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 XVI.

The "Droit de Regale"

The conduct of Louis XIV, both in the case of Arnauld and in this latter stage of the persecution of Port Royal, is to be attributed in great measure to the pressure of the struggle in which he was engaged at the time with the Court of Rome; a struggle which, in its results, gave rise to some of the most critical occurrences in the history of the Church of France.

The origin of the prerogative called the “droit de régale” is obscure from its extreme antiquity. Some authors have represented this question as in itself of small importance; but the truth is that it was closely connected with a principle which had for ages been fruitful in collisions between Church and State. The régale implied, not merely that the king was the legitimate guardian of the temporalities of vacant sees, but also that he had a right to the patronage belonging to them; in virtue of which he conferred Cathedral dignities, and benefices of all kinds, without any form of ecclesiastical institution. A difficulty was thus raised identical in substance with that which had engendered the great War of Investitures. That this privilege had been exercised by royalty in France from a very early date is an indisputable fact; but different explanations have been given of the mode in which it was acquired. According to one theory, a grant of this nature must have proceeded from the Church herself; the institution to benefices, even if restricted to those without cure of souls, being clearly an exercise of spiritual authority, and beyond the province of the civil power. It has been attempted, therefore, to show that such concessions were made by Gallican Councils to Clovis and other Merovingian princes, and, again, by Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne, in return for munificent donations of laud and other temporal advantages with which these monarchs had endowed the Church. Much stress has also been laid upon a canon of the Council of Lyons in 1274, which sanctioned the continuance of the régale in churches where it was already established, prohibiting at the same time its introduction where it was hitherto unknown. Others have argued, on the contrary, that this right is inseparably inherent in the office of the sovereign; who, in his quality of supreme protector of the Church, is bound to undertake the external administration of a diocese when deprived of its ecclesiastical head. But it seems probable that the régale arose out of the provisions of that singular medieval organization which we call the Feudal System. Episcopal sees were, in the language of those days, fiefs; ecclesiastical fiefs, but still fiefs, and subject, as such, to uni­form laws and conditions of tenure. The feudal tenant had no more than a life-interest in the estate; upon his decease it reverted to the seigneur, who retained it in his own hands, together with the revenues accruing from it, until a successor had been appointed, and had taken the oath of homage; where­upon he obtained what was called the “mainlevée de la regale”—in other words, was put into possession of his temporalities. Thus episcopal fiefs, on the death of the incumbents, were resumed, like others, by the king; not precisely in right of his crown, but in right of his feudal suzerainty. The same practice was followed by the dukes and counts, and other feudal potentates; and when their territorial jurisdiction was in course of time extinguished, their ecclesiastical patronage was trans­ferred in like manner to the monarchy.

There were, however, in various parts of the country, churches which had been immemorially exempt from the regale; and when the Crown attempted to enforce the prerogative as universal, it encountered a resistance which proved to a great extent successful. Henry IV, in 1606, published a Declaration stating that he did not purpose to establish the régale in any dioceses but those in which it had been enjoyed by his predecessors. But two years later the Parliament of Paris, on the requisition of the Avocat-Général Servin, pronounced an opposite decision in the case of the Deanery of the Cathedral of Belley; affirming that the régale was in force in that church “as throughout his Majesty’s dominions.” This was complained of by the clergy; an official investigation was instituted in consequence; and the affair remained in the same position till the year 1637, when the prelates who claimed to be exempt from the régale were ordered to exhibit to the Council of State the documentary proofs upon which they founded such prescription. From this step no decisive result followed. The clerical Assembly of 1655 entered upon a detailed examination of the subject; and Archbishop de Marca, at the request of his brethren, embodied their views in a memorial of great learning and ability, which was presented to the king by Cardinal Mazarin. That minister professed himself convinced of the force and justice of the representations of the clergy; satisfaction was promised, and it would even seem that an edict was issued in accordance with the Declaration of 1606; but, if issued, it was certainly not executed.

