CHAPTER VII.

SPIRIT OF CONCILIATION.

Through the efforts of Leo XIII., followed by those of the French cardinals and bishops, a new spirit, a spirit of conciliation, had indeed grown up in France, to which even the representatives of a Government hitherto hostile had lent their prestige. Nevertheless, it is difficult to define the reasons why these common aspirations of peace, instead of developing into a true religious pacification, ended in a war on religion the most terrible in its significance that France has ever known. Nevertheless it can be stated without temerity that the realization of true and definite peace was hindered through the efforts of men and circumstances.

The men of France stood in its way. In this matter we can distinguish three classes of men, the sectaries, the liberals and the Catholics. It was only natural that the sectaries, whose highest ambition was the destruction of Christianity, should repulse from evil principle every convincing argument in favor of peace. It mattered little to them that Catholics declared their adhesion to the Republican form of government; they sneered at the distinction made by Leo XIII. between the form of government and legislation.

The Catholic in combating unjust legislation was pronounced by them a peril to the Republic, and by the Republicthey understood, not a form of government for the good of the people, but the concrete spirit of revolution, the glorification of free thought, anti-Christianism and irreligion. From the sectaries, therefore, nothing could be hoped for in the way of religious pacification.

The liberals, on the other hand, if they entered into thenew spiritand dictated its methods, were nevertheless, at the best, only opportunists. Their attitude was merely political; at the depth of their ideas and sentiments they were always hostile to the Church. They feared Catholicism because it meant the restraints of virtue; they feared its light, lest it betray the evil of the ways they were treading. There was thus no real sincerity in their false liberalism towards the Church. They were, moreover, trimmers, ever on guard lest a false move betray their position and lead them into parties to which they were averse. They feared to favor the Right lest the Left call them clerical; they guarded themselves against the Left, lest the respectable element of the country should accuse them of excess. When their ministers spoke of thenew spirit, they made plain that they looked upon the Church as a vanquished enemy, which they continued to hold in leash, desiring only to let out a little more of the rope. They were, moreover, under the full influence of Masonry. At the very time when the ministry of thenew spiritwas constituted, out of the eleven ministers, seven were Freemasons, a preponderance which the sects have not lost in the succeeding ministries.

With regard to the Catholics, themselves, it must be confessed that their want of unity proved as great a hindrance to any effectual pacification. There were many who refused in a more or less open way to enter into the movement indicated by the Sovereign Pontiff. They argued, quarrelled, and remained militant monarchists to the end. Of those who showed a desire tofollow the directions of Leo XIII. some lagged behind in the movement, uncertain, timid, and nervous; others rushed to the front with an ardor that proved more bravery than prudence; others, neither timid nor rash, effected nothing through a want of understanding among themselves. Thus divided, scattered, disputing among themselves, they gave the vantage ground to the enemy. With a compact, organized army of workers, united upon one single line of policy the Catholics of France could have gained immense advantages.

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR.

Among the circumstances which contributed to the continuance of the anti-Christian spirit must be reckoned the Dreyfus affair. Dreyfus was condemned on December 22, 1894. The affair in itself was entirely a matter between him and the French army. Yet it served as a pretext for war against the majority of the French nation as comprised within the Catholic Church. Whether the defendant were innocent or guilty mattered little; his condemnation brought with it the humiliation of three orders of men who had acquired much power in France, and who determined to obtain revenge not upon the army, which had exposed them to the scorn of public opinion, but upon a force entirely outside the question, but easily attainable because of its weakness, the Church.

The Jews, pointed out by press and public speech as rapacious money-seekers and place-hunters, were only too happy that the circumstance gave them an opportunity of revenge. Freemasonry still quivered under the lash of Leo XIII. who had stigmatized them as the powers of darkness, the enemies of religion and the social order; the bishops of France had adhered to the word of the Sovereign Pontiff; a petition of theLeague of Patriotswas gotten up against Masonry; books and pamphlets were scattered broadcast exposing their illegality and international character; throughout the whole of France the anti-masonic movement was spreading day by day. It was to the Church that the sects attributed their growing unpopularity, and thus Masonry determined that the Church must be punished. Socialism, also, found in the Dreyfus affair, a pretext for the solidification of its forces. It had recognized that the Church alone disputed with it for the guidance of human souls, and in the Church alone could be found remedies for social evils incomparably more apt and human than any Socialism could put forth.

