Part 22 (2/2)
To one who reads French history it ought not to be surprising that a Catholic seminary should have sheltered the youth of a man like Combes.
Voltaire was a pupil of the Jesuits, whom he betrayed; Renan was once a student in St. Sulpice; Gambetta, the leader of anti-clericalism in the stormy 80's, studied in his boyhood in a _pet.i.t seminaire_. That they proved false to their early teaching is not remarkable when one considers the disaffection of an apostle who was privileged to enjoy an intimacy with the Savior of the world.
It was during his vacations in 1865 that Combes was initiated into the Freemasons. It marked the first step in that path which he was soon to follow with persistent energy. In 1868 he received his degree as doctor of medicine, a profession which he practised at Pons. In 1874 he was elected Mayor of that town. His real political life began in 1885 when he was elected senator. Re-elected in 1894, he accepted the ministry of Public Instruction, Fine Arts and Wors.h.i.+p in the Bourgeois Cabinet, wherein he showed himself one of the most obstinate promoters of lay education as opposed to that of the clergy. It was at this time that he inaugurated, in his relations with the Vatican relative to the Concordat, the policy which, ten years later, led to the separation of Church and State.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A PROTEST OF FRENCH AUTHORS AGAINST COMBES.]
As President of the Democratic Left in the Senate he lent his efforts to the policy of Waldeck-Rousseau from 1899 to 1902. He was elected President of the Senatorial Commission on the Law of a.s.sociations; he contributed largely to its adoption, and notably to the vote on Article 14, when he declared in the tribune his conviction of the moral incompatibility of the profession of teaching with the doctrine and life of the monastic orders. On June 7, 1902, upon the recommendation of Rousseau, he succeeded to the Presidency of the Council thereby becoming Premier in the Government.
His first words upon taking up this office signalized his determination of carrying on to its ultimate issue the war just inaugurated against the Catholic Church. ”What can the new Cabinet do,” he asked, ”what can any cabinet do but continue the policy of that which precedes us, a policy which is resumed by saying that it has been nothing more than an incessant war of the Republican party against two dangers which republican unity alone can overcome; Caesarian reaction, and theocratic pretensions. That is the policy which we are determined to pursue and which we invite you to pursue with us until we have completely disarmed the enemy.”
An _order of the day_ was pa.s.sed voting confidence in the Government, and thus adopting as the policy of the Chambers, the war plan enunciated by the President of the Council. This was the work of the four groups of the Left, all radical and anti-religious to the depths of their hearts.
The _bloc_, as they called this cohesion of the different parties of the ministerial majority, was thus const.i.tuted, and adopted as its plan of action the war against Catholicity.
The new Premier set to work at once to put into execution the law of July 1, 1901. Beginning with schools recently opened, that is, posterity to the late law, he closed at one stroke on July 15, 1902, as many as 2500. The congregationist teachers were allowed only eight days before abandoning their establishments and retiring to their mother houses. It was an illegal act in itself; it not only aggravated unduly the rigor of the law, but it was also irregular in form, since Article 13 of the law declared that a measure of this nature could not be taken except ”by a decree emanating from the Council of the ministers,” and not by a simple circular as in the present case.
Cardinal Richard, upon learning of this execution, wrote immediately to M. Loubet a letter to which many other bishops hastened to give their adhesion; M. Jules Roche published a letter to the President of the Council (Combes) in which he proved that the law had been violated; a pet.i.tion was presented to M. Loubet by a delegation of the Christian mothers from the district of Saint-Roch. To these protests the Government answered by a presidential decree of Aug. 2, 1902--this time in legal form--whereby it declared the closing of 324 other establishments.
