5. The Second Empire and the Falloux Law—The War of 1870

In the previous chapter, we mentioned the wide tolerance enjoyed by the Society of Jesus in France, under Napoleon III, even though it was officially prohibited. In any case, it could not be otherwise as that regime owed its existence—largely at least—to the Roman Church whose support never failed, as long as the regime lasted. But it was to be very costly for France.

The readers of the “Progres du Pas-de-Calais”, a publication for which the future emperor wrote several articles in 1843 and 1844, could not then suspect him of leniency towards “ultramontanism”, judging from the following:

“The clergy demands, under the cover of freedom of teaching, the right to instruct youth. The State, on the other hand, also demands the right to direct public instruction for her own interests. This struggle is the result of divergent opinions, ideas and feelings between government and Church. Both want to influence the new generations coming up in opposite directions and for their own benefit. We do not believe, as one well-known orator does, that all ties between the clergy and civil authority must be broken in order to stop this diversion. Unfortunately, France’s ministers of religion are generally opposed to democratic interests; to allow them to build schools without control is to encourage them to teach the people the hatred of revolution and liberty”.

And again: “The clergy will stop being ultramontane as soon as one compells them to be brought up, as formerly in an up-to-date manner and to mingle with the people gaining their education from the same sources as the general public.”

Referring to the way in which German priests were trained, the author clarifies his thoughts in the following manner: “Instead of being shut away from the rest of the world, from childhood, and so be instilled in the seminaries with hatred for the society in which they must live, they would learn early to be citizens before being priests”.(34)

This did not encourage political clericalism for the future sovereign, then a “Carbonari”. But the ambition to sit on the throne soon made him more docile towards Rome. Did not Rome herself help him climb the first step? “Having been made president of the Republic on the 10th of December 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gathers several ministers around himself, one of which is M. de Falloux. Who is this M. de Falloux? A tool of the Jesuits… On the 4th of January 1849, he institutes a commission whose job is to “prepare a big legislative reform of primary and secondary education”… In the course of the discussion, M. Cousin takes the liberty to remark that maybe the Church is wrong to tie her destiny to the Jesuits. Monseigneur Dupanloup defends energetically the Society… A law on teaching is being prepared which would “make amends” to the Jesuits. In the past, the State and the University had been protected against the Jesuits’ invasions; we were wrong and unjust; we demanded that the government applied its laws against these agents from a foreign government and we ask their forgiveness for it. They are good citizens who were slandered and misjudged; what can we do to show them the respect and esteem which are due to them?

“Put in their hands the teaching of the young generations”. “This in fact is the aim of the law of the 15th of March 1850. This law appoints a superior council for Public Instruction in which the clergy dominates, (first art.); it makes the clergy masters of the schools, (art.44); it gives religious associations the right to create free schools, without having to explain about the non-authorised congregations (Jesuits), (art. 17,2); it said that the letters of obedience would be their diplomas, (art.49); M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire tries in vain to demonstrate that the aim of the authors of that project is to give the monopoly to the clergy, and that this law would be fatal to the University… Victor Hugo exclaims, also vainly: “This law is a monopoly in the hands of those who try to make teaching come out of the sacristy and the government out of the confessional”.(35)

(34) “Oeuvres de Napoleon III” (Amyot et Plon, Paris 1856, II, pp.31 and 33). (35) Adolphe Michel, op.cit., pp.66 ss.

But the Assembly ignores these protestations. It prefers listening to M. de Montalembert who exclaims: “We will be swallowed up if we don’t stop immediately the current trend of rationalism and demagogy; what’s more, it can be stopped only with the help of the Church”.

“M. de Montalembert adds these words to make sure the significance of this law is well described: “To the demoralising and anarchical army of teachers, we must oppose the army of the clergy”. The law was passed. Never before in France had the Jesuits won a more complete victory.

M. de Montalembert admitted it proudly… He said: “I am defending justice by backing as well as possible the government of the Republic, which has done so much to save order and maintain the union of the French people; it especially rendered more services to the Catholic Church than all the other governments in power during the last two centuries”.(36)

All this happened more than one hundred years ago, but seems rather familiar today. But let us see how the “Republic”, presided over by prince Louis-Napoleon, was acting internationally.

