6 Papal Infallibility and of the Syllabus. The Univers, which had been suppressed by the Emperor in 1861, but had revived in 1867, was daily agitating in the same sense. No time, therefore, was to be lost in giving expression to a contrary opinion. Maret, Bishop in partibus of Sura, the ablest theologian of the Sorbonne, published the book, Du Concile général et de la paix religieuse, after Janus had appeared in Germany, and The Reform of the Church in its Head and its Members in Austria. While Maret's book was still occupying theologians, Montalembert, from his sick-bed, sent to the editors of the Correspondant an article L'Espagne et la liberté.' Quite terrified, they refused its insertion. On the very eve of the Council,' Montalembert himself remarks: 'I have been found too liberal and compromising. Perhaps in consequence of my illness and loneliness, I stand no longer at that political height which inspires a silence so heroic.' 34 And again: Nous sommes au bord de l'abîme, plus béant que jamais, mais défense expresse de dire un mot vrai sur le moyen de n'y pas tomber ou d'en sortir après la chute.' 35 Deeply hurt and bitterly disappointed, he found consolation and encouragement once more in the conduct of the German Catholics, as he gratefully acknowledges in a letter to the authors of the Coblenz Lay Address. Henceforth the thought was always present to him, that his friend Dupanloup might be steeled for resistance by contact with Germany. This wish was so far realised that Dupanloup made a short visit to that country in the autumn of 1869, and then passed from the Rhine into Burgundy, to see Montalembert. After this last touching meeting, he went back to Orleans, where he published in quick succession three pamphlets,36 of which the first is the most important. He declares his determination not to discuss the dogma of Infallibility, but admits the value of the objections raised against its definition, objections which in their bearings tell, at least in part, against the dogma itself. However, his last words were those of hopeful trust. Vous admirez l'Evêque d'Orléans (Montalembert wrote to a friend, on the 7th of November, 1869)-vous l'admireriez bien plus encore, si vous pouviez vous figurer l'abîme d'idolâtrie où est tombé le clergé français. Cela dépasse tout ce qu'on aurait jamais pu s'imaginer aux jours de ma jeunesse, aux temps de Frayssinous et de Lamennais. Le pauvre Mgr. Maret, pour avoir exposé des idées très-modérées dans un langage plein d'urbanité et de charité, est traité publiquement dans les journaux soidisant religieux d'hérésiarque et d'apostat par les derniers de nos curés! De tous les mystères que présente en si grand nombre l'histoire de l'Église, je n'en connais pas un qui dépasse ou qui égale cette transformation si complète et si prompte de la France Catholique dans une basse-cour de l'anti-camera du Vatican.$7 31 Hommage à la mémoire de Montalembert, par R. Oheix, Nantes, 1870, p. 34. 35 Montalembert, letter written January 28, 1869. 36 These are: Lettre au Clergé de son diocèse, relativement à la définition de l'Infaillibilité; (2) Lettre au Clergé et aux fidèles de son diocèse avant son départ pour Rome; (3) Lettre aux prêtres de son diocèse pour leur donner communication de son avertissement à M. Louis Veuillot. 37 Montalembert, letter dated November 7, 1869." His urgent desire that Döllinger should go to Rome, and Newman resolve to accompany thither the Bishop of Orleans, was not fulfilled. Dupanloup crossed the Alps alone, to fight a battle that was lost before it began. Those only, who passed through that time with the Bishop, are aware how late this conviction dawned upon him, and could perceive how daily, nay, hourly, his eyes were being opened to the true state of affairs. Nothing speaks louder for his devotion to, and his trust and confidence in, the Holy See, than that it was only after his arrival in Rome, that he acquired the clear conviction that he had been summoned thither, not to examine a dogma, but to sanction it, and to add the weight of his name to a ready-made system. Expressions which those who heard them will never forget, showed the bitterness of his disappointment, although it was not in his gallant nature to give up resistance to the very last. The great arsenal of German theology and learning furnished him with weapons, his friend Gratry supported him from Paris. By his pamphlets against Archbishop Dechamps of Malines, through the newspapers, by means of his friends, he strove to rouse public opinion from its lethargic state. When he was refused the imprimatur at Rome, he