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MODERN HISTORY LIBRARY |
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CHAPTER IV.
THE
GALLICAN CHURCH.
During the first half of the seventeenth century French
religion went through a somewhat chaotic stage. Catholicism had triumphed under
Henry IV, but the whole reign of his successor was taken up by discussions as
to the particular form which Catholicism should assumed For a long while the
country swung to and fro between two rival schools of extremists, neither of
which was strong enough to crush the other. At one end of the line was the
ultra-clerical party headed successively by Mary de’ Medici and Anne of
Austria. At the opposite end were the upholders of a purely official religion
their strength lay chiefly in the legal and administrative class, which
Richelieu had raised to power. They were ready enough to call themselves
Catholics, and “perform the ancient ceremonies of their country with a decent
moderation,” as one of their own great writers enjoins. But they insisted that
Catholicism should be kept under the strict surveillance of the civil powers;
its profession was not so much a duty to God as a duty to the State. Their real
religion they found in the books of such men as Guillaume du Vair (1556-1621),
Bishop of Lisieux and Lord Keeper during the regency of Mary de’ Medici. He
offered them a purely natural religion, set out in singularly impressive
language largely borrowed from the ancient Stoics. Intensely moral and
patriotic, it is touched throughout with Christian sentiment; but it owes quite
as much to Epictetus as to the Sermon on the Mount.
Where the
fathers swore by Du Vair, the children passed on to Descartes (1596-1650). The
philosopher posed as an excellent Churchman; and when protestant friends in
Holland tried to convert him, he answered that the religion of his king and of
his nurse was good enough for him. But his real work was to finish what Du
Vair had begun. His Meditations gave the world what the world had never seen
before—proofs of God, freedom and immortality put into language strictly
reasoned, but not too hard for average minds to follow. These three things once
proved, however, Descartes made his bow and departed, leaving the field clear
for theology. What God was like he did not pretend to say, nor how eternal happiness
was to be compassed, or our freedom to be used.
Not that this
consequence showed itself at once. Churchmen were a long while in deciding
whether Cartesianism did more good or harm. The great Jansenist, Antoine
Arnauld, spoke up warmly in its favour. Bossuet was much more doubtful; but
Pascal was the one Christian thinker of the age who steadily opposed it. Nor
were the rationalists themselves quite clear whither they were bound. At first
sight no one looks more negative than Gui Patin (1601-72), an eminent, but very
cross-grained, professor from the College de Prance. He was always congratulating
himself on being “delivered from the nightmare”; and he rivals the eighteenth
century in the scorn he pours on priests, monks, and especially “that black
Loyolitic scum from Spain,” which called itself the Society of Jesus. Yet Patin
was no freethinker. Sceptics who made game of the kernel of religion came quite
as much under the lash of his tongue as bigots who dared defend its husks. His
letters end with the characteristic confession: “Credo vn Deum, Christum
crucifixum, etc.,.... De minimis
non curat praetor.”
At the
opposite pole from Patin stood the party of the so-called dévots. Patronised
successively by the two foreign queens, its first object was to introduce new
fashions in devotion, and new religious orders, from Italy or Spain. For French
religion and French literature were alike impoverished, and must borrow from
abroad. The divots were only doing in one field what préciosité accomplished in
another, when it brought in gongorisme, or exaggerated emphasis, from beyond
the Pyrenees, and little concetti from beyond the Alps. In neither case did
native taste take altogether kindly to the loan. The Bare-footed Carmelites,
for instance, were brought to France under the patronage of one queen, and
warmly encouraged by the other. Daughters of St Teresa, they represented the
fine flower of the Spanish Counter-reformation. They brought with them a glow
of torrid romance, that sat well enough on the countrywomen of Don Quixote, but
was utterly out of place in the Paris of Descartes and Gui Patin. Their
religion was all violent contrasts of light and shade. In their churches was
great show of perfumes, flowers, and fine linen; in their cloisters
extraordinary austerities—terrible scourgings, the most humiliating penances,
and fasts on bread and water. Louise de La Valliere, flying from the arms of
Louis XIV to scrub floors in a Carmelite convent, is a typical example of their
picturesque sensationalism.
Still less
acceptable to most Frenchmen was the piety of the Italians. Here artistic
triviality reigned. Patin is never tired of denouncing their
The Liberties
in question were certain ancient rights, in which most Frenchmen took a
patriotic pride. They were peculiar to France; and, as the Crown lawyers said,
they had never been granted like a privilege, but grew up in the very nature of
things. They consisted chiefly in four points. Papal bulls might not come into
France without leave of the Crown. The decisions of the Roman Congregations had
no legal weight in France. French subjects could not be cited before a Roman
tribunal. French civil Courts took cognisance of ecclesiastical affairs,
whenever the law of the land was thought to be broken. And, inasmuch as
Catholicism was part and parcel of the common law, the Parlements could, and
did, give this last article a very wide extension. They were perfectly ready to
enter into the merits of an excommunication, and force Bishops and Cardinals to
withdraw it, if they thought it improperly launched. There are even cases in
which they “adjudged” the sacrament to those who could not obtain it from their
parish priest.