The revolution of 1848 had, amongst other repercussions in Europe, provoked the uprising of the Romans against Pope Pius IX, their temporal sovereign, who had fled to Gaete. The Roman Republic had been proclaimed. Through a scandalous paradox, it was the French Republic, in agreement with the Austrians and the king of Naples, who put back on the throne the undesirable sovereign.

“A French regiment besieged Rome, took it on the 2nd of June 1849 and restored pontifical power; it managed to maintain itself with the help of a French division of occupation which left Rome only after the first disasters in the Franco-German war of 1870”.(37)

This beginning was very promising.

“The coup of the 2nd of December 1851 brought about the proclamation of the Empire. Louis-Napoleon, President of the Republic, had favoured the Jesuits in every way. Now emperor, he refused nothing to his accomplices and allies. The clergy poured out its blessings and “Te Deum” profusely on the massacres and proscriptions of the 2nd of December. The one responsible for this abominable ambush was looked upon as a providential saviour: “The archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, who saw the massacres on the boulevard, exclaims:

“The man who was prepared by God has come; the finger of God was never more visible than in the events which produced these great results”. The bishop of Saint-Flour said from his pulpit: “God pointed out Louis- Napoleon; He already had elected him to be emperor. Yes, my dear brethren, God consecrated him beforehand through the blessing of His pontiffs and priests; He acclaimed him Himself; can we not recognise God’s elect?”

(36) Adolphe Michel, op.cit. pp.55,66. (37) Larousse, VII, p.371.

The bishop of Nevers falsely saluted “Providence’s visible instrument”. “These pitiable adulations, which could be multiplied still further, deserved a reward. This reward was a complete freedom given to the Jesuits as long as the Empire lasted. The Society of Jesus was literally master of France for eighteen years… she enriched herself, multiplied her establishments and spread her influence. Her action was felt in all the important events of that time, especially in the expedition to Mexico and the declaration of war in 187O”.(38)

“The Empire means peace”, declared the new sovereign. But, barely two years after he acceeded to the throne, the first of all those wars which succeeded each other throughout his reign started; history could regard the motives which brought about these wars as unconnected if we didn’t see what united them: the defence of the Roman Church’s interests. The Crimean war, the first of these mad enterprises which weakened us and was not nationally profitable, is a characteristic example.

It was not someone anticlerical, but the Abbe Brugerette, who wrote: “One must read the speeches the famous Theatine (Father Ventura) gave in the chapel of Les Tuileries during Lent in 1857. He presented the Empire’s restorationas God’s work… and praised Napoleon III for having defended the religion in Crimea and made the great days of the Crusades shine a second time in the East… The Crimean war was regarded as a compliment to the Roman expedition… It was praised by the whole clergy, full of admiration for the religious fervour of the troops besieging Sebastapol. Saint-Beuve movingly narrated how Napoleon III had sent an image of the Virgin to the French fleet”.(39)

What was this expedition which aroused the enthusiasm of the clergy. M. Paul Leon, member of the Institute, explains: “A quarrel between monks revives the question of the East: it was born out of rivalries between the Latin and Orthodox Churches regarding the protection of the Holy places (in Palestine). Who would watch over Bethlehem’s churches, hold the keys, direct the work? How is it possible that such small matters could set two great empires against each other?… But, behind the Latin monks is France’s Catholic party, provided with ancient privileges and supporter of the new regime; behind the growing demands of the Orthodox, who had grown in numbers, is the Russian influence”.(40)

The Czar invokes the protection of the Orthodox Church which he has to assure and, to make it effective, asks that his fleet should use the Dardanelles passage; England, which is backed by France, refuses, and the war breaks out.

“France and England can reach the Czar only through the Black Sea and the Turkish alliance… From now on, the war of Russia becomes the Crimean war and is entirely centered on the siege of Sebastopol, a costly episode without issue. Bloody battles, deadly epidemics and inhuman sufferings cost France one hundred thousand dead”.(41)

(38) Adolphe Michel, op.cit., pp.71-72.
(39) Abbe J. Brugerette: “Le Pretre francais et la societe contemporaine” (Lethielleux, Paris 1933, I, pp.168 and 180).
(40) and (41) Paul Leon, of the Institute, “La guerre pour la Paix”, (Ed. Fayard, Paris 1950 pp.321-323).

