The exciting matters now remaining to be treated in the Council were

the all-important particulars of those Drafts which had already been

under a general review. The two chapters teaching the institution

of the primacy in the person of Peter, and the transmission of that

primacy through the Roman Pontiffs as his successors, were speedily

disposed of. Had all the fathers attempted to answer the arguments of

Desanctis on these points, arguments familiar to many Italians, they

would not have found it light work. But the third chapter was one

of immense importance. It defined the scope and nature of primacy,

distending that term till it was made to cover absolute, immediate,

and ordinary control in the whole domain of the Church--control over

bishops and people, control over not only all matters ordinarily

included under the expression "faith and morals," but over all things

held to be necessary for the government or discipline of the Church.

This last expression, as any one acquainted with the views of those in

authority, even so far as they are recorded in our preceding pages,

must know, covers almost every possible question that can arise. The

words of Vitelleschi (p. 174) are well considered. He speaks of the

"supreme jurisdiction, ordinary and universal, of the Pope over all

Churches, singly and collectively, over pastors as well as flocks; from

which doctrine it follows that bishops in exercising any jurisdiction

or authority, only do so as official delegates of the Pope." Dr. Langen

puts it thus: "Seeing that there can be only one bishop in a diocese,

as soon as the Pope is declared to have ordinary jurisdiction in

that diocese, he becomes its Ordinary, and the other person called a

bishop is nothing more than his delegate and representative."[432] Men

who cover a dominion of this sort under the pretext of primacy, and

who advance a claim of primacy in order to deduce from it an absolute

dictatorship, never do anything more sensible than when they decry

reason and relegate Scripture to the tradition-heap; when they call

for pictures instead of books, and processions and fireworks instead

of a free press and free discussion. There was political philosophy in

M. Veuillot's exclamation on witnessing the Easter rejoicings in Rome,

especially the fireworks representing "the heavenly Jerusalem," that

it was impossible not to respect a people for whom such entertainments

were provided.

The first assertion in the Decree of ordinary and immediate

jurisdiction over all Churches, oddly does not describe that

jurisdiction as belonging to the Pope, but as belonging to the Roman

Church (par. 2). No sooner, however, has principality been ascribed

to the Roman Church than it is instantly transferred to the Pontiff,

and is again instantly affirmed to be a truly episcopal power. This

confusion, in such a document, would be amusing if the matter were not

so serious. That a Church should be a bishop is certainly new; and

that a truly episcopal power should reside in a Church which is not a

bishop, is one of the many mysteries created by the Vatican Council.

But that the source of the Pontiff's authority should in this very

Decree be sought in the Church, is a proof how hard a task is theirs

who determine to make dogma conquer history. In the very language of

the Decree, history conquers the dogma.

If the document contains this one taint of dualism as between Church

and Pope, it is clear of all reproach of dualism as between the Pope

and Princes. The latter are legislated out of all rights that could

possibly conflict with those of their Lord Paramount. Notwithstanding

the slight dualism as between Pope and Church, the latter is also

legislated out of all her ancient claims; but incidentally she appears

in clauses which, if she was only infallible without the consent of

the Pope, as he is infallible without her consent, might in time prove

very awkward. He has only as much infallibility as she has: that is

a clumsy admission just before the assertion that he is infallible

without her consent. However, wherever the power resides, or springs

from, it is a power over all pastors and all believers, and extends,

as we have said, not only to faith and morals, but to all things

which affect the government of the Church. Thus it includes every

mixed question whatsoever, and all things of any kind which in the

estimation of the Pope of Rome may relate to the interests of that

kingdom of which he is the king. This power, moreover, is immediate,

and as such can act without being legally restricted to any processes,

any agencies, or any forms. Being ordinary, it can never be obliged to

wait until the ordinary jurisdiction has been tried and failed. Being

immediate, it can never be told that it must take this, that, or the

other line of procedure. This language for ever settles the point which

had been contested in the famous passage of letters with Darboy.

How it could be necessary to add another word after these affirmations

we can hardly see. Even Councils, or the pastors collectively, had

but one office assigned to them--the office of obeying. After this

the abstract proclamation of Infallibility, or Irreformability, or

Inerrancy, could add nothing to a power that was universal, ordinary,

and immediate, and towards which the people or bishops, singly or

collectively, stood in one relation only--that of subjects in presence

of an authority which they were bound absolutely to obey. It naturally

follows that it is in this obedience that Rome finds unity. That is,

in fact, her ideal of unity. Christians are Churchmen, not by being

Christians, but by obeying the Roman Pontiff. Under the Papacy a

Christian is outside the family of God if he does not obey the Cæsar of

the Church.

Absolute authority over bishops and people having been asserted, next

comes the assertion of authority over princes. This is done in a

paragraph in which only students would see anything of the kind. The

fourth paragraph of the third chapter begins by speaking of the Pope's

right to free communication with the pastors and flocks of the whole

Church. What could appear more natural, or less dangerous? Had we not

seen how much the communications of the Pope amount to, we should have

taken that as a meek and harmless claim. But the close of the paragraph

shows that what the Pope means is the right of giving to his own

edicts the binding force of a higher law in every country, whether the

government consents or does not consent. As primacy means dictatorship,

so communication means promulging laws in regard to which no human

being has the right of reply, inquiry, complaint, or appeal; has, we

repeat, no office whatever except that of obedience. We have seen that

"teach" in our Lord's commission to the apostles means so to give law

to the _nations_ that they can never be justified in resisting. No

prince can have any title to exercise an _exequatur_, _placet_, or any

other form of check upon an edict of the Pope. Every man who denies the

validity of a Papal law, because it is prohibited by the government of

the country, is solemnly condemned; he interrupts the communication

between the authority of the Pontiff and the conscience of his

subjects. Indeed, the condemnation extends to all who even say that his

decrees may be lawfully impeded in their execution. The reason of this

appears in the next paragraph. The Pope is there formally declared the

Supreme Judge of the faithful. Therefore all may justly resort to his

judgment in all matters subject to ecclesiastical inquiry, and none may

appeal from his judgment, for there is no authority greater than his.

Matters subject to ecclesiastical inquiry must always include all those

wherein the interests of the Papacy are in anywise involved. Next, even

the old appeal to a General Council is formally condemned. Yet even

that condemnation is bungled. None may appeal from the judgment of

the Pope to a General Council "as an authority superior to the Roman

Pontiff." Then, will lawyers say, we can only appeal to a General

Council as an authority equal to the Roman Pontiff.

If these fourth and fifth paragraphs of the third chapter of the

Decree on Primacy were read by a dozen educated Englishmen unused

to Roman Catholic interpretations of Papal laws, nearly all of them

would put aside clause after clause as not being of importance. They

would take the _damnamus_ and _reprobamus_ as so much sulphur, and

let it pass. Far otherwise Vitelleschi. "From a practical point of

view," he says, "the declarations of infallibility could add nothing

to the weight of this paragraph" (p. 177). Vitelleschi looks upon the

express declaration of infallibility, in the next chapter, as no more

than "indulgence in the luxury of self-assertion, to which absolute

principles are prone." Yet when Mr. Gladstone pointed out the true

range of the authority here set up, many of our politicians treated him

as a statesman who had strayed out of his domain into theology. Since

then, specimens of minimizing interpretation have been put into our own

tongue, as curious as any furnished by the history of _finesse_. If

there be one Canon expressing a rule absolute that needs no exception

to prove it, we have it in the words, Rome never minimises. She always

interprets her own documents as a legatee interprets a will, that is,

in her own favour.

On June 15 the Council disposed of all the matters that stood in the

way of the great question. Seventy-five speakers had entered their

names. Two speeches were actually made on that day by Cardinals

Mathieu and Rauscher.[433] The latter said that he could never assent

to the doctrine of the Draft without mortal sin. "We knew all that

from your pamphlet," cried Deschamps, interrupting. "But you have

never refuted it," replied the Austrian.[434] The following day was

the grand procession of the Corpus Christi. If the "good press" was

parsimonious in information regarding debates and decrees, it was

profuse in description of the spectacles. On the 17th, Pius IX entered

on the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate. This year, according to

Roman tradition, is fatal to the Pontiffs, it being held that Peter

reigned twenty-five years, and that none of his successors was to reign

longer. Vitelleschi declares that the twenty-fifth year proved fatal

to Pius IX, as well as to the rest, because in the course of it he

ceased to be a mere mortal. This phrase from a Liberal Catholic will

seem natural when set beside one of M. Veuillot, on the day on which

Pius IX completed the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate: "We are

reminded of the radiance of Jordan and of Tabor, of the thunders of

the Temple, 'This is my beloved Son, hear ye him'" (vol. ii. p. 468).

On the next page he says, "God has left us His priest, His angel, the

sacred interpreter of His law, the anointed intercessor between Him

and the world ... a second Peter, a second Moses on the threshold of

a new world." It remains to be seen whether the twenty-fifth year of

Pius IX was or was not that of the final fall of the temporal power. If

the speeches on the doctrine and polity of the Church were concealed,

the Pope's speech this day, in reply to the Sacred College, was blazed

abroad. He divided the bishops into three classes--the ignorant, the

time-serving, and the good. So flowed abroad fresh streams from that

fountain which, all the time, was sending forth both sweet waters and

bitter.

On June 18, the debate on the fourth chapter, that is, on

infallibility, really began. It was a day of Cardinals. Pitra, Guidi,

Bonnechose, and Cullen were the sole orators. Hitherto, what with the

heat and what with the feeling that all was over, no interest had

attached to the renewed debates after the violent close of the general

discussion. But the torpor was suddenly shaken. A speech by a Roman, a

Dominican and a Cardinal (Guidi), came upon the city, says Vitelleschi,

like a sudden thunderclap in a cloudless sky. The Cardinal, like nearly

all the members of the Sacred College, was a "creature" of Pius IX.

According to Vitelleschi, he began his speech as a Cardinal should,

but, according to Quirinus, he offended at the very first. Unhappily,

in a matter of difference of this kind, the writers who enjoyed "the

radiance of infallibility" give us no light. So we are left at the

mercy of those whose assertions were all lies in general, but somehow,

when attacked in detail, generally proved to be truths in particular.

In the present case, we do not remember that even M. Veuillot attempts

to impugn any of the facts stated. However Guidi may have begun, he

affirmed that the doctrine of Papal infallibility, as contained in

the proposed Decree, was unknown to the Church up to the close of

the fourteenth century. Proofs of this doctrine were to be sought in

vain in either Scripture or tradition. As a practical question, when

had the Pope ever defined one dogma alone, and without the Church? An

act, he continued, might be infallible, but a person never. Hitherto

infallible acts had proceeded from the Church, either by counsel of

the Church dispersed, or by a Council. Inquiry was indispensable to

ascertain "what was believed everywhere, and whether all Churches were

in agreement with the Roman Church." After such inquiry, the Pope

sanctioned "finally," as St. Thomas says; and thus only could it be

said that "all taught through the Pope." Quoting Bellarmine, and even

the modern Jesuit Perrone, he showed that "the Popes had never acted

by themselves alone in defining doctrine, or by themselves alone in

condemning heresies." At these words, _Spaccapietra_, an Italian, but

Bishop of Smyrna, led in a disturbance. One bishop cried "Scoundrel!"

another cried "Brigand!" Vitelleschi even speaks of violent gestures

(p. 189). Guidi said he had the right to be heard, and that no one

had given the right of the Presidents to the bishops; but he added,

"You will have the opportunity of saying _Placet_ or _Non placet_."

Hereupon, from all ranks of the Opposition burst out a cry of "_Optime!

optime!_"--excellent! excellent! "Do you agree with us?" asked a bishop

of Manning. "The Cardinal's head is bewildered," was the reply. On

this, says Quirinus, a bishop could not refrain from saying to the

powerful Archbishop of Westminster, "It is your own head, Monsignor,

that is bewildered, and more than half Protestant." If this language

was really used, we must doubt whether it was infallible.

