Part 8

Now M. Combes declares that “in deliberately separating the diplomatic convention (Concordat) from the organic articles, Pius VII and his successors have destroyed its efficacy.” Napoleon himself understood this and, for seven years, he held Pius VII a close prisoner, hoping to break his spirit and wring from him another Concordat which would be an abdication. Fortunately, the tide of war turned against Napoleon, and the new Concordat was never ratified. M. Combes recognizes that no Government since a century has been able to enforce the “organic articles,” and that the only course left is “divorce,” and by this unstatesmanlike term he means the repudiation of thirty or forty million francs of the national debt. The payment in perpetuity of suitable subsidies to the Catholic clergy is stipulated for by Article 14 of the Concordat. It is a _quid pro quo_ of Article 13, by which the Holy See consented to give a clear title to all the Church property confiscated by the Revolution. The payment of these subsidies was inscribed on the national debt by the spoliators themselves, the Conventionals of 1792, and it was solemnly recognized as part of this debt in 1816, 1828, 1830, and 1848. The salaries paid to Jewish and Protestant clergymen are purely gratuitous. Their property was not stolen by the Revolution in 1792. They had no part in the Concordat.

But the projected spoliation of the Catholic clergy is a mere detail, and would be an insignificant ransom, if at this price the French Catholics could have liberty such as we enjoy in England and the United States. “Separation” means strangulation in Jacobin parlance. They would infinitely prefer Erastianism. But the defection of the Bishops of Dijon and Laval, on whom they counted, and the spontaneous and unanimous adhesion of the episcopate to the Holy See, which provoked the thunders of M. Combes against the Vatican in July, have shown the impossibility of a schism. It was tried for four years a century ago and failed. The “Separation” plan was also tried in 1795 for two or three years, and was an epoch of virulent persecution. History will repeat itself, though not exactly in the same words.

ALCOHOLISM IN FRANCE

_July 10th, 1905._

The Chambers continue the discussion of the Bill of alleged separation in a perfunctory, apathetic way, and it is curious that M. Rouvier, the successor of M. Combes, has never once condescended to speak or even to be present at these sessions.

The utter lack of interest in these debates is misinterpreted to mean indifference on the part of the French public. This is not correct. It is, as I have often repeated, the great misfortune of France that people will not concern themselves with politics, and they only begin to interest themselves in a law when it is applied.

Even I, who have followed the phases of the religious persecution with keen interest since four or five years, can hardly wade through these tedious, irksome columns, in which ambiguity reigns supreme. Even M. Briand, the reporter of the law and spokesman of the Government, being questioned closely as to the sense of certain passages, replied “It is” and “It is not” in the same breath. He is evidently of the opinion that language is a convenient means of disguising thought.

This Bill is, I repeat, a law of guile, spoliation, and tyranny from first to last. There is a general impression that it will never be executed entirely. They will content themselves with spoliation, for the present at least. It is hard to persuade a people who have had religious worship gratis for fifteen centuries, that they must now pay for the privilege of attending Mass, while their Government subsidizes opera dancers and singers, of whose services not one in a million ever avails himself.

While the Socialist majority, or _bloc_, are revelling over perspective spoliation and sacrilegious confiscations, the handwriting on the wall is dimly perceived. The enemy is at the gates--nay, within the walls--while legislators are discussing “with what sauce they will eat the curés,” though they have not yet digested their copious repast of congregations.

Yesterday the reports of the Chambers on Separation were unusually tedious, and the _rendu compte_ ended with this phrase: “To-morrow amnesty for the _bouilleurs de cru_ and wine frauders.” This heartless Government, that flings aged and infirm _congréganists_ out of their homes without mercy for age or sex, has, at least, one tender spot in its make-up. It is for the liquor traffic in all its forms. Falsification of wine is carried on to such an extent that it is impossible for grape growers to make a living. I dilated recently in these columns on the anti-clerical propaganda by means of an immoral, irreligious Press, and the multiplication of these drink-stands to an extent which is simply appalling.[8]

New York, with three millions, has 10,000 liquor saloons. Paris, with two-and-a-half millions, has 30,000 _debits de boissons_.

