The Third Republic.
The Second Empire, especially during its last ten years, had proven
itself no less hostile and treacherous to the Church than had many of
its predecessors. This was evident most of all in the unworthy treatment
of the Holy See during its trying conflict with the revolutionists of
Italy. France had encouraged the spoliation of the Papal States by the
forces of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel, and in 1870 it was forced to
abandon Rome to the Italian Unionists. Before this last act had been
consummated, however, a revolution broke out in France, September 4,
1870, and overturned the imperial Government.
[Illustration: FATHER OLIVAINT, S. J., and OTHER MARTYRS OF THE
COMMUNE.]
The new republic was born in the midst of war and confusion. The
Prussians were already displaying admirable vigor and activity, and the
cause of France was trembling in the balance. A provisory government was
established, entitled the Government of the National Defence. During the
five and a half months of its life the National Defence held its
sessions in Paris, then surrounded by the besieging forces of the enemy.
In the meantime the French armies met with one defeat after another.
Paris itself capitulated on Jan. 29, 1871. Preliminaries of peace were
signed that day at Versailles and confirmed by the Treaty of Frankfort
on May 10 of the same year. After the capitulation of Paris a general
election was held to provide representatives to a national Assembly.
This Assembly met at Bordeaux and named Adolph Thiers, Chief of the
Executive of the French Republic. On August 31 of the same year, 1871,
Thiers was elected President of the Republic. The presidents thence to
the present time were: Marshal MacMahon, from May 24, 1873 to 1879;
Jules Grevy, from January 30, 1879 to December, 1887; Sadi Carnot, from
December 3, 1887, to his assassination in June, 1894; Casimir Perier,
from June 27, 1894, to January, 1895; Felix Faure, from January 17,
1895, to his death, Feb. 16, 1899; Loubet, from Feb. 18, 1899, to
February, 1906; Fallieres, at present holding that office.
_THE COMMUNE._
It was while the Prussian army was yet encamped near Paris, during the
months of March, April and May of 1871, that the Commune held its sway.
At the very moment when France was bleeding from a thousand wounds, the
International, taking advantage of the circumstances, and aided by
150,000 of the National Guard, took possession of Paris and ruled the
city with a high hand. On March 18 the Assembly fled to Versailles,
leaving the place in the hands of the insurgents. On the 26th a species
of election was held which surrendered the destinies of the Capital to
the Commune. It numbered among its members fifty-four Jacobins,
Blanquists and Hebertists, out of a total of seventy-nine. It was an
assembly of Internationalists indeed. During the two months that
followed, from March 18 to May 26, nothing was done without the
approbation or intervention of the International.
[Illustration: ABBE DEGUERRY. A Martyr of the Commune.]
Socialists of a later date, in their shame over the excesses of their
party, have endeavored to excuse their actions; but the cold facts of
history stand unshaken to condemn them, and to point out the sort of
destiny to which practical socialism must inevitably lead.
The Commune was an orgy of dissipation. Its officials, to compensate
themselves for their services, sat down to banquets worthy of
Sardanapalus, where there was no lack of the wines of Beaune and Macon,
nor of litres of cognac, nor of routs unmentionable. The simple National
Guards gorged themselves with wine and alcohol, while the common people
looked on and howled their approbation and applause. There were women in
their ranks, dressed as men, who feared neither sword nor rifle, and to
whom in their unsexed condition the horrors of bloodshed and
conflagration acted as intoxicating draughts of burning absinthe.
The Commune was above all an explosion of rage against religion and the
middle classes. All who in any way represented religion or the social
order--priests, magistrates, soldiers, police--were arrested and cast
into prison as "hostages." The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Darboy; M.
Bonjean, President of the Tribunal; M. Deguerry, Pastor of the
Madeleine; the Jesuits; the Fathers of Picpus; the Dominicans; the
Sulpicians, and other priests, besides an entire convent of religious
women, were confined in the various jails of the city. The Commune
imprisoned about 5000 persons, both lay and clerical. At the same time
it laid hands upon the property of the churches, sacked the Archbishop's
palace, and turned the churches to sacrilegious and scandalous uses.
Feeling at length that its victory could only be short-lived, and that
Paris must soon fall before the army of MacMahon, surrounding it from
without, the Commune began its campaign of destruction of the city
itself. Vast quantities of petroleum were procured, and tons of
gun-powder were made the instruments for furthering this end. On the
night of May 21, the army of Versailles made a breach in the walls, the
savage instincts of the mob were loosened and the "bloody week" began.
Cluseret, the International, had already written: "It is we, or
nothing! Paris will be ours, or it will cease to exist." The Commune
accomplished as much as it could of this sinister programme.
[Illustration: ADOLF THIERS. First President of French Republic.]
As the army of Versailles advanced, the Communards applied the torch to
every monument of note that came in their way.
