THE SOLDIER-PRIESTS OF FRANCE
It makes me a little proud to remember that I was one of the few writers in these countries to announce and celebrate the birth of la nouvelle France long before the coming of the war. For many years the Republic has been in ill repute in the Catholic world. Men thought of her as the home of Renan and scepticism, of Gambetta and anti-clericalism, of Combes—the unspeakable Combes—and persecution, of Anatole France and refined sensualism, of a score of lesser writers and plain pornography. That interpretation of her life was never true although it had elements of truth in it. Even in the old France there were two strains: there was Rabelais as well as Pascal, Montaigne as well as Bossuet, Voltaire as well as St. Francis de Sales. There is, indeed, lodged in the very mind and temper of France a seed of perilous adventure. Her courage is a constant temptation to dally with the blasphemous and the foul: her lucidity—for vague and furtive innuendoes are like a toothache to French style—doubles the offence when she lapses.
But on the other hand there was something peculiarly obnoxious in the circumstance that these attacks on France proceeded in great part from German sources. That there were many splendid Catholics in Germany was of course true. They were strong enough in numbers and organisation to have done something finer than throw themselves into the arms of Prussianism. The failure of the Centre Party in that regard will lie as a heavy cloud on its future. But that German Catholics should have lent themselves, as they did, to a systematic denigration of France in foreign periodicals was contemptible. The truth is that every German in the modern period has become infected with the superstition that he belongs to the chosen race. Matthew Arnold—who, for the rest, did not himself believe very luminously in God—started in these countries the notion that the war of 1870 was, as he called it, the judgment of Judæa on Greece. That a Protestant God should have thus judged a country whose old title was that of “eldest daughter of the Church,” was an interpretation of events peculiarly agreeable to militant Protestants both in England and Germany. But that Catholics should have assimilated such a view was remarkable. It is true that French policy played disastrously into the hands of Bismarck. Gambetta’s error of anti-clericalism led from disintegration to disintegration. Bismarck has left on record statements of his reasons for embarking on the Kulturkampf, which for frigid wickedness of purpose cannot be equalled in political literature.
“The laurels of Sadowa and Sedan do not satisfy my ambitions, I have a more glorious mission, that of making myself master of Catholicism.”
“The enemy of Germany is Pontifical Rome. That is the danger which menaces the relations of Germany and France. If France identifies herself with Rome she constitutes herself by that fact alone the sworn enemy of Germany.”
France made her mistakes, but before the war she had begun to correct and cancel them. The gradual return to fair play from the midnight bigotry of Combes to the policy of appeasement of M. Briand, and the execution of that policy by M. Poincaré was very marked in all its stages. And in the measure in which that correction of old mistakes and tyrannies is made, not only in France but under every other Allied Flag, will the coming victory repay the blood that is buying it. But that German Catholics should have held up their country before the world as a shining model, and France as an abandoned and degenerate nation, is a thing intelligible only to those who know the vanity and self-exaltation of the modern German. While they were thus fabling, who really spoke for Germany in the ear of the world? These are the Germans. Schopenhauer with his scientific pessimism, truer indeed and nobler than any light philosophy of pleasure, but profoundly anti-Christian. Treitschke, who taught that the State is above all moral laws. A line of theologians from Strauss to Harnack and his contemporaries, who claimed to have shredded into mere rags of myth the historical beginning of the Christian faith and fold. Nietzsche, who “transcended morality” for the individual as Treitschke had done for the State, and preached pride, pleasure and domination as the cardinal virtues. Nietzsche who wrote—
“They have said to you: Happy are the peaceful! but I say to you: Happy are the warriors, for they shall be called not the sons of Jehovah, but the sons of Odin, who is greater than Jehovah!”
Who else stood for German thought? Haeckel, whose Riddle of the Universe carried its vulgar “omniscience” of materialism in sixpenny editions all round the world. And the Catholic spokesmen of such a people cried out to Heaven against the country of Coppée and de Mun, of Bazin, Barrès, Bourget, Ferdinand Brunetière and all the noblest voices of our time. One trivial touch is worth adding to the picture. The Catholic Committee of Action in France has established a fact, which, indeed, was already known, namely, that great numbers of the obscene books which disgrace some bookstalls in Paris are normally printed in French in Budapest, Vienna and certain German cities.