The _Gaulois_ recently published some figures which I think are accurate.

Fifty years ago 735 hectolitres of absinthe were consumed in France; to-day 133,000 are consumed.

Fifty years ago 600,000 hectolitres of alcohol were consumed; to-day 2,000,000 hectolitres are consumed.

The intermediate figures show that the increase has been in almost geometric progression in recent years.

In 1880 the consumption had increased from 735 hectolitres of absinthe to 13,000. In 1885 it was still only 112,000.

In 1905 it was 133,000.

Sixty years ago there were only 10,000 demented in France. To-day there are more than 80,000.

Belgium has just made a law prohibiting not only the manufacture, but all traffic in absinthe, which cannot even be transported through the country. In this admirably governed commonwealth there is, it is said, but one saloon _brasserie_ to every two thousand inhabitants. Formerly the number of drinking-places was limited and restricted in France; to-day the highest of high licence prevails.

Recently I counted not less than fourteen places where alcoholic drinks were sold in a charming little seaside village of four or five hundred inhabitants.

THE LAW OF SEPARATION

_June 3rd, 1905._

There is still a persistent tendency in the Press to believe or make-believe that the Bill of alleged Separation, still pending in the French Chambers, means Separation as it is understood in England and the United States, and that the whole question is only one of dollars and cents, or of the suppression of the Budget of Cults. It is true that there is to be a partial repudiation of the National Debt by the suppression of the few paltry millions paid yearly to the French clergy as a slight indemnity for the vast amount of property confiscated by the Jacobins of 1792, but this is a mere detail, and would be considered but a small ransom, if, thereby, the Church could enjoy the same liberty as in the United States.

The Associations Bill was proclaimed to be a “law of liberty,” and we know to-day that it was only a vulgar trap set by the Government to betray the Congregations into furnishing exact inventories of all their property so that it might be more easily confiscated.

The Separation Bill is also a law of perfidious tyranny aimed at the very existence of the Church in France. M. Briand caused great hilarity in the Chambers when, by a slip of the tongue, he declared that in every part of it “could be seen the hand of our spirit of Liberalism.”[9] What is evident throughout is the hand of the secret society which has governed France since twenty-five years, and in whose lodges and convents all the anti-religious laws have been elaborated.

The Chambers are merely its _bureaux d’enregistrement_, and not even that. Under the _ancien régime_ the Parliament could and often did refuse to enregister royal acts and decrees.

It was two years before the Parliament of Paris consented to enregister the Concordat of 1516. But the Chambers to-day are merely the executive of the Grand Orient. This is the plain unvarnished truth, which is corroborated by all who have any knowledge of French politics.

I have repeated many times in the Press of the United States that Republicanism in France is not a form of government, but the _modus operandi_ of a secret society. Before me are _verbatim_ reports of their assemblies and the speeches made at their political banquets in 1902. At that time only unauthorized Congregations had been suppressed. This, it was declared, “was not enough.... The Congregations must be operated on with a vigorous scalpel, and all this suppuration must be thrown out of the country; only thus will the social body, still very sick with acute clericalism, be cured.” In July, 1904, all the authorized Congregations, too, were suppressed, as we know. Even this was not enough.

At the general “convent” of the Grand Orient, January, 1904, it was said: “We have yet a great effort to make.... The separation of Church and State will be in the order of the day in the Chambers in January, 1905.... The Cabinet and the Republican Parliament will end the conflict between the two contracting parties of the Concordat. The destruction of the Church will open a new era of justice and goodness.”

M. Combes, then in power, was notified of the wishes of the Grand Orient, and he telegraphed back that he would conform thereto.