During the 23rd of May petroleum was poured upon the Tuileries, and all
along the Rue de Lille. Toward the end of the day the buildings on the
Rue Royale and the Rue Saint-Honore were burning. The Court of Accounts,
the Legion of Honor, the Council of State, the Barracks, went down one
by one. The next day the flames attacked the Prefecture of Police, the
City Hall, the Custom House, the Archives and other buildings. How far
the fury of the Communards might have gone toward the complete
destruction of Paris cannot be said; it was a fortunate circumstance
which saved from their torches the Louvre with its treasures of art, and
the great Church of Notre Dame.
When it was not possible to employ fire, the artillery was called into
action. The batteries of Pere-Lachaise poured shot and shell against the
dome of St. Augustine's, the bourse, the post-office, and other
prominent edifices. Murder accompanied the horrors of fire. Men were
shot down in the open street, or stabbed in the shadows of dark alleys.
Six hostages, among them Mgr. Darboy and M. Bonjean fell at La Roquette.
Fifteen priests and religious sustained on that day the agonies that
make martyrs, pierced with bullets, transfixed by bayonets, and beaten
to death by the blows of a savage mob. With them a number of laymen fell
victims to hatred on that fateful 25th of May, 1871.
[Illustration: JULES FERRY.]
While all Europe felt a thrill of horror at these cowardly and brutal
deeds, socialism seized the occasion to chant the praises of the
Commune. Its principal organ, the _Vorbote_, calls it a revolution
"which the socialist democracy of the whole world ought to hail with
enthusiasm," "which is only an episode in the social revolution." "The
Commune is dead," it cried, "Long live the Commune!"
_ANTI-CLERICALISM._
It is not surprising that a Government born under such auspices should
prove very unfavorable to the cause of religious and social freedom. The
first promptings of war against the Church had sounded in the very first
moments of the Third Republic. Its actual declaration and acts of
hostility required a preparation of several years. It was on May 4,
1877, that M. Gambetta terminated his vehement assault upon the Catholic
Church in the Chamber of Deputies with those words which have become
famous: "Our enemy is clericalism!" In spite of the protest uttered by
the Count de Mun, the Chamber acquiesced silently in the charge and
thereby betrayed its evident purpose of antagonizing the Church. The
administration of President MacMahon proving unfavorable to
anti-religious sectarianism, it was determined to compel the hero of so
many battles to resign--a consummation that was finally effected in
January, 1879.
_THE CAMPAIGN OF JULES FERRY._
The following election placed Jules Grevy in the chair, with Jules Ferry
as Minister of Public Instruction. The latter, one of the most acrobatic
and unscrupulous demagogues of the century, would have courted the favor
of the Catholic party had it been dominant at the time; but his
ambition for power and notoriety led him to the side he found most
opportune. His zeal against the Church was increased by the competition
of such rivals as Gambetta, Brisson and Paul Bert, all worthy apostles
in the cause of de-christianization. The law of laicisation constitutes
the culminating point in the life of Jules Ferry.
This law was not of recent origin; it had already been proposed in 1876,
by the extreme Left. Paul Bert was then one of its most enthusiastic
exponents. It is a law that denies to French Catholics the most
essential liberties.
It required the elimination of the religious element in the Superior
Council of Public Instruction, the reservation to the State of the
monopoly of degrees, the suppression of mixed juries,--established by
the law of 1875 in regard to higher education,--the suppression of
university rights for every Catholic establishment of superior
education, and, finally, it asserted that every member of a Congregation
not authorized should be held incapable of participating in any
instruction public or private. In a word, it made the Catholic an
outcast in the domain of education.
The discussion upon the law took place in the Chamber from June 16 to
July 9, 1879. During this time the high lodges of Masonry hoped to
diminish in the eyes of Catholics the importance of this law. But the
Catholic Press did its duty; the question was placed in its proper
light, public attention was awakened, and the contest promised to become
warm. It became especially bitter when the discussions touched upon the
Congregations. Jules Ferry had inserted in the bill, under Article VII.,
the words: "No one shall be permitted to participate in instruction,
whether public or private, or to direct an establishment of instruction,
of whatever order it may be, who belongs to a Congregation not
authorized."
These few lines awakened the Catholics of the country, and with them the
more honest republicans. To declare an immense category of French
citizens incapable of teaching, in spite of the fact that they held
diplomas, and that only because they pleased to live in community,
constituted the most evident violation of justice and equality.
A cry of protest went up from every side. Jules Ferry, realizing that he
was playing his highest stakes, and urged on by his brethren, struggled
desperately for his _Article_. Moreover, all the Masonic lodges had
entered into the contest; every morning the irreligious journals,
denounced the Congregations as the great peril of the nation. Political
questions, both foreign and domestic, seemed to have no more interest;
the military reorganization of Germany was forgotten; all attention was
concentrated upon the Congregations, the members of which were
themselves astonished at the importance given to them by their
adversaries; even in the tribune it was considered proper to discuss
cases of conscience selected from old volumes of Jesuit theologians.
