But why, it may be asked, do we arbitrarily date from the epoch of Father James Stuart's, appearance in London these papers, otherwise without date, and which were not publicly known till seventeen years later, in 1685? Let us set forth, as briefly as possible, the arguments by which we support our position.
In the first place, we agree with the English historians that these two fragments of controversy are not from the pen of Charles II. A comparison of the rugged and often inaccurate French of his majesty with that of the present text, settles this question at once. To whom, then, must we look for the authorship? [{600}] They proceed from an ecclesiastic, from a theologian consulted by the King of England. The very for which they assume argues the teaching of a master. But are not these two papers the offspring of two authors, of two teachers? By no means. There is a perfect resemblance between them, a perfect consanguinity of thought and of argument. There is the same turn of mind, the same style, often the same expressions. Still further. The tenor of the two pieces, which present in an abridged and condensed form many points of doctrine, presupposes in our opinion a whole series of lessons given to the royal disciple. Observe that, at the beginning of the first resumé, we have the phrase "the principal point;" there were then secondary points. The peaceful and at the same time simple, almost familiar tone of the master on entering upon the subject, is exactly the tone of a man who is conversing neither for the first nor for the last time. "The conversation" of which he speaks had not been, you would say, the only conversation. Everything, in fact, shows that these two fragments made part of a very considerable series of religious conferences.
But could these conferences, which, as we have seen, Charles might have held in all secresy at the end of the year 1668 and at the commencement of the year 1669, have taken place at any other period of his reign? By no means. For the first eight years, the king himself is our witness, since we have only to study the terms in which he complains to Father Oliva of his lamentable state of spiritual destitution. After the departure of the two Jesuits and the conversion of the Duke of York, the Anglican hatred and bitterness did not cease to rage about the throne of the Catholic Stuarts. During this second period, the only name which stands in our way is that of Father Claude de la Colombière, who sojourned in England a little more than two years, from 1676 to 1679. Now in this unhappy time, so great was the terror which ruled Charles II. that, despite his sincere esteem for the preacher of the Duchess of York, he dared not accord him, by the very confession of Father de la Colombière, more than two or three audiences, and not one of them secret. Whence it follows that these two famous documents are very probably, we had almost said certainly, the work of Father James Stuart and of his learned companion. Beside, does not such an origin explain the almost religious care with which these arid pages of theology were guarded for nearly twenty years by a prince to whom history points as the perfect type of carelessness? They called back to him the day when, in the presence of his mother, who was no more, and who now prayed for him in heaven, under the direction of a saint whose father he was, he had made his most powerful effort to abjure odious errors; they remained in his hand as a consolation for the past, a light in the future, a pledge of pardon and of hope in the hour when, cited before him who judges kings, he should at last render a severe account for the scandals of his life and the deficiencies of his faith.
Had the difficulties which these two devout ecclesiastics were forced to encounter been merely spiritual, had it been a question of logic, history, and truth, their mission would have been a fruitful one. But in actual life events are seldom simple, and history becomes a problem of complex forces. The heart of Charles II. led him toward his God. The pleasures of court life, and a natural unwillingness to sacrifice his throne, made him hesitate, falter, invent subtleties. It happened, at this time, that a wide-spread opinion prevailed in England, which had not been without its influence on the king. A Catholic, it was claimed, could procure a dispensation from Rome, could disguise his faith without scruple, and conform himself externally, at least, to the rites of the Anglican Church. Nor was the British monarch destitute of a plausible [{601}] precedent. When sojourning at Paris, in the days of the Protectorate, he had promised the venerable Father Oiler to renounce Protestantism, and Alexander VII., at the urgent instance of the crownless prince, had authorized him to conceal his abjuration until his affairs took a more favorable turn. This concession was made in no absolute sense. It stopped at the limits which the divine law has fixed for kings as well as for the humblest of Christians. Unquestionably, a convert whose abrupt publication of a change of faith would subject him to grave perils ought to use prudence. But in no respect would this permission extend so far as that the disciple should be "ashamed of" his Master. In this latter case dissimulation would be a crime.
