The destruction of the Papacy was considered a means of disrupting the
Catholic Church, not in Italy only. Mazzini, Garibaldi, Crispi, Cavour,
etc., were all fierce republican anarchists; the last thing they wanted
was an Italian monarchy. But they were Freemasons, and the “Order”
imposed its will. An Italian monarchy demanded Rome as its capital,
whereas a republican system would, no doubt, have left the Papacy in its
ancient city. “A schism,” wrote Renan in 1870, “seems to me more than
probable, or rather it already exists; from latent it will become
effective.... It seems to me inevitable that there will soon be two
Popes, and even three.... The schism being made in the papal person, the
decomposition of Catholicism will follow; a quantity of reforms will
then be possible.”
Napoleon III, a dignitary of the order, entered into the plot, and
received Savoy and the county of Nice. Rome was seized 20 September, and
the Franco-Prussian war brought swift and condign punishment on Napoleon
for his complicity.
Simultaneously with the establishment of a monarchy in Italy, the Grand
Orient established a republic in France, always with the same purpose,
the disruption of the Church. During the last four years of residence in
Europe I have repeated in the Press of the United States that
Republicanism is not a form of government here, but the _modus operandi_
of a secret society. The manifesto issued by the Grand Orient (3
November, 1904) is an irrefutable proof of my allegation. It is the most
astounding document ever made public. They evidently consider that
France is a conquered country which can never shake off their
domination. “Without the Freemasons,” says the document, “the Republic
would not exist.” The elaborate spy system they had established at the
Ministry of War is defended on the ground that “the head partner, or
_commanditaire_, of a great industrial enterprise in which he has placed
his capital has the right to denounce to the manager the peculations of
his employees.”
Thus France is an industrial company; the ministers are managers
appointed by the head partner, the Grand Orient! But the most revolting
part of this manifesto is the manner in which the deputies of the “bloc”
are whipped into line like a pack of disorderly hounds under the lash of
their keeper. “We denounce to our lodges and to all masons present and
future the votes of fear, defaillance, cowardice, of a certain
number.... We shall have our eyes on them ... and they will find
themselves treated as they would have treated those to whom they were
bound by interest if not by loyalty.”
The revolutions which have convulsed Spain during the last century, down
to the recent Republican riots in Madrid and Brussels, are all traceable
to the “Order” which issued this manifesto. Among the rioters killed
were Frenchmen. The visit of M. Chaumié, Minister of Public Instruction,
to Italy, and the famous Congrés de Libre Pensée, are all manifestations
of the Grand Orient, which will never rest until it has destroyed the
stability and peace of other Catholic countries, as it has done in
France. When I arrived at Innsbruck in July last, I saw many students
with bandaged heads and arms. An Italian student had knocked the book
out of the German professor’s hand with his cane. This was the origin of
that last riot. What has occurred recently at Innsbruck is far more
serious, and was undoubtedly prepared at Rome in September.[6] A band of
Italian anarchist students were sent to the University of Innsbruck to
cause trouble. One hundred and thirty-eight of them were arrested,
yesterday, with revolvers and other weapons on their persons.
Two years ago I was in Venice when there was a monster international
gathering of students. The Marseillaise and the Hymn of Garibaldi were
vociferated by these thousands on the Place of St. Mark. Why the
national anthems of other nations were not given is clear. The whole was
a Freemason demonstration of the Grand Orient like the Congrès de Libre
Pensée at Rome, presided over by M. Brisson, the President of the French
Chambers.
The revolutionary strikes at Milan, Genoa, Venice, etc., which were made
to coincide with the birth of the heir of the House of Savoy, are
symptomatic. The Grand Orient undoubtedly find that they have been
marking time long enough in Italy. They have not been able to carry
their divorce law there yet.
There is a Socialist party in Italy which is not anarchist and Freemason
as in France, but sincerely desires the good of Italy. One of its
leaders declared, recently, that they would lend their aid even to the
Papacy for the common weal. Between this party and the secret societies
and their henchmen, the position of Victor Emmanuel is not enviable. Ere
long, therefore, we may see the aid of the Pope and of the Catholic
vote, now in abeyance to a great extent, solicited both by the monarchy
and the reforming Socialists.