The Dreyfusards arranged themselves under these three banners and, uniting against the common enemy, began their campaign by laying the whole affair at the door of the Jesuits, intending through them to strike down eventually every institution of the Church existing in France. Hence the words of M. Jaurès in the Chamber, March 23, 1903: "Now that the country, now that the honest people of this country have seen the depths of the corruption, the perjury, falsehood and treason, when it can say that this policy of falsehood was the product of a longJesuiticaleducation ... we can see the immense political character of the battle which has begun." From 1894 to the end of the century the anti-Jesuitical campaign went on, increasing every year in bitterness and intensity. In June and July, 1899, seven or eight journals of Paris every day demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits. Freemasonry, through the columns of theSiecle, circulated a petition against the Jesuits, laying at their door all recent crimes, especially Boulangism and the affair of Dreyfus. The Masonic congress held in Paris during the days of June 22, 23 and 24, 1899, placed at the head of its programme the dissolution of the Institute of the Jesuits and of all Congregations not authorized.

The twentieth century dawned with black and lowering skies, presage of storms to come. Even while the hymns of thanksgiving were echoing among the vaulted roofs of cathedral and chapel, the powers of darkness were assembling in high places to formulate plans of destruction. The word had gone forth that Catholicity must die, the oath had been taken in the secret lodges, the generals of the campaign were chosen, and work began in earnest.

The war with the Church was on. It had its skirmishes ever since 1879. Any president or minister who dared to favor the cause of Catholicity must fall. "They must temporize, resign, or die." MacMahon was forced to resign; Carnot was assassinated; Casimir Périer resigned; Felix Faure, for having steadfastly opposed the revision of the Dreyfus case, died almost immediately after swallowing a cup of tea at a soiree, and the Dreyfus case was made out against the Catholics. President Loubet was elected on February 18, 1899. In taking up the reins of government he was made to understand unmistakably that he must follow out the directions of a party whose slogan was: "Death to the Church!"

WALDECK-ROUSSEAU.WALDECK-ROUSSEAU.

One fact which shows that the spirit of the Government, which followed upon the accession of Loubet, was born for persecution, was the case of the Assumptionist Fathers. The latter were accused of interfering in the elections of 1898. A case was made out against them "for violation of the Penal Code interdicting gatherings of more than twenty persons." The real accusationbrought against them, however, was to the effect that they had favored thewrongcandidates, that is, candidates not agreeable to the dominant powers. The prosecutor, Bulot, in his arraignment, cited the names of thirty-one deputies who, he declared, owed their election to the influence of the Assumptionists. The Assumptionists were condemned, and their congregation dissolved as illicit.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT.

The complexion of the new Government which ruled from 1899 to 1902 may be seen from the following extract taken from the revelations of Madame Sorgues, sub-editor, a few years ago—of Jaurès' Socialist organ,La Petite Republique:

In fighting the battles of Dreyfus, Jaurès and his friends brought about a singular meeting of the two most irreconcilable camps.... The first service rendered was to restore the tottering Socialist press.... All the advanced (i. e. anti-clerical) dailies have passed into the hands of the great barons of finance; they are their journals now, not the journals of the workers.... They cast their eyes on Waldeck-Rousseau, the clever rescuer of the Panama people.... The agent of the Dreyfus politics had the happy thought of introducing into the Cabinet, Millerand, the Socialist leader, with the consent of his party. Socialism by becoming ministerial would be domesticated and rendered inoffensive against capital.

The Cabinet was thus in the hands of men little disposed to show fairness towards anything Catholic. In the Chamber of Deputies of that term there were four hundred Freemasons out of five hundred members; in the Cabinet out of eleven ministers, ten were Freemasons.This was the illustrious band which was to make laws for the guidance of thirty-seven million Catholics.

At the head of this ministry stood Waldeck-Rousseau, President of the Council. Waldeck-Rousseau personified the policy which obtained during the two first years of the century, that is, the policy of duplicity and deception. It was necessary, in the beginning of the campaign, to entice the Catholics into a trap, after which their annihilation must follow as a matter of course. In the art of deception Waldeck-Rousseau was an adept.

ASSOCIATIONS LAW.