Such was the contrast between the two peoples. The sins of France were in process of amendment. The corruptions of thought for which she was responsible had this mitigating quality: that they were such as destroy only those who practise them. And the true France, devoted to the establishment of a régime of world-peace, held out hospitable hands to every ideal of gracious import in science, religion and literature, wherever it arose. The essential sin of Prussia, on the contrary, was, that, worshipping only force, she planned the subjugation of all Europe. The goal of domination at which she aimed could be reached only through an ocean of blood. She willed war, she willed murder, and to prepare her way she sought to impose on the world a picture in which she appeared as a Knight of the Holy Ghost “in shining armour,” and all the other non-Germanic nations as robber-empires, degenerates, incompetents.
These words of introduction were necessary in view of the systematic libelling of France which goes on in certain obscure papers, and which proceeds, as all the world knows, chiefly from German organisations in the United States. But the purpose of this article is not controversial, but positive. It is concerned merely to give a random glimpse of the heroism with which at this moment in the trenches, the camps, and the hospitals the priests of France are serving the tricolour of the transfigured Republic.
A literature on the subject is already in existence. The book of the Abbé Klein, well known for his luminous study of the United States, has been translated into English: for that reason, and also because it is less rich in detail, I do not draw on it. The pictures of war which follow are derived mainly from a collection of soldiers’ letters, edited by Ernest Daudet, from Les Soutanes sous la Mitraille, by the Abbé René Gaell, prêtre-infirmier, and from Le Clergé, Les Catholiques, et la Guerre, by Gabriel Langlois, with a preface by Mgr. Herscher, Archbishop of Laodicea.
Priests and ecclesiastical students are serving in the armies of the Republic in many capacities. Some are chaplains, regularly attached to the army ambulances and hospitals: the old virus of anti-clericalism was still active enough to delay their nomination till the eleventh hour. Others are doing the same work, but as volunteers under a scheme inaugurated by the late Comte de Mun. Still others are employed as stretcher-bearers or hospital attendants. The balance, the great majority, are fighting side by side with their fellow-citizens as plain soldiers of the Army of Liberation. This inclusion of priests in the ranks is peculiar to France. It dates from the adoption of the Two Years’ Law, when, on the shortening of the term of military service, all exemptions were suppressed. It is hardly to be denied that the measure was inspired less by logic than by malice. But in actual working out it has recoiled singularly on those who saw in it a lever for the disintegration of the Church. The soldier-priests have been the little leaven that has leavened the whole mass.
It is impossible to estimate the total number engaged under all these heads. We do know that there are not less than twenty thousand occupied in the care of the wounded, and that sixty thousand is a conservative total estimate. They are sown through every corps of the Grand Army, and their influence would seem to be as great with the gamin and the gouailleur of Paris as with the simplest peasant of Brittany or Alsace.
The first picture that seizes the imagination is the return of the soldier-priests from all the ends of the earth to give their answer to the crime of Prussia. From foreign universities, from Constantinople, Jerusalem, Madagascar, the Americas, from Ireland itself they came, trooping at the sound of the bugle of defence. It is, of course, foolish to suppose that all, or most of them, had been driven into enforced exile: most of them were voluntarily engaged in teaching or missionary work, but some were, in the truest and saddest sense, exiles. What matter! Their mother France had sinned, but her sins were as snow against the scarlet brutality of Prussia. M. Bompard, the French Ambassador at Constantinople, gives in his official report a vivid picture of the priests of every Order eagerly imploring facilities—almost quarrelling in their ardour—to return to France and the flag without a moment’s delay.