There is really no insuperable difficulty in reconciling the
independence of the Papacy and the integrity of the Italian kingdom. The
Principality of Monaco has surely never been considered an obstacle to
the integrity of France, nor the Republic of San Marino to that of
Italy. Why should not the Pope be left in peaceful possession of the
Trastevere and the port of Ostia, for instance? There is no difficulty
except with the Grand Orient, this _imperium in imperio_.
All through the centuries, “the Papacy has had to negotiate,
simultaneously, with each of the republican cities of Italy, with
Naples, Germany, France, England, and Spain. They all had contests
(_démêlés_) with the Popes, and these latter always had the advantage”
(Voltaire, _Essai sur les mœurs_, II, 87).
In the same work, page 81, Voltaire relates the Congress held at Venice,
where Barbarossa made his submission. “The Holy Father,” he says,
“exclaimed: ‘God has willed that an aged man and priest triumph without
fighting over a terrible and powerful emperor.’” The triumph over the
machinations of the Grand Orient will be no less striking.
FREEMASONRY
_21st January, 1905._
In these columns (_The Progress_, December 10th, 1904), I referred to
the recently published Manifesto of the Grand Orient of France (November
4th, 1904), defending its attitude with regard to the elaborate spy
system, a veritable _régime des suspects_ which they had established,
not in the War Office only, but in every Department of State. The Press,
both in England and in the United Sates, has been singularly reticent
regarding this most remarkable document, whose authenticity cannot be
gainsaid.
It is, however, the key to the whole politico-religious situation in
France, and more or less in other Catholic countries.
Republicanism in Catholic countries will always be the _modus operandi_
of this secret society in some one or other of its ramifications. The
Carbonari, who engineered all the Italian revolutions in the nineteenth
century, sent their emissary, Orsini, to remind Napoleon III of his
obligations and duties. The gentle reminder was a bomb, and Orsini paid
the death penalty, but not without leaving a letter with certain behests
which were soon complied with. The Italian campaign against Austria was
undertaken ere long.
In the _Evening Post_, November 8th, 1904, I find in a review of Count
Hubner’s _Memoirs_ the following extract: “The Emperor of the French,
placed at the summit of greatness, had forgotten the pledges made in his
youth to those who dispose of the unknown dark powers. Orsini’s bomb
came to remind him. A ray of light suddenly struck his mind. He must
have understood that his former associates never forgot or forgave, and
that their implacable hatred would be appeased only when the renegade
returned to the bosom of the sect.”
An example of the power wielded by these secret societies is the case of
the ex-Minister of Public Instruction in Italy. Prosecuted for
misdemeanour and extensive peculations while in office, the Freemasons
compassed his escape to Geneva. He was condemned by default, when, lo
and behold, he quietly returns to Italy in triumph and is elected
deputy.[7]
Since eight weeks the French papers (non-Ministerial of course) are
daily printing _fiches_ or spy documents stolen from the Grand Orient.
No end of duels and prosecutions for slander have been the result. Nor
were army officers the only victims. Even Monsieur and Madame Loubet
have come in for their share! In some cases the spies of the Grand
Orient have denied the authenticity of these documents. Thereupon M. de
Villeneuve has printed photographed copies of the letters in question.
Brother Bedderide, an advocate of the bar at Marseilles, an active spy
on magistrates and other civil functionaries, has been expelled from the
Order of Advocates. The Grand Orient will no doubt amply compensate him,
for they are as generous to their friends as they are implacable to
their foes.
Read this passage from the Manifesto of the Grand Orient, 4th November,
1904: “All our workshops know the campaign waged against us by the
reaction, nationalist, monarchical, and clerical. They seek to travesty
acts in which we justly glory and thanks to which, we have saved the
Republic. A traitor, a felon, bribed by the Congregations [poor
congregations recently shorn of all] lived in our midst since ten
years.... As sub-secretary he gained the confidence of our very dear
brother Vadecard [Secretary of G. O.] and became the confidant of all
our secrets. He projected to steal from our archives documents confided
to us ... new Judas, he sold them to the irreconcilable enemies of our
brethren. Brother Bidegain is in flight like a malefactor. We signal him
to Masons all over the world. In waiting the just punishment of his
crime, the Council of the Order summons him before masonic justice, and
until the final sentence is rendered, we suspend all his titles and
prerogatives.... And now we declare to the whole Freemason body that in
furnishing these documents [spy denunciations] the Grand Orient has
accomplished only a strict duty. We have dearly conquered the Republic
and claim the honour of having procured its triumph.... Without the
Freemasons the Republic would not be in existence.... Pius X would be
reigning in France.”
