Part 4 (2/2)
The hope of a return to the conditions of pagan Rome and Greece was one of the saddest hallucinations of the new anti-Christianism.
CHAPTER II.
The French Revolution of 1789.
All the various forces indicated in the preceding chapter came together in one appalling union towards the year 1789, forming a veritable cauldron seething with malign influences. An unhappy public opinion had been created, ”a power vague and terrible, born of the confusion of all interests, strong in its opposition to every power, constantly caressed by princes who feared it, and feared by those who pretended to defy it.”
The ma.s.ses of France, provoked by the arbitrary government of Louis XIV., angered by the feeble and scandalous rule of Louis XV., broke out into license and destruction under the gentle and paternal administration of Louis XVI. The latter monarch had come into an inheritance vitiated by the extravagances and follies of his predecessors; with all the virtues and n.o.ble characteristics of a sincere Christian and refined gentleman, he was destined to bear the punishment for the sins of his fathers. He had long foreseen the hastening storm, and trembled before its coming. The exhausted state of the treasury and the diminution of credit gave the excuse for demands of the most far-reaching extent. The n.o.bility, regarding the situation with indifference, remained inert before the approaching ruin of the social order. Unwilling to be disturbed in their round of pleasure, they permitted the evil to grow until the very moment of the crisis.
The royal government betrayed its weakness when it convoked the States General, which held its first session on May 5, 1789. It was an a.s.sembly const.i.tuted of the three cla.s.ses of the French nation--the n.o.bility, the clergy, and the common people. Of its 1148 members, the Third Estate was represented by 598; there were 308 members of the clergy, of whom forty-four were bishops, 205 cures, fifty-two abbes or canons, and seven religious; the remaining 242 comprised the representatives of the n.o.ble cla.s.s. The States General was an event of rare occurrence in French history, and was called together only in the most extreme crises of the State. It was now nearly two centuries (1615) since a gathering of a similar nature had been convoked, and from its unusual character and the gravity of its purpose much was expected on all sides. In the heat of its first debates, and in the rancor aroused in the public mind through the foolish and humiliating etiquette of the aristocratic elements, a strong sentiment of hostility made itself manifest between the people and their former masters. The popular element was conscious of its power, and made it felt almost from the beginning: in the s.p.a.ce of a few months it was master of the situation: it had inaugurated a revolution before which the court, the n.o.bility, the clergy, and every order that stood for law and decency went down in ruin. With the political phases of this great crisis we are not particularly concerned at present; the religious aspects of the conflict will suffice for our consideration.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MEETING OF THE STATES GENERAL.]
_CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY._
On the night of August 4, 1789, the privileged cla.s.ses abandoned their feudal rights, and the clergy renounced their t.i.tles, and the offerings usual at baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This sacrifice, however, did not suffice to appease the revolutionary spirits, and on August 6th, the right of the clergy to hold property was called into question for the first time. It was then that Buzot p.r.o.nounced that phrase which was soon to re-echo through the halls of the a.s.sembly: ”The property of the clergy belongs to the nation.”
On October 10, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, so soon to become an apostate and indefatigable persecutor of the Church, returned to the charge. After a fawning address to the popular pa.s.sions he concluded in proposing a law whose first article declared that ”the revenues and property of the clergy are at the disposition of the nation,” with the condition that the State should recompense the ministers of wors.h.i.+p with a suitable salary, which should be solemnly recognized as a public debt.
The project of Talleyrand was espoused with fierce eloquence by Mirabeau and became a law on Nov. 2, 1789, framed in these terms:
”The National a.s.sembly decrees: First. That all ecclesiastical property is at the disposition of the nation which charges itself with providing in a suitable manner for the expenses of wors.h.i.+p, the maintenance of its ministers, and the relief of the poor, subject to the surveillance and according to the instructions of the provinces. Second. That in the dispositions to be made for the maintenance of the ministers of religion, there shall be a.s.sured every cure a payment of not less than 1,200 livres a year, not including his house and garden.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: TALLEYRAND.]
