This letter, cries Sambin, gave an episcopal head to the revolt; ... the objection was pointed against the opportuneness of defining the dogma of infallibility, but it was hardly possible to be deceived—the principle of infallibility itself seemed to be attacked.... The acts of the sovereign Pontiff were presented in a light so far from the truth, that a feeling of profound astonishment passed through the ranks of pastors and people. They were grieved to see the paling away of the triple halo which had hitherto hovered around the author's brow (Sambin, p. 49).
This was published in France in 1872, after Dupanloup had "submitted," and rendered new and conspicuous service to the Papacy. As Dupanloup's pamphlet will be hard to find hereafter, and as it is a representative document, we may give a general idea of the argument it presents.
For two years, says Dupanloup, thousands of printed papers have been circulated in the streets, containing a vow to believe in the personal infallibility of the Pope. Agents have got them signed by persons who did not understand the first word of the question.
He contrasts the confidence and freedom of speech granted to the Civiltá and the Univers with the secrecy observed toward bishops. Naming Manning and Deschamps as the leaders in the agitation for the new dogma, he adds, "I say new, because for eighteen hundred years the faithful have not, on pain of ceasing to be Catholics, been bound to believe it." Alluding to the freedom which, it was said, the bishops would have in the Council, he asks what freedom was left to them even now, when any who expressed an unwelcome opinion were denounced in the papers, beforehand, as schismatics or heretics.... "After having taught for eighteen hundred and seventy years, the Church is now to come and ask in a Council, Who has the right of teaching with infallibility?... When the oak is twenty centuries old, digging to find the parent acorn under the roots is the way to shake the tree."
The Bishop proceeds, with tact and great earnestness, to plead for the necessity of moral unanimity in defining new dogmas. He relates a fact of interest, and one very closely affecting the person of Pius IX. We have seen that, in 1864, the Pope formally initiated official preparations for the Council; that he had long before 1867 decided important questions as to its constitution and procedure; that he had set commissions to work, consulted bishops in different countries, and ordered nuncios to select theologians; and that it was only political perplexity which prevented the assembly of 1867 from being the General Council.
Yet Bishop Dupanloup, whether then aware of these facts or not, makes the following statement—
I well remember, and more bishops than one who were present in Rome in 1867 can recall, the fact that one of the most serious anxieties of Pius IX, before deciding on holding the Vatican Council, was, lest questions should arise calculated to provoke stormy discussions, and divisions in the episcopate. But the Pope remembered the sagacious conduct of the Council of Trent and of Pius IV, and proceeded, in the hope that it would not be forgotten at the future Council.
One of Dupanloup's solemn sayings is, "I have read and read again the catechism of the Council of Trent, on purpose to find if it spoke Yes or No about the infallibility of the Pope; I have ascertained that it does not say a word about it."
Again, he states that in 1867 one hundred and eighty-eight Anglican ministers wrote to the Pope asking for the basis of a union. In his reply, the Pope spoke of the authority of the Church and the supremacy of the Pope, but he did not speak of his infallibility. Yet journalists, screening themselves behind his name, tried to shut the mouths of bishops by attacks full of violence and gall. This was meant for M. Veuillot, who was not slow to reply.