Then follows the menace quoted in my last to the tricky, cowardly
deputies who voted against the Government, which was saved by two votes
more than once. The memorable slap administered by M. Syveton to General
André compelled M. Combes to throw the Minister of War overboard, though
the latter protested to the last, “They want my skin, but they shall not
have it.” The Minister of Public Instruction also nearly succumbed. He
declared that if a certain _ordre de jour_ were not voted he would throw
down his portfolio there and then. The votes were not forthcoming but he
clung to his portfolio and contented himself with another _ordre de
jour_.
All the performances at the Palais Bourbon are indeed a most amazing
comedy.
Meanwhile M. Syveton, who negotiated the purchase of the purloined
documents from the Grand Orient, and slapped General André on the
ministers’ bench, got his quietus in a very mysterious way on the very
day on which he was to have retaken his seat in the Chambers (after his
thirty days’ punitive exclusion), and on the eve of his appearance
before the Cours d’Assise for that famous slap. His defence, carefully
prepared by himself, was published in the papers next day. It is a long
incisive arraignment of the Government in imitation of Cicero’s
_Catalina_. All the witnesses, who were to have appeared in his defence,
were also witnesses against the Government. In fact the trial was to
have been a great political manifestation, and the Government had every
interest in its not taking place. Since two weeks public opinion is on
tenter-hooks regarding the death of M. Syveton. It was declared at first
to be a vulgar accident by the Ministerial organs. While M. Jaurès,
strange to say, published in _Humanity_ a most remarkable brief,
establishing clearly the guilt of Madame Syveton, and, still more
strange, the latter did not prosecute him for it. Then the suicide
theory was adopted, and the most odious, baseless, and unproven
calumnies were launched against the memory of the dead man. His widow
even accused him of having stolen funds of the Nationalist party. All
this in order to explain his suicide on the eve of what was expected to
be a great political triumph of the Nationalists, and for which M.
Syveton was preparing with the ardour of a fighter by temperament, just
forty years old.
The autopsy, made before the twenty-four legal hours had elapsed,
revealed seventeen per cent of oxide of carbon in the blood. The lungs,
brain, and viscera, strange to say, were not examined at all, but
placed under seals for eleven days! They are now to be examined.
Meanwhile the last person who must have seen M. Syveton alive, must have
been the emissary of the Government, who, according to custom, served
the writ on the dead man, commanding his presence in court in
twenty-four hours. Who was he, and why was he never heard of again?
No one believes seriously that M. Syveton committed suicide. His father
and brother-in-law have begun a prosecution for murder against X, in
which the Mutual Life is also interested.
As to Brother Bidegain, the traitor, he was at Salonica when last heard
of. His sudden death there was announced; but I think the rumour is
false. It would be very imprudent, coming so soon after the other. But
he will have to make his peace with the G. O. or beware. He cannot be
prosecuted for stealing these documents, as they represent no monetary
value, and, moreover, the Grand Orient has no legal existence or civil
personality. They are said to have millions of _main morte_, but they
simply ignore the Associations Bill.
In conclusion, I hope it will be understood that I do not accuse many
honest Freemasons of England and the United States of being _particeps
criminis_ in all or any of the doings of the Grand Orient, Carbonari,
Mafia, Cimorra, Senuisi, or the secret societies of Islam or in China.
Freemasonry assumes different aspects in different circumstances, but it
is the eternal enemy of militant organized Christianity. It does not
trouble itself with Christianity “divided into many rivulets,” and
consequently harmless, according to the saying of Lord Shaftesbury, who
was of opinion that “England was the country in which Christianity did
the least harm because it was divided into so many rivulets.”
