The Roman Question

by Edmond About

CHAPTER XVI.

EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.

All the world knows, and says over and over again, that education is less advanced in the Papal States than in any country in Europe. It is a source of universal regret that the nation which is, perhaps, of all others the most intelligent by God's grace, should be the most ignorant by the will of priests. This people has been compared to a thorough-bred horse, reduced from racing to walking blindfolded, round and round, grinding corn.

But people who talk thus take a partial view of the question. They don't, or they won't, see how entirely the development of public ignorance is in conformity with the principles of the Church, and how favourable it is to the maintenance of priestly government.

Religions are founded, not upon knowledge, or science, but upon faith, or, as some term it, credulity. People have agreed to describe as an "act of faith" the operation of closing one's eyes in order to see better. It is by walking with faith,—in other words, with one's eyes shut,—that the gates of Paradise are reached. If we could take from afar the census of that locality, we should find there more of the illiterate than of the learned. A child that knows the catechism by heart is more pleasing in the sight of Heaven than all the five classes of the Institute. The Church will never hesitate between an astronomer and a Capuchin friar. Knowledge is full of dangers. Not only does it puff up the heart of man, but it often shatters by the force of reasoning the best-constructed fables. Knowledge has made terrible havoc in the Roman Catholic Church during the last two or three hundred years. Who can tell how many souls have been cast into hell through the invention of printing.

Applied to the industrial pursuits of this sublunary sphere, science engenders riches, luxury, pleasure, health, and a thousand similar scourges, which tend to draw us away from salvation. Science cures even those irreligious maladies wherein religion used to recognize the finger of God. It no longer permits the sinner to make himself a purgatory here below. There is danger lest it should one of these days render man's terrestrial abode so blessed, that he may conceive an antipathy to Heaven. The Church, having the mission to conduct us to that eternal felicity which is the sole end of human existence, is bound to discourage our dealings with science. The utmost she can venture to do is to let a select number of her most trustworthy servants have free access to it, in order that the enemies of the faith may find somebody whom they can speak to.

This is why I undertake to show you in Rome a dozen men of high literary and scientific acquirements, to a hundred thousand who don't know their ABC.

The Church is but the more flourishing for it, and the State by no means the less so. The true shepherds of peoples, they who feed the sheep for the sake of selling the wool and the skins, do not want them to know too much. The mere fact of a man's being able to read makes him wish to meddle with everything. The custom-house may be made to keep him from reading dangerous books, but he'll be sure to take the change out of the laws of the kingdom. He'll begin to inquire whether they are good or bad, whether they accord with or contradict one another, whether they are obeyed or broken. No sooner can he calculate without the help of his fingers, than he'll want to look up the figures of the Budget. But if he has reached the culminating point of knowing how to use his pen, the sight of the smallest bit of paper will give him a sort of political itching. He will experience an uncontrollable desire to express his sentiments as a man and a citizen, by voting for one representative, and against another. And, gracious goodness! what will become of us if the refractory sheep should get as high as the generalities of history, or the speculations of philosophy?—if he should begin to stir important questions, to inquire into great truths, to refute sophisms, to point out abuses, to demand rights? The shepherd's occupation is assuredly not all roses from the day he finds it necessary to muzzle his flock.

Sovereigns who are not Popes have nothing to fear from the progress of enlightenment, for their interest does not lie in the fabrication of saints, but in the making of men. In France, England, Piedmont, and some other countries, the Governments urge, or even oblige the people to seek instruction. This is because a power which is based on reason has no fear of being discussed. Because the acts of a really national administration have no reason to dread the inquiry of the nation. Because it is not only a nobler but an easier task to govern reflecting beings than mere brutes,—always supposing the Government to be in the right. Because education softens men's manners, eradicates their evil instincts, reduces the average of crime, and simplifies the policeman's duty. Because science applied to manufactures will, in a few years, increase a hundredfold the prosperity of the nation, the wealth of the State, and the resources of power.

Because the discoveries of pure science, good books, and all the higher productions of the mind, even when they are not sources of material profit, are an honour to a country, the splendour of an age, and the glory of a Sovereign.