The instrument by which the deception was exercised was the infamous Associations Law of 1901. The Congregations had ever been thebete-noirof the anti-clericals. They represented Religion in its perfection. In 1892, when the Fallières-Constans bill against the religious congregations was broached, and M. Carnot, its spokesman, had presented it before the Chamber, theTempsremarked: "Its purpose was to resolve the difficult problem of according the right of association to everyone, with such reserves, however, that the Catholics might not benefit by it, and that the Congregations might by it be destroyed." In the bill of Waldeck-Rousseau-Trouillot, prepared in June, 1900, such embarrassments were simply set aside. It was determined "to take the bull by the horns." The new project was, therefore, twofold; the first part assured a large liberty to associationsnon-suspected; the second part gave the Government a means of suppressing all religious orders. It read as follows: "No religious congregation can be formed without an authorization given by a law which shall determine the conditions of its workings. It cannotfound any new establishment except in virtue of a decree emanating from the Council of State.—The dissolution of a congregation, or the closing of an establishment can be pronounced by a decree rendered by the Council of the ministers."

EX-PRESIDENT LOUBET.EX-PRESIDENT LOUBET.

The project which bore the names of Trouillot and Waldeck-Rousseau beganby declaring all religious congregations "illicit," under the pretext that the members of these associations live in community, that they make the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and that Article 1118 of the Civil Code declares that "only such things as enter into commerce can be made the object of a convention," and that poverty, chastity and obedience are things which do not enter into commerce.

M. Emile Faguet in hisL'Anticlericalism(Paris, 1905) scourges this method of persecution:

This argumentation was seething with sophisms. In the first place it transposes into the Penal Code a disposition of the Civil Code and it makes a crime of that which is only a judiciary incapacity: the party who makes a contract upon something which does not enter into commerce cannot judicially exact the execution of that contract if his co-contractor should refuse. That is all that is meant by Article 1118, and there is no penalty against a man who makes a contract not conformable to Article 1118 of the Civil Code. Indeed, if such were the case, marriage would be illicit, for it is a convention of obedience, fidelity and protection between two persons, and obedience, fidelity and protection are not matters of trade; hence marriage would be contrary to Article 1118.But, it will be said, we must count as illicit every convention which is contrary to good morals. Without doubt; but it is difficult to conceive how living in common, and taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are opposed to good morals.Finally this position of the question betrays a voluntary confusion of the terms "convention" and "vow." A vow is not a contract, it is a resolution which one takes and in which one persists. Thus in no way does Article 1118 affect the question of associations and congregations.It is strange indeed that these sapient legislators, after declaring religious associations illicit or criminal, contradict themselves by inviting these same "criminal" associations to seek authorization; which amounts to saying that the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry wished to sanction some things which it considered as essentially wrong. Thus the new law stultifies itself almost in its opening sentences, while it makes it quite plain that the subversive intentions of its author were to affect all religious congregations without exception.

But, it will be said, we must count as illicit every convention which is contrary to good morals. Without doubt; but it is difficult to conceive how living in common, and taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are opposed to good morals.

Finally this position of the question betrays a voluntary confusion of the terms "convention" and "vow." A vow is not a contract, it is a resolution which one takes and in which one persists. Thus in no way does Article 1118 affect the question of associations and congregations.

It is strange indeed that these sapient legislators, after declaring religious associations illicit or criminal, contradict themselves by inviting these same "criminal" associations to seek authorization; which amounts to saying that the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry wished to sanction some things which it considered as essentially wrong. Thus the new law stultifies itself almost in its opening sentences, while it makes it quite plain that the subversive intentions of its author were to affect all religious congregations without exception.

Waldeck-Rousseau belonged to the same school as Jules Ferry; he believed in maintainingprovisorilythe Concordat, but he made it plain that he intended to laicise all the public service, and especially that of teaching, in which the congregations held so large a part. In a speech at Toulouse, October 28, 1900, after arguing that the development of the monastic possessions ought to be arrested, he declared:

Two classes of youth, less separated by their social condition than by the education they receive, are growing up without any mutual acquaintance, until the day comes when they shall meet and find themselves so unlike that they will not be able to understand one another. Little by little two different societies are being prepared—one of them, becoming more and more democratic as it is borne on by the great current of the Revolution, and the other, more and more imbued with doctrines which one would not have believed able to survive the great movement of the eighteenth century.

In this sentence was contained his plea for compelling the teachers of the second class of youth, the congregations, to seek authorization, while at the same time he made it evident that none should be authorized whose methods should not be in accordance with the principles of the French Revolution.