Guidi went on to advocate a change in the wording of the Decree, to

the effect that the Pope acted with the concurrence of the bishops,

and that after having, at their request, occasioned by prevalent

errors, made inquiry in other Churches, he acted with the consent of

his brethren, or with that of a collective Council. He contended that

this was the doctrine of St. Thomas; that the word "final" implied

something to precede, and that "supreme teacher and judge" presupposed

"other teachers and tribunals." He concluded by proposing two Canons,

the first of which declared Papal Decrees or Constitutions to be

entitled to cordial faith and reverence, and not to be reformable; but

the second said, If any one shall say that, in issuing such Decrees,

the Pope can act arbitrarily without the counsel of the bishops as

testifying to the tradition of the Church, let him be anathema.[435]

On finishing his discourse, he at once handed his manuscript to the

secretaries.

Quirinus relates that Valerga audibly said, in reply to some question,

"Guidi is misguided." But his neighbour replied that Guidi's speech

contained nothing but the truth. "Yes," rejoined the Patriarch of

Jerusalem, "but it is not always expedient to speak the truth." The

excitement was great. Groups of prelates who had left the Hall might be

seen standing about everywhere in earnest conversation, while within

doors Bonnechose and Cullen were discoursing to a thin audience with

absent minds. It was related that Guidi did not speak as a solitary

individual, but represented fifteen bishops belonging to the Order of

Dominicans. He had gathered them together in the central convent of the

Minerva, where he himself resided. They had considered the question,

and accepted the views which he had now presented to the Council.

This was much against the feeling of Father Jandel, their general,

who was perfectly free from any taint of the episcopal system, a

thoroughly right-minded Papist. Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken

his speech, and Cardinal Mathieu replied, "With serious and silent

approval."

Rumours were soon afloat in Rome as to what followed between Guidi

and his royal master. What we now give is traced by Quirinus to the

authority of the Pope himself, who is notoriously fond of telling

the people with whom he chats how he has lectured this or that

dignitary.[436]

The "creature" was summoned to the presence of his master soon after

the sitting, and was greeted with the words, "You are my enemy. You

are the _coryphæus_ of my opponents. Ungrateful towards my person, you

have propounded heretical doctrine." "My speech is in the hands of your

Presidents, if your Holiness will read it and detect what is supposed

to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the Under-Secretary, that

people might not be able to say that anything had been interpolated

into it."[437] "You have given great offence to the majority of the

Council. All five Presidents are against you, and are displeased."

"Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal

one. I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition, and of St.

Thomas." "I am tradition. I will require you to make the profession

of faith anew. _La tradizione son' io, vi faro far nuovamente la

professione di fide._" "I am and remain subject to the authority of the

Holy See, but I venture to discuss a question not yet made an article

of faith. If your Holiness decides to be such in a Constitution, I

certainly shall not dare to oppose it." "The value of your speech may

be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify

to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer, who is my personal enemy, has

embraced you. You are in collusion with him." "I do not know him, and

have never before spoken to him." "It is clear you have spoken so as to

please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the government of

Florence." "Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given to

you."

It was said that the Pope stated afterwards that he had not sent for

Guidi as a Cardinal, but as Brother Guidi, whom he had himself lifted

out of the dust. The saying, "I am tradition," made an impression in

Rome much like the celebrated one of the French monarch, "I am the

State." It simply packed up and labelled the thought that had been

more or less confusedly before the minds of all. Quirinus speaks of

having often had the words "I am the Church" in his thoughts--_l'Eglise

c'est moi_. We do not see that the Pope could have said anything

more sensible or more exactly representing the theology and history

which the favourite champions had put before the world. Quirinus very

properly thinks that this formula fits well with the pregnant saying

of Boniface VIII, "The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast."

Truths and rights go together. Tradition consists of truths, and the

Pope is all truth. Rights are based upon the truths, and the Pope

holds them all in his own breast. And if the poor old man himself at

last uttered these sad words, it was only after the incense had smoked

around him thousands and thousands of times, hiding the realities of

heaven from him by clouds that were only fumes. For this others were

responsible, at least in part. Under the influence of it, what wonder

if his senses had become confused? Mankind will have reason to be

thankful that one Pope lived long enough to be thoroughly overcome by

the smoke of the sacrifices. The ordinary reason assigned in Rome for

Popes being short-lived is, that it is necessary to prevent the effects

of their power upon themselves.

The _gravamen_ of Guidi's offence could not be removed by any

subsequent submission. Seeing that the Canon he proposed had emerged

into the light, the record could not be got out of the book of history

that a Dominican, a divine of repute, a Cardinal in high credit, did

up to that last hour of liberty hold that it was a heresy worthy of

anathema to affirm the very doctrine which was soon to be part of "the

faith." The record could not be prevented from going down to future

ages that what was, on June 18, and under the dome of St. Peter's,

liable to be called a heresy, was on July 18 under the same dome,

promulged by the voice of the Pope as truth, and as binding on every

human being who would be saved. Nor can craft ever blot out from

the history of the eccentricities of intellect the instance offered

by the fact that after this had been done, grave and learned men,

even of advanced age and high office, went throughout the civilized

world soberly affirming that the only reason why the dogma was then

proclaimed, was that it had been clearly revealed by our Lord and His

apostles, and had in every age been held as revealed truth by all

Catholics, in all places.

Vitelleschi is not quite clear as to whether all the incidents reported

of the interview between the Pope and the Cardinal were correct. To

him that is of no importance; Roman-like, he did not want anything to

illustrate the relation of the Pope to his courtiers or to the Church.

A few such scenes, more or less, would to him make no difference

whatever.

As if to prepare for the deeds directly tending to the restoration

of facts when the Council should have completed the restoration of

ideas, the tales of the _Crusaders of St. Peter_ continued to appear

side by side with the notices of the legislative proceedings in the

successive numbers of the _Civiltá_. To us one episode comes near home.

It was on an April day that a company leaving Rome bore across the

Campagna, with all the solemnity of a relic of the saints, the heart

of one whose body, in the Agro Verano, the cemetery of St. Lorenzo,

slept close by the tombs of the ancient martyrs, and amid those of the

martyrs of Mentana. As the party reached a point on the hill within a

few steps of the village,--a point from which St. Peter's appeared in

the distance,--they saw a block of white marble, surrounded by four

little columns, hung round by an iron chain. "Here," cried some zouaves

who were of the party,--"Here is the spot to which Julian pushed on,

chasing the enemies of God with fire and sword, passing through a

thousand bullets, of which one carried away his cap; and here he fell

shot down at point blank." Above the marble block rose "the cross of

Mentana," and on it was cut the inscription, "Here fell, fighting

for the See of St. Peter, Julian Watts-Russell, pontifical zouave, a

young Englishman of 17 years and 10 months old, the most youthful who

fell on the field of victory, and the nearest to Mentana." In this

"angelic sepulchre," as the courtly historian calls it, the solemn

party deposited their holy relic. Around were grouped the villagers,

with a few zouaves, among whom were Mr. Vansittart, who had come to

take up the arms of his fallen friend, and Wilfred Watts-Russell, the

brother and the fellow-crusader of Julian. The rites were celebrated

by a venerable old man, yet, says the narrator, a new priest, who now,

perhaps, for the first time performed the funeral service. It was the

father of Julian and Wilfred. "As we returned," moralizes the zealous

historian, "we felt that we had committed to the ground the seed of

martyrs."[438]

After the Guidi incident the debate dragged on. The heats were growing

worse and worse. At length, on July 2, the weary wheels seemed as

if they would go no longer. The list of speakers still inscribed

threatened very considerable detention. Hefele had entered his name

among the earliest, and when he applied for his turn found he was

somewhere "in the fifties," and when he next applied, that he was in

"the seventies." Had the minority foreseen what was hidden behind

clouds, but ready to thunder forth, they would perhaps have kept

the debate open; and so the Papacy would have been saved from the

last fatal step. Just now, by a strange coincidence, appeared in the

_Civiltá_ the tale describing the march of the newly landed French

troops for Mentana in 1867, with their sisters of mercy. "O France!"

cried the literary crusader, "may the angels of God who to a field of

just but terrible vengeance accompanied that host, warring only for

celestial charity, evermore protect the land of generous hearts."[439]

But, not knowing what was so near at hand, the minority at last

reached the point at which men are ready to say, We are fighting in

vain, and therefore fighting without justification. They agreed among

themselves that they might as well give up their right to speak, and

let matters be brought to a crisis. On July 4, when the Council met,

Schwarzenberg and others gave up their right. The formidable name of

Darboy was called. No Darboy was there. So that instead of a final

argument in opposition, there was his conspicuous example in favour

of withdrawing. For a long time every one who had done so had received

marks of approbation both from the Council and from the Presidents, and

every expedient had been used to induce men to abridge the discussion.

It was soon apparent that the leaders of the Opposition had adopted

a common policy. One after another waived his right. A couple of

inconsiderable men claimed their turn, but said little. The bulk of the

men on both sides entered into the general movement, and to the relief

of all, and the delight of the triumphant majority, Cardinal De Luca

announced that the list of the speakers was exhausted, and that the

debate was closed. So, as early as half-past nine o'clock, people saw

the Fathers gliding down the cathedral and dispersing over the city.

They wondered what had released them so early, and, as Vitelleschi

says, little realized the importance of their decisions, either to the

Church or to the world.

Dated on the very day on which the discussion closed, the _Civiltá_

issued an article on the Decline of Liberalism, which shows how the

political aspects of the legislation, now nearly completed, were kept

in view.[440] A Catholic gale, says the writer, seems to be passing

over the world, vivifying and gladdening society, corrupted and

worm-eaten by Liberalism.

A single people, the Roman, finds itself, by the special providence

of God, free from this universal Liberal domination; and this Roman

people alone, still happily governed according to the laws of God, in

contradiction to the great principles of modern society, enjoys the

sweet fruits of true progress, and is the object of admiration and

envy; for of it alone can it be said, Happy is the people whose God is

the Lord. As a drunken slave used to be exhibited to the Spartans to

inspire them with hatred of intemperance, so Providence in almost every

part of Europe has allowed slaves drunk and mad with Liberalism, slaves

of tyrants sprung out of the dung-hill, to be exhibited till Europe,

now weary of Liberalism, could only look to Rome and to her civil and

religious head, not merely the sole guardian and faithful depositary,

but the infallible herald of the principles of universal religion and

truth, civilization and prosperity, even natural and social, among

nations as well as among individuals. We may say that from the first

stage of the movement to the last, it is nations and not individuals

that are kept in view.

In Bavaria, Belgium, and Portugal, the writer asserts, the Catholics

are escaping from the trammels of the Masons. In Austria the same

process is in preparation. In France they are more resolved than ever

to sustain Rome. In Italy Liberalism is exhausted, despised, divided,

and falling. "Even in Protestant and heterodox countries, Rome, with

her civil and religious prince, stands in much higher credit than Italy

and other Liberal governments apparently stronger."

Sneering at an allusion of the _Journal des Débats_ to the vaunted

hopes of the Catholics, accompanied by the remark that in spite of

their absurdity it was nevertheless prudent to keep an eye on the

clock which was to sound the return of the hour for great things the

_Civiltá_ says it will not deny that Liberalism has some "bad quarters

of an hour" before it. It equally thinks that now it is neither

imprudent nor rash "to hope, and that within a time not remote, for the

victory of Rome and its Pontiff-king, so far as Italy is concerned, and

for the victory of the social, civil, and religious principles which

that king represents and preclaims."

The triumph over intellect it holds to be patent and ascertained, and

therefore this hope of a triumph in facts is reasonable.

Providence, continues the soothsayer, cannot permit the Church to be

long the victim of the devices of the gates of hell, particularly

of those devices with which the States of the Church are now beset.

