THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF FRANCE FROM THE CONCORDAT OF BOLOGNA, A.D. 1516, TO THE REVOLUTION, A.D. 1789.

CHAPTER XV.

Extension of system of Seminaries

In the midst of the “harsh din” of controversial strife, the Church of France exhibited, at this period, no declension from the practical zeal and fruitfulness in pious undertakings which distinguished the earlier years of the century. The results of the impulse given by the example and labours of Vincent de Paul became increasingly manifest. During the thirty-five years which had passed since he commenced his work, a new race of clergy had overspread the land, who in all the most important qualifications for their office contrasted favourably with their predecessors. This change was effected principally through the multiplication of ecclesiastical Seminaries under the direction of the Priests of the Mission, and the general adoption of this system of clerical training by the bishops throughout France. Experience had taught Vincent to regard the formation and management of Seminaries as the most indispensable of the duties to which he was called for the edification of the Church.

Addressing his Congregation at one of their conferences, in the year 1641, he expressed himself thus:—“At first our little company did not contemplate being serviceable to ecclesiastics; we thought only of our own spiritual advancement, and of evangelizing the poor. It pleased God that no more than this should appear at the outset; but in the fulness of time He called us to contribute to the training of good priests, to furnish parishes with efficient pastors, and to point out to them what they ought to know, and what to practise. How lofty and sublime is this employment! Who among us ever thought about the exercises of candidates for Ordination, or about Seminaries? We never imagined any such undertaking until God signified His will thus to make use of us; He has guided the Society to this field of exertion, without any choice on our part. Hence He demands of us a serious, humble, devout, and constant application to the task, corresponding to the excellence of its object. It is a great thing, doubtless, to minister to the poor, but it is far more important to instruct ecclesiastics, since if they are ignorant, the flock whom they direct must of necessity be ignorant also. The question might have been asked of the Son of God, Wherefore art Thou come ? Is it not to ‘preach the Gospel to the poor,’ according to the command of the eternal Father? Why then dost Thou appoint priests ? Why dost Thou take such pains to instruct and discipline them? Why confer on them the power to consecrate, to bind and loose, &c.? To which the Saviour might have replied, that He was come not only to teach the truths which are essential to salvation, but also to provide for His Church good priests, superior to those of the ancient Law. God, having rejected the polluted priests of the old Covenant, promised to raise up others, who from east to west and from north to south should fill the earth with their voices and their Message. And by whom did He fulfil that promise? By His Son our Lord, who ordained priests, and through them gave power to His Church to ordain others, saying, “Sicut misit me Pater, et Ego mitto vos.” Thus He designed to perpetuate throughout all ages that which He himself had done at the close of His earthly life. There is nothing greater than a good priest; ponder as we will, we shall never discover any nobler work in which to engage than that of forming a good priest; one to whom our Lord grants such power over His body natural and mystical, the power to consecrate and to absolve from sin. O my Saviour, how ought poor missionaries to devote themselves to Thee for the training up of good ecclesiastics, since it is of all works the most arduous, the most exalted, the most weighty for the salvation of souls and for the advance of Christianity!”

Such were the sentiments with which Vincent and his priests of the Mission entered on this momentous branch of their operations. It was attempted in the first instance to model the Seminaries in France according to the plan prescribed by the Council of Trent; namely by admitting as pupils boys from twelve to fourteen years of age, who, it was hoped, by means of a long systematic course of training, would retain through life the habits of discipline, self-restraint, and devotion acquired in early youth. But this scheme, after a fair trial, proved unsuc­cessful. Vincent opened an institution of this kind in 1635, at the College des Bons Enfans, and maintained it in that form for several years, but without encouraging results. The expense thrown upon parents was in most cases beyond their means; the benefit to the Church was remote and uncertain, whereas the demand for an efficient priesthood was immediate and pressing ; and, unhappily, very many of the young students, on reaching the age of deliberate personal choice, renounced their eccle­siastical prospects, and fell back into a worldly life. Similar disappointments occurred in the provinces. The Seminaries of Bordeaux, Agen, and Limoges, after some years of struggling existence, were left destitute of scholars; and the Archbishop of Rouen was forced to confess that in the course of twenty years he had not been able to secure the services of more than six approved priests out of all the young men upon whom he had expended so much care and labour. The rest had returned to the world, under the plea that they had taken the ecclesiastical habit at an age when they were incapable of intelligent reflection! In 1642 Vincent modified the plan of his Seminary by receiving as pupils young men of the age of eighteen and upwards, who had already finished their elementary studies. These became inmates of the College des Bons Enfans, to which Cardinal Richelieu made a donation of a thousand crowns on the occasion; while at the same time, out of respect for the recommendations and authority of the Council of Trent, the younger class of pupils were transferred to another residence in the precincts of St. Lazare, which the founder named the Seminary of St. Charles. From this time the system of “Grands Seminaries,” as they were called, began to prevail throughout the country. One of the first to follow the example was Alain de Solminiac, Bishop of Cahors, who instituted a Seminary on this type for his diocese, and confided it to the management of the Priests of the Mission, making it obligatory on candidates for the subdiaconate to reside for one year at least within its walls, while a further term of one year or more was required before their promotion to the priesthood. This excellent prelate, who was one of the ecclesiastical celebrities of his time, wrote to St. Vincent a few years before his death, to the following effect: “You would be delighted to see my clergy, and you would bless God a thousand times if you knew all the good that your Missionaries have done in my Seminary—good which has been diffused throughout the province.”

