The ties of marriage, by assigning a legitimate object to the passions, still do not dry up the source of agitation and the capricious restlessness which the heart conceals. Possession cloys and disgusts, beauty fades and decays, the illusions vanish, and the charms disappear; man, in the presence of a reality which is far from reaching the beauty of the dreams inspired by his ardent imagination, feels new desires arise in his heart; tired with what he possesses, he entertains new illusions; he seeks elsewhere the ideal happiness which he thought he had found, and quits the unpleasing reality which thus deceives his brightest hopes.
Give, then, the reins to the passions of man; allow him in any way to entertain the illusion that he can make himself any new ties; permit him to believe that he is not attached for ever, and without recall, to the companion of his life; and you will see that disgust will soon take possession of him, that discord will be more violent and striking, that the ties will begin to wear out before they are contracted, and will break at the first shock. Proclaim, on the contrary, a law which makes no exception of poor or rich, weak or powerful, vassals or kings, which makes no allowance for difference of situation, of character, health, or any of those numberless motives which, in the hands of passions, and especially those of powerful men, are easily changed into pretexts; proclaim that this law is from heaven, show a divine seal on the marriage tie, tell the murmuring passions that if they will gratify themselves they must do so by immorality; tell them that the power which is charged with the preservation of this divine law will never make criminal compliances, that it will never dispense with the infraction of the divine law, and that the crime will never be without remorse; you will then see the passions become calm and resigned; the law will be diffused and strengthened, will take root in customs; you will have secured the good order and tranquillity of families for ever, and society will be indebted to you for an immense benefit. Now this is exactly what Catholicity has done, by efforts which lasted for ages; it is what Protestantism would have destroyed, if Europe had generally followed its doctrine and example, if the people had not been wiser than their deceitful guides.
Protestants and false philosophers, examining the doctrines and institutions of the Catholic Church through their prejudices and animosity, have not understood the admirable power of the two characteristics impressed at all times and in all places on the ideas and works of Catholicity, viz. unity and fixity; unity in doctrines, and fixity in conduct. Catholicity points out an object, and wishes us to pursue it straight forward. It is a reproach to philosophers and Protestants, that after having declaimed against unity of doctrine, they also declaimed against fixity of conduct. If they had reflected on man, they would have understood that this fixity is the secret of guiding and ruling him, and, when desirable of restraining his passions, of exalting his mind when necessary, and of rendering him capable of great sacrifices and heroic actions. There is nothing worse for man than uncertainty and indecision; nothing that weakens and tends more to make him useless. Indecision is to the will what skepticism is to the mind. Give a man a definite object, and if he will devote himself to it, he will attain it. Let him hesitate between two different ways, without a fixed rule to guide his conduct; let him be ignorant of his intention; let him not know whither he is going, and you will see his energy relax, his strength diminish, and he will stop. Do you know by what secret great minds govern the world? Do you know what renders them capable of heroic actions? And how all those who surround them are rendered so? It is that they have a fixed object, both for themselves and for others; it is that they see that object clearly, desire it ardently, strive after it directly, with firm hope and lively faith, without allowing any hesitation in themselves or in others. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, and the other heroes of ancient and modern times, no doubt exercised a fascinating influence by the ascendency of their genius; but the secret of this ascendency, the secret of their power, and of that force of impulse by which they surmounted all, was the unity of thought, the fixity of plan, which produced in them that invincible, irresistible character which gave them an immense superiority over other men. Thus Alexander passed the Granicus, undertook and completed his wonderful conquest of Asia; thus Cæsar passed the Rubicon, put Pompey to flight, triumphed at Pharsalia, and made himself master of the world; thus did Napoleon disperse those who parleyed about the fate of France, conquered his enemies at Marengo, obtained the crown of Charlemagne, alarmed and astonished the world by the victories of Austerlitz and Jena.
Without unity there is no order, without fixity there is no stability; and in the moral as in the physical world, without order and stability nothing prospers. Protestantism, which has pretended to advance the individual and society by destroying religious unity, has introduced into creeds and institutions the multiplicity and fickleness of private judgment; it has everywhere spread confusion and disorder, and has altered the nature of European civilization by inoculating it with a disastrous principle which has caused and will continue to cause lamentable evils. And let it not be supposed, that Catholicity, on account of the unity of her doctrines and the fixity of her conduct, is opposed to the progress of ages. There is nothing to prevent that which is one from advancing, and there may be movement in a system which has some fixed points. The universe whose grandeur astonishes us, whose prodigies fill us with admiration, whose beauty and variety enchant us, is united, is ruled by laws constant and fixed. Behold some of the reasons which justify the strictness of Catholicity, behold why she has not been able to comply with the demands of a passion which, once let loose, has no boundary or barrier, introduces trouble into hearts, disorder into families, takes away the dignity of manners, dishonors the modesty of women, and lowers them from the noble rank of the companions of men. I do not deny that Catholicity is strict on this point; but she could not give up this strictness without renouncing at the same time the sublime functions of the depository of sound morality, the vigilant sentinel which guards the destinies of humanity.[17]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
VIRGINITY IN ITS SOCIAL ASPECT.