At length, on the 10th of February, 1673, appeared the famous Declaration of Louis XIV, alleging that the “droit de régale” belonged to him in all the archbishoprics and bishoprics throughout his kingdom, with the exception of those which were exempt “à titre onereux”; i.e., in virtue of distinct cessions or exchanges formerly effected at their cost and to the advantage of the Crown. The bishops of dioceses hitherto exempt were now summoned to register their oath of allegiance in the Cour des Comptes, in order to obtain restitution of their temporalities, which they were considered to have enjoyed up to this date without title.

The exempt Cathedrals were situated, for the most part, in the south; in Provence (where the regale had never been in force at all), Dauphine, Languedoc, and Guienne. There were a few, likewise, in the northern provinces,—Nevers, Auxerre, Besançon, Bourges, and Arras.

Most of the bishops—in consideration, probably, of the general good-will evinced by the king towards the Church, of the uselessness of resistance, and of various other principles of prudence and discretion,—submitted to the royal will, and connived at an encroachment which had never been tolerated by their predecessors. But there were two whom no arguments, no entreaties, no menaces, could reduce to compliance ; these were Nicolas Pavilion, Bishop of Alet, and Francois de Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers; prelates revered throughout France for their fervent piety, pastoral devotedness, and disinterested character.

The two bishops were bosom friends. De Caulet, who was the younger, had been converted to Jansenist sentiments by his brother of Alet, and had ever since been accustomed to defer implicitly to his counsels and guidance. Their dioceses were contiguous; and they had acted in concert, as we have seen, in the affair of the Formulary, and throughout the negotiations which led to the “Peace of Clement IX.” They had thus become in an equal degree obnoxious to the Jesuits; but it appears that, in addition to more general grounds of conflict, they had come into collision with that Society on matters of diocesan discipline. The Bishop of Pamiers, in 1668, had found it necessary to inhibit the Jesuits of that city from hearing confessions. They set the mandate at defiance, and published libellous attacks upon the bishop; the latter made repeated, but ineffectual, attempts to bring them to sub­mission, and at length launched against them a sentence of excommunication.

The part enacted by the Jesuits in the affair of the regale has been attributed to their determination to be revenged on the two Jansenist prelates for the stigma thus inflicted on the Company. Father Lachaise, who became Confessor to Louis XIV in 1675, is said to have been the instigator of the extreme measures by which the king enforced the execution of his arbitrary edicts. And thus the memorable rupture which ensued between France and Rome, resulting, as it did, in the defiant affirmation of the four Gallican Articles, and in a movement of national irritation which had all the appearance of incipient schism, may be traced in great measure to the intrigues of a Society whose raison d'être, so to speak, consists in devotion to the person, interests, and absolute authority of the Pope.

In 1676 the king, finding that the two bishops, after repeated admonitions, still neglected to register their oath of homage, proceeded to make nominations in virtue of the régale in their dioceses, as if the sees had been vacant. The Bishop of Alet pronounced a decree of suspension on the “Regalistes,” and on all who might take part in their installation. His mandements were suppressed by the Council of State; his acts of suspension were annulled by the metropolitan, the Archbishop of Narbonne; upon which Pavilion, after remonstrating by letter both with the king and the archbishop, appealed to the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff. The Bishop of Pamiers followed in the track of his colleague. The king appointed an ecclesiastic named Poncet to a canonry and archdeaconry in that Cathedral. Caulet, taking his stand upon the often-quoted canon of the Council of Lyons, forbade the chapter, under pain of suspension, to receive the royal nominee, and the latter to attempt taking possession, under pain of excommunication. Poncet sought redress from the Archbishop of Toulouse. The archbishop supported him, and cancelled the ordonnance of his suffragan; and the bishop then executed a formal appeal to the Holy See.

Innocent XI, who at this time occupied the Papal chair, possessed many admirable qualities. His intellectual gifts were small; but he was virtuous, upright, scrupulous in points of conscience, single-minded, devout, self-denying. His failings were those of a mind so penetrated with the supreme importance of certain master-principles, that in defence of them it allows zeal to outstrip discretion, and confounds firmness with obstinacy. He was keenly sensitive to those usurpations of modern royalty, which had so seriously impaired the authority and abridged the liberties of the Church; and was prepared to resent such enterprises with all the uncompromising energy of his predecessors in the middle ages. Added to this the Pope had imbibed a strong prejudice, amounting to personal dislike, against Louis XIV; while, on the other hand, he warmly esteemed the Jansenists, whose severe morals and strictness of life were congenial to his own character. M. de. Pontchateau, one of the Port Royalist recluses, proceeded to Rome in the quality of their confidential agent, and was treated with the utmost consideration by Cardinal Cibo, minister of state, and by Favoriti, the Pope’s secretary.

