Quinet's glasses. I have introduced you to de Maistre, and de Maistre
is to him what the Pope was to Luther. Quinet is, in his own way,
another reformer; in fact, he announces his system, in its relations
to Protestantism, as another noon risen upon mid-day. The theological
character of foreign politics is as prominent in his writings as in
those of his antagonists. Thus, to illustrate the character of the
French Revolution, he takes us to the Council of Trent; and to
demolish French Tories, he attacks Ultramontanism. This is indeed
philosophical, considering the actual history of Europe, and the
affinities of its Conservative party. Action and reaction are always
equal. The cold infidelity of Great Britain was met by the cool reason
of Butler, and sufficiently counteracted by even the frigid apologies
of Watson, and the mechanical faith of Paley. But the passionate
unbelief of the Encyclopædists produced the unbalanced credulity of
the reaction; and Diderot, d'Alembert, and Voltaire, have almost, by
fatality, involved the noble spirits of their correctors in that
wrongheaded habit of believing, which shows its vigorous weakness in
the mild Ballanche and the wavering Lamennais, and develops all its
weak vigour in de Maistre and de Bonald. Thus it happens that Mons.
Quinet gives to his published lectures the title of _Ultramontanism_;
for he prefers to meet his antagonists on the untenable field of their
superstition, and there to win a virtual victory over their
philosophical and political wisdom. His book has reached me through
the translation of Mr Cocks,[2] who has kindly favoured the literature
of England with several similar importations from "the College of
France," and who seems to be the chosen mouthpiece of the benevolent
author himself, in addressing the besotted self-sufficiency of John
Bull. So far, indeed, as it discusses _Ultramontanism_ in itself, the
work may have its use. It shows, with some force and more
vociferation, that it has been the death of Spain, and of every state
in which it has been allowed to work; and that, moreover, it has been
the persevering foe of law, of science, and of morality. This is a
true bill; but of him, as of his master Michelet, it may be said with
emphasis, _Tout, jusqu' à la vérité, trompe dans ses écrits_. It does
not follow, as he would argue, that political wisdom and Christian
truth fall with Ultramontanism; nor does he prove it be so, by proving
that de Maistre and others have thought so. The school of the Reaction
are convicted of a mistake, into which their masters in Great Britain
never fell. That is all that Quinet has gained, though he crows
lustily for victory, and proceeds to construct his own political
religion, as if Christianity were confessedly defunct. As to the
style of the Professor, so far as I can judge it from a tumid and
verbose translation, it is not wanting in the hectic brilliancy of
rhetoric raised to fever-heat, or of French run mad. Even its
argument, I doubt not, sounded logical and satisfactory, when its
slender postulate of truth was set off with oratorical sophistry,
enforced with professorial shrugs of the shoulders, or driven home
with conclusive raps upon the auxiliary _tabatière_. But the inanimate
logic, as it lies coffined in the version of Mr Cocks, looks very
revolting. In fact, stripped of its false ornament, all its practical
part is simply the revolutionism of the Chartists. Worse stuff was
never declaimed to a subterranean conclave of insurgent operatives by
a drunken Barabbas, with Tom Paine for his text, and a faggot of pikes
for his rostrum. The results have been too immediate for even Mons.
Quinet's ambition. From hearing sedition in the "College of France,"
his motley and party-coloured audience has broken up to enforce it
behind the barricades. They turned revolutionists against reaction _in
posse_, and reaction _in esse_ is the very natural consequence.
"Every nation, like every individual, has received a certain mission,
which it must fulfil. France exercises over Europe a real magistracy,
which cannot be denied, and she was at the head of its religious
system." So says de Maistre, and so far his bitter enemy is agreed.