Another element in the deceptive policy of Waldeck-Rousseau was the endeavor to bolster his proscriptive laws upon the assertion that they were intended to protect the secular clergy from the encroachments of the regulars. Hence the phrase: "The Church against the chapel." He ignored the fact that the secular clergy had no need of such protection inasmuch as the harmony between them and the religious orders was never called into question except by these anti-clericals who hated both religious and seculars.

Still further the same Waldeck-Rousseau took pains to falsify himself on more than one public occasion. Thus he assured M. Cochin and Mgr. Gayraud that the law of July, 1901, would permit members of religious congregations to teach in establishments belonging to persons not members of the congregation, although he knew at the time that decrees were being formulated to prevent such practice.

When the iniquitous law was yet before the Chamber the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., in a letter to the superior generals of the orders and religious institutes, complained bitterly of its purpose:

We have endeavored by every means to ward off from you a persecution so unworthy, and at the same time to save your country from evils as great as they are unmerited. That is why on many occasions we have pleaded your cause with all our power in the name of religion, of justice, of civilization. But we have hoped in vain that our remonstrances would beheard. Behold, indeed, in these days, in a nation singularly fecund in religious vocations, and which we have always surrounded with our most particular care, the public powers have approved and promulgated laws of exception, apropos of which we have, a few months ago, raised our voice in the hope of preventing them.

ORPHANS DISPERSED IN PERSECUTION.ORPHANS DISPERSED IN PERSECUTION.

The Livre Jaune, published in 1903, and containing diplomatic documents, prints the words of Cardinal Rampolla in the name of the Holy Father:

The Holy Father, obedient to the duties imposed on him by his sacred ministry, has ordered the subscribed Secretary of State to protest, as he does protest in his august name, against the above law, as being an unjust law of reprisals and of exception, which excludes honest and worthy citizens from the benefits of the common right, which equally wounds the rights of the Church, which is in opposition to natural right, and which is at the same time replete with deplorable consequences. It would be superfluous to point out how such a law, on the one side, restrains the liberty of the Church guaranteed by a solemn contract, and prevents the Church from fulfilling her divine mission by depriving her of precious co-operators, while on the other hand, it increases bitterness of spirit at a moment when the need of pacification is most vital and pressing, and it takes away from the State the most zealous apostles of civilization and charity, the most efficacious propagators of the French name, the French tongue and French prestige abroad.

The effects of this law which has been well characterized as anti-social, inhuman, anti-religious, and anti-French, began to be felt at once. Many religious orders, such as the Jesuits, the Assumptionists, the Benedictines, Carmelites, etc., foreseeing that legal authorization would be denied them, abandoned their country, theircolleges and their convents; many others still hoped. The Government into whose hands they had fallen had invited them to seek authorization, and there was no reason, apparently, to suppose that this invitation was only a mockery. Still others, which had formerly been authorized, imagined that they might still continue in the enjoyment of such recognition. Both the latter classes were, however, deceived. According to the new law a congregation "might not found a new establishment except in virtue of a decree issued by the Council of State." It was thus difficult to see how the law could effect the establishments already founded. The promulgators of the bill, however, intended to confine themselves within no limits, and hence their purpose was very soon made plain. By a circular of December 15, 1901, the law was formally extended to include all establishments, both old and new, going back as far as those recognized in 1825. Later still, January 23, 1902, the Council of State decided that: "in the case of the opening of a school by one or more congregationists, that school should be considered as a new establishment opened by the congregation, whoever might be proprietor or tenant." A few days later, February 8, Waldeck-Rousseau sent notice of the same to the prefects. By these various circulars the law was thus aimed at all new schools founded by the congregations, at all new schools not founded by the congregations, but directed by religious, and at all old schools founded by the congregations.

It is a notable fact that these iniquitous extensions of an evil law were perpetrated in spite of the clearest assurances of the Government that the two latter classes of schools should not be touched. Even as late as February 4, 1902, the Government responded to a request of the Holy Father for an explanation of its intentions, by a note from M. Delcasse, which reads as follows:

Paris, February 4, 1902.The Council of Ministers have decided that the law of July, 1901, should not have a retroactive effect, and did not apply to educational establishments opened in virtue of the law of 1886. The conclusions of the Council of State enumerated in your despatch of January 29, do not touch them. This was a point with which the Nuncio was very much preoccupied. Mgr. Lorenzelli appears to be fully satisfied with the decision of the Council, of which I immediately made him cognizant.—Delcasse.

