Chapter XXXII: Part III: On the Boulevards (6)

We must make a little allowance for the days in which they lived. Men were untutored then; peace congresses (save the mark!) were unknown; an _Alabama_ case would either have been let alone or settled by the sword long ere it could have grown into a mere talking difficulty; men did not consult lawyers on the nice distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_. The Spaniards landed, and held their own by cruelty, oppression, and rapine, no doubt. We, with all our enlightenment, have followed their example pretty faithfully; except that, for men like the saintly Las Casas, we despatched an agent that worked a speedy conversion--fire-water. We have taken root here and grown up, and are a great nation, spreading out in all directions, wealthy, prosperous, enlightened, with civilization at our finger-ends, and Bibles willy-nilly in every one of our schools. Yes, we are a decided improvement on the Spaniards. But a hundred years ago there existed a race in this country to whom the land that we tread upon belonged. Where is that race now? A wretched remnant of it scowling and prowling on our outskirts; we are killing them off. We heard of them the other day joining in the great hunt. The most enterprising and powerful of our journals, one that has fitted out a purely benevolent expedition to Africa, sent its correspondent down to record it all. We had an “idyl of the plains”; the course of our great enlightenment and progress was drawn in fanciful colors, with this correspondent for central figure, riding for miles and miles under the stars to tell us at our breakfasts of the exact position of a soldier throwing an ornament round the neck of a savage maiden, and the evident appreciation the savages exhibited of champagne.

Spain failed in her mission, great and glorious as it was. Have we succeeded better? Has England, in India, or Tasmania, or wherever she set her foot?

Gold brought its own curse. When wealth comes unasked, few men will labor. The “Eldorado” filled the dreams and stopped the life of the Spaniards. One by one her rich possessions dropped from the parent nation, till Cuba was the only one left, and Cuba wishes to go also.

She has become a second-rate power in Europe, if so high--the kingdom “on whose dominions the sun never set.”

And here, with this glance at her past history to call to mind what she was, what she has achieved, the truly great elements that were always in her, we turn to look at her as she is; to consider her present bearing on the church, for we Catholics must always look at all things with a Catholic eye, knowing, as we do, that our religion is the one religion upon which the salvation of this world hangs; that, if the world is to be saved by us, we can never put our faith upon the shelf and enter the world as worldlings. The Spirit of God must permeate and pervade all people, all places, all things, at all times; and when that is accomplished, and not before, then will the world be saved.

Spain groaned under the rule of Isabella, or rather under the rule of her rulers. She was a woman far “more sinned against than sinning.” We are apt too often to blame the victim for the circumstances which make the victim. From her infancy a tool in the hands of unprincipled men; forced to marry a man utterly worthless in every respect; almost without one true friend, without a soul for her woman’s heart to cling to. We accuse her of all the evils created, fostered, encouraged by a host of powerful men, who used her as a chess-piece; while she stood, their game was safe. The revolution more than smouldered; but O’Donnell, at once a statesman and a soldier, kept it down. Narvaez, crafty and bold, succeeded him, and in turn went. These men, particularly the latter, in striking at their own foes, left a bitter legacy of hatred and revenge to the queen. What all foresaw came to pass--the last rising which ousted her. Prim came in; the nation’s destiny was at last in its own hands; now for the millennium.

Prim commenced it--a likely man for such a purpose. A bold, unscrupulous adventurer, whose chief virtue was his reckless bravery; no great talker; not a man who would astonish you by the wisdom of his words, but quick to decide, speedy to execute; a very soldier whose “voice was in his sword”--such was Prim. He found himself adored by the soldiers, glorified by the people. He did not care for the latter: when they wished to tear the crown from his cap on his entry into Malaga, he would not let them; he declared himself in plain words for monarchy from the beginning. He found the cortes split up into parties. Many for Don Carlos, a strong body, who if not crushed would have their king; so Prim resolved to crush them. A few for Montpensier; another few for Don Alfonso, the queen’s son; neither worth bothering about, Prim let them alone. A small compact party of republicans, very ably led; nearly all young, enthusiastic, lawyers many of them, excellent speakers, excellent fighters at a pinch, too. This was a dangerous party, who had been most instrumental in putting Prim where he was. He dared not turn round on them at once, the people were still armed. He coquetted with them. They were young, and many unfledged, eager to try their lungs, fond of the sound of their voices. Spain should be governed only as Spain wished; she should have a model constitution; freedom of the person, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of everything. No more conscriptions, only a few more thousands just to enable the army to quell those troublesome Carlists. He threw them a constitution, a model indeed in its construction, fit for Utopia, but scarcely for the wild spirits then raging in Spain. He let them wrangle over that, and turned himself to the army. He had always been popular with the soldiers; he moved everybody up a grade; by this means he created all the colonels, and the army was his. With this weapon secure in his grasp he could beat them all, and he did. He played them off, one against the other, in the cortes; he knew, split up as they were, the elements too opposed to coalesce, they would never agree about any single thing or any single person; he suggested this and he suggested that; if they would not take his suggestions, that was their fault. One thing was clear, they must support him, or anarchy would ensue. The Carlists left the chamber to fight. Precisely what Prim wanted; he had encouraged it, in fact; the sooner, the better for him, as he could the more easily crush them. He did so, cruelly and mercilessly. In the meantime, he was all honey to the republicans. But at last they began to see that they had been hoodwinked; that there was no hope of a republic from Prim; that the monarchy they hated would come in again, and all their efforts prove fruitless. Prim demanded the arms of the people--the arms which had been distributed to enable him to crush the monarchy. The republicans in their turn left the chamber to fight; and well they fought, too, against the overwhelming forces that Prim sent to quell them; for no half measures would do for Juan Prim. Those men who rose and fought so tenaciously at Cadiz, at Jerez, at Malaga, Valencia, had been well schooled beforehand by the preachers of the age. “You are poor, and your children will be poor after you. The labor of your hands goes to dress the fine ladies of the rich; to fatten lazy priests, who do nothing for a living; to set those brave gentlemen on horseback, who think themselves made of other flesh and blood than yours. We will change all that when the queen is driven out. We will all be equal, and do equal work or no work. Our men are men as theirs are; our women are women also.”

