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 had accepted 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRESIDENT FALLIeRES.]

_L'Echo_, (Lyons), with admirable brevity thus summarizes the salient points in the character of the Premier and his policy:

M. Combes is a sectary, a renegade seminarist given over to Freemasonry. His policy is the vigorous application of the anti-liberal law, the refusal of all authorizations asked by the Congregations, and the abrogation of the Falloux law.

M. F. Veuillot, writing in the _Univers_, pays his respects to the minister in no measured terms. He says M. Combes is "devoid of talent, virtue, honor--a brute unable to conceive a generous thought, to realize a great work, to produce anything useful, to show any effort of a patient and beneficial kind. The brute, however, has formidable fists, and he strikes out blindly before him. The man is without a breath of intelligence, a single sentiment of delicacy. He is but a commonplace mediocrity personified, rancid with hatred and puffed up with pride. As he cannot leave anything to make him famous, he will be notorious to posterity for his brutality alone."

Finally, the Abbe Felix Klein, in the North American Review for February, 1904, remarks:

M. Combes and his friends, who imagine that they are the leaders of all progress, are committing again the errors of the Middle Ages. That which Philip II. did in Spain, in his making use of the Inquisition; that which Louis XIV. did in France, in revoking the Edict of Nantes and in driving out the Protestants; that which England did, in her treatment of the Pilgrim Fathers, the anti-clericals in France are doing today in their hatred of the religions orders. They are placing these orders beyond the law; they are preventing members of these orders from living as they see fit to live, and from earning their daily bread; they are practically forcing these members to leave France, all solely because of their ideas and innermost convictions. It is the old crime of heresy reversed. Since 1789, the French state has professed no longer to recognize religious vows, either to protect or to attack them; and in this it does well. But how illogical it is, then, to deprive certain individuals of their civil rights, merely because they take vows which it does not recognize! How does it concern the state if young men and women take the vow of chast.i.ty before G.o.d, and lead a life in common, devoting themselves to doing good in the manner they deem best? Is it not monstrous that, in the beginning of the twentieth century, the government of a great country should arrogate to itself the right of interfering in a matter of this kind, even that it should bring such subjects into the scope of its deliberations? Whether this vow be good or bad it is a question for one's own conscience. Let those who think it bad endeavor to turn others from it by means of persuasion; but to try to prevent it by brute force is the most retrograde course in the world.

The measure of true civilization is indicated by the degree of respect in which one person holds the rights of another; every man and woman, so long as not encroaching on the rights of others, is inviolably ent.i.tled to act, and, a fortiori, to think, to believe, to pray, as he or she wishes. The French Government, by preventing certain categories of citizens from acting together, solely because their ideas are not its ideas, has gone backward several centuries on a capital point, and has resurrected one of the most shameful practices of the past, the misdemeanor of opinion.

_THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE._

The congregations dissolved and dispersed, nothing now remained but the final act in that great tragedy which had been progressing for more than one hundred years. The proposal was in order to lay the axe at the roots of religious life, and by one fell stroke to extinguish the very existence of the Catholic Church in France. Years have pa.s.sed since this last work was begun; the Church has not been extinguished; she is even rising to a greater, a more glorious life; the promise of Christ is showing its realization in the midst of a people who, but yesterday, were ready to sing the requiem over her ruins.

The project of separating Church and State was no new notion in France; it was a very old article in the republican programme. Away back in the days of the Convention, in 1795, it had already been proclaimed and put into force. Again in 1830 and in 1848 it was put forward by a faction of the republican party. Under the Empire, especially during the discussions as to the French occupation of the City of Rome, it was made a part of the democratic platform. In a session of the Corps Legislatif on December 3, 1867, Jules Simon made a very bitter speech in favor of such separation. The following year Henri Brisson advocated much the same object when denouncing the payment of salary to the clergy.

It was, however, during the period of the Third Republic that the project began to receive attention in a practical sense, and formed the ideal towards which policies of Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Paul Bert and their like aspired. All efforts in this direction had proved abortive, not that the project was at all displeasing to the anti-clerical governments, but rather because the people were not "prepared;" and most of all it was necessary first so to weaken the Church in her functional life, that when the separation should come, it must mean her annihilation.

It is pitiful to note the pretexts alleged by Reveillard in his work on the "Separation," as the causes which called for the final rupture.