The war went on. In Brittany many scenes of open conflict took place as the troubled peasantry strove to prevent the sudden spoliation of those inst.i.tutions which they held dearest on earth. They had reason indeed to rebel, as the persecutors aimed not only at the extinction of their beloved teaching orders, but also at the destruction of that cherished Breton tongue which they had inherited from their fathers. The show of violence here and there manifested brought its inevitable consequences from a power only too anxious to find pretexts for persecution. The powers of many mayors were revoked, many ecclesiastics were deprived of their livings and correctional measures were p.r.o.nounced against all who dared to take part in the various manifestations. Then came other decrees in August, laicising _en ma.s.se_ the greater part of the public schools as yet directed by the congregations.
When the matter was brought into the Chamber (Oct. 13, 1902,) protests went up eloquently from a number of indignant deputies. Conspicuous among these were such bright names as Messrs. Aynard, Baudry d'a.s.son, Denys Cochin, George Berry, de Ramel, Charles Benoist and the Count de Mun. The answer of the latter to the policy of Combes is worth recording:
Majorities may cover your actions and sanction your decisions, but nothing can efface the evil you have done. The country--for I speak not of Brittany alone--can never forget those scenes of odious violence executed by your orders, wherein we have witnessed commissaries of police, followed by armed marauders, storming the doors of private houses, not merely the doors of a religious dwelling, but the doors of my own house, to drive out into the streets humble ladies who consecrate their lives, their labors and their devotion to the instruction of the children of the people. Nothing--and understand it well--nothing can make us forget that; nothing above all can make us forget that you have condemned the soldiers of France to a.s.sist at such scenes, and to march with tears in their eyes, in the midst of a distracted and desperate crowd, the pathway of your persecutors. That shall never be forgotten! That shall never be pardoned.
While these things were going on the bishops of France framed a collective letter pet.i.tioning the Chambers to accede to the application for authorization made by the congregations. This letter when published contained the signatures of seventy-four bishops; only seven, for different reasons had deferred signing, though fully in sympathy with the movement. This letter, moderate and respectful, as it was, and merely asking in the way of pet.i.tion for favors that might easily be granted, was treated by the Council of State as a hostile manifesto and was declared ”abusive” and as such it rendered its authors culpable before the law. The Archbishop of Besancon, together with the Bishops of Orleans and of Seez, were considered as the promoters of the doc.u.ment, and as such were deprived of their salaries.
When the war against all new establishments was well under way, the ”Bloc” then took up the question of congregations unauthorized but applying in due legal form for the favor of authorization. This the orders had been instructed and encouraged to do. Their treatment displayed at once the insincerity and hatred of the Government. A ”Commission on Congregations” was formed, composed of thirty-three members, of whom twenty-one were Freemasons. The Commission instructed the anti-clerical Rabier to draw up a bill. The discussions of the Chamber upon this bill, resulted in the dissolution of fifty-three orders of men. On March 18, 1903, twenty-five teaching congregations were suppressed, comprising 11,763 religious divided into 1690 communities. A few days later twenty-eight preaching orders received the same sentence. Among these were the Capuchins, the Redemptorists, the Dominicans, the Pa.s.sionists, the Salesians, the Franciscans, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Benedictines, the Fathers of the Oratory, the Barnabites, the Carmelites and many others. On March 26, the Carthusians, considered as a commercial order, were condemned by a vote of 322 against 222. It was at this time that the anti-clerical Rouanet uttered that saying so significant of the whole Governmental policy: ”We need not concern ourselves with either legality or right.” The proscriptions were hardly p.r.o.nounced than measures were at once taken for the liquidation of the property belonging to the dissolved congregations. We need not linger to relate the pathetic scenes accompanying the consequent expulsion of these fifty-three orders of men, nor the wave of indignation it produced throughout France and the civilized world.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL RICHARD.]
After the congregations of men the war was carried on against similar orders of women. It was to no purpose that Messrs. Plichon and Grousseau demonstrated in the Chamber the confusion manifested in the articles of the bill which designated as teaching orders the congregations devoted to the hospitals, and those whose lives were purely contemplative; it was in vain that they showed forth the success of the incriminated orders that they brought forth the declarations of the majority of the munic.i.p.al councils p.r.o.nouncing for the maintenance of these orders. Even M. Leygues who had voted for the law of July 1, 1901, as Minister of Public Instruction at the time, declared that the new bill by rejecting the demands of the Sisters _en bloc_ was contrary to that law. In spite of all protests the project was voted and carried by a majority of 285 to 269. Thus eighty-one congregations of women were at a single blow dissolved.
