Part 9

The gist of the law is in the articles that regard “_Associations cultuelles_,” which are aimed at the destruction of Catholic hierarchy and unity. M. Ribot sought, in vain, to obtain that religious edifices and property should be attributed only to associations approved by the bishop in each diocese. The words _bishop_ and _diocese_ are most carefully eschewed throughout the law. The attribution of property is to be made to “associations formed in conformity with the rules of general organization of the cult whose exercise they are to assure” (Art. 4). The formula is most perfidious, and intentionally so, whereas the amendment of M. Ribot and the one little word bishop might have rendered the law supportable.

What are “the rules of general organization”? The seventy-six Organic Articles, perfidiously added by Napoleon to the Concordat, purported to be “rules of general organization of Catholic worship.” Some of these are rankly heretical, and have of course never been observed. These Organic Articles are abrogated together with the Concordat by the new law (Art. 37), but what is to prevent the Conseil d’Etat, composed exclusively of Freemasons, from deciding that these articles are still a criterion, being the _statu quo ante_?

By similar means all their church property was taken from the Catholics of Geneva (1872-5) and turned over to apostate French priests, Loyson, Carrère, etc.

A like contingency is foreseen by Art 8. It is anticipated that rival associations may claim the same church property, and that scissions may arise in associations, regularly formed and invested.

Now in these cases the decision does not lie with the bishop, nor even with the ordinary civil courts. Decrees of Conseil d’Etat are suspended everywhere like swords of Damocles, or rather like the blades of the _guillotine sèche_, which has replaced the bloody guillotine of “the grand ancestors of 1793,” whom these up-to-date Jacobins invoke so complacently. We must not forget, too, that Conseil d’Etat means Conseil du Grand Orient. It is said that the Masons are secretly organizing _Associations cultuelles_, so-called Catholic. Human nature has not changed since 1790, and it would be strange, if they could not pick up another Abbé Gregoire or two, and a Talleyrand to boot. They can always import some of that ilk from Geneva if necessary.

Moreover, these _Associations cultuelles_ can be dissolved for so many reasons (five), at a moment’s notice, by a decree of Conseil d’Etat, that it does not seem worth while to form them.

The paltry reserve fund the _Associations cultuelles_ are allowed to have must, like the rest of their funds, be deposited in the Government’s strong-box, and can only be used “for building, repairing, embellishing church edifices.”

Evidently, it is not intended that there shall be any further ecclesiastical recruitment. Seminaries are eliminated, _ipso facto_, as they cannot exist on thin air.

I do not enter into the details regarding pensions of aged priests, as it is all too contemptible, the sums accorded being just enough to starve on. But we may note a few violations of liberty and justice.

1. All church property, movable or immovable, to which are attached _fondations_ not directly regarding public worship, which are, in other words, charitable or educational, are to be turned over to civic institutions. Thus testators who left money for Christian parochial schools and charities see it applied to the paganizing of the rising generation and the poor.

2. All churches and chapels arbitrarily closed by M. Combes are to remain disaffected, i.e. confiscated.

3. Ecclesiastical archives and libraries of episcopal sees and grand seminaries that are claimed by the State are to be immediately transferred to the State. This reveals the whole Jacobin mind. The Church is to be deprived of all social action, by education and charity, which she has exercised since two thousand years, and she must be mummified like the Photian and Coptic and Nestorian Churches.

The confiscation of these archives and libraries by a pagan state is, to my mind, the most serious loss. Money can always be found again, but when impious vandals have destroyed or dispersed these libraries and archives, they can never be replaced. All English students deplore the irreparable loss, caused by the cynical and base uses made of invaluable manuscripts by reforming vandals in the sixteenth century.

4. The Law of Separation deprives communes of the right to give any subventions for religious worship--though the State inscribes on its own budget the stipends to chaplains of lyceums frequented by children of the rich, notwithstanding Art. II.

5. A whole class of citizens are placed _hors la loi_, in that they are deprived of the right of trial by jury for offences amenable to this procedure. They (priests) are placed on the same footing as convicted anarchists.

