On August 20, 1789, an ecclesiastical committee was formed for the regulation of all affairs pending between Church and State. It was composed of thirty members, chosen with great care from among the most violent sectaries of the a.s.sembly. Out of the thirty only nine were able to approach the discussion of ecclesiastical subjects with any appearance of justice, and this small minority soon found it impossible to advance their views in the face of the twenty-one radicals sworn to enslave and degrade the Church; they were consequently compelled to resign from the commission, leaving the great work of Church affairs in the hands of an impious cabal. The result of the deliberations of this diminished committee is found in the Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy, which was voted in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, from July 12 to July 24, 1790.

The adversaries of religion betray a naive surprise that the Church should refuse to accept a law so worded as the Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy. Yet to anyone acquainted with the spirit of Christianity the reasons for such hostility are sufficiently evident. The Abbe Hubert Mailfait in his comprehensive little work upon the subject thus sums up the most objectionable features of the wholly iniquitous law:

First. It destroys the religious hierarchy and annihilates the pontifical supremacy when it stipulates: (a) that the new bishops can no longer address the Pope to obtain from him the bulls of confirmation (t.i.t. II., art. 19): (b) that the canonical inst.i.tution shall no longer be given by the Pope, but by the metropolitan (t.i.t. II., art. 16 and 17): (c) that the old division of France into dioceses and parishes shall be subst.i.tuted by a new repart.i.tion, decreed without the advice of ecclesiastical authority, and without the approbation of the head of Christianity (t.i.t. I.).

Second. It destroys ecclesiastical discipline: (a) by attributing the election of bishops and pastors to the laity, by way of the ballot and the absolute plurality of votes (t.i.t. II., art. 2) and in decreeing the conditions of eligibility which should be found in candidates to a bishopric or parish (t.i.t. II.): (b) in determining the number of foundations, prebends, abbeys, priories, etc. (t.i.t. I., art. 20-24 and 25); in restricting to the point of annihilation the power of the bishops in the nomination to ecclesiastical employments (t.i.t. II., art. 22, 24, 25, 43).

Third. It sanctions an inadmissible domination of the temporal over the spiritual power, in subordinating the exercise of ecclesiastical functions to the taking of an oath of fidelity to the Const.i.tution decreed by the a.s.sembly (t.i.t.

II., art. 21 and 38).

The Civic Const.i.tution of the Clergy thus established in France not only a schism, by depriving the bishops of the right of recourse to the Pope, but heresy also in denying the effective primacy of the Pope and his sovereign power in the direction of the Church and the nomination of her ministers.

_SORROW OF PIUS VI._

When the news was brought to Pope Pius VI. that the a.s.sembly was actually engaged in voting the several articles of the Civil Const.i.tution, his sorrow knew no bounds. Public prayers were at once ordered in the churches of Rome, while at the same time the Holy Father addressed an impressive appeal to Louis XVI., insisting on his refusing his sanction to the impious measures. Letters were also sent by the Pope to the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Vienne, requesting them to use their good offices in dissuading the king from sanctioning the law. Unhappily these two prelates betrayed the trust reposed in them and used their influence to the opposite end. It is to their credit that they soon perceived their error and repented bitterly for it.

In the meantime Louis XVI. wrote to the Pope beseeching him to approve, at least provisorily, of the first five articles to which he was in a manner forced to give his sanction. The Holy Father placed the matter in the hands of a commission of cardinals for examination. On October 30, of the same year, the thirty bishops who occupied seats in the a.s.sembly subscribed their names to a carefully prepared memorial ent.i.tled _Exposition of Principles Concerning the Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy_, wherein the new code of laws was unequivocably condemned. In this position the episcopal deputies were supported by the adherence of nearly all the French bishops. Their expression of disapproval, however, came too late, as the civil const.i.tution had already received the royal sanction (August 24, 1790), and thereby became a law of the realm.

