[CHAPTER V]
The founding of l'Avenir—L'Abbé Lacordaire—M. Charles de Montalembert—His article on the sacking of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois—l'Avenir and the new literature—My first interview with M. de Lamennais—Lawsuit against l'Avenir—MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire as schoolmasters—Their trial in the Cour des pairs—The capture of Warsaw—Answer of four poets to a word spoken by a statesman
The Revolution of 1830 came as a surprise to M. de Lamennais and his school in the midst of these vague and restless designs. His heart, ready to sympathise with everything that was great and generous, had already been alienated from Royalism; already the man, poet and philosopher, was kicking beneath the priestly robe. The century which had just venerated and extolled his genius, reproached him under its breath for resisting the way of progress. Intractable and headstrong by nature, with a rugged and reclusive intellect, the Abbé de Lamennais was by temperament a free lance. Then 1830 sounded. Sitting upon the ruins of that upheaval, which had just swallowed up one dynasty, and shaken the Church with the same storm and shipwreck in which that dynasty had foundered, the philosophers of La Chesnaie took counsel together; they said among themselves that the opposition against the clergy, with which Liberalism had been animated since 1815, was the result of the prominent protection which had been spread over the Catholic priests, in face of the instability of the Powers, in face of the roaring waves of the Revolution; and they began to question whether it would not be advantageous to the immutable Church to separate herself from all the tottering States. Stated thus, the question was quickly decided. The Abbé de Lamennais thought the time had come for him to throw himself directly and personally into the struggle. The principles of a journal were settled, and he went. Two men entered that career of publicity with him: the Abbé Lacordaire and Comte Charles de Montalembert.
The Abbé Lacordaire was, at the period when I had the honour of finding myself in communication with him on religious and political principles, a young priest who had passed from the Bar at Paris to the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice. After his term of probation, he had spent three harassing years in the study of theology; he left the seminary full of hazy ideas and turbulent instincts. His temper of mind was acrimonious, keen and subtle; he had dark fiery eyes, delicate and mobile features, he was pale with the pallor of the Cenobite and of a sickly complexion, with hard, gaunt, strongly marked outlines,—so much for his face. Attracted by the brilliancy of the Abbé de Lamennais, he fell in with all his political views; he, too, longed for the liberty of the spirit after due control of the flesh; the protection of the State, because of his priesthood, was burdensome to him. He put his hand in his master's and the covenant was sealed.
The Comte de Montalembert, on his side, was, at that time, quite a young man, fair, with a face like a girl's, and pink cheeks, shy and blushing; as he was short-sighted, he looked close at people through his eye-glasses. He appealed strongly to the Abbé de Lamennais, who felt drawn to him with a sort of paternal sympathy. Finally, Comte Charles de Montalembert belonged to a family whose devotion to the cause of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons was well known; but he openly declared that he placed France in his affections before a dynasty, and liberty before a crown.
Round these three men, one already famous and the others still unknown, rallied the ecclesiastics and young people of talent, who, in all simple faith, were desirous of combining the majesty of religious traditions with the nobility of revolutionary ideas. That such an alliance was impossible Time—that great tester of things and men—would prove; but the attempt was none the less noble for all that; it ministered, moreover, to a want which was then permeating the new generations. Already Camille Desmoulins, one of those poets who are specially inspired, had exclaimed to the Revolutionary Tribunal with somewhat penetrative melancholy: "I am the same age, thirty-three years, as the Sans-culotte Jesus!"
The title of the new journal was l'Avenir. The programme of its principles was drawn up equally by them all, and it called upon the government of July for absolute liberty for all creeds and all religious communities, for liberty of the press, liberty in education, the radical separation of the Church from the State and, finally, for the abolition of the ecclesiastical budget. It was 16 October 1830, and the moment was a favourable one. Belgium was about to start her revolution, and, in that revolution, the hand of the clergy was visible; Catholic Poland was sending up under the savage treatment of the Czar one long cry of distress and yet of hope; Ireland, by the voice of O'Connell, was moving all nationalities to whom religion was the motive power and a flag of independence; Ireland shook the air with the words CHRIST and LIBERTY! L'Avenir made itself the monitor of the religious movement, combined with the political movement, as may be judged by these few lines which proceeded from the association, and are taken from its first number—
"We have no hidden design whatsoever, we never had; we mean exactly what we say. Hoping, therefore, to be believed in all good faith, we say to those whose ideas differ upon several points of our creed: 'Do you sincerely want religious liberty, liberty in educational matters, in civil and political affairs and liberty of the press, which, do not let us forget, is the guarantee for all types of liberty? You belong to us as we belong to you. Every kind of liberty that the people in the gradual development of their life can uphold is their due, and their progress in civilisation is to be measured by the actual and not the fictitious, progress they make in liberty!'"
It was at this juncture that the transformation tool place of the Abbé DE LA MENNAIS to the Abbé de LAMENNAIS. His opinions and his talents and his name entered upon a new era; he was no more the stern and gloomy priest pronouncing deadly sentence on the human intellect over the tomb of Faith; but a prophet shaking the shrouds of dying nations in the name of liberty, and crying aloud to the dry bones to "Arise!"