had his writings printed at Naples. When the Opposition saw itself hampered on all sides by the rules for the conduct of business, he appealed to his friend Count Daru, then minister for foreign affairs in the Cabinet of Ollivier, to take up again the old tradition and send an ambassador to represent the first Catholic power at the Council. He recommended M. Thiers with the characteristic addition: 'Il les charmerait tous!' and when this proved impossible, he suggested the Duc de Broglie. But all was in vain. His finest tempered blades were shivered to pieces against the firm rampart his adversaries had erected against every possible attack, with persistent tenacity and most admirable skill. Already, in February, the Français began to rebel. 'Cette diplomatie de trembleurs et de muets,' as Montalembert called them, no longer ventured to convey the Bishop's words to the French Catholics. 38 Le voilà maintenant sans défense devant le public français et au milieu de ses ennemis à Rome (Montalembert wrote). Les prédictions de Mgr. de Neversi ne se sont que trop vérifiées. Quelque sinistres qu'aient été mes prévisions sur le Concile, je n'aurais jamais cru que l'Episcopat réuni eût osé exclure de la commission décisive du Concile l'Evêque le plus illustre de la Chrétienté. . . . Cet affront inouï ne doit que nous le rendre plus cher : pour moi, je sens que je l'aime et que je l'admire cent fois plus qu'auparavant. Le voilà qui couronne sa glorieuse vieillesse, non plus par une victoire de plus ajoutée à tant d'autres, mais par ce je ne sais quoi d'achevé que la disgrâce et l'impopularité ajoutent à la gloire, surtout quand elles sont encourues par le plus noble dévouement à la justice et à la vérité.39 On the 13th of March, 1870, the Bishop lost this friend, who "Abbé de la Doue, author of the Life of Monseigneur Gerbet. welcomed death as a deliverer. From the funeral oration, which Pius the Ninth made upon this loyal champion, Dupanloup could see what he had to expect. A Catholic is dead,' said the Pope, 'who has done service to the Church. He was a Liberal Catholic, that means half a Catholic. Verily, the Liberal Catholics are only half Catholics.' 40 It was about this time that Louis Veuillot, now master of the situation, in a new attack in the Univers taunted the Bishop with the doubtful circumstances of his birth, which alone could have been used as a sufficient reason for excluding him from the cardinalate. He had not read De Maistre in vain, and had noted this passage, 'On n'a rien fait contre les opinions, tant qu'on n'a pas attaqué les personnes.' In this art the Bishop of Orleans had no doubt much to learn, he who at the beginning of the Council, when a question arose as to the publication of a controversial treatise, hesitatingly observed, cela déshonorera les Jésuites . . . mais on ne peut plus l'éviter!'41 After those days of March the history of the Opposition is the record of one defeat after another. When several of its most prominent men, such as Haynald and Darboy, proposed to leave Rome, Dupanloup was one of those who rejected this proposal. It was on this occasion that Darboy exclaimed, Nous partirons, et nous emporterons le concile dans la semelle de nos souliers.' Of the many reasons which caused the defeat of the Opposition, their blunders in tactics, however, played only a subordinate part. After his return from Rome, Dupanloup made his submission like nearly all the bishops of the Opposition. At a later period, he saw Pius the Ninth again, but the undercurrent of antipathy that had always existed in Roman circles towards him, held now the upper hand. Montalembert remarked it as early as 1865: Grâce à l'Évêque d'Orléans, nous sommes restés maître du terrain à Malines. On en sera fort mécontent à Rome, où ce prélat est odioux, comme ils disent.'42 Dupanloup was well aware of this, and when, after the murder of Darboy, the French Government intended to appoint him his successor in the archiepiscopal chair of Paris, he decidedly refused, giving as his reason the feelings of personal animosity, which Pius the Ninth entertained against him. The painful events that awaited him in France in 1870, are still fresh in the memory of all. No one shared more deeply the patriotic sorrows of those days, or suffered more deeply than Dupanloup, who was a genuine French character in his virtues as in his faults. When Orleans fell the first time into the enemy's hands he was indefatigable, nursed the sick and wounded, Germans and French alike, like a true Christian priest, and was able Spoken at an audience in the Vatican in March 