The queen was driven away; the friars, and the Jesuits, and the nuns banished. The government seized upon their houses and what was in them; of course it was not robbery when the government took them. Still the poor were not a penny the richer. These plausible doctrines had seized upon their simple minds. It was something worth fighting for, and they fought. No Paris barricades were ever defended with half the fury and obstinacy displayed by those Andalusians--the mountaineers and villagers whose fathers and grandfathers had harassed, surrounded, and captured a force of 4000 or more, under one of the First Napoleon’s generals. Still, we hear of none of those outrages at which the world sickened lately in Paris. “Aqui nadie se roba caballeros”--“Gentlemen, no one robs here,” was the first cry at Cadiz. A commandant of the forces was struck down in the midst of the revolutionists by a shot. They knew him well, and that he was going to fight against them; yet they were the first men to take him from the street and care for his wounds. There is all that is noble, generous, and faithful in the heart of this people, which it only requires a wise government to draw out.

They were beaten on all sides. They dared not rise in Madrid, for Prim kept his forces there, as a centre, menacing the country. In the midst of all this distraction, we see one flash of the old spirit that, however it might split against itself, was one against a common foe. Cuba saw its chance, and, though many concessions had been made, it would have liberty at once. Prim had quite enough to do at home; his hands were full with Carlists and republicans. We lent our sanction to the Cuban claims, with an after-eye to our own interests; and our minister made some representations that never quite came to light. Prim made no answer to them, at least in words. But, notwithstanding the dearth of money and of men, the strain at home requiring every nerve to sustain it, the old Spanish blood was true to itself. Volunteers sprang up in crowds; and force after force was shipped, is shipped still, to the island, ostensibly to quell a rebellion that never held a position from the first. A nation that can act so in such a moment must have something in it.

Before taking leave of Prim, in turn the hero and the terror of the revolution, much as we deplore that the destinies of such a nation at such a crisis should have fallen into the hands of such a man, we cannot help paying a tribute to his never-flagging energy, dauntless courage, and prompt decision. Men laughed at Prim, at his speeches, and wondered how he ever gained his position. Speaking on the deficiency of the national treasury, and utterly unable to tide over those rocks on which all governments break--figures: “I know we shall be able to meet the deficiency,” said Prim, “But how?” asked the deputies. “I do not know exactly how; but I have a _feeling_ in my breast which convinces me;” the words are from memory, but they convey the substance. Men laughed, but Prim stood his ground; and gradually the question, “What will Spain do?” merged into that of “What will Prim do?” A better man and a wiser statesman, neither very difficult to obtain, would have availed himself of such an opportunity to heal his country’s wounds. Prim could not do this; he did not know how; but he was at least “wise in his generation.” He could not save the sick man; he did the next best thing, he kept him from killing himself. The foolhardiness of the man was his destruction. He had often had warnings, but he knew not what fear was, and took no precautions.

“To have the republic is easy,” said Castelar, the leader of the republicans, after one of his defeats, to Prim. “We have only to kill one man.” “Nothing but a thunderbolt kills me,” retorted Prim, “and of those very few fall.”

The thunderbolt fell and crushed him, but failed to crush what it was aimed at, the monarchy. Amadeus landed just in time to learn that his right-hand man was gone--a fearful venture for a young king and his queen. But he braved it royally; and though the race of Victor Emanuel can never find much favor in our eyes, this son of his, we confess, has borne himself through trying scenes like a king and like a gentleman, nobly supported by his brave and Catholic lady. That he was never elected by the people is clear; that, notwithstanding his personal merit, he is not likely to stay long where he is, is the surmise of all. If a telegram, without the slightest foundation in fact, announced his expulsion to-morrow, not a man in the world would disbelieve it. The people can feel no sympathy with a man who has no sort of title to their ancient crown; who is a perfect stranger to them, and almost to the world; who after the hawking of their throne about Europe, was forced upon them against their will. Besides, the Italians, of all European nations, are despised in Spain. They are considered there as good singers, dancers, cooks, and such like, but not the men for anything manly or great: how much less for the throne of Ferdinand the Catholic! “King Macaroni the First” was the burlesque that greeted Amadeus on his arrival in the capital. With him we will not trouble ourselves further, but with the revolution that gave occasion to the accident of his accession, and which will displace him to-morrow or the next day.