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

A test of the new decrees developed an unexpected resistance, so bitter and decisive in many quarters as to awaken newer outbursts of harshness from the enemies of the Church. On November 27, 1790, after a violent diatribe delivered by Mirabeau against the independent bishops a law was voted in the a.s.sembly declaring that all clergy "shall take the oath within eight days" under the penalty of being debarred from the exercise of their functions. It stipulated, moreover, that in case of resistance the offending clergy should be treated as disturbers of the public peace, and deprived of their civic rights. This law received the royal sanction on December 26, and went into execution from that date. In the a.s.sembly itself were many bishops and priests who were called upon to give the example of subservience. Only a few, encouraged by such notorious characters as Talleyrand, Gregoire, Camus, and Gobel, and tempted by the hope of preferment under the new order, yielded to the demands of the revolutionaries. Of the one hundred and thirty-five bishops of France, only four, including Talleyrand and Cardinal de Brienne, took the oath. During the following year the latter prelate was degraded from the honor of the Roman purple, for his unworthy act.

When the question was put to the priests of the country it met with a like reception. One should not be deceived, in reading the anti-Christian records of this time, by the long lists of names purporting to be the official register of priests who had subscribed to the oath. An examination of these lists reveals the usual duplicity of irreligious hatred, for in many cases, notably in the lists of Paris, they contain the names of church employees, sacristans, choir-singers, bell-ringers, and other ordinary laymen. In other cases we find the names of young men just preparing for the seminary, and school teachers who taught the catechism. Often, too, country pastors were deceived into believing that the taking of such oath was an act demanded by their bishop; these, however, were only too anxious to retract as soon as the true state of the case was made evident to them. Of the real pastors of the Church the number who proved unfaithful to their duty was inconsiderable; the loyalty of the vast body, both of bishops and clergy, forms one of the brightest pages in the dark history of those unhappy years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL DOMENIE D. BRIENNE.]

In the midst of the general anxiety there came to Paris on April 13, 1791, the Bull of Pope Pius VI., formally condemning the Civil Const.i.tution and calling upon the bishops and priests of France to stand firmly to the principles of their faith. This act of the Holy Father was the signal for outbursts of fury in the hostile camp. The Papal Bull was publicly burned amidst outcries of hatred and execration; women coming from Ma.s.s were whipped through the streets; ruffians interrupted the divine services and threw disorder into congregations of the faithful, while in many places disorderly mobs invaded the convents and dragging the nuns out to the public squares inflicted upon them the degrading punishment of the scourge. It was in vain that the Directory of Paris, frightened at the prospect of civil war, permitted Catholics to hire places for the use of divine worship; the very appearance of leniency only drew forth greater exhibitions of hatred and persecution. The king himself was compelled to attend at Ma.s.s celebrated by a Const.i.tutional priest, as a pledge of his adherence to the principles of the Civil Const.i.tution. Throughout the departments the persecution had already gone to great lengths; priests were everywhere imprisoned, and the Catholic laity who had dared to a.s.sist at the Catholic Ma.s.s, or who had refused to take part in the election of schismatical priests, were declared incapable of all civil functions. On June 9, 1790, the Const.i.tuent decreed that no bulls or briefs of the Pope might be published or propagated in the kingdom without the authorization of the Legislative Corps and of the king.

In the meantime, the apostate bishop of Autun, Talleyrand, had consecrated two const.i.tutional bishops, who in their turn proceeded to ordain to the priesthood a list of unworthy, illiterate, immoral, and dishonest rascals. The legitimate clergy, shut out from their churches, and driven to the homes of their friends, had nevertheless the consolation of knowing that the faithful were refusing everywhere to acknowledge the authority of the unlawful priests, and demanding in quiet, but significant ways, the services of those who alone had been called to the sanctuary.