It must not be forgotten, however, that in the great work of theological Seminaries the Gallican Church was indebted to other societies besides that of the “Priests of the Mission.” The Congregation of St. Sulpice possessed a Seminary on a vast scale, adjoining the church of that name at Paris, erected at his own cost by M. Le Ragois de Bretonvilliers, who was one of the most zealous fellow-labourers of the Abbe Olier, and succeeded him both as Cure of St. Sulpice and Superior of the Seminary. The members of this community soon extended their operations, at the invitation of the bishops, into the provincial dioceses. At Bordeaux, at Villefranche in the diocese of Rodez, at Limoges, at Bourg St. Andeol in the Vivarais, at Nantes in Brittany, at Clermont in Auvergne, and at Aix in Provence, they established colleges which were eminently successful in training candidates for the priesthood, and increasing the efficiency of those who had already taken Holy Orders. After the death of Olier in 1657, the Seminary of St. Sulpice was governed for nearly twenty years by the Abbé de Bretonvilliers, who, being possessed of an ample fortune, liberally fostered all the works of charity with which it was connected, and at his death bequeathed to it considerable property. He was succeeded by Louis Tronson, a man of the highest attainments both intellectual and spiritual, under whose wise rule the Society acquired additional lustre, and rendered invaluable services to the Church. It was to the care of Tronson that the Marquis de Fen cion entrusted his nephew, the future Archbishop of Cambrai, who acquired his clerical education at St Sulpice. The respect of Fenelon for Tronson was unbounded “I congratulate myself,” he wrote on one occasion to Clement XI, “on having had M. Tronson for my instructor in the Word of life, and having been formed under his personal care for the ecclesiastical career. Never was any man, unless I am mistaken, superior to him for love of discipline, for skill, prudence, piety, and sagacity in the discernment of character.”

On an appointed day in each year the Seminarists of St. Sulpice assembled at the house in Paris, and attended mass in the chapel, which was usually celebrated by the Archbishop or some distinguished prelate. After service each priest approached the altar in turn, and kneeling before the Bishop, renewed the promise of self-dedication to God and separation from the world, which he had made on his admission into the community. This was expressed in a sentence from the fith Psalm—“Dominos pars haereditatis meae et calicis mei; Tu es qui restitues haereditatem meam mihi.”

The Seminary of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet was formally recognised in 1644 by the Archbishop of Paris as his Diocesan Seminary, and confirmed as such by royal letters-patent the same year. Its founder, as recorded in a former chapter, was Adrian Bourdoise; to whom indeed is frequently assigned the honour of having been the first to take successful steps towards establishing Seminaries in France. St. Nicolas du Chardonnet acquired a very high reputation as a nursery for the ministry, and its internal organization served as a model for many similar foundations in different parts of the country. In order to supply the necessary funds, Bourdoise formed an association which he styled “La Bourse clericale,” consisting of persons willing to contribute, or to collect contributions, for the support both of students at the college and of ecclesiastics after entering on their profession. In this way considerable sums were realised; the Assembly of the Clergy voted a grant to the Seminary in 1660; and the collegiate buildings were secured to the society by the liberality of the Prince de Conti, who purchased them for 36,000 livres. During the troubles of the Fronde, when hostile armies occupied the neighbourhood of Paris, the Seminarists of St. Nicolas distinguished themselves by their devoted ministrations among the sick and wounded. Several of them died from excess of exertion or exposure to epidemic disease; and not long afterwards the Superior was taken away in the midst of his exemplary labours, finishing his course on the 19th of July, 1655, at the age of seventy-one. Bourdoise was a man of eminent endowments; stern in outward manner, but full of ardent charity within; plainspoken almost to a fault, courageous in defence of the truth, thoroughly dis­interested; one who sought the glory of God and the welfare of the Church without the slightest admixture of selfish ends. Throughout life he preserved relations of the closest friendship with Vincent de Paul, Olier, P. Condren of the Oratory, and all the foremost ecclesiastics of the day.

Subsequent benefactors endowed St. Nicolas du Chardonnet with such an ample annual revenue that the “Bourse clericale” discontinued its operations in 1695.

