THE LEGITIMISTS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINES.
THE French Republicans would do well to translate and the French people to read a very vigorous assault, from the Roman Catholic point of view, in the new number of the Dublin Review, on the doctrine of " Hereditism," as it terms the principle which the adherents of Henri V. call Legitimacy. Apparently the Church of Rome has never for- mally condemned as a heresy the doctrine that any particular form of Government is specially sanctioned by the Church, otherwise the writer, who quotes at great length and very apposite passages from Suarez and Bossuet, and who is apparently quite familiar with the theologico-political de- cisions of the Holy See, would have cited the condem- nation. But he does show that the most subtle Catholic writers on politico-theological questions, especially the two we have named, give not the least show of favour to any doctrine approaching that of Legitimacy, which declares that a divine right to a crown adheres to a particular family, and is trans- mitted from father to son, generation after generation, without any relation to the constitutional conditions under which it was accepted, or under which it is afterwards held,—and that the sanction of any such theory would be exceedingly injurious to the very ends for which the Catholic Church so stoutly maintains the divine institution of secular government itself. Indeed the paper points out that the Papacy, no less than its learned doctors, has lent its moral sanction to quite a different theory, on two recent occasions —one when Pius VII. crowned Napoleon Emperor of the French, only eleven years after the wrongful deposition, as Catholics, of course, hold it, of Louis XVI ; and one, when Pius VIII sanctioned and approved the act of the French Bishops in swearing fidelity to Louis Philippe, after the breach of the Constitution by the late King, Charles X. In the latter case, of course, if " hereditism" had had any sacredness for the Holy See, the Bishops would have been instructed to withhold their adhesion for the Due de Bordeaux, now called the Comte de Chambord, in whose favour Charles X. abdicated. That the Pope of that day never even raised the question' is probably rightly re- garded by the Catholic writer in the Dublin as complete proof that Rome never questioned the right of a nation whose King has broken his solemn compact with it, to substitute a new ruler in his place at its own discretion. Indeed the language of the Roman Catholic reviewer about Charles X.'s violation
of the Constitution is very strong indeed We must main-
tain," he says, "that he was no mere tyrant in administration, but a rebel against the authority placed over him by God," —the view being, of course, that the true sovereign to whom obedience is due under a Constitution, is not the mere monarch, but the combination of powers to whom the complete sovereignty is confided. So confident is the reviewer that no other doctrine has ever been sanctioned by any Catholic writer, that he declares the common Legitimist, or " hereditist " theory, as he prefers to call it, lest it should be assumed that he thinks there is anything legitimate in it, is disproved by the mere total absence of both proof and plausibleness. "Sup- pose," he says, "I entertained a very strong conviction that there are flowers in the moon shaped like Staunton's chess- men. I defy you to adduce one single argument in the way of disproof ; and yet you none the less suspect me of incipient insanity. But suppose I built an elaborate argument on this premiss, and brought this argument importantly to bear on the practical conduct of my life, you would certainly beg my rela- tives to apply for a writ de lunatic°. Now,—so far as we can discover or imagine,—there is not one tittle more of evidence from reason or revelation for a thesis that hereditary Royalty has a superiority of legitimacy and sacredness over other governments,—than there is for the thesis that some lunar flowers are shaped like chessmen." That is strong language, which we wish the French Catholics would take to heart. The doctrine of the Catholic Church, at least as this writer lays it down, is that the habit of reverence and obedience to some form of settled government is infinitely more important to the morality of a community than any habit of preference as amongst the forms; that the form in possession, unless it has come to its possession by a process both wrongful and recent,— apparently, even a wrongful dispossession of eleven years is, in the estimation of Roman Catholics, quite enough to terminate the claim of the most ancient and powerful of secular Govern- ments,—is the one which claims the allegiance of true Roman Catholics ; and that any theory which tends to throw an air of chivalry and romance over a chronic source of disorder and danger to public peace, is quite un-Catholic. The form in which the Roman Catholic theory appears to recognise the influence of popular choice is rather a curious, and we should say a very artificial one. It is that the people have a right of appointing the government where a regular government does not exist, but have no right of revoking what they give, unless they have reserved that power explicitly, in which case their power of revoking it is a part of the established sovereignty, and the government for the time being only holds its place till those who gave it the power take it away again. The weak part of that theory is the definition of "the people." When Louis XVIII., on corning to the throne, proposed to grant a constitution which the people accepted, he did not define who "the people" were to whom he gave it, nor who "the people" were who had the right to replace him or his successor, in case of a breach by either of them of the compact thus made with the people. When Charles X. forfeited his right, who were "the people" who received the right to nominate his successor ? Apparently it was done by the Chambers, who were very imperfect representatives of "the people." On what ground, then, would the Catholic theory maintain that Louis Philippe was the nominee of "the people " I Formally, at least, he was only the nominee of the Chambers. Indeed, it
would be extremely difficult to say at any time, after any solution of continuity, that "the people" had assented to the arrangement made. And if not, then, they would apparently have at any time as much right to make reclamations, as would a dynasty wrongfully dethroned, though supported by a certain number of still loyal adherents, under the Catholic theory,
to make similar reclamations. Now, that would put an end, we fear, to the fixity and definitiveness of the settlement,—
the one point at which, according to Catholic doctrine, the
theological theory of government should aim. For as, even on the Catholic doctrine, as we understand it, a wrongfully dis-
placed dynasty does not, for some time, lose its right to make reclamations and re-establish itself if it can, so it is clear that the same theory, rightly interpreted, reserves to a wrongfully disinherited people the same right to make reclamations and re-establish its right of appointment, if it can. Thus, "the people" would have large claims somewhat difficult to settle
for a long time after each break in the chain of government, and, except after a genuine appeal to the people, there would be much more countenance given to chronic disorder than the Catholic reviewer in the Dublin appears to think.