The sensation caused by the publication of the spy documents, or _fiches_, stolen from the Grand Orient by M. Syveton and de Villeneuve nearly overthrew the Republic last November. The assassination of M. Syveton saved the Government and struck terror into the Nationalist camp. The publication of the spy documents ceased, and the lodges continued their work with a new figure-head, M. Rouvier instead of M. Combes.

On 4th November, 1904, the Grand Orient published a political manifesto which is a most important document from an historical and sociological standpoint.

It is simply amazing that the government of a once great nation should have passed into the hands of a secret society which, though it has no legal standing, treats France as if it were a great business concern of which the Freemasons are the _commanditaires_, the ministers “the managers,” and the deputies and functionaries the employees.

Already in 1902, at the closing banquet of the “convent,” Brother Blatin, a “venerable,” had declared:

“The Government must not forget that Masonry is its most solid support....

“But for our Order neither the Combes Cabinet nor the Republic itself would exist. M. and Mme. Loubet would still be simple little bourgeois in the little town of Montélimar.... But the Government must remember that we are only at the opening of hostilities. Until we have destroyed every congregation, denounced the Concordat, and broken with Rome, nothing is done.” In conclusion, these remarkable words were pronounced, of which the manifesto of 4th November, 1904, is only an echo: “In drinking to French Freemasonry I really drink to the Republic, because the Republic is Freemasonry operating outside its temples; and Freemasonry is the Republic under cover of our traditions and symbols.” Is this clear enough?

The Revolution of 1790 was undoubtedly due to Freemasonry, which about that time began to appear openly for the first time, and almost simultaneously, in France, Great Britain and America, etc. The Palladian Rite, established in France in 1769, found a congenial field of operation in the corrupt society of the _Régence_ and Louis XV.

Its aim then, as to-day, is the same--the destruction of Christianity. The Jacobin Clubs of 1792 were simply Masonic lodges. M. Waite, an eloquent apologist of the fraternity, makes the following statement in _Devil Worship in France_, page 322: “There is no doubt that it [Masonry] exercised an immense influence upon France during the century of quakings which gave birth to the great Revolution. Without being a political society, it was an instrument eminently adaptable to the subsurface determination of political movements.... At a later period it contributed to the formation of Germany, as it did to the creation of Italy. But the point and centre of masonic history is France in the eighteenth century.”

This explains the outbreak of _Kulturkampf_ in Germany and Switzerland soon after 1870, and the wave of anti-religious furor which swept over Italy at the same period. To-day Catholicism has repulsed Freemasonry in Germany, and the victory is not far distant in Italy. The Liberal Socialist party is waning, and it is always with these elements of socialistic anarchy that Freemasonry operates under a guise of liberty.

The efforts being made to break up the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Empire are undoubtedly traceable to these Judeo-Masonic secret societies. But France remains the great battlefield. Christianity and Freemasonry are about to fight a decisive duel. One or the other must perish. “Si nous ne tuons pas l’Eglise, elle nous tuera,” said a prominent Mason recently. The suppression of the Congregations and their 27,000 schools was, as they said, “only the opening of hostilities.” The battle must be fought to the finish. I have repeatedly affirmed that France was held firmly in the coils of the Grand Orient, which has packed both Houses with its creatures, thanks to the political apathy of respectable Frenchmen.

The Separation Bill is merely a blind, a slip-knot which can be drawn at any moment to strangle the victim around whose neck it is cast. When his Socialist accomplices of the Left reproached M. Briand with being too liberal, he replied, “If necessary we can always amend the law or make another.” Only two short years ago M. Combes openly pronounced against any project of separation. M. Rouvier was of the same opinion, but the masters of France have spoken!

In vain it was pleaded that the country be consulted before taking so important a step. The perfidious feature of the Bill is just this--that nothing will be changed until two years (1907) hence, when the “bloc” will probably have gained a new lease of life by this manœuvre; for in May, 1906 they will be able to say to their electors, “You see the law is voted, and nothing is changed.”

