parliament and a ministry like this any legislation is possible.
If other means fail, all the Congregations engaged in teaching will be
suppressed.... But Waldeck Rousseau is no fool,” I added. “He and his
Freemason employers know that there are some thirty odd millions of
French Catholics.... The Government cannot afford to rouse them from
their political lethargy by violent measures.... Religious liberty must
be destroyed by degrees.”
Two years have elapsed since the notorious Associations or Trouillot
Bill has been passed; and the law Falloux (1850), which guarantees
liberty of teaching, may already be considered as abrogated in favour of
a state monopoly of education.
Never since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), strongly
reproved by Pope Innocent, has so great a blow been dealt at liberty of
conscience and the rights of free citizens. The pendulum of progress has
been set back at least two hundred years; nay, we witness an odious
reversion to Lacedæmonian state tyranny. And this crime against liberty,
this liberticide, is committed in the twentieth century, amid the
plaudits of all sectarian haters of the Catholic Church, and in a
country which unceasingly flaunts its catchwords of “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity.”
The general elections of May, 1902, will not, I fear, modify the
situation. I doubt, indeed, if any efforts, however earnest and
well-concerted, could now retrieve the political situation.
Waldeck Rousseau, whose wily effrontery is something more than human,
knows this, and begins to throw off his mask of Liberalism.
His recent political speech in the mining centres near Lyons was bold
enough, judging by a stenographic report, for the _Officiel_ and _Havas_
toned it down somewhat.
He gave it to be understood that only those congregations who relieved
the State in caring for the maimed, the halt, the blind, and the insane
were to be tolerated. In other words, the souls of her children are to
become the prey of a pagan State, but their diseased bodies are to be
left to the care of the Church!
Eight Jesuits are being prosecuted for preaching Advent sermons, though
they have closed their establishments and dispersed. The proper course,
apparently, would be to arraign the bishops and curés who had invited
these Jesuits to occupy their pulpits. Waldeck Rousseau is too wily for
that. His policy is to make a fine distinction between the secular and
regular clergy--to divide and conquer.
Three other Jesuits, who profess theology at the Institut Catholique,
obtained from Rome dispensation of their vows, in order to be able to
retain their chairs at the Institut. They, too, are being prosecuted for
alleged violation of the Associations Bill.
I think the situation is clear, and that if any Catholics here or
elsewhere still misapprehend the true purport and scope of this law of
1901, their purblindness is no longer admissible.
A COMBES COUP _DE MAIN_
_23rd August, 1902._
The elections of May, 1902, have not improved the situation in France.
No efforts, as I said, however earnest, could now retrieve the political
situation. For twenty-five years the “Grand Orient” has been gathering
into its hands all the threads of power; ministers, presidents, cabinets
are made, unmade, remade, as it suits the well-conceived plans of this
band of sectarian Jacobins, who differ from other Freemasons in that
with them God is both non-existent and _l’ennemi_ to be vanquished,
while at the same time they are strictly a political organization, whose
object is to control the country and conform it to their own image.
The Associations Bill, or to speak more accurately, the law against all
Christian education, was decreed by the lodges in 1877. An abortive
attempt was made to carry it through in 1880. That attempt was
premature, because the “Grand Orient” had not yet gained complete
control over the judiciary. To-day very nearly every part of the
administration is in their power.
People wondered why Waldeck Rousseau resigned immediately after the
elections, which seemed a tribute to the success of his administration.
The reason of this shuffling of the cards is evident. It had been
resolved, as soon as the elections were assured, to make a _coup de
main_, and close, summarily, 3000 primary schools, frequented by
hundreds of thousands of children of the poorer classes, and this a few
weeks before the holidays, without the slightest regard to the fact that
state lay schools were already inadequate, while in many places there
were none but congregational schools.
Now Waldeck Rousseau, speaking for the Government, had most formally
declared that these schools were in no wise affected by the law of 1901
(Associations Bill), and continued to be regulated by the law of 1885 on
primary education. It was by making this solemn declaration that Waldeck
Rousseau obtained votes enough to carry Art. XIII of the Associations
Bill, which is now being flagrantly violated by the closing of these
3000 primary schools.
Many of these schools were conducted by a few Sisters in buildings owned
by private individuals, and the sealing up of these premises was a
distinct violation of property rights. In one instance, the proprietor
resorted to the use of a ladder to go in and out of his house; in
another the local tribunal removed the seals and restored the house to
the owner; but the Government had the premises sealed again. I cannot
say who had the last word, but it is certain that there is open
conflict between the judiciary and the executive. The tribunals have not
yet been sufficiently _épurés_, nor the magistrates sufficiently
_domestiqués_. It is consoling to think that there are still a few
magistrates in France who have not “bowed the kneel to Baal, nor kissed
his image.”