1870. "While this article has been going through the press, M. de Falloux has described the character of the Bishop in these true and happy words: 'Il avait, au même degré, toutes les véhémences de la conviction, et toutes les délicatesses de la charité.' "Montalembert, letter dated November 17, 1865. to obtain milder conditions for the town, from the Bavarian General. At the second occupation of Orleans, things fell out less favourably for the city. The Bishop was guarded in his house and accused by General von der Tann of having contributed to the defeat of the Bavarians at Coulmiers by the information he had given to the French General, D'Aurelles de Paladine. For such things, men are shot in times of war, in times of peace they are judged differently. It would be premature now, even if space permitted it, to give an account of the part the Bishop played in the Assemblée, as the zealous champion of the efforts made to restore the Monarchy. These events are too recent to be judged from an objective point of view. This much, however, can be clearly seen, that he allowed himself to be deceived by partial successes; too great attention to party calculations and questions of detail caused him to lose sight of the large lines of politics. Dupanloup lost the game twice, the first time when he appealed to the Comte de Chambord to accept the tricolor with the crown, and then again as one of those who formed the state of mind which led to the 16th of May. The King rejected all conditions, and the Marshal renounced every attempt at resistance. It remains to be seen whether in France it will be the Republic to which the future belongs, according to the aphorism of M. Thiers: 'L'avenir appartiendra au parti le plus sage.' It is only necessary to allude to Renan's Caliban, to remind our readers how very little of a reactionary a man may be to doubt it. The Débats was right when it said: 'Dans la patrie comme dans l'Église Dupanloup n'a jamais été de la majorité.' On his way to Rome, to his old friend, J. Pecci, who had become Pope Leo the Thirteenth, having been for some time indisposed, he was overtaken by death at Laincey in Loiret. There, on the 11th of October, 1878, fully resigned and in the act of prayer, after a short agony, he breathed his last in the arms of a friend. Throughout Christendom his death was felt to be a heavy loss. Leo the Thirteenth, with tears in his eyes, extolled the greatness and nobility of his heart. His enemies bowed before the purity of his priestly career. One voice alone was heard to utter, Il fut un de ces passants remarquables qui n'arrivent pas.' In his last will the Bishop had expressed a wish that no funeral oration should be pronounced upon his memory, but he was buried with regal pomp. No place on earth could be more suitable for him than the Cathedral of Sainte Croix, where the banner of the Maid of Orleans guards his rest. With Dupanloup has passed away not only the greatest and most sympathetic member of the present French episcopate, but a whole school of thought. Count Falloux could recently convince himself of this, when his earnest and eloquent call of warning met no longer with any response.43 Disowned by Pius the Ninth, abandoned by its own followers, overtaken by the events of the time, that whole school 43 See Journal des Débats, October 23 and 30, 1878. 6 has ceased to exist; and if the present generation are reminded of it, it is only by the insolence of its enemies. But that which once had life can never be utterly destroyed, and truth remains for ever. The Liberal Catholics perished, not because they had chosen a lofty ideal, but because, under the pressure of circumstances, they also lowered their standard. It is as impossible for the Liberal Catholic party as it hitherto existed to come to life again, as it is for the present Ultramontane party to endure for ever; and the noble and amiable A. Cochin, who was one in mind with Dupanloup, was right in saying Parti Catholique, déplorable mot: 'Catholiques de tous les partis.' And yet the future belongs to the main doctrines of the Liberal Catholics; to their guiding principle of equal rights for all, and to their faith in the union of the Church with liberty. They themselves will not be forgotten, when the children shall have accomplished that which the fathers strove for. They can claim the humble merit that even through their errors they have been of use; and looking back on them, future generations may remember the words of Joan of Arc: They had their share in the struggle, they shall also have their share in the triumph.' C. DE WARMONT. |