Dating its restoration from only thirteen years ago, the new congregation of the Oratoire is still not numerous, and remains little known; it is poor, and it desires to remain so; it has need of extension and of support, but at the very outset of its new career it proved itself faithful to its origin and worthy of the words of Bossuet. One of its founders, the Père Gratry, took his place at once in the first rank of the Christian apologists, moralists, and writers of the day: he is a man at once animated and gentle, full of his peculiar ideas and sentiments, which he carries to an enthusiastic height, but without pride and without jealousy, and ardently propagating them by his books, his lectures, and his conversation. These are all distinguished by eloquent appeals to human sympathies, touching even where they do not convince, and leaving the mind always in emotion at the prospects which they open. Another member of the new Oratoire, the Père Valvoger, has given a succinct account, in a learned work, ("Introduction historique et critique aux livres du Nouveau Testament,") of the Researches and Evidences of Christianity, by the principal foreign theologians. Under the strong influence of the opinions of its first founders, and at the same time comprehending the mind and the requirements of France at the present day, the rising congregation of the Oratoire does not evade examination or discussion; it respects science, and in the religious truths which it teaches, and its relations with the souls that it summons to believe, it does not shrink from accepting fearlessly the terms and the forms of liberty.
In the midst of this great movement of men's minds in matters of religion, what has been done since the opening of this century by the chiefs of the Catholic Church of France, by their bishops and by the clergy, called, by their alliance with the State and by their own rights, to assume the education and the Christian direction of the human soul?
They were at first and especially occupied with the real resuscitation of that Christian religion, now returning to French society, to its rank there and to its mission, but returning as exiles return—ill provided, disorganized, and to a home that seems no home. To render back to France, now Catholic, churches for its worship, priests for its churches, seminaries to form its priests, pupils to people those seminaries; to assure also to the edifice thus rising from its ruins the time for its proper establishment and consolidation—such, under the first empire, was the dominant thought, almost the exclusive thought, of the Episcopacy, of the clergy instituted by the Concordat. A work great and difficult, for which neither materials nor workmen were at hand, and which required for its accomplishment strong support and a long period of repose. The clergy of this epoch have been justly reproached with their uniform obsequiousness to the Emperor Napoleon. No doubt it was a shameful spectacle, in 1811, which those docile bishops afforded, when they assembled in council and were never weary of lavishing caresses upon the despot who had not only stripped the chief of their Church, Pius VII., of his dominions, but was then detaining him a prisoner at Savona, denying his natural counselors, the cardinals, all access to him, refusing him even a secretary to write his letters, and charging an officer of the gendarmerie to watch by day and by night all his movements. Only a single fact explains and somewhat excuses the pusillanimity of the clergy when confronted with this tyranny: these bishops had seen Christianity proscribed, its churches closed, profaned, demolished, its priests hunted and massacred, their flocks left without any worship, any guide, any consolation. The chance of the recurrence of such events filled them with horror. Who could affirm that there was no such chance, and that the reality of the eve was not the possibility of the morrow? With such causes of apprehension a good priest might feel his conscience profoundly troubled; and a timid priest might regard his weakness as justified. What sacrifices were not permissible, nay, even imperative, to prevent such disasters?
Still, the violent measures of Napoleon did not fail to encounter, sometimes rebukes, and occasionally resistance, on the part of the clergy; it was not only that some prelates [Footnote 9] in the council, with more courage than moderation, censured his conduct toward the Pope: the council itself—forgetting at last, in its anxiety to vindicate the honor of the whole body, its long habit of obsequiousness—voted an address to the Emperor, an act of independence which occasioned its abrupt dissolution.
[Footnote 9: Among others M. d'Avian, Archbishop of Bordeaux, M. de Boulogne, Bishop of Troyes, and M. de Broglie, Bishop of Gaud.]
And of the two ecclesiastics to whose counsels, from just motives of esteem, Napoleon showed least disinclination to give ear, one—the Abbé Émery, "Superior General" of the Congregation of St. Sulpice—had just previously, not long before he died, openly, yet with dignity, resisted the Emperor; [Footnote 10] the other, M. Duvoisin, Bishop of Nantes, dictated upon his deathbed these powerful and affectionate lines: "I supplicate the Emperor to restore the holy Father to liberty. His captivity troubles the extreme moments of my life. On several occasions I had the honor to inform the Emperor of the affliction which this captivity is causing to the whole of Christendom, and of the inconveniences which would attend its prolongation. The happiness of his Majesty himself, I believe, depends upon the return of his Holiness to Rome."
[Footnote 10: Vie de M. Émery, supérieur général du séminaire et de la compagnie de Saint-Sulpice, t. ii, pp. 236-346. Paris: 1862.]
Idly does Despotism excuse its arbitrary acts, as if they resulted from the want of foresight or the servility of its flatterers; for the blindest have their gleams of light, and even the most timid their intrepid moments, during which they speak the truth, although they speak it in vain.