6. Divine service is assimilated to any public meeting. A band of Socialists may fill the church and render prayer impossible by their irreverent attitude but they cannot be expelled unless they resort to violence.

7. The same class of individuals can invade any cathedral at any hour and insist on inspecting, gratis, all its treasures (_objets mobiliers classés_). In other words, these venerable edifices, the church of Brou, Notre Dame, etc., are treated already like public museums, less well in fact. And all this, we are told seriously, is “Separation.”

Meanwhile the two parties most nearly concerned in this question, the Holy See and the French people, thirty-five million Catholics, have never been consulted.

M. Briand with remarkable impudence asserted that, since thirty-five years, the country had sighed after “Separation,” though he well knows that no one thought about it but the Grand Orient. He himself admitted, in the same session, that the question did not exist (_n’était pas posée_) at the beginning of this legislature (1902), and was only raised by the Pope’s violations of the Concordat. This lie, which tends to become historic, was amply exploded, when M. Combes was convicted in the Chambers of having suppressed a document, which amply justified Pius X’s action in the case of the Bishops of Dijon and Laval, which the lodges used as a _casus belli_. Moreover, we must remember that the current Jacobin thesis is that the Seventeen Articles of the Concordat, which alone were signed by Pius VII, and the Seventy-six Organic Articles, added _ex parte_ by Napoleon, in violation of every code of honour and equity, form an intangible whole. Nevertheless, the Seventeen Articles of the Convention which were alone signed by Pius VII and Napoleon, in Messidor l’an IX, took effect as soon as the ratifications were exchanged. The churches, seminaries, etc., were immediately “placed at the disposal of the Bishops,” and the stipulated indemnities were forthcoming.

It was not till Germinal l’an X that the Seventy-six Organic Articles were promulgated, together with the Convention.

Now no one surely can be accused of violating articles regarding which he has never been consulted. Yet this is precisely the ground taken by the Jacobins.

A senator of the Right alleged, in defence of the Concordat, Art. 1134 of the Code Civil: “Conventions legally formed are a law to those who make them. They can only be revoked, by mutual consent, by those who make them, and for causes which the law recognizes.”

Thereupon the reporter replied: “There was a Convention between Pius VII and Napoleon; this Convention formed a whole (_un ensemble_) with the Seventy-six Organic Articles.” And as no Government has ever been able to enforce these articles, some of which are rankly heretical, the reporter alleged Art. 1184 of the Code against Art. 1134 to defend the Government’s _ex-parte_ denunciation of the Concordat. This Art. 1184 declares that “a Convention is rescinded when one of the parties does not keep his engagements.”

In other words, they say Pius VII and his successors have always protested against the Seventy-six Organic Articles which the former did not sign, therefore we are justified in denouncing, _ex parte_, the Convention or Concordat of Seventeen Articles signed by Pius VII and Napoleon.

It is by this sophism that the Third Republic justifies the repudiation of a portion of the National Debt; for the payment of annual indemnities to the Catholic clergy was undoubtedly placed on the “Grand Livre” of France by the Constituante, and recognized as part of the National Debt by succeeding legislatures, before and since 1801.

Recently, when it was proposed to suppress, without indemnity, the _Majorats_ of the _ancien régime_, M. Rouvier, Président de Conseil, indignantly rejected the motion, saying, “Il ne faut jamais que la signature de la France soit protestée.” But when it is a question of mere Catholics, the sense of national honour becomes blunted. They are _hors la loi_. This form of jurisprudence has been familiar to highwaymen from time immemorial--for them, the unarmed are always _hors la loi_.

M. Raiberti, a deputy from Nice, eloquently protested against the vote of urgency, declaring that the country had never been consulted. “No law,” he said, “can be just and stable which does not express the wishes of the people.” All in vain. The Socialist voting machine worked automatically at every turn towards the end.

