Chapter IX: The Verdict (2)

"Yes, this is now for a while one of the cold spots on the earth; but we have only to climb a little, in spirit or in memory, to have a different idea of December and everything else. How many years ago to-day is it that you and I saw oranges ripening in the sun in December, and roses blooming, and people pushing back their cloaks for the heat? It is an anniversary, for I have some little reason to remember the date. We were in Rome. I had been shivering in a bare, sunless room at the Propaganda, when I looked up and caught a glimpse through the window of a bit of miraculous blue sky over the roof of San Andrea's. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and time for a walk. I called you, and we started on a little exploring expedition; for we had neither of us seen much of Rome at that time. We muffled ourselves well, and went out into the Piazza di Spagna. I recollect you saying, as we came to those great stairs, that they must have been modelled by some one who had Jacob's dream-ladder in his mind. You said, too, that one reason why Rome is so much more beautiful than any other city is not because it is more artistic, but more natural. Each part grew for itself, instead of being cramped by some dominating idea that spoilt all in trying to direct all. You were delighted with the perfectly cool way in which a whole street would go up-stairs or down-stairs. Well, there was the whole side of a piazza going up-stairs. We went up, past the group of models, you know, who stand there to be stared at; the bearded old man who stands for S. Peter or Moses, the brigand and the brigand's wife, and the little brown gypsies. The calendar said it was December; yet in the piazza below the air said it was April. When we paused at the first landing, and began to wish we had left our cloaks at home, it was May, and up in front of the Trinita de' Monti it was mid-June. The fruit-sellers left their large baskets of oranges in the sun while they sat in the shade and waited for customers; there were baskets of flowers, with heaps of half-open roses on the stone rail of the balustrade, and streams of rich verdure flowed wide or trickled brightly between the gray sweeps of stone. In the east was that unimaginable blue that can only be compared to a gem; in the west, a dazzle of unclouded sunshine; and between the two, Rome floated in a silvery mist. You leaned on the balustrade, and--wretch that you were!--your first thought was a pagan one. You said that the goddess of beauty had sunk into the midst of the city, and left her drapery of cloud clinging all about it, and that, when she should withdraw, there would be a vision in the sky, but Rome would be nothing but ashes. That was the best image that Raphael Chevreuse could find, with the city before him all a-bubble with the domes of Christian churches. You may recollect that I gave you a very pretty lecture on the subject. Then you pointed out to me a pillar of smoke wreathing slowly up into the sky, showing between the bold front of the Pincian Hill and the twin cupolas in the Piazza del Popolo, with the distant forest and mountain for a background, and you said that we were nothing but cloud-people living in a cloud, and that the only realities were Moses and the Israelites out there offering up sacrifice in the wilds between Egypt and Chanaan. Well, December being too hot for us then, we walked off toward Santa Maria Maggiore. Do you remember the great orange-tree, as large as an apple-tree, that showed over the convent walls, and how thickly the golden oranges were set among its green foliage; and the symbol over the convent door of two lions trying to get at a bird that was safe in the top of a palm-tree;[274] and the vane that you said could have been thought of nowhere but in Italy--a rod with a cross at the top and a bird's wing swinging round as the wind changed? And when we walked on among the ruins, what superstitious young man gathered dandelions, because gold-colored flowers always brought him some happy chance, he said; and then, in the next breath, looking at those mountains before us, swimming, it seemed, in a sea of rosy-purple vapors, broke out with a psalm, "Montes exultaverunt ut arietes; et colles, sicut agni ovium"? You declared vehemently that the mountains were dancing, and I had to hold you to keep you from dancing too. A pretty sight it would have been to see a young Christian priest twirling _pirouettes_ among the ruins of the temple of Minerva! Doubtless, while we are in the midst of the snows and frost of a northern morning, the sun is just going down over that same warm and glowing scene. And, doubtless, too," said F. O'Donovan slowly, coming to the point he had started to reach, "outside this pain and confusion there is peace and happiness waiting to come in and give us our soul's summer in this world even. The storms are short, but the peace is long, and for ever waiting overhead."

"But life is not long," concluded F. Chevreuse, "and it behooves me to be about my work."

He drew the books toward him, and began to work in earnest. He had been comforted in one regard that morning: he would not himself be called into court, the only points on which he could give evidence being better known to others. Jane and Andrew had both seen the condition of his little study, with its bolted window and locked-up desk, after he left the house that fatal night, and both F. O'Donovan and Mr. Macon saw it in the morning before he came home. The other point, relating to the sort of bank-bills he had lost, was of no consequence, as the bankers could not say what sort of money Mr. Schöninger had paid them. Every disposition was shown to spare him unnecessary pain, and they even strained a point for that purpose.

He was not needed, indeed, and the case was being brought rapidly to a conclusion, as his first despatch showed him.