Nevertheless, despite the mobilization of all the forces of irreligion,
despite the explosion of the most unbridled anger that was ever seen
since the Revolution, despite the personal intervention of De Freycinet
at the Luxembourg the Senate, influenced by more than 1,800,000 protests
from heads of families, vetoed _Article VII_. Jules Ferry was defeated,
and every one imagined his defeat to be definitive.
[Illustration: JULES GREVY.]
The worthy Minister of Public Instruction revised his tactics. Repulsed
in one method of action, he knew how to gain his end by other and more
decisive ways. On March 27, 1880, in concert with his friends of the
Cabinet, he induced the President to affix his signature to the famous
decrees of expulsion. In virtue of these decrees, which were launched
under the pretence of "existing laws," thousands of religious were
expelled from their convents--with what violence, and in the midst of
what protestations and tragic incidents, it would take too long to tell.
When the decrees were made known to the Pope Leo XIII., on March 31, the
Holy Father replied to M. Desprez, then ambassador of France to the Holy
See:
The Church, which seeks the salvation of souls, has no more
ardent desire than to preserve peace with those who govern
public affairs, and to strengthen that peace among peoples.
At the same time, the Church never changes. We are plunged in
grief to learn that it is intended to adopt certain measures
in regard to the religious Congregations. In the eyes of the
Holy See the Congregations are all of equal value. Our heart
is torn with the profoundest sorrow to learn that they have
become the butt of a hostile power, and it is our duty to
raise our voice to protest in their favor.
Still later, in writing to Cardinal Guibert, the Holy Father said:
As soon as the expulsion of the Company of Jesus was ordered,
we have directed our Nuncio in Paris to bear our
remonstrances to the members of the government of the
Republic, and to represent to them the injustice of this
treatment accorded to men of virtue, of devotion, and of
recognized and approved learning. But, as the remonstrances
formulated by our Nuncio have been fruitless, we were on the
point of raising our Apostolic voice, as it was our right and
our duty to do, when it was represented to us that there was
a chance of arresting the execution of the decrees.
This last resource, which M. de Freycinet proposed to the Holy Father,
was to obtain from the Congregations not yet stricken the written
declaration that they were not hostile to the political institutions of
France. Following the guidance of Cardinals Guibert and Bonnechose, and
counselled by the Holy Father, the Congregations appended their
signatures to the declaration. The action of M. Freycinet only aroused
the anger of the Masons, whose adherents in the Cabinet met the
declaration and destroyed it as soon as presented. Freycinet was not
long in meeting summary punishment from the sectaries. On the day
following the presentation of the declaration he was forced to resign
his portfolio.
_EXPULSION OF RELIGIOUS._
In October, 1880, the expulsions began. The residences and colleges of
the Jesuits and other Congregations were entered and their occupants
driven out. Very often the military were called upon to enforce the
decrees. It was to no purpose that the Catholics of the nation lifted up
their voices in angry protest, or that bishops--like Mgr. Gay and Mgr.
de Cabrieres--clothed in their pontifical vestments, uttered sentence of
excommunication against the despoilers. The rout went on with
ever-increasing ardor. It is to the credit of the French bar of the time
that it refused to concur in the shameful acts. M. Chesnelong, in 1891,
writes: "After the decrees of March 29, 1880, more than three hundred
magistrates abandoned their career rather than sacrifice the least
particle of their honor; these heroes of duty displayed a magnificent
spirit of sacrifice to the very end."
Against the Congregations not attainted by the decrees, recourse was had
to tactics slower but more perfidious. They were rounded up in a
pitiless circle of taxes and assessments to such an extent as to rob the
Congregations of one-fifth of their net revenues.
Once more the Holy Father sent forth his vigorous protestations. In an
open letter to Cardinal Guibert of Paris, dated October 22, 1880, after
reviewing the situation he writes: "But today, in the midst of these new
disasters, our emotion is great, our anguish is extreme; and we cannot
help but grieve and protest against the injury done to the Catholic
Church." The great Pope ended by declaring that "in the presence of this
license, the duties of his office commanded him to safeguard with
invincible constancy the institutions of the Church, and to defend her
rights with a courage that would not end at any peril." Following this
letter of the Sovereign Pontiff the Apostolic Nuncio, Mgr. Czacki,
proceeded in a few weeks, November 25, to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and placed before him a ministerial declaration of November 9,
which glorified in having dispersed two hundred and sixty-one
non-authorized establishments, together with a note protesting against
these avowed and cowardly persecutions.
The word, however, had gone forth to pursue the Church and her influence
wherever they should appear, in any form. During the ten following years
a veritable fury of laicisation and de-christianization was let loose.