After making allusion to hopes which had been entertained of the

Pope's death, and asserting his florid health and his prospect of

living many years, he proceeds: "The Pontiff lives and reigns in

Rome more secure, more glorious, more influential, more beloved than

his enemies." Not only is the fact that this potentate was defended

by the arms of France entirely absent from the consciousness of

the writer, but he indulges in jibes clearly addressed to the very

Emperor who had restored the Pontiff and kept him up. "Sound Catholic

principles now seem to politicians the only support of material order

and of economical interests." The writer goes on to show that all the

implements of Liberalism have been employed on behalf of the Papacy,

and that with success--meetings, addresses, collections, votes,

illuminations.

Writing with an expectation that before its words came under the eye

of his readers (p. 174) they would have already learned that the great

word had been spoken, and that Papal infallibility had taken its place

among revealed truths, the writer proceeds to indicate the range of the

new attribute:--

The Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ. Therefore is he the

continuator of the work of Christ in the world. He, standing in His

stead, is the witness to the truth in the midst of us. Christ is

the voice of the Father, and the Pontiff is the voice of Christ.

The Father, in the fulness of time, spake unto us by His Son. The

Son, after His return to the Father, continues to speak to us by

His Vicar. Now, is it conceivable that a lie can ever be found in

such a mouth, in such a word?--and if it could be found, would

not the mission of Christ and the duration of His reign have

vanished _ipso facto_? Affirming the infallibility of the Pontiff,

therefore, means no less than affirming the duration of the reign

of Christ upon earth.

Many who, on beginning to read this work, would have shrunk from

interpreting language as to the Kingdom of Christ or the reign of

Christ in the Jesuit sense, will by this time be prepared to see how

a fallen faith which in effect brings down our Lord to the level of

the Pope, must impress itself on the language of those who hold it.

Any thoughtful man who will spend a few minutes in calmly setting out

before his mind the ideas here shown to rule the mind of a Jesuit,

will ever after attach a more definite meaning to the language of

Ultramontanes when they speak of the Word of God, the Kingdom of God,

the Christian civil system, or use any other terms, affecting the

relative positions of the Pope and of the rest of the human race.

The writer of this article gratefully recognizes the surpassing zeal of

France and her title to the first place among nations devoted to the

Church. Those who form exceptions to the general devotion of France

do not belong to her. The Opposition in the Council are called the

new Arians, a clear analogy being discerned between denying to our

Lord His divinity and denying to the Pope his place as the infallible

representative of the Lord. The dogma, continues the _Civiltá_, would

now come forth with the double advantage of an acclamation and a

discussion. The famous petition for the definition, by a vast majority

of the bishops, was indeed an acclamation, and to this had been added

an ample discussion. It asserts that there never had been in the

history of the world so full and exhaustive an examination of any

question. The writer is unconscious of the fact that before changing

a principle of law, or even a fiscal arrangement like a duty on corn,

we slow English sometimes employ as many years as they had employed

months in settling the source of all principles for ever. Not only

so, but with us each new thread shot into the progressive web of the

discussion is laid bare to every eye and to every magnifying glass

that nature and art can lend. The _Civiltá_ puts in even the word

"ventilated" among the epithets denoting the unparalleled winnowing of

this great question. Why, the _Civiltá_ itself, during the progress

of the discussion, readily told, indeed, who celebrated mass, who

died, who received a title, a distinction, or a place, who got leave

to stay away; but it did not even tell who spoke, much less anything

about what was said. It gave not a word of information to the whole

Catholic Church of what was proposed to be done with its creed, or of

what the assembled bishops thought of the proposal. In the very same

volume where these fine words are written, we have this specimen of the

_Civiltá's_ history, with which we connect one from Monsignor Guérin,

as showing what free air will blow around the chairs of history in

our colleges and around the tables of our editors when once dogma has

achieved its Sedan (VII. xi. 237). "Our readers will be gratified"--a

blundering English journalist would have commenced such a paragraph

with apologies for not being able to tell his readers anything worth

knowing, but the accomplished Jesuit begins with congratulating them

on the amount of information he is about to give--"Our readers will be

gratified to have under their eyes a view of how many spoke, or gave up

the right of speaking, in the discussion on the 4th chapter,"--that is,

on the great chapter containing the express statement of infallibility.

June 15, 1 Reporter and 2 Speakers.

June 18, 3 Speakers.

June 20, 1 Reporter and 4 Speakers.

June 22, 7 Speakers.

June 23, 5 Speakers.

June 25, 6 Speakers and 2 gave up their right.

June 28, 6 Speakers.

June 30, 6 Speakers and 2 gave up their right.

July 1, 6 Speakers.

July 2, 9 Speakers and 14 gave up their right.

July 4, 2 Speakers and 42 gave up their right.

The excellent Monsignor says (p. 113),--and it is for thoughtful men

to spend a little time in forming a clear idea of what would be the

condition of the world if its information on its supreme affairs was

supplied in this fashion:--

There were General Congregations on the 8th of January, the 10th,

the 14th, the 15th, the 18th, the 19th, the 21st, the 22nd, the

24th, the 25th, the 27th, the 31st, on the 3rd of February, the

4th, the 7th, the 8th, the 10th, the 14th, the 15th, the 18th, the

21st, the 22nd. An interruption of the General Congregations for

a month; a resumption of the Congregation on the 18th of March,

(thirtieth Congregation), the 22nd, the 23rd, the 25th, the 26th,

the 28th, the 29th, the 30th, the 31st, the 1st of April, the 4th,

the 5th, the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, the 12th, the 19th.

We do not know why this instructive method of writing the most

important of histories, that of the process of making laws for the

whole world, is not continued through and through. Vestments and

processions, bulls or Papal briefs, are not in the same manner hidden

behind Arabic numerals. Any one may, at the British Museum, feast his

own eyes on a specimen of such luminous history. The seventh volume of

Frond is the History of the Council. The student will find it a folio

in sumptuous Morocco, with gilt edges, and paper thicker than vellum.

He will find it faultless and very full in matters of rank, precedence,

forms and ceremonies; each cope and favour, each lappet, and each heave

of the censer is well and duly noted. But as to questions respecting

what men thought, said, proposed, deprecated, or took delight in, the

poor student may open three leaves in succession and find both sides

filled with mere numerals, names, and titles.[441] One grave historical

error is confessed in the corrigenda. On a certain occasion even the

pen guided by the "radiance of infallibility" slipped so far as to say

that their Eminences the Cardinals were to be in black stockings. The

correction shows that "black slippers" were the proper words.

It would for a time have seemed as if the glories once foretold to

follow the dogma had considerably faded from the eyes of the seers

during the wearying months of debate. Now, however, that the goal was

in sight, the vistas reopened, and if translucent clouds rendered the

distant view indistinct, they greatly enhanced its splendour. Still

there was no weak expectation that the great results would be instantly

attained. As centuries were required to bring the Anti-Papal movement

in society to the present pass, so was it calculated that centuries

would be required to bring the counter-movement to its full development.

It is not to be believed that an event so glorious, and one brought

about by God with dispensations so singular, is to remain confined

within itself. It will be prolific of prodigious effects in every

social sphere for the salvation of the _nations_. God does not

work by accident, or set in motion great means for small ends. We

do not hesitate to affirm that just as the subversive negations of

authority which prevailed at the Council of Basle indicated the

principles of the great politico-religious revolution of modern

times, so the reparative affirmation of all the privileges of the

See of Peter now so solemnly made by the Vatican Council will

indicate the principles of restoration in every public and private

sphere of Christendom. Hence in the series of the centuries this

of ours will be a day blest and magnified as that in which, thanks

to the Council held under Pio Nono, the light again dawned on an

oppressed world wrapped up in the darkness of the Revolution (pp.

178-9).

The writer does not overlook us non-Catholics. For us also the great

event was pregnant with blessing, showing us, above all things, "the

divine organization of the Church," and in it showing us the "remedy

for the unbridled excesses of private judgment, the parent of that

Babel confusion in which we are involved." Therefore,

to Mary, sweet Lady and Queen of this kingdom of Christ, be loving

thanksgivings rendered, for after God to her favour do we trace the

benefit obtained. Scarcely had we read in the Bull of Convocation

that the Council would open its sittings on the day sacred to the

Immaculate Conception of Mary, before we felt a firm and immovable

hope of the definition of pontifical infallibility. It was fitting

that the Pontiff who, amid the applause of the Christian world, had

dogmatically asserted the highest prerogatives of her holiness,

should himself behold the highest prerogatives of his apostolic

ministry dogmatically affirmed (p. 180).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 425: It seems that the Bishop of Orleans, and most of the

French prelates in opposition, wished to make a solemn protest against

the treatment they had met with; against the advantage taken of the hot

season to weary them; against the want of fairness shown towards them

by the Presidents all through the discussion; and, lastly, against the

excesses, insults, and affronts of which the majority had been guilty

with regard to them. Having made this protest, they proposed to leave

Rome immediately.--_Vitelleschi_, p. 200.]

[Footnote 426: _Quirinus_, p. 624.]

[Footnote 427: We have avoided noting the charges of misquotation and

falsification of authorities made on the one side and the other. It

would be endless.]

[Footnote 428: Quirinus says that he should think it a sin to print it,

but that the Romans freely credited and repeated it.]

[Footnote 429: Serie VII. xi. p. 94.]

[Footnote 430: _Veuillot_, ii. p. 389.]

[Footnote 431: _Friedberg_, 688; or a French translation in _Le Concile

du Vat. et le Mouvement Anti-infallibiliste_, p. 212.]

[Footnote 432: _Das Vatikanische Dogma_, p. 5.]

[Footnote 433: _Stimmen_ and _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_.]

[Footnote 434: _Quirinus_, p. 684.]

[Footnote 435: _Friedberg_, p. 144.]

[Footnote 436: _Quirinus_, p. 714.]

[Footnote 437: The _Difficultés de la Situation_ says that Guidi

replied, "Holy Father, I have spoken to-day what I taught for many

years, in broad daylight, in your College of the Minerva, without

any one ever having found my doctrine blameable. The orthodoxy of my

teaching must have been certified to your Holiness when you selected me

to go to Vienna to combat certain German doctors whose principles were

shaking the foundations of the Catholic faith." Printed in French in

the Appendix III. to _Quirinus_ (p. 848).]

[Footnote 438: _Civiltá_, VII. xi. 424-5.]

[Footnote 439: VII. xi. 37.]

[Footnote 440: _Civiltá_, VII. xi. p. 129.]

[Footnote 441: E.g. pp. 224, 226, 228.]

CHAPTER VII

To the Eve of the Great Session, July 18--A Fresh Shock for the

Opposition--Serious Trick of the Presidents and Committee--Outcry of

the French Bishops--Proposal to Quit the Council--They send in another

Protest--What is Protestantism?--Immediate War not foreseen--Contested

Canon adopted--The Bishops threatened--Hasty Proceedings--Final Vote

on the Dogma--Unexpected Firmness of the Minority--Effect of the

Vote--Deputation to the Pope--His incredible Prevarication--Ketteler's

Scene--Counter Deputation of Manning and Senestrey--Vast Changes in the

Decrees made in a Moment--Petty Condemnations--The Minority flies.

It might have been thought that incidents of public interest had now

terminated. On the very next day, however, after the close of the great

discussion, occurred a collision which, had the opposition been morally

capable of saving anything, would have given it the opportunity of

saving the Roman Catholic Church from falling into the condition of a

body without any constitution, except the "inner light" of one man. It

opened their eyes, perhaps not more widely, but once more. It smote

their feelings, excited a momentary effort at action, and ended in a

protest drawn up by Bishop Dinkel.

One Sunday the Fathers were studying sixty-two amendments proposed on

the second chapter of the great Decree. It seemed awful work to decide

so many points affecting the faith on a single Monday morning! But

behold, in the evening come in one hundred and twenty-two amendments on

the fourth chapter, to be voted upon on the Tuesday!

