III.
The first consul found the affairs of the (Roman) Catholic church in great disorder. Sworn and unsworn priests assailed each other in violent controversies, and divided their flocks. Buonaparte’s advisers almost unanimously recommended him to abstain from interfering in the religious question, assuring him that the advantage he could reap would be but small, while the difficulties were infinite; and that it would be better to leave the Church itself to pacify, as it could, its internal struggles. The new chief of the state did not adopt this advice, and opened negotiation with the Holy See. We are assured that he confessed, fifteen years afterwards, that this was the greatest mistake of his reign.
A Concordat was signed between the first consul and the legate of Pius VII., on the 26th Messidor, year IX. (15th July, 1801). This re-establishment of the alliance between the temporal and the spiritual powers was necessarily destined to react upon the position of French Protestantism.
The pope had strongly insisted that the (Roman) Catholic religion should be proclaimed as the state, or at least as the dominant religion. Neither the one nor the other of these pretensions were admitted, lest, as the negotiator of the consular government stated, the supposition might be excited of the return of an intolerant and oppressive religion. The following declaration was merely inserted in the preamble of the Concordat: “The government of the Republic recognises the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, as the religion of the great majority of the French people.”
This was nothing more than the enunciation of a simple fact. Nevertheless the council of state conceived that it was bound to remove any interpretation that might be unfavourable to the Protestants. We read these remarkable words in a report submitted to the Consuls in the beginning of 1802: “While the government has declared that Catholicism is in the ascendant in France, it has not intended to authorize any civil or political pre-eminence in its favour. It has simply signified the priority of the measures it has taken to secure the independence, which it proposes to guarantee to all creeds. Protestantism is a Christian communion, which unites in the same belief and the same rites a very great number of French citizens. On that ground alone, this communion is entitled to the protection of the government. In other respects it deserves marks of consideration and favour. Its founders were the first to spread liberal maxims of government in Europe; they gave an impulse to morals, philosophy, and the useful arts and sciences. In later times, the Protestants were the first to hasten to the standard of liberty, and have never deserted it. It is, therefore, the duty of the government to insure its protection to the peaceable assemblies of this enlightened and generous minority of citizens, met together in their temples with the praiseworthy view of hearkening to the precepts of the religion of Christ.... Everything that is secured to the different Christian communions by the articles agreed upon between his holiness and the government of the Republic, is equally guaranteed to the Protestants, with the exception of pecuniary subvention.”
The Protestant pastors were therefore to receive no salary from the public treasury, while the bishops and the priests had one. This was returning to the decree of the Constituent Assembly, which granted incomes in effect to the ministers of the (Roman) Catholic creed only, but different reasons were relied upon. The Constituent Assembly regarded the salary of the clergy as an indemnification for the loss of their property. The council of state of 1802, left out this consideration altogether. It justified its intention of paying the priests without paying the pastors, upon three grounds. Firstly, certain expenses might be imposed upon all for the interest of the majority. Next, the voluntary offerings raised by the priests for the maintenance of the (Roman) Catholic worship, begot prodigality and abuses, which, for different causes, did not exist among the Protestants in the same degree. Finally, “in the articles agreed upon between the head of the Roman church and the government of the Republic, the burden imposed upon the State was compensated by the right acquired by the government, to interfere directly and efficaciously in the administration of the Church by its nomination of the principal ministers and its control over the subordinate ministers.”
Thus there arose two very distinct positions for the (Roman) Catholics and the Protestants. For the former, a state salary, but also the intervention of the government in the appointment of the bishops and cantonal curates: the civil power provided the money, and by its money acquired the right of interference in the affairs of the Church. For the latter, no salary, but also a full liberty of internal action [was permitted]. [There was to be] no sacrifice of money on the one side, no sacrifice of independence on the other.
In reality a decree of nine articles was drawn up, on the 21st Ventose, year X. (12th March, 1802), by which there was no question [admitted] but of general measures of police and common right for the communion of the Protestants. Buonaparte wrote in the margin of the minute of this decree, that two articles were wanting,—one respecting the oath of the Protestant ministers, another respecting the manner of their appointment; but the project went no farther.[138]
It may be thus seen that the Reformed communion narrowly escaped completely realizing the separation of Church and the State. The obstacle came from the first consul, who, anxious to secure authority over Protestantism by the oath and the appointment of the pastors, felt at the same time that he must, in compensation, support the Reformed faith at the cost of the public treasury; and out of the desire to possess this influence flowed the law of the 18th Germinal, year X. (7th April, 1802).
If we had proposed to ourselves to write observations upon the history of French Protestantism instead of relating the history itself, we might ask what would have been the destiny of their churches, and what would be their position to-day if Buonaparte had adopted the advice of his council of state, and had left them wholly independent without granting them any endowment. Opposite opinions might be maintained upon this question with equal good faith; but the examination of this subject would lead us away from our subject.