"Old Mr. Grey, from the pond farm, with his granddaughter, have been brought in," Mr. Macon wrote, "and by their help the story has been made to assume form. Mr. Schöninger returned to Crichton that day past their place. He got into a rough road and broke his harness somewhere, and went to their house to borrow a rope to mend it. He had a shawl on his arm when he went up to the door. While the young girl was gone for the rope, he folded the shawl, and put it into my wife's phaeton among the other packages. My wife was then with old Mrs. Grey in the house. Mr. Grey was at work in the garden, and saw what was done. The girl also saw the shawl on his arm when he came, but did not notice it afterward. It is likely to go hard with him."

F. Chevreuse had a very red face when he looked over this note. But he handed it to F. O'Donovan without a word, and resumed his writing again. If he knew well what he was writing is doubtful. That color did not leave his face, and now and then he pressed his hand to his forehead, as if confused.

"Mr. Schöninger has roused himself at last," the next note said. "He seems for the first time to comprehend that he is in danger. He looks like a lion. I hope he may prove to have some of a lion's strength, for his chances are small."

F. Chevreuse handed the paper to his brother priest, who had been out and come in again, and watched his face while he read it.

"Will you tell me frankly your opinion of this?" he said then.

F. O'Donovan dropped his eyes, having, evidently, no mind to be frank on the subject. "I cannot have a settled opinion on a question of which I have heard but one side," he said. "I have been in court this morning, and talked with some people there, and the chances at present seem for a conviction. But we cannot tell the strength of the defence as yet."

In spite of his reserve, there was no mistaking his belief in the prisoner's guilt.

F. Chevreuse shut his book decisively.

"Since I am not needed here, I may as well go and see the bishop," he said. "I was to have gone this week to settle important business with him, but he excused me on the supposition that I would not be allowed to leave Crichton. Can you take care of my people a few days longer?"

"A week longer, if you wish."

"Four days will be enough--two to go and come, two there. You will know where to telegraph for me, if I should be wanted. I will go straight to the bishop's house, and stay there."

"How glad I am that you did not say 'episcopal residence'!" remarked his companion.

F. Chevreuse was already making his preparations for the journey. He glanced up rather imperiously from the valise he was packing.

"Why should I say it?" he demanded. "Never used such an expression in my life. And this reminds me that you have been criticising me before to-day, calling me superstitious, and I don't know what else. In one little corner of my mind I have been thinking the matter over ever since, and have arrived at these conclusions: superstition, being nothing but erratic faith, should be treated with great tenderness; and, besides, you will recollect that I was at that time reading the pagan classics; furthermore, Rome herself was not born in the faith, but is a converted pagan, and she stands there, a Christian Juno, with all Olympus kneeling about her feet; and well so, for any form is good that is capable of holding a Christian soul. Still further, I have concluded that young O'Donovan, whose hair still looks, across the room, quite black, should show a becoming reverence for Chevreuse, who has long since ceased to count his white hairs and begun to count his black ones. I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say better? Good-by. God bless you!"

And he was off, glad of the noise and speed of the cars, of the changing faces and scenes, of anything that would help to ease his mind by a momentary distraction. Yet, in spite of every effort, the thought haunted him of Mr. Schöninger rousing himself to do battle for his life. Call up whatever image he would to entertain his mind, that one intruded. He pictured to himself the first dawn of apprehension in the prisoner's face rapidly intensifying to a flash of angry terror, the reddening or the whitening color, the gathering storm of the brows. He tried to guess what he would do and say, by what grand effort he would at last fling off in scorn the accusation which he had not believed could cling to him--if he should be able to fling it off. That doubt was like a thorn, and he hastily called to mind something to banish it. He remembered what F. O'Donovan had been saying of Rome, and tried to recollect something of that old picture-book part of his life, to see again in fancy its shady streets and sunny piazzas, to enter in spirit some dim church starred around with lamps, and lined with precious marbles; but when he had laboriously fashioned the scene, a hand was outstretched to put it aside like a painted curtain, and again he saw the Jewish gladiator, alive and alert, fighting desperately for his life.

"You can see that I have run away to escape disagreeable scenes and talk," were his first words on reaching his destination. "And now to business."

It was quite understood, then, that no one was to tell him anything relating to the trial, nor mention the subject to him; so that when, on the evening of the third day, he started for home, he knew no more of the progress or result of it than he had known on leaving Crichton.

There were but few passengers that evening, and F. Chevreuse established himself in a corner of the car, put his ticket in his hat-band, that he might not be disturbed by the conductor, leaned back and shut his eyes, that he might not be talked to by any one else, and took out his beads to exorcise troublesome thoughts and invoke holy ones. It was a saying of his that the beads, when rightly used, had always one end fastened to the girdle of Mary, and were a flowery chain by which she led the soul directly to the throne of God.

They proved so to him in this case, and one after another the Joyful Mysteries were budding and blossoming under his touch, when presently he found himself somewhat disturbed by the voices of two men who were talking behind him. At first the sound reached him through the long vista of that heavenly abstraction; but soon the distance lessened, and then a single word brought him down with a shock.