The procedure was on this wise. Amendments suggested, after being in

the hands of the Committee, were reported in print, and then put to the

vote. The Sub-Secretary said, The committee oppose the amendment: let

those who oppose it stand up. Or, The Committee accept the amendment:

let those who accept it stand up. So by scores at a time were questions

settled on which men had had no chance of reflecting. Only once, says

_La Liberté du Concile_, did the Fathers succeed in obtaining from

the Presidents a delay. It was on the very occasion just mentioned,

when they showed that the only time permitted to them to read over the

hundred and twenty-two amendments to be despatched on the Tuesday,

would be what would be left of the Monday after they had despatched no

less than sixty-two. They did obtain twenty-four hours' extension of

the time. "You are convoked on purpose to vote," says the writer, who,

be it remembered, printed only fifty copies, for Cardinals alone, "and

you have not time to study not even to read it over again" (Doc. i. p.

175).

If ever an important act was passed by an assembly it was the Canon

which closes the third chapter of the great Vatican Decree. Quirinus

hardly exaggerates its importance when he speaks of it, if interpreted

by the rules of Canon law, as handing over the bodies and souls of all

men to one. On July 5, the Fathers had in print before them a formula

for this Canon, and three proposed amendments. The Bishop of Rovigo,

as reporter for the committee, broke all rule first by saying that

amendments No. 70 and 71 should not be voted upon, as the committee had

adopted No. 72, with a modification. It would appear that, utter as was

the disregard here manifested even of the Pope's own Rules as well as

of the rights of the proposers of the amendments and of those of the

Council, this was allowed to pass. But soon even that broken-spirited

Opposition was roused. It was plain to some that what the Bishop read

as No. 72 was not what was in print as 72. The Presidents wanted to put

what had been read, but then, according to the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_,

arose Haynald and protested. Though the Council itself had no right to

shape the amendments, the Rules required that all amendments should be

put before it as they had been shaped by the committee, and it was for

the Council to say Yea or Nay. Darboy also rose, and more fully entered

his protest. The protest could not at the moment be brushed aside. Here

was obviously a proposal differing from that of the committee, foisted

in against all rule, and without notice. For once the prohibition

against speaking to order had been defied. The Presidents, thrown

into confusion, could not conceal the attempted trick; yet they durst

not abandon the spurious Canon. They therefore said something about

inadvertence, and withdrew it for the present, to be submitted to the

committee, then to be printed and voted upon at another time.

The fact was that the difference between the two forms involved the

whole question of jurisdiction between bishops and Pope. One form had

been withdrawn by the committee, and an amendment had been accepted.

The Pope was incensed. He ordered the third Canon to be altered back

to the form which had been objected to, and even this was greatly

strengthened. He never submitted the alteration to the committee, but

sent it direct to the reporter to be then and there put to the vote

instead of the Canon which stood on the printed Order of the Day.

How great was the difference in the wording of what the Fathers had

before them in print, and what was attempted to be palmed upon them, is

obvious on reading the two--

THE CANON AS IT WAS IN THE CANON AS IT WAS READ

PRINT AND ATTEMPTED TO BE PUT

TO THE VOTE

If any shall say that the If any one shall say that the

Primacy of the Roman Pontiff Roman Pontiff has only an

is only an office of supervision office of supervision or

and direction, and that his direction, but not plenary and

supreme jurisdiction over the supreme power over the whole

universal Church is not plenary, Church, both in things

but only extraordinary and pertaining to faith and morals,

mediate, let him be anathema. and also in those pertaining to

the discipline and government of

the Church dispersed through all

the earth, or that he has only

the chief portion but not the

entire fulness of this supreme

power, or that this his power is

not ordinary and immediate,

whether over the Churches all

and singular, or over pastors

and believers all and singular,

let him be anathema.

Meditation on what was involved in these claims to all-absorbing

power was not likely to relieve the bishops of the pain caused by the

stealthy attempt upon their vote. What the Presiding Cardinals and

the Bishop of Rovigo had tried to steal from them, was not trash. It

was all that ancient bishops, even when acknowledging the primacy of

Rome, would have fought for with at least ecclesiastical weapons. Of

the Committee not a man spoke his scorn, and the steady majority was

not shaken. The world accused it of conspiring against the rights

and liberties of mankind. It might full as well have been accused of

conspiring against the rights and liberties of bishops. If the official

organs had often, during the Council, used such language as "lying" and

so forth, they were quiet now, while words like "lying," "cheating,"

"deceiving," etc., flew freely about, and, if Quirinus be correct, were

repeatedly used in the meetings of the bishops of the minority.

But if the majority was not disturbed, a note rang out from the French

minority which might remind any one who has lived in their country

through a revolution, of the _Prend ton sac_--Take thy sack!--the three

sudden taps which at such a time make timid hearts in a house beat as

if they had been hit by the drumstick.

"1. The hour of Providence has struck," cries this voice, with

the true French ring. "The decisive moment for saving the Church

has arrived. 2. By the additions made to the third Canon of

the third chapter, the committee, _de fide_, has violated the

Rules, which permit not the introduction of any amendment without

discussion by the Council. 3. The addition surreptitiously made

is of importance beyond calculation. It changes the constitution

of the Church. It enacts the monarchy of the Pope pure, absolute,

and indivisible. It carries the abolition of the judicial

rights and the co-sovereignty of the bishops, and with it the

affirmation and anticipatory definition of separate and personal

infallibility. 4. Duty and honour permit us not to vote this Canon

without discussion, as it contains an immense revolution. The

discussion can and may last six months, for it affects the capital

question, the very constitution of the sovereign power in the

Church. 5. This discussion is impossible, because of the pressure

of the season and the disposition of the majority. 6. One thing

alone, worthy and honourable, remains to be done--to demand the

immediate prorogation of the Council till the month of October,

and to present a declaration, in which all the protests already

sent in shall be enumerated, and the last violation of the Rules

shall be set forth, as well as the contempt shown to the dignity

and liberty of the bishops. At the same time, we must give notice

of our intended departure, which can no longer be deferred. 7.

By the departure, on such grounds, of a considerable number of

bishops of all nations, the oecumenicity of the Council would be

at an end, and all acts which it might subsequently adopt would be

null in point of authority. 8. The courage and devotedness of the

minority would produce an immense effect in the world. The Council

would meet in the month of October in circumstances vastly more

favourable. All the questions now only broached would be taken up

again and treated with dignity and liberty. The Church would be

saved, and the moral order of the world."[442]

Had this energetic advice been adopted, the Roman Catholic Church would

for the time have been saved from the last step in a downward series;

but whether the moral order of the world would have been the better is

another question. Those who seek a moral order higher than could be

given by the men who attempted to palm the new Canon upon the Council,

may well be content to have the lines drawn and the forces defined. The

Council has given to all men an opportunity of knowing, if they will,

what are the morals of the Pope and his officers, and what is order

in their vocabulary. The moral order of the world must now be secured

either under the absolute dominion of the Pontiff, or, as it has been

best secured before, over the remains of his pretensions.

But the bishops of the minority were not the men to give the Church a

further chance of continuing that confusion of all moral order which

resulted from her old ambiguities. They did now as they had done

before--let her take her way, and sent in a protest stating the main

facts of the deception and breach of Rules.[443] One can almost see the

smiles of the men in power at the sight of one piece of paper more.

If ever there was a case to justify the hasty saying ascribed to

Burke, that Protestantism is a mere negation, it was that of the

Vatican minority always protesting and never maintaining its ground.

Of course, every protest has its negative side, but that is the

side turned towards him who is protested against. It always has its

positive side; that is, the side of him who makes the protest. He

asserts a right. Dr. Newman, in a moment of sound sense, said, "What

is the very meaning of the word 'Protestantism,' but that there is

a call to speak out?"[444] So, when in a day of mercy, nations,

hearing from heaven a call to speak out, protested against the sins

and follies of the Pontiff, their protest was indeed a mere negation

to him whose pretensions were rolled back; but to those who made

the protest good, it was a positive upholding of existing rights, a

positive recovery of lapsed rights, a positive deliverance from great

evils, and a positive entrance into possession of great and heritable

good. They protested against the doctrinal authority of the Pontiff,

and maintained the doctrinal authority of the Bible. They protested

against the authority of ecclesiastical courts or Councils to fetter

the press, the pulpit, or the private conscience. In doing so, they

maintained a duty imposed, and a right given, by God. The negative

result was to the Inquisition and the Curia. The positive result was

to the Press, the Pulpit, the Civil Court, and the silent tribunal of

the Soul, with its reinstated jury of accusing and excusing thoughts.

They protested against indulgences, purgatory, and all the commerce of

the mass, and maintained the free gift of God's unpurchaseable grace,

the sovereignty of His judgment, the finished and all-perfect sacrifice

of His Son. They protested against sensuous and idolatrous spectacle,

and upheld scriptural worship; protested against colours, scents, and

gorgeous dress, and upheld sound teaching, borrowing all its glory

from spiritual elements, none from physical; they protested against

priestly caste, and upheld a brotherhood, a royal nation of priests;

they protested against progressive conformity to newly-invented

superstitions, against the service of local and subordinate divinities,

and at the same time upheld progressive conformity to the standard of

our Lord and His apostles. They protested against the idea of one fold

or one pen, but upheld that of one flock diversified in its members,

various in its folds, but one in love to the common Lord and in

likeness to the common Father.

When Darboy and Dupanloup, on July 4, gave up the attempt of averting

the definition by delay, how little did they know that a couple of

days later and the whole prospect of the Papacy would be changed.

When the Pope on the morrow of that day followed up his victory by

the additional blow which the surreptitious Canon dealt at the very

semblance of liberty or rule in the Council, how little did he suspect

that the visions of restoration long floating before his fancy were to

give place to real scenes of fresh disaster. It was only on June 10

that Ollivier, in the Chamber of Deputies, gave confident assurances

of peace, while on July 6, in the same Chamber, Gramont sounded an

unmistakable blast of war. Even now, human foresight did not measure

the rapidity with which events were to rush to a collision, and then

to a catastrophe. Napoleon III had so often seemed bent on measuring

himself with Prussia, and had so often drawn back, that it was not

unreasonable to hope that, even after bellicose words, he might be

prudent once more.

The next week following that day which placed in hazard the fortunes

of the restorer of the Papacy and those of the Papacy itself, was

spent in the Council in voting the chapters in their final shape. The

Canon which had been brought surreptitiously forward on the fifth was

produced in the regular manner on the thirteenth, and after all the

outcry it was passed; "the most pregnant article," says Quirinus,

"that had been laid before any Council for six hundred years." It

was now voted by rising and sitting,--which is not to be wondered

at when originally the Presidents had wanted it to be voted without

being even known. We must not blame the minority for not now debating

it. The Rules did not allow of this. It had been adopted by the

committee and must be met with a Yea or Nay. How many voted against

this pregnant act is uncertain. Some say fifty or sixty, some ninety

or a hundred.[445] In that act every shred and tatter of the Gallican

liberties, or any other liberties, except that of doing the Pope's

will, passed from the Papal officers, whom, as Quirinus says, the

Roman Chancery still calls bishops. The chapter to which this Canon

was attached annulled all national rights whatever, whether Gallican,

Josephine, or parliamentary, which might conflict with the supreme

authority. Vitelleschi (p. 202) says that the Secretary of State

appeared very uneasy as to the opinion of governments on this fresh

declaration. The bishops naturally would have similar apprehensions,

but as to them, fear cast out fear. They had good reason to believe

in the gentleness of Liberal governments, and they had no reason to

believe in the gentleness of the Pope. They trusted, says Vitelleschi,

to the tolerance and freedom of thought which has everywhere triumphed

in modern days. With the Papal government, on the other hand, they had

neither tolerance nor freedom to trust to. They knew that if they dared

to provoke it, the stroke of Pius IX would come down hot and heavy.

