The French government declared its intention of demanding that a special ambassador should be admitted to the Council. This Don Margotti hailed, first as a victory of the Council, and then as one of the most splendid victories of Pius IX. The ground of this professed exultation was that abstinence from the Council meant the separation of Church and State. "The Lord be praised, who is preparing greater triumphs for His spouse!" France trembles for her revolution and her Gallicanism.[316] So can voice and face be changed in a moment.
Beust, in further despatches, declined any proposal for sending ambassadors to the Council, on the ground that governments would, by such an act, make themselves, in some sort, parties to its proceedings. He had laid down and firmly adhered to the principle of abiding within the line of purely political action. That principle, he declared, fully covered the two steps of interdicting all publications exciting to contempt of the law, and punishing all persons guilty of any contempt of it.[317] But he instructed Count Trauttmansdorff to support the French with all cordiality, in the demand that matters touching political interests, which were submitted to the Council, should be communicated to France before being enacted. But, on the part of the State, he could not take up theological arguments or plead the interests of the Catholic Church. He would take his stand on the interests of the State only, and tell the Court of Rome that, if it provoked a conflict, Austria would not give way to its decisions. For similar reasons, he must abstain from identifying the government with the bishops of the minority. Approving and sympathizing with their position, he nevertheless felt that they might come to change their ground, and accept what the government could not accept.
The French government applied, also, to the North German Confederation to support its representatives. Bismarck was deliberate but firm. On April 23,[318] Arnim sent in a despatch, cordially supporting the claims put forward by Daru. He said, that the Decrees, so far from being any vague menace for the future, were rather calculated to revive, and surround with a new dogmatic sanction, certain pontifical Decrees sufficiently known, and constantly combated by civil society in every age, and of every nation. An earnest wish to shun a collision pervaded the despatch.
The impression made upon the Curia by these appeals may perhaps be better gathered from Don Margotti and M. Veuillot than from Antonelli's despatches. On March 3 the Unitá Cattolica says, France and Austria have really remonstrated against the proposed definition of infallibility. They are afraid of the doctrine of Christ. If they would only adopt the Council and its doctrine, it would restore even their finances. "Do make an experiment. You have tried a thousand constitutions in France and Austria: why should you disdain to try the true Catholic constitution?" Let those two countries faithfully proclaim the doctrine, accept and spread it among the people, "and in less than a year you will confess that it is a great salvation for the French and Austrian empires." This is followed by a letter from a professor of theology on the opportuneness of defining the dogma of the personal infallibility of the Pope. He contends first that it would—
give a blow to Liberalism, which is the doctrine of human infallibility; for representative assemblies claim a true infallibility, because the decrees of such assemblies are not reformable by the Church; but if a single man alone is declared infallible, they all, whether individually or collectively, become fallible, and must receive from him their rules in jurisprudence and legislation, and every institution or ordinance declared by the Pontiff not to be good is, without appeal, rejected as false and corrupt. Liberalism, wherever it prevails, converts rulers into tyrants and subjects into slaves! The spectacle of seven hundred bishops giving up all to the Pope will restore the idea of legitimate authority.
Anticipating the final struggle against the Church, he says, "It is of the utmost importance that the Church bind up her people in the firmest unity; for the battle will be sore, and she will escape only by divine intervention." On March 4, the Unitá says that the Council is assailed by traitors. The devil always has a foot in good things, but he has two in the Council. Satan entered into the deputies of Italy, then into the body of Prince Hohenlohe, then he passed on to Döllinger, to Père Hyacinth, and to Père Gratry. The devil had entered into the cabinets of Beust and Daru, and into the palace at Munich, where Döllinger had been admitted to the same honours as formerly had been granted to Lola Montez.
M. Veuillot[319] imagines a conversation between a Catholic and a Liberal Catholic, of which the following is a condensation. It shows the kind of information which was granted, and the kind of argument which was welcome, to the forty thousand educated men on whom largely depends the fate of all French governments which attempt to govern through them:—
The governments are displeased.—— Why?—— Because!—-- What of that?—— You offend common sense. The cause is the dogma of infallibility.—— But the Holy Spirit?—— It was not the Holy Spirit that signed the petition for infallibility.—— Did He sign the other?—— The other is inspired by the highest wisdom.—— So be it. Both call upon the Holy Spirit and He will come.—— He will not come.——Why?—— The Rules of the Council are bad, the Hall is defective, discussion is impossible, the Council is not free.—— What? the Fathers can read, study, pray, speak, and the Council is not free!—-- No, discussion is physically impossible, and it is from the shock of discussion that light breaks out just as from the concussion of flints.—— The Council has no need of that kind of light which fires powder.—— The governments are up against infallibility.—— Let them come down.—— They'll make you come down yourself.—— Allow me, if you speak to me, upon my word of honour, I am not the Council; and if you speak to the Council, it will answer, as it always has done to good advisers of your sort.
I fear God, dear Abner.
After this comes what with M. Veuillot's readers passes for argument, In the present state of law in regard to religious liberty, governments have nothing to do with infallibility but to study the new situation which it will create, and to conform their conduct to it, as liberty requires of them. Either they will voluntarily respect liberty, or they will encounter its defenders and sustain the combat. The governments ought to know that Catholics mean not to give up anything of their right, and of the fulness of their life. As to the Church, continues M. Veuillot, she manages her affairs as it suits her. She looks beyond governments, beyond generations. She sows for the future, she constructs for centuries. Although she desires not to put governments to inconvenience, it must be allowed that her compassion and her complaisance towards these foreigners must have their limits. She bears the heavy burden of freedom of worship, and she takes the light advantages of it.
Further on we find the same sinister reference to disturbances as in Don Margotti (p. 246):—