A fourth Congregation of secular priests devoted to the work of clerical education was that called Eudistes, from Jean Eudes its founder, formerly a priest of the Oratory. His conduct in separating from that society has been severely criticised, but, as it appears, without justice. Eudes was conscious of a peculiar talent, which he undoubtedly possessed, for influencing the minds and character of his younger brethren; and believed himself specially called to the supervision of seminaries. The Oratory imposes no vows upon its members; and cases had occurred repeatedly of persons ceasing to belong to it when summoned by circumstances to a different sphere of labour. Acting under the advice of experienced friends, Eudes opened an institution at Caen, on a very modest footing, in March, 1643. He placed it under the invocation of “Jesus and Mary,” but it was afterwards better known as the Congregation of Eudistes. Its object was twofold,—the training of candidates for the ministry, and the conduct of missions, on the same plan as those organized with so much success by Vincent de Paul. At first Eudes had no more than five associates; but ere long they acquired such high estimation for earnest zeal and general ability, that their numbers multiplied greatly; and under the sanction of the Bishop of Bayeux, and other prelates they planted theological colleges in all the larger towns of Normandy. The great Seminary at Caen, which became the head-quarters of the Congregation, was not completed till 1657; but previously to this the Eudistes had founded houses at Rouen, Coutances, and Lisieux; and subsequently they established themselves at Rennes, Blois, Doi, and Senlis. Their work as missionaries also became widely extended. In 1660 Eudes was summoned to preach before the Court at Paris; on which occasion his vehement impassioned eloquence made a deep impression upon the Queen Mother Anne of Austria, and secured her special favour for the society. Some years later, Louis XIV having expressed a wish that a mission should be given at Versailles, where immense works were then in progress at the palace, the duty was entrusted by the Archbishop of Paris to Eudes and his companions. They fulfilled it with memorable effect, and received marked encouragement from the king and the royal family, who frequently came to attend the services. Soon afterwards, Louis invited the Eudistes on a similar errand to St. Germain; and this was followed by a grant from the monarch of a domicile for the Congregation at Paris. Eudes had now taken his place in public opinion as one of the most admirable preachers of the day; in consequence his ministra­tions were eagerly sought for on all sides. The Bishop of Evreux, in whose diocese his labours had met with great acceptance, endeavoured to get him nominated as his coadjutor in the see; but it was felt that he was more usefully employed for the interests of the Church in carrying on the works he had already undertaken; and to these he continued to devote himself with indefatigable ardour, until at length incapacitated by the infirmities of age. Having resigned his post of Superior of the Congregation, Eudes died at Caen in August, 1680, at the age of seventy-nine. He was the elder brother of the celebrated historian Eudes de Mezeray.

The Eudistes, like other Congregations instituted for the same ends, were simply secular priests; they took no vows except those at their ordination, and their dress was not different in any way from the usual clerical costume. They accepted no engagement without the express sanction of the Bishop of the diocese; and in whatever direction they were sent to labour, their first care was to place themselves at the disposal of the parochial clergy on the spot.

The closing labours of St. Vincent de Paul, notwithstanding a complication of maladies which afflicted him at his great age, exhibited the same wisdom and the same disinterested self­sacrifice which had characterised him through life. In 1658 he completed the code of statutes of his Congregation of the Mission, containing the last and well-weighed results of his experience. For thirty years the Missionaries had fulfilled their vocation without written rules; but Vincent felt that, in the near prospect of his own removal, it was necessary to provide them with fixed precepts for their future guidance. These regulations he based on the cardinal principle of conformity with the pattern of Jesus Christ, in the two chief branches of His ministry, as a teacher and as an evangelizer. “Our rules,” he said, “are almost entirely taken from the Gospel, and they all tend to conform our life to that which our Saviour led on earth. For we are told that the Divine Saviour came and was sent by His Father to preach the Gospel to the poor; and this, likewise, is the object of our mission. Yes, brethren, the poor are our inheritance. What happiness, to do the same thing for which our Lord declared that He was come from heaven to earth, and by means of which we hope, with His grace, to pass from earth to heaven! What an inducement have we here to observe strictly the rules which conduct to such a blessed end! You have long waited for them, brethren, and we have long deferred giving them to you; partly with a view to imitate our Saviour, who began to act before He began to teach. ‘Jesus began to do and to teach.’ For thirty years of His life He practised virtue, and employed only the three last years in preaching and teaching it. The Company, then, has endeavoured to imitate Him, not only in the work which He came to do, but also in the manner in which He performed it. Thirty-three years have passed since we began to work, and during the whole of that time we have, by the grace of God, practised the rules which we are now about to prescribe to you. You will find in them, therefore, nothing new, nothing that you have not put in practice for many years past with great profit and edification. Those practices which have always been observed, and are observed among us to this day, it is now thought advisable to reduce to writing, and to enact as rules. I trust that the Company will receive them as emanating from the Spirit of God, from whom all good things proceed, and without whom we are not sufficient to think or to do anything as of ourselves.” Vincent concludes with an affecting peroration, in which, after the example of Moses, he invokes blessings and favours of every kind from above upon all who should faithfully obey the rule thus promulgated for the governance of his Society.