"He fought hard at last," one said, "but it was of no use. Everything was against him."

It needed not another word to tell the priest who and what were meant; but other words were spoken.

"His defence was a mere mass of sentimentality," the speaker went on. "He owns to having walked the streets the whole night of the murder, but he says that it was from distress of mind. He had to decide before the next day whether he would abandon all hope of the fortune for which he was contending, and lose with it all that he had expended, or else throw into the chasm the few hundreds he had retained that an accident might not find him penniless. He declared that the state of his mind was such that he could not sleep, nor keep still, nor stay in the house. Now, that part of the story would not have been so bad if he had not been seen near the priest's house, hanging about there, and going away when he was observed, and if he had not declared that, when he went away from Crichton in the morning, he had not heard of the murder. The tracks were not a strong point, for Newcome makes everybody's boots just alike, and there are a good many men in Crichton who have as neat a foot as Schöninger. But the rest of the defence was nonsense. The shawl was what convicted him. It was his shawl; he owned it; and the fragment found in Mme. Chevreuse's hand just fitted the torn corner, thread for thread. I could see that he was confounded when that came up. He says he left the shawl in Mrs. Ferrier's garden in the evening, and went for it early in the morning before anybody was up, and that he found it just where he had left it. He owned, too, that he put it slyly into Mrs. Macon's carriage. He said he knew her and what she was collecting for; had heard all about it at Madison. When he left his broken harness--which, by the way, was not broken, it appears, but only unclasped somewhere--and went to Mr. Grey's, he took his shawl over his arm absent-mindedly, and found it a nuisance while he was going through the woods. Seeing Mrs. Macon's carriage there full of parcels, some gray blankets among them, it occurred to him to add his shawl to the pile without putting any one to the trouble of thanking him. He said that he believed those nuns to be very good women, and that he felt a respect for them for the sake of F. Chevreuse, who had been very polite to him. Fancy a Jew taking off his shawl to give it to a nun, and that to please a priest! The story is too ridiculous, you see. Oh! it is clear. There never was a clearer case of circumstantial evidence. No one could have a doubt. But the verdict is too hard."

"You think it should not have been murder in the first degree?" another voice asked.

"It should not," was the emphatic reply. "It is almost an outrage to make it so. But people became ferocious the moment it was clear that he was guilty, and I believe they would gladly have taken him out and hanged him to the first tree. The fact undoubtedly is that he was pressed for money, and meant to help himself to the priest's. Mme. Chevreuse heard him, and started to alarm the house, and I think he gave her an unlucky push. But nothing of that sort would content the prosecution nor the people. They must have it that at the very best he killed her wilfully when he found that she had recognized him. The female servant testified that there was a candle overturned in the priest's room, which must have gone out in falling. Madame's first thought would naturally be to light a candle. Still, that is not sure. That same servant wished to show that the prisoner had a spite against the priest's mother, and the Carthusen girl had the same story; but if people had been calm, their gossip would have made no impression. Schöninger's lawyer tried to prove that madame's death resulted from the fall; but there was a bad bruise...."

F. Chevreuse gasped for breath. "For God's sake, stop!" he cried out, half turning toward the speaker, then sinking instantly into his seat again.

A perfect silence followed. The priest was struggling with his feelings, and regretting not having withdrawn before his self-control gave way, and the gentlemen behind him were recovering the shock of learning who their neighbor was, and feeling their way to a solution of the difficulty. One of them had an inspiration. "Let's go and have a cigar," he said; and F. Chevreuse was left to himself.

But his solitude was full of terrible images, and in that few minutes all his relations with the Jew had been changed. He would not have said to himself that he believed the man guilty, and he would have said that, guilty or innocent, he wished him no harm; but what his imagination had utterly refused to do in connecting Mr. Schöninger with his mother's tragical fate the plain talk of this stranger had accomplished. He could no longer separate the two; and the sight of the Jew, or the sound of his name even, would, in future, call up associations intolerable to him.

"You know all, then?" was F. O'Donovan's greeting when they met.

The face of F. Chevreuse showed, indeed, that he had no questions, or few, to ask.

"The law has decided," he said, "and, for the present at least, I cannot question its decision. They know better than I how to arrive at the truth. At the same time, I never will say of a man that he is guilty till he has himself told me that he is, or till I have the evidence of my own senses. And now, what have you to tell me about my people? Is it well with them?"

"It is well," was the echo.

The people had, indeed, settled into their usual quiet mode of life again with surprising readiness, as often happens to those who, giving themselves entirely up to an excitement, exhaust its force the sooner. The conviction and sentence of Mr. Schöninger had not only given them a satisfying sense of justice vindicated, but had impressed them with awe. The suddenness of his fall, when they had leisure to contemplate its accomplishment, was startling. But a few weeks before, he had walked their streets with a step as proud as the proudest, and there was not one among them, whatever his prejudices, who was not pleased to receive his salutation; in a few months longer--months of misery and disgrace--he would be called on to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.