Article I sounds sweetly liberal: “The Republic assures liberty of conscience and guarantees the free exercise of worship under the following restrictions” (contained in some forty more articles). In my opinion these numerous little “_restrictions_” will render the normal existence of the Church in France impracticable. Of course she will continue to exist, as she existed during the Terror, and under the _Directoire_ and Diocletian.

Another article, not yet voted, provides for the final disposition of church buildings twelve years hence. That, apparently, is the allotted span of life meted out to us by Masonic Jacobins.

Article II with sweet inconsistency declares that “the Republic neither recognizes nor subsidizes any cult,” and immediately after it inscribes on the Public Budget the service of _aumôniers_ of state lyceums and colleges.

Peasants and poor struggling tradesmen and artisans must pay for the luxury of religious worship or go without, but the sons of the rich, who frequent these state schools, are to be provided for, gratis, by this liberal Republic, which neither “recognizes nor subsidizes any worship,” except, of course, Islamism in Algeria, which is now, _ipso facto_, the religion of the State.

It is very pitiful to see so momentous a question treated with such flippancy and indecent haste.

All their utterances in the Chambers and in their Press show that the Freemasons are convinced that they would be defeated if the next elections were made on this issue. Therefore they must “do quickly.”

Alone of all the nations of Christendom, France totally disregarded Good Friday this year. The Stock Exchange remained open and the Chambers met as usual. The apostasy of the State will soon be complete.

In Spain, where I spent Holy Week, the young king has taken a decided stand against the Revolution. He has caused vehement enthusiasm by reviving Christian customs fallen into desuetude during a century of revolutions. On Holy Thursday he washed and kissed the feet of twelve poor men whom he afterwards served at table, aided by the grandees of Spain. On Friday he returned from church alone and on foot, and was wildly acclaimed. We are so accustomed to see the menus of the banquets of the rich, that it was refreshing to read, for once in the daily papers, the menu of a banquet of some poor old men served by a king.

This is the counter-revolution, and M. Salmeron and his Republican Socialist Freemasons, French and Spanish, who recently caused riots in many cities, might as well suspend operations. Only the assassination of Alphonse XIII can prevent Spain from recuperating steadily. In Italy, too, the counter-revolution is setting in. The Socialists, _alias_ Freemasons, are succumbing to the Conservative or clerical party. The Quirinal is steering for Canossa. France must bear the brunt till she, too, can have her counter-revolution.

CATHOLICISM IN GERMANY

GERMANY, _August, 1905_.

While Freemasonry in France seems on the point of triumphing over Christianity by the destruction of all religious education and a law of alleged Separation of Church and State, it is interesting to recall that only thirty-five years ago Catholicism in Germany was as much menaced as it is in France to-day. Churches were closed, prisons were full of priests, bishops, and archbishops, and Bismarck, like M. Briand of France, swore he would never, never go to Canossa.

In 1871 there were only fifty-eight Catholics in the Reichstag, representing 720,000 electors; in 1903 there were more than a hundred, representing 1,800,000 electors; and to-day this Catholic Centre forms the ruling majority in the country. The Emperor understands this perfectly, and hence his amenities towards the Church and the Holy See.

I have no doubt that the great Catholic Congress was held recently at Strasburg with his knowledge and approval, not to say at his suggestion. The event is significant coming so soon after his own investiture, at Metz, with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, conferred upon him by the papal legate in the presence of the German cardinals and archbishops, and the highest military dignitaries of the empire.

At this Catholic Congress of Strasburg, forty thousand delegates of the federated societies of Germany paraded the streets with banners and music. The whole city was decorated, papal colours being most conspicuous. These popular federated societies count half a million members, grouped in nine hundred associations, that have 350 press organs of their own.

What makes the strength of these Catholic organizations in Germany is that they represent all classes of society--princes, peasants, artisans, nobles, and bourgeois--whereas Socialism finds its recruits almost exclusively, amongst the proletariat, cultured and uncultured, chiefly the latter.