Paris, February 4, 1902.

The Council of Ministers have decided that the law of July, 1901, should not have a retroactive effect, and did not apply to educational establishments opened in virtue of the law of 1886. The conclusions of the Council of State enumerated in your despatch of January 29, do not touch them. This was a point with which the Nuncio was very much preoccupied. Mgr. Lorenzelli appears to be fully satisfied with the decision of the Council, of which I immediately made him cognizant.—Delcasse.

The actions of the Government were thus in direct contradiction with its assurances. Its protestations of fairness and leniency were falsified by its circulars and decrees. Its intentions were aimed at extermination complete and irrevocable.

The ending of Waldeck-Rousseau's career was pathetic and tragical. In 1904 he arose one day "from his bed of sickness to unburden his conscience by protesting against the anti-clerical fury of his ci-devant supporters and instruments. In vain he denounced the violations of his law of 1901, travestied by that of 1904 suppressing even authorized congregations. The verve of the great tribune had abandoned him. His speech was but a hollow echo of its former eloquence. Twice he reeled and was forced to steady himself by clinging to the railing. When he arose for the second time, to reply to the sarcasms of M. Combes, he suddenly lost the thread of his discourse, and before he had ended many benches were vacated; the forum, where his words had so often been greeted with wild applause, was almost empty." (Brodhead.—Religious Persecution in France.)

His death came two years later. It was rumored that he attempted to commit suicide. Whether he receivedthe last sacraments or not is not known. He had left instructions, however, that he was to be buried from his parish church of St. Clothilde.

THE COMBES MINISTRY.

The seventh legislature was dissolved at the beginning of April, 1902, and preparations were at once begun for the election of its successor. The point at issue in the approaching elections was the vindication or the condemnation of the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, which had now been in office for three years. The result was entirely satisfactory to the parties whose life had been lived in open hostility to the Church. The Ministerialists, that is to say, the supporters of the administration of Waldeck-Rousseau, won 69 seats in the Chamber, as against 131 by the several elements of the opposition. The new legislature counted among its members ninety-six Radicals, eighty-three Republicans of the Left, 135 Radical-Socialists, forty-one Unified Socialists, fourteen Independent Socialists. Here were 369 men out of 500, every one of whom was pledged to exert every effort, by fair means or foul, to overthrow the life and power of the Church in France. As soon as the result of the election had become known Waldeck-Rousseau, as if satisfied with his work of destruction, resigned the ministry and retired to private life.

Before abandoning the active field of political life, Waldeck-Rousseau was careful to point out the man he desired to take his place and carry into execution the laws he had devised. This man was Emile Combes, the most violent of politicians. To this man, M. Loubet, who could not bear him—but who passed his life in doing what he disapproved of, and in condemning inhis speeches the very political acts which he signed with his name,—to this man M. Loubet hastened to confide the Presidency of the Council, and the direction of the Government. M. Combes! It is a name of ill omen, which echoes like the sound of a funeral bell among the cloisters in the empty convents, and by the firesides of Christian homes. The aged mutter the name and grow pale as if they had said an unholy thing. The little ones shrink to their mothers' side as the horror of that name strikes upon their innocent ears, for it brings back the memory of dear sisters who have vanished, engulfed as it were in the cavernous jaws of the anti-Christ. It is a name at which many lips hesitate when they utter the prayer! "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us." Yet, they will hesitate only for the moment, for in those very communities which he has robbed and persecuted a prayer will ever go up to God for his conversion. It is the way in which the true Christian takes revenge upon those who wrong him.

EMILE COMBES.EMILE COMBES.

Emile Combes is a native of Roquecourbe, in the south of France, where he was born on September 6, 1835. His parents were good, honest people, filled with that simple piety which characterizes the true Frenchpeasant. He had an uncle, the Abbe Gaubert, curé of Bion to whose generous interest the future politician owed his first advances in life. Through the influence of this good man the young Combes entered, in 1846, thepetit seminaireof Castres, the scholars of which were supposed to have the first promptings of ecclesiastical vocation. During his college days the young man certainly gave every evidence of profound faith and devotion. The lessons of his pious mother made him, as he says himself, believe to the very depths of his soul. In his twentieth year he entered the Grand Seminaryat Albi. While in this institution he received minor orders, thereby proclaiming to the world his intention of preparing for the priesthood. For two years his purpose remained unchanged. He even fortified himself therein by deep and special studies in scholastic theology, and has left as memorials of his better life two treatises in that matter:A Study of the Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas, andThe Controversy between St. Bernard and Abelard, copies of which are still extant in the library of the Sorbonne at Paris.