The historical fact, which is the only point that engages our present attention, is, that the majority of the Protestants, both pastors and laity, right or wrong, hailed the law of the 18th Germinal as an inestimable favour. They cared less for the sacrifice of a part of their religious independence than for the advantages they hoped for from a state endowment; in which they beheld two great advantages,—a legal and incontestable recognition, and the official pledge of a perfect equality with the Roman Catholics.
Rabaut-Dupuy, who presided in the legislative body in 1802, made himself the organ of the feelings of gratitude and joy of his co-religionists at the closing of the session. “Legislators,” he said, “this law of justice has been received with thankfulness by all Christians; the Protestants have recognised all its value.... Restored to the freedom of civil, political, and religious rights, now that the law organizes all creeds in a parallel manner, they will be the firmest supporters of a protecting government.”
He also said, in 1807, in a letter addressed to the Reformed of the Empire: “You, who have lived like us under the yoke of intolerance, the relict of so many persecuted generations, see and compare.—It is no longer in deserts, and at the peril of your life, that you pay to the Creator the homage which is due to Him. Our places of worship are restored to us, and every day new ones spring up. Our pastors are recognised public functionaries; they are salaried by the government; the sword of a barbarous law is no longer suspended over their heads.... Alas! those whom we have outlived, ascended the mountain of Nebo, whence they beheld the land of promise; but we alone have gone in to possess it.”
At the same time, however unanimous the Protestants of that epoch may have been in their sentiments concerning the law of Germinal, it must be acknowledged that it has in many essential points changed the constitution of the French Reformation, and has made it pay dearly for the advantage of the political equality of the religions.
In bringing the new organic articles before the legislative body, the councillor of state, Portalis, afterwards minister of worship, announced that the law had been made upon verbal or written instructions taken from the Protestants. “If it appertains,” he said, “to the laws to admit or to reject different creeds, the different creeds have an existence by themselves, which they cannot hold of the law, whose origin is not thought to take its source in human wishes.” One would thereupon suppose that the government had confined itself to interrogating the Protestants upon their articles of faith and discipline, and that it had simply sanctioned them. But we have only to compare, in order to undeceive ourselves, the law of the 18th Germinal with the rules established by the national synods.
According to the ancient order, which is the system of Calvinistic presbyterianism, religious society exists in and by itself. It has its supreme authority, its secondary authorities, its doctrine, its discipline, its means of government, and its penalties. In the new order, religious society having no longer any confession of faith officially recognised; having no power to establish another without the permission of the civil magistrate; possessing no longer any general and fixed rules outside or independent of its relations with the state, and, controlled in the conduct of its internal affairs by the secular power, having no government, in the true sense of the word; it seems to lean for its very existence on a strength that does not emanate from its own foundation.
Formerly, it was the pastors and the elders who, assembled in conferences, in provincial synods, and in national synods, sovereignly decided upon all ecclesiastical questions. They appointed ministers, tried and adjudged disputes arising in the flocks, inflicted spiritual penalties, ordered changes that were thought to be useful; directed, in short, the churches in their quality of churches, in everything that concerned piety, morals, edification, and Christian life. Under the régime of 1802, there was nothing that did not seem to originate with the temporal authority, and everything centres in it one way or another—the confirmation and removal of pastors, dogmatic decisions, modifications in discipline, the projects of ministers of worship or of the consistories, and disputes among the flocks. Does not this seem to be an essentially civil organization substituted for an essentially ecclesiastical organization?
The chief differences, which exist in the general outline, are also reproduced in the details.
The primitive element, which corresponded to that of the commune in the political society, that is to say, the individual church, having its consistory and its pastor, is suppressed, at least in its proper and distinct authority, by the articles of 1802, and replaced by the creation of the consistorial church, which is composed of a certain number of agglomerated Protestants. The five or six particular churches of which it consists, are nothing more than sections or fragments of the body, and their consistories have no legal title. It is absolutely as if all the communes in the domain of the state were suppressed with their municipal councils, and absorbed in the purely conventional existence of the cantons.
The law of the year X. concentrates the consistorial capacity in the ranks of the persons paying the largest amount of direct taxes. Twenty-five of these tax-payers nominate the first consistory. Then the consistory itself designates the notables, who are, in concert with itself, to provide for the re-elections to the vacancies. The two conditions of piety and of fortune may doubtless be found in union; but when they are not so, it is wealth that will prevail, if the legal text be strictly complied with. The mass of the faithful, or the people, according to the expression of the ancient discipline, have no right of election, of veto, nor of consent.
