These political revolutions and these domestic dissensions left, in the period that ensued after 1830, the Catholic Church in a difficult situation, but in one salutary for it and fruitful of consequences. The clergy no longer counted on the favor of Government, but they had at the same time to fear from it neither violence nor hostility. Left to themselves, they felt the necessity of independent existence, and saw that they must replace credit with the authorities by influence with the country; and this influence they were likely to obtain. If they did not possess all the privileges which they coveted, they had enough to enable them every day to conquer additional powers, supposing them willing and sagacious enough to take the trouble and employ the right means. In my opinion, they did not do at this epoch, in the interest of religion and of the Church, all that their position permitted, or all that their mission required at their hands; but temporal or spiritual governors, layman or priests, who ever did, I do not say what he ought, but what he could have done? The greater part of the bishops and of the priests were vacillating and timorous; the problem before them went beyond their opinions, and the events beyond their strength; the impetuous Liberalism of M. de Montalembert and of his friends disquieted them; they saw in him rather a valiant champion than a representative they could rely upon. Among those who joined with him in the struggle for the freedom of instruction, there were some who showed, with reference to the Government of 1830 and the University, little fairness or prudence: these injured the cause rather than served it. Whether from submission to orders from Rome, or from their natural impulse, the clergy, taken as a whole, showed little taste for liberty; even while they demanded it, they were rather inclined to immobility than progress. But whatever the fears and hesitations of individuals, when the general current of ideas and of popular opinions once penetrates to the classes least disposed to entertain them, it never fails, whether they avow it, or whether they even know it, to swell and to advance. Around and among the clergy themselves the spirit of progress and of liberty gained ground, although by insensible degrees. Here and there individual priests, like the Abbé Bautain, formerly a student with M. Jouffroy at the École Normale, and Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Letters at Strasbourg, propagated in the Church the liberal movement, forming for it in different places new centers of action. The spirit which had awakened Christianity manifested itself, too, in our great lay establishments for the higher course of instruction; not always without check, but still with a success the more conspicuous the more it was contested. In 1846, some disturbances, occasioned by a thoughtless and puerile intolerance, made by M. Lenormant, at that time my substitute (suppléant) in the chair of Modern History at the Faculty of Letters, determine to withdraw from the Sorbonne, where he had made a courageous avowal of his faith; but M. Ozanam, the worthy successor to the chair of M. Fauriel, maintained in the same place the same principles with a more successful perseverance, and with such a depth of conviction and such a warmth of emotion that sometimes he carried the feelings of his auditors away with him, and sometimes commanded respectful attention even from those most confirmed in their incredulity. And while the spirit of Christianity was thus manifesting itself in the free Faculty of Letters, the teaching of the Faculty of Theology attested, under that same roof, a notable progress in knowledge and in Liberalism. The Abbé Maret, in his lectures on the Dogmas of Religion, the Abbé Frère, in his discourses on the Scriptures; the Abbé Dupanloup and the Abbé Gerbet, in their lectures on Sacred Eloquence, displayed not only a firm and active faith, but views upon philosophy, history, and literature, necessarily implying an acquaintance with the works of human science, and an appreciation of the rights of liberty. Ecclesiastics and laymen, not members of the scientific establishments of the State, published, under the name of the "Université Catholique," a series of courses in which philosophy, history, natural sciences, archaeology, and the arts were explained and taught in harmony with the dogmas and sentiments of religious men. And even far from Paris, in several great episcopal seminaries, classical and theological studies took a wider range, and attained a scientific value that they had not for a long time possessed.
"Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone," says the Apostle St. James. Christianity has borne abundant fruits since its awakening at the commencement of this century. I have before me the "Manual des Œuvres et institutions de charité de Paris," published in 1862, by order of the archbishop, M. Sibour. Independently of the establishments under the direction of Government, I find in it 107 charitable institutions or associations, of every kind, originated and supported by zealous Christians in the interval between 1820 and 1848. Of these I will only cite some of the principal ones, to establish their character and their progress. In the year 1822 the idea struck two poor servants at Lyons to make the rounds of their parish and collect weekly one sou from each person, in aid of the conversion of infidels. This was the origin of the association called "l'Œuvre de la propagation de la Foi," now under the direction of two councils, composed of members of the clergy and of the laity, having their sittings, one at Lyons, the other at Paris. The report published by this association in June, 1824, showed for the two years, 1823 and 1824, a receipt of 80,000 fr., (3200l.) This association received in 1864 the sum of 5,090,041 fr. 48 cent., (203,601l. 13s. 3½d.,) in which amount France alone figures for 3,479,290 fr. 65 cent., (139,171l. 12s. 6½d.,) and it divided 4,658,672 fr. 56 cent. (186,346l. 18s. 6½d.) among five hundred dioceses, and appropriated those funds to the support of the Catholic missionaries in the five parts of the world. It counted from the year 1852, 1,500,000 subscribers, and it distributed 170,000 copies of its "Annals," (Annales de propagation de la Foi,) which form a sequel to the "Lettres édificantes," and keep the Christian world informed of their doings. In May, 1833, eight young men, at the suggestion of Frederic Ozanam, "wishing," said the Perè Lacordaire, "to give one more proof of what Christianity can effect in behalf of the poor, began to ascend to those upper stories which were the hidden haunts of the misery of their quarter. Men saw youths in the flower of their age and fresh from school regularly visiting, without any feeling of repulsion, the most abject habitations, and conveying to their unknown and suffering tenants a passing vision of charity." Twenty years later, in 1853, Ozanam said at Florence, when on his death-bed: "Instead of eight only, at Paris alone we are two thousand strong, and we visit five thousand families, that is to say, about twenty thousand individuals, or a quarter of the poor contained in that great city. The conferences in France alone number five hundred, and we have them too in England, in Spain, Belgium, America, and even in Jerusalem." Nine years afterward, in 1862, when the Government, listening to mistaken counsels, suppressed the General Council of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, and by doing so destroyed the central bond that kept the society together, the latter counted more than 3000 local conferences; it consisted of about 30,000 members, who visited in their homes more than 100,000 indigent families, and had already introduced into the greater part of the principal cities a system which exercised a control over the interests of apprentices and of prisoners. During the course of the same epoch the Sisters of Charity, whose number, a century after their foundation by St. Vincent de Paul, had not exceeded 1500, already reached 18,000, of whom 16,000 were Frenchwomen; and at this moment they are plying throughout the world their works of piety and charity. Another society, "Les petites sœurs des pauvres," was founded in 1845, in imitation of Jeanne Jugan, a poor servant, a native of Brittany, who had been just crowned by the French Academy. This society receives and succors in their establishment nearly 20,000 aged men. Another association, "Les Frères de la doctrine Chrétienne," which had in the year 1844, 468 schools, maintains this year (1865) 920, and the number of the pupils has increased from 198,188 to 335,382. State and ecclesiastical documents attest, that by concurring causes of encouragement on the part of the State, of local subventions and of private donations, ten thousand churches have been, during the last fifty years, built, rebuilt, or suitably adapted for the performance of the services of the Church of Rome. I might cite many similar facts. In all the directions and under all the forms in which piety and charity manifest themselves, faith and liberty, and faith and science have, since the awakening of Christianity and since the cause of religion has been separated from politics, drawn nearer to one another, and faith and its manifestation by charity have made a simultaneous advance and a like progress.
Had the Government of 1830 remained standing; had State and Church each retained reciprocally the same situation and the same attitude, the facts to which I have just alluded might have long remained unobserved. Society does not, any more than individuals, render an account to itself of the intimate relations of its existence, or of the transformations to which these give rise; but Providence has its moments when it suddenly lightens up the stage of the world and reveals to all actors and spectators the import and the effect of what is passing around them. The Revolution of 1848 threw upon the progress of the Catholic Church and its relations with French society since 1830 the clear light of such a revelation.
In this sudden subversion of all things, in the presence of a republic extemporized upon the ruins of three monarchies—the monarchy of glory, the monarchy of tradition, and the monarchy of public opinion—in the midst of this nation, suddenly insurgent and beyond either its aim or expectation sovereign, what became of the Church? What did its ministers? If some of them participated in the current dreams, certainly the majority were full of anguish and alarm; they did not combat the new institutions; they did not pretend to exercise any influence for or against any party; they sought only to purify the Republic by securing in it a place for Religion; they did not stand aloof from the people; they showed themselves, in its great assemblages and in its fêtes, planting the cross of Jesus by the side of the tree of liberty. Never did the Church stand so aloof from politics; never was she more modest in her attitude; never less exacting—I will not say more obsequious, as far as the Government or the public was concerned; never more absorbed with her mission of piety and morality, whatever the Government of France might be, and whoever her masters.
