THE FRENCH CARDINALS AND THE REPUBLIC.
WHETHER from pressure exerted by the Pope, or from the steady drift of clerical opinion in France, the change in the attitude of the Church towards Republi- can institutions goes forward without any serious check. We have more than once insisted on the significance of this fact. It is no case of enemies meeting half-way. The Republican Government was never more hostile to the Church than it is at this moment. Alike in what it has done and in what it threatens to do, it is animated by a thoroughly Jacobin temper. It has administered the Concordat in the strictest possible fashion, and revived provisions which are useless for any purpose save that of provocation. More than this, it has shown that it does not mean to give the Church any more liberty if she is separated from the State than she enjoys under the existing arrangement. The new Bill for the regu- lation of Associations is avowedly framed in view of the possible abolition of the Concordat. It em- bodies the Ministerial idea of a free Church in a free State. This remarkable Bill makes membership of any monastic order which has been dissolved by Ministerial decree punishable by two years' imprisonment, and enacts that this decree may be pronounced against any Order which depends upon a foreign General. As this descrip- tion applies, among others, to the Benedictines, the Fran- ciscans, and the Dominicans, the Bill, though it professes to give greater freedom of association, really destroys it when the persons associating happen to be monks or friars. Yet, in spite of all this, we have the five French Cardinals putting out, for the first time, a declaration of adhesion to the de facto Government of France, and The line of conduct thus recommended is in the most recent Cabinets. The latter theory is certainly the more direct opposition to that which the Comte de Paris and probable of the two. If the declaration had been framed M. d'Haussonville have litely been preaching. Their posi- in the Royalist interest, some formula would surely tion has always been that it is impossible to distinguish have been devised which should leave the acceptance between Republican institutions and Republican ad minis- of Republican institutions contingent on the modifica- tration. What the Governnient is, it is by virtue of tion of Republican policy. But nothing of the kind its being Republican ; consequently, so long as it re- is visible. The Cardinals leave no loophole through mains Republican, it must in all respects continue what it which a Monarchist can escape. Their acceptance of is. If it is not to be openly anti-religious, if it is not to the form of government which France has chosen for exaggerate the provisions of the Concordat to the dis- herself is positive, not contingent, immediate, not remote. advantage of the Church, if it is not arbitrarily to mulct According to what we have called the more probable the clergy of their stipends, if it is not to hamper the theory, the first impression of the chiefs of the Royalist Bishops in their intercourse with the Holy See, if it is Party on reading the declaration, was one of complete not to discourage religious education, if it is not to discouragement. They saw that it amounted to an compel the clergy to serve in the Army, if it is not to unconditional acceptance of Republican institutions, and subject religious congregations to exceptional and ruinous that the conditions and stipulations with which this taxation,—if, in short, it is not to do what every Ministry acceptance was accompanied, related not to the form for the last fourteen years has done, it must cease to be of government, but to the Ministerial policy. It was Republican. This necessary identity of Republican in- only afterwards that they conceived the hope of mis- .stitutions and Republican administration, has been the representing the nature of the declaration, and they theme of every Royalist manifesto and every Royalist would never have done so had it not been for the address since the Comte de Paris has played an active violence of the Radical journals. From the Radical part in French politics. Take this text away, and point of view, this violence was perfectly natural. It is every Royalist orator would be reduced to silence. essential to Radical supremacy in Republican administra- They have long ceased to dwell on the blessings of tion that Conservatives should be denied any share in it, and a Court, or the delights of living under the personal rule the easiest and most obvious way of accomplishing this is of a King. They have left the secular shortcomings of to make the ecclesiastical policy of the Government one the Republican government almost untouched. Their which is essentially distasteful to Conservatives. The first whole strength has been concentrated on the religious thought, therefore, of the Radical Press was to concen- question. 