But, says de Maistre, "She has shamefully abused her mission; and
since she has used her influence to contradict her vocation, and to
debauch the morals of Europe, it is not surprising that she is
restored to herself by terrible remedies." Here speaks the spirit of
Reaction, and Quinet immediately shows fight. In his view she has but
carried out her vocation. The Revolution was a glorious outbreak
towards a new universal principle. In the jargon of his own sect, "it
was a revolution differing from all preceding revolutions, ancient or
modern, precisely in this, that it was the deliverance of a nation
from the bonds and limits of her church, into the spirit of
universality." The spirit of the national church, he maintains, had
become Ultramontane; had lost its hold on men's minds; had made way
for the ascendency of philosophy, and had tacitly yielded the sceptre
of her sway over the intelligence and the conscience to Rousseau and
Voltaire. Nor does the Professor admit that subsequent events have
restored that sceptre. On the contrary, he appeals to his auditors in
asserting that the priesthood have ceased to guide the French
conscience. His audience applauds, and the enraptured Quinet catches
up the response like an auctioneer. He is charmed with his young
friends. He is sure the reaction will never seduce them into
travelling to heaven by the old sterile roads. As for the
_réactionnaires_, no language can convey his contempt for them. "After
this nation," says he, "has been communing with the spirit of the
universe upon Sinai, conversing face to face with GOD, they propose to
her to descend from her vast conceptions, and to creep, crestfallen,
into the spirit of sect." Thus he contrasts the catholicity of
Pantheism with the catholicity of Romanism; and thus, with the
instinct of a bulldog, does he fasten upon the weak points of foreign
Conservatism, or hold it by the nose, a baited victim, in spite of its
massive sinews and its generous indignation. This plan is a cunning
one. He sinks the Conservative principles of the Reaction, and gives
prominence only to its Ultramontanism. He shows that modern
Ultramontanism is the creature of the Council of Trent, and reviews
the history of Europe as connected with that Council. He proves the
pernicious results of that Council in every state which has
acknowledged it; shows that not preservation but ruin has been its
inevitable effect upon national character; and so congratulates France
for having broken loose from it in the great Revolution. He then
deprecates its attempted resuscitation by Schlegel and de Maistre,
and, falling back upon the "religious vocation" of France, exhorts his
auditors to work it out in the spirit of his own evangel. This new
gospel, it is almost needless to add, is that detestable impiety which
was so singularly religious in the revolution of last February,
profaning the name of the Redeemer to sanctify its brutal excesses,
and pretending to find in the spirit of his gospel the elements of its
furious Liberty and Equality. In the true sentiment of that
revolution, an ideal portrait of the Messiah is elaborately engraved
for the title-page of Mr Cock's translation! So a French quack adorns
his shop with a gilded bust of Hippocrates! It is a significant hint
of the humble origin of a system which, it must be understood, owes
its present dignity and importance entirely to the genius of Mons.
Quinet.
That the Reaction is thus identified with Ultramontanism, is a fact
which its leading spirits would be the very last to deny. The
necessity of religion to the prosperity of France is their fundamental
principle; and religion being, in their minds, inseparable from
Romanism, they will not see its defects; and their blind faith, like
chloroform, makes them absolutely insensible to the sharp point of the
weak spear with which Quinet pierces them. And it is but fair to
suppose that Quinet and his colleagues are equally honest in
considering Christianity and Ultramontanism synonymous. They see that
the old religion of France has become, historically, a corrupt thing,
and they propose a fresh Christianity in its place. Of one thing I am
sure--they do not over-estimate the political importance of the
Council of Trent. Let it be fairly traced in its connexions with
kingdoms, with science, with letters, and with the conscience of
nations, and it will be seen that Quinet is not far from correct, in
taking it as the turning-point of the history of Europe. It produced
Ultramontanism, or rather changed it from an abstraction into an
organised system; and Ultramontanism, in its new shape, gave birth to
the Jesuits. Christendom saw a new creed proposed as the bond of
unity, and a new race of apostles propagating it with intrigue and
with crime, and, in some places, with fire and sword. In proportion as
the states of Europe incorporated Ultramontanism with their political
institutions, they withered and perished. Old Romanism was one thing,
and modern Ultramontanism another. Kingdoms that flourished while they
were but Romanised, have perished since they became Tridentine.
Among English writers this distinction has not been generally made.
Coleridge seems to have observed it, and has incidentally employed it
in treating of another subject. But foreign literature is full of it,
either tacitly implied or openly avowed, in different ways.
Ultramontanism is, in Europe, a political and not merely a theological
word,--its meaning results from its history. Before the Tridentine
epoch, the national churches of Europe were still seven candle-sticks,
in which glittered the seven stars of an essential personality and
individual completeness. The "Church of Rome" still meant the Roman
See, and, vast as were its usurpations over the national churches, it
had neither reduced them to absolute unity in theology, nor absorbed
their individuality into its own. The Roman Church, as we now
understand it, was created by the Council of Trent, by a consolidation
of national churches, and the quiet substitution of the creed of Pius
IV. for the ancient creeds, as a test of unity. This fact explains the
position of the Reformed before and after that extraordinary assembly.
Till its final epoch, they had never fully settled their relations to
the Papal See. The history of England is full of illustrations of this
fact. Old Grostete of Lincoln spurned the authority of the Pope, but
continued in all his functions as an English bishop till his death, in
the thirteenth century. Wycliffe, in the fourteenth, was still more
remarkable for resisting the papal pretensions, yet he died in the
full exercise of his pastoral office, while elevating the host at
Childermas. Henry VIII. himself had the benefit of masses for his
pious soul at Notre Dame; and his friend Erasmus lived on easy terms
with the Reformed, and yet never broke with the Vatican. Even the
English prayer-book, under Elizabeth, was sanctioned by papal
authority, with the proviso of her recognition of the supremacy, and
for twelve years of her reign the popish party lived in communion with
the Reformed Church of England. During all this period the dogmas of
popes were fearlessly controverted by Cisalpine theologians, who still
owned their supremacy in a qualified sense, and who boldly appealed
to a future council against the decisions of the See of Rome.