However,
these abuses were the exception; and the mass of the French clergy put up with
the Parlements easily enough. After all, the only alternative was an appeal to
the Pope; and to him they were by no means anxious to go, even had their
Government allowed it. Most visitors to Rome told the same tale; They were
scandalised at its pettiness, especially at its neglect of theological
scholarship. Much more secular branches of learning tempted Italian ambition.
The road to the purple lay through nunciatures and administrative offices;
divinity was left to the friars, who had no other chance of advancement. But
indifference leads as straight to intolerance as ever can fanaticism. When a
too original book was published, the Cardinals made haste to put it on the
Index, and troubled themselves no more about it, sure that it soon would be
forgotten. In France this irresponsible high-handedness was neither possible
nor desired; a single example would have drawn down on the offending prelate a
swarm of jeering pamphlets. For the Huguenots were always on the watch to spy
out a joint in Goliath’s armour; and herein they were supported by lay Catholic
opinion. Most
All these
things inspired a strong dislike of the doctrine of papal infallibility.
Dogmatically speaking, Frenchmen thought it unhistorical, and opposed to the
ancient traditions of their Church. Administratively speaking, it meant a
revolution. Hitherto they had settled their ecclesiastical disputes at home.
Once admit infallibility, and appeals innumerable would go from their own
highly competent tribunals to a set of incapable judges in a foreign land.
Lastly, Bellarmin and the Roman Ultramontanes had grafted on to the
theological dogma a set of political consequences highly exasperating to
French national pride. It was argued that ecclesiastical interests took
precedence of all other interests; and of these the Pope was the only judge.
Hence he had a right to dictate his will to temporal sovereigns, whenever he
thought such interests were concerned. If they refused to listen, he could
punish them in any manner he thought fit; in the last resort he could depose
them, incite their subjects to rebellion, and head a crusade of Catholic Powers
against them.
Much of this,
no doubt, was simply dialectical steam, blown off by heated professors in a
class-room. But steam can drive small wheels as well as great. The French
Ministers knew very well that Ultramontanism could not depose Louis XIII from
his throne; it could, and did, write seditious pamphlets, whenever Richelieu
supported a Protestant Power against a Catholic. But in their foreign policy,
at any rate, Richelieu and his successors meant to keep their hands entirely
free; here they must be able to ignore ecclesiastical interests as much as they
pleased without fear of ecclesiastical disturbance. Hence the need of a
doctrine that would bind the consciences of all Frenchmen to obey no master but
their King.
This need
Gallicanism supplied. It may be described as a generalisation of the ancient
Gallican Liberties, evolved as a counterblast to Ultramontanism. Like the
rival theory, it developed a theological and a political side. Theological
Gallicanism maintained that the supreme infallible authority of the Church was
committed to Pope and Bishops jointly. Political Gallicanism declared that no
amount of misconduct, sr neglect of Catholic interests, justified the Pope in
interfering with a temporal sovereign. The two doctrines grew up independently;
and even under Louis XIV many Jesuits and other divines were politically
Gallican, and theologically Ultramontane. But early in the seventeenth century
the two sides of Gallicanism were welded together by Edmond Richer (1559-1631),
a famous Doctor of the Sorbonne. To the Richelieus and Colberts Gallicanism was
a mere device for snuffing out clerical opposition; in the hands of Richer and
his successors it became an honest attempt to solve the great problem of the
age, and show Frenchmen how to be at once good citizens and good Catholics.
For a new era
was dawning. On the divisions of the Wars of Religion there followed an
irresistible reaction towards patriotism and national unity. France had
suddenly grown to her full stature; like the contemporary England of John
Milton, she was become “a noble and puissant nation, roing herself like a
strong man after sleep.” Ultramontanism strove hard to check what it called
this “separatist” tendency, and to strangle national aspirations in the
leading-strings of the Papacy. But even the clergy were swept away by the
current, and meant to be patriots like everyone else. “Before my ordination,”
said Richer, “I was a subject of the King of France. Why should that ceremony
make me a subject of the Pope?” His eccentric followerj Michael Chretien, went
further still, and exhorted the assembled Sorbonne to rally to the service of
its King. “Exhibeamus nos gallos, et non gallinas,” he cried. Before long the
Gallican wave had invaded the Jesuits themselves. When Louis XIV, after a
period of diplomatic coolness, again sent an ambassador to Alexander VII,
Father Rapin overflows about his royal condescension in thus “honouring” the
Pope. And in the great quarrel with Innocent XI the Society was among the
strongest supporters of the Crown.
