A History of the Third French Republic

by C. H. C. Wright

Thus the year 1899 had proved itself one of the most dramatically eventful in the history of the Republic. It was also to be one of the most significant in its consequences. For the new grouping of mutually jealous factions against a common danger had, in spite of the fiasco of the second Dreyfus case, shown a way to victory. And exasperation against the intrigues of the Clericals and the army officers was going to turn the former toleration of the "esprit nouveau" into active persecution, especially as the Socialists and Radicals formed the majority of the new combination.

In November, 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau laid before Parliament an Associations bill to regulate the organization of societies, which was intended indirectly to control religious bodies. The leniency of the Government hitherto and the commercial energy of many religious orders, manufacturers of articles varying from chartreuse to hair-restorers and dentifrice, had enabled them to amass enormous sums held in mortmain. The power of this money was great in politics and the anti-Clericals cast envious eyes on these vague and mysterious fortunes. There were in France at the time almost seven hundred unauthorized "congregations." Against the Assumptionists in particular the Government took direct measures early in 1900, such as legal perquisitions, arrests, and prosecution as an illegal association.

The campaign went on through the year 1900, the Exposition of that year helping to act as a partial truce. The expedition of the Allies to China to put down the Boxer rebellion also diverted attention. Waldeck-Rousseau was sincerely desirous of bringing about a pacification of feeling in the country, and he felt bitter practically only against the Jesuits and the Assumptionists. He even succeeded in carrying through Parliament an amnesty bill dealing with the Dreyfus case and destined to quash all criminal actions in process, whether of Dreyfusites or anti-Dreyfusites. The former fought the project vigorously on the ground that it opposed a new obstacle to ultimate discovery of the truth, but they were unsuccessful. Waldeck-Rousseau remained at heart, none the less, a believer in Dreyfus's innocence and in spite of his amnesty project, he could not always hide his true feelings. In consequence he offended his Minister of War, General de Galliffet, Dreyfusite as well, but tired of the struggle now that the Rennes trial had made the task of rehabilitation apparently hopeless. Galliffet resigned his office and was succeeded by General André, a politician soldier, who started out at once to purge the army drastically of its Clericalism.

Waldeck-Rousseau's Associations project was fairly mild. He had no desire for a violent break with the Vatican, and the wily and diplomatic Leo XIII probably so understood well enough in spite of his protests. But, as debate and discussion went on, the measure became more severe. Waldeck-Rousseau had originally planned a bill dealing with authorization and incorporation of associations in general, in which he refrained from any specific allusion to religious bodies of monks and nuns, thereby assimilating them with other groups. As finally voted and promulgated in July, 1901, the law made provisions for the privilege of association in general, but made the important additional stipulations that no religious order or "congregation" could be formed without specific authorization by law, that a religious order could be dissolved by ministerial decree, and that no one belonging to an unauthorized order could direct personally, or by proxy, an educational establishment, or even teach in one. Thus the enemies of the lay Republic who, under cover of the "esprit nouveau," and by years of manipulation of the feeding sources of army and navy officers, had hoped to grasp power, and had made a supreme effort at the time of the Dreyfus agitation, now saw themselves thwarted, and faced the prospect of severer treatment.

Matters had progressed even further than Waldeck-Rousseau himself perhaps desired. In the spring of 1902, new legislative elections took place for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was endorsed by a sound majority, and yet at this moment of triumph, after the longest rule as Prime Minister of any hitherto in the history of the Republic, Waldeck-Rousseau resigned his post without an adverse vote. Undoubtedly the state of his personal health was partly responsible for his departure from office and he was destined not to live beyond 1904. The last important events of his administration were a visit of the Czar to France and a return visit of President Loubet to Russia.

Waldeck-Rousseau's successor as Prime Minister was Emile Combes, a strong foe of the Church. Combes had himself been a former theological student and had, in his youth, written a thesis on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He now had all the vindictiveness of one who burns what he formerly worshipped. Encouraged by the recent elections, he turned more and more against the Vatican and impelled by the more violent members of the Bloc, he drifted toward the rupture which his predecessor had tried to avoid. A committee of the different groups supporting the Cabinet, called the "délégation des gauches," had in time been instituted to formulate policies with the Prime Minister, who often had to obey it instead of guiding. Waldeck-Rousseau had intended not to apply his law retroactively. He had planned to spare educational establishments already in existence before July, 1901, when his measure went into operation, and had winked at lack of compliance on the part of many others. Combes applied the letter of the law ruthlessly. Amid public protestations and disturbances he closed a large number of these unauthorized schools; firstly, those which had actually been opened without permission since the promulgation of the law, then the many schools which were older than the law. In so doing he was called a persecutor, because the directors of the schools declared that they had allowed the time limit of application for authorization to go by, only through the understanding with the previous Administration that they were not to be interfered with. Now they could not help themselves.

Emboldened by success Combes next took up the applications of the congregations which had duly followed the law and were seeking authorization. By decree, as was his right, he first promptly closed unlicensed schools of recognized orders. Then came the applications of orders seeking authorization. Legal procedure demanded laws to reject as well as laws to accept applications. A recommendation favored by the Government but rejected by the Chamber of Deputies would not go before the Senate. On the other hand, an unfavorable opinion of the Government ratified by the House would still have to go before the Senate. A way would thus be open for prolonged chicanery.

Combes cut matters short. He lumped fifty-four individual applications into three batches, teaching orders, preaching orders, and the commercial order of the Chartreux, manufacturers of the liqueur called "chartreuse." Then, presenting these batches of applications collectively instead of individually to the Chamber, he caused their rejection and proceeded to dissolve the orders and close their fifteen hundred establishments. Through the spring of 1903 there were turbulent scenes in consequence in various parts of France, the monks trying sometimes passive resistance, sometimes actual violence. In the reactionary districts the population attempted to stir up riots. Occasionally, even, a military officer whose duty it was to evict the monks refused to obey orders. But, nothing daunted, Combes went on, with the support of the Chambers, to reject a large mass of applications from teaching orders of women. Even Waldeck-Rousseau was led in time publicly to declare that he had never contemplated the transformation of his Associations law of 1901 from a measure of regulation to one of exclusion, nor the assumption by the State of expensive educational charges hitherto carried on by religious orders. At last the law of July, 1904, put a complete end to all kinds of instruction by religious bodies, thereby insuring, after a lapse of time for liquidation, the disappearance of all teaching orders.

These measures against the religious groups were, in spite of outcries of persecution, after all matters of internal administration. But, meanwhile, causes for direct dissension with the Vatican had arisen over questions involving the Concordat regulating the relations of Church and State.

The first dispute was about the method of appointing bishops. The Concordat gave to the Government the right of appointing bishops, subject to the papal ratification of the appointee's moral and theological qualifications. During the Third Republic the habit had grown up of mutual consultation before appointments were made, a practice which led the Vatican to assume that its initial influence was as great as that of the Government, and finally to make use of the formula nobis nominavit, or nominaverit, as though the Government merely proposed a candidate subject to the Vatican's free right to accept or to reject. The keen-scented Combes took an early opportunity to raise this issue by making certain appointments to bishoprics without previously consulting the Vatican. In the midst of the discussions Leo XIII died in July, 1903, and was succeeded by Pius X, whose character was utterly different from that of his predecessor. His primitive faith saw in France the home of heretics like the Modernist, the Abbé Loisy; and his Secretary of State, the ultramontane Cardinal Merry del Val, was as hostile to France, as his predecessor Cardinal Rampolla had, on the whole, been well disposed to the "eldest daughter of the Church." Between Merry del Val and Combes no agreement was possible. So matters went from bad to worse.