Whether the vocation of Emile Combes was real or not, he certainly abandoned it in the midst of his ecclesiastical studies. He quitted the Seminary and became a professor in the College of the Assumption at Nimes, an institution established by the Abbe d'Alzon, founder of the religious order of the Assumptionists. Here he remained for three years, until 1860. He taught then in another Catholic college at Pons.

Hitherto there had been no certain indications of a weakening in his faith. But in 1864, as he was attending the medical school at Paris, he met with Renan. The acquaintanceship developed the seeds of that atheism which has since become his ruling quality.

To one who reads French history it ought not to be surprising that a Catholic seminary should have sheltered the youth of a man like Combes. Voltaire was a pupil of the Jesuits, whom he betrayed; Renan was once a student in St. Sulpice; Gambetta, the leader of anti-clericalism in the stormy 80's, studied in his boyhood in apetit seminaire. That they proved false to their early teaching is not remarkable when one considers the disaffection of an apostle who was privileged to enjoy an intimacy with the Savior of the world.

It was during his vacations in 1865 that Combes was initiated into the Freemasons. It marked thefirst step in that path which he was soon to follow with persistent energy. In 1868 he received his degree as doctor of medicine, a profession which he practised at Pons. In 1874 he was elected Mayor of that town. His real political life began in 1885 when he was elected senator. Re-elected in 1894, he accepted the ministry of Public Instruction, Fine Arts and Worship in the Bourgeois Cabinet, wherein he showed himself one of the most obstinate promoters of lay education as opposed to that of the clergy. It was at this time that he inaugurated, in his relations with the Vatican relative to the Concordat, the policy which, ten years later, led to the separation of Church and State.

A PROTEST OF FRENCH AUTHORS AGAINST COMBES.A PROTEST OF FRENCH AUTHORS AGAINST COMBES.

As President of the Democratic Left in the Senate he lent his efforts to the policy of Waldeck-Rousseau from 1899 to 1902. He was elected President of the Senatorial Commission on the Law of Associations; he contributed largely to its adoption, and notably to the vote on Article 14, when he declared in the tribune his conviction of the moral incompatibility of the profession of teaching with the doctrine and life of the monastic orders. On June 7, 1902, upon the recommendation of Rousseau, he succeeded to the Presidency of the Council thereby becoming Premier in the Government.

His first words upon taking up this office signalized his determination of carrying on to its ultimate issue the war just inaugurated against the Catholic Church. "What can the new Cabinet do," he asked, "what can any cabinet do but continue the policy of that which precedes us, a policy which is resumed by saying that it has been nothing more than an incessant war of the Republican party against two dangers which republican unity alone can overcome; Caesarian reaction, and theocratic pretensions. That is the policy which we are determinedto pursue and which we invite you to pursue with us until we have completely disarmed the enemy."

Anorder of the daywas passed voting confidence in the Government, and thus adopting as the policy of the Chambers, the war plan enunciated by the President of the Council. This was the work of the four groups of the Left, all radical and anti-religious to the depths of their hearts. Thebloc, as they called this cohesion of the different parties of the ministerial majority, was thus constituted, and adopted as its plan of action the war against Catholicity.

The new Premier set to work at once to put into execution the law of July 1, 1901. Beginning with schools recently opened, that is, posterity to the late law, he closed at one stroke on July 15, 1902, as many as 2500. The congregationist teachers were allowed only eight days before abandoning their establishments and retiring to their mother houses. It was an illegal act in itself; it not only aggravated unduly the rigor of the law, but it was also irregular in form, since Article 13 of the law declared that a measure of this nature could not be taken except "by a decree emanating from the Council of the ministers," and not by a simple circular as in the present case.

Cardinal Richard, upon learning of this execution, wrote immediately to M. Loubet a letter to which many other bishops hastened to give their adhesion; M. Jules Roche published a letter to the President of the Council (Combes) in which he proved that the law had been violated; a petition was presented to M. Loubet by a delegation of the Christian mothers from the district of Saint-Roch. To these protests the Government answered by a presidential decree of Aug. 2, 1902—this time in legal form—whereby it declared the closing of 324 other establishments.

