MONSEIGNEUR DUPANLOUP.
TN that beautiful story of an ethereal life, "Welt d'une So3ur " Eugenie de la Ferronays, writes as far back as 1838, "In my last letter I spoke of the illness of M. de Talleyrand, who persevered in his good resolutions to the end. M. Dupanloup was constantly with him." M. de Talleyrand, in due course, signed a retractation, in the presence of De Barante, Royer-Collard, and other witnesses, repented of his share in the Revolution and his faithlessness to the Church, uttered one final witticism at the expense of his relative the Arch- bishop of Paris, and made a good and edifying end. The confessor of the great diplomatist was the man who died yesterday week, as Bishop of Orleans, at Laincey, and whose de- parture from the scene leaves a great blank in France, and de- prives the Church of Rome of one of her most powerful champions. Savoy has contributed to the Gallican branch of that Church three of her most faithful and ardent sons. Two of them, St. Francis de Sales and Joseph de Maistre, have long passed away ; and the third, Felix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup, is now gone also. They were not peers ; we do not confound one who was a subaltern with his superiors. The last of the three dwelt near the earth ; he was a man of the world, a fashionable preacher in his time, a bustling politician, an eccle- siastic who knew his way about Courts ; he moved in an atmo. sphere far below that to which the two others had ascended. But in a more mundane way, he was also a remarkable son of his Church. is was a fiery, abundant, ubiquitous spirit, not to be cooped up within the narrow walls of his episcopal palace. He made the name of the Church heard in places to which it is not wont to reach, and now that he is passed away, the gulf between the Church and the world in France will appear greater than it was. We hardly know what his many enemies will do without him. Against whom are they to sharpen their pens, now that he will no more launch panegyrics which consumed the living while lauding the dead, or write defiant letters to statesmen or journalists, or throw down unprovoked challenges to the most doughty foes of the Church ? Many a writer in the Radical journals will feel that a great hole has been made in his capital, now that the Bishop of Orleans's last exasperating speech in the Senate, or his last pamphlet on education, is no longer available for an article, when times are dull. And in truth, France will be perceptibly quieter than it was, now that this militant spirit, ready, loud, and fierce of speech, is hushed. It is as if a great bell, which had often rung in battle and storm, had been taken down from the tower which had rocked with its reverberations. To read his life is to run over a roll of battles with Atheists, Protestants, Comtists, Prussians, Republicans, Voltaire, the foes of Classical education, Catholics who were Ultramontanes, and Catholics who were not Ultramontanes ; litigation with the editor of the Sacle, and quarrels with M. Yeuillot and most other editors in Paris ; and a string of controversies in which it rarely hap- pened that Monseigneur had not the last word. Chance, more than the fitness of things, made Dupanloup a priest. He might have been a soldier, and a good one too. He lacked few gifts necessary to make him a Marshal of France. He loved com- bat for itself. The whole spirit of the man comes out in such sayings as, "No,—piety is not banished from the hearts of
warriors How well the French soldier and the priest of Jesus Christ go together." There are not many more eloquent passages in his writings than those in which he lauds the prowess of the Irish soldier of fortune.