All the princes in Europe, with the single exception of the Pope, limit their views to the things of the earth; and they do wisely. Without raising a doubt as to a future existence in another and a better world, they govern their subjects only with regard to this life. They seek to obtain for them all the happiness of which man is capable here below; they labour to render him as perfect as he can be as long as he retains this poor "mortal coil." We should regard them as mauvais plaisants if they were to think it their duty to make for us the trials of Job, while showing us a future prospect of eternal bliss.

But the fact is that our emperors and kings and lay sovereigns are men with wives and children, personally interested in the education of the rising generation, and the future of their people. A good Pope, on the contrary, has no other object but to gain Heaven himself, and to drag up a hundred and thirty millions of men after him. Thus it is that his subjects can with an ill grace ask of him those temporal advantages which secular princes feel bound to offer their subjects spontaneously.

In the Papal States the schools for the lower classes are both few and far between. The government does nothing to increase either their number or their usefulness, the parishes being obliged to maintain them; and even this source is sometimes cut off, for not unfrequently the minister disallows this heading in the municipal budget, and pockets the money himself. In addition to this, secondary teaching, excepting in the colleges, exists but in name; and I should advise any father who wishes his son's education to extend beyond the catechism, to send him into Piedmont.

But on the other hand, I am bound to urge in the Pope's behalf that the colleges are numerous, well endowed, and provided with ample means for turning out mediocre priests. The monasteries devote themselves to the education of little monks. They are taught from an early age to hold a wax taper, wear a frock, cast down their eyes, and chant in Latin. If you wish to admire the foresight of the Church, you should see the procession of Corpus Christi day. All the convents walk in line one after the other, and each has its live nursery of little shavelings. Their bright Italian eyes, sparkling with intelligence, and their handsome open countenances, form a curious contrast with the stolid and hypocritical masks worn by their superiors. At one glance you behold the opening flowers and the ripe fruit of religion,—the present and the future. You think within yourselves that, in default of a miracle, the cherubs before you will ere long be turned into mummies. However, you console yourselves for the anticipated metamorphosis by the reflection that the salvation of the monklings is assured.

All the Pope's subjects would be sure of getting to Heaven if they could all enter the cloisters; but then the world would come to an end too soon. The Pope does his best to bring them near this state of monastic and ecclesiastical perfection. Students are dressed like priests, and corpses also are arrayed in a sort of religious costume. The Brethren of the Christian Doctrine were thought dangerous because they dressed their little boys in caps, tunics, and belts; so the Pope forbade them to go on teaching young Rome. The Bolognese (beyond the Apennines) founded by subscription asylums under the direction of lay female teachers. The clergy make most praiseworthy efforts to reform such an abuse.

There is not a law, not a regulation, not a deed nor a word of the higher powers, which does not tend to the edification of the people, and to urge them on heavenward.

Enter this church. A monk is preaching with fierce gesticulations. He is not in the pulpit, but he stands about twenty paces from it, on a plank hastily flung across trestles. Don't be afraid of his treating a question of temporal ethics after the fashion of our worldly preachers. He is dogmatically and furiously descanting on the Immaculate Conception, on fasting in Lent, on avoiding meat of a Friday, on the doctrine of the Trinity, on the special nature of hell-fire.

"Bethink you, my brethren, that if terrestrial fire, the fire created by God for your daily wants and your general use, can cause you such acute pain at the least contact with your flesh, how much more fierce and terrible must be that flame of hell-fire which ever devours without consuming those who … etc. etc."

I spare you the rest.

Our sacred orators for the most part confine themselves to preaching on such subjects as fidelity, to wives; probity, to men; obedience, to children. They descend to a level with a lay congregation, and endeavour to sow, each according to his powers, a little virtue on earth. Verily, Roman eloquence cares very much for virtue! It is greatly troubled about the things of earth! It takes the people by the shoulders and forces them into the paths of devotion, which lead straight to Heaven. And it does its duty, according to the teachings of the Church.

Open one of the devotional books which are printed in the country. Here is one selected at random, 'The Life of St. Jacintha.' It lies on a young girl's work-table. A knitting-needle marks the place at which the gentle reader left off this morning. Let us turn to the passage. It is sure to be highly edifying.

"Chapter V.—She casts from her heart all natural affection for her relations.

"Knowing from the Redeemer himself that we ought not to love our relations more than God, and feeling herself naturally drawn towards hers, she feared lest such a love, although natural, if it should take root and grow in her heart, might in the course of time surpass or impede the love she owed to God, and render her unworthy of him. So she formed the very generous determination of casting from herself all affection for the persons of her blood.