Catholicity was hunted down in every section of the social organization.
The laws were penetrated more and more with an irreligious spirit. In
the army the chaplaincies were disorganized. (Law of July 8, 1880) the
military Mass was suppressed, and the troops were forbidden to take
part--as a body--in any religious ceremonies (Ministerial circulars of
December 7 and 29, 1883), nor were they permitted even to enter a
Catholic Church in a body (Decree October 23, 1883); moreover, numerous
Catholic military associations were closed upon the slightest pretext.
In the Courts the usual prayers at the opening of judicial proceedings
were either suppressed or declared optional (May 23, 1884); the
members of the bar were forbidden to assist in a body at religious
processions (May 23, 1880). In the matter of education the bishops and
clergy were excluded from the Superior Council of Public Instruction.
Before 1880 the episcopate had been represented in this Council by four
of its members. Since that date the representatives of private education
held four seats out of sixty; but a priest has never been admitted.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT SADI CARNOT.]
In the matter of higher education, the faculties of Catholic theology in
the Sorbonne were suppressed (Budget of 1885), while the Protestant
faculties have been maintained. In secondary education, religious
instruction was made optional (December 21, 1881). In primary education
a law of March 28, 1882, interdicted anyone from teaching the catechism
in the local schools. In the prisons the religious services were notably
reduced. In the hospitals of many cities the Sisters were driven out
despite protestations of all kinds; moreover, no priest was henceforth
to be placed upon the administrative commissions of the hospitals (April
5, 1879). The cures were also driven from the bureau of charity (April
5, 1879). The exterior ceremonies of religion were forbidden in the
streets and religious monuments proscribed. In the cemeteries
non-Catholics were to be admitted to burial side by side with Catholics
(November 15, 1881.) In the churches, the mayor of the town was to have
a key, could order the church bells to be rung, and exercise police
supervision within the church limits, in contradiction to Article XV.,
of the Concordat. In the workshops and factories the law of Sunday rest
was abrogated (1880.) In private houses, no private chapels might be
maintained. In the family, the law of divorce was felt (July 27, 1884.)
In May, 1893, this law was so transformed that a mere separation lasting
three years could then, on the demand of one of the parties, be
changed into absolute divorce. Civil contracts were elevated to a
position of honor. The laws stood at the bedside of the dying to prevent
the making of pious legacies; in the cemeteries civil funerals were
permitted with attendant anti-religious manifestations, and the new
practice of cremation.
[Illustration: CASIMER PERIER.]
The laws oppressed the consciences of the people by the pressure
constantly exercised and the menace held over the heads of functionaries
culpable of confiding their children to Christian teachers, of taking
part in Catholic works, or of simply performing their religious duties.
State officials were spied upon, denounced, reprimanded, and disgraced
because they endeavored to reconcile the accomplishment of their duties
to the State with the open practice of their religious obligations.
In the matter of schools the laws were especially unreasonable. In 1880,
lyceums were opened for young girls in order to transform their Catholic
spirit. In October 30, 1886, a law was voted declaring that thenceforth
all Congregation teachers, male and female, should be excluded from all
public schools, primary and maternal. In schools for boys the law was
executed promptly, and their personal administrations were completely
laicised before October, 1891. The schools for girls were subjected to
the change more gradually but none the less effectively. By the law of
March 28, 1882, priests were excluded from the schools. In November,
1882, it was forbidden to display any longer the crucifix, which was
thereupon taken down from the walls and cast, in many cases, into the
filth of the sewers.
Other laws attainted the salaries of the clergy. In 1886 that of the
bishops was reduced by one-third, and that of the archbishops by
one-fourth. The salaries of canons were gradually extinguished
altogether, as were also those of many curacies and assistants. The
same method of reduction was brought to bear upon the allowances for
seminaries; the towns were released from the obligation of repairing
churches and religious establishments of charity. From 1876 to 1893, the
budget for religious worship was reduced from 53,727,925 to 42,560,000
francs, or more than 11,000,000.
Still other laws affected the work of the bishops in the administration
of their dioceses. In 1892, the Archbishop of Rheims was condemned for
having taught the Catholic doctrine of marriage, and the Bishop of Lucon
for defending the rights of the Pope. Other bishops were prosecuted for
instructing the faithful in regard to their duty in the elections. In
1889, a law was framed imposing on all religious without exception the
obligation of serving three years in the army. Its object was evidently
to destroy the spirit of the priesthood in the hearts of young men, an
object, however, which happily failed of its realization.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT FELIX FAURE.]