Speaking of Gambetta's acts of hostility in 1869 and later, he says: "It was the time of the great clerical demonstrations, of pilgrimages less religious than political, to Paray-le-Monial, to Lourdes, to Sainte-Anne d'Aunay, to the chant of canticles with the refrain: 'Oh, save Rome and France in the name of the Sacred Heart!'" He calls up also "the triumph of Marie Alacoque and of Pere Lamerliere" and the "law approving as a national public benefit the erection of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the heights of Montmartre." These demonstrations of national Catholic spirit were as so many thorns in the sides of rabid anti-clericalism, and would suffice in themselves to evoke the sentence of extermination against the Church that could call them forth. These same complaints are uttered with no less bitterness by Paul Sabbatier in his work on the "Disestablishment of the Church in France." In fact the unanimity with which all anti-clerical writers harp upon these manifestations of popular fervor make it plain that it was not a desire for political betterment which inspired the foes of the Church in these oppressive measures, but a desire carefully nurtured to strike at her very vitality and life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEMENCEAU.]

It would be useless here to rehea.r.s.e all the various attempts which were made in the Legislative Chambers up to 1902 to introduce the final question in regard to the Separation. On each occasion the discussion was voted down, always with the understanding that the time was not yet ripe for the act. Affairs had at length, after the Law of 1901, arrived at such a pa.s.s that the anti-clerical government could afford to set in motion the wheels of its final policy. Various happenings at the time served as pretexts for hurrying on its action. Some of these were of special importance, and deserve to be recorded for the part they played therein. In 1902 the Government a.s.sumed a hostile att.i.tude on the subject of the nomination of bishops, when it demanded the exclusion from the Bull of canonical invest.i.ture of the term until then in use: "n.o.bis nominavit." The Government demanded the suppression of the word _n.o.bis_, thus changing the meaning of the phrase. It thus made it appear that the nomination of a bishop depended upon the Government alone, and that Rome had no other part in it than merely to register such nomination as made by the civil power. This question of words thus became a question of principle. The affair of the _n.o.bis nominavit_ was finally arranged at the beginning of 1904. The _Osservatore Romano_, of January 23, announced the solution officially, adding: "After a lengthy exchange of ideas, the French government has accepted a solution which the Holy See had proposed of its own initiative, and which, without in any way wounding the privilege of nomination conceded to the Government in virtue of the Concordat, conserves intact and a.s.sures for the future the expression of the canonical and dogmatic doctrine."

This attempt of the Government to stir up a conflict with the Holy See was further accentuated by the suppression of the salaries of eleven bishops; and by the reduction, without any reasonable motive, of the budget of worship in 1904.

Two other cases which, provoked by the Government, served as a pretext for urgent separation were the affairs of the Bishops of Laval and Dijon. I prefer to use in its relation the words of M. f.a.guet as found in his work "_l'Anticlericalism_." "Two bishops, M. Gay, bishop of Laval, and M. Le Nordez, bishop of Dijon, were agreeable to the French Government and suspected, either for their private conduct, or for their administration, by the Curia. M. Le Nordez was advised by Rome to resign his functions. The Roman letter was turned over by the bishop to the French Government, which protested to the Vatican, claiming that, according to the Concordat, the nominations of French bishops ought to be made by the French Government, and only the canonical inst.i.tution of them was reserved to the Holy See, that their revocations ought to follow the same law as their nominations, and hence, that the Holy See had not the right to depose a French bishop. Exactly the same procedure was followed with regard to M. Gay, and exactly the same protests were made by the French Government in his case. At the same time the French Government commanded M. Gay and M. Le Nordez not to quit their posts.

The Roman Under-Secretary of State answered that the deposition of a bishop was one thing, and the notice given to a bishop that he must resign temporally his functions in order to go before the Roman Curia to justify himself, was another; that such notifications belonged of right to the Holy See to which the bishops by it canonically inst.i.tuted were responsible."

"The French Government was headstrong, rushed blindly into the affair, recalled its amba.s.sador, and gave his pa.s.sports to the Nuncio. War was declared."

"The two bishops, who were obliged to choose between their obedience to the French Government and their loyalty to the Holy See, decided for the latter. They set out furtively for Rome, submitted to the Curia, and resigned their French Sees."