The Catholic Church alone is an enemy worthy of its steel, and wherever
these two foes meet there must be war--latent or overt.
This war is on in France, and must be fought to the finish.
PART SECOND
_October, 1904._
M. Combes, who proclaimed at the Chambers two years ago that he had
taken office only to wage war on Clericalism, enumerated his deeds of
prowess recently in a political speech at Auxerre. Fifteen thousand
scholar establishments, strongholds of the ghostly enemy, had been
demolished! “Gentlemen, you will grant that this is a great deal for a
ministry obliged to fight at every instant for its own existence,” he
exclaimed.
We are now coming to the second part of the Jacobin programme. As I
wrote last year in the _Evening Post_ (June 27th), the true object of
the Revolution in 1790, as to-day, is the destruction of Christianity
and its offspring, Liberty, in order to establish on the ruins of both,
the reign of the Omnipotent Infallible State, before which all must fall
down and worship or disappear. To-day the State is M. Combes and his
“bloc,” a very poor avatar of the Titanic Corsican who measured himself
with all Europe. There was but one force that resisted him, and against
this obstacle M. Combes stumbled when he demanded, peremptorily, that
the Vatican withdraw letters addressed to two bishops needing to be
disciplined. The Holy See was acting in the plenitude of its spiritual
jurisdiction. M. Combes curtly demanded that Pius X send in his
resignation, as “the political system of the Republic consists in the
subordination of all institutions, whatever they may be, to the
supremacy of the State.”
This is the latest phase of a very old struggle which began in the days
of the Apostles. In the history of all the nations of antiquity, the
problem of Church and State and their correlations existed, and was
solved, easily and summarily, by the system proclaimed by M. Combes. The
ruler of each nation was the Pontifex Maximus of his realm. This system,
with its necessary concomitant of national religions, reached its
culminating point in the worship of the “divine Cæsars,” the acme of
human servitude.
Now Christianity was a profound and radical innovation. Never had the
supremacy of the ruler or the State been questioned before the Apostles
proclaimed the Creed in “One Holy Catholic Church,” destined to
transcend all natural and political boundaries, without distinction of
class or colour. Not less radical was the second innovation, a necessary
corollary of the first, viz. the ecclesiastical autonomy and
independence of the new spiritual society or Church, one, Catholic.
“Never,” writes J. B. Martineau, “until the Church arose did faith
undertake the conquest alone, and triumph over diversities of speech and
antipathies of race.”
But Paganism, with its system of state absolutism in spiritual as well
as in temporal matters, has never accepted its defeat by the Catholic
Church, a spiritual, autonomous society, distinct from the State. The
tale of Byzantine heresies, from the fourth to the eighth century, were
all efforts of each successive Emperor of Constantinople to shake off
the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and be again the Pontifex Maximus of
his dominions. The long struggle of the Investitures, the Constitutions
of Clarendon, statutes of Præmunire, State Gallicanism, the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, 1792, Josephism in Austria, the Kultur-Kampf
laws in Germany and Switzerland, 1870-76 were all episodes of this
struggle, between the new dispensation and the ancient system of
national religions under state supremacy. In the sixteenth century there
was a vast renaissance of this latter system in a new dress called
Erastianism. Lord Clarendon declared that this spiritual supremacy of
rulers was “the better moiety of their sovereignty.” The old pagan, or
Erastian system, triumphed in the eastern empire with the Schism of
Photius, in Russia under Peter the Great, in England under Elizabeth, in
all the Protestant States of northern Europe.
The well-defined purpose of the Revolution and of Napoleon, its
heir-at-law, was to establish this system in France. After long and
arduous negotiations the Concordat of 1801 was concluded with Pius VII.