The war went on. In Brittany many scenes of open conflict took place as the troubled peasantry strove to prevent the sudden spoliation of those institutions which they held dearest on earth. They had reason indeed to rebel, as the persecutors aimed not only at the extinction of their beloved teaching orders, but also at the destruction of that cherished Breton tongue which they had inherited from their fathers. The show of violence here and there manifested brought its inevitable consequences from a power only too anxious to find pretexts for persecution. The powers of many mayors were revoked, many ecclesiastics were deprived of their livings and correctional measures were pronounced against all who dared to take part in the various manifestations. Then came other decrees in August, laicisingen massethe greater part of the public schools as yet directed by the congregations.

When the matter was brought into the Chamber (Oct. 13, 1902,) protests went up eloquently from a number of indignant deputies. Conspicuous among these were such bright names as Messrs. Aynard, Baudry d'Asson, Denys Cochin, George Berry, de Ramel, Charles Benoist and the Count de Mun. The answer of the latter to the policy of Combes is worth recording:

Majorities may cover your actions and sanction your decisions, but nothing can efface the evil you have done. The country—for I speak not of Brittany alone—can never forget those scenes of odious violence executed by your orders, wherein we have witnessed commissaries of police, followed by armed marauders, storming the doors of private houses, not merely the doors of a religious dwelling, but the doors of my own house, to drive out into the streets humble ladies who consecrate their lives, their labors and their devotion to the instruction of the children of the people. Nothing—andunderstand it well—nothing can make us forget that; nothing above all can make us forget that you have condemned the soldiers of France to assist at such scenes, and to march with tears in their eyes, in the midst of a distracted and desperate crowd, the pathway of your persecutors. That shall never be forgotten! That shall never be pardoned.

While these things were going on the bishops of France framed a collective letter petitioning the Chambers to accede to the application for authorization made by the congregations. This letter when published contained the signatures of seventy-four bishops; only seven, for different reasons had deferred signing, though fully in sympathy with the movement. This letter, moderate and respectful, as it was, and merely asking in the way of petition for favors that might easily be granted, was treated by the Council of State as a hostile manifesto and was declared "abusive" and as such it rendered its authors culpable before the law. The Archbishop of Besancon, together with the Bishops of Orleans and of Séez, were considered as the promoters of the document, and as such were deprived of their salaries.

When the war against all new establishments was well under way, the "Bloc" then took up the question of congregations unauthorized but applying in due legal form for the favor of authorization. This the orders had been instructed and encouraged to do. Their treatment displayed at once the insincerity and hatred of the Government. A "Commission on Congregations" was formed, composed of thirty-three members, of whom twenty-one were Freemasons. The Commission instructed the anti-clerical Rabier to draw up a bill. The discussions of the Chamber upon this bill, resulted in the dissolution of fifty-three orders of men. OnMarch 18, 1903, twenty-five teaching congregations were suppressed, comprising 11,763 religious divided into 1690 communities. A few days later twenty-eight preaching orders received the same sentence. Among these were the Capuchins, the Redemptorists, the Dominicans, the Passionists, the Salesians, the Franciscans, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Benedictines, the Fathers of the Oratory, the Barnabites, the Carmelites and many others. On March 26, the Carthusians, considered as a commercial order, were condemned by a vote of 322 against 222. It was at this time that the anti-clerical Rouanet uttered that saying so significant of the whole Governmental policy: "We need not concern ourselves with either legality or right." The proscriptions were hardly pronounced than measures were at once taken for the liquidation of the property belonging to the dissolved congregations. We need not linger to relate the pathetic scenes accompanying the consequent expulsion of these fifty-three orders of men, nor the wave of indignation it produced throughout France and the civilized world.

CARDINAL RICHARD.CARDINAL RICHARD.

After the congregations of men the war was carried on against similar orders of women. It was to no purpose that Messrs. Plichon and Grousseaudemonstrated in the Chamber the confusion manifested in the articles of the bill which designated as teaching orders the congregations devoted to the hospitals, and those whose lives were purely contemplative; it was in vain that they showed forth the success of the incriminated orders that they brought forth the declarations of the majority of the municipal councils pronouncing for the maintenance of these orders. Even M. Leygues who had voted for the law of July 1, 1901, as Minister of Public Instruction at the time, declared that the new bill by rejecting the demands of the Sistersen blocwas contraryto that law. In spite of all protests the project was voted and carried by a majority of 285 to 269. Thus eighty-one congregations of women were at a single blow dissolved.