The divine right of Kings. Gallicanism
necessarily led up to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. This doctrine
is developed by Bossuet in his Politique tirée de l'Ecriture Sainte, written
between 1675 and 1680, while the author was tutor to Louis XIV’s only son. But
Bossuet by no means followed the same lines as his contemporaries across the
Channel. The theologians of Charles II upheld the divine right of legitimate
monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government. Bossuet’s object was to show
that all established sovereignties—whether monarchical or republican—hold
their power directly of God, and not mediately through the Pope. God wills that
in every country there should be some settled constitution; what particular form
it takes the customs of the country will decide. But, once a particular form of
government has established its prescriptive right, no power on earth can
interfere either with the system itself or with its lawfully-appointed
officers; a bad, but legitimate, king can no more be exchanged for a good than
an established republic can transform itself into a monarchy. In short,
Bossuet’s book is a plea for political stability at all costs. He was old
enough to remember the Fronde, and the misery its flighty constitutional
experiments brought upon the common folk. He was writing a manual for the son
of Louis XIV at a time when Louis’ methods of government had culminated in a
blaze of glory. Naturally he wished those methods to continue for ever.
No doubt, this
royalist enthusiasm acquired a thick enough coating of vulgarity by the time it
reached the lower strata of the clergy. The great Huguenot controversialist,
Jurieu, has much to say about a thesis on the argument from design maintained
by certain Franciscans of
The
clergy,
in fact, were supernumerary members of the civil service. By
the Concordat of
1516 the Crown appointed to all bishoprics and abbeys. But the
mere nomination
was the least part of the business; the real strength of the
Crown lay in its
power to raise or lower clerical incomes as it pleased. It
could burden an
incoming bishop’s revenues with pensions to whomsoever it
chose; it could
reward good service with fat sinecures. Of these the most
important were the
abbeys in commendam. They could be granted to whomsoever the
King chose. No
residence, or other duty, was expected from the abbot. He need
not be in holy
orders; he might be a child, or even a Huguenot. Indeed, he
could be anything
except a monk; for if a qualified person were appointed, the
abbey was “restored to rule,” and further abuse became impossible.
Still more
curious was the royal perquisite of the rigale, or right to the temporalities
of a vacant bishopric. Of these by far the most important was the patronage of
benefices in the bishop’s gift—chiefly canonries, archdeaconries, and a host of
minor appointments in cathedral and collegiate churches. Parochial livings were
excluded, as directly involving cure of souls. In the hands of successive
generations of Crown lawyers this prerogative was developed to an incredible extent.
It was held that prescription could not be pleaded against the Crown; hence,
if a benefice once fell under the régale, there it remained, until the Crown
had exercised its right. As a matter of grace, the Crown seldom interfered
with a dignitary who had been in possession of his stall for thirty years; but
at any time within that period an episcopally-appointed canon was liable to
ejectment, on the ground that the patronage of his place rightfully belonged to
the Crown. Hence, to present a man to a canonry was often equivalent to
presenting him to a costly lawsuit.
Quite apart
from the régale, however, litigiousness was a besetting sin of the French
clergy. Cathedral Chapters, in particular, were proverbial for their lawyers’
bills. Their great object was to make themselves as independent as possible of
the Bishop; and herein their
These
non-resident pluralists were divided by a yawning gulf from the humble country
curates. Most of these were miserably poor—even poorer, relatively speaking,
than their successors in modern France. Of education they had little; no means
existed for obtaining it. The Sorbonne, or theological faculty of Paris
University, gave an elaborate education in divinity; but very few young men
could afford to spend seven years over their degree. Few of the provincial
universities taught theology at all; and seminaries, or diocesan colleges
preparing directly for the priesthood, were only just beginning to be founded.
On the; other hand, the Bishops expected nothing more from a candidate for holy
orders than some evidence to character and enough Latin to stumble through a
few lines of the Breviary. Hence the most astounding ignorance was common
enough. Priests were found who did not know the common formula of absolution.
St Vincent de Paul had much trouble in persuading others that they ought not to
take money for hearing confessions. Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the seminary
of Saint-Sulpice, came across a priest in his parish, who was in the habit of
praying to St Beelzebub.
The awakening
of these poor curates and their flocks became the favourite project of St
Vincent de Paul (1576-1660). His Lazarists, or Priests of the Mission, were to
evangelise the country districts; his Sisters of Charity were to relieve their
temporal distresses. These two bodies represent the triumph of two important
innovations. The old-fashioned nun had spent her whole time behind high walls
in prayer and contemplation; the one object of the Sister of Charity was the
service, of her neighbours. The first aim of an old-fashioned Order was to make
itself independent of all existing authorities; St Vincent’s two institutions
were expressly intended to collaborate with the Bishops and parochial clergy.
This last
idea was not absolutely new. Cardinal de Berulle (1574— 1629) had founded the
French Oratory—a very free adaptation of the original institute of St Philip
Neri—in order to train up clergy for country dioceses. But the Oratory proved
too lettered for its work. Instead of a popular training college, it became the
home of speculative recluses, such as the philosopher Malebranche (1638-1715), or
Richard
Directors of Conscience, and Preachers. Mabillon and
Malebranche only touched the few; the education of the mass of the clergy fell
into the hands of the Sulpicians, founded by the Abbé Olier in 1641, and the Eudists
(1643), so called from their founder, the Abbé Eudes de Mézerai. Following
their lead came the Christian Brothers (1680), an association of celibate
laymen, who furnished teachers for the humbler class of schools. But all three
bodies laid much more stress on piety than on learning; Saint-Sulpice, in
particular, devoted itself “not so much to theological science, as to the
practice of that science, and the virtues proper to the clerical state.”