On April 9, 1790, Cha.s.set demanded the actual confiscation of all ecclesiastical property, a motion that was voted a law on April 14th following. The possessions of the clergy, valued at $400,000,000, were then put up at auction, and sold to speculators at prices that at once betrayed the venal spirit of the agitators. Indignant protests went up on all sides against a sacrilege whose effect could be nothing less than the destruction of religion; but all efforts to stay the action were unavailing.
_PERSECUTION Of THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS._
The religious orders have ever been the object of peculiar hatred on the part of all that stands for anti-Christianism. Their close identification with the best interests of the Church, and the exemplification in their life of that evangelical perfection to which the whole doctrine of Christ invites, became a crime in the eyes of a generation delivered up to lawlessness, and the slavery of pa.s.sion. It was only natural, therefore, that the impious spirit of 1789 should fasten its fangs upon this order of men and women and do them to death.
The laws of the time tell the story very graphically. A decree of October 28, 1789, suspended the taking of monastic vows. The monastic orders were suppressed by a decree of February 13, 1790:
Article 1. The const.i.tutional law of the realm shall no longer recognize solemn monastic vows of either s.e.x; in consequence the orders and regular corporations in which such vows are taken are and will remain suppressed in France, nor may they be again established in the future.
Article 2. All individuals of either s.e.x living in monasteries and religious houses, may leave such houses by making a declaration before the munic.i.p.ality of the place, and they shall receive a suitable pension. Houses shall also be indicated to which all religious men who do not desire to profit by the present disposition shall be obliged to retire.
For the present there shall be no change in regard to houses charged with public education and establishments of charity, until measures have been taken for that purpose.
On March 11, 1791, a law was pa.s.sed abolis.h.i.+ng the monastic habit. On July 31, of the same year, all religious houses were declared for sale.
On August 7, 1792, a new decree declares that the pension accorded to religious shall be granted to such as should marry, or who have abandoned or shall abandon their monasteries. On August 12, 1792, a decree orders the evacuation before October 1, following, and the sale of ”all houses as yet actually occupied by religious men or women,”
excepting such as are consecrated to the service of hospitals or establishments of charity.
On August 18, 1792, a decree was pa.s.sed suppressing ”the corporations known in France under the name of secular ecclesiastical congregations, such as the priests of the Oratory of Jesus, of Christian Doctrine, of the Mission of France, of St. Lazare, etc., etc., and generally all religious corporations of men and women, ecclesiastical or lay, even those devoted only to the service of hospitals and the relief of the sick, under whatever denomination they may exist in France.” All such persons, however, were authorized to continue their care of the poor and sick, ”but only as individuals, and under the surveillance of the munic.i.p.al and administrative bodies, until the definitive organization which the Committee on Aid shall present as soon as possible to the National a.s.sembly. Those who shall continue their services in houses indicated by the directories of departments shall receive only a part of the salary which would have been accorded them. All irremovable property of such societies shall be put on sale, except colleges still open in 1789 which may be utilized for seminaries. Pensions shall be accorded all members of the suppressed societies on condition that they take the oath of fidelity to the nation, of maintaining liberty and equality, and of being ready to die in its defence.”
_THE CIVIL CONSt.i.tUTION._
The defenders of the Revolution take great pains to demonstrate that the object of the earlier laws was not anti-Christian or subversive of religion, alleging that the spirit of demolition appeared only after and because of the hostile att.i.tude of the Church. One has only to read the speeches in the National a.s.sembly, and the early laws emanating therefrom, to perceive the hypocritical nature of such a.s.surances. The spirit of Voltaire is evident from the first day of the States General, and its tactics of falsehood and deception mark every stage of revolutionary progress until the end. The pretext of establis.h.i.+ng a national church is a fact in evidence, whereby under the pretence of safeguarding the liberties of Catholics in France, an effort was made to uproot all idea of religion from the minds of the people. The signal for the opening of such a perversive campaign was the pa.s.sing of that iniquitous law to which was given the name of the Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy.
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