Some of them remembered, too, when all was over, the defence the prisoner had made, if defence it could be called, when he was permitted to speak for himself. They were bitter words, full of fierce and haughty defiance and denunciation and at the time their sole effect had been to provoke still further against him the popular rage; but, for some reason, there was a thrilling pathos in the recollection of them, perhaps because they had been uttered in vain, and because they showed with what horror he contemplated his impending doom.

"You seek my destruction because I am a Jew, not because I am a criminal," he exclaimed; "and you condemn me without proof. But do not flatter yourselves that I shall perish so. Do not believe that I shall fall a victim to your insane and presumptuous bigotry. It may triumph for a time, but the triumph will be short."

Not a very pleasant sort of address to be listened to by a judge who had tried to be impartial, and meant to be honest, nor to a jury who were fully convinced of the speaker's guilt, and who had moreover, as juries are likely to have, a more than judicial sense of their own dignity. Yet, for all that, there was not one of them who would have liked to face again those flashing eyes and that white hand pointing like a flame where his words should fall. They were rather afraid of the man, and looked with equal uneasiness toward the execution of his sentence and the possibility of rescue or escape, or of revenge even, which he had seemed to threaten.

For the present, however, the prison was strong and well guarded, and the convict, being in solitary confinement, had no means of communicating with any friends he might have outside. He was still in Crichton, the state prison being near the city jail; and still, if he chose, he could look out from his grated window and see the Christ in air stretching out arms of loving invitation to him.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] The beasts of prey have triumphed, and the birds have been driven away.

THE RELIGIOUS POLICY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

[The following is the translation of a remarkable memoir presented to Napoleon III. by one of his Ministers of Public Worship. Its authenticity is guaranteed under oath by Leon Pagès, and the date of its presentation seems to be about the year 1860. It furnishes the key to the religious events of the second period of the reign of Napoleon III., and shows how a government calling itself Catholic plotted against, and was gradually destroying the liberty of, the church. The perfidy and falsehoods contained in the document speak for themselves. The programme detailed in the second part of the same was only too faithfully carried out, not only to the ruin of the emperor, but to that of France also. It began to be put in practice in the year 1860, and was persevered in until the day when all power was taken from the hands of its authors and abettors. The key-note to the whole insidious production is contained in the opening sentence--viz., that no matter what is done by the Catholic Church, it must be for the sake of obtaining influence over souls, not for their spiritual and eternal welfare, but for mere temporal and selfish ends--for worldly power. To the Catholic reader this one remark will be sufficient to place him on his guard. We copy from the _Revue du Monde Catholique_.--_Translator._]

I.

The essential tendency of Roman Catholicism has been, is, and always will be, the spirit of secular domination, the inevitable result of transforming a man, the Pope, into the infallible and absolute vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.

If, before the Revolution of '89, the clergy were Gallican--that is to say, national--it was because it had sufficiently attained that end of temporal rule. It was the first order of the state; it possessed great wealth; it had its own organization, and enjoyed considerable privileges; its religion was the exclusively dominant one. What else could it ask, unless it wished to displace royalty itself? The clergy then was much more French and royalist than Roman, solely because it had such enormous interests at stake in the soil and in the constitution of the kingdom.

Again, if we study carefully the so-called maxims and liberties of the Gallican Church, we quickly recognize that between the kings and the clergy these liberties constituted a sort of commutative contract entered into almost wholly at the expense of the Papacy. The bishops, generously treated by royalty, in return consented to sacrifice to royalty many of the Roman pretensions, which, however, were consequences of the spiritual supremacy; and, with more reason, they allowed the sovereign to settle all matters of purely political independence. In the Gallican Church, the king rejected Papal infallibility, because it necessarily implied his temporal supremacy; and the bishops to whom the doctrine would perhaps in any other country have been acceptable, rejected it likewise because it would have disturbed their privileges and their possessions, which they owed to royalty. It ought to be added that all this was according to the ancient traditions of the land, which had rendered better service to the church than any other, and which never desired any foreign interference in its own affairs. But certainly both the French clergy and bishops would have gone back to the pope and to ultramontane ideas, unless their independence, peaceful and magnificent, had been assured them.

After the Revolution of '89, the clergy, deprived of its possessions, its privileges, its constitution, reduced to the condition of salaried functionaries, feeling its utter dependence on the state, felt the necessity of creating for itself a new influence by detaching itself from administrations over-neutral in its regard. For a short time it saluted Napoleon I. as the _restorer of the altar_; then it submitted to his powerful hand; but it hastened to desert him when conquered, calling him _the persecutor of Pius VII._ It came to the support of the Restoration, because of the recollections of the past, and, above all, because it hoped therefrom the re-establishment of many immunities which the Restoration did not dare, in opposition to public opinion, to concede to it. This is the reason that, under the Restoration, it came to pass that the clergy was more occupied in caring for itself than for royalty, so much so that it is from this epoch that the first efforts of return to ultramontanism date their origin. No excuse can be offered for Louis XVIII. and for Charles X. for having allowed the Concordat of 1801 and the organic articles to remain in force, and for not having given to the church an indemnity, as they did to the exiles.

