CLERICALISM AND ANTI-CLERICALISM IN EUROPEAN POLITICS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE "SPECTATO1'.:]
you kindly allow me to offer a few words of com- ment in your columns upon the plea you have recently presented for the French Jesuits and their schools against the attacks of the extreme Anti-Clerical party ? I shall confine myself to a single point. You quote with some approbation A. H. Clough's sneer at the "emasculated pupils" of the Jesuit schools, and I am aware that the accusation has been made elsewhere. Perhaps I may ask your attention to some facts which seem to me an interesting set-off against the charge of " emasculation " and "unmanliness." I happen to have at hand a record where (for a purpose I shall presently indicate) a few historical notes are given concerning a single French Jesuit College. It is that of Vaugirard,—not the military school of the Rue L'homond. In this paper it is set forth with pride how in the annee terrible there was not an impor- tant battle where pupils of Vaugirard did not shed their blood for their country. Of the young soldiers enumerated, here are some of the most illustrious names,—Andre de Suffren, who fell at Reichshoffen ; Robert de Lapel, at Sedan; Frederic de Courtaurel de Rouzat, at Metz ; Gaston de Romance, at Laon ; the young Due de Chaulnes, at Coulmiers; there also Alphonse de Lamande; at Loigny Jean de Bellevue and Charles de Pontourny, the former aged twenty, the latter eighteen; at Mans Joseph de Vaubernier ; at Buzenval, Maurice de Laumiere ; at Paris, Paul Odelin. The last-mentioned was shot by the Communists, after he had shouted to their faces, "You are cowards and assassins!" As for young Maurice de Laumiere, his last-recorded words are also perhaps worth recalling. When for the last time he bade adieu to his weeping mother, he said: "Mother, you ought to be the strong woman of the Scriptures. Was it not you who taught me that country should be considered before family ? " Alter sending forth these noble young souls, and many more of ob- scurer race but equal devotion, the College converted itself, as the disastrous war went on, into a huge ambulance, where a Sum total of twenty-one thousand two hundred and fifty sick and wounded were tended with a care and a generosity which won notable tributes of praise. It is noted that among the Jesuits who acted as sick-nurses were Francois de Pins, for- merly a Commandant of the French Navy, and Alexis Clerc, formerly Lieutenant in the same service, and destined to be one of the hostages shot by the Communists. It is hardly likely that these two Vaugirard professors would have been either of the " emasculated " or of the "emasculating" type. These facts I find set forth and warmly dwelt upon as an encourage- ment to "go and do likewise" in an address given to the assembled pupils of Vaugirard, in the year 1893, by one of their Jesuit teachers. Thus does this "emasculator" address his boys Know how to will ! Education consists in form- ing men of character, that is, men of wills energetically anchored in good by principles which nothing can shake. To will is to love and to hate, for there are necessary hatreds. To will is to enlarge one's heart, to refuse to limit one's horizon, either in desire or in deed, to the vulgar realities of a life easy for self, useless for others." No less energetically does he exhort to action : "Action is the sign of life; vigorous action is the sign of youth. You must act,"—and so on, with very much more that I should like to quote, were there not the fear of endangering my last chances of action upon the readers of the Spectator. Yet I can hardly think that these touches from this recent chapter of Jesuit peclagogique are devoid of interest. Beyond Vaugirard I do not travel ; but we know what uniformity of spirit and method is supposed to Pervade Jesuit institutions. I may remark, however, turning a glance upon regions nearer home, that while we find such man as the Irish Lord Chief Baron, the Irish Parliamentary leader, General Sir William Butler, and Sir Nicholas O'Conor, our Am.baasador at St, Petersburg (to mention but the first
names that occur to me) among the pupils turned out by years of Jesuit training, we may remain at least a little sceptical as to the "emasculating" character of that training as applied amongst ourselves.—I am, Sir, Sze., G. ONE, M.A. University College, Dublin.
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