Part 4

A curious feature in the case of the doomed Congregations in France is that more than nine hundred awards were made to them for educational work during the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Leroy Beaulieu, who presided over this international jury, has written several articles, and a most scathing letter to M. Combes, on the subject of his malicious official calumnies. He, Brunetière, Paul Bourget, and many other distinguished Frenchmen have countersigned a Defence, presented by the Salesian Fathers, in which not less than thirty-four misstatements made by M. Combes are rectified. In general, it may said that all these official statements are as unreliable as those made by the Commissioners of Henry VIII. The Chambers were supposed by the law of 1901 to decide what Congregations were to be granted authorization. They really were allowed no voice in the matter. M. Combes presented only the names of four or five, Les frères de St. Jean de Dieu and some others, who are to be spared for the present. The remaining sixty-four were condemned without a hearing.

Parents of the richer classes will soon be compelled, like the poor, to send their children to government schools, keep them at home, or send them to foreign lands to be educated.

The true character of the Jacobin policy is becoming every day more apparent.

The social body, like our own, has its periods of adolescence and senility, its maladies and critical periods, while the axiom that nations have the government they deserve is attested by the fact that governments correspond to the national pathology.

The individuals too who dominate in turbulent times are like straws on an impetuous stream. They merely serve to show the direction of the current and its force.

Danton and Robespierre did not make the Revolution. It made them. A popular fallacy exists that the Revolution ended with the fall of Robespierre, or at any rate when Napoleon planted his artillery before the doors of the National Assembly. It is not over yet, and the men in power to-day are but straws on the surface.

The French Revolution was an avatar of the revolution of the sixteenth century, or rather one of the periodical renaissances or revolts of Paganism against Christianity. No doubt many economical causes were at work in 1789 and there was an urgent need for readjustment.

The _corvéable_, or what we call to-day the taxpayer, then as now, groaned and repined against the excessive burdens laid upon him. Proportion guarded, it is even true to say to-day that all tradesmen, agriculturists, and shopkeepers, all _except_ the _vendors of alcohol_, are as much crushed by taxes now as the _corvéables_ were in 1789.

The moving spirit, the genius and soul of the Revolution were the Jacobin Clubs. There were organized the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, theo-philanthropy, the worship of the prostitute as Goddess of Reason, the _noyades_ and the _fusillades_ which made France a vast charnel-house.

To-day the Jacobin Clubs have changed their signboards, they are now Lodges of the Grand Orient. But the spirit is unchanged. The ideal is always the same--the destruction of all revealed religion, and with it the noblest fruit of Christianity, Liberty.

The Jacobin mind, served by organs of political administration, is to constitute the Omnipotent and Infallible State, the golden image before which all must bow down and worship and sacrifice--for is not sacrifice the soul of worship? They must sacrifice all preconceived, congenital, and inherited notions of honour, morality, and religion, and acquiesce humbly in those edicted by the Omnipotent Infallible State; for _de facto_ infallibility is always a concomitant of supremacy. A necessary corollary of moral unity, established by an omnipotent State, is an evening up of social and financial conditions. No man may possess more learning, more wealth, or more prestige than his neighbour. Thus after having preluded by the assault on personal liberty, depriving thousands of men and women of the right to live in communities, the Jacobin Omnipotent State is itself to constitute one vast Congregation in which all, _nolens volens_, must live and practise _Poverty_ by submitting to fiscal confiscations for the laudable purpose of equalizing fortunes, _Chastity_ or unchastity according to new Government formulæ regarding divorce and free love, etc., with a view to procreation under governmental supervision, and above all _Obedience perinde ut cadaver_--Obedience to the Omnipotent Infallible State, henceforth the only regulator of their own and their children’s morality.

Since twenty-five years every law, every constitutional and electoral manipulation, has been elaborated at the lodges. To-day sixteen Commissions composed of their most trusted members are masticating the execution of the Associations Bill, or rather the wholesale executions of this _guillotine sèche_ which are imminent. No congregation of men engaged in preaching or teaching is to be tolerated, or its members allowed to exercise these functions even individually. The same rule will be applied to the congregations of women. Those engaged in primary schools have nearly all been dispersed by decree, and in violation of the law, as I have shown. The suppression of those who teach the children of the rich is only a question of a short lapse of time.

The rulings of these Commissions will be presented to the Chambers, and the “bloc” will vote as one man. It is an admirable means of eliminating all useless discussion on the part of the opposition minority, which every day grows lesser, and still more less, and will soon reach the vanishing point. Thus after being governed by decrees and ministerial circulars, France will be governed by Commissions as under the Constituante, and the ideal of the Omnipotent State, universal teacher, preacher, and general purveyor, may be realized ere long. Surely a strange outcome of a century of Liberalism!