Under Louis Philippe, the clergy was not deluded; it understood very well that a parliamentary and democratic government would never permit it to work for the re-establishment of its power. Consequently, and under the pretext that the church, accepting all _de facto_ governments, ought not to mix in the risks and responsibilities of politics, the clergy proclaimed its absolute neutrality, which was but another name for a complete separation. Hence nothing is easier of comprehension that it quickly gave up all Gallican ideas, to rally to the support of ultramontane doctrines. Isolated, without influence, without wealth, cramped in its sphere of activity, it had no interest in upholding the independence of the state against the Holy See, whilst everything invited it to defend once more the famous thesis of the Catholic Church, directing kings and peoples, and giving to the clergy the influence of a class superior to all others. The anti-Gallican demonstration, aided by the politicians of legitimacy and of the Catholic party, who had adopted as their watchword _free education_, began to develop itself rapidly in the episcopate, amongst the inferior clergy in the seminaries and religious orders, and even in the halls of the two chambers. Everything was prepared for the solemn return to Rome, when the Revolution of 1848 burst forth.

The religious party as well as the legitimists, its auxiliary, at first accepted that revolution because it destroyed the upstart, usurping, and Voltairian party. It afterwards strove with energy to form a coalition of all the elements of public order, so as to escape from the power of the demagogues; it was this same motive which influenced its votes in favor of the president; it thus struck a blow at the democratic and social republic. But when it believed that Napoleon III., who had become successively dictator and emperor, would consent to play the part of another Charlemagne, _Episcopus ad extra_, it became devoted to him and enthusiastic. But the emperor had no such thought; he only wished to attach the clergy firmly to the Empire by honorable laws ensuring its safety and liberty. By so doing he supplied one of the greatest social needs, without, however, departing from a wise public policy; but he had no intention of handing the state over to the church. The clergy, on its part, easily imagined what he desired. Hence we see in 1852 (and this must not be passed over) more earnestness and greater sympathy in that portion of the episcopate which was notoriously ultramontane. It was that portion which had been the best initiated by Rome into its projects of encroachment, which carried them out with the greatest zeal, and which consequently sought to conciliate the good-will of the sovereign and to engage him to pursue a course of liberal toleration.

Thus it came to pass that it immediately insinuated how exceedingly becoming it would be to enter into what was called a compact between the church and state--viz., the negotiation of a treaty which was to replace the organic articles.

Now, as has been said at the beginning of this memoir, Roman Catholicism aiming necessarily at temporal rule, the moment seemed so much the more favorable to advance in that undertaking, as the government seemed to give its consent so easily thereunto. The law of free education already existed. The emperor appeared unwilling to make use of the prohibitions of the organic law regulating public worship and of the law concerning religious congregations of men; consequently, provincial councils were quickly organized and congregations were multiplied.

The design of gaining possession almost entirely of primary education was avowed by bringing the influence of the _curés_ to bear on the various municipal offices, and, by forcing the Christian Brothers to refuse to receive from their rich pupils any compensation whatever for attending their schools, which had been built and were supported by the municipality: in this way the Brothers received from the state a compensation of 3,000,000, at the expense of the lay schools.

The famous decree of 1852 was then proposed to the emperor, but without explaining its import. This destroyed the ancient and wise legislation of the council of state, and allowed the almost unlimited extension of authorizations to establish congregations of women.

In spite of the lively opposition of the majority of the bishops and of the secular clergy, the Roman liturgy was then inaugurated and presented to the emperor as a simple matter of material unity in Catholic worship; care was taken not to avow that this was a deadly blow against the customs and constitution of the Gallican Church, the triumph of Romanism in France, and a tax of more than six millions on the manufactures and municipalities of the Empire. All this was necessary in order to obtain a brief from the Pope in 1858 obliging the clergy to recite in its liturgy the prayer _Domine salvum_, which had been excluded from the Roman Breviary.

Whilst, on the one hand, the clergy sought to gain possession of the people through the medium of primary education, which was solicited for the religious congregations by all the charitable confraternities (of S. Vincent of Paul, of S. Francis Regis, of S. Francis Xavier, etc., etc.), through a multitude of foundations of religious charity, on the other it strove also to enlist in its favor the children of the higher and middle classes of society through the numerous and immense educational institutions of a superior character, founded either by the bishops or by the religious orders of Jesuits, Carmelites, Marists, Dominicans, etc. Thus the law of 1850, hostile to all state education, brought forth its fruits.