The oath of a bishop to the Pope, which obviously aims more at feudal

vassalage than at spiritual works, had made the Emperor Joseph II feel

that men bound by it were not citizens in the sense of free men. "It

does not accord with the fidelity or obedience due by a bishop, as a

subject, to his sovereign.... A bishop who feels himself bound by that

oath must become perjured."[446]

Many writers mention what is clearly stated in a letter of Hefele,

under date of July 9:--[447]

The intention of the Pope is, in spite of the minority, to proceed

at once to the publication of the new dogma, and forthwith to hand

to every bishop two documents for his signature: (1) A profession

of faith containing the article of infallibility; (2) A solemn

declaration that the Council has been a free one. So you see into

what a position we are brought, and that it does not depend on our

own will whether we shall remain in our places or not. He that

will not sign will instantly be placed under censure.

According to Vitelleschi, this threat terrified the poor bishops of the

Opposition. If they refused to acknowledge the validity of the Council,

nothing, as he says, was before them but to resign their Sees. If they

meant to impugn the validity of the Council, Rome was not the place in

which to do it, and, what is still more significant, they themselves

"were not the men to do it."

It proved on the next day that the candidature of a Hohenzollern prince

for the vacant crown of Spain, which had given to France the occasion

for a quarrel, had been withdrawn. But it also appeared that Lord Lyons

had to reproach the Duke De Gramont with a breach of promise, inasmuch

as the Duke had authorized him to assure her Majesty's Government that

if the withdrawal of the prince could only be procured the affair would

be at an end. It was plain that the long-prophesied attack of France

was resolved upon at last. What with the impatience of the majority for

the fruits of their victory and the disgust and discouragement of the

minority, the sufferings from the heat and the solicitude occasioned by

approaching war, the assembly had ceased to be, in any serious sense

of the word, deliberative. Amendments literally by the score were now

produced and disposed of with a haste which was in shocking contrast

with the gravity of the subjects. _La Liberté du Concile_ says that on

the all-important chapters on faith there were proposed two hundred

and eighty-one amendments. The Fathers were called on to vote them by

standing and sitting, and this was done in such haste that they had

not even time to re-read them. The Under-Secretary did not read them

out. He cried, "Number ten, number fifty, or number seventy-seven,"

as the case might be, "the committee rejects: those who are in favour

of its rejection stand up." The solid majority stood up, and all was

over. So in another case he cried out, "Number five or fifteen," adding

"The committee accepts: those who are in favour of accepting stand

up"; and the same result. "I do not vote," said one bishop, "because

not only am I unable to form a conviction, but I am unable even to

form a clear idea of what is the point" (_Documenta_, i. 174). And

each minutest point was to be irreformably fixed! We had, says this

writer, four hundred quarto pages on the subject of infallibility,

including notes, remarks, and all, while only a few days were allowed

to study it. So when the Draft Decrees on Faith were for the second

time brought out new cast, with a preamble, four chapters, and eighteen

canons, twenty-four hours were allowed to prepare to discuss them; and

the preparation must be in Latin. Twenty-four hours for an accountable

creature of God to prepare himself to say whether he would take a side

for or against laying upon himself the obligation to pronounce eighteen

curses more against his fellow creatures!

The hope had been flattered all along that no anathema would be

attached to the dogma of infallibility. But at the very last Bishop

Gasser, of Brixen, one of the keen Curialists, produced the formula

enriched with an anathema against any one who should presume to

contradict it. Quirinus says that Gasser was unwilling to be left

behind by Manning, Deschamps, Dreux-Brézé, and the Spaniards. Finally

the whole was submitted to the solemn decision on that very day on

which the French Chamber, that had so long voted money for the forces

to support the Papacy in Rome, voted five hundred and fifteen millions

of francs to break up united Germany once more.

On the morning of July 13 the hour had come. Up to the last it had been

asserted that no bishops but two or three would say _Non placet_. Every

form of assurance had been spoken and printed that this would prove

to be the case. The Virgin, the Saints, ay, and even the Holy Spirit,

had been over and over again pledged to procure this result. At last,

Ketteler and Landriot of Rheims made a clever attempt to bring it about

by proposing to the Opposition, with which they had seemed to be at

one, that they should all vote _Placet juxta modum_ (content on certain

conditions).[448] This would have enabled the Court to say that there

were no votes of "non-content." The Archbishop of Milan said, "The

only befitting course for us who are convinced of the falsehood of the

doctrine is to say, No."[449] The Pope, it is said, told Darboy that

not above ten would vote _Non placet_.[450] Certain it is that bets

would have been freely taken in Rome the night before that not a dozen

would do so. The devout were confident because the Virgin would order

it otherwise, and the worldly were confident because they thought the

bishops would not be unmindful of their own interests.

The Hall once more received its aged senators. Eighteen centuries

called to them to remember what a Church Christ had set up; how pure in

principle, how free in regulations, how plain in forms, how simple in

organization, how far from pomp or dreams of domination, from cursing,

or from use of physical force; how little of a body, how much of a

spirit, was that real Church. It was a leaven moving by the force of

an inward and self-propagating life to leaven the whole lump, in which

for itself it only asked to lie hidden, and by its innate force to

determine the quality of the meal, not stooping to design a mould for

the shape of the loaves, on a model as irreformable as the patterns of

a Hindu artisan. Many bishops had said that they had found themselves

called together to gratify one self-asserting man of ordinary gifts,

and less than ordinary acquirements, by giving him a diploma as the

titular Lord of the world, which would have no practical effect except

that of making him dictator of the Church, and bringing them and

their people into collision with everything bright and noble, which

he, in his infatuation, had set himself to put down. Many of them, at

considerable risk to their own interests, were determined to register

their solemn No! In spite of all hopes previously entertained, the

feeling that the minority were resolved had spread among the majority.

Quirinus tells how Deschamps, who had drafted a set of supererogatory

anathemas, and had only withdrawn them in face of serious threats

from Maret, and who was therefore known as having sought to place

every man of the minority in the dilemma between giving an instant

affirmative vote, or being immediately outside the Church by anathema,

now approached the leaders of the Opposition. "With humble gestures

and whining voice," he entreated them to do as Ketteler and Landriot,

profesedly belonging to them, had proposed, namely, to vote "Content on

certain conditions," and said that really there was a disposition on

the part of the authorities to insert qualifications. "The trick was

too bare-faced to succeed." Darboy called the attention of the three

Cardinals to this attempt to divide the Opposition at the last, and the

bishops said to the new Primate of Belgium, on whose head the gifted

already saw the mitre kindling into the flame-colour of a hat, "It is

unexampled impudence." We shall find hereafter, in the _Acta Sanctæ

Sedis_, what would appear to be an allusion to this scene.

The voting then began. It appeared that there were six hundred and

one bishops present, showing that many of those who were in the city

had stayed away. Antonelli was not there. Of course all the men

belonging to Rome and the patrimony of St. Peter were for the Pope. So

were nearly all those of the Neapolitan States, and the overwhelming

majority from the other portions of Italy; Spain, South America, and

the missionary bishops, might be said to be as one man. But to the

surprise of every one, several of the Orientals, under the Propaganda

as they were, and terrorized as they had been, had the heart to say No.

Even poor old Audu, Patriarch of Chaldea, dared to say _Non placet_,

knowing, from his experience by night in the Vatican, to what he might

be exposed. Of course Ballerini and Valerga, and other Romans, whose

Orientalism went no deeper than their vestments, were Roman still. When

the important preliminary votes had been taken by rising and sitting,

the Sub-Secretary ascended the pulpit. He called out name after name,

each one replying by the words, _Placet, Non placet_, or _Placet juxta

modum_; that is, Content, Not Content, or Conditionally Content. The

vast majority said _Placet_; but the stateliest of Cardinals, Prince

Schwarzenberg, said No. Milan said No; Paris, No; Munich, No; Vienna,

No; Gran, the Primatial See of Hungary, No; Lyons, the Primatial See

of France, No. In all, no less than eighty-eight living witnesses that

day lifted up their testimony, and sent it on to all after-time, that,

so far as they knew, the doctrine of Papal infallibility had not been,

and was not then, the faith of the Churches which they represented.

Nearly all these did represent Churches, many of them the oldest, the

most educated, and the most numerous in the Papal world. Maret, who was

a bishop _in partibus_, being among the minority, was like a bird in

the wrong flock.

Strange to say, no less than seven Cardinals then present in Rome

abstained from voting. The abstentions altogether numbered eighty.

Poor Cardinal Guidi, who had been sadly belaboured for his fault, had

been forbidden to receive visitors, and had been made miserable by all

the arts which priests can practise, and to which priests are exposed,

now voted _Juxta modum_; that is, conditionally content. The number

who did the same were sixty-two. A false impression was spread among

the Liberal Catholics that these were all adverse to the definition.

Not so. Some of them did not think the formula now before them strong

enough, and had notable additions to propose. The Contents were, 451;

the Non-contents, 88; and the Conditional Contents, 62.[451] The _Acta_

of the Council contain not a syllable of this sitting, any more than of

all the others of the General Congregations.

The effect of this vote in Rome was immense. No class of men had

counted upon it. Even ardent supporters of the minority had shown a

want of any confidence that they would stand fast up to this point. The

impression got abroad, for the moment, that not even Pius IX, little

delicate as he was, would accept an apotheosis, as it was called,

which had been publicly discredited by nearly all the bishops of

great Sees, who were in any sense independent of the Bishop of Rome.

"According to general belief, especially in Rome," says Vitelleschi

(p. 206), "the Church never creates a dogma new in itself; but in

defining a dogma, simply attests some belief which has been always and

universally professed." The Romans saw that both the "always" and

the "universally" were for ever disproved by the vote. They knew how

speedily black could be made white, but they did not see how the device

could this time succeed. There was the vote, saying what had been the

belief of the bishops up to that hour. But probably the Romans soon

corrected their first impression by their habitual estimate of Pius

IX. They never accuse him of pride, although they always accuse him of

vanity and vainglory. A case in which the common voice so sharply draws

the distinction is exceedingly rare in public life. He is not above

accepting anything that is agreeable. Quirinus will have it that he

still declared that the vote of the Opposition would be reversed, and

that these misguided men would be so enlightened by the Holy Spirit,

that they would publicly vote for the right.

From Munich a telegram was sent to Hefele bearing many names, among

them that of Reithmayer, announcing universal "joyful sensation" at the

vote, and calling for "immovable perseverance," otherwise "incalculable

mischief."[452]

Nothing further now remained but the great solemnity for promulging

the Decree, and gathering the fruits of nearly eight months' toil.

Only five days' delay was taken--days of intense excitement, and

of incidents striking at the time, and important for all time. The

minority saw how their hopes that the Pope would recoil before a vote

so solemn as that recorded had been vain. The war-horse was prancing

outside the door of the Council, and the fighting sons of Loyola

could already tell what tidings he would bring. Louis Napoleon might

have doubts, but the Fathers of the _Civiltá_ had none. "Everything

is always directed and turned by Providence for the good and the

triumph of the Church." (VII. xi. 379). The crisis, they knew, would

give the Vicar of God an opportunity of intervening, with his newly

certified authority and infallibility, as mediator. This office once

accepted would easily be turned to that of supreme judge. So would

his new reign be grandly commenced. The _Monde_, of Paris, said to

be the organ of the Nuncio, already called the war a religious war

against Protestantism. France had been assured in every form that she

had only to attack Prussia, and all the Catholics of Southern Germany

would join her. Without the miscalculation at the Tuileries caused by

these statements, it is not probable that the French would have been

hurled into the ditch of Sedan. Both the precepts and the prophecies

of the reconstructionists failed. The cry, "The Church," raised by the

Bavarian priests was not so strong as that of "The Fatherland," raised

by the patriots. This fact was still unknown at the Vatican. Though the

inflation manifest before the Council was somewhat reduced, too much

remained.

The prospect was not so bright to the bishops. They had not been always

cooped up within the walls of Rome. Hints of how thoughts were turning

reached them from home. They knew that men of study and of wisdom were

either hostile to the new Constitution, or painfully solicitous. Some

of the bishops had deep personal convictions, which experience during

the Council had intensified; convictions that the whole proceeding was

neither more nor less than the adoption of a false doctrine to sanction

a fatal policy, and that the error was so fundamental as to involve the

acceptance of a purely human fountain of doctrine for all time to come.