In the midst of all these exasperating infractions of religious liberty,
the Catholic people of France were constantly consoled by the deep and
abiding interest manifested by the Holy Father. In 1884, he addressed to
them his celebrated encyclical _Nobilissima Gallorum gens_, an effusion
of fatherly tenderness towards a noble daughter of the Church. In a
magnificent word-picture he spoke of the past grandeur of France, he
deplored her present evils, and he pointed out, as an efficacious
remedy, a cordial understanding and necessary concord between Church and
State. This understanding the Concordat of 1801 had cemented for the
happiness and prosperity of a country which was then at the height of
its power. And it was still to the Concordat not mutilated and denatured
in its letter and spirit, but loyally interpreted and honestly executed
that recourse must be had for the re-establishment of union and peace.
At the same time he warned the bishops that they should give no occasion
for a suspicion of hostility to the Republic: "Nemo jure criminabitur
vos constitutae reipublicae adversari." The same sentiments, calling for
close union among Catholics in a Catholic State, were reiterated in his
letter to the Bishop of Perigueux, and in his encyclicals, _Immortale
Dei_ of November 19, 1885, in his _Libertas_, June 20, 1888, and still
more in the encyclical, _Sapientiae Christianae_, January 10, 1890, all
of which while defending the glory and rights of the French Catholics,
instructed them in the duties and methods of unity among themselves, and
of loyalty to the Republic.
_CATHOLICS AND THE REPUBLIC._
The enemies of the Church, who during former periods had rested the
defence of their persecutions upon the doctrines and internal life of
Catholics, began during the period of the Third Republic to have
recourse to tactics more effective among a people to whom republican
liberty appeared the consummation of all national well-being. The
Government no longer dared to touch upon the religion of the soul; it
perceived clearly that dogmas and the internal rules of morality were
beyond the scope of civil legislation. In its new war upon religion it
invoked against the Church reasons of State, and interests of a
political order. Comprehending as they did that the French people were
attached to republican institutions, the party of persecution endeavored
to represent the Catholics as the enemies of the republican Government
while they would identify their own cause with that of the established
power.
The Catholics were accused of political ends in all their actions, and
their zeal in defending the spiritual order was transformed into a
greedy desire for exclusive advancement in things temporal. Hence the
Government, menaced by the plots and schemes of Catholics, was obliged
to defend itself, and to adopt the most effective measures for
destroying Catholic conspiracy. These insinuations were constantly
injected into the masses by anti-Christian journals, orators, and
demagogues, whose perpetual cry was that the Church is the enemy of the
State, of civil authority, of modern society and of intellectual
progress, all of which were by them comprehended in the term "Republic."
[Illustration: PAUL BERT.]
The tactics in themselves are not historically new. You find them
mentioned in the Gospel as employed by the Jews in their false testimony
against Christ when they represented Him as a disturber of the people,
as one who would forbid the tribute to Caesar, as one who called
Himself a King. For whosoever maketh himself a king is an enemy to
Caesar. Later still, the pagans in their envy of the Christians, called
them "useless beings, dangerous and factious citizens, the enemies of
the Empire and of the Emperors."
The same complaints and the same bitterness are renewed more
or less in the succeeding centuries as often as there are
governments unreasonably jealous of their power, and animated
with intentions hostile to the Church. They always know how
to put before the public the pretext of pretended usurpations
of the Church over the State, in order to furnish the State
with the appearance of right in its encroachments and
violence toward the Catholic religion. (Encyclical of Leo
XIII. to the Catholics of France, Feb. 16, 1892.)
There were not wanting apologists to place the true position of
Catholics before the nation. Thus Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris,
in his letter addressed to the President of the Republic, March 30,
1886, declared:
No, the clergy never had, and has not today any spirit of
hostility toward existing institutions.... If the Republic
accepted the obligation, binding on all governments, of
respecting the faith and worship of the vast majority of our
country, it would find nothing in the doctrine of the Church,
nor in her traditions, which would justify in a priest a
sentiment of mistrust or opposition.... Monsieur le
President, I appeal to your intelligence and your
impartiality.... The Catholic clergy has made no opposition
to the Government which rules France, but the Government for
six years has not ceased to persecute the clergy, to weaken
Christian institutions, and to prepare the abolition of
religion itself.
So also spoke Mgr. Freppel, the bishop-deputy, in a discussion held in
the Chamber, December 12, 1891:
It is evident that the President of the Council (M. de
Freycinet) believes in a hostile attitude of the clergy
towards the Republic. That hostile attitude I deny formally.
Already, on a former occasion, I was not afraid, from the
height of this tribune, to defy our adversaries to produce
one single pastoral letter in which a member of the clergy
shows himself in favor of the monarchy against the Republic.
That challenge has remained unanswered. For, Monsieur
President, to simply demand the modification of certain laws
as unjust or anti-religious is not sufficient to merit even
for an instant the epithet of an enemy to the Republic. We
are certainly allowed to form a different conception of the
Republic than yours; that is the right of every one. It is
certainly permissible not to identify in principle the
republican idea or form with atheism, anti-Christianism, or
Freemasonry. One may combat these errors or these
institutions without having thereby an attitude hostile to
the Republic itself. All that you have the right to exact is
that in no pastoral writing and by no pastoral act shall a
member of the clergy pronounce against the actual form of the
Government.