From whatever point of view we consider the suppression of all religious Congregations and of educational liberty, we must admit that a grave violation of personal and civil liberty has been committed and will soon be consummated.

The Moslems for a long time levied on the Spaniards and the Venetians a tax of so many boys and girls a year, but no Government of a free people has yet called on all parents to stand and deliver, not their purse, but the souls of their children, that it may sow therein the tares of a hideous state materialism. The right free citizens have to follow their inclination and conscience by living in community and practising the counsels of evangelical perfection to which they feel called is a most sacred part of personal liberty.

“Liberalism,” writes Taine, “is the respect of others. If the State exists, it is to prevent all intrusion into the private life, the beliefs, the conscience, the property of the individual. When the State does this, it is the greatest of benefactors. When it commits these intrusions itself, it is the greatest of malefactors.”

Curiously similar was the judgment of an old Spanish peasant with whom Montalembert conversed during his travels in Spain after one of its nineteenth-century anti-clerical revolutions and the usual accompaniment, the suppression of religious Congregations. Pointing with her bare and scraggy arm to some deserted monastery buildings, she pronounced these two eloquent words, “_Suma tyrania_,” acme of tyranny!

DESPOTISM PLUS GUILE

_6th June, 1903._

The true character and scope of the Associations Bill can no longer be dissimulated. It should have been labelled “An Act for the suppression of religious congregations and Christian education preparatory to the suppression of Catholicism in France.”

Nor is this all. It looks as if this Trouillot or Associations Bill, with its numerous articles, was merely a vulgar trap set by the Government to extract from the doomed unauthorized Congregations accurate information regarding their property and members, in order to seize the former and see to it that the latter are for ever debarred from teaching. These inventories were a necessary part of all demands for authorization, without which no Congregation could henceforth exist. I say “seize,” for every one knows that “liquidation” means purely and simply spoliation and confiscation.

I have in previous articles dwelt on the bad faith of the Combes ministry in closing by simple decree some three thousand free parochial schools, in spite of the solemn assurance given by M. Waldeck Rousseau, on behalf of the State, that these schools were in no wise affected by the new law of 1901 (Associations Bill). At the last session of the Chambers a more monstrous illegality was committed.

“Both the letter and the spirit of the law of 1901 were violated.” These are the words pronounced at Bordeaux recently by M. Decrais, an ex-minister, who was thereupon elected senator by an imposing majority.

The law distinctly provided that the demand for authorization of each religious order be submitted to the vote of the Chambers, but M. Combes just bunched them all into three categories--preaching, teaching, contemplative--and they were sent to execution by cartloads, like the victims of 1793.

In vain the Right protested against the illegality of this proceeding. “What do we care for legality? We have the majority,” were some of the cynical utterances of the Left, who banged their desks, stamped their feet, and vociferated to drown the voices of speakers of the Right. Worst of all, M. Combes produced, and used with much effect, a document purporting to bear the signature of many Superiors of Congregations, urging all to sell out their government bonds.

In vain the Right demanded that the authenticity of this document be proven before taking the final vote. This act of M. Combes speaks for itself.

The wholesale suppression of all preaching and teaching orders is, moreover, a distinct violation of Art. I of the Concordat, which is an organic law of the French State. This article provides, “that the Catholic religion shall be freely exercised in France.”

The allegation that this Concordat does not mention religious Congregations is a mere quibble.

“No church,” declares Guizot, “is free that may not develop according to its genius and history,” and every one knows that preaching and teaching Congregations have always formed an integral part of the Catholic Church, her most important organs of expansion in fact.

This wholesale suppression of preaching and teaching Congregations is a violation not only of the law of 1901 and of the Concordat, but also of the law Falloux, 1850, which entitles all persons duly qualified to teach and open schools. It was then that the great preacher and teacher, the Dominican Lacordaire, speaking in the Chambers as deputy, pointed to his white robe, exclaiming, “I am a liberty.”

The Charter of 1830 (under the _Monarchie de Juillet_, as the reign of Louis Philippe of Orleans was called) conferred this liberty, in theory; but it remained ineffective until the law Falloux finally abolished the state monopoly of education, which Napoleon had centred in the University of Paris.

But the Third Republic brushes aside Art. I of the Concordat, the loi Falloux, 1850, the scholar laws of 1885, and its own new-fledged law of 1901, all with the utmost unconcern.

“What do we care for liberty,” as the Left cynically exclaimed. Quite as little as they care for the wishes of the whole country, expressed by innumerable petitions, and the votes of 1500 Municipal Councils of Communes, whom the Government condescended to consult. One thousand and seventy-five of these voted for the Congregations; about four hundred voted against them; the others abstained. The attitude of the people in every place where Congregations were dispersed, with the aid of the regular army and the police, leaves not the slightest doubt that if a referendum had been taken as in Switzerland, more than two-thirds of the nation would have voted for Liberty and the Congregations.

