Part 6 (2/2)
A decree of May 30th, 1795, decided that ”no one shall fulfill the ministry of any wors.h.i.+p in the said edifices, unless he shall have given legal declaration before the munic.i.p.ality of the place in which he desires to exercise such functions, of his submission to the laws of the Republic. The ministers of wors.h.i.+p who shall contravene the present article, and the citizens who shall invite or admit them, shall each be punished by a fine of 1,000 livres.”
A law of September 30th, 1795, decreed:
It is forbidden to all judges, administrators, and public officials whomsoever, to have any regard for the attestations which ministers of wors.h.i.+p, or individuals calling themselves such, shall give relative to the civil condition of citizens.
All officials charged with registering the civil state of citizens, who shall make mention in their records of any religious ceremonies, or who shall exact proof that they have been observed, shall also be condemned to the penalties contained in Article 18.
The Convention concluded its sanguinary existence on October 26th, 1795, after the conclusion of the Const.i.tution of the year III.
_THE DIRECTORY._
The Convention was immediately followed by the government of the Directory, which lasted until the end of the Revolutionary period, in 1799. It was composed of a Council of Five Hundred, whose duty it was to propose laws, a Council of two hundred and fifty Ancients to approve or reject the laws thus proposed, and a supreme body consisting of five members--all regicides--which was called the Directory.
The new government was less bold in its persecutions than its predecessor, though the spirit that had actuated the Convention still lived in both houses of the Directory. The pursuit of priests was still continued, and the laws against them and their protectors enforced with the greatest rigor. In the year 1796 eighteen priests were executed under the orders of the government. Nevertheless a sentiment of hostility to the oppressive measures of the law was beginning to manifest itself in a number of the departments; churches were again being opened and the practice of religion renewed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.]
The rigors of the Terror, however, were not yet extinct; the wors.h.i.+p of the Revolution was enforced, the sound of the church bells was forbidden, and the Revolutionary calendar still held its place in the ordering of the life of the people. An effort was made in 1796 to bring back into full force all the proscriptive laws of the Convention, but through the efforts of Portalis the Council of Five Hundred refused to vote the bill.
In the meantime the exiled and deported priests began to return in great numbers. In Paris more than three hundred were exercising their ministry openly; the diocesan administration was reorganized; and a general interest in the unhappy lot of imprisoned priests began to manifest itself among the people. In 1797, June 17th, a motion was placed before the Council of Five Hundred, demanding liberty of wors.h.i.+p, the suppression of the oath, and the abrogation of the laws of deportation.
These reforms were voted--after a few weeks of discussion--and in place of the obnoxious oath the Directory subst.i.tuted the words: ”I swear to be submissive to the government of the French Republic.” Everything thus seemed to hold out promise of peace and security to the Church, and might have thus continued but for the _coup-d'-Etat_ of the 10 Fructidor, which brought with it the renewal, for two years, of the horrors of the Terror.
The new government inst.i.tuted under the three Directors, Rewbel, la Reveillere and Barras, brought back the Revolutionary forces into the Councils, and the old laws of proscription were renewed. Priests who had obtained their liberty were again arrested and imprisoned or deported; the oath of the Const.i.tution was re-established; the persecution became more rabid than ever in its last struggle for supremacy. To gather greater numbers to the Revolutionary ceremonies, it was decreed that marriages could take place only on the ”decadi” or tenth day, whereon no manual labor might be performed, or merchandise bought or sold. It became a crime to print or hold in one's possession copies of the Christian calendar, and on Fridays and Sat.u.r.days of the old order the very sale of fish was forbidden, that the citizens might be compelled to eat meat. The deported priests suffered intolerable torments through the cruel treatment dealt out to them. Out of three hundred transported to Conamana, only thirty-nine were alive after a month's detention. In other places many died through famine, sickness and misery.
In the midst of these discouraging afflictions of the Church, the const.i.tutional bishops, in a council held on August 15th, 1797, had the hardihood to plan a reconciliation between the schismatic church of France and the orthodox church, and went so far as to send their decrees to the Pope for ratification; Pius VI., however, refused to honor the communication with an answer.