An abounding
interest in applied religion marks the whole revival. Perhaps its most
characteristic outcome was the rise of professed Directors of
Conscience divines who specialised in spiritual ailments; they stood to
ordinary confessors much as a consulting physician stands to a general
practitioner. No doubt, their rise was not an altogether healthy sign, and a
director often aggravated the ills he was sent to cure. He became the natural
target for all the morbid scrupulosity and self-analysis which idle and
luxurious lives produce. Fenelon, a great expert in these matters, has many
hard things to say about the valetudinarians in soul, who felt their pulses
twenty times a day, and sent continually to the director to beg new drugs, or
promises of quick recovery. But the prominence of Direction was a strong acknowledgment
of the need of personal religion. It was felt, on the one hand, that something
more than routine religious duties was demanded of the laity; it was felt, on
the other, that they could not be trusted to pick out the vital elements in
religion for themselves. Some were too feeble, others too erratic. Hence the
use of a Director. He kept flightiness from trying dangerous experiments, and
broke up the bread of doctrine into morsels suited to a feeble appetite.
Direction,
however, was only for the few; for the many the one means of instruction was
the sermon. Nowadays it is hard to realise how large a part the pulpit played
in the life of seventeenth century France. Political assemblies were unknown.
Journalism, still in its infancy, was closely muzzled. The pulpit was the only
place where popular criticism of those in high places could safely make itself
heard. Nor did preachers always resist the obvious temptation of airing their
views on subjects in general, just to show off their own cleverness. La Bruyere
declares that they made their pulpit a means of advancement as rapid, but not
less hazardous, than the profession of arms. Others gave in to the dominant
préciosité. Mascaron (1634-1703) and Flechier (1632-1710), the two earliest of
Louis XIV’s Court-preachers,
Preachers and
Directors might make much of personal religion; but there was a general
tendency to treat it as the crown and flower of religion, rather than as its
root. For any high degree of sanctity it was indispensable; but it was thought
that a man could scrape into a humble place in Paradise without possessing even
its germs. This view was more especially common among the Jesuits. Not that it
was peculiar to them. The Jesuits have invented little; but their energy, their
boldness, their elastic organisation, unfettered by any ancient traditions,
make them peculiarly conspicuous champions of whatever ideas they may adopt. In
this matter of personal piety their sympathies were specially engaged. It
appealed to individual experience, and such experience had been the great
weapon of Luther and Calvin. But the Jesuits were sworn enemies of the
Reformation and all its works; they boasted that they were nothing that
Protestantism was, and all that Protestantism was not. Then, too, individual
experience was cloudy and anarchic. But the Jesuits were essentially a
combatant body, brought up to a more than military discipline; their sympathies
were all for military precision—dogmas as clear-cut as a proposition of Euclid.
Pascal might object that in religion what is clear-cut and precise is seldom
true; but Jesuits had no time to listen to such scruples. Practical efficiency
was their aim; and efficiency required a positive base of operations. Hence
they were for ever extending the scope of papal infallibility.
Nor did these
devotees of the practical take pains to distinguish between the ideal interests
of religion and the terrestrial interests of the Church. It was God’s
vicegerent; and to appeal—as Pascal appealed—from its decisions to the
judgment-seat of Christ was alike blasphemous and
These writers
developed a whole system of expedients for protecting the penitent from a too
zealous confessor. The kind of question he might ask was carefully defined. He
must not cast about for general information as to his penitent’s disposition,
as would a physician; he must try each offence strictly on its merits, as would
a magistrate. He must always lean towards the most “benign” interpretation of
the law; and for his guidance casuistry ran many an ingenious coach and four
through inconvenient enactments. In matters of detail most of these are
harmless enough. They are chiefly concerned with proving that common
peccadilloes—the white lies of the lady of fashion, the “trade customs” of
the shopkeeper—are not grievous sins. Nevertheless, in the opinion of Pascal, Milton,
and other contemporary critics, the Casuists degraded morality. They encouraged
men to take over their ideas of right and wrong ready-made from the priest, and
thus save themselves the trouble of thinking. As Milton said, their conscience
became a “dividual moveable,” left entirely in charge of the priest. He, in
his turn, must he content with a low quality of achievement. He might urge his
penitents to do more; but human nature seldom resists the charms of a fixed
standard—least of all, when it is administered by a live judge in a visible
court. If he must be satisfied with little, why be at the trouble of offering
more? But the less he could expect from them, the more he was driven to trust
to the miraculous efficiency of sacramental grace. By hook or by crook get the
sinner to confession, and the whole work was done. However bad his natural
character, the magical words of absolution would make him a new man.