Spain undoubtedly was in a bad state under the _régime_ of Isabella. The question is, Has she bettered herself by driving out the queen? The new order came in with a grand flourish of trumpets. Progress was the watchword: the “Progressistas” were Prim’s party till he broke them up. We have touched already on the blood shed in civil strife for this party and for that, but there are other things to consider. Education is the word of the day; let us see what the revolution effected in this direction.

The Jesuits under great difficulties were organizing colleges and missions; they were straining every nerve to educate and improve the people, and were just beginning to make some headway when the revolution came; and of course the first “abuse” to be abolished was the Order of Jesus--that order that flourishes even in Protestant countries like England, where the government, under such a chancellor as Mr. Lowe, grants them a pension for their observatory at Stonyhurst. They had to fly the country; their establishments were all broken up and seized upon by the government. A case in point:

At Port St. Mary’s, between Cadiz and Jerez, the gentlemen of the town, seeing the good effected by the Jesuits in their missions, and feeling it in the improved conduct of the men they employed, as more than one of them assured the writer, united and raised funds sufficient to build a magnificent college which they presented to the society. The government, then of Isabella, had nothing to do with it. When the revolution broke out, there were three hundred students there, many of them from the first families of Spain. In addition to these, forty of the poor children of the district were admitted to the course of studies free. The Jesuits were banished, and escaped with their lives, thanks to the courage of a noble-hearted gentleman of the town and his sons, who at the risk of their own lives and property gave them shelter till Topete himself went and conducted them to the sea. The college was closed and seized by the government. The gentlemen who built it demanded the building to be used at least for educational purposes, no matter under whom. To all their remonstrances a deaf ear was turned; and the college stands tenantless to this day. Those who had the means sent their children out of the country to England, France, or elsewhere. Many could not, and for them there was no remedy. Their children must do without education while the work of enlightenment goes on.

They drove out the friars and the nuns destitute into the world; seized upon their property, and possessed themselves of their treasures, the vessels of the sanctuary, vestments, paintings, gifts given in expiation of sins or propitiation of heaven by men and women long ago resting in their graves. Not a year back the writer, then in London, saw an announcement in the _Times_ of the accession of some rare Spanish jewelry to the curiosities of the very interesting Museum at Kensington. He went, and found the ornaments that had decked the images and altars of the Virgen del Pilar at Saragossa, neatly arranged in two large cases, each ornament ticketed off as in a Jew’s shop, with the estimated value underneath in sums varying from over a hundred, sometimes over two or three hundred, pounds downwards. This sacrilegious robbery was repeated throughout the country--a dangerous example to the poor, whom they had indoctrinated with the pernicious ideas so prevalent in these times, the climax of which we saw the other day in Paris.

There was to be no state religion, and the clergy no longer to be salaried by the government. We must observe how all these movements strike at the church first; as is right they should do, for, that power destroyed, there is an end to morality, and the rest is easy. After a fierce and prolonged debate, in which the republicans came out in their true colors, and gave utterance, not the greater number happily, to open-mouthed blasphemy not simply against the church, but against the God whom Protestant and Catholic adore in common, the motion was not carried. The Catholic Church continues the church of the state, as it is the church of the whole nation.

“There are three things I hate intensely (_que me odian_): God, the monarchy, and phthisis,” said an alcalde in the north. It is a comfort to know that the wretch who said this craved a priest on his dying bed when attacked by the last object of his hatred, and God, ever merciful, allowed him one.

Emilio Castelar, the prime mover in the motion, spoke differently. He is the leader of the republicans: young, gifted beyond measure in all that can give a man influence among his fellows, a marvellous orator, whom the whole cortes, from the prelate to the red-hot republican, listens to spell-bound when he speaks. His attacks on Prim were terrible, unceasing, unsparing; he lashed the cortes into foam; but Prim, conscious of his power, had a dry, sarcastic manner of meeting them that took a good deal of the eloquent edge off. On the religious question Castelar said, “For my own part, if I chose any religion, it would be the Catholic, in which I was born and in which my mother died. A Protestant I could never be: it is too frigid for me.”

Liberty of the press, in these days the bulwark of our rights, liberty of public discussion, were proclaimed. The press was free to attack everything and every institution we consider holy. The republican papers poured forth floods of blasphemy unchecked. The Carlist, the Catholic organs alone were suppressed. Villaslada, the editor of the _Pensamiento Español_, the leading Carlist and Catholic newspaper, which bears the Holy Father’s blessing on its page, was forced to fly the country, and his papers seized. He has since returned, and has now a seat in the cortes. His offence was attacking the government and advocating the cause of Don Carlos at a time when Prim professed to await the expression of the will of the people to declare the king. So much for free discussion.