They met and debated whether they should vote in the open session. Only

twenty, according to Archbishop Scherr, were in favour of this course,

and these did not insist on their own views, lest they should divide

the eighty-eight.

On the evening of July 15, about eight o'clock, a deputation entered

the Vatican, composed of the Primates of France and Hungary, with the

Archbishops of Paris and Munich, and the Bishops of Mainz and Dijon.

They had to wait an hour--a time doubtless filled up with meditations

more ecclesiastical than those which sometimes occupy the moments lost

in the ante-rooms of the Vatican; rooms full of traditional tales of

the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and the sinful lusts of

the flesh; such tales as good men, who had been forced to hear them,

would not easily be forced to repeat.[453]

They were admitted about nine o'clock. They came from the minority to

urge that the Pope should withdraw the additions made to the third

canon of the third chapter, that canon the attempt to snatch an

unconscious vote upon which had caused so profound an impression. They

also wished the addition of a limiting clause to the definition of

infallibility in the fourth chapter. Quirinus seems afraid to report

the answer given by the Pope, and that for a reason which we suspect

has often prevented English correspondents writing in Italy from

telling true tales. They know that we judge of Popes and Cardinals by

some such standard as that of our own public men, and that therefore

to us the true tale would look like an invention. In the present case

the answer was, "I shall do all I can, my dear sons; but I have not yet

read the proposed Decree, and I do not know what it contains."[454] His

Holiness requested to have the petition in writing. The spokesman,

Darboy, replied, with French tact, that he would have it sent to His

Holiness, and would take the liberty of forwarding at the same time

the proposed Decree, which the Commission and the Presiding Cardinals

had omitted to lay before his Holiness, though it wanted only two

days of the public session, and thus had exposed him to the danger of

promulging a Decree of which he was ignorant. Darboy not only did this,

but also took care that others should know what the Pope had actually

said. He wrote to the Committee on Faith, strongly censuring them for

their neglect in not laying the proposed Decrees before the Pontiff!

It is curious to observe how all the Liberal Catholic writers who had

come to Rome began by speaking of the Pope with the deference usual on

this side of the Alps, but finally slipped into the habit of calling

him "Pius." They evidently often had difficulty between their sense of

the conventional respect due to a personage whom so many own as their

head, and their feelings as honest men. The latter would have often

prompted them to speak of Pius IX as Italians do, and not as Englishmen

or Germans are wont to do.[455]

"Pius," continues Quirinus, added that if they would increase their

eighty-eight votes to a hundred he would see what could be done.

Only those who know the opinions entertained by that writer of the

Pope's personal ignorance, and of his habit of speaking as if he knew

everything, can appreciate the statement that his Holiness concluded by

assuring the deputation that it was notorious that the whole Church had

always taught the unconditional infallibility of the Popes.

Bishop Ketteler now threw himself on his knees before the Pontiff. For

some time he remained in that position, entreating his sovereign to

make some concession, and thus to restore peace and unity to the Church

and to the Episcopate. This was the very scene to please one like Pius

IX. And so the deputation left him with some hopes of concession--"full

of the best hopes," said the Archbishop of Munich.[456]

Two men speedily sought to undo any impression that might have been

made. Many a Roman Catholic has, in imagination, hovered over that

scene, returning again and again to watch the figures of the agents

of the Committee on Faith as they glided into the presence-chamber.

Such Catholics in their imaginings have scowled at, ay, have cursed

Senestrey the pupil of the Jesuit College _Germanicum_, and Manning

the pupil of Oxford, as the instruments of the Jesuits going at this

moment to harden the heart of the Pontiff, which some hoped had begun

to relent. It is said that this remarkable pair urged that all was now

ripe, that the majority were enthusiastic, and that moreover if the

Pontiff made concessions he would be dishonoured in history as a second

Honorius.[457] This "frightened the Pope," said Archbishop Von Scherr.

The hopes brought back by the deputation to the minority were speedily

dispelled. In the course of the morning Cardinal Rauscher waited on

his Holiness to thank him in the name of the minority for the gracious

reception of their deputation. The shrewd Austrian pointed out to

his royal master the effects which would flow from the definition as

framed by the majority. "It is too late," said the Pope; "the formula

is already distributed to the bishops and has been discussed. Besides,

the public session is convened. It is now impossible to yield to the

wishes of the minority."[458] On Friday night the Pope said that he

had not seen the formula; on Saturday morning the Pope said that the

formula was already distributed and discussed. And this formula was

unchangeably to determine the fountain of doctrine, of ministerial

authority, and of all power in a so-called Church. Friedrich, on

writing down these words from the lips of his Archbishop, adds in a

parenthesis, "One is ready to go crazed at the measureless frivolity

with which the holiest questions are handled in Rome."

That same morning a Congregation was held to consider the suggestions

made by those who had given conditional votes. Two Spaniards, according

to Quirinus (p. 804), had made two propositions tending to complete

the repudiation of the collective authority of the universal Church

by the Bishop of Rome. The proposed Decree, as it stood, limited his

definitions to "matters which the Holy See had held from ancient times

in common with other Churches."[459]

This language, however vaguely, did recognize both antiquity and

catholicity. The worthy Spaniard doubtless felt that the Vicar of God

ought not to be limited by any such things; that he should be left free

to define what he felt called to define. The committee had been of

the same mind, and had adopted the proposal of the Spaniard that the

above-quoted clause should be struck out. The Sub-Secretary cried, "The

amendment proposed to 76 is accepted by the committee: those who are in

favour of accepting it, stand up." Nearly all stood up. Ten or twelve

stood up against it, and away went the antiquity and catholicity as

expeditiously as any Cardinal could desire.[460]

The inner lights of the Pontiff were thus freed from any restraint

arising out of ancient views, and the local creed of Rome was freed

from any restraint arising out of a common Christianity as between that

city and other Churches.

Now, however, came to pass a marvel, if anything could be marvellous

there and then. The venerable men seated all around had spent

their long lives in hearing and telling of one thing--the glory,

the authority, the divinity of the Church, and the overwhelming

conclusiveness of her consent. All who did not hear the Church were,

according to them, lost. Even when, in preparing the way for the change

of base which they had foreseen before leaving home, some of them had

appeared to throw tradition altogether overboard, it was only in order

to substitute for it the general consent of the Church. Which of us

would have dared to tell devout Roman Catholics that their own bishops,

when once in Rome under the terror of the Pontiff and the Jesuits,

would disavow the consent of the Catholic Church, and say that without

it the word of a single man was quite as good? They may now attempt to

explain the words "not by consent of the Church," as meaning something

small; or even to say that Popes ever and always formally disclaimed

the necessity of her consent. The world must leave them to do so; but

they know, as well as we do, that had we said that their bishops would

of a sudden put words like these into the creed, they would have called

us calumniators. Yet what came to pass?

That came to pass which had often been hinted as necessary by the

zealots during the Council, but had always been looked upon as

impossible by most men of the minority, although a few had openly said

that in such a Council nothing was impossible. Another Spaniard, when

he gave his conditional vote, had proposed that the words of the Decree

which said, "The definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves

irreformable," should be amended so as to read, "The definitions of the

Roman Pontiff are of themselves, _and not by consent of the Church_,

irreformable." Vitelleschi says that no information was given as to the

authority at whose suggestion these metamorphic words were approved by

the committee, but approved by the committee they were. So, without

any opportunity of debate, the Under Secretary cried, "The amendment

under number 152, having been modified, is accepted by the committee";

and reading it, he added, "Let those who are in favour of accepting

it stand up." The great majority stood up. "Let those who are against

accepting it stand up." "About thirty" stood up.[461] Thus were those

ancient men called upon in their episcopal robes to extinguish the

light of that lamp to which they had ministered oil all the days of

their lives. They obeyed like soldiers, and the old, old light of a

catholic consent was quenched for ever. Many of the eighty-eight were

absent, and knew not of this new, swift, and crowning victory of the

guild over the hierarchy.

Done in a moment! the Romish bishops had effaced from their law, and

from their rule of faith, the consent of the Catholic Church! Talk

of revolutions, of hasty parliamentary votes, of the sudden impulse

of a mob; but where in history is there an instance of breaking with

a long and loud resounding past, in such haste, and so irrevocably;

irrevocably, not by the ordinary law which entails the consequences

of an act upon the future, but irrevocably by the form and intent of

the action itself? We know, alas! what these bishops are capable of

representing; but it is for the unborn to judge the men who did that

act and then faced round, saying that they changed nothing. And these

men are to teach the human species the art of conserving all that

they have "inherited and proved"! The Church of the Popes had long

ceased, in the eye of Protestants, to have a claim to catholicity.

Now, however, in the eye of Liberal Catholics she explicitly rejected

catholicity by statutory and irreformable law. They saw her contract

herself to the sect of one man and his retainers, to a religion made up

of faith in one man, his inner light, and his _faits accomplis_.

The slow but irresistible operation of principles had at last worked

out its ultimate issue. Liberal Catholics were the first to see that

the religion of the Pope had now really ceased to be Catholic, or

even national, or indeed municipal--that it had in fact become only

palatial. They at once named it the religion of the Vatican. They

did not so soon admit that the principle of one city church--not

the mother, and not a model--being the mistress of all others, and

practically the fountain of their faith, contained in itself the germ

of all that had now come to fruit.

The sitting which began with deeds so very solemn ended in another

way. For once the poor Pope had been exposed to the plague of

pamphlets in the Holy City. It is pathetic to read the wailing over

the destiny that subjected so holy a being to this in addition to

his other "martyrdoms," "Calvaries," "crucifixions," and such like

words, to win a tear. Many of the vexatious writings were in Latin.

Thus if they had the additional bitterness of being the work often

of bishops, always of priests, they still had the veil of a dead

language. Not a few, however, had been written in living tongues.

Two of the latter, which cut dreadfully deep, were in French--_What

is going on in the Council?_ and _The Last Hour of the Council_. We

are now to see how these are dealt with. It is announced by the First

President that a certain protest will be distributed. So papers are

handed round. During this process the Under-Secretary calls out, Let

the Fathers take notice that the sitting is not over! Then from the

pulpit, in the name of the Presidents, he reads a protest against

false reports in general, and the two pamphlets in particular. They

were stinking calumnies and shameful lies--_putidissimæ calumniæ ...

probosa mendacia_. The Italians and Spaniards, who could not have

read them, cried, "We condemn them." The minority cried, "We do not

condemn them." The President called upon those who did condemn them

to stand up. Sambin says that so few remained seated that, to avoid

exposing them to humiliation, the contrary was not put. Among these

men Friedrich names Rauscher and Schwarzenberg. Two copies of the

condemnation had been handed to every one of the bishops. The President

now read a request that each would return one of them signed with his

own name. This trap, however, was not successful. Haynald said that

if the Presidents would translate _La Dernière Heure_ into Latin, he

and the rest of the Hungarians would be able to see if it was as bad as

their Eminences had said it was.[462] The _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ make no

mention of any demur, but notes that many prelates said, "Willingly,

with all my heart, yes, even to blood!" But why giving bad names to two

pamphleteers should call forth such heroic resolutions is not obvious.

Thus did an OEcumenical Council spend its last legislative moment in

recording a condemnation of two pamphlets which obviously the bulk of

those who gave sentence could not have read. The presentation to every

man personally of the two papers, and the call to sign, coming from

the chair, was a symptom not calculated to dissipate certain fears

that had got abroad among the minority. It was reported that if they

dared to give an adverse vote in the public session, two papers would

be immediately presented to them, the one being a subscription to the

dogma, the other being the resignation of their sees. If they did not

sign the first, they must sign the second. They knew that in case they

refused to sign both, they were within the walls of Rome. And suppose a

bishop to have signed his resignation and then to find himself in the

hands of the Papal police! And men liable even to the suspicion of such

menaces were free "judges and legislators!"