On August 9, 1903, M. Combes speaking at Ma.r.s.eilles before a congress of teachers declared:
I have refused 12,600 pet.i.tions for authorization. This figure suppressed 9,934 teaching establishments, 1,856 hospital corps, and 822 establishments of a mixed nature, i.
e. hospitaller and teaching. Out of the 9,934 teaching establishments there are 1,770 situated in communes still wanting, I am sorry to say, in public schools.
The _Temps_ of December 4, 1903, declared that 10,049 schools had been closed within a period of eighteen months, and that there remained only 1,300 yet to be suppressed.
To these 10,049 schools must be added 165 colleges and 1,347 schools conducted by the twenty-five orders of men suppressed on the 18th of March preceding, as also the 517 establishments directed by the eighty-one congregations of women proscribed on June 24, thus representing a total of 12,000 congregationists schools stricken in the s.p.a.ce of eighteen months, with about 50,000 religious thrown out upon the streets, and more than 1,000,000 children deprived of their beloved instructors.
Charles Bota in his _Grand Faute des Catholiques de France_ thus reflects upon these sinister events:
One can well imagine what went on in the mother-houses, the communities and the schools which the decrees of suppression invaded, bringing ravage and desolation! What sad and heart-rending scenes! The odious perquisitions of procureurs and police commissaries goaded on by superior orders, or even perhaps--it looked that way sometimes--by the quality of the victims; the painful, insidious interrogatories wherein the simplicity and timidity of souls habituated to peace was violated; the alarm of the aged religious, of the sick and the infirm as they begged to know what it all meant; the returning religious hunted from their houses coming back to the mother-house to cast themselves weeping into the arms of their superiors, while the latter pointed out how the house was too small to receive them and too poor to afford them food; the uncertainty as to the morrow, the privations, the anguish, the moral tortures, the desperation of all; one should have seen such scenes near at hand to comprehend all that they meant. 'Ah!' cried M. Emile Olivier, 'all the cruelty, the tears, the consternation contained in those few words written by an official scribe upon the desk of a minister--On such a day, such a congregation of women will be dispersed.' They merited no regard, no commiseration those poor women so good to others, so delicate, so pure, that Taine could call them the pride of France.
The efforts of the enemy had thus far touched only unauthorized congregations. There were still many orders which lived in the possession of full authorization and which according to the existing laws had nothing to fear from the hatred of the anti-clericals. In this, however, they were very much deceived. A new bill directed at all religious teaching orders, of whatever kind or description, was introduced in the Chamber on February 29, 1904. Its first article, declaring the suppression, a.s.serted ”teaching of every order and of every nature is interdicted in France to the congregations.” It was adopted by a majority of eighty-seven votes on March 14. The second article stated that from the date of the promulgation of the law the teaching congregations could not receive new members, and that their novitiates must be dissolved. This article also--with the exception in favor of congregations destined for foreign schools--was adopted. It was decided, moreover, in article fourth, that novitiates for foreign missions could not maintain any of the dissolved congregations. The law was carried before the Senate, towards the end of June. It became a law of the land, with the official signature of M. Loubet, on July 8, 1904.
The triumph of anti-Christianism was thus complete, and the death sentence had been p.r.o.nounced against the very existence of the monastic life in France.
It might be of interest to introduce here some appreciations of the Premier who had done so much harm to France and who was soon to begin the first scenes in the last act of our sorrowful drama. M. Emile f.a.guet, though not a Catholic, nor inspired by any definite admiration for Catholic principles, thus characterizes M. Combes in his _l'Anticlericalism_:
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