The origins of Jansenism. These abuses
called forth a series of protests from eminent divines, among whom Bossuet was
the most conspicuous; and during the later years of the century probabilism
disappeared altogether from the French divinity schools. But Bossuet only
struck at isolated points; meanwhile a movement was springing up, which aspired
to cut down at the root
Not that
Jansen or his masters had any conscious tendencies to Protestantism. They might
be willing to encounter the Reformation by its own weapons, and show that
Catholic Louvain could be quite as evangelical as Presbyterian Leyden. But
party-feeling was kept hot on both sides by continual border-affrays; Jansen
himself had a long battle with the learned Calvinist, Voetius, still remembered
as an antagonist of Descartes. This double line of warfare shaped the ideals of
the two friends; they were in search of a theology which should be Catholic,
but not Jesuit—evangelical, but not Protestant. They found it in the writings
of St Augustine, who offered them a strongly individualistic mystical religion,
dexterously interwoven with a high sacramental theory of the Church.
Accordingly
Augustine became their oracle; and for years a sullen controversy raged as to
whether Jansen had really understood his master. With the mass of his
followers, however, these questions of scholarship were an altogether secondary
matter; they valued his teaching because he gave them neither ceremonial nor
theology, but genuine religion. Fof the great work of Jansenism was to insist
that piety does not mean believing a particular opinion, or adopting a
particular mode of life; it means conversion, becoming a new creature.
Morality, church-going, orthodox opinions, might be excellent things in their
place; but through them no man ever saved his soul. His fate in the next world
depended on whether his life in this had been informed by the love of God. And
by love of God Jansen meant simply the religious sense. This might be weak, or
it might be strong; but even its humblest forms were enough to distinguish him
who had it from those who had it not—to draw all his actions into a new
perspective, and put a different colouring on all
Thus
Jansen’s doctrine of conversion melted into Predestination. God calls certain
souls to Himself; the rest He leaves to perish in their sins. Surprise has
sometimes been expressed that Jansen should have made so many converts to so
terrible a doctrine; even in his own day Deists had arisen to protest against a
God, whose “justice” human misery exalted, whose “essence” human ills enriched.
But the mass of Frenchmen conceived of their Maker as a hypostatised absolute
sovereign: like the Louis XIV of Saint-Simon, He “commanded, and gave His
reasons to none.” Moreover, Jansen’s doctrine of conversion softened the
grimness of his predestinarianism. A man might be unregenerate today; but
tomorrow it might please God to convert him—as once He converted St Paul,
“model of all penitents.” But Jansen’s real object was to teach men that they
cannot make their own religion for themselves. Left to their undisciplined
fancy, they were straying on every side; some were experimenting with the
geometrical God of Descartes, others with some Ultramontane “girdle of St
Margaret.” Jansen answered that they cannot choose how, or when, they will be
pious: they must wait till their Maker touches their heart, and tells them what
He would have them do. “Those who really long for God,” said Pascal, “long
also to approach Him only by means He has Himself ordained.”
Thus
the ultimate religious sanction became subjective—an inward “witness of the
Spirit”; and herein the French authorities saw endless possibilities of
insubordination both in Church and State. For in the French seventeenth
century a theological opinion was a political event. A disaffected party in
the Church was sure to develop some kind of organised machinery for the
furtherance of its views; and on this machinery all disaffected parties in the
State threw a wistful eye. The Frondeurs, in particular, would have given much
for Jansenist support. But the Fronde was still to come, when Jansenism gave
its first great manifesto to the world. One of Saint-Cyran’s most important
converts was Angelique Amauld (1591-1661), Abbess of Port-Royal, a convent near
Versailles, and thenceforward the head-quarters of the party. She converted her
brother Antoine (1612-94), a young Doctor of the Sorbonne. In 1643 Antojne
Arnanld published a book on Frequent Communion, an attack on the confessors who
gave absolution easily, without enquiry into the penitent’s character, or the
sincerity of his repentance. The book raised a violent storm, but many divines
supported Arnauld, and no official action was taken against his party till
1649. Then the Sorbonne condemned five propositions from Jansen’s Augustinus, all relating to Predestination. This censure,
backed by the signatures of eighty-five Bishops, was sent up to Rome for
confirmation; and in 1653 Innocent X declared all five propositions heretical.
His judgment
put the Jansenists between two fires. To accept it meant a surrender of their
whole position; to reject it would put them outside the Roman Church.
Accordingly they temporised. They accepted the censure in the abstract, but
denied that Jansen had held the propositions in the sense condemned. In one
sense this was true; for a book may well mean one thing to spiritual
experience, and quite another to an ecclesiastical lawyer. But the authorities
could not be expected to listen to such reasoning; in 1656 Amauld was expelled,
from the Sorbonne, in spite of Pascal’s Provincial Letters, begun in an
attempt to save him. The Letters (1656-7) soon leave Amauld behind, however,
and go on to a general attack on Jesuit casuistry and devotion aisee.