On August 9, 1903, M. Combes speaking at Marseilles before a congress of teachers declared:

I have refused 12,600 petitions for authorization. This figure suppressed 9,934 teaching establishments, 1,856 hospital corps, and 822 establishments of a mixed nature, i. e. hospitaller and teaching. Out of the 9,934 teaching establishments there are 1,770 situated in communes still wanting, I am sorry to say, in public schools.

TheTempsof December 4, 1903, declared that 10,049 schools had been closed within a period of eighteen months, and that there remained only 1,300 yet to be suppressed.

To these 10,049 schools must be added 165 colleges and 1,347 schools conducted by the twenty-five orders of men suppressed on the 18th of March preceding, as also the 517 establishments directed by the eighty-one congregations of women proscribed on June 24, thus representing a total of 12,000 congregationists schools stricken in the space of eighteen months, with about 50,000 religious thrown out upon the streets, and more than 1,000,000 children deprived of their beloved instructors.

Charles Bota in hisGrand Faute des Catholiques de Francethus reflects upon these sinister events:

One can well imagine what went on in the mother-houses, the communities and the schools which the decrees of suppression invaded, bringing ravage and desolation! What sad and heart-rending scenes! The odious perquisitions of procureurs and police commissariesgoaded on by superior orders, or even perhaps—it looked that way sometimes—by the quality of the victims; the painful, insidious interrogatories wherein the simplicity and timidity of souls habituated to peace was violated; the alarm of the aged religious, of the sick and the infirm as they begged to know what it all meant; the returning religious hunted from their houses coming back to the mother-house to cast themselves weeping into the arms of their superiors, while the latter pointed out how the house was too small to receive them and too poor to afford them food; the uncertainty as to the morrow, the privations, the anguish, the moral tortures, the desperation of all; one should have seen such scenes near at hand to comprehend all that they meant. 'Ah!' cried M. Emile Olivier, 'all the cruelty, the tears, the consternation contained in those few words written by an official scribe upon the desk of a minister—On such a day, such a congregation of women will be dispersed.' They merited no regard, no commiseration those poor women so good to others, so delicate, so pure, that Taine could call them the pride of France.

The efforts of the enemy had thus far touched only unauthorized congregations. There were still many orders which lived in the possession of full authorization and which according to the existing laws had nothing to fear from the hatred of the anti-clericals. In this, however, they were very much deceived. A new bill directed at all religious teaching orders, of whatever kind or description, was introduced in the Chamber on February 29, 1904. Its first article, declaring the suppression, asserted "teaching of every order and of every nature is interdicted in France to the congregations." It was adopted by a majority of eighty-seven votes on March 14. The second article stated that from the date of the promulgation of the law the teaching congregationscould not receive new members, and that their novitiates must be dissolved. This article also—with the exception in favor of congregations destined for foreign schools—was adopted. It was decided, moreover, in article fourth, that novitiates for foreign missions could not maintain any of the dissolved congregations. The law was carried before the Senate, towards the end of June. It became a law of the land, with the official signature of M. Loubet, on July 8, 1904.

The triumph of anti-Christianism was thus complete, and the death sentence had been pronounced against the very existence of the monastic life in France.

It might be of interest to introduce here some appreciations of the Premier who had done so much harm to France and who was soon to begin the first scenes in the last act of our sorrowful drama. M. Emile Faguet, though not a Catholic, nor inspired by any definite admiration for Catholic principles, thus characterizes M. Combes in hisl'Anticlericalism:

M. Combes, considered unanimously as the protege and choice—no one knows with what secret designs of M. Waldeck-Rousseau; ... M. Combes taken up—no one knows by what weakness—by M. Loubet, who felt for him the very contrary of sympathy; M. Combes, a minister who was incapable according to the opinion and avowal of everyone, nevertheless maintained himself in office as long, and even longer than Waldeck-Rousseau, in spite of mistake after mistake, in spite of co-laborers as incapable as himself, despite the procrastination systematically employed as an instrument of his rule, only because he was a determined anti-clerical, headstrong and brutal, whom nothing could arrest in the pursuit of his design and precisely because, as he had said himself, 'he hadaccepted his office for that alone' and because he was absolutely incapable of seeing anything else in the government of France and in all modern history.

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