It is an incontestable fact that Separation has never appeared on any programme these thirty-four years, except on that of 181 deputies at the elections of 1902. Nevertheless, 341 (against 249) have just voted for this law of Separation that is the negation of fifteen centuries of national history.[11]

The _Gazette de France_ calculates the number of electors represented by these 341 deputies who carried the Separation Bill in the Chambers in July:--

“On a total of 11,219,992 French electors only 2,997,063 pronounced yesterday by their deputies in favour of the denunciation of the Concordat and the spoliation of the Church, voted by a so-called majority.

“We must bear in mind that at the elections of 1902 the majority only vanquished by 200,000 votes out of 8,000,000 voters inscribed, and there are 400,000 functionaries. Thus spoke a senator (de Cuverville), and he further quoted the declarations of M. Deschanel in a public speech, July, 1905.

“A minority, he declared, governs the country, and a law voted by a certain majority represents 25 to 30 per cent. One deputy is elected by 22,000, another by 1000. The Department du Nord has 500,000 more inhabitants than six departments of the south-east, yet it has five deputies less. Roubaix, with 125,000 inhabitants, has one deputy, while the Department of Basses Alpes, with 115,000 inhabitants, has five deputies.”

It is easy to see how a little judicious electoral geometry and arithmetic will always give the Government a majority. Each _arrondissement_ having a deputy, it is only necessary to cut up a given district, notably anti-clerical, into a great many _arrondissements_, in order to secure an increased number of deputies, _blocards_; and vice versa the process need only be reversed in districts suspected of “clericalism.” We must also remember that at least one-third of the electors never vote, and so the Government can always have a majority.

This Separation Law is, as M. Briand said, only “transitory.” It is, I repeat, eminently perfidious. There is no form of tyranny, vexation, and spoliation which cannot be legalized by its equivocal articles. It contains all that is necessary to eliminate Catholicism from France as far as public worship is concerned.

On June 3rd I wrote, “What these Jacobins want is to have the law voted before the elections of May, 1906, and then say to the people, ‘You see the law is voted, and nothing is changed.’” At the final session after the vote, M. Briand, in a speech now pasted up all over the country, said, “Our work is done. What have you to say? You tried to trouble the conscience of the French Catholics, but can you find anything in the Bill to warrant your grievances? Dare now to tell the people the churches are to be closed, the priests proscribed.” Yet all this, alas! arrived almost immediately after the first Separation Law made in 1795.

“No one,” echoed M. Deschanel, a smooth-tongued, dainty politician like M. Rousseau, “can maintain that this law is the work of hatred and persecution, unless it is travestied by some profoundly dishonest Government.”

“Like that of M. Combes, who travestied Waldeck Rousseau’s Associations Bill,” rejoined a deputy of the Right.

This Law of Separation bears the same imprint as that of 1901; both emanated from the same quarter. It is, I repeat, a masterpiece of guile and arbitrary tyranny. Any sense can be given to the ambiguous language in which the most important articles are couched, and their interpretation is not to be left to ordinary civil tribunals. The _jus et norma_ in all doubtful questions is to be the Conseil d’Etat. In other words, the Grand Conseil of the Grand Orient is to be the supreme court of first and last appeal.

The Church in France might just as well descend into the catacombs here and now. It will come to this, unless some cataclysm rouse the French to a violent uprising, in which the Third Republic and all its works and ways will be swept away.

The Senatorial Commission is composed of fourteen Jacobin Freemasons. Their rulings are a foregone conclusion. The Separation Bill may be considered already voted in the Senate.

Great crimes against liberty, justice, and humanity cannot be circumscribed by national frontiers. They offend all Christendom, and though nations may, supinely, say “Am I my brother’s keeper?” they pay the penalty sooner or later. France in acute revolution will mean Europe in flames, as in 1792.

