LOUIS VEUILLOT.
MHE editor of the Univers displayed his wonted vigour and
ferocity during the fight to place "the King" upon the throne of France. M. Thiess, M. Gambetta, M. de Broglie, and even the Comte de Paris ; all that is Republican, or Revolutionary, or even Orleanist ; all that is not as purely Legitimist as the Comte de Chambord, and as purely Catholic as the Pope, was hit with resounding blows or with kicks of contempt. Yet M. Veuillot is read with admiration even by those Republicans who see in the theology of his Church only a mass of interesting fictions. Parisians read him for the same reason as they go to the theatre,—because he amuses them. They would flock to the Madeleine as eagerly as they now go to the Comedie Francaise or the Gymnase, if the preacher were to make them laugh from the beginning of the sermon to the end, or if he were systematically to describe the rascality of the unbelieving genera- tion in particularly good French. Were Louis Veuillot a Car- melite or a Dominican, he might make a "first night" at the Madeleine as popular as a " first night" at the Vaudeville. For he is a born writer. He is one of the few who can claim that title. Incomparably the greatest polemical author in the Church of Rome, he is also, perhaps, the most wonderful literary and theological personage in France. He was not always a Christian and a saint. In his youth he was quite the reverse. Born of abjectly poor parents, he seems to have got little education in his young days save what slender store he could draw from a school- master whose favourite author was Paul de Kock, and who regularly made himself drunk on Saints' days. After having been trained as a writer on one or two provincial newspapers, he drifted to Paris, and wrote, it is said, for such journals as the ,Fig«ro. At all events, he seem to have led a rather wild literary life, and to have wielded a pen with the Parisian licence. His enemies say that he composed some loose songs which are still sung in the Quartier Latin. But in time he was saddened by his unworthy work, and, in a state of disgust with himself, he traVelled with a friend to Rome. There he went to mass, and found that the worship filled up an aching void in his heart. His friend took him to a Jesuit priest, and the Jesuit priest made him a, believer in the Church. Since the scepticism of Veuillot was founded neither on knowledge nor on reasoning, but was the fruit of a mere vague sentiment tind of roystering companionship, it had not struck its roots deep, and the Jesuit father found it easy to make the young journalist believe in the Church, the Pope, the miracle of Lorette, and 'winking virgins. When he Came back to Paris, he was the most fervent Catholic and most devoted disciple in the y hole Church militant. His old friends asked whether he was joking when they heard that their old boon compation, their fellow free-lance, their fellow scofferwas going regularly to mass and to confession, had Cut himself loose from the whole gang of scoffers, and henceforth was to do battle for the Church. But be soon showed them that he wee iti earnest Becoming editor of the Univers, he has waged deadly war against the foes of the Church for thirty years. He has also attacked them in such book e ,as ," Les 1.-;itires Pensenrs," "Lea Odeurs de Paris," "La Parfurn de Rome," slid "Rome pendant le Concile." He has used verse as well as prose to show their vileness and folly. He has assailed Liberal Catholics almost as bitterly, as downright sceptics. Such men as the Pere Gratry and the Pere Hyacinthe have fared almost as badly as the little Voltairians who spin off little impieties for the petty Press.
All his works are marked by qualities which are more common in the cafes of the Quartier Latin than in the Church, for they all bear marks of his early training. In his unregenerate days he had acquired a marvellous command of vituperation, and he did not throw away the gift when he became a saint. Just as John Wesley did not see why the Devil should own all the pretty tunes, so Louis Veuillot did not see why the Devil should own all the sarcasms, all the invectives, or all the oaths. Hence be has con- secrated the profaner parts of the French language to the service of Heaven, by writing scandal against its enemies. If a Man were a Voltairian it was clear that he mast also be a rascal, and M. Veuillot did not see why the fact should not be told in vigorouS and picturesque French. So his writings are the most wonderful pieces of rhetoric ever laid at the feet of the 1 Church. They are such as might be written by a haunter of cafés and theatres, a fast man about town, a reader of loose novels, a master of profane swearing, an orator of the democratic clubs, and a disappointed politician of the Quartier Latin, if all these personages were rolled into one tremendous compound, and if the corporate profanity were to be converted in a single night to the faith that all Voltairians are scoundrels, that the real crown of thorns is kept under lock and seal by the Archbishop of Paris, that crowds of miracles are worked at Lourdes, and that forty-nine people have been raised from the dead at Notre Dame de Lumieres of Marseilles. The conversion of a single night would, of course, leave many traces of the last night's merriment, riot, or debauch. Oaths would start up through the crevices of devotion ; hymns would be sung with as much ferocity as if they were political songs ; and a heretic would be kicked down-stairs with as many curses as if he were a dun, The convert would display no change of spirit, but only a change of antipathies. He would curse what he had been wont to bless, and ' bless what he had been wont to curse ; but that would be all. And, in truth, Louis Veuillot's writings, after he became a Christian, 1 are so like what his writings were when he was sunk in the mire
of the Quartier Latin, that the likeness might be made nearly I complete by the change of a few substantives and proper names. IThere is more unction in the Christian stage than in the pagan. ' That comes fro-na Bourdaloue and Bossuet. It is in great part a thing of style. Louis Veuillot had not studied those admirable writers in his pagan days. There is also more bitterness, more ferocity, and more picturesque hate. That springs from new convictions. In his regenerate state he believes everything that comes from the lips of Rome ; in his old state, be believed nothing in particular, be- Icause the Quartier Latin, the cafes, and the Petite Presse were armed with no (Ecumenical Council. Their theology was loose, and so was his. Their beliefs lacked edge, and so did his. But be is now as definite as if he kept an (Ecumenical Council in his ink-bottle. Otherwise, we repeat, he is exactly what he was thirty years ago, among the Bohemians of Rouen, Perigueux, and Paris.