With the astute hypocrisy that characterizes him, Waldeck Rousseau professed intense devotion to the secular clergy and declared that the law of 1901 (Associations Bill) was devised to protect them from the encroachments of the regular clergy or monks. He thought to divide and conquer. Now that seventy-two bishops have sent a combined petition to Parliament on behalf of the Congregations, and the whole secular clergy have openly identified their cause with that of the Congregations, this ministerial fiction can no longer be upheld.

The Left or “bloc” are clamouring already for the suppression of the secular or parochial clergy, who they say “are all in connivance with the Congréganists.”

M. Combes has sent a circular to the bishops requiring that all churches and chapels _non concordataires_ be closed, and threatening to close even the parish churches which existed already in 1808, if any member of a dispersed Congregation preached in it.

Only four bishops, I am happy to say, “had the courage to submit,” to use the words of a ministerial organ.

The language in which the French prelates have expressed their _non possumus_ is worthy of the best traditions of the Church, and when these sectarian persecutors shall have completely thrown off the mask, another glorious page will be added to her history, I trust.

Jealous, no doubt, of M. Trouillot’s laurels, M. de Pressensé, son of a Protestant pastor, and some others have attached their names to projects of law for what is mendaciously and hypocritically called “the Separation of Church and State,” meaning a law for the complete shackling of the Church in France in view to its suppression.

I think it is very desirable that the lodges should do their worst here and now. But it is just possible that Waldeck Rousseau may return and a halt be called.

M. Combes and _his employers_ the “Grand Orient” must see that they have gone a little too far. Civil war on a small scale has been raging on many points of France for two or three weeks; and they would be running blood if French Catholics carried concealed weapons as people do in South Carolina and Kentucky. As it is, there have only been innumerable broken limbs and heads and no end of arrests. M. de Dion, a deputy wearing his insignia of office, which offered him no immunity, appeared handcuffed before the police court, and was there and then condemned to three days’ imprisonment for “manifesting.” A young lady of twenty was condemned to eight days’ imprisonment for having cried “Capon” to a justice of the peace, who beat a hasty retreat when he found himself confronted by a few hundred men in the hall of a convent into which he had forced an entrance with the aid of state locksmiths, or _crocheteurs_. Here on my boulevard, Cimiez Nice, two squadrons of cavalry and numerous infantry were called out to aid the police at 4 a.m. in beating back the crowds who were “manifesting” against the expulsion of the Franciscans. At Marseilles, Avignon, etc., the main streets had to be barricaded, and cavalry charged the crowds, wounding great numbers. Of course all these grand manifestations of popular indignation are carefully belittled or suppressed by foreign correspondents of English and American papers. In the _Evening Post_, August 25th, M. Othon Guerlac, with lofty affectation of impartiality, echoes all the commonplaces of ministerial calumnies against the Congregations, but he has not one word to say about the monstrous illegalities committed by the Government from first to last.

The indignant protestations of the foreign colony have suspended for a time the closing of churches and convents on this Riviera.

The Ministerials have not even the courage to do evil logically and consistently, with equal injustice to all.

Two years ago Waldeck Rousseau, in his famous political speech at Toulouse, declared religious vows to be contrary to public law; and in the same breath he introduced the law of 1901, inviting all Congregations to apply for authorization. His colleague, M. Brisson, at the session in which fifty-four Congregations of men were executed _in globo_, loftily declared “that the Republic would never put its signature to an act alienating human liberty.” And at that very moment, three or four of these Congregations were nestling, securely, under the protecting wing of M. Combes. That of St. Jean de Dieu has a first-rate establishment for men in need of surgical treatment, similar to the one conducted by Augustine nuns, at which Madame Waldeck Rousseau was operated on recently. None of these will be interfered with, no matter how heinous their vows may be.

It would be foolish, I repeat, for Catholics to rejoice at the possible return of Waldeck Rousseau, or at any _machine en arrière_ policy.

M. Combes has been hired to do an odious job, when it is done he, too, will retire or fall. But the well-matured plans of the Grand Orient will be carried out with long-drawn, unrelenting, satanic astuteness. This is the peril I noted in my first article from France, March 17th, 1900.