We must point out that these one hundred thousand dead were Christ’s soldiers and glorious “martyrs of the faith”, according to Monseigneur Sibour, Archbishop of Paris, who declared at that time: “The Crimean war, between France and Russia, is not a political war, but a holy war; it is not a State fighting another State, people fighting other people, but singularly a war of religion, a Crusade…”(42)

The admission is not ambiguous. Anyway, haven’t we heard the same, not long ago, during the German occupation, expounded in identical terms by the prelates of His Holiness Pius XII and by Pierre Laval himself, president of the Council of Vichy?

In 1863, it is the expedition to Mexico. What is it about? To transform a lay- republic into an empire and offer it to Maximilien, archduke of Austria. Austria is the papacy’s number one pillar. The aim is also to erect a barrier which would contain the influence of the Protestant United States over the States of South America, strongholds of the Roman Church. M. Albert Bayet wrote with sagacity: “The war’s aim is to establish a Catholic empire in Mexico and curtail the peoples’ right to self rule; as during the Syrian campaign and the two Chinese campaigns, it tends especially to serve Catholic interests”.(43)

(42) Quoted by Monseigneur Journet: “Exigences chretiennes en politique”(Ed. L.V.F. Paris 1945, p.274).
(43) Albert Bayet: “Histoire de France” (Ed. du Sagittaire, Paris 1938, p.282).

We know how, in 1867, after the French army had re-embarked, Maximilien, the unfortunate champion of the Holy See, was made prisoner when Queretaro surrendered and was shot dead, making way for a republic of which the victor Juarez was president.

Nevertheless, the time was getting nearer when France was to pay, once again, much more dearly for the political support the Vatican assured the imperial throne. While the French army was spilling its blood in the four corners of the world, and getting weaker while defending interests which were not hers, Prussia, under the heavy hand of the future “iron chancellor”, was busy expanding its military might in order to unite the German states in a single block.” Austria was the first victim of its will and power. In agreement with Prussia which was to seize the Danish duchess of Schleswig and Holstein, Austria was cheated by her accomplice. The war which followed was soon won by Prussia at Sadowa on the 3rd of July 1866. It was a terrible blow for the ancient Hapsburg monarchy which was declining; the blow was just as hard for the Vatican, as Austria had been for so long its most faithful stronghold within the germanic lands. From novw on, Protestant Prussia will exercise her hegemony over them. Unless… the Roman Church finds a “secular arm” capable of stopping completely the expansion of the “heretic” power. But who can play this part in Europe apart from the French Empire? Napoleon III, “the man sent by Providence”, will have the honour of avenging Sadowa. The French army is not ready. “The artillery is out of date. Our cannons are still loaded through the muzzle”, wrote Rothan, French minister at Francfort who can see disaster coming. “Prussia knows of her superiority and our lack of preparation”, he adds with many other observers. The war instigators are not concerned. The candidature of a Hohenzollern prince for the vacant Spanish throne is the excuse for that conflict; also, Bismark wants it. When he faked the dispatch of Ems, the advocates of war had the game in their hands and they aroused public opinion.

France herself declared war. this “war of 1870 which was proved by history to be the work of the Jesuits”, as M. Gaston Bally wrote. The composition of the government which sent France to disaster is described as follows by the eminent Catholic historian, Adrien Dansette: “Napoleon III started by sacrificing Victor Duruy, then resolved to appoint to his government men from the people’s party (January 1870). The new ministers were nearly all sincere Catholics, or ecclesiastics believing in social conservatism”.(44)

It is easy to understand, now, what was inexplicable: the haste of this government to extract a “casus belli” from this faked dispatch, even before receiving a confirmation.

“The consequences were: the collapse of the Empire and the counter- coup for the papal throne which followed… The imperial edifice and the papal edifice, crowned by the Jesuits, fell in the same mud, in spite of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility; but, alas! it was over the ashes of France”.(45)

(44) Adrien Dansette: “Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine” (Ed. Flammarion, Paris 1948, I, p.432)
(45) Gaston Bally, op.cit., pp.100, 101.

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