THE PROGRESS OF ANARCHY

_12th October, 1905._

The stories that are going the rounds of the whole European Press leave little doubt as to the fact, that a once great, free nation had her Foreign Minister, M. Delcassé, kept in office by the King of England while he was in Paris this spring, and that two months later, he was dismissed at the behest of Germany, who tore up the Anglo-French Convention regarding Morocco and inaugurated the Congress of Algeciras. No nation can act as France has done with impunity.[12]

This is curious too when we consider that France is so sensitive about the _ingérence_ of even a spiritual sovereign, that the denunciation of a Concordat and the rupture with the Holy See were ascribed to the fact that Pius X had taken the liberty of suspending two French bishops!

It is also interesting to recall that the Bill of alleged Separation was first voted at the Congress of Free-Thought held at Rome, in September, 1904. The motion was made by Professor Haeckel, of the University of Jena, Prussia, that: “We congratulate M. Combes in his struggle for free-thought against theocratical oppression, and for the radical separation of Church and State.” Allemane, a French Socialist deputy, exclaimed: “This is not enough. We want the abolition of the Church.” Robin, another French deputy, rejoined: “We are equally opposed to both. We demand the abolition of Church and State.”

I have already stated how the annual convent of the Grand Orient of France notified M. Combes (September, 1904) of their wishes regarding the passage without delay of the Separation Bill. This Bill was voted, or rather enregistered, by the Chamber of Deputies in July, as it will be done shortly by the Senate.[13]

Yesterday in Paris, the bureau of the “Federation of International Free-Thought” actually intimated to the French Senate its behest that the Law of Separation of Church and State be voted, without discussion or amendment, before December 31st. When we consider that this bureau is composed of one French Socialist Freemason deputy, the others being German, Belgian, and Italian, it seems preposterous! It would be so, even if all were Frenchmen, seeing that the Senate is supposed to be a free deliberative body, having the responsibility of accepting or rejecting what is done in the lower House.

The London _Saturday Review_ is almost the only organ in the English language which seems adequately to appreciate the enormity of the religious persecution in France.

“The extraordinary conspiracy of silence on this momentous matter, in the English Press,” writes the _Saturday Review_, London (July 8th, 1905), “is doubtless due to the fact that English Christians and gentlemen are usually considered unfit to represent English newspapers on the Continent. The Paris correspondents of our leading journals, being nearly all men of oriental extraction, cannot, however honourable and enlightened, be expected to entertain any interest in the fate of the Christian religion. We are invariably led by these gentlemen to believe that all is for the best in the best of republics. When, a fortnight ago, France suddenly realized that she was within sight of a war with her ancient foe on the other side of the Rhine, a thrill of terror passed over the land at the mere thought that while engrossed in the work of dechristianizing France, and hustling monks and nuns up and down the country, the politicians in power had demoralized the army, neglected the navy, and left the frontiers almost entirely unprotected. Things have quieted down since then, but none the less there is a feeling of unrest which makes people dread the passage of a law that may lead to internal divisions and disorders even more serious than those which agitate France at the present time.”

Referring to the Bill of alleged Separation, the _Saturday Review_ continues: “_La Lanterne_ (the organ of the ‘bloc’) intimates that ‘it only accepts the Bill as it stands as a preliminary; we must silence the priests and prevent them from infusing any more of the virus of religion into the minds of the people.’ ... To a thinking foreigner, the spectacle presented by contemporary France is an amazing one. Here is a great nation, which for sixteen centuries has proclaimed herself ‘eldest daughter of the Church,’ renouncing her great position as protector of the Catholics in the east and breaking off her connexion with the Vatican, at a time when Germany is menacing her and proclaiming at Metz, of all places in the world, her imperial wish to become more friendly with the Church.”

This is an allusion to the Emperor William’s having himself invested by the papal legate with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, surrounded by German cardinals and prelates, as well as the highest military dignitaries of Alsace-Lorraine. For me, the dismissal of M. Delcassé and the whole Moroccan incident are the handwriting on the wall which the French are slow to read. On the Feast of St. Michael, September 29th, the Minister of Public Worship held high revelry at a banquet of five hundred Freemasons in the church of the recently expropriated convent of the Ursuline nuns at Ave-ranche, just opposite that wonderful pile known as the Mount St. Michel, a mediæval monastery and church. It is not stated whether--like Balthazar--he sent for the vessels of the temple.

