THE PROSECUTION OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF ALX. A GOVERNMENT should have
the courage of its in- tentions. It should not spoil a policy for the sake of a pennyworth of compromise. This, unfortunately for itself, is what the French Government has been doing. All through the summer it was blowing the trumpet of conciliation, and calling the world to witness its efforts to bring honest men of all parties under the Republican umbrella. And to some extent the world did come and look on. Possibly the embraces at Cronstadt might not have been quite so warm, had not the Czar believed that France was really entering upon a new cycle in which Ministries should no longer be at the mercy of momentary coalitions between discordant factions. But among those who came were the Deputies of the Extreme Left. They are not a powerful body numerically, but over a Republican Cabinet they wield a kind of traditional authority. The slave has heard the crack of the whip so often, that to tremble at it has become a matter of habit. As the meeting of the Chambers drew near, there was a confused murmur of talk about interpellations and the re-formation of groups, about the growing audacity of the Clericals, and the necessity of making a last stand in defence of threatened liberties. It meant nothing beyond the irritation of a party which had once been supreme at seeing power slip- ping from its grasp, and Ministers might have known all along that something of the kind must happen. Radicalism is a jealous mistress, and the Extreme Left had so long enjoyed the exclusive devotion of successive French Cabinets, that it could not be expected to resign its claims without a cross look or an unkind word. Yet, strange to say, this seems to have been precisely what Ministers did expect. At least, they were shocked and upset when the exact contrary happened, and the Extreme Left showed plainly that it was not prepared to welcome a Conservative Republican policy.
The whip, as has been said, was loudly cracked, and the old results at once followed. The Cabinet trembled at the thought of its own boldness, and began to consider how it might best retrace its steps. It would be nearer the truth, perhaps, to say, how it might seem to retrace its steps. We question whether Ministers really intended to undo anything they had done, but undoubtedly they wished the Radicals to think that they were going to return to their old ways. They found, as they supposed, an occasion for creating this impression in the incident of the French pilgrimage to Rome. It was obviously inconvenient for these demonstrations to go on. A French Government cannot allow French citizens to be mobbed, even though they happen to be Catholics ; but it would be ridiculous to be continually quarrelling with Italy because the Roman police had not always been able to give them the necessary pro- tection. For the time, at all events, there must be no more pilgrimages. But there were two ways in which pilgrimages might be stopped, supposing it was needful for Ministers to interfere—which may fairly be doubted, inasmuch as the Pope was naturally anxious to see no more of such visitors until things had quieted down, and the number of devout persons who care to go about Rome under police protection is not great. The Government might quietly have intimated their wishes to the Bishops, and left them to act as though of their own motion. But then, this would not have quieted the Extreme Left, or enabled the Cabinet to pose as an Anti-Clerical Ministry. Accordingly, M. Fallieres, the Minister of Worship, put out a circular desiring the Bishops not to leave their dioceses. He had the power to do this under the Concordat ; but on this point the Concordat has long been disregarded. By thus bringing it to life again, M. Fallieres—or the Cabinet generally, for, according to some accounts, M. Fallieres was only an un- willing instrument in the business—delighted the Extreme Left, and disgusted in equal measure the Independent Right. The wise course would have been for the Bishops to make no answer to this circular. None was required, and the Government would probably have been very careful to invent an excuse for any Bishop who might really have had occasion to go to Rome in disregard of it. But Bishops are not always wise, any more than Ministers, and Mgr. Gouthe-Soulard, the Archbishop of Aix, is a conspicuous example of this general law. He has usually been reckoned among the quasi-Republican Bishops, the Bishops who are anxious to keep on good terms with the Government, so far as the Government makes it possible for them to do so. It is conceivable, how- ever, that this very circumstance made him less disposed to sit quiet under the Ministerial circular. Quasi- Republican Bishops are not always popular either with their clergy or with their flocks, and Mgr. Gouthe-Soulard may not have been sorry for an opportunity of clearing himself of any suspicion of subservience to the secular power. If so, he certainly cleared himself handsomely.
His letter to the Minister was neither powerful nor much to the point, but the writer evidently meant to be, and succeeded in being, exceedingly rude. He told M. Fallieres in effect that he was always attacking and insulting the Catholic religion ; that though peace might sometimes be on his lips, hatred and persecution were in his acts ; and finally, that he was a mere creature of the Freemasons. Nothing could have been plainer than the course dic- tated by policy to a Minister thus assailed. For the time being the Bishops were his adversaries, and, as good luck would have it, one of his principal adversaries had put himself completely in the wrong. The Archbishop's letter was precisely the letter which seems admirable until it has been sent, and exceedingly foolish when it has been sent. Probably there was hardly a Bishop in France who did not regret that it should have been written, and-who would not have been glad to see it forgotten. It found no defenders in that section of the Conservatives to which Mgr. Gouthe-Soulard was supposed to belong, and the Cabinet might safely have left the writer to discover by degrees that he had made a very great blunder. Instead of this, Ministers behaved with what can only be described as very great magnanimity or very great unwisdom. They prosecuted the Archbishop for insulting the Minister, and thus enlisted the whole Episcopate on his side. When a colleague is brought into Court for defending your rights, you cannot well stop to consider whether he has defended them wisely. You must take the will for the deed, and try to look as though you were contented with your champion. This is exactly what has happened in the present instance. The Archbishop of Aix's blunder has been condoned or forgotten in consideration of the penalty it has entailed on him. The only thing that could have got him out of a rather foolish position was a State trial ; and a State trial was what the Government at once determined to give him.
Such proceedings could only have one issue. The Arch- bishop read a statement so much in advance of his letter in point of judgment as to suggest at the least a composite authorship, and the Court imposed a fine of £120. In itself, of course, the whole proceeding was unimportant. The only consideration which lifts it into any higher category is the weakness it betrays in the Government. They have gained, no doubt, the praise of the Extreme Left ; but that is a praise which bears no relation to solid pudding. The prosecution of the Archbishop will not secure them a single vote in the Chamber ; it will not pre- vent a single Radical candidate from standing in opposition to a supporter of the Government ; it will not earn for a single Government measure the slightest consideration, or for a single Minister the slightest courtesy. The Radicals in the Chamber and in the constituencies will act in all respects as though M. Fallieres had never issued his circular, and an Archbishop had never been tried for replying to it. On the other hand, a check the real extent of which cannot yet be estimated, has been inflicted on the growing disposition of the French Conservatives to accept the Republic ; and though the process may eventually go on as before, it is much less likely than hitherto to go on under the existing Cabinet. That is the net outcome of the proceedings against Monsignor Gouthe-Soulard, and it hardly seems worth the price paid for it.
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