The French cardinals, January 16, 1892, presented the same ideas:
To resume: respect for the laws of the country, where they do
not conflict with the exigencies of conscience; respect for
the representatives of power; the frank and loyal acceptation
of political institutions; but, at the same time, a firm
resistance to the encroachments of the secular power upon the
spiritual domain ... such are the duties which, at the
present hour, are imposed upon the conscience and patriotism
of the French Catholics.
_POPE LEO XIII. AND THE REPUBLIC._
It is sufficiently evident that all these declarations were in perfect
conformity with the instructions of the Holy See; yet, that there might
be no doubt as to the authoritative teaching of the Church in that
matter, the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., addressed on February 16, 1892,
an encyclical letter to the Catholics of France, wherein he pointed out
the basis and conditions of a possible peace--provided it was sincerely
wished for--between Catholicism and the republican Government.
[Illustration: GAMBETTA.]
After denouncing the "vast plot which certain men have formed to
annihilate Christianity in France, and the animosity they display in
striving to realize their design," he proceeds:
The Church, in her relations with the political powers,
abstracts from the forms which differentiate them, in order
to treat with them upon the great religious interests of
peoples, knowing that to her belongs the duty of teaching
them above every other interest. If each political form is
good in itself, and can be applied to the government of
peoples, the fact is that it does not encounter the political
power under the same form among all peoples; each possesses
its own. That form arises from the ensemble of circumstances,
historical or national, but always human, which give rise in
a nation to traditional or even fundamental laws, and through
these is determined the particular form of government, the
basis of transmission of supreme powers. It is useless to
repeat that all individuals are bound to accept such
governments, and to attempt in no way to overturn them or to
change their form. Thence it is that the Church, the guardian
of the truest and loftiest notion of political sovereignty,
since she derives it from God, has always reproved the
doctrines and condemned the men rebellious to legitimate
authority. And that in times when the depositaries of power
used it only to abuse her, thus depriving themselves of the
most powerful support of their authority, and of the most
efficacious means of popular obedience to their laws.
But a difficulty presents itself: "This Republic," it may be
said, "is animated by sentiments so anti-Christian that
honest men, and above all Catholics, cannot conscientiously
accept it." This it is which has given rise to dissensions
and aggravated them. These unfortunate divergences would be
avoided if one would only take into account the considerable
distinction between Constituted powers and Legislation....
Practically the quality of the laws depends more upon the
quality of the men invested with power than upon the form of
the power.... One can never approve of points of legislation
which are hostile to Religion and to God; on the contrary it
is a duty to reprove them.
[Illustration: CHARLES DE FREYCINET.]
The Holy Father thus makes it plain that the Church, and Catholics as
Catholics, are not opposed to existing governments, nor are they _in
principle_ opposed to the legislation of such governments, as long as
such legislation is not hostile to God and religion. When hostility of
this kind is found in legislation, it is the duty of Catholics to oppose
it and to strive to obtain a better law. The form of power remains the
same, and the Catholic people are held by their principles to support it
loyally.
These declarations coming from so many and such authoritative sources
had their effect upon the common sense of the French people. The spirit
of hostility to Catholicity and its institutions began to show a marked
diminution. This was evidenced most of all in the very abiding place of
former anti-Christianism, the French Chamber of Deputies. On March 3,
1894, M. Spuller, a disciple of Gambetta, and the man who had introduced
the famous Article VII. in 1879, made the following significant
declarations in the Chamber of that day:
When the Republic had to struggle against the coalition of
the old parties, when the Church served as a bond for all
these old parties, I followed at that time the policy exacted
by the circumstances, and which the supreme interest of the
Republic commanded.... But does that mean that I ought to
close my eyes to what is taking place today? Does it mean
that those religious struggles which I once deplored and
which I deplore still, which I proclaim a danger that ought
to be avoided, a peril that it is to the interest of all of
us to dissipate, does it mean that I did not deplore them
even at the time I took so ardent a part in them? No,
gentlemen, and if it were necessary for me today to summon
what I consider the most precious of testimonies, because it
is that of a conscience which has never weakened, I would
address myself to my honorable and dear friend, M. Brisson; I
would ask him to recall what he said to me himself in an
intimate conversation, namely, that the struggle against
clericalism, rendered necessary by the political action of
the Church, is that which has done the most harm to the
Republic, and has put back her triumph for ten or rather
fifteen years.