'If,' they have said, 'Frenchmen desire religious trate public attention on the less important element in the peace, they must make up their minds to take the one step declaration ; to make Republicans of all shades overlook that can lead them to religious peace. They must abolish the acceptance of the Republic by the Cardinals, in the the Republic and set up the Monarchy in its place.' The excitement of reading their indictment of Republican declaration of the Cardinals makes short work of this measures. Seeing this, the Royalist organs picked up whole theory. All that they demand is that "anti- courage, and began to treat the Cardinals' declaration as a Christian sects should not claim to identify the Re- mere replica of the many Royalist enumerations of Republi- publican Government with themselves, and to make can crimes. They hoped by this means to blind people to the a combination of anti-religious laws into the essential real difference between the two, to induce them to go on constitution of the Republic." But from the Royalist treating Republican forms and Republican policy as point of view, to demand this is to demand an im- exchangeable terms. possibility. It is a question, not of a claim set up Unfortunately for France, it is by no means certain that by anti-Christian sects, but of a conjunction which has the action of the Radicals—aided, as it probably will be, its origin in the nature of things. The Cardinals know by that of the Government—will not, in the first instance, nothing of any such inexorable law. They hold that have the precise effect that the Royalists wish. The a Republic is perfectly able to govern France with a Radicals will treat the declaration as an insult to the due regard to the interests of religion ; that a Monarchy Republic, calling for fresh measures of repression on the has no monopoly in this respect ; that the liberty on which part of the State ; and though the Cabinet will hardly the Church insists, and must always insist, can be enjoyed go all lengths with the Left in this direction, it may go so as fully under a President as under a King. A more un- far as to postpone for an indefinite time the restoration mistakable rejection of the monarchical theory cannot be of religious peace. For we cannot acquit M. de Freycinet conceived. If the Cardinals' view of the situation is of holding on this point opinions not easily distinguishable adopted, there will be an end to the Royalist agitation. from those of M. Clemenceau. At all events, he is probably The object of French Catholics will no longer be to upset quite as anxious to prevent any reconciliation between the the Republic, but simply to upset this or that Republican Church and the Republic. He does not, indeed, proclaim this Cabinet. They may or may not succeed in their new wish, as M. Cl4menceau does, but he acts in a way which is enterprise ; but so long as they persevere in it, they will only intelligible on the supposition that he entertains it. The be, not Royalists, but Catholic Republicans. measure which was the beginning of the recent troubles, It is said that the Comte de Paris has already realised was the prohibition of episcopal visits to Rome, and we the full meaning of this change, and that he is virtually, can conceive but of one motive for issuing that prohibi- like the Generals of two centuries back, about to go into tion. The Pope has for some time past been known to be winter quarters. Unless the Republic makes some un- greatly in advance of the French Episcopate in his desire foreseen blunder, or sustains some unforeseen mischance, for religious peace. Consequently, the surest way of it is not likely that he will take the field again. hastening religious peace was to bring the Episcopate as More than one narrative purporting to be authentic of much as possible under the personal influence of the the way in which the Cardinals' declaration came to be Pope ; while the surest way of delaying it, was to prevent written has been put in circulation. The main difference the Episcopate and the Pope from meeting. If Ministers between them is the part they assign to the Pope. held it to be their interest to labour for this latter end, According to one story, the Pope had written a letter to they went straight to the mark when they bethought them the Archbishop of Paris in which he spoke of the Re- of the forgotten article of the Concordat which enables publican government with a tenderness which greatly them to keep the Bishops at home. recognising that this Government is the choice of the startled Mgr. Richard, and convinced him that something French people. They have come at last to see that must at once be done to commit the French Bishops to in France the Royalists are a revolutionary party,— something which the Pope would dislike, but which a party that wishes to pull down existing institutions he could not expressly disapprove. The result was instead of trying to make the best of them. The country,' the Cardinals' declaration, the hope of those who drew they say, has need of " Governmental stability," ' and it up being that the acceptance of the Republic would the Cardinals are content to see this stability secured pass unnoticed in the storm of abuse excited by the long- on Republican lines. There is abundance of work drawn-out censure of everything the Republic has been. waiting for Catholics to do in their character of French According to another story, the declaration has been put citizens ; but the way to do it is to take a reso- out in perfect good faith, and is a genuins effort to put the lute stand on the ground of the Constitution, to pay Pope's ideas into words, and to accompany the recognition respect to the representatives of authority, and frankly of the Republic with just so much of qualification as may and loyally to accept the institutions under which they prevent Republicans from supposing that it implied any live. change of attitude as regards the ecclesiastical policy of
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