Under the general head of conformity to the life of Christ, the priests are enjoined to emulate specially (1) His poverty, (2) His purity, (3) His obedience, (4) His charity. They are likewise exhorted to cultivate, throughout the cycle of their ministrations, five characteristic qualities, the impression of which ought to be left upon every act of the Congregation;—namely, simplicity, humility, gentleness, self-mortification, and zeal for the salvation of souls.

One of the last charitable undertakings of Vincent de Paul was the foundation of a hospital at Sainte Reine, near Dijon in Burgundy, for the accommodation of the numerous pilgrims and afflicted persons annually visiting that spot, some for the purpose of devotion at the shrine of the saint, others for the benefit of the mineral springs of the locality. The project was first started by M. des Noyers, a worthy citizen of Paris, whose health had been recruited by the use of the waters. He was moved with compassion for the crowds of poor helpless patients, who, after the fatigues of travel, found no better lodging at Sainte Reine than a farm or an outhouse, and not seldom were obliged to lie without shelter in the open street. Des Noyers, with the assistance of a few friends, made an effort to remedy the evil, but soon found that it was too serious and weighty to be dealt with by the scanty means at their command. In their embarrassment they applied to Vincent de Paul, addressing him by the expressive title of “steward of the affairs of God.” He received them with warm cordiality, encouraged them with judicious counsel and assurances of support, and directed them to begin the work forthwith, in full confidence of a successful issue. Within two years, in spite of the public difficulties arising from the war with Spain, and his increasing personal infirmities, which kept him a constant prisoner in the house, Vincent had collected the funds required for biding the hospital, which was completed early in the year 1660. Anno of Austria, at Vincent’s request, took the institution under her special protection, and obtained royal letters-patent in its favour, which were registered in the parliament of Burgundy. “Such,” says Collet, “was the commencement and the progress of this famous Hospital, where, without reckoning three or four hundred sick patients who are received there every year, more than twenty thousand poor pilgrims of all ages, of both sexes, of every nation, and of every religious persuasion, find year after year all the attention and assistance, both temporal and spiritual, that it is possible to procure for them. These various functions are divided among good ecclesiastics and virtuous Sisters of Charity. God has repeatedly blessed their zeal in a manner which has been celebrated even in distant foreign countries; and many a one who, on coming to these healing waters, thought only of recovering a transient soundness of body, has gained health of another kind, infinitely more precious.” He proceeds to mention that the great services of Vincent in this good work were acknowledged with deep gratitude by all who had taken part in it; and that when the Bishop of Autun (to which diocese Sainte Reine belongs) wrote to Pope Clement XI to demand his beatification, he specified as two important services which he had rendered to his diocese, first, that he had obtained, by his influence in the Council of Con­science, the reform of a large Benedictine abbey at Autun; and secondly, that he had procured the blessing of a hospital for the pilgrims of Sainte Reine, for want of which it was well known that numbers of them had perished.

The decline of Vincent’s health was gradual; and it was not till he had passed his eightieth year that his bodily infirmities were accompanied by any visible diminution of mental vigour. Many of those who had been his most valued friends and fellow labourers through life preceded him to the grave. He lost, within two years, Antoine Portail, one of his first colleagues when he commenced his work at the College des Bons Enfans; Charles Du Fargis, a connection of the De Joigny family, who had long been domiciled among the Lazarist community; Mademoiselle Legras, foundress of the Sisters of Charity; and Louis Rochechoart de Chandenier, Abbot of Tournus, nephew of Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. At length Vincent found himself incapacitated by a partial paralysis of the limbs, and other symptoms of organic decay; and he at once prepared himself for the last summons in the same spirit of calm, simple self-devotion to the Divine will which had been the leading feature of his saintly life. Pope Alexander VII consoled him on his deathbed by an Apostolical Brief full of expressions of veneration and affection; and three Cardinals wrote to him with the same object. Being requested to bestow on the sorrowing members of his Congregation some parting word of counsel and benediction, Vincent contented himself with repeating the words of the Apostle, “He who hath begun a good work in you will also perform it.” Shortly afterwards this much-honoured servant of God expired in perfect peace, on the 27th of September, 1660, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. Pope Benedict XIII. declared him among the number of the “bienheureux,” upon the “humble and pious demand ’ of Louis XV, his Queen, the prelates of France, the Assembly of the Clergy, and the whole Congregation of the Priests of the Mission, on the 13th of August, 1729. His canonization was published by Clement XII. on the 24th of June, 1737.

It will not be inappropriate, after recording the death of one to whose faithful labours the Church of France was so largely indebted for the late wonderful restoration of religious life and energy, to introduce to the reader a name which was ere long to rival that of Vincent de Paul in ecclesiastical celebrity and public influence, and which must be placed, beyond all dispute, at the head of the illustrious roll of Gallican theologians. It is that of Jacques Bénigne Bossuet;—“a man,” to borrow the words of Massillon, “who, had he but been born in the primitive ages, would have been the luminary of Councils, and the soul of assembled Fathers of the Church; would have dictated Canons, and presided at Nicaea and Ephesus.” The seventeenth century, however, was perhaps not less competent than the fourth or the fifth to judge of the merits and genius of Bossuet; and no Council of antiquity could have exalted him to a higher pinnacle of renown than that which was accorded to him by the unanimous verdict of his contemporaries.