In the place of the provincial synods, which reckoned from thirty to forty members, and occasionally more, since each particular church of the province deputed a pastor and an elder to them, the law of Germinal instituted district synods, formed of five consistorial churches. The assembly, therefore, can consist of ten members only, and may last only six days. It has no privilege of meeting but with the permission of the government, after having informed it of the matters for discussion, and in presence of a prefect or sub-prefect. Even farther, all the decisions which emanate from these synods, of whatever description they may be, must be submitted for the approbation of the civil power. And yet, for nearly half a century, there has been, in spite of these excessive precautions, only one district synod, that of Drôme, which was convoked in 1850.
Lastly, there is no longer a national synod; for the organic articles having stated nothing about the composition and the attributes of this assembly, and not having even pronounced the name, while they carefully determined everything concerning the district synods, it is beyond all doubt that the silence of the legislature is equivalent to an entire suppression.
The law of Germinal, therefore, is not the confirmation of the ancient discipline of the Reformed, as might be inferred from the speech of M. Portalis; it is, in some respects, its destruction. It is true, that the change of ideas and manners must necessarily induce modifications in ecclesiastical regulations, and that no intelligent man could have desired a complete restoration of the past. It is also true, that the internal defects of Protestantism have done more harm to liberty than the organic articles, and that faith might have corrected in many respects the vices of the law. Let us not impute to the legislator what must chiefly be laid to the charge of the Protestants themselves. Nevertheless, the régime of 1802, established after the recent excesses of liberty, bears the marks of an extreme reaction. No subsequent government would have exacted so many sacrifices of independence, and the unanimous opinion of French Protestantism, in the present day, is, that the revision of the articles of the year X. is imperatively required. Some members of that communion demand more, others less; but all desire a law that shall more fully guarantee the freedom of the churches.
It was not so, as we have seen, in the time of the Consulate. A memorial was simply presented to the political authority, soliciting the formation of a central commission, which would have been composed of a pastor and an elder from each district synod. This commission, subjected to all the rules imposed upon the inferior synods, would have endeavoured to establish some unity in dogma, worship, and discipline, under the eye of the government commissioner. But the memorial produced no effect.
Twenty-seven consistorial presidents were summoned to the coronation of Napoleon. In a preliminary conference, they discussed whether they ought to assist at the religious service, and after some hesitation, they decided in the affirmative, either because the emperor was pledged to take the oath to protect the liberty of worship, or because they feared that their absence might be injurious to the interests of the Reformed churches. “It would be absurd to suppose,” they said, in a deliberation recorded upon the registers of the consistory of Paris, “that any pastor-president could be compromised, or have any scruple of conscience respecting a mute assistance at ceremonies,—religious it is true in their nature, but which require no consent, no outward sign of adoration on the part of the spectators,—ceremonies which are so intimately associated with the civil ceremonies, that they almost lose the peculiar character imparted to them by the Roman Catholic creed.”
M. Martin, the president of the consistory of Geneva, which was then a French town, presented his homage to the emperor in the name of his colleagues and of all the Protestants. The answer of Napoleon deserves to be remembered in history: “It is with pleasure that I see the pastors of the Reformed churches of France here assembled. I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to express how much I have always been satisfied with everything that has been told me of the fidelity and good conduct of the pastors and citizens of the different Protestant communions. I am desirous it should be known that my intention and my firm will are to maintain freedom of worship. The empire of the law ends where the indefinite empire of the conscience begins; and neither the law nor the sovereign can prevail against this freedom. Such are my principles and those of the nation, and if any member of my family, whose lot it may be to succeed me, should forget the oath I have sworn, and, deceived by the inspiration of a false conscience, should violate it, I devote him to public animadversion, and I authorize you to style him a Nero.”
The emperor kept his promise faithfully. There was no persecution against the Protestants during his reign; [they suffered] no violence of any kind against their civil or religious rights; [they enjoyed] a full and continued security. But it was an internal liberty confined within the walls of the places of worship. There was a strict prohibition against any disturbance, or any movement in religious matters. Neither journals nor associations, neither controversy nor proselytism were permitted; and if by any act or thought it was ventured to pass beyond the precincts wherein they were restrained, the iron hand of Napoleon immediately drove them back.
We have heard it said that a (Roman) Catholic village having formed the design of entering the Reformed communion, a pastor, conceiving that he had the right of doing so, visited it for the purpose; but he immediately found himself confronted by the imperial government, which ordered him to return home and remain quiet. The pastor was compelled to submit and obey. How many circumstances [there were] like this are unknown!
If Napoleon forbade the religious sects to step beyond their places of worship, he reserved the privilege of entering and commanding there himself whenever he thought expedient. For instance, on the 19th of February, 1806, he instituted two fêtes upon the simple report of the council of state; one for the anniversary of his birth, the other for that of his coronation and the battle of Austerlitz. The decree ran, “A discourse shall be preached in the churches and in the places of worship, by a minister of religion, upon the glory of the French armies, and upon the extent of the duty imposed on every citizen to consecrate his life to his sovereign and the country.”
