Except a few northern schools, which had made themselves a name in the strife of the Reformation, all seats of learning on the Continent were on the side of the Pope. Now, how changed! Out of his own Model State, where were the universities canonically instituted? They had ceased to be. Meantime, the nations which at the Reformation were but emerging out of barbarism, had become learned in all the learning of the ancients and moderns. The two revolted tongues, German and English, had filled the world with a literature such as the Latin, even when Augurs and Pontiffs were called Cicero and Aurelius, had never known. The Portuguese, which had at one time promised to be the lingua franca of all the ports from Morocco to Japan, had given place, first, largely to the Dutch, then universally to the English. The Spanish and French, which had promised to divide between them North and South America, were sundered, and were both overshadowed by a dominating growth of English. That north-western tongue, cradled amid stern winds, was found by the Reformation as the rude but hardy dialect of some six or seven unlettered millions. Now it had become the wealthy and flexible, the noble and all-expressing speech of at least eighty millions. Thirty millions in Europe, with between forty and fifty millions in America, called it, with a common family pride and a common family joy, their mother-tongue. In Australasia, a future Europe promised to call it her mother-tongue. In India it was teaching the pundit, in China the mandarin, in Japan the daimio, in Africa the Kaffir chief, the Negro freedman, and the merchant of the Nile. That single language had now more schools and colleges, more laboratories and institutes of research, more books and journals, more patronage and discussion of Art, than all the Papal languages put together. And as to the German, if the lack of equal liberty had reined the people in, while the effects of the Thirty Years' War, joined to those of the chronic splitting up into small States, had prevented their growth and expansion in a similar measure, they had, nevertheless, with huge and patient power, piled up a Titanic literature, and in many a movement in the higher march of intellect their banner led the van. Men of the Catholic schools of Germany so felt their own superiority to the science and literature of actual Rome, that the strokes of their contempt not unfrequently fell even on the reputed sages of the Curia, sometimes laid on in a fashion more scholastic than scholarly.
In the General Congregation of January 4, the Curia had the satisfaction of hearing, not only a diocesan bishop, but a German one, defend the Draft.[263] It was Bishop Martin, of Paderborn, to whose eminent qualities official writers bear loud testimony, though in the eyes of the Liberal Catholics he does not seem to be a prodigy. He blamed the manner in which the bishops had treated a document proposed by the Pontiff, which ought to have been handled with reverence, and rebuked such language as "to be erased." He desired the adoption of the Syllabus just as it stood. As the way to bring back the stray sheep to the Holy Father, he enjoined the recognition of his infallibility, which would reclaim Protestants. Both the expectation of Martin and Manning that the new dogma would facilitate the conversion of Protestants, and that of all the Ultramontane leaders that it would hasten the submission of governments to the Lord Paramount of the world, lose part of their marvellousness when we find bishops like Bonjean proclaiming it as of great importance for the conversion of Hindus. Bishop David, of St. Brieuc, alluding to Martin's warning, said if he must not say that the Draft was to be erased, he would say that if it was dead let it rise again; but some bishop must breathe new life into it. Friedrich says that Cardinal Bilio was particularly hurt by this speech.
Bernardou, Archbishop of Sens, read a speech for Audu, the Patriarch of Babylon. The Chaldean solemnly pleaded against the levelling proceedings of Rome, maintained the ancient immunities of his Church, and ventured to throw out a warning against innovations, lest the Orientals should be altogether alienated. He afterwards received a message to repair to the Vatican, and to come unattended. About seven o'clock on that January night, the man of seventy-eight passed the Swiss guards, in their stripes and slashes of yellow, black, and red, with their halberds and their helmets, and while lonelily pacing the corridors, had time to remember how the house of the Inquisition stood over the way, and how utterly he was in the power of the King of the Vatican. It will be some time before what befell him comes to light.
Theiner, the celebrated Prefect of the Vatican Archives, had been long engaged, as was universally known, in preparing for publication the Acta of the Council of Trent. He had been arrested in this project. This was attributed to the instigation of the Jesuits. On January 4 Friedrich went to Theiner to beg permission to consult the Acta of Trent. "Theiner told me that he was now forbidden to let any one even see the Acta. All I could obtain from him was this—he showed me the piles of the copied documents in the distance" (p. 65). There is a picture for the days of an Œcumenical Council![264] The day following, another German on the banks of the Spree, was busy with the Council. To Bismarck the state of things so far was chaotic. "I should not think it wise," he says to Arnim, "for us to intermeddle in this misty chaos, where we do not yet see clearly enough to choose the right basis of operations." He sees that Rome may make aggressions, but rests in proud repose in the power of the nation to throw her back within her proper bounds. The continuance of peaceful relations is greatly to be desired, but it is not for the government to attempt to give a direction to the events of the Council. It can only cherish sympathy with the efforts of the German bishops, and, if they desire it, give them its support. Bismarck expressly declines to support by any diplomatic step the proposal for vote by nations. Such a step would involve a serious recognition of the pretensions of the Curia. We must, he says, hold ourselves aloof from the Council, and free to bring its conclusions to the bar of our laws. He, therefore, does not deem it wise to attempt a permanent united meeting of diplomatists, with a view to influence the Council. All that can be done is to encourage the German bishops, and to assure them that their rights will be maintained in their own country. But they must be made fully to understand that serious changes in the organization of the Church would compel the government to alter its relation to her, both in legislation and in administration.[265] Had Bismarck known all the plans of the five preceding years, and all the events that were to follow, it is doubtful if he could have taken a better course. And had his main object been to live at peace with Rome, and not merely to do the wisest thing for Germany, he could hardly have guarded more jealously against undue or premature interference.
FOOTNOTES:
[248] Tagebuch, p. 44.
[249] Tagebuch, p. 45.
[250] Acton, p. 73.
[251] Tagebuch, p. 44.
[252] Acta Sanctæ Sedis, v. 316. i.