"M. Combes saw in all this motives sufficient, not only to break all relations with the Holy See, but still more to denounce the Concordat and to p.r.o.nounce for the separation of Church and State, at the same time formally casting--as he had done a score of times--all responsibility for these grave measures upon the Pontifical Government."

The anti-clericals were determined to abuse the patience of the Holy See until it should finally be driven into an action upon which the French Government might seize as a final pretext for a rupture. Already Pope Leo XIII. had pointed out such intentions during his lifetime. In a Letter to the Clergy and Catholics of France, February 16, 1902, he thus wrote: "For them, separation signifies the negation of the very existence of the Church. They make, however, a reservation which might be formulated thus: 'As soon as the Church, utilizing the resources which the common law allows to even the least of Frenchmen, will be able, by redoubling her native activities, to make her labors fruitful, the State will and must intervene to put the French Catholics outside the common law itself.' In a word, the ideal of these men is nothing less than a return to paganism; the State will recognize the Church only when it wishes to persecute her."

This great Pope had, by the end of his life, exhausted every means of condescension and delicacy towards the French Government; but his efforts were doomed to failure before the hatred and bad faith of his enemies, and he began at length to feel that the time had come when he should enter a firm and dignified protest.

Pope Pius X. upon his accession was called upon to behold the accelerated progress of official persecution; he began to recognize the utter uselessness of even the most legitimate claims, and he hastened to express his sorrow and indignation for the continuous violation of human rights. On March 19, 1904, on the occasion of his name-day, he addressed the Sacred College upon the subject: "We are profoundly saddened," he said, "by the measures already adopted, and by others on the way to adoption in the legislative houses against the religious congregations which form in this country, by their admirable works of Christian charity and education, a glory not less for the Church than for the fatherland. They intend to go farther still, when they prevent and defend a project having for its end the interdiction of all teaching to the members of religious inst.i.tutes even authorized, the suppression of approved inst.i.tutes and the liquidation of their property. We deplore and strongly censure such harshness so essentially contrary to liberty as it is understood, so essentially opposed to the fundamental laws of the land, to the inherent rights of the Catholic Church, and to the rules of civilization itself, which forbid the persecution of peaceful citizens. To this end we cannot dispense Ourselves from expressing Our sorrow over the measures adopted of deferring to the Council of State, as abusive, the respectful letters addressed to the first magistrate of the Republic by many well deserving pastors, among whom are three members of the Sacred College, the August Senate of the Apostolic See, as if it could be a crime to address the chief of the State to call his attention to subjects intimately connected with the most imperious duties of conscience, and with the common weal."

The solicitude of the Holy Father, however, only served to increase the venom of his foes. Toward the end of April, 1904, M. Loubet, President of the French Republic, visited Rome, and contrary to the spirit of the Concordat and the rules regulating the relations of the Holy See and the French Government, went immediately to the Quirinal to pay his respects to the Italian king. The Holy See considered this visit of M. Loubet "as a very grave offense against its dignity and rights. At the same time, while uttering in the face of the French Government an energetic and formal protest against the offense thus suffered, it sent in a.n.a.logous terms by means of its foreign representatives, an account of its action to the governments of all the other States with which the Holy See held direct relations." The Pontifical note declared that "a head of a Catholic nation inflicts a grave offense against the Sovereign Pontiff in coming to give homage at Rome, not to the Pontifical See but to him who contrary to all right usurps his civil sovereignty." The "note" goes on to remark that the offense is all the greater coming from the "first magistrate of the French Republic, presiding over a nation which is bound by the most intimate traditional relations with the Roman pontificate, enjoys in virtue of a bilateral contract with the Holy See certain signal privileges and a large representation in the Sacred College, and possesses by a singular favor the protectorate of Catholic interests in the Orient." It goes on, moreover, to state that this visit of M. Loubet was "sought intentionally by the Italian Government for the purpose of enfeebling the rights of the Holy See," and it concludes by declaring that "the Sovereign Pontiff makes these most formal and explicit protests to the end that so afflicting an action, (as that of M. Loubet) might not const.i.tute a precedent."

On the receipt of this protest the French Government gave the Holy See to understand that it rejected the note in its form and in its substance. The anti-clerical journals went even farther than this, publishing not only the Pope's answer to French Government, but also the note which had been sent to the other Catholic Powers. The intention of such publication being to stir up the rancor of all who were moved by hostility to the Holy See.