Bossuet was born at Dijon on the 27th of September, 1627. His father was a magistrate of high respectability, a councillor of the parliament of Metz. Being obliged by the duties of his office to be frequently absent from home, he entrusted his son to the care of his brother, Claude Bossuet; and the boy received the first rudiments of education at the college of the Jesuits at Dijon. Here his extraordinary talents were quickly discovered, and the fathers made an attempt to attach him permanently to their Society; but this was frustrated by his uncle, under whose advice Bossuet was sent, at the age of fifteen, to pursue his studies at Paris. He was already destined for the Church, and had been named, through the influence of his father, to a canonry in the cathedral of Metz. Such abuses were still by no means uncommon in France.

Bossuet reached Paris on the same day that Cardinal Richelieu re-entered the capital on his return from the south, after the submission of Roussillon and the suppression of the conspiracy of Cinq Mars. The great minister was in a dying state, borne in a huge litter of woodwork by eighteen of his guards. This scene, and that of the Cardinal’s funeral obsequies which took place a few weeks afterwards, made an impression upon the mind of the young student which was never effaced.

Bossuet joined the College of Navarre, of which a divine of distinguished reputation, Nicolas Cornet, was at that time Grand Master. He formed a just estimate of the lofty endowments of his pupil, and predicted with confidence the brilliant career which awaited him. Before the close of his academical course, the name of Bossuet had become known in some of the first circles of Parisian society; he had been introduced at the Hotel do Rambouillet, the resort of all the literary celebrities of the day; and had there astonished and charmed a fastidious auditory by delivering an extempore sermon, without the aid of books, and with little, if any, previous meditation, which both as to matter and manner surpassed all expectations.

Having taken the degree of Bachelor in Divinity, Bossuet repaired to Metz, and devoted himself to his duties as a member of the cathedral chapter; during this interval he was ordained subdeacon and deacon by the Bishop of Langres. Returning to Paris in 1650, he resumed his studies in theology under the personal superintendence of the Grand Master Cornet; and it was now that he was led to adopt definite principles with reference to the perplexing questions which were beginning to be controversially agitated in the Church;—principles which he consistently maintained throughout life. Upon the doctrine of grace he became an attached follower of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas; adhering, according to the Abbe Ledieu’s account, even to the theory of the “premotio physica” propounded by the last-named doctor. It is clear, from his ‘Traité du libre arbitre,’ and his ‘Defense de la Tradition,’ that he considered St. Thomas as the safest and most philosophical expositor of the profound mysteries of moral causation; but he upheld that view with true moderation and charity. He did not pretend to make it a matter de fide, of necessary Catholic dogma; and though decidedly averse to the opposite system of Molina, he gladly acknowledged that this also, since it had never incurred the censure of the Church, was a permissible opinion, entitling those who held it conscientiously to all the benefits of Christian liberty. Having thus laid broad and deep the foundations of his theology in the teaching of the Fathers and the unvarying tradition of the Church, Bossuet embraced the only sure preservative from the spirit of sectarianism, and never permitted himself, throughout the polemical discussions which abounded in his time, to be made the mere instrument of a party.

He completed, in 1652, the lengthened course of probation prescribed by the rules of the Sorbonne for those who aspired to the higher grades of theological distinction. He was received Doctor in the spring of that year, and about the same time was ordained priest, and appointed Archdeacon of Sarrebourg, in the diocese of Metz. It was on this occasion that he became known to St. Vincent de Paul; having made a retreat under his guidance at St. Lazare (as we have already mentioned) previously to his ordination.

During the next few years Bossuet was constantly in residence at Metz, distributing bis time between bis active functions in the cathedral and laborious study in private. His first essay in the arena of controversy was made in 1665, when he entered the lists against the Calvinist minister Paul Ferri, a man of superior talent, learning, and character, who bad published a ‘Catechism’ in defence of the Reformation. Bossuet undertook to refute this production, in which the author had advanced that, “although it was possible, before the Reformation, to obtain salvation in the Church of Rome, this was no longer possible since the Reformation.” The Abbé Bossuet overthrew this sophism by a powerful chain of reasoning on the perpetuity, the visibility, and the infallibility of the Church Catholic; and such was the impression which his arguments produced upon the mind of his Protestant antagonist, that, during his last illness in 1669, he announced to his family his full intention to abjure the Calvinist creed, and seek re-admission to the Church through the ministry of Bossuet. His purpose was defeated by his co-religionists; but the fact transpired, and led to numerous conversions to Catholicism in Metz and the neighbourhood.