“If I live for a hundred years,” writes the Archbishop of Laodicea, “I shall never forget the spectacle I witnessed at the station of Fribourg (Switzerland) during the days of mobilisation.... I saw a great crowd of compatriots who, with shouts of ‘France for ever!’ ‘Switzerland for ever!’ were streaming into the last train. Among them I noticed many young men wearing soutanes or other ecclesiastical costume. When I learned that they were expelled religious I could not forbear expressing to them my gratitude and enthusiasm. I shall never forget the generous eagerness with which they were flying to the help of France. They declared themselves ready to do their duty, their whole duty. A sympathetic crowd surrounded them, cheering heartily. I shall always have before my eyes that picture of waving handkerchiefs, of young manly faces, radiant with faith and hope. The mobilisation appeared to me in all its beauty ‘symbolised by a sword surmounted by a cross.’”
So they returned, and, once in the field, their record is almost monotonous in its heroism. Mgr. Herscher truly describes the collection of incidents and letters assembled by M. Langlois as a “breviary of patriotism.” You find in it a cloud of witnesses testifying to the fashion in which, with the first roar of the guns, religion came back to honour.
“There are neither pagans nor sceptics here,” writes one young soldier. “Everybody is glad, if he has five minutes, to spend them before the altar. Before the war many were ashamed to be seen kneeling or making the sign of the Cross; you find no one like that now.”
“The cannon,” says another, “is a good converter.” “Nothing gives you the feeling of absolute dependence on God so well as twenty-four hours in the trenches.” “If my friends saw me now,” runs the confession of a Parisian, “they would certainly not recognize me, me the mocker who believed in nothing. I am transformed.” The chief anxiety of those who have strayed, and come back, is to let their people at home know that they died in the faith of Christ. “Tell my wife, father, to teach the little one her prayers. That is the best of all!” runs a typical last message.
“I do not fear death,” writes a fatally wounded boy of twenty-two. “I have seen it and see it too close this moment: there is nothing horrid about it, for it leads to happiness.”
The Abbé Morette, who served in 1870, is, in this war, an army chaplain. He gives graphic and touching pictures of the re-awakening.
“When we are fortunate enough to be able to set up our field chapel, or to celebrate Mass and Benediction in some church half-destroyed by the enemy, it is a curious spectacle to see the officers mingled indifferently with their men ‘waiting their turn.’ No favour is shown to the commissioned ranks—one chaplain hears the confession, the other gives Holy Communion. Sometimes when danger is reported too near one gives Communion that evening... by way of viaticum. Sometimes when the order to advance comes unexpectedly we have to give absolution en bloc to a whole company ... on condition of subsequent confession later when the recipient returns... if he does return!”
It is the same with the enemy’s wounded. The Abbé, not without a gleam of humour, shows himself acting as interpreter between a French Lutheran minister, who did not know German, and German wounded of his denomination. “The most scrupulous theologian might perhaps find in my exhortations certain grammatical faults, but not, I think, any capital error of dogma.”
Assuredly it is long years since, in the fair plains of France, Mass was celebrated in such settings of beauty and terror. This is how a Montmartrois attended it in a village church—
“I was returning with the rest of a fatigue party from digging potatoes for the company.... With the clay still on my hands I managed to work my way into a place beside my lieutenant, a commandant, a sergeant, and some comrades. The elevation had been reached.... And then in the choir the fresh, clear voices of young girls intoned the canticle: ‘Mary, Queen of France, protect us!’ My nerves could not bear the tension, and then ... well, I hid my face in my képi.
“They sang very prettily, the little country maidens, and the three canticles to Joan of Arc (which I did not know!) were ‘the right thing in the right place.’... I offered a prayer of thanks to the good God for having protected me against all dangers.
“The poor old priest... Mass finished, turned round in front of the altar and said to us in a strangled voice: ‘And now, valiant soldiers,... go to victory!’”
Or they pray in the open.
“Imagine a very beautiful valley, planted with great trees all yellowing with autumn, horses tied to every trunk, huts of every kind, shape, and style, soldiers of all arms: the whole forming a picture of incomparable dignity.
“The altar was set up against two giant oaks. There were more than a thousand soldiers present, including the Staff, generals, colonels and commandants.”