In answer, moreover, to the Pontifical note, the French ministry demanded that the Holy See give an explanation of its words, and that within the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours; then, rushing headlong upon a solution, as if impatient to hurry on the imminent rupture, it recalled the French amba.s.sador to the Holy See (May 21, 1904). This action was approved by the Chamber six days after; it refused, however, by a vote of 366 to 144 to p.r.o.nounce for the immediate denunciation of the Concordat; but that event was now well on the way, and nothing was needed but to devise the ways and means.

The year 1905 opened with many muttered evidences of the coming storm.

The prime minister, M. Combes, though not defeated in the January elections, beheld his majority so far reduced because of his rabid inconsistencies, that although re-elected to his former post he felt it inc.u.mbent to resign immediately. He was succeeded by a creature pledged to continue his oppressive policy, M. Maurice Rouvier. It may be said, however, that the spirit of Combes has dominated the French Chambers ever since. The new cabinet was destined to put the final touches to the anti-clerical campaign of dissolution.

Various motions having from time to time been introduced before the Chamber of Deputies tending towards the separation of Church and State, the Government finally, decided to place all of them for examination into the hands of a Commission of thirty-three, which was nominated on June 11, 1903. Out of the deliberations of this body resulted the first scheme, or project, of the proposed legislation in regard to Separation of Church and State. The question was formally introduced to the Chamber of Deputies in the session of March 21, 1905, and was discussed during forty-eight sessions until July 3 of that year. Its reporter, or sponsor, was M. Briand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRIAND.]

In the first session M. Georges Berry declared "that the question of separation had not been submitted to the electoral colleges, and that, moreover, every time that it had been put before legislative elections the electoral body had answered very unmistakably that it did not desire separation." In the same session the Abbe Gayraud, representing Catholic interests, spoke: "The Chamber, considering that diplomatic loyalty, and public honesty, no less than the interests of public order and of religious peace, exact that the denunciation of the Concordat, and the separation of Church and State be accomplished in a friendly manner, decides to use care in each deliberation upon the project of the law relative to that subject, and invites the Government to form an extra parliamentary commission composed of ministers from the different denominations in concert with the heads of the Churches interested to prepare an agreement with those Churches as to the conditions of separation." In his speech upon the above thesis the Abbe Gayraud was led to speak of the Organic Articles which he characterized as the "Servitudes of the Gallican Church." The argument which then arose in the Chamber might well be recorded.

_M. Gayraud._--The doctrine of the _Syllabus_ is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, as well of the Gallican as of the Roman Church. And I know very well that no one can draw an argument against the Concordat of 1801 from either the _Syllabus_ or the dogma of Infallibility. The doctrines of these two pontifical doc.u.ments represent not only the doctrine of the Church in 1864, but also that of the Roman Church in 1801, and of the Gallican Church as far as the _Syllabus_ is concerned. Moreover, another line of complaint against the Holy See, upon which M. Briand leans, and to which he has today alluded, is the Organic Articles. Very good, but the Pope has never recognized the Organic Articles; the Catholics of France, precisely because the Pope would not recognize them, are unwilling to recognize them either. This is one good reason, if you wish to avoid the misunderstandings of the past, why it would be well to confer with the Pope in regard to the separation which you are planning. But, after all, does the fact of not recognizing the Organic Articles const.i.tute a violation of the Concordat?

I am convinced that the real violation consisted in the making and promulgating of these famous articles.

_M. Briand._--And what of that?

_M. Jaures._--That only proves that the Concordat was still born.

_M. Gayraud._--You know very well, M. Briand, that the Organic Articles do not const.i.tute those regulations of police supervision provided for in the first article of the Concordat.

_M. Feron._--You accept only what is favorable to you.

_M. Gayraud._--"I have already said in this house: I defy any member of this a.s.sembly to show me that in the Organic Articles there is any regulation concerning the publicity of worship, or to show me a single organic article that has anything to do with it. Hence you cannot appeal to Article 1, of the Concordat to legitimatize the Organic Articles. Some have tried to do this, and why? Because the Holy See would not recognize them, and it was necessary to find some means of justifying them before the Pope."