"Resolved on conquering herself by this courageous determination, and on triumphing over opposing nature itself,—powerfully urged thereto by another word of Christ, who said that in order to go to him we must hate our relations, when the love we bear them stands in the way,—she went and solemnly performed a great act of renunciation before the altar of the most holy Sacrament. There, flinging herself on her knees, her heart kindling with an ardent flame of charity towards God, she offered up to Him all the natural affections of her heart, more especially those which she felt were the strongest within her for the nearest and dearest of her relations. In this heroic action she obtained the intervention of the most holy Virgin, as may be seen by a letter in her handwriting addressed to a regular priest, wherein she promises, by the aid of the holy Virgin, to attach herself no more either to her relations, or to any other earthly object. This renunciation was so resolutely courageous and so sincere that from that hour her brothers, sisters, nephews, and all her kindred became to her objects of total indifference; and she deemed herself thenceforth so much an orphan and alone in the world, that she was enabled to see and converse with her aforesaid relations when they came to see her at the convent, as if they were persons utterly unknown to her.

"She had made herself in Paradise an entirely spiritual family, selected from among the saints who had been the greatest sinners. Her father was St. Augustin; her mother St. Mary the Egyptian; her brother St. William the Hermit, ex-Duke of Aquitaine; her sister St. Margaret of Cortona; her uncle St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; her nephews the three children of the furnace of Babylon."

Now here is a book that you, probably, attribute to the monkish ages; a book expressing the isolated sentiments of a mind obscured by the gloom of the cloisters.

In order to convince you of your error, I will give you its title and date, and the opinion concerning it expressed by the rulers of Rome.

"Life of the Virgin Saint Jacintha Mariscotti, a professed
Nun of the Third Order of the Seraphic Father St. Francis,
written by the Father Flaminius Mary Hanibal of Latara,
Brother Observant of the Order of the Minors. Rome, 1805.
Published by Antonio Fulgoni, by permission of the
Superiors.

"Approbation.—The book is to the glory and honour of the Catholic Religion and the illustrious Order of St. Francis, and to the spiritual profit of those persons who desire to enter into the way of perfection.

"Brother Thomas Mancini, of the Order of Preachers, Master,
ex-Provincial, and Consultor of Sacred Rites.

"Imprimatur. Brother Thomas Vincent Pani, of the Order of
Preachers, Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace."

Now here we have a woman, a writer, a censor, and a Master of the Palace, who are ready to strangle the whole human race for the sake of hastening its arrival in Paradise. These people are only doing their duty.

Just look out into the street. Four men of different ages are kneeling in the mud before a Madonna, whining out prayers. Presently, fifteen or twenty others come upon you, chanting a canticle to the glory of Mary. Perhaps you think they are yielding to a natural inspiration, and freely working out their salvation. I thought so myself, till I was told that they were paid fifteen-pence for thus edifying the bystanders. This comedy in the open air is subsidized by the Government. And the Government does its duty.

The streets and roads swarm with beggars. Under lay governments the poor either receive succour in their own homes, or are admitted to houses of public charity; they are not allowed to obstruct the public thoroughfares, and tyrannize over the passengers. But we are in an ecclesiastical country. On the one hand, poverty is dear to God; on the other, alms-giving is a deed of piety. If the Pope could make one half of his subjects hold out their hands, and the other half put a halfpenny into each extended palm, he would effect the salvation of an entire people.

Mendicity, which lay sovereigns regard as an ugly sore in the State, to be healed, is tended and watered as a fair flower by a clerical government. Pray give something to yonder sham cripple; give to that cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and be sure you don't forget that blind young man leaning on his father's arm! A medical man of my acquaintance offered yesterday to restore his sight, by operating for the cataract. The father cried aloud with indignant horror at the proposal; the boy is a fortune to him. Drop an alms for the son into the father's bowl; the Pope will let you into Paradise, of which he keeps the keys.