In October,
1656, Alexander VII cut away the ground from under Amauld’s feet by declaring
that his predecessor had condemned the Augustinus in the sense intended by
Jansen. Arnauld promptly set up the legal distinction of law and fact. In
matters of dogma, he said, the Church was certainly infallible; but about the
private intentions of an author it knew no more than anyone else. However, the
authorities were obdurate. A “formulary,” or declaration that the Augustinus had been rightly condemned in the sense intended by its author, was presently
drawn up; and signature was made binding on all nuns as well as priests. At
first, however, it was only imposed on suspected Jansenists (1661), most of
whom refused to sign. The priests went into hiding; and the Government began to
persecute the nuns of Port-Royal. But in 1665 Pope and King resolved to make
signature really universal. Hereupon four Bishops protested—those of Alet,
Angers, Beauvais, Pamiers—and were only induced to make a very ambiguous
submission in 1668. With this, however, the pacific Clement IX declared himself
satisfied; and the very secular French Ministers, who were frankly weary of the
whole affair, persuaded the King to seize this opportunity of admitting the
Jansenists generally to grace (1669).
Hence the
so-called Peace of Clement IX is treated by Jansenist writers as a triumph:
really, it was the beginning of their downfall. They had set out to reform the
Church: they ended by having to fight hard for a doubtful foothold within it.
And under the leadership of Arnauld—scion of a family of lawyers—the party
itself had gone downhill; a controversial argumentative impulse was shouldering
out the spiritual. Everyone admired Amauld’s talents; for he was not only a
party-leader, but a considerable geometer and metaphysician. But, in admiring,
the world agreed with Bossuet, who said that Arnauld was inexcusable for having
squandered his great abilities in an attempt to prove that Jansen had not been
condemned. Besides, the Peace was
Nor was an
object-lesson wanting. For many years past the Crown lawyers had been extending
the régale; though a few dioceses, mainly in the south of France, still claimed
exemption on the ground of ancient usage. But in 1673 the Government thought
the time had come for enforcing uniformity; and Louis formally declared the régale universally binding throughout the realm. Only two Bishops protested—
Pavillon of Alet, and Caulet of Pamiers —both of whom had taken the Jansenist
side in the matter of the formulary. The storm broke loose in 1675, when Louis
presented to a canonry at Alet. Pavillon excommunicated the royal nominee; his
metropolitan, the Archbishop of Narbonne, supported the Crown; Pavillon
appealed to the Pope. Very soon afterwards he died (1677), leaving Caulet to
carry on the struggle alone. Caulet, whose temporalities were by this time
confiscated, made a series of appeals to Innocent XI, a high-minded but very
undecided pontiff; and at last persuaded him to interfere (December, 1679). In
1680 Caulet died, but his Cathedral Chapter more than replaced him. The
metropolitan tried to interfere; Innocent declared his action intrusive, and
threatened him with excommunication (January, 1681).
This invasion of the canonical rights of a metropolitan—for Innocent had prejudged the case, without listening to what the Archbishop might have to say—was bitterly resented in France as a gross invasion of the Gallican Liberties. After much consultation between the Court and the leading prelates, it was agreed to convoke a special Assembly of the Clergy—a body roughly answering to the Anglican Convocation—to deal with the whole question. The Assembly met in October, 1681; at its opening session Bossuet, just appointed Bishop of Meaux, preached a great sermon on the unity of the Church. The regale was soon settled by a compromise, carried through by Louis himself against the advice of his Ministers, and greatly to the advantage of the clergy. Colbert now suggested that this would be an excellent chance of setting at rest for ever the much-debated question as to the exact relation of the Gallican Church to the Papacy. Bossuet and other Bishops objected, on the ground that a declaration on this subject could do no good, and would give mortal offence at Rome. But Colbert persisted; and in March, 1682, the Assembly unanimously voted assent to four Articles drawn up by Bossuet. These are a skilful compromise. On the one hand, they assert the main points of Gallican belief. (1) The Pope has no jurisdiction over temporal sovereigns. (2) He is below a General Council:
(3) The Gallican Liberties are sacred. (4) The right of judging matters of doctrine belongs to Pope and Bishops jointly. On the other hand, the Articles steer
clear of the extremer forms of Gallicanism. The chief share in judging
questions of doctrine is reserved to the Pope; and the Declaration carefully
leaves room for Bossuet’s personal opinion—already expressed in his opening
sermon—that the See of Rome, though not infallible, is “indefectible”: not
necessarily right at any particular moment, it cannot fall permanently into
error.
The influence of Bossuet These
concessions did not satisfy the Pope; peace with Rome was only made in 1691.
But Bossuet’s statesmanship won him enormous credit at home; for the next
twenty years he was the dominant figure in the Church. A moderate and
reasonable orthodoxy became the order of the day. As Ultramontanism receded
into the background, independent spirits of the type of Gui Patin began to
gravitate back to the Church. Even Cartesianism yielded for the moment to the
spell of Malebranche, and arrayed itself in the dress of a rationalistic and
very much etherealised Catholicism. To the world at large, however, Bossuet was
the great reconciler of faith and reason—on the lines sketched out in his Traité de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même, and his Discours sur
l'histoire universelle. Both these books were written between 1670 and 1680,
while their author was tutor to the Dauphin. Their great aim is to prove by
reason that men ought to submit to authority. Philosophy— argued the
Traite—shows that a God exists; and that He governs and controls the affairs of
men. History—continues the Discours—teaches that His governance is mainly
indirect; it is exercised by certain venerable corporations, ecclesiastical and
civil, acting as His lawful representatives. Thereby the Discours rejoins the Politique tirée de lÉtcriture Sainte, the third member of the trilogy.