And this is how Cardinal Lucon celebrated his Christmas Mass in a cellar in bombarded Rheims—
“I shall never forget that Christmas night. The altar was supported on champagne-cases, and each person assisting had a champagne-case for a seat. There were present refugees who have nowhere else to sleep, citizens taking refuge from the shells, and at least 800 soldiers and officers of all grades. The hymns were sung by a group of fifty soldiers. They sang all our popular hymns.... It was very impressive; we seemed to have returned to the Catacombs.”
The Abbé Félicien Laroutzet, second-lieutenant in the 144th of the Line, paints us still another Mass with a brush steeped in even stranger colours. He had been permitted to say Mass for the first time for a month—
“Hardly had I finished the Elevation than a German shell hit the tower just above the choir, and plunged the church in darkness. Then a second. It was to be feared that a third would enter by the windows and shatter the altar to fragments. During the Communion the third shell arrived. Almost complete darkness ensued, but the altar, the curé, and myself went untouched. I finished Communion as quickly as possible, and we escaped.”
This famous encounter, he adds, secured his promotion to the grade of second-lieutenant.
And so on, and so on. All behind the front; with shells, friendly and hostile, whistling in a perpetual criss-cross overhead, on improvised altars; with every idle vanity shrivelled under the scrutiny of death, the soldiers of France assist humbly at the supreme sacrifice. As the celebrant raises for adoration the Host, transubstantiated from bread to the Body of Christ, the buglers lift their instruments, and a fanfare of spiritual triumph cleaves through the thunder of the guns. The Ave Maria and the Stabat Mater, chanted in stout soldier voices, are followed by the Marseillaise. Thus does France, returned to her origins, repel the invader of her peaceful land, the ravager of homes, the profaner of churches.
When we come to the priest-combatants, the curés sac-au-dos, the record is one of stainless and noble heroism. As Mgr. Herscher says, it would be necessary to invent a new language in order to characterise justly what have become deeds of every day. It is not in “clerical” newspapers that the courage of the soldier-priest is enshrined, but in the columns of the Journal Officiel. The Legion of Honour and the Military Medal have been awarded in numerous instances, and citations in the Orders of the Day have been still more frequent.
Thus Corporal de Gironde, of the 81st of the Line, receives the Military Medal for extraordinarily daring patrol work. He is a Jesuit. The Dominican Corporal Jaméguy rallies, within fifty yards of the German trenches, a party of five unwounded and eight wounded men who had been cut off, and leads them all into safety the next day under a vicious fire. The Abbé Boravalle writes—
“After a very hot day our commandant announced that he was making recommendations in our company for promotion to the rank of corporal. Of four recommended, three were priests: I am proud to be one of them.”
Incidents of devoted heroism, in which there is a swift counterchange between the rôle of soldier and that of priest, are almost innumerable: certainly no selection can convey a just notion of their abundance. Let me quote the words of a writer in the Journal de Genève, the chief organ of Swiss Protestantism—
“Observe that there is not a list of those who have fallen on the field of honour or who are cited in the Order of the Day of the Army in which you will not find priests. Such a one carried the flag into action; another, recommended for the Legion of Honour, was killed that very day; a third, seeing his company waver—he was a lieutenant—leaped to their head shouting, ‘I am a priest. I do not fear death! Forward! He recovered the position, but fell riddled with bullets.
“Or we read such stories as this: After the battle, amongst the wounded and agonising, a soldier not so badly wounded as the rest dragged himself to an erect position and cried out to the dying: ‘I am a priest. Receive absolution!’ And he blessed them with his mutilated hand.”
Take again the testimony of M. Frédéric Masson, a great writer, but no Catholic—
“What Frenchmen were the first to march? Who gave the example, who went to death instantly and without a murmur, who merited the epaulettes and the crosses? The priests.
“There they are with their knapsacks on their backs, and soon the knapsacks will be off by order of our generals. In this supreme peril we need officers. And many, for many are being killed. You will see the priests in command of sections, companies—who knows if you will not see them in command of regiments if there are any priests left! There they are all the braver because it is their duty to be tender: beati milites, and if they are a little short in military instruction, which is easily acquired, one recalls the saying of Bonaparte to Subry—they have what is not to be acquired: contempt for death, for they are priests and they believe.”
