M. DE FREYCINET AND THE CHURCH. T HE interesting letter from
the Vatican which has appeared in the Temps, is calculated to strengthen the doubts which the more rational supporters of M. de Freycinet must all along have felt as to the wisdom of the Minister's recent action. That this statement of the Pope's intentions and wishes is substantially true, there is every reason to believe. It agrees with all that is known of his character and policy. Where Italy is not concerned, Leo XIII. is essentially a peacemaker, and unlike some peacemakers, he is willing to make large sacrifices to gain his end. The letter in question represents him as not concealing the annoyance with which he has watched recent events in France. He was greatly pained by the interruption of the workmen's pilgrimages, by the issue of M. de Fallieres' circular, by the decision of the French Cabinet to treat the Archbishop of Aix as a political criminal, instead of as a rather peppery old gentleman with a taste for strong language. But all these incidents put together have not made him lose sight of the object he has all along had in view. If peace between the Church and the Republic is worth having, it is worth paying for. The needs of the Church and the needs of France are not altered by the acts of a particular Cabinet. They will survive M. de Freycinet, and they must not be endangered for anything that M. de Freycinet has done. It must occur to some of those who voted with the Government the other day, that whether M. de Freycinet's alarm is real or assumed, it is equally uncalled for. So long, at all events, as these doctrines are held at the Vatican, the majority of the French clergy can be trusted not to oppose the Republic, provided that the Republic does not make any other attitude impossible. Indeed, there is no conceivable reason why they should oppose it. They are not hereditary Royalists ; on the contrary, the greater num- ber of them are taken from the peasantry, and sympathise with the class from which they have sprung. Their enmity to the Republic is simply the enmity of men who have been, and still are, sufferers by Republican laws and Republican administration. But this kind of enmity, as it was the creation of the Republic in the first instance, can be re- moved. at any moment by the act of the Republic. What was there in the condition of affairs to inspire the Govern- ment with any fear of the results of conciliation ? In the first instance, nothing but an angry letter from a single prelate, and that, too, a letter called forth by a Ministerial circular. The first provocation was given by the Govern- ment; and though the subsequent provocations have not been all on one side, the Government have still a large balance to their credit. The quarrel was of their seeking, the flame of religious strife was of their kindling. At any point in the controversy, the fire would have died down if they had not chosen to fan it. This description of the Pope's attitude comes at the right moment to drive these reflections home, to make Republicans who are not fanatics ask themselves what M. de Freycinet has to show in exchange for the good-will he has thrown away. It may, of course, be objected that he has not thrown it away ; that this very letter in the Temps is a proof that pacification is still within his reach ; that, in fact, he has made the best of both worlds, and gained the Left without losing the Pope. It must be remembered, however, that the Pope is not omnipotent, and that the French clergy and the French Conserva- tives may not be so willing as Leo XIII. to forgive their Republican brother unto seventy times seven. Men are willing enough to disregard threats when they have never been put into action. But when they are already suffering under positive disabilities, and when they ask to have their burdens made lighter, get only Rehoboam's answer, they are not unlikely to turn a deaf ear to any further counsels of conciliation. Leo 'Kill is a politician of remarkable ability and. remarkable self-control. But his spiritual children are men of like passions with their neighbours, and they may not be able to forgive so readily and so completely. The French clergy complain that they are the victims of all manner of administrative insults, that they live in an atmosphere of official oppression. When their own Bishops have preached Episcopal patience and the cultivation of better relations with the Republic, they have no doubt been tempted to reply that the Bishops do not know what they suffer. Even in Republican France, the office is of sufficient dignity to exempt its holders from the multitude of small slights which the parochial clergy feel so keenly. If the Pope now takes up the same tale, and counsels continued submis- sion when even the Bishops have abandoned it as useless, the clergy will be even more inclined to let his admonitions go unheeded. Let the Republicans begin,' they will say, and then we shall have no objection to follow suit. We are tired of making the first advances when each one of them is rejected in succession. If the Republic wishes us to lay down our arms, it must show some disposition to accept our friendship.'
This is not a promising temper of mind for the conduct of difficult negotiations, and the more visible the traces of it become, the more anxious reasonable Republicans will be to reckon up the compensations which have accrued to them from M. de Freycinet's change of front. They will only be able to find one, the partial restoration of Republican concentration in its old form. But it is already evident that the old form will be attended by the old draw- back. Republican concentration can only be lasting if it includes the Extreme Left, and the Cabinet have shown their appreciation of this fact by playing for the applause of the Extreme Left. No other section of the Repub- lican Party demanded the recent measures against the Church, and though the supporters of the Government profess themselves charmed with the prospect of fresh and more stringent action of the same kind, it is quite certain that they would never have known that they wanted it, had not M. de Freycinet enlightened them as to their wishes. Unfortunately for the Ministerial calcu- lations, it is easier to catch the Extreme Left than to keep them. They will praise the Government for the vigour they have shown against the clergy ; but when it comes to supporting them in a division, they are apt to raise their terms. They did so last week in the Chamber. The order of the day which the Government had accepted was adopted, but only by a majority of 20. Some of the Extreme Left voted against it, and the remainder did not vote at all. The reason of this desertion was the attitude of the Cabinet on the question of separation between Church and State. M. de Freycinet is not a thoroughgoing partisan of the Concordat. He is willing to suppress the Budget of Public Worship if he cannot main- tain the supremacy of the State over the clergy. But he is not prepared to suppress it at once. He thinks the change too startling to be carried out except by a Government expressly charged with the execution of it. This is not enough for the Deputies of the Extreme Left. Dis- establishment is with them a principle, and they will vote with no Government which proposes to give it any lower place in their programme. The only result, therefore, of M. de Freycinet's return upon himself is to bring into unwelcome prominence the subject of Church and State, and to make it evident that, so long as this question stops the way, Republican concentration is impossible. Not even to gain the votes of the Extreme Left will M. de Freycinet propose to suppress the salaries of the clergy. In countries where religion is regarded either with entire indifference or with passionate devotion, the experiment might be a safe one. In the one case, the people would not mind being deprived of their cure's; in the other, they would be willing to pay for them. Neither of these statements would be true of the French peasantry. They are not prepared to see their churches closed for want of priests to serve them, they are still less prepared to keep them open at their own cost. Consequently, the one policy which would satisfy the Extreme Left is a policy which M. de Freycinet is unable to make his own. Yet until he does make it his own, he cannot reap the reward which he has sacrificed so much to earn.
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