Bossuet was summoned to Paris in 1659 to preach a course of Lent sermons; and opportunities now quickly occurred which enabled him to exhibit the full splendour of his oratorical powers. His fame having reached the ears of the young king, he was appointed to preach before him in the chapel of the Louvre during the Advent of 1661. Louis was captivated by his eloquence, and expressed his admiration without reserve; and from that moment his success, in a worldly point of view, was a matter of certainty. Several years elapsed, however, before he was preferred to a more dignified station in the Church. He was consecrated Bishop of Condom in 1669; and in September, 1670, was named by Louis XIV preceptor to his son the Dauphin.

The leaders of the Jansenists, upon the restoration of peace in the Church, hastened to give public proof of their zeal for the true faith by turning their arms against the Calvinists. In 1669 was published the first volume of one of their most celebrated works, the ‘Perpétuité de la Foi de l’Église Catholique sur l’Eucharistie.’ This was composed almost entirely by Pierre Nicole; but such was the author’s modesty, that he insisted on its appearing under the name of Antoine Arnauld, on account of his superior position and reputation in the Church. Some years previously, Nicole had drawn up a short treatise on the same subject, which had been attacked by Jean Claude, one of the most eminent ministers of the Reformed Communion. Two of his colleagues, Aubertin and Blondel, had likewise written with ability against the doctrine of the Real Presence; and to these various strictures Arnauld and Nicole thought it necessary to put forth a general reply.

The ‘Perpétuité de la Foi’ made its appearance with printed testimonials of approval from twenty-seven prelates, including Cardinals d’Estrées, Forbin-Janson, and Le Camus. To these were added the suffrages of twenty doctors of the Sorbonne, of whom Bossuet was one. The latter divine extols the work not only as establishing, by proof amounting almost to demonstration, the truth of the Church’s belief as to the Sacrament of the Altar, but as furnishing principles upon which to construct an entire system of controversial divinity. “What strikes me especially,” he says, “is that the author appeals throughout to those irrefragable maxims which preserve the faithful in their attachment to the authority of the Church—that divine Teacher who is constantly at hand to instruct them in every age of the world.” Bossuet had been requested by Arnauld and Nicole to revise their work before publication. By the express command of Louis XIV, he undertook this duty; and each of the three volumes was accordingly submitted to his censorship.! In the passage above quoted, he alludes, no doubt, to the absurd calumny, which had been so long rife against the Port-Royalists, of being in league with the Calvinists to subvert the fundamental verities of the Catholic faith. The suspension of the controversy on the Five Propositions afforded Arnauld and his friends a desirable opportunity of convincing the world that they had no sort of sympathy with those who dissented from the tradition of the Church as to the Sacraments, particularly that of the Eucharist, which had been so vehemently contested from the very outset of the Reformation. They therefore spared no pains to prove that the great central truth of the Real Presence rests on the unvarying evidence of all Christian centuries; and that the Eastern Church, in spite of important differences upon other topics both of discipline and doctrine, has always upon this head been in substantial agreement with the West. This fact they established beyond dispute by official certificates signed by the Oriental patriarchs. The argument from prescription, as Nicole terms it, was at once the most natural and the most conclusive in such an enquiry, which confessedly originated in mutual charges of doctrinal innovation. The history of religious belief must needs be, under these circumstances, the groundwork of the whole investigation. But it was precisely in this direction that Claude and other Calvinist writers seem to have been conscious that their cause was weak. They showed great ingenuity in avoiding it; preferring to base the discussion on the interpretation of Scripture, and the various modern systems which had been devised for the purpose of confuting the alleged errors of Rome, and introducing a more spiritual view of the great mystery in question.

The ‘Perpétuité de la Foi’ was warmly applauded, and had considerable effect upon the public mind. Marshal Turenne had the advantage of perusing it in manuscript, and his conversion is said to have been produced in some measure by its influence.

Arnauld and Nicole pursued this new line of controversial activity by a succession of attacks, great and small, upon the Calvinistic theology. The Antinomian tendency of one of the prominent dogmas of the Reformation was forcibly exposed by Arnauld in his ‘Renversement de la Morale par la doctrine des Calvinistes touchant la Justification,’ and in another treatise styled ‘ L’impiété de la Morale des Calvinistes.’ Nicole contributed, on the same theme, ‘Préjugés legitimes contre les Calvinistes,’ which, like the ‘Perpétuité’ was examined and approved by Bossuet. These productions were welcomed with cordial satisfaction at Rome. Arnauld and others of the Port- Royalists were distinguished by Clement X., and during the early years of Innocent XI, with repeated and flattering marks of Pontifical favour.

The so-called “Peace of Clement IX” proved to be only an armistice of brief duration. Which of the two parties was the aggressor in the recommencement of hostilities was, as might be expected under the circumstances, a disputed question. It cannot be denied, however, that the elaborate work entitled, ‘La Morale pratique des Jésuites, extraite fidèlement de leurs livres,’ proceeded from the Jansenist camp, and that in spirit, if not in actual letter, it was an infraction of the late treaty. The new Archbishop of Paris caused it to be examined by the Doctors of the Sorbonne, and it was pronounced by them to abound with scandalous calumnies, monstrous falsifications of fact, and heretical propositions. Upon this an arret of the Parliament sentenced it to be destroyed by the hangman on the Place de Grève.