It might seem as if the contention of M. Gayraud did not pertain intimately to the subject in hand. Yet that it was eminently apposite is evident from the whole course of the subsequent discussions. The supporters of separation had continually accused the Church of causing the rupture by her violations of the Concordat. Indeed, one can hardly restrain his tears as he reads the sorrowful complaints of Combes, Briand, Clemenceau and the others. The Church was so wicked in the face of these immaculate champions of civic morality! The facts of the case are very simple. The Church in France has always stood loyally to the observance of the Concordat, in spite of its many hampering restrictions. That she has often acted in disregard of the Organic Articles cannot be denied, nor does she wish to deny it. The reason for this is, that the Concordat was a real law; the Organic Articles was neither a law of the State nor of the Church, nor of both together. If these Articles had been put forth independently of the Concordat, we might for the sake of argument, concede that they would have a value.

But they were promulgated as a part of a law enacted mutually by two parties, when one of the parties was actually ignorant of their existence until after publication. It is a falsehood thus to a.s.sert that they form a part of the Concordat. And since they do not form a part of that law, having their value only upon such an a.s.sumption, they were no law at all. In disregarding them, therefore, the Church could not be accused of violating either an independent law or a part of the Concordat.

Moreover, the Church could not observe the Concordat without violating the Organic Articles, and vice versa. To accuse the Church therefore of precipitating the conflict because she acted within the limit permitted her by the Concordat, is one of the species of false reasoning which the anti-clerical party endeavored to force down the throats of all its hearers. It was well, therefore, that this should be rightly understood in the very beginning of the discussion.

Among the speeches delivered during the general discussion upon the Bill, that of M. Ribot deserves to be reproduced in part. It is well, however, to note in advance that this orator, though a foe to anti-clericalism, is not, however, a Catholic either in name or conviction.

_M. RIBOT'S SPEECH._

M. Ribot began thus: "Gentlemen, I have already on many occasions indicated the position I hold with regard to the grave question under discussion. My friend, M. Barthou, did well, the other day, to recall some lines of a letter which I wrote a year ago, before the incidents which led to the rupture with the Holy See and the presentation of this projected law. I said then that the general movement of modern ideas would lead sooner or later to a complete separation of Church and State; I added that, if this separation were accomplished by men who had no marked hostility to the Catholic Church, and who would be willing to give it the character of a measure of pacification, of a measure truly liberal, the Catholic Church herself would comprehend that the separation could be for her a guarantee of dignity and independence. I retract none of my words. If you ask me: 'Do you believe that France in the relations of Church and State has arrived at definitive crisis?' I must answer: 'I do not believe so.' I have already explained how such a change, so grave in itself, was particularly difficult in a country like France where liberty is not even yet solidly established in the laws and customs, where civil society has always been particularly and jealously careful not to allow the Church too great an independence, where a struggle has been going on for a century between the Church and the enemies of religion, whose desire is not to liberate the Church, but to attack her from ambush, to weaken her forces, and--perhaps they expect it, in their illusionment and blindness--to suppress her.

"I have said that the transition might be more or less lengthy, but that it was indispensable; that we must lead mildly and peacefully that Catholic clergy whom you have hitherto held under the tutelage of the State and whom we are about to enfranchise, that we must lead them mildly and peacefully to the practice of a regime altogether different, of a regime of liberty and emanc.i.p.ation, and I have explained that, to my mind, such a transition could not be effected without conferring with the head of the Catholic Church, with the Holy See.

"One can conceive of a regime of transition during which the Catholic Church would be allowed more liberty in the choice of bishops, and the Church itself be organized pacifically in view of the gradual suppression of the budget of worship. These are my ideas, and I have given them much reflection. If you are willing to bring about the separation under these conditions, I am with you; I will aid you to the best of my power. In that I foresee for the Church more dignity and a greater independence; in that I foresee for the French State neither a diminution of security nor a menace to religious peace."

M. Ribot then declared that if the separation were to be effected as an act of reprisal against the Holy See, "it would be the beginning of a war more protracted, more bitter, and more violent than any we have seen for a long time."

"Paul Bert," he said, "remarked to me, when we were together on the Commission of 1882, and when we were examining just such questions as these, that he came from a department in which nearly everyone demanded the separation of Church and State, where a candidate could not be elected unless he should put that in his platform; but if one should do so, he was sure that the deputies who should vote for it could not be re-elected."

_M. Villejean._--"Times have changed since then."