It would be tedious as well as profitless to take every item in the catalogue of a nation, and contrast them now with what they were before the overthrow of the Bourbon line. Certain it is that, bad as things were in Spain under Isabella, they are worse at present. Her commerce has deteriorated wofully. “We know not what to expect in Spain at any moment. The men we employ have been so preached to by the apostles of the revolution that they are ready to turn on us we know not when. We dare not keep a large stock on hand. We are trying to sell things off even at a sacrifice, we get our money safe banked in England, and, if the revolution and ruin come, well, at least we shall have some provision for our wives and children.” That is how any merchant will speak to-day on Spanish affairs.

“The shortest road to peace is through the revolution,” said Villaslada, and that is the opinion of all the thoughtful men the writer has met. They look upon a revolution as inevitable, the passions of the people have been so tampered with. It is hoped for that the people may sicken of their illusions; that the fury may waste itself; that the blood-letting which must follow may allay the fever, may open their eyes to the Utopia which their frenzy pictures.

It is a sad state for such a nation. It makes us anxious about the question we asked at the beginning, What is its destiny? Its debt is increasing as its credit declines. And yet the nation might be a great nation still.

Its foreign possessions it can do without. To get rid of Cuba would really be a relief. The advantages which the island affords for commerce by no means compensate for the continual anxiety it causes--the support of an army and a fleet. Spain is self-sufficient. With an area similar to that of France, her population is only one-third as large. The country if worked could produce corn enough to feed more than half Europe. Magnificent forests of chestnut and mahogany, soft groves of orange and olive trees, clothe and beautify the soil. Splendid rivers roll through the land, while bays and safe harbors indent the coast. In a little district perhaps not more than ten miles square grows the wine that supplies the whole world with sherry. Spanish wool holds its own in the mart. The people are intelligent, peaceful, and moral by nature. In no country can an inferior talk to a superior as freely without passing beyond the bounds as in Spain. Beautiful, historic cities are scattered through the land. Treasures of art are in their churches and galleries, refining the feelings and quickening the intellect. Their language is music; their climate delicious; their soil fruitful; land and living cheap. Their fleet is a formidable one; the Biscayan mariners for boldness and skill are unsurpassed, tossed as they are from infancy in the cradle of their bay, where the wide-spreading Atlantic is for ever wroth that it can go no further. The bravery and discipline of their army is within our recollection. That the energy of the race has not died out is proved by the war in Morocco, the speedy quelling of the revolution, the readiness of the nation to engage in war with such a power as ourselves, where the final issue could not be for a moment doubtful; but that much derided phrase “national honor” kept them true to themselves and their traditions, and we were wise enough not to provoke a contest with a people ready to sell their lives so dear. Yet with all these advantages, their course to-day is a downward one, and will continue so until one of two governments comes--either a man like the First Napoleon or a Bismarck, who to the iron will of Prim shall add a genius which the latter neither possessed nor pretended to possess; strong enough to grind down if necessary, but great enough to lift up. To such a man both Spain and France to-day present fields ripe with opportunity.

Or, for Spain at least, where there is still great faith and reverence for what is great and true, where happily materialism has not yet seized upon the hearts and the intellect of the people, a government that, instead of striking at the church which still is the church of the nation, and sapping the roots of Catholic, that is, of all morality, should call that church to its aid, and say to the people, “Your God shall be my God”--such a government would have from the start the greatest ally it could hope for in a religious people. Let it tell the people boldly that it shall have liberty, but not license, that it shall march with the age, that its great possessions are gone, never to return; but that at home it has resources that cannot fail, which only require the working to make them produce a hundredfold; a government which shall educate the children in religion, and from their infancy pour into their souls lessons of truth. Such a government might regenerate Spain. Such is partly the programme of Don Carlos. But he is the disciple of another school. Could he unlearn a little the doctrines of his school, Don Carlos holds the best chance to-day not only of occupying the throne, but of occupying the hearts and hopes of the nation.

And here we close with a remark on the failure of revolutions to work their purpose.

