The Catholic World.
Vol. VI., No. 35.—February, 1868.
Paris Impious And Religious Paris. [Footnote 55]
[Footnote 55: Les OEuores de Charité a Paris, par Julie Gouraud. Le Bien qui se fait en France, par M. l'Abbé Mullois.]
Am English lady, with whom the writer of this article fell into conversation one day at the table d'hôte of a Paris hotel, made the remark, "What a pity that the Parisians are so wicked!" This remark expresses the common opinion of English and American Protestants about Paris. The general desecration of Sunday, the evident lack of religion among a great portion of the people, the open infidelity of many of the leading newspapers, and other things of the like nature, strike their attention immediately. The extreme gayety of the French character appears, moreover, to the sedate Anglo-Saxon like an utter levity and frivolity. Puritan notions about Sunday, as foreign to the minds of continental Protestants as they are to those of Catholics, make them look also upon many innocent recreations and amusements in which the French people indulge on Sunday, as marks of an irreligious spirit, when they are not at all so. The consequence is, that they make an unfavorable judgment of the Catholic religion in consequence of what they see in Paris which is either really or in their opinion impious and immoral. This judgment is, however, altogether superficial; first, because the actual estimate of the religious and moral state of Paris is partial and one-sided; and second, because the responsibility of the really existing evils is unjustly cast upon the Catholic religion.
We propose, therefore, to give a more just and correct estimate of Paris as it is, by presenting its religious aspect in the same coup d'oeil with its irreligious aspect, and showing the true relations of the good and evil, as they exist side by side in mutual hostility and struggle, with each other and with their causes.
The light in which Paris is regarded as a Catholic city, and France as a Catholic nation, by English and American Protestants, is an incorrect one. As Paris represents France, we will speak of Paris alone, leaving the reader to apply to France generally, guided by his own knowledge and discretion, what we say about the capital. Paris is rather to be called a city which was once Catholic, and which Catholicity is striving to reconquer, than an actually Catholic city. The French Revolution abolished the Catholic Church, exterminated the clergy and religious orders, and put an end to the Christian religion in Paris. The mass of the people lost all faith and religious sentiment, and consequently could not transmit them to the generations which have been born since, and which have, grown up in ignorance and heathenism. Since the partial restoration of the Catholic religion by Napoleon the First, constant and zealous efforts have been made to convert this heathen mass, yet a vast number of the people remain still practically heathen, and a considerable proportion of them are not even baptized. With the common people there is more of ignorance and thoughtlessness than of positive infidelity or aversion from the church. In the higher walks of life, beside the ignorant and thoughtless class who have but a slight tincture of Catholic belief, there is the large and influential class of the positive infidels, who keep up a continual war upon every form of revealed religion. The majority of the people of Paris having thus been always in a state of greater or less alienation from all positive Christian belief and wholly regardless of the authority of the church since the French Revolution, the proper observance of the Sunday has never been reestablished. The people having lost the habit of resting on that day, and having dropped all thought of going to church, business and work have gone on upon Sunday from the mere vis inertiae. The church and the minority of the population have not been able to bring back the general observance of the day. Consequently, those who wish to observe it and to have it observed, are to a great extent dragged in to follow the common custom by the necessity of the case, and the clergy are not able to insist as strongly as they would wish on the obligation of resting from servile labor. It is not to be supposed that the clergy and the genuine Catholics of Paris approve of this desecration of Sunday. Let any one read the eloquent remarks of F. Hyacinthe, the most celebrated preacher of Paris, on this subject, in our last number, and he will see a correct statement of the sentiments of the Archbishop of Paris and all his clergy respecting the observance of Sunday. It is indeed a shocking spectacle, and one disgraceful to the great French nation, to see all public works going on, nearly all shops open, all factories in motion, and to meet the crowd of blouses shoving their way through the other, well-dressed crowd, as they return from work on Sunday, which ought to be the poor man's holiday. As a consequence of this unnatural privation of the day of rest given him by God, the laborer, from sheer inability to make a mere machine of himself, seizes on the Monday. Instead of the holy, cheerful rest of Sunday, there is a dull, apathetic cessation of work on Monday, and the blouses are again met loitering about the streets and quays, too often in a state of intoxication. The accountability for this falls not upon the Catholic Church, but upon that party which has been and ever is working for her destruction, and which receives to a great extent the sympathy and encouragement of Protestants in England and America.