Very well, gentlemen, I believe with the profoundest
conviction, that after twenty-five years of existence, after
the proofs which the Republic has given of her resistance and
vitality, this struggle ought, if not to cease altogether, at
least to take on a different character.... I declare that now
the Church, instead of serving as the support of the
monarchical parties, has cast herself into the arms of the
democracy. I declare that by this movement the Church will
draw you perhaps, you republicans, further than you would
wish to go, for if you do not take care she will regain over
the masses the influence which you have lost. That is why I
consider that we ought not to abandon any of our old
traditions in our incessant struggles for the benefit of
secular and civil society; but at the same time I believe
that a new spirit ought to animate our democracy and those
who represent it.
Here the speaker began to be interrupted, thus:
_Voices from the Left:_ "What new spirit?"
_M. Spuller:_ "I will explain.... The new spirit is this: instead of a
mean, vexatious and exasperating war...." (Protests from the Extreme
Left--Applause from the Centre).
_M. Rene Boblet:_ "Whom are you accusing of carrying on this
exasperating war?"
_M. Camille Pelletan:_ "You insult the memory of Ferry."
_M. Spuller:_ "If you permit me, gentlemen, I will say that it is I
myself whom I accuse at the present moment, so that nobody can be
offended."
_M. Millerand:_ "That is a _mea culpa_."
_M. Spuller:_ "Precisely, but all your _finesse_, all your casuistry
will not prevent the country from understanding my words."
_M. Chauvin:_ "The country will understand that the Government has
become clerical."
M. Spuller replied:
I shall certainly be understood without, and when I assert
that in a new situation we have need of a new policy, a new
spirit, I am sure of being understood by everyone who is not
blinded by his passions. That new spirit of which I speak, I
do not wish you to think it ought under any pretext to be a
spirit of weakness, of condescension, of abandonment, of
abdication; on the contrary it ought to be a lofty and large
spirit of tolerance, of intellectual and moral renovation,
altogether different from that which has prevailed
heretofore. Such is my profound conviction.... Yes,
gentlemen, and mark it well the Church must not any longer
pretend, as she has so long contended, that she is
tyrannized, persecuted, hunted, shut out and kept out of the
social life of the country.
I will say to M. Goblet, who has done me the honor of
interrupting me, and of crying out as they cry out to me in
the public reunions: "Confess that you are with the Pope;" I
will say to him that it would be no more unworthy of me than
of him to recognize in the present Pope a man who merits the
grandest respect, because he is invested with the highest
moral authority.
These words, in the very Chamber itself, and uttered by a man who
professed himself bound by no religion, found many echoes in the same
quarter. Not the least important and significant were those of M.
Casimir Perier, President of the Council. The Government had spoken its
_mea culpa_ with full consciousness of its fault.
There was another cause also which at this time awoke the country to the
necessity of that moral teaching which only the Church can afford.
Socialism in its rankest form had begun a campaign of assassination and
terror which struck all hearts with consternation. The noise of
anarchistic bombs was heard from one end to the other of France. In
1892, it was those of Ravachol and his accomplices; on December 3, 1893,
Vaillant exploded a bomb in the Chamber of Deputies; Emile Henri cast
another in the cafe of the Hotel Terminus on February 12, 1894; there
was another in the Rue Saint-Jaques on February 20, 1894, and another in
the Church of the Madeleine on March 15. These evidences of a social
derangement recalled the necessity of religion with its moral power.
This was all the more accentuated when on June 24, 1894, in revenge for
the death of the anarchist, Henri, an Italian assassinated M. Sadi
Carnot, President of the Republic, at Lyons. The result of the
reflections aroused by these revolting crimes was the election on June
27, 1894, of that Casimir Perier who had joined M. Spuller in his demand
for tolerance toward the Church.
It was under the comparative mildness of the rule thus inaugurated that
the Catholics of the country could begin to breathe a little the air of
freedom. From 1894 to 1900, the beneficent works of the Church made
progress; her schools and colleges were filled; the religious orders,
dispossessed in 1880, began to rebuild their houses, open their chapels,
and to undertake publicly the direction of houses of education.
Throughout the whole French Church a development was noticeable, to the
great comfort of many who had groaned for fifteen years under the iron
yoke of anti-Christian legislation.
_SPIRIT OF CONCILIATION._
Through the efforts of Leo XIII., followed by those of the French
cardinals and bishops, a new spirit, a spirit of conciliation, had
indeed grown up in France, to which even the representatives of a
Government hitherto hostile had lent their prestige. Nevertheless, it is
difficult to define the reasons why these common aspirations of peace,
instead of developing into a true religious pacification, ended in a war
on religion the most terrible in its significance that France has ever
known. Nevertheless it can be stated without temerity that the
realization of true and definite peace was hindered through the efforts
of men and circumstances.
The men of France stood in its way. In this matter we can distinguish
three classes of men, the sectaries, the liberals and the Catholics. It
was only natural that the sectaries, whose highest ambition was the
destruction of Christianity, should repulse from evil principle every
convincing argument in favor of peace. It mattered little to them that
Catholics declared their adhesion to the Republican form of government;
they sneered at the distinction made by Leo XIII. between the form of
government and legislation.