So ended the last of the General Congregations, being the eighty-sixth

since the beginning. It will be ever memorable--a monument of despatch

and versatility. It renounced, as lights in doctrine, antiquity,

catholicity, and the consent of the Church, and it denounced two French

pamphlets, and gave to _Ce Qui se Passe au Concile_ and _La Dernière

Heure du Concile_ an immortality in the formal Acts of that assembly

denied to all the petitions, suggestions, deliberations, and votes of

the whole hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in their fourscore and

six anxious and pregnant sittings in General Congregation.

For awhile the protest against these pamphlets, of which the wording

is named by Vitelleschi as a sample of the violent language common in

the Roman _bureaux_ at the time, is actually printed among the Acts of

the Council, those Acts contain not a word of the votes, proposals,

or discussions of the General Congregations; not a hint of all the

protests put in by the minority, not a hint of the voting in the great

Congregation on July 13, or, in fact, of anything that could give a

knowledge of the processes, or of any other results than the lists of

committees and the formulated Decrees. By processes we do not mean the

ceremonial ones, for they are briefly described, but the legislative

and deliberative ones, which are entirely omitted. The Bulls of the

Pope and the Decrees of the Presidents as to procedure are printed; but

no action of the bishops. When what has passed through the hands of the

bishops becomes a Papal constitution, it of course appears. As to the

historians, they indeed do give the voting on July 13; but we believe

that not one of those who wrote by or under authority gives one of the

documents of the protesting bishops, from the beginning of the Council

to the end, or any indication of where they may be found. Vitelleschi

tells how, on this same day, Cardinal Rauscher himself made a last

desperate effort to impress the immovable Pope, and was received with

scant courtesy.

That Saturday night a number of downcast old men, each with more or

less of a retinue, took leave of Rome. Some went by the desolate way

to Civitá Vecchia. On reaching that city, and beginning to breathe the

free air of the sea, they might well wonder how long the red, white,

and blue flag would warn away the red, white, and green; how long the

eldest daughter of the Church would help the autocrat to impose his

obscure tyranny on this threadbare patch of land,--a land whereof the

natural lot was neither poverty nor dependence upon the foreigner.

Some of them took the less desolate way towards the North. In the

clear July night they passed by Monte Rotondo, with Mentana not far

off. When would Garibaldi be heard of anew? Or would the next dash at

Rome be left to Garibaldi? Spoleto, Terni, and other places lost in

1860, would suggest the question: Will Ireland and Belgium find men for

new crusades, and if so, will they be more successful? The lamps of

Perugia, high on the hill, would recall tales of slaughter under Pius

IX. Perhaps the prelates had not heard them, or had said that they were

all lies. All of the Frenchman, or of the German, in their hearts would

be drawn in one direction; all of the Papist in another. The Frenchman

would naturally say, He who has repaid the restoration of twenty years

ago, and the support given since then, by deliberate insult of the

greatest names of the Gallican dead, by coarse offences against every

man of mark among the French living that dared to speak a dissentient

word, and by the ostentatious abrogation of all the Gallican liberties,

deserves not that the flag of France should longer shelter his policy.

The German would naturally say, The attempt to undo the unity of

the Fatherland, and once more to expose us through division to the

incursions, the burnings, and the plunderings of the French, is no

less than diabolical; and he that aims at breaking up Germany for the

sake of weakening Italy, should be left to his deserts. But in such

men, after all, the Frenchman or the German represented but the human

instincts, not the drilled, trained thoughts, and the unchangeably

moulded habits. The German, or the Frenchman, represented the boy, but

the Papist represented the man. "The weakening of the individual will

in the priest," of which Vitelleschi speaks, as one of the secrets

of that mysterious zeal to-day for things which were esteemed untrue

yesterday, is scarcely more striking than is the weakening of national

sympathy, except when the interests of the Papacy are supposed to be

connected with those of the nation.

We may close this chapter with one specimen more of the practical

preaching for the establishment of the new moral order, of the real

Christian civilization, which the scribes of the Court had kept under

the eyes of all who sought, in their pages, for tidings of the great

things which the Council was doing. Our last specimen was that of an

English youth: this is that of a French one. Bravely fighting his gun

at Monte Rotondo, fell young Bernard Quatrebarbes, the son of a Breton

marquis, mortally wounded. When the victors of Mentana delivered the

prisoners, no less than four cousins gathered around the pallet of the

wounded Bernard. At Rome he was joined by his father, his sister, and

other female relations. The day after his arrival in the city, his

humble room in the hospital having been entered by Pius IX, "radiant

with sovereign sweetness," as the writer expresses it, Bernard was

naturally in ecstasy at such an august apparition. The Pope desiring

to see the wound of his crusader, and making the sign of the cross

over it, said, "God will bless thee, my friend, as I bless thee." The

Marquis announced to his wife the departure of her boy in three words,

"Bernard in Paradise." "Words," exclaims the author, unconsciously

signalizing the fall of Rome from Christian hope--"Words worthy of the

primitive Christians." Ay, but, thank God, primitive Christians before

saying over their dead "in Paradise" instead of "in Purgatory," did

not wait till one fell fighting for the royalty of a bishop! Over the

fisher drowned with his nets, over the mother who died in childbirth,

they rejoiced with the joy of hope eternal. It was for later, darker

ages to drag them back again into a dim region where a crowd of

intervening patrons and all manner of priestly spells came between them

and the bosom of a Father, between them and the home where all the

brothers meet.

Maria Sophia, ex-Queen of Naples, came so often to the bedside of the

dying Bernard, that our narrator says she almost seemed to have taken

up her abode in the hospital, and sometimes she was moved to tears. By

that bedside also did her husband say to the Marquis, "How noble is

your son!" To the Marquis also wrote another expectant exile, the Count

of Chambord, saying that he admired "the short but bright career of

Bernard, and his marvellous end." It was the Colonel of Bernard that

told the father of his departure, and in these words: "I have another

patron in heaven." But above all when the news was conveyed to the

Pope, he said: "Bernard Quatrebarbes is a saint in heaven." At home in

Brittany, while the corpse lay in the chapel of the château, the people

flocked around the bier; but it was "more to invoke the departed than

to pray for him." The new Hermit who preaches the new crusade thus

concludes his memoir:--

The death of Bernard Quatrebarbes, who sacrificed to God youth,

fortune, and pleasure, a tranquil life and the joys of home,

in order to march in the defence of the truth, of virtue,

of the Church, will awaken the drowsy soul of more than one

young cavalier. Bernard is already a martyr, and he will be an

apostle.[463]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 442: _Friedberg_, 145; _Quirinus_, 788.]

[Footnote 443: See Protest with signatures. _Doc._, ii. 400-403.]

[Footnote 444: _Apologia_, p. 327.]

[Footnote 445: _Quirinus_, p. 792. The _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ does not

think it worth while to count;--"fifty or thereabouts," "quinquaginta

circiter patribus dissentientibus" (vi. p. 31).]

[Footnote 446: _Le Con. du Vat. et le Mouvement Anti-Infallibiliste_,

pp. 6-10.]

[Footnote 447: _Friedrich_, p. 405.]

[Footnote 448: _Quirinus_, p. 771.]

[Footnote 449: _Ibid._, p. 772.]

[Footnote 450: _Ibid._, p. 773.]

[Footnote 451: _Civiltá_, VII. xi. 362. _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ has the

same numbers.]

[Footnote 452: _Friedrich_, 406.]

[Footnote 453: When, in 1860, writing _Italy in Transition_, I read,

on the recommendation of an Italian gentleman, a book by a well-known

writer professing to describe the interior life of the Vatican; but

found it too low to allow me even to allude to it, much less to

quote it. What was my surprise when, a year or so later, appeared

the work of Liverani, to find this very book--which even now I do

not care to name--cited with that of About and of others, as a work

the _substantial_ accuracy of which the learned Domestic Prelate and

Protonotary of the Holy See could not deny.]

[Footnote 454: _Quirinus_, p. 801. This astounding assertion does not

rest upon the sole authority of Quirinus. Friedrich, in reporting the

sayings of the Archbishop of Munich to the Faculty of Theology in that

city on his return, gives the same assertion as repeated by his Grace.

It had been a favourite theory with official writers that Quirinus was

Friedrich, but as the latter left Rome in May, and Quirinus continued

to write to the last, that theory had dropped out of sight. It is a

curious coincidence in the present case that nearly all the incidents

of this interview, mentioned by Quirinus writing in Rome on July 19,

were repeated by Archbishop Scherr in Munich to the Faculty two days

later. The substantial agreement of the two accounts is quite as great

as that in several other cases which have induced men like Hergenröther

to argue that Friedrich and Quirinus were one. The agreement is such as

would be found between two practised writers hearing an account from

the same eyewitness, or from two or three eyewitnesses, and immediately

writing down what they had heard. _Friedrich_, p. 408 ff.]

[Footnote 455: An instance of the effect of perfect knowledge of Rome

by personal residence, on the style of expression and description, may

be seen in Mr. T.A. Trollope's interesting book, _The Papal Conclaves_,

as compared with the unreal and conventional forms kept up by

Englishmen who know neither the language nor the spirit of the people.

Some of the latter, ever since the days of the _Tracts for the Times_,

provoke smiles, and have gradually been acquiring for our country a

reputation very unlike the old reputation of England for strong common

sense, love of reality, and contempt for shows and fables.]

[Footnote 456: _Friedrich_, p. 409.]

[Footnote 457: _Quirinus_, p. 803; also the words of Archbishop Scherr,

as quoted in _Tagebuch_, p. 409.]

[Footnote 458: Related by Archbishop Scherr to the Theological Faculty

at Munich. _Friedrich_, pp. 409, 410.]

[Footnote 459: _Quirinus_, p, 804. See the Draft in _Doc. ad Illus._,

ii. pp. 317, 318,--"Quod antiquitus Apostolica Sedes et Romana cum

cæteris tenet perseveranter ecclesia."]

[Footnote 460: _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 461: The _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ does not even profess to count

exactly,--"about thirty" (_triginta circiter_).]

[Footnote 462: _Quirinus_, pp. 806-7.]

[Footnote 463: _Civiltá_, VII. ix. 542-48 and 664-70.]

CHAPTER VIII

Grief of M. Veuillot--Final Deputation and Protest.

Sunday, July 17, was rather more of a fast than of a feast for M.

Veuillot. He says, "War and oppositions are cruel clouds." Bad as

were the rumours of war, those of "rebellion" among the bishops were

still worse. It had evidently become known that the minority were not

to be cowed into gracing the public solemnity with their compulsory

_Placet_. It was even rumoured that the bishops would go into the

open session and disturb the solemnity by saying _Non placet_--ay,

M. Veuillot had heard, by shouting it and outrageously repeating it

in the face of the Pope.[464] While nothing was more desirable than

that, to prove the freedom of the Council, two or three should say

_Non placet_, any serious number doing so would be detestable. The

refusal of the non-contents to vote at all would be only one degree

less bad. M. Veuillot, however, discovered that many whose departure,

"or rather desertion," had been reported were still really in Rome.

But, on the other hand, he saw carriages at the doors of leaders of the

"tormenting and tormented" Opposition; at those of the Archbishops of

Paris and Lyons, and of Cardinals Rauscher and Matthieu. Even the Via

Frattina was visited to note the symptoms at the door of Maret. After

night-fall, Veuillot cries, "Many are gone, and many more are going in

the morning. They will really absent themselves. I cannot help thinking

of a caricature. It represented some seditious fellows in a scare, who

said, 'Now is the moment to show ourselves; let us hide!'"

As the noontide of that July Sunday blazed upon the Vatican, a

deputation had entered the presence chamber, headed by Darboy and

Simor, Primate of Hungary. They came to make one last attempt to

procure the prorogation of the Council without the promulgation of

the dogma. Their only answer was the old _Non possumus_. Then the

last of the luckless series of protests was solemnly delivered. They

had not heart enough to fight, and had too much conscience to submit.