“The driving out of one unclean spirit to make room for seven more unclean,” is the history of all movements that have ever upset a throne which tradition has set in the intellect of the people, which custom has rooted in the soil, which has literally “grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength,” and even declined with their decline or caused it, which is _of_ them. It is a strange fact, but history bears it out. As we have shown, the Spaniards drove out their queen, and for a moment held their destiny in their own hands. The French drove out the Emperor, and held their destiny in their hands. Is either country the better for their action? In great contrast to these stands out Germany, before the war composed of a number of independent or semi-independent peoples. They united and placed themselves under the yoke, and present to the world a combination so great, so powerful, so irresistible by any single state save Russia or our own, that the world was convulsed by it, and the face of Europe changed in a day. Whether it will last or not is foreign to our present purpose. Men should “count the costs” before they overturn any government. It is a hard thing to change a nation. Even though you present something better, you must combat rooted prejudice, immemorial tradition, every spontaneous feeling that rises, before your idea can hold the popular mind. Look at the slow spread of Christianity. People would not give up their gods of wood and stone. Our Lord cast out devils before their eyes. “It is by Beelzebub you cast them out,” they cried. But the agents of revolution generally begin on the other side. They cast in devils. They uproot everything that is stable; they undermine morality; they teach men to scoff at everything; to obey no law. Man is free, and this world is his to do as he likes with. Who says no? The priest? The priest and the monarchy go hand-in-hand to bind free-born nations down in superstition and slavery. So they work, and, when their harvest is ripe, they reap their reward. They hack at everything right and left. But demons are powerful only to destroy, and they have raised those that they cannot lay, save by blood and iron, as Prim did, as Trochu and the rest were compelled to do. “And the last state of these nations is worse than the first.”

We were saved from a like fate because the monarchy was never known here; our constitution was not a new one, it was in the intelligence of the people from the first, and its exponent was George Washington.

People with their own destiny thrust upon them can do nothing with it. Men have brooded for years under evil government, and when that falls a thousand quacks are ready, each with his panacea for the cure of the nation’s woes, and one is as likely as another. As for the nation at large, it wants to be governed. It cannot sit down and think, the matter out, rejecting this and choosing that. The first that is ready, if it happens to be good, good; if not, so much the worse. They have already knocked one government on the head; why should they stop at a second, or a third, or any number? And so step in cruelty and oppression on the one side, lawlessness in every form on the other. It is better to cure than to kill; better to reform than to overthrow; and if we must overthrow, let us do it like men and not like fiends. If the joint is rotten ere you displace it, see that you can replace it. The monarch is the key-stone of the constitution in lands where monarchy prevails. Remove that, and the whole fabric is shattered. You must build anew. You may build better; at all events, time is lost; most likely you will build worse; strengthen, reform the old--beware how you destroy it.

OFFICIAL CHARITY.

FROM REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

In these times, all is laical--that is to say, in accordance with modern language, everything is bound to bear the stamp of the state. No contract is possible without the intervention of the state; no marriage exists without the ratification of the state; no school can be opened without the sanction of the state. In short, the state puts its iron clasp on all that man possesses, even his personal liberty and right. Henceforth, then, in the name of those immortal principles which consecrated the absolute and illimitable liberty of the human family, are abolished the most sacred rights of man--liberty in the bosom of the family and individual rights. In the name of liberty, the state confiscates all; it proclaims itself, without ceremony, the original author of all its laws. It is the god-state.

It is astonishing that, following a parallel exaggeration, the state has come to proclaim itself alone capable of exercising charity, as it is alone capable of teaching it! Logic ought to forcibly bring about this result. The state which adjudicates to itself the monopoly of direction, can it not also adjudge to itself the monopoly of the charity?

Yes, charity has become a monopoly of the state. What is it, then, other than _official_ charity? Give alms if so be, but do not forget to pass them through the hands of the state. It is it alone that can distribute your generous gifts. Found hospitals if you will, but on the express condition that you are to abandon them to the hands of the state, who will administer them as masters. Such is in substance the idea of official charity, centralizing in the hands of the state, and administering through its functionaries, the benefits and alms given in a spirit of self-sacrifice.

Very well! The church has never exercised a similar tyranny. She has crushed the heathenish proposition of the _Syllabus_, “39. The state, from being the source of all good, enjoys a right which is not circumscribed by any limits,” and, always free from the errors which she points out, the church has never imposed any act that even appeared as a simple pretext to accuse her of inconsistency. Though divinely commissioned to guide men, enlighten and direct their intelligence, their will, and all their steps, the church has never believed it her right to say to her faithful: “Put your alms into my hands; I alone know how to properly distribute them.” No! assiduous in stimulating charity, active in giving it birth, the church contents herself with encouraging the sacrifices that holy love inspires, and to show herself happy in having children who evince in so tender a manner the sentiment of Christian brotherhood. An exquisite sense reveals to her that charity delights in secret and mystery; a marvellous delicacy teaches her that the poor and the unfortunate neither consent to pour out their griefs indiscriminately, nor to have their wants relieved by every hand.

Thus, in reference to works of charity, the supremacy of the church consists in helping to accomplish that which the spontaneous piety of her faithful confides to her, and to exercise an exact surveillance over the faithful accomplishment of the charitable dispositions shown by her children who are numbered among the dead. Inviting, encouraging, thanking, and supervising--such is the _rôle_ of the church. If she welcomes with gratitude the faithful who select their pastors to dispense their bounty or for a go-between in their good works, she does not impose it upon them as a duty to confide alms to the care of bishops or of priests. And all doctrine tending to create a similar obligation is rejected by canon law as tainted with an odious exaggeration. Now, then, we have a right to reject the pretensions of the state over charity. Under what title does it place itself between the man who gives the alms and he who receives it? Is the sanctuary of charity less sacred than the domestic hearth? And if the home is inviolable, should not the secrets of charity be equally so?