It was a bilateral contract between two sovereignties, the French
Republic, as party of the first part, and the Holy See as party of the
second part. It contains seventeen articles. To these, Napoleon, without
the knowledge of the Pope, added seventy-six articles, and published
both documents, in conjunction, as the law of Germinal l’an X. Great was
the indignation, and loud were the protestations of the party of the
second part, as we may well suppose. Nor is this surprising when we
consider that one of these “organic articles” (24th) requires that all
professors in ecclesiastical seminaries shall “submit to teach the
doctrine of the Declaration of 1682, and the bishops shall send act of
this submission to the Council of State.” In other words, the Catholic
Church in France was to turn Protestant. Even Louis XIV, who had had
this famous Declaration drawn up to spite Pope Innocent, who alone in
Europe had dared to oppose him, never exacted that it should be taught,
and had practically suppressed it before he died. Since the Council of
the Vatican the subscribing to and teaching the Declaration of 1682
would be an act of formal heresy and apostasy. The fifty-sixth of the
organic articles renders obligatory the use of the Republican calendar
to the exclusion of the Gregorian. There are other articles equally
absurd, which have never been observed.
Now M. Combes declares that “in deliberately separating the diplomatic
convention (Concordat) from the organic articles, Pius VII and his
successors have destroyed its efficacy.” Napoleon himself understood
this and, for seven years, he held Pius VII a close prisoner, hoping to
break his spirit and wring from him another Concordat which would be an
abdication. Fortunately, the tide of war turned against Napoleon, and
the new Concordat was never ratified. M. Combes recognizes that no
Government since a century has been able to enforce the “organic
articles,” and that the only course left is “divorce,” and by this
unstatesmanlike term he means the repudiation of thirty or forty million
francs of the national debt. The payment in perpetuity of suitable
subsidies to the Catholic clergy is stipulated for by Article 14 of the
Concordat. It is a _quid pro quo_ of Article 13, by which the Holy See
consented to give a clear title to all the Church property confiscated
by the Revolution. The payment of these subsidies was inscribed on the
national debt by the spoliators themselves, the Conventionals of 1792,
and it was solemnly recognized as part of this debt in 1816, 1828, 1830,
and 1848. The salaries paid to Jewish and Protestant clergymen are
purely gratuitous. Their property was not stolen by the Revolution in
1792. They had no part in the Concordat.
But the projected spoliation of the Catholic clergy is a mere detail,
and would be an insignificant ransom, if at this price the French
Catholics could have liberty such as we enjoy in England and the United
States. “Separation” means strangulation in Jacobin parlance. They would
infinitely prefer Erastianism. But the defection of the Bishops of Dijon
and Laval, on whom they counted, and the spontaneous and unanimous
adhesion of the episcopate to the Holy See, which provoked the thunders
of M. Combes against the Vatican in July, have shown the impossibility
of a schism. It was tried for four years a century ago and failed. The
“Separation” plan was also tried in 1795 for two or three years, and was
an epoch of virulent persecution. History will repeat itself, though not
exactly in the same words.
ALCOHOLISM IN FRANCE
_July 10th, 1905._
The Chambers continue the discussion of the Bill of alleged separation
in a perfunctory, apathetic way, and it is curious that M. Rouvier, the
successor of M. Combes, has never once condescended to speak or even to
be present at these sessions.
The utter lack of interest in these debates is misinterpreted to mean
indifference on the part of the French public. This is not correct. It
is, as I have often repeated, the great misfortune of France that people
will not concern themselves with politics, and they only begin to
interest themselves in a law when it is applied.
Even I, who have followed the phases of the religious persecution with
keen interest since four or five years, can hardly wade through these
tedious, irksome columns, in which ambiguity reigns supreme. Even M.
Briand, the reporter of the law and spokesman of the Government, being
questioned closely as to the sense of certain passages, replied “It is”
and “It is not” in the same breath. He is evidently of the opinion that
language is a convenient means of disguising thought.
This Bill is, I repeat, a law of guile, spoliation, and tyranny from
first to last. There is a general impression that it will never be
executed entirely. They will content themselves with spoliation, for the
present at least. It is hard to persuade a people who have had religious
worship gratis for fifteen centuries, that they must now pay for the
privilege of attending Mass, while their Government subsidizes opera
dancers and singers, of whose services not one in a million ever avails
himself.
While the Socialist majority, or _bloc_, are revelling over perspective
spoliation and sacrilegious confiscations, the handwriting on the wall
is dimly perceived. The enemy is at the gates--nay, within the
walls--while legislators are discussing “with what sauce they will eat
the curés,” though they have not yet digested their copious repast of
congregations.