The notion of religious freedom, or even of simple toleration, seems to have been absolutely unknown to the Romish ecclesiastics of the time: they did not understand it; and if they beheld an inkling of it in others, they combatted it as an act of impiety. We have a proof of this in a letter which made considerable noise in 1751. It bore the signature of Chabannes, bishop of Agen.
There had fallen into his possession a paper containing the following matter: “It is the intention of the comptroller-general to grant every kind of protection to the Sieur Frontin, a Huguenot trader, and that he should be treated with such consideration as may induce the merchants of his sect to return to the kingdom.” In fact, the object was to afford the opportunity to some of the industrious refugees of again peacefully residing in France.
The bishop immediately took pen in hand to express his astonishment and grief to the comptroller-general, Machault. His letter is lengthy, and skilfully written. He avoided all mention of dogma, well aware that this kind of argument would be of no avail with unbelievers; but he developed in his own way the political side of the question. According to him the Calvinists were the enemies of the king, rebels on principle, republicans by system; they had on many occasions brought the country within an inch of its ruin, and would do so again if they were recalled. Louis XIV. had the wisdom to free the body politic of the state from these vicious and peccant humours, which had caused so many disorders in it (we follow the text); Louis XV. will pursue the same course. As for the thought of permitting the Huguenot pastors to carry on their ministry in France, it was an enormity to which the bishop would on no account agree. “Heaven, which has ever protected the monarchy,” he says in conclusion, “heaven, which has until now united religion with it by a bond that has not been broken, inspired him with this confidence. We will not witness the free exercise of Calvinism. No, the son, the heir, the imitator of Louis the Great, will not re-establish the Huguenots.”
The comptroller-general, who had no affection for the priests, but who feared their intrigues and denunciations, hastened to disavow the more or less apochryphal paper, which had stirred up the bile of the bishop of Agen, and the matter dropped. The difference of opinions and times was here again apparent. In our days, a prelate who should utter the sentiments of Chabannes, would be accused of insanity; in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Bishop Chabannes was taxed with excessive indulgence by his brethren; he was considered much too moderate a man!
Monclus, bishop of Alais, indeed carried his exactions a great deal farther. Although he confessed that persecution does not change the heart, and that conversion is only a work of grace, he, at the same time, in 1751, publicly solicited a new declaration against the Protestants. He required the entire abolition of judicial forms. The Huguenots, who should refuse to perform the acts of Catholicity, ought to be, according to this prelate’s notions, summarily tried by the commandant of the province, or by the intendant. He accused the magistrates of having relaxed the severity of the ordinances, which was an act of unfaithfulness, which had been the cause of all the misfortunes of the realm. He demanded that the intervention of the Parliaments should cease; that the military or administrative power should be wholly uncontrolled; and that the judgments should be arbitrary and absolute.
The procurator-general, at the Parliament of Aix, Rippert de Monclar, defended religion, justice, morality, and humanity, which had been so greatly outraged by this priest. He replied, in a Political and Theological Memoir, published in 1755, that the sentiments of the prelate were as irreligious as they were inhuman, and tended to the total destruction of society. “If the bishops have any reason to complain,” he adds, “of the profanation of the sacraments by the Protestants, and of the uselessness of the proofs they have exacted for seventy years past, why are they bent upon continuing the same acts of Catholicism, by soliciting against them a continuous and rigorous execution of royal ordinances? Why force them in this manner to repeat this horrible impiety which is complained of? Is it imagined that it is preferable to tread our holy religion underfoot, than not to profess it at all? Who believes that it is possible to force a person, against his inclination and belief, to receive mysteries so dread that faith alone with love and ardour ought to lead us to approach them, and which should be avoided by Catholics themselves, who feel the slightest coldness or indifference? The profanations that have happened have appalled both heaven and earth, and yet it is sought to renew the hideous sight.”[120]
Rippert de Monclar says that these heretics were, after all, not worse than the Jews, who were allowed not only liberty of marriage, independently of the Church, but also the free exercise of their religion. He asks if it were right to embrace in one condemnation, with the hundred and fifty thousand fathers and mothers who had contracted clandestine marriages, the whole multitude of children born or to be born? “What wrong have they done,” he exclaimed, “that they were made the opprobrium of the land?”
He proves, moreover, that the persecutions sought by the bishop of Alais, would not be more efficacious than those which had already taken place. “If this prelate,” he says, “were to have a correct list of all the Protestant ministers, who have been put to death; of all the persons of every age and degree, who have been sent to the galleys; of all the taxes, fines, and other contributions, which have been exacted; of all the children, who have been torn from their parents; of all the marriages, which have been annulled and declared public concubinages; of all the property, which has been thereupon awarded to collateral relations; of all the individuals, who have been imprisoned and kept in long captivity; of all the decrees, that have been passed against an infinity of others; even of all the excesses, and of all the frightful massacres committed by the king’s troops, and in opposition to the intention of his majesty; alas! this list would fill volumes. Every corner of France re-echoes with the cries of these miserable people; they attract the very compassion of those who glory, I will not say in being Christians, but in being men; and yet a bishop is insensible to all this, and would fain redouble them! Would it not better become him, to plant and nourish [measures] in their behalf, and to weep between the porch and the altar for them?”[121]
This lesson of morality and public reproof, given by the magistracy to the clergy, was as deserved as it was severe; it was not the only one, as we shall have occasion to show.