But a complete _épuration_ of the army and of the judiciary is going on.
All the “suspects” are being displaced, from the humblest _garde
champêtre_ to the highest prefect and magistrate. It will then be smooth
sailing for the coalition in power.
The _coup de main_ against the primary schools having been resolved
upon, it is easy to understand how desirable it was that Waldeck
Rousseau should not be on the Ministerial bench to undergo
interpellations and eat his own words. A quondam Seminarist was put in
his place, and bore the brunt of the interpellations. He contented
himself with saying that “M. Waldeck Rousseau had made a
mistake”--_voilà tout!_ The Left meanwhile came to his assistance by
banging their desks and vociferating against the deputies of the Right
and Centre. A free fight was taking place in the hemicycle, when M.
Combes produced the decree, closing the session, and so ended this
disgraceful scene at two o’clock in the morning.
Of course it is pretended by Ministerialists that all these primary
schools of the poor were closed in virtue of Art. XIII of the law of
1901. This is absolutely false. Jules Laroche, a Liberal who cannot
even be suspected of “clericalism,” in his public letter, announcing to
M. Combes an interpellation, expressed himself as follows, quoting M.
Waldeck Rousseau’s own words, consigned in the _Officiel_ of March 19th,
1901:--
“As to the right to open private schools, the Chamber knows that this is
regulated by a special law; a simple declaration is enough, the school
is then under the State Inspector. Art. XIII [Associations Bill] has
absolutely nothing to do with the legislation on education, and the new
law does not touch it at all.”
“Thus spoke Waldeck Rousseau,” continues M. Laroche. “It was on this
formal, categoric, and solemn declaration that we voted Art. XIII. You,
M. le President [Combes], are not applying Art. XIII. You are violating
it, you are transforming the law of 1901 into a trap, and the loyal and
categorical declaration of M. Waldeck Rousseau into the act of a
traitor” (_en œuvre de trahison_).
This is enough for any one who cares to know the truth. It is thus that
the French people are fooled and led on, step by step, to their
destruction.
Nevertheless, many admirers of these sectarian persecutors prefer to
believe that all these primary schools and infant asylums were closed
because they refused to comply with the Associations Bill! Many of these
teachers belonged to amply authorized Congregations. Those of Savoy and
the county of Nice had letters patent from the King of Savoy and
Piedmont, and the treaty of annexation to France, 1860, distinctly
stipulated that the religious congregations and ecclesiastical
properties should never be molested; it was one of the conditions on
which the inhabitants consented to be annexed. Of all this the Third
Republic makes litter.
The amusing part of M. Combes’ _coup de main_ is that his minions even
went around expelling small groups of three to five sisters employed by
the Government in the infirmaries of State Lyceums! In these instances,
however, they neglected to seal up the premises, as they did in the case
of private owners--a fine Jacobin distinction between _mine_ and
_thine_.
The Socialist Mayor of Reims recently took upon himself to laicize the
civil hospital, which, strange to say, had been served uninterruptedly
for two hundred years by a congregation called “Sœurs de l’hôpital,”
whom even the Revolutionists of 1793 had spared.
Ministerial organs like the _Matin_ are now busy assuring the public
that the sick, the blind, the insane, are not all to be cast into the
streets like the children of the poor, until the Government finds time
and money to build schools for them.
If the Congregations devoted to the sick, the maimed, and the blind
could make common cause with the teaching Congregations, if all refused
to demand authorization, which is merely a trap and a noose, the
Government, I think, would be checkmated. But, of course, Christian
charity will not allow them all to go on strike and throw their poor and
sick and halt upon the hands of the Government. It will be their turn
soon, and meanwhile they are holding the clothes of those who stone
Stephen. No concessions, no pliancy on the part of the persecuted, will
disarm or arrest the Government--the “Grand Orient,” I mean.
The final purpose of these Freemasons is to crush out Christianity by
means of anti-religious education of all classes, and have, if possible,
a national, Republican institution, to be known as the Church of France.
It is said that M. Combes is preparing a formula of the oath to be taken
by the clergy of this institution; it is a revival of the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy of 1793, and we may also look for a renewal
of the persecution of the _non-assermentés_ or non-jurors of that epoch.
Decidedly these modern Jacobins have no imagination; all their
proceedings have a twang of ancient history. Read in Taine’s _Ancien
Régime_, “_La conquête Jacobine_,” and it will seem like current
history. You will read how prefects and maires and gens d’armes often
knocked in the dead of night at the doors of peaceful sisters and
ordered them to disperse. At Avignon, recently, the police had to
barricade the streets to prevent thousands of indignant men and women
from manifesting before the Prefecture. Lyons is preparing to resist.
The speech pronounced by the Socialist mayor, M. Augagneur, at the
political banquet on 14th July, would certainly warrant retaliation.