_THE LEGISLATIVE a.s.sEMBLY._

The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was dissolved on Sept. 30, 1791, and was succeeded on the following day, by the Legislative a.s.sembly. The new government, in the hands of men more impious than those of the Const.i.tuent, began their proceedings with the pa.s.sage of new laws of persecution, to which, however, the king had the courage to refuse his sanction. In spite, however, of the royal opposition new decrees continued to be published. On the twenty-ninth of November, a law was voted declaring that all ecclesiastics, other than those who had conformed to the decree of November 29 last would be obliged to present themselves before the munic.i.p.ality of the place in which they lived, and there take the civic oath, in the terms of Art. 5, t.i.tle II. of the Const.i.tution, and sign a legal attestation of the same. Such as should refuse would be held as suspects in revolt against the law, and with evil intent against their country, and as such particularly subjected and recommended to the surveillance of all const.i.tuted authorities. If trouble should arise in the place of their residence they could be evicted from their domicile, arrested by the directory of the department, and, in case of disobedience, condemned to prison.

On May 27, 1792, the Legislative a.s.sembly published another decree, stating that the deportation of non-juring ecclesiastics would take place as a measure of public safety and police regulation. Ecclesiastics were considered as non-juring who, being subject to the law of December 26, 1790, had not taken the oath; those also who, though not subject to that law had not taken the oath posterior to September 3rd, preceding, the day on which the French const.i.tution was considered as completed; those also, who had retracted their oath. The deportation could be p.r.o.nounced by the local authorities upon the denunciation of twenty citizens.

A law of August 26, 1792, prescribed that "all those ecclesiastics who have not taken the oath, or who having taken it have retracted and persist in their retraction, shall be compelled to leave within eight days, the limits of the district or department in which they reside, and within fifteen days they must leave the country. After fifteen days such ecclesiastics as shall not have obeyed the preceding dispositions should be deported to French Guyenne. Every ecclesiastic, who should dare to remain in the country after such procedures, should be condemned to ten years of imprisonment." This law was applicable to all priests--both secular and regular. About 50,000 priests became victims of these violent proscriptions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STORMING OF THE BASTILLE.]

_THE Ma.s.sACRES OF SEPTEMBER._

The pa.s.sion of hatred for religion never abated during the sad days of 1792. Law followed law proscribing, persecuting, hunting down all who dared to oppose the evil suggestions of the revolutionary despots. On August 16, an order was issued appropriating all the sacred vessels of the churches, with the design of converting them into money or utensils of war. Another project of the government had for its purpose the banishment of all clergy within a fortnight. This method, however, of getting rid of the priesthood, seemed too slow to suit the ferocious l.u.s.t of the tyrants--a quicker and surer plan suggested itself. To secure its execution, the leaders of the anti-Christian party sought to inflame the minds of the rabble with stories of plots and treason, perpetrated by the priests against the safety of the nation. Above all the threatened invasion of the Prussians was laid to their door, and the report of the same circulated through every street and alley of Paris.

The populace, already made familiar with the sight of blood, seized upon the wild reports with the avidity of hungry animals, and needed only a suggestion to lead them on to acts of violence. This was not wanting. In the a.s.sembly, Marat, Legendre and others openly demanded the slaughter of the priests, while Danton, the Minister of Justice, was appointed to see that the project was executed. In the meantime hundreds of priests, and thousands of Catholic laity, men, women and children, had been arrested, and filled the prisons of the country to overflowing. On August 31, the Commune of Paris put up everywhere placards containing a proclamation of Robespierre: "We have arrested the priestly disturbers; we hold them behind prison bars, and in a few days, the sun of liberty shall be purged of their presence." All was ready for a ma.s.sacre of gigantic proportions. A signal was agreed upon, for the commencement of the b.l.o.o.d.y deed; it was to be the third discharge of the cannon on Point-Neuf. On the morning of September 2, the dreadful carnage began in the prison house of the Carmes, where 120 fell by the sword. The ma.s.sacre lasted four days, while bands of a.s.sa.s.sins went from prison to prison, and in that short s.p.a.ce of time took the lives of 1,400 persons of every s.e.x, age and condition, 300 of whom were priests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ma.s.sACRE OF PRINCESS LAMBELLE.]