The crimes against justice, liberty, and humanity committed in France, since four years, are without a parallel in Europe since the Revolution of 1790, if we except, of course, the atrocities in the Turkish Empire. But most dire racial and religious antagonism may be alleged on behalf of the Turk. In Spain, too, similar violations of liberty, justice, and humanity have been committed during the nineteenth century, but this was done in the heat and turmoil of revolutionary and anarchist upheavals. In France they were committed in cold blood, under cover of law. Nearly 27,000 Catholic schools, freely patronized by Catholic parents, have been suppressed, thousands of aged men and women have been dragged out of their homes and cast into the street, _vi et armis_, the regular army being employed in a great many cases. Their homes, built up by years of patient labour, have been confiscated and sold for a trifle. Yet many of them were authorized and had contracts with the Government. Recently, convent and school buildings, estimated at 200,000 francs, were sold for 2200 francs.

Two days ago, forty-three nuns of the Benedictine Order were expelled from their homes; eleven of them were over seventy, and quite infirm. The Congregations who were wary enough not to ask for authorization, and realized what they could before going into exile, are not to be pitied so much. Unfortunately, the majority fell into the Government’s trap and asked for authorization, which obliged them to declare all their assets, that have been confiscated, and of which they will never see one cent. Not only have all the assets been consumed in the process called “liquidation,” but the Government has been obliged to put up over 4,000,000 of the public money to cover the expenses of the “liquidators.” So ends the myth of the “billions of the Congregations,” held out as a glittering lure by Waldeck Rousseau in 1900 to his Socialist henchmen.

The terrible inroads, made by anti-patriotism and anarchical Socialism by means of public-school teachers, are seriously alarming the creators of this modern Frankenstein. Domiciliary perquisitions are being made just now, in many cities, to seize the leaders of a conspiracy to debauch the young conscripts who begin their two years’ military service now. A brochure, called _Crosse en l’air_ (meaning military revolt), has reached, it is said, the million mark of circulation, in spite of the Government.

The conclusion of the Russo-Japanese war is an illustration of what I wrote in _Slav and Moslem_ ten years ago, page 170: “Henceforth commerce, not ideas, will rule in the council chambers of the world. Politics will be forged in counting-houses and warehouses, ‘where only the ledger lives,’ in whose dusty atmosphere none but merchantable ideas are current. Wars will be declared, peace be made, alliances formed or repudiated, according to their probable effect on the pulse of the market.”

Without wishing to derogate from the merit of Mr. Roosevelt’s good offices, I am convinced he could not have succeeded if the financial consideration had not rendered the belligerents docile. Japan was absolutely at the end of her financial resources; the Russian coffers were not far from empty. By the intermediary of the President, both parties were given to understand that not a yen or kopeck more could they borrow if peace were not concluded there and then. Any prolongation of that war would have meant financial panic in many countries, chiefly in France. Israel, by its bankers, has its hand on the throttle in Christendom, and can make for peace and war more than all the peace congresses. When we reflect on the three cruel, uncalled-for wars which followed the Hague Conference in 1898, we can only tremble for the future, if there is to be a new peace congress. In spite of conferences and Jew bankers, guns will continue to “go off by themselves.” These Delcassé revelations are not calculated to render the Germans more friendly to France or England, and the knowledge they have acquired of France’s inability and unwillingness to fight must be a strong temptation to a nation whose population is increasing at a formidable rate, in spite of emigration, while that of France is stationary, not to say steadily decreasing.

Belgium, that great country in a very small compass, has doubled hers since 1830. With 7,000,000 inhabitants, the figure of her business operations is now the same as that of France with 38,000,000. This last statement was made by M. Leygnes, ex-minister, in a recent political speech, regarding the steady decadence of France under Jacobin rule since twenty years.