_PERSECUTION OF POPE PIUS VI._
In the incessant struggle of French anti-Christianism against the Church, its leaders had not neglected early in the period to turn their attacks against the head and centre of Christianity, in the person of the Holy Pontiff, Pius VI. Rome, ”the mother of nations,” was the sanctuary towards which many French students turned their steps to acquire a knowledge of art and literature; these young men, imbued with the false spirit of their unhappy country, made use of the hospitality of the Eternal City to betray her. In the Academy of France, in the midst of obscene orgies and ribald speeches, the statues and busts of kings, cardinals and popes were overthrown, and sentiments of revolution and irreligion openly p.r.o.nounced. Ba.s.seville and Laflotte, bearing an insulting message to Pope Pius VI., utilized their time in Rome in an attempt to arouse the populace to accept Republican ideas; but the Roman people, infuriated at the insulting bravado of these couriers of the French Government, attacked them in the Corso, giving a death blow to Ba.s.seville, and causing his companion to fly for his life. This was in 1793. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly at Paris took up the death of its messenger as a pretext for hostilities against the government of the Holy See.
It was at this time also, that there began to appear in Paris certain _Letters_ to the Pope, which displayed openly the intention of the new liberty with regard to the Papacy. The _Moniteur_ of October 1st, 1792, put forth the following grandiloquent address:
Holy Father, gather your people together, and rising in the midst of them, declare fearlessly: Descendants of the grandest people of the world, imposture has too long been desolating your country. The hour of truth has come; come and enjoy the rights that nature gave you; be free, be sovereign; be your own lawmakers; bring back once more the Roman Republic. But guard well against the abuses and vices which were the ruin of the ancient republic; drive out from you all patricians, cavaliers, prelates, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and nuns; be citizens all. See, I give you my tiara, and I hope that my example will be followed by my clergy.
It was only a month after these words had been printed that General Kellerman declared from the tribune: ”Citizen legislators, to liberate ancient Rome from the yoke of the priests, command our soldiers to pa.s.s the Alps, and we shall pa.s.s them.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: LAFAYETTE.]
It was, however, during the administration of the Directory that the first actual a.s.saults upon the Holy See were made by the forces of France. Under an appearance of good will, which only served to conceal its weakness, the Directory stultified itself in the face of Europe; the army alone by its victories sustained the honor of the nation.
After conquering the Rhine countries the Republic turned its eyes upon Italy. In the beginning of 1796, General Bonaparte, with an army of 30,000 men, crossed the Alps. Despite the snows of the winter and the continual blizzards they encountered, the French soldiers continued to descend into Piedmont, while the Italians still believed them to be on the borders of the Rhine.
Mantua fell, the Austrians were driven beyond the Adige, and Bonaparte hastened to besiege and take Bologna. It was the desire of the Directory that the conqueror should proceed on his way to Rome and annihilate forever the power of the Papacy. Bonaparte himself proved less greedy than his masters; he would be satisfied with one or two provinces from the revenues of which he might draw funds to defray the expenses of his campaign. His victories, nevertheless, were rapid and decisive, and in a few days made him master of all Northern Italy. The King of Sardinia and the dukes of Parma and Modena made their act of submission, while the Court of Naples manifested a desire to frame a treaty of peace.
Admonished by the fate of the neighboring nations, Pius VI. began to frame terms of negotiation with the conqueror. Towards the end of 1796, the Chevalier d'Azara, Amba.s.sador of Spain to the Holy See, was charged with the duty of arranging a convention with the French Government. The Directory had looked to Rome as the repository of immense riches, the plunder of which might help to bolster up the enfeebled finances of France. The first condition imposed upon the Pope, in order to gain an armistice, was to turn over to Saliceti and Garrau, the representatives of France, the sum of 50,000,000 livres. D'Azara rejected the exorbitant terms, and seeing that he could effect nothing with the Directory, he opened up negotiations with Bonaparte directly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTURE OF LOUIS XVI.]
His demands in this part met at first with the usual hauteur of the General, who required that His Holiness should first drive from Rome all French emigres, and that he should expedite a Bull approving of the revolutionary government. To these first terms the amba.s.sador answered: ”If you imagine that you can compel the Pope to do the least thing contrary to dogma, and whatever is intimately connected with dogma, you are much mistaken, for he will never do so! You can take revenge by sacking, burning and destroying Rome and St. Peter's, but religion shall remain in spite of you. If, on the other hand, you desire the Pope to exhort all in a general way to good behavior and obedience to legitimate authority, he will do that willingly.”
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