UNCHANGING JACOBINISM

_6th May, 1903._

Last August I described the true spirit and scope of the Associations Bill, as it is called, and which many supposed was a mere matter of domestic economy. It should have been called an act for the suppression of all religious associations preparatory to the elimination of Christianity in France. _L’ennemi c’est Dieu._ It is evident to-day that the law of 1901 was a mere trap set by the Government to obtain from the Congregations accurate information regarding their pecuniary resources, in order to seize their property (for the term “liquidation” is only an euphemism); and regarding their members, so that they may be marked men and women, for ever debarred from preaching or teaching. The law required that demands for authorization of each religious order or association be submitted to the Chambers. M. Combes just bunched them all into three categories: preaching, teaching, and contemplative. At the request of the Government, the majority or “bloc” then sent them to execution by cartloads, as in 1793. Then the categories were labelled royalists, _emigrés_, and Catholic priests.

It is much to the credit of these fifty-four Congregations of men that their lives were so free from reproach that _three_ times the Government had recourse to the same incident of a certain Superior, said to have been condemned to hard labour in the year 1868! As another instance, the case of the Frère Duvain was alleged. Like the Frère Flamidien, the former had been recently arrested and imprisoned on false charges. For since then, only a week or so ago, Frère Duvain too was acquitted as wholly innocent!

These wholesale executions have been committed not only illegally, but in spite of the fact that out of 1600 municipal councils consulted on the subject, 1200 voted for the maintenance of the Congregations. About 100 abstained, and the others voted against. The prefects, being mere satraps of the Government, were nearly all opposed to the Congregations.

The Government has been profuse in its protestations that its object in suppressing the religious Congregations was to protect the secular clergy against their encroachments. But since seventy-two bishops signed a petition to the Chambers on behalf of the Congregations, and are daily raising their voices to denounce the tyranny which has ostracized them, this mask also falls. The right to preach and to teach are corollaries of the right of free speech and free thinking. All liberties, indeed, are inseparably connected, and must stand or fall together.

Meanwhile the loi Falloux, 1850, is still extant; nevertheless thousands of citizens are placed _hors la loi_, because they live and dress in a certain way.

The Concordat, a solemn pact and contract between the Holy See and the French Government in 1801, is still supposed to be in vigour, and one of its most important clauses provides for the “free exercise of the Catholic religion in France,” and Guizot affirms that no Church is free that may not develop and function according to its genius and traditions. Teaching and preaching religious associations have, from the beginning, formed an integral part of the Catholic Church. The suppression of her schools was one of the first means resorted to by Julian the Apostate when he undertook to restore paganism. The Third Republic invents nothing. Its next step will be to attack the secular clergy and establish a department of State known as the National Church, ministered to by servile state functionaries, recruited among apostate excommunicated priests, of whom there are always a few lying around. It is erroneously supposed that the Catholic Church in France is an established or state Church; that the clergy receive a salary and are functionaries. This is absolutely false. Two decisions of the Court of Cassation have decided that they are not functionaries.

To understand their position we must recall that the Convention confiscated all Church property and lands, the pious donations of kings and people which had accumulated during fifteen centuries of national progress and prosperity. Not satisfied with this act of spoliation, they threw these lands on the market with the precipitation and greed that characterize all revolutionary iconoclasts, fondly believing that the whole nation had sloughed off Christian superstitions regarding _ipso facto_ excommunications of all, who seized or even acquired Church lands. They were mistaken. These holdings became a drug on the market. From common prudence and honesty, if not from higher motives, few could be found willing to traffic in the pious gifts and foundations of their ancestors. Ten years of massacres, of civil and foreign wars, and anarchy, did not improve matters. Two classes of landed proprietors, two standards of valuation were created, and civil and religious discord was perpetuated in this material form. When Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction, his first care was to restore normal conditions in the real estate market by obtaining a clear title to the confiscated lands of the Church. There was but one person who could give this clear title. To him Napoleon appealed, and the Concordat was signed.

Pius VII could not, however, relinquish all claims to the confiscated lands without compensation. Hence the engagement entered into by the French Government to pay in perpetuity adequate subsidies for the maintenance of an adequate number of bishops and parochial clergy. This was the consideration [the _do ut des_] for which the Pope, as supreme chief of the Catholic Church, gave a clear title to the confiscated lands. The payment of these subsidies became henceforth a charge on the public treasury, a portion of the national debt, just like the payment of interest on state bonds.

The suppression, at the present moment, of these subsidies in the case of the Bishop of Nice and many other bishops and hundreds of parish priests is a partial repudiation of this part of the public debt. And there is nothing to prevent the repudiation of the whole. “What do we care for legality?” “We have the majority,” were utterances which passed unrebuked in the Chambers recently. They can imprison and kill the Roman Catholic clergy. The First Republic did both most freely. So did Nero and Bismarck. It also tried the experiment of a national schismatic Church and failed. The Third Republic openly proclaims its intention of renewing the experiment in which Abbé Gregoire, with _carte blanche_ from the Republic, so signally failed a hundred years ago.