As to the education of girls, it was and it is almost exclusively in the hands of religious, from the country infant schools and protectories up to the most splendid educational establishments of Paris; on this point it is impossible for the lay element to contend with the religious element, which, either really or apparently, will always present far better guarantees to families for morality and self-devotion. But the point worthy of consideration here is that this convent education, directed by the inspiration and opinions of the clergy, is not at all in sympathy either with the existing government or with public opinion.

This is the reason why the episcopate and Rome have always resisted any inspection on the part of the state into their institutions, except a purely nominal one, alleging that these religious congregations could submit only to ecclesiastical inspection. In the regulations made in 1852 too much was yielded on that point.

It can be affirmed with truth to-day that there is no class of society which is not to a greater or less degree entangled in the meshes so admirably laid by the congregations and associations called _benevolent_ or _charitable_. They gain entrance even into the army, under the pretext of giving gratuitous instruction and spiritual conferences; they gather together working-men of every condition; they establish a kind of freemasonry, and of equality amongst citizens of every rank; through their trusty friends and adherents they are represented in all the branches of the government; they have possession of the child and of the man in his prime of life, of the poor and of the rich; they are everywhere. This enormous fact becomes a most convincing proof, if we consider the exact meaning of the name of these congregations, associations, and works of every kind, and of the end each of them proposes to obtain. It is almost certain that, directly or indirectly, the Catholic idea permeates them all; and as the direction of that Catholic idea belongs more than ever to Rome, the conclusion is natural that all these means of action so skilfully organized form a kind of secret government, the helm of which is in the hand of the Roman cardinals, prefects of the congregations.

The present religious agitation proves the truth of this assertion. The society of S. Vincent of Paul has thought and acted exactly in the same way as the convents, seminaries, and religious orders; from one end of the scale to the other there is but one opinion, and the pamphlet of M. de Segur can be found in the _salon_ of the nuncio as well as in the workshop--yes, even on the bench of the lowest primary school.

But it was not enough to have thus securely encircled lay society with so many arms employed for the benefit of the religious element. It was necessary to be certain that these arms would always be used conformably to the end in view--viz., the Roman Catholic supremacy. The bishops and secular clergy might perhaps grow restless under this ultramontane domination; they might perhaps, although desiring the development of religion and of their own personal condition, either moderate a too quick movement towards, or, for the sake of their own independence, even oppose themselves to the absorption meditated at Rome. Therefore, the effort was made, especially since the beginning of 1852, to crush out even a show of resistance from the bishops and secular clergy; and the _Univers_, the avowed organ of the Holy See, whilst praising the emperor and attacking violently the parliamentary or liberal Catholic party (de Falloux, de Montalembert, Lacordaire, etc.), undertook to establish a system of ecclesiastical compression, which in the end triumphed. M. Veuillot became the _lay pope of the French_; with as much audacity as talent, he set forth the doctrines of the spiritual and temporal supremacy of the Holy See; he thundered against the schism of the Gallican Church, and against any compact which bound the priest to the state.

And at the same time the Papal nuncios in France surrounded the bishops with an almost intolerable servitude. Near each of them they had devoted ecclesiastics, who spied into and denounced their actions. Any bishop suspected of favoring independence or resistance was the object of those thousands of cunning tricks which Rome has under its command because of the powers it can either grant or refuse to the episcopate.

Any priest of some eminence who did not go over to the ultramontane party was made the object of threats and calumnies, which, it was said, _would break his episcopal cross_. Things came to such a point that a Minister of Public Worship, frightened at the bold and dogmatic tone in which a nuncio pronounced his _veto_ on the episcopal nominees, was forced to make an energetic declaration concerning the rights of the emperor, and to tell that nuncio to bear it in mind.

At the same time, also, Rome endeavored to render the episcopate subservient to itself by interfering in the administration of dioceses by granting the inferior clergy the right of addressing the prefects of the apostolic congregations on all matters which concerned conscience, liturgy, or dispensations. So that the bishops, humiliated, and with their jurisdiction lessened, had no other resource left them to recover their authority than to show themselves ultramontanes, and so gain the good graces of the Holy See.

Provincial councils, wherein zealous men domineered, only served to consummate that ruin of our ancient church and of all opinions which still bound the French clergy to their native land.

More yet was wanted. The better to secure the dependence of the episcopate, the gradual substitution of the regular for the secular clergy was dreamt of. This was the reason why monasteries of religious congregations were multiplied, under the pretext that there was need of auxiliary priests to help the _curés_ and their assistants. They built churches, took possession of the pulpits and confessionals, directed the different confraternities; they thus set aside and banished the parochial clergy. In a few years, things going on in this manner, what would hinder the Pope from saying to the bishops: "You have no further need of seminaries to recruit your clergy; look at the numerous religious houses, from which you can take your _curés_ and assistants." And then what would happen? The clergy of France would no longer possess any national character whatsoever. It would be exclusively a Roman army, under the command of the generals of each congregation. Episcopal authority would be completely annihilated, and the church in France would be under the absolute command of the Pope. In that case, only the most violent struggles--a veritable civil war--could alone save the concordat and the independence of the state!