The Abbe Lecard, an eye-witness, describes the awful scene at the prison of the Abbey:

"The ma.s.sacre took place under my window. The cries of the victims, the blows of the sabres as they fell upon the heads of the innocent victims, the shouts of the murderers, the applause of the witnesses, all resounded in my soul. I even distinguished the voices of my confreres, who were arrested and brought in the night before. I heard the questions put to them, and the responses they gave. They were asked if they had taken the civil oath, but none had done so. All could have escaped death by a lie; but all preferred death. All said when dying: 'We are subject to your law, we die faithful to your const.i.tution, we except only what regards religion and what has reference to conscience.' They were immediately pierced by numerous swords, amid the most frightful vociferations. The spectators while applauding cried out: 'Long live the nation!'--at the same time executing abominable dances around the corpses.

"Towards three or four o'clock in the morning, similar cries, tumult and ribaldry were repeated. This was in consequence of their bringing into the court-yard, now strewn with corpses, two priests whom they had dragged from their beds. The executioners jested over the horrible scene. The two priests were asked to take the oath, but they refused with mildness and firmness. Seeing themselves on that account condemned to death, they demanded a few hours to prepare themselves, and they obtained their request. The a.s.sa.s.sins employed the interval in removing the bodies, in washing and sweeping the court-yard, red with blood--a work which caused them considerable difficulty. To avoid this in the case of others who were about to be ma.s.sacred, they proposed various expedients and, finally, agreed upon employing a quant.i.ty of straw on which they would butcher their victims and which would absorb the blood and prevent the pavement from being stained. One of the a.s.sa.s.sins complained that the aristocrats died too quickly; that only those in the front row had the pleasure of striking them. It was accordingly determined that the victims should be struck only with the back of the sword, and that they should be made to run between two files of a.s.sa.s.sins. It was determined that around the place where the victims were to be immolated there should be benches for the ladies and gentlemen. All were free to enter. All this I have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears."

These frightful scenes of Paris were equalled if not surpa.s.sed by the terrorists of the provinces, and especially in the cities of Lyons, Rheims, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Avignon. It was but natural that the flight of priests from the insane fury of the Revolution should be hastened by the events of those days. Many succeeded in gaining the frontier and found refuge in the Papal States, in Spain, Portugal and in England where they were received with respect and welcome. Many returned secretly to France and bravely defied the dangers of martyrdom in the exercise of their sacred ministry.

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

The Legislative a.s.sembly, after a final law granting divorce upon mutual consent, or upon the demand of one of the parties, was dissolved on September 20, 1792.

_THE CONVENTION._

On September 21st, 1792, a new government, ent.i.tled the Convention, began its sittings. It has been justly characterized as an organization the most b.l.o.o.d.y and atrocious in history. It was during its administration that that dark period occurred to which has been given the significant name of the "Reign of Terror." Composed as it was of the vilest and most unscrupulous element of the nation its inauguration gave little promise of peace or security to the country. Its sessions were dominated by the Jacobins, the Girondists, and the Mountaineers, parties sworn to oppose each other in all political matters, though uniting in all measures of oppression to religion and the Church.

Their methods of tyranny were conceived with system and precision worthy of a better cause, and were executed by a machinery whose organized efforts reached into every village and hamlet in the land. Its Committee of Public Safety, the supreme secret council of the Convention, included men like Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. There was a Committee of General Security for the detection of political crimes, and the punishment of all suspected or proscribed persons. The Revolutionary Tribunal condemned the victims indicated by the General Security, and condemned them to death without a hearing.

There were Revolutionary committees in every department and munic.i.p.ality throughout the country, whose office it was to imprison suspects, and to employ the guillotine regardless of trial. The Revolutionary Army--composed of only such as had proven themselves devoted to the anarchistic doctrines of the times--was employed in the guarding the prisons, arresting suspects, demolishing castles, pulling down belfries, ransacking churches for gold and silver vessels, and other like purposes. It had its regiments in every city of France. It was by means of such powerfully organized a.s.sociations that the Convention was able to perpetrate the atrocities of the Reign of Terror.

The first act of the new a.s.sembly was to declare the abolition of royalty, and to proclaim France a Republic. At the same time it began the attempt to inaugurate a new era, the first day of the first year of which was to be September 22nd, 1792.

