Part 22 (1/2)
Another element in the deceptive policy of Waldeck-Rousseau was the endeavor to bolster his proscriptive laws upon the a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sured 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 inst.i.tutes, 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 be heard. 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ORPHANS DISPERSED IN PERSECUTION.]
The Livre Jaune, published in 1903, and containing diplomatic doc.u.ments, 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 a.s.sumptionists, the Benedictines, Carmelites, etc., foreseeing that legal authorization would be denied them, abandoned their country, their colleges 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.surances of the Government that the two latter cla.s.ses 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.
Delca.s.se, 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.--Delca.s.se.
The actions of the Government were thus in direct contradiction with its a.s.surances. 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 received the 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 pa.s.sed his life in doing what he disapproved of, and in condemning in his 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 trespa.s.ses, as we forgive those who have trespa.s.sed 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 G.o.d for his conversion. It is the way in which the true Christian takes revenge upon those who wrong him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 French peasant. He had an uncle, the Abbe Gaubert, cure 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, the _pet.i.t seminaire_ of 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 Seminary at Albi. While in this inst.i.tution 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_, and _The 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 a.s.sumption at Nimes, an inst.i.tution established by the Abbe d'Alzon, founder of the religious order of the a.s.sumptionists. 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 acquaintances.h.i.+p developed the seeds of that atheism which has since become his ruling quality.