We have seen, in the fifteenth chapter, with what jealousy Catholicity endeavors to veil the secrets of modesty; with what perseverance she imposes the restraint of morality on the most impetuous passion of the human heart. She shows us all the importance which belongs to the contrary virtue, by crowning with peerless splendor the total abstinence from sensual pleasure, viz. virginity. Frivolous minds, and principally those who are inspired by a voluptuous heart, do not understand how much Catholicity has thus contributed to the elevation of woman; but such will not be the case with reflecting men who are capable of seeing that all that tends to raise to the highest degree of delicacy the feeling of modesty, all that fortifies morality, all that contributes to make a considerable number of women models of the most heroic virtue, equally tends to place women above the atmosphere of gross passion. Woman then ceases to be presented to the eyes of man as the mere instrument of pleasure; none of the attractions with which nature has endowed her are lost or diminished, and she has no longer to dread becoming an object of contempt and disgust, after having been the unhappy victim of profligacy.
The Catholic Church is profoundly acquainted with these truths; and while she watched over the sanctity of the conjugal tie, while she created in the bosom of the family this admirable dignity of the matron, she covered with a mysterious veil the countenance of the Christian virgin, and she carefully guarded the spouses of the Lord in the seclusion of the sanctuary. It was reserved for Luther, the gross profaner of Catharine de Boré, to act in defiance of the profound and delicate wisdom of the Church on this point. After the apostate monk had violated the sacred seal set by religion on the nuptial bed, his was the unchaste hand to tear away the sacred veil of virgins consecrated to God: it was worthy of his hard heart to excite the cupidity of princes, to induce them to seize upon the possessions of these defenceless virgins, and expel them from their abodes. See him everywhere excite the flame of sensuality, and break through all control. What will become of virgins devoted to the sanctuary? Like timid doves, will they not fall into the snares of the libertine? Is this the way to increase the respect paid to the female sex? Is this the way to increase the feeling of modesty and to advance humanity? Was this the way in which Luther gave a generous impulse to future generations, perfected the human mind, and gave vigor and splendor to refinement and civilization? What man with a tender and sensitive heart can endure the shameless declamation of Luther, especially if he has read the Cyprians, the Ambroses, the Jeromes, and the other shining lights of the Catholic Church, on the sublime honor of the Christian virgin? Who, then, will object to see, during ages when the most savage barbarism prevailed, those secluded dwellings where the spouses of the Lord secured themselves from the dangers of the world, incessantly employed in raising their hands to heaven, to draw down upon the earth the dews of divine mercy? In times and countries the most civilized, how sad is the contrast between the asylums of the purest and loftiest virtue, and the ocean of dissipation and profligacy! Were these abodes a remnant of ignorance, a monument of fanaticism, which the coryphæi of Protestantism did well to sweep from the earth? If this be so, let us protest against all that is noble and disinterested; let us stifle in our hearts all enthusiasm for virtue; let every thing be reduced to the grossest sensuality; let the painter throw away his pencil, the poet his lyre; let us forget our greatness and our dignity; let us degrade ourselves, saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!"
No; true civilization can never forgive Protestantism for this immoral and impious work; true civilization can never forgive it for having violated the sanctuary of modesty and innocence, for having employed all its efforts to destroy respect for virginity; thus treading under foot a doctrine professed by all the human race. It did not respect what was venerated by the Greeks in the priestesses of Ceres, by the Romans in their vestals, by the Gauls in their druidesses, by the Germans in their prophetesses. It has carried the want of respect for modesty farther than was ever done by the dissolute nations of Asia, and the barbarians of the new world. It is certainly a disgrace for Europe to have attacked what was respected in all parts of the world, to have treated as a mistaken prejudice the universal belief of the human race, sanctioned, moreover, by Christianity. What invasion of barbarians was equal to this attack of Protestantism on all that ought to be most inviolable among men? It has set the fatal example in modern revolutions of the crimes which have been committed.
When we see, in warlike rage, the barbarity of the conquerors remove all restraint from a licentious soldiery, and let them loose against the abodes of virgins consecrated to God, there is nothing but what may be conceived. But when these holy institutions are persecuted by system, when the passions of the populace are excited against them, by grossly assailing their origin and object, this is more than brutal and inhuman. It is a thing which cannot be described, when those who act in this way boast of being Reformers, followers of the pure Gospel, and proclaim themselves the disciples of Him who, in His sublime councils, has pointed out virginity as one of the noblest virtues that can adorn the Christian's crown. Now, who is ignorant that this was one of the works to which Protestantism devoted itself with the greatest ardor?