Nay, even now the Pope, abusing the liberty granted, affects to look on France as a province of his Catholic empire. He freely promulgates the acts and laws of his personal administration, and rules here, just as directly as he would at Ancona or Perugia, the affairs of the episcopate and of the church according to the famous ultramontane formula: "The clergy of France is first Catholic, then French."

Nothing better proves the exactness of these views than the study of the causes and the progress of the existing religious agitation about the Italian question. The greater part of the episcopate cared but little for internal demonstrations; the Pope brought the energetic appeal of two encyclical letters to bear upon them. Each bishop was harassed, forced, menaced in the name of his Catholic conscience, in the name of his obligation of obedience to the Pontiff. Three months were required to wring from each and all the wished-for pastoral letter. And what do the leaders of the ultramontane party say to-day? "The French Church has spoken," cries the Bishop of Poitiers; "she is unanimous."

Yes, by dint of the most violent siege. It began by bending the episcopate under the imposed doctrine of the infallible superiority of the Pope. That subjection was accomplished by all the stratagems of the administrative power of Rome over spiritual matters and diocesan affairs; and when, in consequence, it was certain that there would be no resistance on any question whatsoever, even were it the political question of the Romagna, they boast that the free opinion of the Catholic world has been given; they place the Pope under the protection of the universal church, which is judged to have spoken and acted freely. This is a strange use of power and of trickery!

To recapitulate. Rome, as it never goes out of the path leading to its end, has wished and wishes to create its own supremacy in France, which has been so long prevented by royalty allied to the French clergy.

It has found a clergy not attached to the soil and to the state by great interests of wealth and influence.

Profiting by the situation, it has wished to reduce the clergy into bondage after a precise fashion by the intrusion of all of the doctrines of the ultramontane church, and, to obtain its end, has employed all the powers of polemics, of spiritual administration, and of the regular clergy.

The clergy conquered, it has marched on to possess itself of all classes of society through the medium of educational institutions, of confraternities and congregations of every kind, and has established an organization as vast as it is formidable.

Henceforth Rome rules the clergy and the Church of France, and, through the clergy and the church, it means to rule the country.

II.

Such is a true picture of the religious situation.

However, if the French clergy seem unwilling to oppose any further external resistance to the doctrines, plots, and encroachments of Rome, it must not be forgotten that very many of its members in conscience are far from approving what they call the excesses of ultramontanism, because they fear for their own safety and for that of the true religion.

A great part of the episcopate realizes the fact that the effort is being made to reduce them to the condition of simple vicars apostolic, whose jurisdiction could be recalled, and to suppress the _proprium jus episcopûm_. They foresee that the nation will never go back on the civil and political progress made in order to place itself under any theocracy whatsoever.

Consequently, they are not convinced of the strength of the proposed ultramontane arrangement, which may be set forth in these terms: "Be no longer a French episcopate; acknowledge your absolute dependence on the Pope; and, in recompense, we will have _all_ together the religious government of France." Such a plan would expose religion to many and inevitable conflicts, in which it would be either swallowed up by worldly views, or would be gravely compromised.

As a rule, we may also add that the clergy has no idea of separating itself from the emperor, who is the highest guarantee of social order, and whose religious loyalty it well knows.

Finally, to sum up all, it clearly sees that it must live and die in the bosom of France, where it was born; and that, if it does not enjoy the advantages it did in times past, it yet receives from the state whatever constitutes its sphere of activity, its security, and its existence. For the national clergy to quarrel angrily and irrevocably with the emperor and with the nation is a thing easier said than done, the more so as it hates the religious orders, and has no other support whatsoever for its own independence except the laws and good-will of the government.

It sees only too well what would become of it if the government, judging it irrevocably hostile, should all at once suppress all sympathy towards it, should cut off from it all sources of liberality and of toleration, and should brand it before the country as alien to the national feelings and blindly obedient to ultramontane passions. Here is the key-note to the disagreements which now exist amongst the clergy. The dispute and the declaration of 1682 are buried in the past. The controversy is not a theological one at all. It is exclusively one of our own day, exclusively political, exclusively social; and, if the ultra-montanists of to-day are the same as those of past times, the present Gallicans are by no means like those of the time of Louis XIV. We must live either in our own age or the life of the middle ages; we must be either French or Roman. Such is the true state of the question.

Under such circumstances, what is to be done?