We cannot pretend to say precisely what proportion of the population of Paris is practically outside of the Catholic Church. We have been told by an American gentleman that one of the clergymen of St. Eustache estimated the population of that parish at 40,000, of whom 10,000 attend Mass, and 3000 approach the Sacraments. If this estimate can be applied to the whole city, then 900,000 of the people habitually neglect the church, leaving 300,000 who habitually frequent it, out of whom somewhat less than 100,000 receive the Sacraments. If this estimate is incorrect, it will probably call out a more, correct statement from some of our friends in Paris, which we shall be glad to receive. Without committing ourselves, therefore, to any exact estimates, we may nevertheless affirm what is an evident fact, that there exists within the great world of Paris a smaller, but still in magnitude a considerable religious and Catholic world which is really one of the glories of Christendom for the extent and fervor of its works of faith, charity, and piety. There is a religious as well as an impious Paris, which, in many respects deserves to be held up as a model to the other portions of the Catholic Church, and is entitled to the admiration of all Christians throughout the world.
We will begin with the charities of Paris, leaving its religion to be spoke of afterwards. Paris is world-renowned for the number and excellence of its charitable institutions. These are not exclusively the work of the religious portion of the people, but common to all, from the imperial court down to the humblest class. There is a natural basis for charity in the French character. France is the most completely, highly, and universally civilized nation in the world. This civilization has been matured and brought to perfection by Christianity, yet the superiority of its kind and degree is due to the fact that Christianity found in the French character an uncommonly plastic and ductile material to work upon. The truth of this observation is proved by the refinement and politeness prevailing so universally among all classes. There must be something naturally amiable in the French character, which takes easily the refining, gentilizing influences of Christian civilization. In the ordinary, small affairs of life and common intercourse this is politeness, and it adds no little to the pleasantness and happiness of every-day existence, detracts no little from its burdens. Carried into a higher sphere, it becomes philanthropy. The Catholic religion evolved it into the highest activity and elevated it to the rank of supernatural charity. This charity is still the interior and principal wheel which imparts movement and supplies force. Yet its movement, once communicated, is retained even by those who have lost Catholic faith and charity, or who are acting chiefly in view of temporal motives. There is a general interest in and desire for the well-being and happiness of the whole people. There is not so much liberty in France as in some other countries, yet there is more equality and fraternity there than anywhere else on the globe. The government is somewhat despotic, yet there is no doubt that it labors for the well-being of its subjects. The utmost care is taken of life and property, and the most extreme vigilance is exercised to see that the public is well served in every branch of administration. The emperor is the hardest working man in Paris, and the empress is not at all behindhand in sustaining her part of the arduous as well as honorable duties of the throne. Who does not know that plans for model tenements, projects for relieving the laboring classes, charitable and benevolent enterprises of various sorts, are the continual subjects of interest and consultation in the palace of the Tuileries? The emperor's fête on the fifteenth of August, with the abundant alms distributed on that day throughout every quarter of Paris, and the permission to ask alms of everybody conceded to the mendicant class, are like a gleam of more Catholic times, and present a pleasing contrast with the glum demeanor and frozen state of royalty in England and Prussia. We may speak here, also, of the remarkable honesty and fidelity in taking care of the property of others which is so general in Paris among all sorts of persons, especially those engaged in serving the public, and of which we might give a great number of instances, were it convenient to do so. In regard to hospitals, and other public institutions for the relief of the sick, poor, and otherwise suffering classes, it is needless to go into particulars to show how energetic and liberal is the action of the French government in regard to them.