So they took the middle course, and spoiled for ever the pretext of

moral unanimity except the dead unanimity of form. Their fears, or

their views of unity and reverence would not allow them in public to

withstand the Pope. He had justly calculated the effect upon them of

throne and tiara, with the fear of possible degradation. They had not,

perhaps, sufficiently calculated what might have been the effect on him

of honest men standing up one after another in their appointed place,

and saying before all the Churches, as a wiser than they had done of

a better than he, that he was to be blamed. They would have exposed,

it is true, Pope Pius IX to a temporary check, yet they might have

saved the Papacy from an irrevocable error. But in proportion as the

Papacy had become weak in producing conviction, it had concentrated

its strength on the means of producing submission. Its success in

that art was now to be its own punishment. No Protestant had expected

any effectual resistance from men trained as Romish bishops. Any real

tenacity of conscience shown during the Council, was due to nobler

influences spread abroad in countries where the ascendancy of Rome is

not complete. There is, to our mode of thinking, something not merely

incongruous and grotesque, but a great deal worse, in putting forward

the paltry plea of personal offence, or personal consideration, when

the matter in hand is a dogma that is to mould the religion of millions

for ever. The fact that these prelates do put forward such a notion

countenances the statements often made about men giving as the reason

for their votes that they could not refuse the Holy Father or hurt

his feelings. Vitelleschi thinks that the fear of being required to

resign their Sees or subscribe the dogma was one of the elements in

determining the minority to leave Rome before the definition (p. 212).

If so, seeing them escape from that dilemma would be one of the causes

of the mortification shown by the majority, as expressed by Veuillot.

We give the last of the protests in full[465]:--

Most Blessed Father, in the Congregation held on the 13th of this

month we gave our votes upon the proposed Decree of the first

dogmatic constitution of the Church of Christ.

It is known to your Holiness that there were eighty-eight Fathers,

who, pressed by conscience and moved by love of the Holy Church,

gave their votes in the words _Non placet_, that sixty-two others

voted in the words _Placet juxta modum_, and that, moreover, about

seventy were absent from the Council and abstained from voting. To

these are to be added a number who, from infirmity or other serious

reasons, have returned to their dioceses.

In this manner, our votes have been made known to your Holiness

and to the whole world, and it has been made evident by how many

bishops our opinion is approved; and thus have we discharged our

office and duty.

From the time above stated, nothing has occurred to change our

judgment; but, on the contrary, several things have been added,

and those exceedingly serious, which have strengthened us in our

purpose.

Confirming, then, by this document our votes, we have determined to

abstain from the public session to be held on the 18th. That filial

piety and reverence, which lately brought our deputies to the feet

of your Holiness do not permit us openly, and in the Father's face,

to say _Non placet_ in a case so closely concerning the person of

your Holiness.

And, indeed, the votes that would be given in the public session

could only repeat those already given in the Congregation.

We, therefore, return to our flocks without delay, for after so

long an absence we are much needed on account of the rumours

of war, and especially on account of the great spiritual

necessities. We return grieving that, because of the sad juncture

of circumstances, even peace and tranquillity of conscience is

disturbed among the faithful.

Meanwhile, commending with all our hearts the Church of God, and

your Holiness, to the grace and protection of our Lord Jesus

Christ, we are of your Holiness the most devoted and most obedient

sons.

Leaving, then, in the hands of the Pope this solemn confirmation of a

belief registered by a formidable array of bishops, that he ought not

to be proclaimed as the infallible representative of God, they turned

their backs on the palace which had witnessed their many humiliations.

Their allusion to the things which had been added since the 13th as

being "exceedingly serious," is another of the many witnesses out of

their own mouths against their subsequent statements. Their clear

statement that did they vote in the session it could only be to repeat

their former vote, seals with the seal of deliberate misrepresentation

many solemn assertions since that day made under mitres.

It was a grief to the soul of M. Veuillot to learn that the Ambassador

of France had graced with his presence the departure of Darboy. De

Banneville had accompanied the Archbishop to the station, escorted by

Mérode, with Monsignor Vecchiotti, and Father Trullet. The recalcitrant

Archbishop was even placed in "a kind of carriage of honour"; a fact

which reminded the Argus of the _Univers_ that a certain bishop had

said, We go away conquerors, but we leave some wounded on the field.

"This fine carriage seemed to me an ambulance."[466] Thus, poor Darboy

took his way towards the storm-cloud, blackening behind the hills, in

the after clap of which he alone of all the host was to find a bloody

grave.

The Monday morning dawned heavily over Rome. As the eyes of the last

portion of the fleeing minority were sadly tracing the outlines of

the hills on the upper course of the Tiber, while those of the first

portion were tracing the forms of the outlying Alps and a few were

watching morn as it spread over the waves of the Mediterranean, a

Pope for the first time rose in Rome with the consciousness that ere

sunset he would be infallible, not only in fact, but also in law.

His less happy prececessors had claimed that crown, but never had

received it. Now he was about, with the consent of the Church, to put

on the power to be infallible for ever, "without the consent of the

Church." Had ever diplomacy won such a victory? had ever an oligarchy

so completely signed itself away? Tell him that the temporal power was

of no spiritual value! But could all that have been accomplished except

within the walls of a strong city? As Pius IX looked from the Papal

apartments across the Tiber, the Pincian was gloomy, and the Sabine

Hills were hid in clouds under a threatening sun. But he would remember

the day of his taking possession, and how gloom had turned to rainbow;

the day of the return from Gaeta, and how the sun had opened from the

west at the right moment; above all, the day of "The Immaculate," and

how the sun had seemed glad of the sight. True, the dutiful luminary

had failed on the opening day of the Council, but the Jesuit Fathers

had written that the solemnity would be brilliant at its close, and

that the city would blaze with triumph, as Ephesus had done in the

year 431. And was not the throne so placed in the Council Hall, that,

all being propitious, the beams would fall as they had done on the day

of the Immaculate; and surely the Virgin would not fail to send them.

At all events, it was certain that he would lie down that night not

only the Pope of the Immaculate, but the Pope of the Infallible--the

first human being in the records of the world to whom a number of the

creatures of God had deliberately given the right of telling to them

and to their succeeding generations what they were to believe for ever

and ever. The deifying of an emperor, either in the plains of Babylon

or in the temples of Rome, was a little thing as compared with the

apotheosis now about to be performed. The dogmas of the emperor were

not to be eternal on earth, though he might cause himself to be decreed

immortal in heaven. The word "apotheosis" was perfectly natural to the

pen of Vitelleschi, or of any other Liberal Catholic who dared to speak

what he thought. But it is nevertheless true that deification among

the heathen, whether ancient or modern, involved little exaltation

compared with that now to be given to the Bishop of Rome. A Theseus or

a Rama, an Antinous or an Augustus, had a lowly part in ruling eternal

destinies compared with that to be now assigned to the Count and Priest

Mastai-Ferretti.

The monasteries and nunneries sent forth a contingent, as on the

opening day; but where were the proud vehicles and the pressing

throngs? Vitelleschi says that two or three houses in the city were

decorated. How dead was the indifference denoted by such language on an

occasion absolutely unprecedented, cannot be conveyed to the minds of

those who do not know what the people of a southern city can do when

they really mean to decorate. As the places for spectators in the Hall

filled up, it was whispered from one to another, "No crowned heads." An

Infanta of Portugal was the lone flower of royalty

"Where once a garden smiled."

Even ambassadors failed. France, the eldest daughter, was not there.

Spain, the Catholic, was not there. Portugal, the faithful, was not

there. Austria, the apostolic, was not there. Bavaria was not there.

Poland was dead. Italy was alive again, but her heart and hope were

elsewhere. Belgium and Holland had each sent a consul, the one to

welcome infallibility, with its constitution condemned by the Church,

the other with its heresy. Vitelleschi mentions a representative of the

Principality of Monaco. The _Giornale di Roma_ is not so worldly minded

as to specify any state, but says that members of the diplomatic corps

were present.[467]

About nine o'clock the Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops,

Abbots, and Generals, all in red, began to stream in. Five hundred and

thirty-five seats were soon occupied. It thus appeared that there were

some two hundred less than at the opening. About twenty had died.[468]

Several were ill. Some, in Rome, were absent from disclination to

attend.[469] Of the minority only two now changed sides. Of these,

one was a demonstrative Oppositionist--Landriot, of Rheims.

This conspicuous absence of the minority was a disappointment and a

humiliation, though it was nothing more. Even the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_

says that its effect was traceable on the countenances of the Fathers.

They grieved for the obstinacy of their brethren. Indeed, in the

Congregation where the vote was taken, some, with clasped hands, had

implored their friends to give up their false opinion at last. Still

the conqueror had his triumph, though he had not the satisfaction

of seeing the captives follow in his train. It was Cæsar without

Vercingetorix. It would have been a proud moment for the resident

Cardinals had Rauscher and Schwarzenberg made Vienna and Prague bow

down to Rome. Had the sturdy Darboy done homage for Paris, it would

have been a sign to the Curia that the new world of the Jesuit seers

was at last actually above the horizon. The readers of M. Veuillot

can well imagine into what ecstasies he would have fallen, and with

what dithyrambs his pages would have detonated, had his ears been

permitted to hear Dupanloup pronounce his _Placet_. This was not to

be. Those bishops were not the men to stand up in their places and

contend; yet were they not so thoroughly beaten as ostentatiously to

submit. Their paper confirmation of their legislative vote came like

an impertinent parley to tease the conquerors. What ought to have been

either a combat or a _fête?_ was neither. It was a ceremonial of which

even the _Civiltá_ quotes its description from the _Giornale di Roma_,

while M. Veuillot himself is too much affected to write more than a few

lines--as if silence was the vestment which his strong emotions were

wont to put on. In his after touches he often speaks of the glory of

the dogma, but we do not remember that he ever alludes to the glory of

that day. The Protestant _Fromman_, whom we have not been accustomed to

quote, though very glad to consult, called the ceremony tedious; but

that was unpardonable.

The Pope did not enter on this occasion, as on former ones,

between Antonelli and Mertel, but between Grassellini and Mertel.

Had Antonelli, because of having failed to give his vote in the

Congregation, lost his wonted place on the day when the fruit was to be

plucked? The hall and city, according to Vitelleschi, "wore a cold and

severe aspect." December 8 seemed to have dropped its mantle on July

18. Perhaps, however, ere the moment of promulgation arrived, the Roman

azure would be in the ascendant, and hearts would be gladdened at the

right time. Indeed, the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_, in contradiction to all

profane authors, states that just before the Pope uttered his sentence

the gloom somewhat cleared up. It does not attempt to say that the sun

shone.

After the preparatory ceremonies, Fessler and Valenziani approached the

throne. The Secretary handed the constitution _Pastor Eternus_ to the

Pontiff, with its chapters and its canons making a new Church, if ever

a new constitution made a new corps, and making, as Pius IX hoped, the

commencement of a new era for the kingdoms of this world, all of which,

with the glory of them, had been by some one promised to him after

this day. That constitution professed to give to him, or rather to

recognize as inhering in him, authority over all territories on earth,

and over all those actions of man that possessed any moral character.

Over the entire sphere of human accountability henceforth and for

ever it was for him to reign as should seem to him right. Valenziani

ascended the desk, and read out the title of the Decree. He then sat

down, and while the sky grew blacker, the house darker, and the hearts

of men more heavy with an impression of something terrible, he read

chapter after chapter, until at last he reached the close, and the

house echoed back his cadence, with the word of the Pope's self-written

doom, _Irreformable_,--"The definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of

themselves, and not by consent of the Church, _irreformable_."

After a moment's pause came the sealing Canon, "If any shall presume to

contradict this our definition, let him be anathema."

The reader ceased. The storm alone was speaking. For a moment no human

tone disturbed the air. But memory was repeating two terrific words,

and imagination kept saying that the winds were whispering.

Irreformable! Anathema!

Valenziani rose, and sending his voice athwart the gloom, said,

"Most Reverend Fathers, are the Decrees and Canons contained in this

Constitution agreed to?"