And, indeed, French Protestantism has, properly speaking, no history during the fourteen years of the Consulate and the Empire. Weak in numbers, scattered, without bond or union, without a common discipline, constrained to be humble and silent, and to avoid all occasion of disturbing the official classification of religions, the community of the Protestants dragged on a uniform and obscure existence. “The ministers preached,” says M. Samuel Vincent, “and the people listened; the consistories met, and worship preserved its forms. Beyond this, no one troubled himself, no one thought, and religion was a thing beyond the life of all. This lasted a long while.”[139]
We are not aware of the publication of a single important book upon dogma, ecclesiastical history, or sacred eloquence, in the course of Napoleon’s reign. A few occasional sermons, some courses of religious instruction, some abridgments of sacred history, three or four translations of English and German works, constitute the Protestant literature of this epoch. We do not comprise such works as the Essay of Charles Villers, in which literature, arts, and philosophy engaged the attention more than religion.
If we confine ourselves to the actual limits of France, there were not more than two hundred pastors in 1807; the number is more than double now. The flocks of many were spread over so wide a breadth of country, that the pastors were necessarily compelled to lead a kind of nomade life, which, in itself, would be a sufficient reason for not judging them severely. Nor can we, indeed, form an idea of all the good they did in their humble labours, of all the unfortunates they consoled, the poor they succoured, or all the souls they edified and brought back to God. Their burthen was heavier than that of the men who succeeded them, and their task was less thankful. They had to contend at the same time against the too great extent of their ecclesiastical districts, and against the lukewarmness of the people, who cared for nothing but the military triumphs of Napoleon.
Some of these pastors maintained relations with the German societies of the Moravian Brethren, and gathered round them the faithful, who were influenced by the same convictions. “They were in general,” says M. Vincent, “peaceable and inoffensive people, who dogmatized little, and made religion to consist of love, particularly of love for Jesus; whilst they assembled in small numbers, without show or pretension, with the intention of a very mild and moderate proselytism.”[140]
The French seminary of Lausanne had been transported to Geneva; but as it was inadequate to the wants of the pastoral body, the emperor created a Faculty of Protestant theology at Montauban (1808-1810). The chain of associations was thus renewed for one of the most ancient and celebrated of the chief towns of the French Reformation. Montauban had lost its theological academy in 1661 by the intrigues of the Jesuits; Napoleon restored it. Men pass away, and persecutions expire; but the institutions necessary to human intelligence and conscience fall only to rise again.
Projects of reunion between the Christian communions were proposed about this period. Public authority did not interfere again as in the time of Richelieu and Louis XIV.; it did not even appear to attach the slightest importance to the notion, which simply originated with a few private individuals.
The archbishop of Besançon, M. Claude Lecoz, who had been a member of the Legislative Assembly, a constitutional bishop in 1791, and the author of some very severe pamphlets against Pope Pius VI. on the subject of the civil constitution of the clergy, felt it incumbent upon him to evince his zeal for the (Roman) Catholic faith. In the month of November, 1804, he addressed a public letter to MM. Marron, Rabaut-Pomier, and Mastrezat, pastors at Paris, in which he invited them to profit by the visit of Pius VII. to France, in order to return to the Romish church. “With what eagerness,” said he, “would the pontiff acquiesce in every means of reconciliation compatible with the rights of truth! With what joy would he open his arms to children, whose estrangement distracts his paternal bosom!” The pastors of Paris replied, that no project of reunion was practicable with the condition of returning as erring and repentant sheep to the Church of Rome; and that, moreover, complete religious unity seemed to them utterly impossible.
M. de Beaufort, a lawyer of some talent, entered the lists in his turn; taking up the question on political grounds, he contended that a word from Napoleon would reunite the different churches. M. Lecoz answered this new antagonist with some asperity; M. de Beaufort rejoined in vehement terms, and the project of reconciliation terminated in reciprocal invectives.
M. Tabaraud, formerly a priest of the congregation of the Oratory, also published a book with reference to the union of the Protestant communions. He had defended their civil lights in 1788, against a diatribe of the bishop of La Rochelle, upon the edict of Louis XVI.; and as he was an inflexible adversary of Ultramontane opinions, and an enlightened Jansenist, he had a stronger title than the generality of his cloth to be listened to with favour. His attempts, however, had no greater success than the preceding, and we have only to admire the learning he displayed in the historical exposition of his subject. Where can be the point of junction between the absolute authority in matters of dogma, which Rome will not renounce, and the right of examination, which the Reformation cannot be induced to surrender? The most ingenious combinations must fail to supply the want of a common ground.