THE CAMPAIGN OF JULES FERRY.
The following election placed Jules Grévy in the chair, with Jules Ferry as Minister of Public Instruction. The latter, one of the most acrobatic and unscrupulous demagogues of the century, would have courted the favor of the Catholic party had it been dominant at the time; but his ambition for power and notoriety led him to the side he found most opportune. His zeal against the Church was increased by the competition of such rivals as Gambetta, Brisson and Paul Bert, all worthy apostles in the cause of de-christianization. The law of laicisation constitutes the culminating point in the life of Jules Ferry.
This law was not of recent origin; it had already been proposed in 1876, by the extreme Left. Paul Bert was then one of its most enthusiastic exponents. It is a law that denies to French Catholics the most essential liberties.
It required the elimination of the religious element in the Superior Council of Public Instruction, the reservation to the State of the monopoly of degrees, the suppression of mixed juries,—established by the law of 1875 in regard to higher education,—the suppression of university rights for every Catholic establishment of superior education, and, finally, it asserted that every member of a Congregation not authorized should be held incapable of participating in any instruction public or private. In a word, it made the Catholic an outcast in the domain of education.
The discussion upon the law took place in the Chamber from June 16 to July 9, 1879. During this time the high lodges of Masonry hoped to diminish in the eyes of Catholics the importance of this law. But the Catholic Press did its duty; the question was placed in its proper light, public attention was awakened, and the contest promised to become warm. It became especially bitter when the discussions touched upon the Congregations. Jules Ferry had inserted in the bill, under Article VII., the words: "No one shall be permitted to participate in instruction, whether public or private, or to direct an establishment of instruction, of whatever order it may be, who belongs to a Congregation not authorized."
These few lines awakened the Catholics of the country, and with them the more honest republicans. To declare an immense category of French citizens incapable of teaching, in spite of the fact that they held diplomas, and that only because they pleased to live in community, constituted the most evident violation of justice and equality.
A cry of protest went up from every side. Jules Ferry, realizing that he was playing his highest stakes, and urged on by his brethren, struggled desperately for his Article. Moreover, all the Masonic lodges had entered into the contest; every morning the irreligious journals, denounced the Congregations as the great peril of the nation. Political questions, both foreign and domestic, seemed to have no more interest; the military reorganization of Germany was forgotten; all attention was concentrated upon the Congregations, the members of which were themselves astonished at the importance given to them by their adversaries; even in the tribune it was considered proper to discuss cases of conscience selected from old volumes of Jesuit theologians.
Nevertheless, despite the mobilization of all the forces of irreligion, despite the explosion of the most unbridled anger that was ever seen since the Revolution, despite the personal intervention of De Freycinet at the Luxembourg the Senate, influenced by more than 1,800,000 protests from heads of families, vetoed Article VII. Jules Ferry was defeated, and every one imagined his defeat to be definitive.
JULES GRÉVY.