We protest against official charity with all the energy of indignation. We proclaim it as an injury alike to the rich who give and to the poor who receive. The demonstration does not appear difficult.

Nevertheless, before undertaking it, we hope to interest our reader in placing before his eyes the sentiments of a judge whose views modern politicians do not ordinarily challenge. Portalis, every one knows, elevated the rights and prerogatives of the state high enough. “The state is nothing if it is not all,” said he, one day, before the legislative body. Here is certainly a witness unsuspected of partiality for the theory we are about to defend. Listen, then, to what he said himself to the proposition of official charity.

I.

Let it be remembered here, that one of the most constant preoccupations of Napoleon I. was to centralize everything into his own hands. The emperor wished to the letter to know all and to govern all. Not content with having created the formidable monopoly of the universities, he had even dared to try his hand at flattery in pretending to treat religious affairs as a simple department of his vast administration. Could it, then, be hoped that his ambition respected the liberty of charity? Napoleon, then, dreamed very seriously of controlling its exercise. Portalis hindered him.

The good sense of this celebrated counsellor of the emperor refused on this occasion to consent to the caprices of his master. Portalis declared fearlessly that official charity was the product of a hollow, weak brain, altogether an Utopia of one’s own creation to amuse the leisure hours of some philosopher seeking a distraction.

“Certain men,” wrote he to the emperor, “more jealous of their own attributes than of the public good, believe in finding abuses in all establishments that are not of their own creation. They scorn the good in the hope of finding the better; they imagine that all is resolved by calculation, and that, with two or three general maxims, they could reconstruct the world. With such ideas, states are disorganized. Such minds exhibit a greater power to destroy than an ability to construct.

“It is said with truth that the laws would be nothing without morals. It is, then, in the morals that the power of the laws will be sustained, that is to say, it is necessary to study the direction of the minds of men; that they should know the common affections of the human heart, and not govern by metaphysical abstractions and submit to cold calculation those things which cannot be other than the result of zeal, devotion, and of virtue.”[89] This was adroitly cautioning the emperor against the deleterious influences of that sad philosophy which sought to control him. Applying these principles to those hospitable communities that irreligious passions wished to banish, Portalis subjoined:

“The associations with which are connected so many touching memories were recommended to the considerate attention of your majesty by the gratitude of the people. Experience speaks loudly in favor of the imperial decrees which have authorized these associations. It is not, then, to balance between the vain theories of an infatuated sophist and the real assistance that charity administers to suffering humanity.”[90]

“These miserable objections derive their source ... in the vain theories of which experience has demonstrated the illusion.”[91] It is, then, clear that official charity found no advocate in Portalis. It presented to him the too evident imprints of a lying and anti-Christian philosophy. We will continue our citations.

II.

Portalis was convinced that religion only could induce charity. He believed that in this case religion only is capable of receiving and executing the mandates of charitable bequests.

“Your majesty,” wrote he again, “in your great wisdom has desired to leave the care of the poor under the guard of religion. She has undertaken the service that is accompanied with so many sacrifices and discouragements, which could not be guaranteed but by the most elevated and the most generous sentiments. She has dispersed the false systems of men who would wish to enjoy the benefits of the great work we see in operation under our eyes, in draining with as much imprudence as ingratitude the source from which they are furnished.”[92]

The experience he had besides superabundantly apprised him of what reason made him sensible. He had seen the works of the state and that of the religious bodies. Doubt, then, was no longer possible. It became manifest to him that, generally speaking, charity could only be duly administered through consecrated hands. Listen to his grave remarks:

“His majesty, in his travels, has convinced himself that all the hospitals confided to simple civil administration languish; that the poor there are often treated with negligence, and even with cruelty, by mercenary agents. In consequence of this, he has directed me to send the Sisters of Charity to all the departments beyond the Alps, and in all other places where they have not been.”[93]

Is it properly to Napoleon that the honor of such an initiative reverts? Was it not Portalis who inspired him? He sent very few. It is always the imperial counsellor giving, under his report, absolutely all the confidence to the clergy and to the church.

“It is constantly urged that the ecclesiastics and the bishops have appropriated to their own benefit; but are laic functionaries impeccable? Men, wherever they may be, commit abuses because they are men; but it is clear that there will be less abuse in all things when each kind of administration shall be left to men who by their office and their position have the largest means and the greatest interests for right administration.”[94]