But Bossuet’s
great object in life was the conversion of the Huguenots. In 1668 he had
overcome the scruples of Turenne; two years later he published an Exposition de
la Doctrine Catholique, so moderate in tone that his adversaries accused him of
having fraudulently watered down the Roman doctrines to suit a Protestant
taste. On the other hand, he never doubted the right of the State to enforce
religious uniformity at the point of the sword; this, as he more than once
boasted in his controversial writings, was one of the few points on which
Catholic and Protestant doctors were agreed. Besides, the French Churchmen of
the time were brought up to look on the Huguenots as a serious political
danger: Saint-Simon only expresses the common belief, when he calls them “a
sect which had become a State within the State, dependent on the King no more
than it chose, always loud in complaints, and ready, on the slightest pretext,
to embroil the whole kingdom by an appeal to arms.” This passage represents
what the Huguenots would have liked to do, rather than what they did; but in
the few places where they were strong, they had undoubtedly encroached on their
legal rights.
Revocation by
no means interrupted Bossuet’s appeal to other methods of persuasion. In 1688
he brought out his Histoire des Variations des Églises Protestantes, in which
he sought to prove that variation is necessarily a sign of error. Soon after he
began to correspond with Leibniz, with a view to the reconciliation of the
German Lutherans with the Roman Church. But negotiations broke down on this
point of variation. Individual Catholic doctrines, such as purgatory or the Mass,
Leibniz thought that his countrymen might accept, but he refused to guarantee
that they would believe tomorrow what they believed today. “We prefer,” he
said, “to belong to a Church eternally variable, and for ever moving forwards.”
Nor was it
only in Germany that Bossuet taught the Protestants to glory in their
variations. Jurieu, and other Huguenot controversialists, fully accepted the
idea of progress; and they presently went on to ask whether Rome itself was
quite so unchangeable as Bossuet supposed. Herein they were supported by the
Oratorian scholar, Richard Simon. He accused St Augustine, Bossuet’s own
especial master, of having corrupted the primitive doctrine of Grace. Bossuet
set to work on a Défense de la Tradition et des Saints Pères; but Simon only
went on to raise issues graver still. Under a veil of polite circumlocutions,
such as did not deceive the Bishop of Meaux, he claimed the right of
interpreting the Bible like any other book. Bossuet denounced him again and
again, and even set the police in motion; Simon answered that he could afford
to wait until “the old fellow” was no more. Another Oratorian was more
dangerous still. Malebranche prided himself on having brought numbers of
Jansenists, Cartesians, and other misbelievers back within the Catholic pale;
but his remedies appeared to Bossuet almost as bad as their disease. Simon had
endangered the belief in miracles by bringing lay rules of evidence into play?
but Malebranche abrogated miracles altogether. On his principle it was blasphemous
to suppose that the Author of Nature would break through a reign of law He had
Himself established in the universe.
Quietism. But the worst
rebel of all was Fénelon himself (1651-1715). The author of Télémaque had early
made a great name for himself as a Director of Conscience, and as tutor to the
Duke of Burgundy, eldest son of the Dauphin. But in contemporary eyes he was
not so much a theologian as a “master of eloquence,” or what would nowadays be
called an accomplished man of letters; in the background, also, were large
projects of political reform. These multitudinous interests gave him a far
wider outlook than Bossuet, though his grasp of realities was not so sure; and
intellectual curiosity more than once led him into dangerous paths. About 1689
he became much impressed by the ideas of Madame Guyon (1648-1717), a lady of
good family, considerable abilities, and great charm of manner, but the very
hysterical representative in France of the religious revival known as Quietism.
This was an outgrowth of the Spanish mysticism of St Teresa; though it was
first popularised in Italy by the Spanish priest, Michael de Molinos (164097).
In his hands it became a violent means of escape from the petty ceremonialism
of Italian religion. Molinos was always bidding the soul rise beyond sacraments
and attributes and dogmas, beyond the Trinity and the Incarnation, to “a view,
wholly obscure and indistinct and general, of the Divine Essence as it was.”
The one means of approach to this Deity was the ancient via negationis. All
hope and fear, all thought and action, all life and feeling, must be laid
aside; the soul must enwrap itself in the “soft and savoury sleep of
nothingness, wherein it receives in silence, and enjoys it knows not what.”
Such an
attitude of mind might easily lead to Antinomianism; but Fenelon thought that a
change of language would be enough to guard against the danger, while keeping
all that was good in Quietism. Molinos had spoken as though mere thinking of
ourselves was the great evil; Fenelon’s enemy is self-interest. In his Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints (1697) he argues that, as men grow in
holiness, they become indifferent to themselves. Not only do they not value
religion for its consolations, but they cease to take an incidental pleasure in
its exercise. Their whole soul is taken up in loving God, and they neither know
nor care whether God loves them in return. Bossuet attacked this principle as
inconsistent with Chrisi anity, and for the next two years a bitter conflict
raged between the two prelates, which did no great credit to either. Meanwhile,
however, Fénelon had appealed to Rome. Early in 1699 Innocent XII gave judgment
condemning the Maxims, although in very moderate terms. Fénelon at once
submitted, and thereafter took small part in Church affairs, except to wage a
vigorous war against the Jansenists.