Ultramontanism had then, indeed, its home beyond the mountains, and
when it came bellowing over its barrier, it was often met as "the
Tinchel cows the game." But modern Ultramontanism is another thing. It
is an organised system, swallowing up the nationalities of constituent
churches, and giving them the absolute unity of an individual Roman
church, in which Jesuitism is the circulating life-blood, and the
Italian consistory the heart and head together. Such was the prodigy
hatched during the seventeen years of Tridentine incubation. It
appeared at the close of those interminable sessions, so different
from all that had been anticipated, that it startled all Europe. It
had quietly changed everything, and made Rome the sole church of
Southern Europe. Quinet has not failed to present this fact very
strongly. "That Council," says he, "had not, like its predecessors,
its roots in all nations; it did not assemble about it the
representatives of all Christendom. Its spirit was to give full
sanction to the idea, which certain popes of the middle ages had
established, of their pre-eminence over oecumenical assemblies.
Thenceforward, what had been the effect of a particular genius, became
_the very constitution of the church_. The great adroitness consisted
_in making the change without anywhere speaking of it_. The church
which was before tempered by assemblies convoked from all the earth,
became an absolute monarchy. From that moment the ecclesiastical world
is silent. The meeting of councils is closed, no more discussions, no
more solemn deliberations; everything is regulated by bulls, letters,
and ordinances. Popedom usurps all Christendom; the book of life is
shut; for three centuries not one page has been added." One would
think the school of the Reaction would feel the force of facts so
efficiently urged, even in spite of their towering disgust at the
purposes for which they are employed. In fact, their own maxims may be
turned against them with great power, in this matter of
Ultramontanism. De Maistre, in his argument for unwritten
constitutions, speaks of the creeds of the church as furnishing no
exception to his rule; for these, he argues, are not _codes of
belief_, but they partake the nature of hymns--they have rhythmical
beauty, they are chanted in solemn services, they are confessed to GOD
upon the harp and organ. Now this is indeed true of those three
ancient creeds which are still chanted in the service of the Church of
England; but the creed of Pius IV., which is the distinguishing creed
of the Roman church, is absolutely nothing else than a _code of
belief_, and is the only creed in Christendom which lacks that
rhythmical glory which he considers a test of truth! Even Quinet
notices this liturgic impotence of the Ultramontane religion. "The
Roman church," he says, "has lost in literature, together with the
ideal of Christianity, the sentiment of her own poetry. What has
become of the burning accents of Ambrose and Paulinus? Urban VIII.
writes pagan verses to the Cavalier Berni;[3] and instead of _Stabat
mater_ or _Salutaris hostia_, the princes of the church compose
mythological sonnets, at the very moment when Luther is thundering
_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_, that Te Deum of the Reformation."
No wonder France was reluctant to acknowledge a Council which had thus
imposed a new creed on Christendom, and which dictated a new
organisation to the ancient churches of Southern Europe. While other
nations subscribed with artful evasions, she hesitated and submitted,
but gave no formal assent. Rome had come over the Alps to absorb her,
and she was loth to yield her birthright. She stood long in what
Schlegel calls "a disguised half-schism," struggling against
dissolution, the last lump to melt away in the Tridentine element. But
where now is the church which St Louis left to France, strong in her
anti-papal bulwarks? Where now are those bulwarks, the labour of his
life, and the chief glory of a name which even Rome has canonised? As
for Spain, Ultramontanism was riveted upon her by the Inquisition,
and she is twice dead. One sees no more the churches of Western
Christendom, fortified by Pragmatic Sanctions, and treated with as
younger sisters, even by domineering Rome! They have disappeared; and
the only light that lingers in their places is the sad sepulchral
flame that owes its existence to decay.
Such is Ultramontanism. Follow its history, in connexion with
political events in France, and you cannot fail to charge it with all
the responsibility of French infidelity, and, consequently, of the
present lamentable condition of the nation. Thrice has the spirit of
France been in deadly collision with it--in the fire, in the wind, and
in the earthquake. Its first antagonists were the Huguenots, and over
them it triumphed by the persecutions of Louis XIV., following up the
policy of Catherine de Medicis. It was next confronted by Jansenism
under Louis XV., and that it overcame by intrigue and by ridicule.