The superior education of the prêtre-soldat, as compared with the majority of his comrades, gives to his narrative letters a special value. A seminarist describes a night surprise on a German sentry post—
“I crawl through the mud, stopping for five minutes every three or four yards... reach the edge of the canal and drop quietly in.... I advance very slowly, the sentry is not more than ten paces away. But suddenly my teeth begin to chatter, and I am unable, for all my efforts, to keep my jaws quiet. Fear? No, cold!... I am obliged to take my handkerchief and tie it round my head as if I had the toothache....”
He surprises the sentry, chokes him into insensibility, trusses him up, and crawls back to his men. The reconnaissance completed they return to their lair in a little wood. They are troubled about the fate of the sentry.
“My sergeant, my two soldiers, and myself recite a decade of the Rosary for him. One of the soldiers refused at first to pray for a Boche. It was necessary to explain a whole heap of theological matters to him on charity in time of war. He at last consented on condition that we should say two other decades for our own dear soldiers.... I do not dare to say that I find pleasure in the work I have to do. But when I think of our poor France, and of the crimes of these barbarians: if you knew what they have done!”
So runs the record. Everywhere you find the priest first in danger, and in abnegation, confessing his comrades in the trenches, then heading their bayonet-charge; after the battle, his rifle laid aside, he is whispering consolation into the ear of some poor broken enemy, Pole or German, launched against civilisation by the bloodthirsty megalomania of a Prussian Emperor.
I cannot close this paper of random instances without transcribing in full the story of Sister Julie of Gerbeviller. This is how her name stands in the Journal Officiel—
“By order of the Minister of War to be Chevalier of the Legion of Honour: Mme. Amélie Rigard, in religion Sister Julie, nurse at the field hospital of Gerbeviller.”
Appointed by her Superior to this hospital, she remained at her post during an incessant bombardment in charge of a thousand wounded. She fed and cared for them, and saved them, by the calm authority of her manner, from being put to death during the German occupation. Can one read without a thrill of pride and admiration this glorious salute paid by soldiers of France to the heroic nun?
On the recapture of Gerbeviller a squadron of chasseurs halts before the hospital.... The captain asks to see Sister Julie.
“Sister, will you do us a favour? Permit me to parade my soldiers before you.”
Prevailing with difficulty over her modesty, the captain has his way. Turning to his squadron, he orders the “Portez lance!”
“Comrades, you remember when we checked the Germans here on August 25th. We saw in this direction huge flames rising up into the heavens. You see what these flames meant....
“Well in the middle of this evacuated village, under the shells and bullets, even after the retreat of our heroic infantry who—one against ten—had held the bridge so long, a woman remained here at the post of charity attending to the wounded, lavishing her care on all. It was Sister Julie.
“The President of the Republic has hung on her breast the Cross of the brave. Salute it!”
So, with swords and lances at the salute, the squadron swept on to battle.
It is a noble and touching episode, worthy of France, and there were many such as Sister Julie in the dark days of retreat. Innumerable, patient, fearless women tended the poilu back to health, won the whole nation to the height of resolution and confidence from which it now so confidently confronts the future.
These books are a rich, even an inexhaustible repository of Catholic heroism. It will be a pity, and a grave loss to the literature of the war, if they are not made available for English readers. France has long enough been judged for her sins; it is time that there was some celebration of her virtues. She has been long enough condemned on a bill of indictment drafted by her enemies, and would-be conquerors: it is time that we listened to her speaking for herself. Nor in praising France do I, or do my fellow-writers, think it necessary to blacken German Catholicism. Simple, misled, unfree units of the Central Powers are dying all over Europe at the bidding of two disastrous Emperors: these plain soldiers, obeying the call of patriotism and deprived of any true vision of things, are dying in good faith, in our good Faith, and dying well. But over all the leaders of German Catholicism lies the red cloud of blood with which the statecraft of their country has enveloped the world. When they burned Louvain, the barbarians lit a fire which is not easily to be put out.