_THE CALENDAR._

In the new Revolutionary calendar the Christian order of months and weeks was set aside for an arbitrary arrangement whose awkward and frivolous character was evident, even independently of its sacrilegious intent. Instead of weeks of seven days, periods of ten days, or decades, were subst.i.tuted. As there was to be no Sunday, the tenth or last day of the decade, called "Decadi," was to be observed as the day of rest, and have all the importance of the Lord's Day, the place of which it had taken. The months were twelve and consisted each of thirty days; to make up the necessary 365 days of the year, five intercalary days, called _sans culottes_, were added.

The months were adorned with festive names taken from Nature; thus Vendemaire, the vintage month; Brumaire, the foggy; Frimaire, the frosty; Nivose, the snowy; Pluvoise, the rainy; Ventose, the windy; Germinal, the month of sprouting; Floreal, the month of flowers; Prairial, the haymaking; Messidor, the time of harvest; Thermidor, the month of heat; and Fructidor, the month of fruit. To obliterate, as far as possible, every Christian idea a.s.sociated with the days of the year, the new calendar abolished the Christian festivals and subst.i.tuted strange and uncouth denominations for each successive day. It was a bold stroke, and though the Convention succeeded a few months later in causing its execution throughout the country, nevertheless it was never heartily accepted even by the most radical, and only a favorable opportunity was wanting for its final abolition with the Revolution itself.

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

On the twenty-seventh of September, the Convention reduced ecclesiastical pensions to 1000 livres, and on October 23rd, it decreed that all who had flown the country were to be considered as banished in perpetuity, and should they return they were to be punished with death.

On November 27th, a decree was pa.s.sed, declaring that if a priest should marry, and be therefore inquieted by the residents of the commune in which he resided, he might retire to any place he liked, and his salary should be paid by the commune which had persecuted him. It was an effort to render the marriage of priests popular, an attempt, however, which always met with failure.

It was during the month of December, 1792, and that of January, 1793, that the trial of Louis XVI. took place. The Convention voted the death sentence, and the crime of regicide against one of the mildest sovereigns of the century was perpetrated January 17th, of that year.

The prescriptive laws against the clergy and the Church went on apace.

On January 22nd the const.i.tutional clergy were ordered to disregard all canonical rules in regard to marriage, and to bless the marriages of divorced people as well as those of const.i.tutional priests. On February 14th, a reward of one hundred livres was offered to whoever should cause the arrest of an emigre, or of a priest under sentence of deportation.

On March 18th, it subst.i.tuted for the penalty of ten years for such priests the sentence of death. April 23rd, it put forth the article: "The national Convention decrees that all ecclesiastics, regular and secular, brothers or laymen, who have not taken the oath to maintain liberty and equality conformable to the law of August 15th, 1792, shall be deported without delay to French Guiana."

Immediately on the appearance of this law the sea-ports of France began to witness thousands of captive priests who were placed on board the waiting vessels, ostensibly for transportation to America. As, however, such voyage was at the time impracticable because of danger from the English fleets then patrolling the seas, the victims of proscription were left in the miserable hulks, in some cases for as long as two years. Their sufferings in this regard were extreme. Huddled together in the holds like so many packages of dead merchandise, the bare floor for a bed, covered with rags and devoured by vermin, their torment was truly horrible. Many of them perished; others lost their reason; the survivors bore away with them many souvenirs of physical and moral torture which they carried to the grave. The story of the deportation of priests during the Reign of Terror is one of the ugliest records of the times.

The Convention next turned its attention to the const.i.tutional clergy, whom it compelled by every means of proscription and exaction to dishonor the little remnant of sacred character that still remained within them. Hence the laws of 1793, decreeing deportation for any bishop who should directly or indirectly oppose an obstacle to the marriage of priests, or who should refuse to recognize divorce. It reduced the salaries of the bishops and limited the number of their curates. It, moreover, dismissed from the exercise of their functions all pastors who failed to display a p.r.o.nounced enthusiasm for revolutionary principles, and put in their stead men whose ignorance was well known, and whose wives were willing to occupy a prominent position in the Church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE G.o.dDESS OF REASON.]