Under Louis XVI. it was obliged to meet the atheism of the
Encyclopædists, which it had itself produced, and which terribly
visited upon its head its own infernal inventions. To overwhelm the
Port-Royalists, it had resorted to low caricatures and epigrams, and
to philosophical satires upon their piety. Voltaire took from these
the hint of his first warfare against Christianity. This was first a
joke and a song, and then _Ca Ira_ and _A la lanterne_; first the
popguns of wit, then the open battery of _Ecrasez l'infâme_, and then
the exploding mine of revolution. It merely reversed the stratagems of
Ultramontanism, which began in massacre, and finished its triumphs
with a jest; and both together have stamped the nation with its
indelible character of half tiger and half monkey. The origin of such
an issue of infamy cannot be concealed. France owes it all to her
conduct in the crisis of the Reformation. Had the Gallic Church, under
Henry of Navarre, fully copied the example of England, or had she even
carried out her own instincts, repudiating the Council of Trent, and
falling back upon the Pragmatic Sanction for a full defence of her
independence, how different would have been her history, and that of
the monarchy to which she would have proved a lasting support! Let the
difference between Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze, between Sully and
Richelieu, illustrate the reply. Or it may be imagined, by comparing
the campaigns of Cevennes with the peaceful mission of Fenelon to the
Huguenots of Saintonge. Where now both church and state appear the
mere materials of ambition to such as Mazarin and Dubois, or where
even the purer genius of such as Bossuet and Massillon is exhibited in
humiliating and disgraceful associations, the places of history might
have been adorned by such bright spirits as were immured at
Port-Royal, or such virtue as sketched the ideal kingdom of
_Télémaque_, and rendered illustrious a life of uncomplaining sorrow
in the pastoral chair of Cambray. Where the court can boast one
Bourdaloue, there would have been, beside him, not a few like Pascal;
and in the rural parishes there would have been many such as Arnauld
and Nicole, training in simple piety and loyal worth the successive
generations of a contented people. As for the palace, it would never
have been haunted by the dark spirit of Jesuitism, which has so often
hid itself in the robes of royalty, and reigned in the sovereign's
name; and the people would have known it only as a fearful thing
beyond the Pyrenees, whose ear was always in the confessional, and
whose hand was ever upon the secret wires of the terrible Inquisition.
The capital would have been a citadel of law, and the kingdom still a
Christian state. Its history might have lacked a "Grand Monarque," and
certainly a Napoleon; but then there would have been no _dragonnades_,
and possibly no Dubarrydom; no _Encyclopædie_, and no _Ca Ira_! The
bell of St Germain l'Auxerrois would have retained its bloody memory
as the tocsin of St Bartholomew's massacre, but it would never have
sounded its second peal of infamy as the signal for storming the
Tuileries, and for opening those successive vials of avenging woe, in
which France is expiating her follies and her crimes.
Bossuet, in his funeral oration upon Queen Henrietta, unhappily for
his own cause, has challenged a comparison between the histories of
France and England, which, if he were living in our days, he would
hardly renew with pleasure. The Anglican Reformation was rashly
charged by him with all the responsibility of the Great Rebellion; but
facts have proved that revolutions are by no means confined to
anti-papal countries, while history may be safely appealed to by
Englishmen, in deciding as to the kind of religion which has best
encountered the excesses of rebellion, and most effectually cured the
disease. The Anglican Church survived the Great Rebellion, with
fidelity to itself: the Gallic Church perished in the Revolution.
Before the vainglorious taunt of Bossuet had passed from the memory of
living men, all those causes were at work in France, which bred the
whirlwind of infidelity, and which insured a revolution, not of
fanaticism, but of atheism. The real power of the two churches, in
moulding the character of a people, and retaining the loyalty of its
noblest intellect, became, then, singularly apparent. In France, it
was superstition to believe in GOD. In France, philosophers were
afraid to own a great First Cause. In France, noblemen were ashamed to
confess a conscience. In France, bishops and cardinals were foremost
in apostasy, and claimed their sacerdotal rank only to become the
high-priests of atheistic orgies. It is needless to cite, in
comparison, the conduct of parallel classes during the Great Rebellion
in England; while, at the very moment in which these things were
transacting, the brightest genius in her Imperial Parliament could
proclaim himself not only a believer, but a crusader for Christianity.
It was a noble answer to the ghost of poor Bossuet, when such a man as
Burke, addressing a gentleman of France, declared the adhesion of
England to her Reformed religion to be not the result of indifference
but of zeal; when he proudly contrasted the intelligent faith of his
countrymen with the fanatical impiety of the French; and when, with a
dignity to which sarcasm has seldom attained, he reminded a nation of
atheists, that there was a people, every whit its peer, which still
exulted in the Christian name, and among whom religion, so far from
being relegated to provinces, and the firesides of peasants, still sat
in the first rank of the legislature, and "reared its mitred front" in
the very face of the throne. The withering rebuke of such a boast must
be measured by the standard of the time when it was given. In Paris,
the mitre had just been made the ornament of an ass, which bore in
mockery, upon its back, the vessels of the holy sacrament, and dragged
a Bible at its tail.