And what in their turn was the conduct of the people toward the Church? I do not mean to say that they confided in her, or showed her much affection. The popular movement in 1848 was no doubt far from being religious; and the ideas, acts, and language which proceeded from it every instant, were well calculated to disturb and sadden the hearts of Christians; but religion and its ministers were in no respect ill treated, insulted, or persecuted; their forms of worship were not interrupted: when they showed themselves out of doors, they were received with respect; and at the sight of a virtuous archbishop mortally wounded in the streets, in the very endeavor to appease the civil war by the exhibition of the cross, a painful stupor seized the people; a pang of remorse and of shame traversed those masses of disbelievers at the sight of a martyr. It was clear that in the interval between 1830 and 1848, although the Christian Church had not aroused in the people either faith or sympathy, that Church had at least won liberty and peace. When the revolutionary fever had subsided, when the Republic had given itself a chief, and was waiting for a master, it was no longer in the street, by popular impressions, but in the Assemblies, and by the constituted authorities, that the great questions of the day were put and were solved. There, too, the progress, which the Catholic Church had made, became immediately evident, and its gains were ascertained. It counted at this moment among its most zealous servants a man new to public affairs, who had entered political life as an adherent of the Legitimist Opposition to the Monarchy of 1830, a man who accepted the Republic, and had acquired in a few days a just renown by his courageous resistance to anarchy. By a choice, fortunate but at the same time unforeseen, M. de Falloux became the Minister of Public Instruction and of Worship in the first cabinet formed by the Prince President of the Republic. The new minister immediately devoted himself to the important measure that the Catholic Church had had in view ever since the year 1830, that is, to the complete establishment, under the sanction of the law, of the principle of liberty of instruction. He proceeded in his task at once with intelligence and boldness. To prepare his project of law, he appointed a numerous commission, and summoned to it the most eminent men, who represented views and interests the most diverse; laymen and ecclesiastics, Romanists, Protestants and philosophers, Republicans, Legitimists, Orleanists and Bonapartists, M. Thiers and the Abbé Dupanloup, M. Cousin and M. de Montalembert, M. Saint Marc Girardin and M. Cochin, M. Cuvier and the Abbé Sibour. [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: The following is a complete list of the members of the Commission, as given in the "Moniteur" of the 22d June, 1849: M. Thiers, president; MM. Cousin, St. Marc Girardin, Dubois, the Abbé Dupanloup, Peupin, Janvier, Laurentie, Freslon, Ballaguet, de Montalembert, Fresneau, Poulain de Bossay, Cuvier, Michel, Armand de Melun, Henri de Riancey, Cochin, the Abbé Sibour, Roux-Lavergne, de Montreuil-Housset, and Alexis Chevalier, secretary.]
M. Thiers was the president of this commission, which sat during five months. It discussed every question respecting the organization of public instruction with a passionate ardor, and, at the same time, with an earnest and sincere desire to conciliate, by their resolutions, all opinions. According to the character of the times and the state of public sentiment, critical and perilous situations precipitate men sometimes to the commission of insane acts of violence, and sometimes keep them within the line of fairness and prudence. The project of law which issued from the commission of M. de Falloux had the merit of prudence. In making mutual concessions, the representatives of the different systems took good care to protest that they did not renounce their peculiar principles—a language which made sometimes their resolutions have the air of a superficial and incoherent compromise; but men could, nevertheless, observe how conspicuous that project was for its large and practical character, and its respect for different rights; and they could also see how the State, the Church, and private establishments were left free to compete in matters of public instruction. When this project was discussed in the Legislative Assembly, M. de Falloux was no longer minister; but the impulse had been given, and his measure was out of danger; his successor, M. de Parien, too, gave it the support which it deserved; and after a discussion which occupied thirty-seven sittings, the Assembly, by a strong majority, passed the law, without introducing any important modification. The Liberty of Instruction was founded.