For Jansenism
was by no means dead, although the Government
Round his Réflexions was now spun a web of complicated intrigues.
The Bull only
whetted Louis’ appetite. The older he grew and the thicker disasters rained
upon him, the more the ugly superstitious side of his character awoke. A
frenzied anxiety seized him to propitiate his Maker, and save himself from
another Blenheim or Malplaquet,by exterminating the enemies of the Church.
This resolution was by no means weakened, when Father La Chaise died in 1709,
and was succeeded by
The Bull Unigenitus. After
Port-Royal came the turn of Quesnel. In the winter of 1711 Louis proposed to
the Pope to condemn the Réflexions in the most solemn possible form. In 1713
appeared the Bull Unigenitus, a censure not only of all that Jansenism said,
but of all that it had tried to say. Even Fénelon, although a warm admirer of
the Bull, admits that popular opinion credited it with having condemned St
Augustine, St Paul, and even Jesus Christ. It went altogether beyond the
technical questions raised by Jansenism—notably when it dealt a heavy blow
against the practice of Bible-reading lately sprung up among French Catholics,
under the auspices of Bessuet quite as much as of Port-Royal. Hence the appearance
of the Bull was the signal of a popular outcry; even some fifteen Bishops
supported Noailles in refusing to accept it. The next two years were spent by
the Court in a feverish endeavour to force it down their throats; Noailles was
only saved from deposition by the death of Louis in 1715.
On the
accession of the Regent Orleans bigotry at once gave place to cynical
indifference. Orleans was a freethinker, and all he cared for was to keep the
clergy quiet; hence he always sided with the stronger party, in the hope of
crushing out the weaker. As the Bull was generally unpopular, he began by taking
the part of its opponents; Tellier was got rid of, and Noailles became chief
ecclesiastical adviser to the Court. But the Regent very soon found that he had
underrated the strength of the Pope and the Ultramontanes; besides, his two
chief Ministers—Dubois (1656-1723) and Fleury (1653—1743)—were ecclesiastics,
and wanted a Cardinal’s hat. The Regent accordingly swung round to the side of
the Bull. Nothing daunted by this, its four most resolute opponents among the
Bishops published an appeal from the Pope to a General Council (1717). After
some wavering Noailles supported them; but in 1720 Dubois patched up a truce
between him and the Pope. This really satisfied neither party, though it
obtained for Dubois a red hat. But in 1723 both he and the Regent died, leaving
Fleury to carry on their policy.
Meanwhile the
appellant Bishops had “re-appealed” against the truce of 1720. So Fleury
resolved to make an example of the most determined, Soanen of Senez
(1647-1740). He was suspended from his functions, and exiled to a remote
monastery in Auvergne. Noailles protested against his treatment; but soon
afterwards he died (1629), characteristically signing two documents on his
death-bed, one of which accepted the Bull, while the other rejected it. The
chief appellant out of the way, Fleury proceeded to sharper measures. In 1730
Louis XV
Genuine
Jansenism only survived among the handful of “Quesnellists,” and even they had
fallen on evil days. Persecution can generally be trusted to induce hysteria in
its victims, all the more so when they already accept a strong doctrine of
conversion. Belief in one kind of miracle easily leads to belief in another;
and even the great days of Port-Royal could furnish a long list of special
providences, miracles, and signs. As Jansenism shrunk more and more to the
proportions of a harassed sect, these were multiplied a hundredfold. About 1728
the “miracles of St Médard” became the talk of Paris. These were a series of
astonishing cures, mostly of nervous diseases, effected at the tomb of the Deacon
Paris, a cleric of singularly holy life, and a perfervid opponent of the Unigenitus. On mere miracles followed “speaking with tongues,” and the rise of
the “Convulsionaries.” These worked themselves up, mainly by means of
self-torture, into a state of frenzy, in which they prophesied and cured
diseases. They were, however, soon disowned by the more serious Jansenists.
Banished from France, these had taken refuge in Holland, where the Catholic minority was in close sympathy with Jansenism. In 1702 it had broken loose from Rome, and was now organising itself into an independent “Old Roman Catholic” Church. But the old spirit of Port-Royal still lingered in many a convent and country parsonage in France, and led throughout the eighteenth century to chronic conflicts with authority. Often the causes of quarrel were trumpery enough, and Jansen’s latter-day descendants by no means always showed themselves reasonable or broad-minded. Still, in their dim fashion they upheld the great principle of their school—that religion begins and ends as an inward “touch of the Spirit.” And over the movements of that Spirit no Church has jurisdiction.
Further reading Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice,
William Henley Jervis - The Gallican church; a history of the church of France, from the Concordat of Bologna, A.D. 1516, to the revolution (Volume 1) William Henley Jervis - The Gallican church; a history of the church of France, from the Concordat of Bologna, A.D. 1516, to the revolution (Volume 2).
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