French & English

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The French Clergy.

The Religious Orders.

Social Position of the French Clergy.

The clergy in England are said to form part of the aristocracy, but this is true only of the Anglican clergy. The Dissenting clergy form part of the middle classes. The Anglican clergy itself is less aristocratic than it was in the earlier part of the nineteenth century; in fact, its position has varied greatly from one century to another. It is now said to be rather declining, as the clergy are recruited from an inferior class, both as to position and ability. A father may put his son into the Church because the lad is not keen-witted enough to be a successful attorney, or because there is not capital enough in the family to set him up as a manufacturer. There are also ways of entering the Church without the training of Oxford or Cambridge. Nevertheless, in spite of this decline, the Anglican clergy are still, as a body, incomparably superior to the French Roman Catholic clergy in the social sense. The French clergy are now almost exclusively recruited from the humble classes. Nine out of ten are sons of peasants, the tenth may be the son of an artisan or a gendarme. It is curious that the French aristocracy, which professes such deep respect for the Church, should no longer supply recruits for the clergy. Fewer and fewer of the sons of the noblesse become priests every year, and those who do now become priests shut themselves up in the religious orders, and are of no use for the common work of the parishes, many of which are left empty, in country places, for want of working priests to fill them. It would seem as if it were no longer thought comme il faut to be a parish priest, whilst it may be comme il faut to belong to one of the recognised orders, such as the Marists, the Jesuits, etc. The practical result is that in the country parishes many of the priests are burdened with extra duty, sometimes far from their homes, merely from an insufficient supply of ecclesiastics. This plain fact—which I do not give merely on my own authority, but on that of a French bishop who deplored it lately in an episcopal charge—is a valuable commentary on that devotion to the Church which the French aristocracy still professes so long as it entails no greater inconvenience than a perfunctory attendance at mass. There is, consequently, a social severance between the clergy and the aristocracy, though there may be a political alliance. The priest may have patrons in the château, he may have real friends there, but his relations and his equals are generally in the farm-houses.[72] The reason lies no deeper than the obvious fact that the duties of a parish priest are irksome and his life is austere. He is confined to one place, without amusements, and with society limited to peasants and to the few gentry who happen to be there for a part of the year only; his work is a continual servitude, and it is never done. He is allowed by law to marry, but not by the rules of his Church or the opinion of society, and his conduct is watched with the most jealous and unceasing scrutiny. To devote oneself to such an existence requires not merely the pretence to religious belief but its reality. That, and that alone, can make a human being happy in a life which is deprived of all worldly pleasures, and has no earthly rewards.

Bishops.

The difference between the parish priest and the bishop, though great in England, is much greater in France. In England it is the difference between a gentleman and a peer, in France it is that between a common soldier and his colonel. Since royalty is dead, and the great nobles politically paralysed by universal suffrage, the bishop seems all the greater as the sole survivor of the splendid personages of the middle ages. The grandeur of the Church is represented by the bishops, both in their social position, which, in the absence of royalty, is much higher than any other, and also in externals, such as the stately residence, the violet and gold of the costume, and the customary carriage and pair. It must be remembered, too, that the “Church” in Catholic language means the bishops, who are alone summoned to Œcumenical Councils, and not the inferior clergy, who have no vote, direct or indirect, the bishops not being elected by them.

French Officers.

Position of Officers in England.

Since the French army has become national, the military caste is not so much an aristocratic caste as it is in England. It is difficult for an Englishman to realise the position of officers in a French garrison town. They live very much amongst themselves, and spend many of their leisure hours in a café chosen specially by them, and called “le café des officiers.” Some of them are admitted into local society, but on their individual merits or in consequence of family connections; the uniform is not the passport that it is, or used to be, in England. I remember how, on the arrival of a new regiment, the English squires in the neighbourhood would go and call upon the officers to give them a welcome, and would very soon ask them to dinner. Before long the officers were on sufficiently friendly terms to join in country amusements and invite themselves to lunch. If there was a ball, they were invited as a matter of course. This intimacy between military officers and the local gentry was strongly marked in the English society of the Wellingtonian age. In a French town there is no such ready welcome on the part of the leading inhabitants. The officers are treated like strangers staying in the hotels until some accident brings about an acquaintanceship.

The Army as a Career.