Yet, in the delicate situation in which Charles was placed, what was he to do? The French alliance remained at this moment a state secret, and was thus far without result. Much was anticipated from the war which Louis XIV. was about to wage with Holland. Amid the triumph of the confederate arms, and the glory which would redound to his own person, the English monarch hoped to discover some means of strengthening the royal power and of breaking at last the Anglican tyranny. Not one of these things, however, had reached the vantage point of a fait accompli; not a domestic difficulty which did not subsist in all its force. In his extremity, the unfortunate prince naturally returned to his dreams of an accommodation with the Pope, of a compromise with the law of God: and one might say that circumstances invited it. Had he not now, in the general of the Jesuits, a powerful advocate with the sovereign pontiff? His son, a novice of the fraternity of Jesus, his son, called from the bosom of Italy and so tenderly received—would he not serve in the Vatican as a guarantee for the integrity of the father? Recourse to the Holy See, so far as to ascertain the precautions which would be permitted to the King of Great Britain in order to avoid exposing himself, his family, all the Catholics of England, to the extremest dangers—such was, we think the final determination of Charles II. This conjecture, authorized by the well-known sentiments of the prince and the whole sequence of facts, is specially based on a letter which Father James Stuart will shortly bear to Rome, and which appears to us scarcely susceptible of any other interpretation. Beside, one very authentic feature in the conversion of the Duke of York, to which we shall presently allude, falls in so perfectly with our theory, that it will be exceedingly difficult, in our opinion, to find any other satisfactory explanation for the ambiguous denouement which the end of this recital affords.
There are no historical indications to guide us in ascertaining the attitude assumed by the two pious queens when the monarch arrived at this resolution. Probably the princesses partook of the illusion of the Duke of York and of most of the Catholics of the court: they placed an exaggerated hope on the powerful intervention of the King of France. Relying upon this, and on the probable complaisance of the Pope, they supported in his unhappy course the son, the husband, whose safety lay so closely to their heart.
It would do our two missionaries a cruel injustice to suppose that they saw no deeper or clearer. In so elementary a question of theology, these vigorous controversialists, whose learning and keen reasonings we have appreciated, could have had but one opinion—that of their confrère Father Symons, of whom we shall shortly speak. James Stuart, we may fearlessly affirm, fulfilled respectfully but firmly the duty of his ministry. He strove to convince his father that no pontifical letter would authorize either king or emperor to reconcile in his person what the Son of God by his divine lips had declared eternally irreconcilable, to be ashamed of him before men, and yet to find favor in his sight. Two things are certain. On [{602}] the one hand, the holy novice failed to convince the king; on the other, filial love, happily combined with apostolic prudence, preserved his zeal from all bitterness.
Charles persisted in seeking, through the intervention of Father Oliva, to draw from Clement IX. impossible concessions. Despite the recent fatigues of his late voyage, the young enthusiast offered to be himself the bearer of his father's despatches. The proposition was accepted, and Charles wrote these lines, upon which we have already commented, and which are unfortunately the only source from which the historian can draw a correct judgment upon the results of the secret mission completed in 1668 in the palace of the kings of England by Father J. Stuart.
TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL OF THE JESUIT FATHERS AT ROME (intrusted to the hand of Mons. de la Cloche, Jesuit at Rome):
REVEREND FATHER,—You are too necessary for us in the position where your merit has raised you, not to be frequently troubled by us, in that condition where the misfortune of our birth obliges us to be.
Our very dear and honored son will tell you, on our part, all our proceedings, and as we were perplexed in deciding upon some one who should be our messenger once again to your reverence touching our affairs, he represented to us the urgent desire he had of returning himself to Rome on a secret embassy from us to you, reverend father—which desire we have granted him, under the condition that he come back to London as soon as he shall have had an interview with your reverence, and obtained those things which we entreat of you, and which our aforesaid very dear and honored son will explain from us personally, bringing us, on his return through France, the reverend father whom he left there.
At the request of our very dear and honored son afore-mentioned, who has represented to us that the place where he has been received into your fellowship is burdened heavily with debts, and that there is need of some buildings and other things, we have arranged that your house, in which he has been received, shall obtain from us, as soon as possible, a notable sum for the expiation of our offences. Waiting, if it please you, till your reverence can advise us of the measures which you will take for its reception, which shall be within a year. If you write to us, it will be by our very dear and honored son, who will tell your reverence all our intentions not intrusted to this paper. We are
Charles, King of England.
At Whitehall, London, the 18th Nov., 1668.
If it happen that our very dear and honored son be in need of anything, whatever it may be, we beseech you, reverend father, to attend to it, and we will keep an account of all.