Must we, by abruptly changing our whole system of government, expel the religious congregations of men, modify the law concerning education, apply all the organic articles, and reach such a point that the law, fully carried out, will look very much like persecution? No; for then the sincerity of the sovereign might be called into question on account of his passing so quickly from a generous and affectionate protection to all the rigors of prohibition; it would inflict a deep wound on the entire clergy and on a vast multitude of honorable Catholics; it would give rise to the suspicion that, in spite of all to the contrary, a return was being made to Voltairian prejudices; and perhaps it would necessitate a defence against an anti-religious reaction which would consider all its excesses justifiable.

The measures to be taken ought not to surpass the limits of the abuses to be suppressed, and to be carried out in behalf of the respect due to the supreme power, for the welfare of public tranquillity and of religion well understood. Besides, it is well known that public opinion acts as a kind of police over the faults of the clergy. As often as the clergy departs from its true sphere of action and strives to encroach upon the powers and independence of society, it creates a circle of resistance and opposition which subdues it. To-day men are frightened at what they think are the outbursts of revolutionary passion, but which in reality are only the energetic manifestation of public opinion rebelling against the wishes of those in favor of theocracy. Preserve the uprightness of the religious sentiment of the nation; use no violence; borrow from our public law what is necessary to put a stop to insupportable encroachments; in this way separate the course of religion as sincerely practiced from the arrogance and calculations of the Roman propaganda--such, I think, is a course of action well adapted to the necessities of the hour, and will obtain the approbation of the country.

Taking these general notions for a basis, perhaps the following measures would be most opportune:

1st. Except in cases of local necessity, which is to be well proven, to tolerate no other new establishment of religious communities of men, whether it be a question of conventual houses, churches, chapels, even under the pretext that they are to act as auxiliaries in the sacred ministry, or whether it be a question of institutions for public instruction and works of public charity. The hospitality so generously granted by the emperor to communities of men, although prohibited by law, will, in this way, remain inviolate. "You are numerous enough, and France has not been given to you to drain;" this is a sensible answer, which cannot incur the reproach of exclusion. Besides, why will not those who force themselves into the religious communities enter and recruit the ranks of the secular clergy, the parochial clergy? Where is the necessity of increasing the regular clergy which belongs to the Roman government? There are at present in France 68 associations or congregations of men, 19 only of which are authorized as teaching and charitable communities. They have under their charge 3,088 institutions or schools, they number 14,304 religious and have 359,953 pupils.

2d. Henceforth exercise the greatest severity in granting permission for the establishment of congregations of women, only granting the same when the actual undeniable necessity of public charity or primary education requires it; demand certain proofs that they have sufficient resources for their support; do not easily grant permission for the conversion of local communities into communities subject to a superioress-general, which inundate France with their annexed establishments. True it is that _de facto_ congregations cannot be stopped; but, as they are not recognized by law, they know that every one of their members remains subject to the common law; and the _de facto_ congregation, which collectively has no civil existence, can therefore neither receive gifts nor legacies, neither can it act as a corporation. At present there are in France 236 communities of woman subject to superioresses-general, which have, besides the 236 principal foundations, 2,066 secondary or annexed establishments; and about 700 congregations or communities under local superioresses (each of these last forms a distinct establishment, governed by its own superioress, and independent of the establishments of the same religious order established elsewhere); to which we must add about 250 religious associations of women not yet recognized, but existing _de facto_.

3d. As to what concerns the _authorized_ communities of men or women, let the council of state exercise the greatest severity in the matter of gifts, legacies, and charitable donations it permits them to receive. Here we must consider not only the condition and protests of families demanding a reduction of such donations, but we must also examine into the necessities of the community so rewarded. There is no reason why we should procure for them the means of a useless or abusive extension, by authorizing them to receive what is necessary to defray expenses they ought never to have incurred. Communities once established will remain what they are, if the fruitful source of liberality which they provoke and seek for be wanting to stimulate the natural tendency of these communities to extend themselves indefinitely. The spirit of rivalry which exists amongst them, the lust of propagation and of power, all drive them on towards an incessant development. Once entered on this path, they must have money, and they put their wits to work to find out and appeal for help, for donations, and for alms. If the regulations concerning such gifts and legacies were more severe, if the principle were established that such liberality, which is only an encouragement to the extension of expenses and of establishments, would no longer be tolerated, an abrupt stop would be put to the excess of which we to-day complain.

It must be confessed that these congregations, authorized or non-authorized, have always the means of evading the law and of receiving gifts secretly. This cannot be prevented when the affair is conducted cunningly, and the congregations are not without skilful counsellors or numerous adherents ready to aid them in everything. But even in this case, the amount of these evasions or of manual gifts which deprive families of the livelihood obtained for them by their author is easily appreciable. Whence, for example, have the immense resources of the religious orders, vowed to poverty, proceeded, which they must have consecrated to their numerous and vast establishments? The real estate of the Jesuits surpasses twenty millions. How did they buy or build them? Certainly from private donations. Now, this being a fact, does it not follow that there is an obligation on the state not to tolerate any new establishments, which would necessitate new appeals to private charity, and the certainty that by such a prohibition it would act wisely?