At the Congress, Prince d’Arenberg renewed the usual protestations against the Piedmontese occupation of Rome, and the Bishop of Strasburg rejoiced that, “in spite of the devastations of the French Revolution, the ancient faith was still flourishing in Alsace, whence he hoped it _might soon extend its salutary influence_.”

These events are significant following the diplomatic humiliation inflicted on France when M. Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was peremptorily dismissed at the behest of Germany.

Not long since the Socialist Bebel saucily told M. Jaurès the French would never have a pension for old age until the Germans gave it to them. Nothing, too, would please William more than to play the rôle of a paladin of religious liberty to the oppressed French Catholics.

Nor is there anything to prevent the resuscitation of the Germanic Confederation as it existed in the Middle Ages. The Habsburgs and the Austrian Empire might never have arisen, and the Hohenstauffens might still be reigning, if they had had sense enough to keep their hands off the Papacy. Napoleon, too, might have founded a dynasty as long-lived as that of the Bourbons, had he not also fallen into the same evil ways, and sought to dominate the whole Church by enslaving the Sovereign Pontiff. His nephew, the third Napoleon, in his youth, unfortunately became the bondsman of secret societies, whom he aided and abetted in the spoliations of 1870 which preluded his fall.

The Third Republic, too, will be shattered on the same rock, though not before having caused irretrievable wrong to France, I fear.

PSEUDO-SEPARATION

_19th August, 1905._

In the past, marauding kings and robber barons bound to themselves their fighting lieges by investing them with vast tracts of stolen lands which they, in turn, distributed among their leal followers.

The Third Republic has found a better way. To say nothing of the extensive network of electoral strongholds that they have established all over the country by unlimited and most abusive high licence, the masters of France have enlisted the enthusiastic support of myriads of pettifogging lawyers and all the nondescript red-tapers of law by the unlimited supply of lucrative jobs, pickings, and perquisites, furnished by the notorious laws of 1901 and of 1904, and their bandit operations called “liquidation.”

They do not all pocket a few hundred thousands, like the millionaire Socialist, M. Millerand, appointed by M. Waldeck Rousseau, but all have a share in the carving up of the quarry. Not content with devoting to this novel kind of graft all the holdings of the hapless Congregations, who fell into its trap and asked for authorization, the Government has kindly put up more than four millions and a half of public money, thus far, to cover the cost of innumerable lawsuits, expropriations, etc., going on all over the country since four years. The mobilizing of the regular army for the expropriations was in itself an important item. All this reckless, thriftless expenditure, joined to the continuous drain of millions from the _Caisses d’Epargne_ and the exodus of capital, will lead up to national bankruptcy as in 1795.

To throw dust in the eyes of the public, domestic and foreign, a most elaborate document has been published regarding pensions and retreats for aged _congréganists_ ruthlessly thrown into the streets.

This document is a huge farce, seeing that these pensions are only conditional to there being funds enough, and there will be no assets left. The Chartreux of Grenoble had some hundreds of their aged workmen on their pension list. These were, in common justice, creditors of the order, and should have received compensation from the _liquidateur_. But the latter repudiated their claims absolutely.[10]

What a fall was there from the billions of the Congregations, held out as a glittering lure by Waldeck Rousseau in 1900, to bait his Socialist majority with promises of pensions for workmen, etc.

The Bill of alleged Separation, eminently calculated to bring Church and State into constant contact and collision, holds out another golden perspective. To use an expressive slang term, there is in it unlimited _poil à gratter_, fur to scratch, for years to come--nay, as long as the Republic lasts.

A few days after it was voted, 200 “venerables” of the Grand Orient offered a banquet to M. Briand, the reporter of the Law of Separation, while at a Socialist Congress presided over by M. Combes, the President of the Commission of Separation, referring to this law, declared “that the war against the Church must be carried on without intermission.”

Commenting thereon, the _Temps_ sarcastically wrote: “If the clerical spectre is still to haunt us, was it worth while to be turning like squirrels in a cage for the past five years?”