The Romans themselves are not duped by their beggars. They are too sharp to be taken in by these swindlers in misery. Still they put their hands into their pockets; some from weakness or humanity, some from ostentation, some to gain Paradise. If you doubt my assertion, try an experiment which I once did, with considerable success. One night, between nine and ten o'clock, I begged all along the Corso. I was not disguised as a beggar. I was dressed as if I were on the Boulevards at Paris. Still, between the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza di Venezia, I made sixty-three baiocchi (about three shillings). If I were to try the same joke at Paris, the sergents-de-ville would very properly think it their duty to walk me off to the nearest police-station. The Pontifical Government encourages mendicity by the protection of its agents, and recommends it by the example of its friars. The Pontifical Government does its duty.

Prostitution flourishes in Rome, and in all the large towns of the States of the Church. The police is too paternal to refuse the consolations of the flesh to three millions of persons out of whom five or six thousand have taken the vow of celibacy. But in proportion as it is indulgent to vice, it is severe in cases of scandal. It only allows light conduct in women when they are sheltered by the protection of a husband.[12] It casts the cloak of Japhet over the vices of the Romans, in order that the pleasures of one nation may not be a scandal to others. Rather than admit the existence of the evil, it refuses to place it under proper restraint: lay governments appear to sanction the social evil, when they place it under the control of the law. The clerical police is perfectly aware that its noble and wilful blindness exposes the health of an entire people to certain danger. But it rubs its hands at the reflection that the sinners are punished by the very sin itself. The clerical police does its duty.

The institution of the lottery is retained by the Popes, not as a source of revenue only. Lay governments have long since abolished it, because in a well-organized state, where industry leads to everything, citizens should be taught to rely upon nothing but their industry. But in the kingdom of the Church, where industry leads to nothing, not only is the lottery a consolation to the poor, but it forms an integral part of the public education. The sight of a beggar suddenly enriched, as it were by enchantment, goes far to make the ignorant multitude believe in miracles. The miracle of the loaves and fishes was scarcely more marvellous than the changing of tenpence into two hundred and fifty pounds. A high prize is like a present from God; it is money falling from Heaven. This people know that no human power can oblige three particular numbers to come out together; so they rely on the divine mercy alone. They apply to the Capuchin friars for lucky numbers; they recite special prayers for so many days; they humbly call for the inspiration of Heaven before going to bed; they see in dreams the Madonna stuck all over with figures; they pay for masses at the Churches; they offer the priest money if he will put three numbers under the chalice at the moment of the consecration. Not less humbly did the courtiers of Louis XIV. range themselves in the antechamber he was to pass through, in the hope of obtaining a look or a favour. The drawing of the lottery is public, as are the University lectures in France. And, verily, it is a great and salutary lesson. The winners learn to praise God for his bounties: the losers are punished for having unduly coveted worldly pelf. Everybody profits—most of all the Government, which makes £80,000 a year by it, besides the satisfaction of having done its duty.

Yes, the holy preceptors of the nation fulfil their duty towards God, and towards themselves. But it does not necessarily follow that they always manage the affairs of God and of the Government well.

"On rencontre sa destinée
Souvent par les chemins qu'on prend pour l'eviter."

La Fontaine tells us this, and the Pope proves it to us. In spite of the attention paid to religious instruction, the sermons, the good books, the edifying spectacles, the lottery, and so many other good things, faith is departing. The general aspect of the country does not betray the fact, because the fear of scandal pervades all society; but the devil loses nothing by that. Perhaps the citizens have the greater dislike to religion, from the very fact of its reigning over them. Our master is our enemy. God is too much the master of these people not to be treated by them in some degree as an enemy.

The spirit of opposition is called atheism, where the Tuileries are called the Vatican. A young ragamuffin, who drove me from Rimini to Santa Maria, let slip a terrible expression, which I have often thought of since: "God?"—he said, "if there be one, I dare say he's a priest like the rest of 'em."

Reflect upon these words, reader! When I examine them closely, I start back in terror, as before those crevices of Vesuvius, which give you a glimpse of the abyss below.

Has the temporal power served its own interests better than it has those of God? I doubt it. The deputation of Rome was Red in 1848. It was Rome that chose Mazzini. It is Rome that still regrets him in the low haunts of the Regola, on that miry bank of the Tiber, where secret societies swarm at this moment, like gnats on the shores of the Nile.

If these deplorable fruits of a model education were pointed out to the philosopher Gavarni, he would probably exclaim, "Bring up nations, in order that they may hate and despise you!"