The Catholic in combating unjust legislation was pronounced by them a
peril to the Republic, and by the Republic they understood, not a form
of government for the good of the people, but the concrete spirit of
revolution, the glorification of free thought, anti-Christianism and
irreligion. From the sectaries, therefore, nothing could be hoped for in
the way of religious pacification.
The liberals, on the other hand, if they entered into the _new spirit_
and dictated its methods, were nevertheless, at the best, only
opportunists. Their attitude was merely political; at the depth of their
ideas and sentiments they were always hostile to the Church. They feared
Catholicism because it meant the restraints of virtue; they feared its
light, lest it betray the evil of the ways they were treading. There was
thus no real sincerity in their false liberalism towards the Church.
They were, moreover, trimmers, ever on guard lest a false move betray
their position and lead them into parties to which they were averse.
They feared to favor the Right lest the Left call them clerical; they
guarded themselves against the Left, lest the respectable element of the
country should accuse them of excess. When their ministers spoke of the
_new spirit_, they made plain that they looked upon the Church as a
vanquished enemy, which they continued to hold in leash, desiring only
to let out a little more of the rope. They were, moreover, under the
full influence of Masonry. At the very time when the ministry of the
_new spirit_ was constituted, out of the eleven ministers, seven were
Freemasons, a preponderance which the sects have not lost in the
succeeding ministries.
With regard to the Catholics, themselves, it must be confessed that
their want of unity proved as great a hindrance to any effectual
pacification. There were many who refused in a more or less open way to
enter into the movement indicated by the Sovereign Pontiff. They argued,
quarrelled, and remained militant monarchists to the end. Of those who
showed a desire to follow the directions of Leo XIII. some lagged
behind in the movement, uncertain, timid, and nervous; others rushed to
the front with an ardor that proved more bravery than prudence; others,
neither timid nor rash, effected nothing through a want of understanding
among themselves. Thus divided, scattered, disputing among themselves,
they gave the vantage ground to the enemy. With a compact, organized
army of workers, united upon one single line of policy the Catholics of
France could have gained immense advantages.
_THE DREYFUS AFFAIR._
Among the circumstances which contributed to the continuance of the
anti-Christian spirit must be reckoned the Dreyfus affair. Dreyfus was
condemned on December 22, 1894. The affair in itself was entirely a
matter between him and the French army. Yet it served as a pretext for
war against the majority of the French nation as comprised within the
Catholic Church. Whether the defendant were innocent or guilty mattered
little; his condemnation brought with it the humiliation of three orders
of men who had acquired much power in France, and who determined to
obtain revenge not upon the army, which had exposed them to the scorn of
public opinion, but upon a force entirely outside the question, but
easily attainable because of its weakness, the Church.
The Jews, pointed out by press and public speech as rapacious
money-seekers and place-hunters, were only too happy that the
circumstance gave them an opportunity of revenge. Freemasonry still
quivered under the lash of Leo XIII. who had stigmatized them as the
powers of darkness, the enemies of religion and the social order; the
bishops of France had adhered to the word of the Sovereign Pontiff; a
petition of the _League of Patriots_ was gotten up against Masonry;
books and pamphlets were scattered broadcast exposing their illegality
and international character; throughout the whole of France the
anti-masonic movement was spreading day by day. It was to the Church
that the sects attributed their growing unpopularity, and thus Masonry
determined that the Church must be punished. Socialism, also, found in
the Dreyfus affair, a pretext for the solidification of its forces. It
had recognized that the Church alone disputed with it for the guidance
of human souls, and in the Church alone could be found remedies for
social evils incomparably more apt and human than any Socialism could
put forth.
The Dreyfusards arranged themselves under these three banners and,
uniting against the common enemy, began their campaign by laying the
whole affair at the door of the Jesuits, intending through them to
strike down eventually every institution of the Church existing in
France. Hence the words of M. Jaures in the Chamber, March 23, 1903:
"Now that the country, now that the honest people of this country have
seen the depths of the corruption, the perjury, falsehood and treason,
when it can say that this policy of falsehood was the product of a long
_Jesuitical_ education ... we can see the immense political character of
the battle which has begun." From 1894 to the end of the century the
anti-Jesuitical campaign went on, increasing every year in bitterness
and intensity. In June and July, 1899, seven or eight journals of Paris
every day demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits. Freemasonry, through
the columns of the _Siecle_, circulated a petition against the Jesuits,
laying at their door all recent crimes, especially Boulangism and the
affair of Dreyfus. The Masonic congress held in Paris during the days of
June 22, 23 and 24, 1899, placed at the head of its programme the
dissolution of the Institute of the Jesuits and of all Congregations not
authorized.
[Decoration]