And this remark is not only by the way, and as showing that the unsatisfied popular emotion which makes revolutionary crises has much, more countenance, even from the theory of Suarez and Bossuet, than the admirers of Catholic politico- theology admit, but it has a special application to the present state of affairs in France. If the Roman Catholics vote for an appeal to the people, they will have far more religious sanction for the order of things in the future than if they adhere to any .form of Government settled by the present Assembly. It can hardly be denied, we think, that the Empire was really overset, according even to the theory of the Catholic theology, by the consequences of the battle of Sedan, and that a solution of continuity then occurred, in which, accord- ing to that theory, "the people" should have expressed their wishes for the future. As regards the heir to the Empire, this is not cballenged, the Imperial party insisting that only an appeal to the people could restore the Empire. But the only chance of a monarchy, as every one admits, is the present National Assembly, as it is called, which was summoned not to establish a monarchy, but to make peace. Now, according to Bossuet's doctrine, accepted by the Dublin reviewer, the source of all legitimate power, where not given directly by God, is "from the multitude, or from the people." It results "from the cession of individuals," when "wearied by a state of things in which all the world is master and yet no one is master, they have allowed themselves to be persuaded to renounce, in favour of some government on whose appointment they can agree, that right of theirs which puts everything into confusion, and that liberty of theirs which is a terror to all the world." Again, "no one denies that the power of Kings is in no such sense derived from God, but that it is also derived from the consent of .peoples," Now, it would be monstrous to say that the present Assembly, chosen for the specific purpose for which it was at first chosen, and modified as it has been modified by a series of popular elections, in which the Republicans have had a vast majority of triumphs over their adversaries, in spite of the feet that the whole official influence of Government was thrown into the opposite ranks, can bind the people. And if, as we are assured, Catholic doctrine really contends that, in the case of a solution of continuity in Government, the people have a right to intervene and appoint the new Govern- ment, surely all good Catholics should be in favour of a genuine appeal to the people at the present crisis. What- ever may be said for the Septennate, this cannot be said,— that it -is either.directly or indirectly the deliberate choice of the people. The Sovereign Assembly, as it is called, elected in 1871, was elected for the purpose of expressing the will of the conntry in the most serious military exigency of modern times, and it effected its purpose. No fair-minded man can assert that, in choosing that Assembly, the French nation either had, or could have had before its mind, the then very secondary question of the future form of government, unless, indeed, the question of the future form of government had been vitally bound up with that of peace or war. We held then, and still hold, that if the best solu- tion of the military . exigency of the situation had been one involving a particular form of government, the military question was so much the more important, that for that ptu.pose-it wonld have been fair to let an Assembly chosen for one object determine another found to be quite subordinate to it. If, for instance, Europe had been willing to unite Belgium with France, as a compensation for French losses on the Eastern border, by giving the throne of France to the King of Belgium, and so securing to Franca a pacific and sagacious dynasty, such a solution as that was fairly within the competence of the .Assembly elected in 1871. Or if, again, it had been found that the restoration of the Comte de Chambord or of the Empress Engdnie as Regent for her son, or the proclamation of a definitive Republic, had made it possible to conclude peace on much easier terms than could otherwise have been attained, in any of these cases that Assembly might have been regarded as really expressing the mind of the people. But nothing can be more monstrous than to say that that Assembly was intended or adapted in any degree to express the ,mind. of the people on the question of the mere form of government, taken alone, and out of its connection with the matter then uppermostin the people's mind, the best means of pre- serving the integrity of France. If the people have a right to appoint a government whenever a real solution of continuity occurs, then the French people have never exercised that right, or had the opportunity of exercising it, in France since the -downfall of the Empire ; and the Dublin reviewer who expounds so ably for us the doctrines of Suarez andBosimetond explodes so completely the idle dream that a
Church which lives to propagate her own theologyand her own scheme of salvation has ever condescended to favour the preju- dices of 'Kings in favour of the divine right of hereditism, should add his voice to the many which demand for Trance a downright and speedy expression .of opinion as to the political constitution she would prefer. For Catholics are -morally bound, we infer, by the theology which Suarez and Bossuet expounded, and which declared that -according to _natural reason, the power of government derives immediately from the community, and must after every solution of continuity, in .some honest way, again proceed from the community. Now, the words of Suarez, as quoted by the reviewer, are very explicit ;—"-Ex vi rationis naturalis non potest excogitari ratio cur hsec potestas determinetur ad unam personam vel ad certurrt,numerura per- sonarum infra totara communitatem, magis quern ad alium ; ergo, ex vi.naturalis coneessionis soliun est immediate in com- munitate." Are we not right, then, in maintaining that French Catholics, no less than Liberal Frenchmen who are-not Catholics, are bound to concur with the Republicans and Imperialists in demanding a sincere and speedy appeal to the people as to the future form of the governing power in France ? If the dynasty of the Bourbons had a right to repossess itself of the throne for a long period after Louis XVI.'s deposition, if it had the power,—surely, the people, never yet consulted as to the new form of Government in France rendered requisite lay the catas- trophe of Sedan, should be accorded theoretically the same right. And all Catholics who wish to see a -settled order against which there should be no moral right to protest, should vote with the Imperialists and Republicans for an " appeal to the people."
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