One fact which shows that the spirit of the Government, which followed upon the accession of Loubet, was born for persecution, was the case of the Assumptionist Fathers. The latter were accused of interfering in the elections of 1898. A case was made out against them "for violation of the Penal Code interdicting gatherings of more than twenty persons." The real accusation brought against them, however, was to the effect that they had favored the wrong candidates, that is, candidates not agreeable to the dominant powers. The prosecutor, Bulot, in his arraignment, cited the names of thirty-one deputies who, he declared, owed their election to the influence of the Assumptionists. The Assumptionists were condemned, and their congregation dissolved as illicit.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT.
The complexion of the new Government which ruled from 1899 to 1902 may be seen from the following extract taken from the revelations of Madame Sorgues, sub-editor, a few years ago—of Jaurès' Socialist organ, La Petite Republique:
In fighting the battles of Dreyfus, Jaurès and his friends brought about a singular meeting of the two most irreconcilable camps.... The first service rendered was to restore the tottering Socialist press.... All the advanced (i. e. anti-clerical) dailies have passed into the hands of the great barons of finance; they are their journals now, not the journals of the workers.... They cast their eyes on Waldeck-Rousseau, the clever rescuer of the Panama people.... The agent of the Dreyfus politics had the happy thought of introducing into the Cabinet, Millerand, the Socialist leader, with the consent of his party. Socialism by becoming ministerial would be domesticated and rendered inoffensive against capital.
The Cabinet was thus in the hands of men little disposed to show fairness towards anything Catholic. In the Chamber of Deputies of that term there were four hundred Freemasons out of five hundred members; in the Cabinet out of eleven ministers, ten were Freemasons. This was the illustrious band which was to make laws for the guidance of thirty-seven million Catholics.
At the head of this ministry stood Waldeck-Rousseau, President of the Council. Waldeck-Rousseau personified the policy which obtained during the two first years of the century, that is, the policy of duplicity and deception. It was necessary, in the beginning of the campaign, to entice the Catholics into a trap, after which their annihilation must follow as a matter of course. In the art of deception Waldeck-Rousseau was an adept.
ASSOCIATIONS LAW.
The instrument by which the deception was exercised was the infamous Associations Law of 1901. The Congregations had ever been the bete-noir of the anti-clericals. They represented Religion in its perfection. In 1892, when the Fallières-Constans bill against the religious congregations was broached, and M. Carnot, its spokesman, had presented it before the Chamber, the Temps remarked: "Its purpose was to resolve the difficult problem of according the right of association to everyone, with such reserves, however, that the Catholics might not benefit by it, and that the Congregations might by it be destroyed." In the bill of Waldeck-Rousseau-Trouillot, prepared in June, 1900, such embarrassments were simply set aside. It was determined "to take the bull by the horns." The new project was, therefore, twofold; the first part assured a large liberty to associations non-suspected; the second part gave the Government a means of suppressing all religious orders. It read as follows: "No religious congregation can be formed without an authorization given by a law which shall determine the conditions of its workings. It cannot found any new establishment except in virtue of a decree emanating from the Council of State.—The dissolution of a congregation, or the closing of an establishment can be pronounced by a decree rendered by the Council of the ministers."
EX-PRESIDENT LOUBET.