That is M. Veuillot. Were he not one of the most pious men in Europe, he would be deemed one of the most profane ; for the wealth, the strength, and the bitterness of his invective are amazing. He does not waste words of tenderness or pathos on the rascals, fools, and blockheads who will not go to mass, but who prefer to hear some wretched Protestant service, or to read M. Roam), or to idle their time in talking sceptical frivolities. fle knows that soft words would be thrown away on such a gang of blackguards and idiots. lie knows the fact, because he was one of them. So he slashes them, pours vitriol into their wounds, furnishes them with dramatic howls, and warns them that they will howl louder in hell. Byron, for example, is one of the rascals whom he meets in his travels. Veuillot thinks that the poet was much of a fool as well as much of a knave, but he does not forget that the poet was also the idol of his fellow-men. Byron was flattered, courted, and imitated by the sinful world. Yes, bat the probability is, adds the Christian censor, that the poet has gone to hell, and that there he will• meet with no worshipping publishers or crowds of ardent devotees. The multitude of the damned will pass him by as if he were a grocer. They will cut him dead. They will have no time to think of his wicked rhymes. Could a more horrible fate lie in store for a gifted wretch who has found his heaven in the applause of his fellow-men ? Yes, there is a fate still more horrible, and it is brought by the Devil himself. A monster such as he is painted by the orthodox art of the middle-ages, hideous and cynical, a compound of goat, ape, serpent, and pig, the Devil strolls through his dominions, and looks at his subjects. "His eye, from which each wishes to flee, falls on those who have ruled the earth by force or by thought. He beckons to them, and they come trembling to his feet. Ile beats them with the sceptre which be carries. He praises the lewd poets for having been his servants, he sings their finest verses,—and the sting of the ever- lasting fire is nothing compared with the shame and the despair which he thus drives into their souls." Byron is one of those whom be thus torments with the flame of their own genius. There is a grandeur in the diabolical hate of that conception. Dante might have put it into the "In- ferno." But Louis Veuillot does not often rise to such austere malignity, and he is usually content to sting with petty calumnies. His " Libres Pensenrs " and his " Odeurs de Paris" are a series of portraits, mostly of the men who write for France, and they are coloured with a small ferocity which draws its tints from gossip. As we go from one to another, we seem to be moving among a set of malefactors, who are so contemptible sad vile that they have no right to live. They suggest, or they bear, it is true, well-known, and in some cases honoured names ; but that does not matter. They are all rascals. They are all rascals because they differ from M. Veuillot, and because M. Veuillot agrees with the Pope. If M. Veuillot's literary friend, the Devil, were to write satires, he would write them in the same style. Thus the editor of the Univers gives us a Christianity which has been soaked in the mud of the Quartier Latin and the Cafes Chantants, a Christianity which has kept late hours, and has been about town for a few centuries. Its best quality is its virile and frank ferocity, for it gives a new commandment, to the effect that if a man strike thee on the one cheek, thou shalt hit him back, and hit hard.
The strength of M. Veuillot's faith is equal to the strength of his language. In the power of believing marvels, he would stand a competitive examination with any medimval saint. We defy the most vigorous imagination to invent the story of such a miracle as he would reject, if it were to bring a certificate of character from the Vatican. The sun might stand still half-a- dozen times a day, the true cross might multiply itself into as many fragments as would serve for the construction of a three- decker, sunbeams might be frozen as hard as hat-pegs, or a whole corps d'armee of dead men might be raised to life, and be made good Catholics, without disturbing the mental equanimity of M. Louis Veuillot, if, as we have said, those marvels would only bring tickets of credibility from the Church. That is indispen- sable. Nothing else is. The testimony of physicians, surgeons, and men of science is a mere impertinence to the editor of the Univers.