The hollowness of this superficial truce soon became more clearly apparent. It seems to have been taken for granted by the Jansenists, that the distinction between the droit and the fait, upon the strength of which the four protesting bishops had been induced to accept the Formulary, would continue to be allowable in all subsequent subscriptions. They were therefore greatly disconcerted when they found that in most cases the signature was exacted “pure and simple,’’ without distinction or qualification of any kind. One of the party, Feydeau, doctor of the Sorbonne and théologal of Beauvais, was deprived of his preferment and sent into exile for having refused to take the test without the saving clause. The Bishop of Angers (Henri Arnauld) attempted to establish in that diocese a greater latitude of interpretation ; and apparently forgot, in his anxiety to secure favourable terms for his own friends, that he was bound to respect the liberty of those who differed from him. He issued a mandement which was complained of as making the reservation of the fact of Jansenius not only a permissible, but an indispensable, condition of subscription. He contended that the distinction between the doctrine of the propositions and the fact that they were taught by Jansenius, was the basis upon which the late pacification rested; and that the signatures of the four bishops, notoriously obtained upon that understanding, had been declared satisfactory by the Pope himself. Hence he insisted that the same distinction was essentially requisite in all cases. The University of Angers protested against this view, and appealed from the bishop to the Crown. The result was an arret of the Council of State, dated the 30th of May, 1676, from the camp at Ninove (Louis XIV being engaged at this time in his invasion of Holland), which is said to have been suggested, if not actually drawn up, by De Harlai, Archbishop of Paris. It condemned the mandement of Bishop Arnauld, as falsely interpreting the terms upon which peace had been concluded, and as an abuse of the condescension of the Holy See in permitting, in favour of some few individuals, a special explanation of the sense of their subscription. “Such a proceeding was virtually a revocation of the bull which pre­scribed the signature upon oath of the said Formulary, without making mention of any exceptional interpretation. It was also manifestly unjust to those who had subscribed it simply as it stood; since, if the distinction of the fact were necessary, their conduct was blameable instead of praiseworthy.” Upon receiving this royal ordonnance, the Theological Faculty of Angers announced that no one would henceforth be admitted to exercises or degrees without signing the Formulary in the mode prescribed by the Faculty of Paris; and that all persons who had graduated since 1668 must sign it within the space of a month. The bishop now put forth a second mandement, which was virtually a retractation of the first. He declared that his meaning had been misunderstood, and that he had never intended to prohibit the acceptance of the Formulary “pur et simple” by those who felt able to take this step with a safe conscience. The University enforced its injunctions ; the great majority of the students signed without hesitation; a few recusants were expelled ; and the affair terminated.

But the profound animosity which had taken root in the Church during more than thirty years of contention was not to be stifled by any temporary efforts of repression. Fresh trouble was stirred up by an ecclesiastic named Mallet, who attacked the ‘Nouveau Testament de Mons,’ a work which had been published by the Port-Royalists in 1667, and printed at Mons in Flanders, because the necessary official sanction could not be obtained in France. This translation had been denounced by the late Archbishop Péréfixe soon after its appearance, upon various grounds. It differed from the Vulgate; it followed the version of Geneva in many passages which are known to have been wrested so as to favour the heresy of Calvin; it was pervaded by a general tendency towards Jansenism; it distorted the sense of Scripture in such a way as to weaken belief in it, and to invalidate the evidence for some of the most important truths of religion. Other prelates proscribed it in like manner; and Pope Clement IX. suppressed it by a brief issued in April, 1668. Mallet accused the authors of systematically falsifying Scripture for the sake of obtaining countenance for their heterodox opinions. Arnauld composed a reply, but thought it prudent, before he again embarked in forbidden controversy, to forward a memorial to the king requesting his permission. The Prince of Condé undertook to ascertain his Majesty’s pleasure in the matter. Louis, prompted doubtless by the Jesuit influences which surrounded him, gave notice that anyone who might venture to present the “requête” of M. Arnauld would be provided forthwith with a lodging in the Bastile. This was grossly unfair to the Jansenists. Breaches of the peace were committed with impunity on the one side, while on the other every movement in self-defence was sternly prohibited.

Other indications occurred of a fresh ebullition of persecuting spite against Port Royal and its friends. In 1677 the Bishops of Arras and St. Pons determined to address Pope Innocent XI on the subject of certain corrupt maxims of morality alleged to be taught by the casuists. They applied to Nicole for assistance; and the letter which he indited on this occasion, in concert with Arnauld, was animadverted upon as a further violation of the peace of the Church. Louis ordered the Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of State, Arnauld’s nephew, to inform his uncle that the king had hitherto been satisfied with his conduct and that of his friends as to the observance of the terms of pacification; but that lately complaints had been made against him in various quarters, and that he was accused of seeking to provoke a renewal of strife. Shortly afterwards it was notified to him that his mode of life at Paris had excited suspicion; that his house in the Faubourg St. Jacques bad become the resort of the intriguing and disaffected; that he assembled his friends too often, and in numbers which had an air of faction and cabal. His Majesty desired that he would change his residence for a time.