“It is argued that the needs of the poor are sufficiently guaranteed by the civil administrators of the hospitals. I am not only surprised, but also grieved at this assertion. They overlook, then, all the great good for which humanity is indebted to the Sisters of Charity, to the hospital nurses, and also to many societies of estimable women who, by their tender piety, have consecrated themselves to the service of the poor. The public administrators are forced to depend upon the care of agents, to those mercenaries whose frauds are beyond scrutiny, and who possess no virtues. The spirit of charity cannot be supplied by the spirit of administration. Other management must disburse the revenues, other means must console or help the sick.... One must be possessed of very little philosophy to believe that the cold solicitude of an administrator can replace the generous care of ardent charity.... The service of the poor, as they are attended to in the hospitals and outside of them by religious associations, is not a simple administration or the effect of a simple management. It requires a continual succession of night-watching, privation, danger, nausea, painful and disinterested fatigue. This service demands a great abnegation of self, which could not be sustained save by motives superior to all human considerations. In an association, forces are combined to multiply resources; they encourage each other by example, and are enlightened by counsel; they are directed by rules which call them to duty and guarantee its observance. They receive novices whose health, character, and disposition are tested, and to whom they transmit with the knowledge of the subject the daily lessons of experience. All these means of recruiting and encouraging, of direction and perpetuity, are wanting when the service of the poor rests upon passing administrations, or with salaried agents who can be arbitrarily replaced at any moment by others. To achieve a permanent good we must have permanent institutions.”[95]

This is certainly a complete and beautiful explanation of religious associations. The experience of more than half a century has not lessened the value of these reflections of Portalis; on the contrary, it would be easy to enumerate the frauds, the misrepresentations, and the wastefulness which too often occur in administering to the wants of the poor, but we forbear the recital of the afflicting details. Portalis had but too much reason to condemn.

III.

In another point of view, Portalis reproved official charity. It seemed to him irreconcilable with the rights of donors to the poor, who wish to feel free in the distribution of their alms, and also with the rights of the poor, who do not consent at first sight to make acknowledgment of their misery.

“This would be,” said he, “destroying the character of charitable commissions, and perhaps even destroying their usefulness, in transforming them into exclusive institutions. Benevolence breathes as it wishes and where it wishes. If you do not let it respire freely, it stifles or becomes weakened in the midst of those who are disposed to its exercise. I argue that it would show a false estimate of the interests of the poor to isolate them in any way from the religious souls who would protect and assist them. Such people desire to place their alms in a religious organization, which will not dispose of them in any other establishment. Far from prescribing limits and imprudent conditions to benevolence, I would, on the contrary, open all avenues that benevolence might select for itself, and through which it shall choose to extend itself.”[96]

“The administration of alms is not and cannot be the exclusive privilege of any establishment whatever. Alms are free and voluntary gifts. He who gives can do no more. He is the one to charge the dispenser of his own liberality. The man who is able to give alms, and has shown his willingness to do so, can ask himself the simple question, To whom belongs their administration? To him or to them whom the donor will have charged to make the distribution? There is not and there cannot be any other rule in a similar matter. To do away with this rule would be to dry up the source of the charity.

“How is it possible to think that religious organizations should be excluded from the right of administering the alms which they receive? Under such a system, they might as well assert that they are not allowed to receive alms, that is to say, they would have to destroy the natural liberty of those men who lay aside a portion of their income to devote to charity, from charging the agents of their own alms and their liberality.”[97]

As for the poor themselves, Portalis thought, with reason, that many among them refused to receive assistance from any administration whatever, and this is why he wished that a portion of the accumulated alms might be left to the disposition of the curates of the parishes:

“Because these alms could be profitably disposed of to those poor who from circumstances and misfortunes have met with reverses and change of position, and who, not wishing to acknowledge their misery to the administrators of benevolent institutions, their equals and sometimes their enemies or rivals, go to seek from their pastors the consolations that sustain their courage, and obtain assistance that does not humiliate them. It is to this interesting use that the alms are generally consecrated by the religious organizations and the priests.”[98] Thus Portalis reasoned that, even for the interests of the poor, official charity should be energetically repulsed.

IV.

Meanwhile, if the objection should arise that, after all, these are but opinions, and that simple opinions are not sufficient always to impede the action of the state in what it believes to be its rights, Portalis meets this objection, and in a decided tone he asserts clearly that the state enjoys no right over the exercise of charity. Here are his own words, which we recommend to the minds of modern statesmen:

“The principal office of authority is to dispose of to advantage the gifts that are offered to it, to cause them to prosper in protecting them. It rarely originates them. We have not yet replaced among a multitude of reforms the institutions that have been overturned. Experience brings us back every day to the principles that we have too easily abandoned.”[99]

“This would be but imperfectly to understand the human heart, and hinder its free respiration in the things that law can protect indeed, but which sentiment alone commands. The office of a magistrate is to watch over the essential duties of a citizen, but, in works of supererogation, he must allow great latitude to a liberal arbitration.”[100]

A remarkable avowal, above all, from a lawyer of the temper of Portalis, who willingly elevated into a dogma the omnipotence of the state. He has, however, said: “No, the omnipotence of the state does not go so far as that; and that for the very simple reason that the state could exact from its citizens only the observance of precepts imposed by the natural and divine laws. It can never compel them to submit to obligations that nature has never created.”

Is it to say that we refuse to the state the right of showing itself benevolent and charitable? God forbid! If the state would practise boundless liberality, we would bless it. If it would be the protector of all the works destined for the relief of unfortunate humanity, we would exalt it with transport. But never to make this protection a monopoly, otherwise the benefaction would change to tyranny.