His political faith is of a piece with his-religious ; or rather he has no political creed, but only a religious ; for his King is bound up with his breviary. To Louis Veuillot, a France which is not religious is not a France at all ; a France which is not Catholic is not religious; and a France which has no King is not Catholic. He warns his people that the Comte de Chambord offers them an undeserved hope of salvation, not merely from anarchy in this world, but from eternal punishment in the next. He recently wrote as if thousands or millions would suffer in the life to come if the Right Centre did not accept the White Flag. General Changarnier and the Due d'Audiffret Pasquier must have been highly flattered by such a tribute to their theological importance. It was, however, the logical result of M. Veuillot's creed, for to him a Republic is merely organised Atheism, and Orleanism is merely organised Schism, which is little better. Hence all the Members of the Left and the Left Centre are either rascals or fools, mostly fools, and mostly small fools, stuffed so full of ignorance, conceit, and wickedness that they believe in M. Thiess, and yet cast doubt on the miracle of Lourdes. Folly or rascality could go no farther. All men are fools who support M. Thiess, and all men are rascals who support M. Gatubetta.
Such is M. Veuillot's faith. It has often been asked whether -he is sincere, and whether so clever a man can believe such a creed. Malice has whispered that he is really an Atheist, pursued by a diabolical hatred of Catholicism, and an impish wish to make it seem ridiculous, contemptible, and odious. Even Montalembert is said to have doubted whether the editor of the Univers was a Christian. But these questions betray an ignorance of dramatic possibilities. No dramatic genius could simulate for thirty years so ferocious a faith as M. Veuillot's without now and then letting a gleam of charity or kindness peep through the veil of passion. .And his genius is not dramatic, but essentially lyric. The canons of literary criticism alone, therefore, would prove that M. Veuillot is perfectly sincere. We should as soon doubt the sincerity of Robespierre or Marat. But his habit of hurling abuse has never- theless drawn forth indignant rebukes from the dignitaries of his own Church, and especially from the Bishop of Orleans.
Being a born man of letters as well as a saint, he thinks a good style almost as important as a good life. His first charge against the spirit of the Revolution is that it makes men rascals, and his second is that it makes them write bad French. France, he says, wrote beet when she was most Catholic, and the Revolution has brought chaos to her language as well as chaos to her faith. The Voltairian Press of Paris is ruining the finest vehicle of written speech ever given to mankind, as well as giving France over to the keeping of the Devil. Even the Academicians cannot write French in these days of loose and licentious thought. It might seem that no one could write French except M. Louis Veuillot ; and in truth, his style is wonderfully vigorous, glowing, and pre- cise, although it lacks the softer and subtler hues of the great masters. His first advice to young Catholics is, that they shalt
regularly go to mass ; his second, that they shall acquire a good style. We suspect that he would barn all men who write bed French, as well as all men who profess bad opinions. And hia Heaven is a place in which all the blessed shall confess the doc- trines of the Vatican in the language of Racine. They will be a select little company.
M. Veuillot has higher notes than those of satire, although he does not often let us hear their rich and melodious harmony. He can touch the chords of pathos, and of religious emotion, and of the beauty which belongs to holiness, when he can forget the concrete existence of some villimous free-thinker. The underlying thought of all his writings is that material civilisation is, after all, infinitely petty and infinitely sad, because it touches merely the crust of things, and leaves the heart of man unchanged. The Revolution has indeed brought a petty Gospel of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity for the healing of the nations, and has preached the message by the lips of such a John the Baptist as Rousseau and such a Messiah as Napoleon. But the result is Petrole ! The Commune is the heaven to which the Revolution has led poor France. She must learn, says Louis Veuillot, that she has been going, not towards heaven, but towards hell ; she must wearily go back to the old guidance of the Church, if abs would escape a destruction worse, infinitely worse, than that of Sedan or of Paris in flames ; she must learn once more the simple duty of obedience to an insorutable Will, and of faith in an unseen Redeemer. Her hope lies in the Vatican. Preached with the force and the vividness of a great writer, such is the deeper note of Veuillot, such the message which lifts him above the position of a mere pamphleteer, and makes us forget his blasphemies. It is the Gospel of an Ultramontane Carlyle.
The first of living polemical authors, he can do everything that befits a great writer except think. " Thinking " is to him a form of impiety, worthy only of the Revue des Deux Mondes and the resource of abandoned creatures who do not believe in the Syllabus, who write bad French, and have no style. M. Veuillot is a blas- pheming Jeremiah with a gift of humour. He is read with more admiration by his enemies than by his friends, because there is an infinite raciness in his combination of a Hebrew prophet with a gamin de Paris. His jeremiads against the sins of France act like sips of ecclesiastical absinthe, which whet the appetite for feasts of profanity. They are most akin to that literature which has least of sanctity : for Voltaire would hail him as a brother. Diderot would welcome him as a boon companion, and Rabelais would laugh at his travesty of the Gospel.
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