It is impossible not to feel that in many ways Monseigneur Dupanloup was in later years out of his true place. He had perhaps lived too long for his reputation. We will go further, and say that had his lot fallen in earlier ages, when duties were clearer or simpler than they are, when errors were not Protean and subtle, and when a French prelate had no more wily enemy to encounter than the ignorant heathen or a careless world, he would have left a name which would have long been held in remembrance. He was just the man to be the hero of countless wonderful legends. It might have been told of him, as it was told of Francis Xavier, that " he possessed the gift of ubiquity, could at the same moment speak in twenty different tongues on as many dissimilar topics, was impassive to heat, cold, hunger, and fatigue; held hourly intercourse with invisible beings, the guides or ministers of his designs ; raised the dead to life, and could float, when it so pleased him, across the boiling ocean on the wings of the typhoon." But he missed his century ; and at no time of Dupanloup's life, we take it, was the impression which he produced very deep and strong. He had his say, and always in emphatic language, about every topic of interest, secular or religious, which came before France, any time these five-and-twenty years ; but he did not come to close quarters with great ques- tions. It was felt by his friends that he was cannonading away in the distance. His mind was essentially the oiator's. He had the orator's failings as well as gifts ; and unfortunately he did not confine himself to themes which demand chiefly enthusiasm, abundance of speech, and the physical manifesta- tions of sincerity which convince. He was as confident and fluent when combatting M. Renan or Comte as when celebrating the virtues of his friend, Pere Ravignan, or extolling the glories of the Irish people, whom he loved. He harangued his readers on modern philosophy or devotion, and spoke all too loudly and sharply for the nerves of many true Christians. We cannot imagine any one turning to his works, as to De Lamennais', in a troubled hour. It is hard to believe that even in his own diocese, where he was loved as well as feared, many feel that they have lost a wise counsellor. A certain monotonous, mechanical vehemence, a fire which dazzles and does not warm, and an absence of the feeling that his words were born, like Laeordaire's, in "peace and work and silence," in the end repel the reader. We do not mean to say that beautiful passages are not to be found in his works. His rich, generous nature and his full stores of expression could not fail to produce many passages of high eloquence. With the music of De Quincey's prose-poem on the Maid of Orleans in one's ears, one can turn to Dupanloup's "Panegyric," and read his impassioned words, breathing true tenderness, with pleasure. The picture which he draws of Domremy and the pleasant banks of the Meuse, the Maid's birthplace ; his delineation of the pure gaiety of her young spirit, her mirth, such as angels might feel, his fierce joy in the story of her martial work, are not unworthy of the high theme ; and we feel that there is no anti-climax when, towards the close of his address, he exclaims,—" Generous lady, accept this act of homage from a Bishop of Orleans. Joyfully, in- deed, I render it. And now I quit you, but with regret ; we shall meet again, we shall recognise each other some day. We have served, we, too, each in our turn, this noble city, this good and lovable people, generous to enthusiasm." And the prelate who could thus prostrate himself in an ecstacy of enthusiasm before the Maiden of Domremy, as the noblest figure in the past of France, could also write with good-sense and to the purpose about highly practical topics. Not many better pages concerning the education of girls in France have been penned than those which he wrote some ten years ago. In his letters to M. Duruy he has much to say that is excellent ; and he, condemns, with pointed good-sense, the foolish theatrical publicity with which young girls who have done well at school are pushed forward before the whole town, to receive, to the sound of military music, a laurel crown from the hands of the sous-prefets. He insists upon the necessity of giving girls a wide and sound education, despising the demi-talents, gaits d'etude supelficielle, which are in fashion ; and he argues with force, as well as in a liberal spirit., against the narrow views of De Maistre respecting the proper education of women. The safety of France is her mothers, he said ; and their education could not be too thorough or serious.
We are not losing sight of his wonderful gifts—his elo- quence, as marvellous at least in its abundance as its quality ; his industry, which tired out the youngest and most enthu- siastic of his auxiliaries, and which never found occu- pation enough ; and his courage, which was not the less real because it admitted of many a curious retreat—when we say that Dupanloup was somewhat of a dazzling failure, and that this failure was most conspicuous in his latter days. He moved as a young man in the circle of which Lamennais and Lacordaire were the centre. He felt the rushing of that mighty, inspiring wind which forty years ago passed over the Church of France. It had come to him, as it came to Lamennais, that there were signs from heaven that the world was
" advancing towards a magnificent unity ;" that liberty, good for all, was especially good for the Church ; and that the Christian priesthood, casting their patrimony away, would do well, as Montalembert had said, to "throw themselves on the invincible and inexhaustible powers of modern liberty." When all was over, and the Acenir was abandoned, and some of the enthusiasts had submitted to Rome, and others had thrown off her yoke, Dupanloup still retained a little of the spirit of 1832. It broke out occasion- ally, as, for instance, in his opposition to the Infallibility dogma as "inopportune," and his pleadings for the preroga- tives of the Gallican Church. But in the end he ceased to stem the current. He made his repentance,—too tardily to be quite forgiven, and too hurriedly to appear altogether dignified. His last error was to nurse a querulous hatred of the Republic, to mix himself up with De Broglie's luckless schemes, and thus to forfeit all claim to be regarded as an ecclesiastical statesman.
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