Listen to M. Charles Périn, who has treated with as much depth as sincerity the difficult problems of political economy:

“The action of the state in giving assistance will not be free from danger, inasmuch as it would have a purely preventive character.... That the state intervenes to assure by its civil existence the duration of those institutions founded by the free inspirations of private charity; that it assures itself that the conditions of the foundations for which it calls its meetings contain nothing which repudiates the rules of public order; that it exercises over the administrations of those foundations a watchfulness that prevents abuses and which secures the observation of the essential rules of the institution, without annulling the free action of those who have received the mission of donators to represent them among the poor, and continue the work of charity which has inspired them--under these conditions, the intervention of the state will become a benefit, because then she does no more than aid liberty.”[101]

Here is also the doctrine of the great Bishop of Arras, Mgr. Parisis:

“That which governments can and ought to do to aid charity is not to disfigure, to dry up, and to destroy it in making it entirely legal, but to reanimate it by all possible means in maintaining it Christian, in preserving the sentiment, and everywhere encouraging efforts in its regard, to make not rulers, but auxiliaries, not oppressors, but friends.”[102]

Admirable formula, that the politicians of the present day should study a little more!

We have placed before the reader the sentiments and doctrines of Portalis touching official charity. We do not think that we could give higher authority. We have found in the alleged proofs good and solid reasoning. We record a true demonstration.

We have been reluctant heretofore to discharge this great duty. Why we take up the subject at this late period is to expose the vices and the dangers of official charity.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] _Travaux sur le Concordat, etc., Rapport du 24 Mars, 1807._

[90] _Ibid._

[91] _Ibid._

[92] _Ibid._

[93] _Rapport sur les Fabriques d’Eglise, Juillet, 1806._

[94] _Ibid._

[95] _Rapport du 24 Mars, 1807._

[96] _Rapport du 16 Avril, 1806._

[97] _Ibid._

[98] _Rapport du 16 Avril, 1806._

[99] _Ibid._ _Rapport du 24, Fructidor an XIII._, 11 Sept., 1805.

[100] _Ibid._

[101] _De la Richesse dans les Sociétés chrétienne_, t. i. p. 498.

[102] _La Democratie devant l’Enseignement catholique_, p. 107.

THE CHURCH AND THE PRESS.

The following item of news is clipped from a recent number of a leading New York publication:

“The proposition is under discussion to establish in this city a
new anti-Catholic paper, partly devoted to opposing the religious
tenets of the Romanists, but still more their supposed attempts
to secure political control in the country. It will support the
ultra-Protestant position of the Bible in the public schools, and
will be backed, it is expected, by a large subscription among the
three or four secret anti-Roman Catholic societies that exist in
this country.”

We do not know what truth there may be in this report. It is intrinsically probable that the establishment of an “anti-Romanist” periodical is in contemplation, because there is always a large politico-religious party in the United States whose chief principle is bitterness against the Catholic Church, and there are certain reasons why such a party just now should be especially active. The Catholic element in our population is rapidly increasing, and many circumstances have recently combined to bring its numerical strength into prominence. A moderate estimate makes it not less than six or seven millions. The published returns of the census of 1870 have not thus far furnished any statistics of religious belief, but they give some facts from which we can get at least an idea of the rate at which the church in America is growing. There were, for example, in 1870, no fewer than 1,855,779 persons of Irish birth in the United States, and of these the preponderance of Catholics over Protestants was so large that the Protestant element may as well be disregarded. In Ireland, the ratio of Catholics to Protestants is at least as high as four to one, and here the proportion is still greater, because emigration is largely from the Catholic counties; probably the whole number of Irish-born Protestants in the United States does not equal 200,000. The German-born population, according to the same census, is 1,690,533. In Germany, about three-fifths of the inhabitants are Catholics, but emigration takes place rather more from the Protestant than from the Catholic districts, so that competent judges estimate that the Catholic Germans in this country are only two-fifths of the entire number. That would give us, for Catholics of German birth, 676,213. Then there are 193,504 natives of other Catholic countries, including 116,402 Frenchmen, but not counting Swiss, Poles, Canadians, and others of whose religious belief we have no means of making an estimate. A great many of the French and Italian immigrants are either Protestants or people of no religious profession at all; and, upon the whole, we prefer to leave out of consideration these 193,000 settlers of the Latin race, balancing with them the Protestant Irish. Now, the census shows that for every foreigner in the country there are two native-born inhabitants of foreign parentage. According to this rule, we ought to have 3,711,558 descendants in the first generation of Irish immigrants, and 1,352,426 descendants of Germans. Supposing, therefore, that the children are brought up in the faith of their parents, there ought to be the following numbers of foreign-born Catholics and Catholics born in this country of foreign fathers and mothers:

Irish birth 1,855,779
Irish parentage 3,711,558
---------
Total Irish 5,567,337
German birth 676,213
German parentage 1,352,426
---------
Total German 2,028,639
---------
Grand total 7,595,976