Arnauld, finding that his enemies had succeeded in poisoning the king’s mind against him, and knowing that no mere tem­porary change of domicile was likely to dislodge the determined prejudice which clung to his name, now took the resolution of withdrawing into voluntary exile from France. His letter to Archbishop de Harlai, explaining his reasons for this step, is written in a tone of remarkable moderation, though at the same time he does not shrink from setting forth the facts in their true light. His enemies, he says, being no longer in a position to impugn his orthodoxy, had shifted their ground, and now maligned him as one whose character and habits were prejudicial to the State. Such an accusation, in his case, was of all others the most palpably devoid of credibility. Was it conceivable that a mere theologian, with no fortune and no powerful connexions, who had spent four-and-twenty years in complete retirement from the world and the concerns of active life, could inspire with alarm a monarch who had withstood all Europe leagued together to arrest the progress of his arms, and whose conquests had been terminated only by a glorious peace, of which he himself had dictated the conditions? If any such apprehensions really existed, they would at all events disappear as soon as he had withdrawn once more into seclusion, and renounced all visible share in the ordinary occupations of society. His Majesty would then perceive how incapable he was of lending himself to the disloyal machinations which were imputed to him; and would, he trusted, follow the impulse of his natural equity and justice in his treatment of a community which now seemed destined to a fresh persecution. For him­self, he would reckon it a privilege to have contributed to such a change of policy, by sacrificing to the repose of the Church even the sweetest consolation which this world has to offer, namely that of living among our friends, and dying in their arms.

Arnauld took refuge at first with a friend at Fontenay-aux- Roses near Paris; but upon being apprised by the Duke of Montausier that the king was constantly beset by those whose counsels threatened his personal safety, he no longer delayed to seek a retreat abroad. For a moment he had thoughts of pro­ceeding to Rome, where the Pope would doubtless have received him with all honour; but eventually he turned his steps towards Flanders, and arrived at Mons on the 20th of June, 1679. Afterwards he established himself at Brussels.

Allusion is made, in the letters above quoted, to a renewal of vexatious measures against the convent of Port Royal. The king had been induced, either by the jealous insinuations of the Jesuits, or by his hatred of whatever might by possibility become a centre of political agitation, to give orders which seriously troubled the repose of that much-tried community. He found in De Harlai, who was rather a time-serving politician than a faithful pastor of the Church, a ready instrument of his purpose. The archbishop had formerly seemed disposed to protect the Port Royalists; but his good-will vanished on the first intimation of royal displeasure; whatever might be his own feelings, the will of the sovereign must be carried into effect with passive and unreasoning submission. Louis, on returning victorious from his campaign in the Netherlands, had been provoked to find that the theological atmosphere was again overcast, and that fresh strife loomed in the distance. It so happened that in the troublesome affair of the regale, which belongs to this period, the two impracticable prelates, Pavilion and Caulet, were known partisans of the Jansenists, and had been among the most vehement opponents of the Formulary. Louis was heard to exclaim, in a tone of irritation, that the Jansenists were always in his way: “Ces Messieurs de Port Royal; toujours ces Messieurs!” but that he was determined to root out the sect from France, and would prove himself in that respect “more of a Jesuit than the Jesuits themselves.”

Madame de Longueville, whose friendship had thrown a powerful shield of protection round Port Royal for ten years past, died in April, 1679; and within a month afterwards the Archbishop of Paris conveyed to the abbess the king’s order that the numbers of the inmates of the convent should be considerably reduced; the establishment was henceforth to consist of no more than fifty professed sisters and twelve “converses.” With this view, the postulants, novices, and “pensionnaires” were to be dismissed immediately; and the male occupants of the cloister were informed at the same time that the king required them to disperse. The object of this policy was to break off the connexion which Port Royal had maintained with numerous families of noble birth and great influence throughout the country, and thus to destroy its importance as a focus of party spirit, religious and political. The mandate was executed without delay. Thirty-four pensionnaires—all of them belonging to the higher orders—quitted the convent, and were followed by many ecclesiastics who had resided there ever since the restoration of peace; among these were De Sacy, Tillemont, Pontchatcau, Sainte Marthe, De Luzancy, and Bourgeois. This act of wholesale dismemberment was too clearly “the beginning of the end.” Port Royal after this declined rapidly in prestige and resources; it continued to exist for a period of nearly thirty years; but it is evident that its final extinction was a step resolved upon by the Government, whenever a plausible conjunction of circumstances might occur.

CHAPTER XVI.

The "Droit de Regale"