Innocent espoused with vigour the cause of the two appellant bishops. His first brief to Louis on the subject of the régale is dated March 12th, 1678. He points out that the recent attempt to extend his prerogative is an invasion of the most sacred rights of the Church; he attributes it to the sinister counsels of men who thought only of paying court to his Majesty for the sake of their own private ends; and who, while seeking at all hazards to augment his earthly power, cared little for the misery which he might have to endure hereafter from remorse of conscience, in the prospect of appearing before the tribunal of God. Those who advised him in this matter were men who, however they might pretend to be absolutely devoted to him, were, in fact, the bitterest enemies of his greatness and glory.

The Pope’s conduct in this affair was dictated, beyond a doubt, by high principle and deep conviction; at the same time it must be confessed that the whole dispute was somewhat out of date. When we recollect that by the Concordat of 1516 the Curia had deliberately surrendered to the Crown the right of nomination to all the bishoprics in France, it was too late in the day to demur to the assertion of a privilege which was at once far more ancient and far less important. Such an ana­chronism was self-condemned to failure.

The good Bishop of Alet departed this life in December, 1677; and the whole weight of the contest with the Crown thus devolved upon the Bishop of Pamiers. He sustained it with unflinching resolution. At length he was threatened with the seizure of his temporalities unless he took the oath of allegiance within two months, and received the clergy who had been intruded into his diocese by royal patronage. He replied that he was ready to submit to the spoiling of his personal goods for the truth’s sake, but entreated the king to spare his two diocesan seminaries, his cathedral (which he was rebuilding), and the various charities which he had instituted for the poor. Orders were given to proceed to the last extremity, and the bishop’s property was accordingly confiscated. He suffered little, however, in a temporal sense from this act of cruelty, for his losses were more than covered by the eager liberality of private friends ; his clergy taxed themselves to provide him with a regular income; and he was heard to complain that he had not been counted worthy to endure poverty for the love of Jesus Christ. A second, and again a third, brief from Innocent to Louis, couched in the same tone of urgent and solemn remonstrance, warned the monarch to desist from a course which could not but issue in disastrous consequences. On the latter occasion (December 27, 1679) the Pope announced that lie should not employ any further entreaties by letter, but proceed to apply the remedies placed in his hands by his spiritual authority—remedies which he could no longer neglect without being unfaithful to bis apostolical commission. “No perils, no commotions, no privations, can shake our resolution ; we know that we are called to suffer such privations; and we do not esteem life itself more dear than your salvation and our own.”

Innocent wrote at the same time to the Bishop of Pamiers, warmly commending his patience under persecution, and exhorting him to constancy and perseverance. But the bishop’s trials and confessorship approached their close. His death occurred in August, 1680.

This event was followed by strange scenes of agitation and confusion. The chapter of Pamiers elected grand-vicars to administer the diocese sede vacante, without admitting the intrusive “Régalistes” to vote on the occasion. This was resisted on the part of the Government; the Régalistes forced their way into the cathedral, and attempted to annul the election; whereupon they were violently denounced from the pulpit by one of their opponents, and threatened with excommunication. Such was the tumult, that it was necessary to send an armed force from Toulouse to restore order. The Archbishop of Toulouse now interfered, displaced Aubaréde, one of the nominees of the chapter, and installed another ecclesiastic in his place. The chapter, on their part, instantly appointed F. Cerle, an intimate friend of the late bishop. Cerle was unable to act publicly, as the adverse party reigned at Pamiers, with the support of the civil authority; but from his hiding-place he poured forth pastoral letters, ordonnances, appeals to the Pope, and anathemas against his adversaries, with a rapidity and virulence which provoked angry reprisals. The parliament of Toulouse caused him to be prosecuted for sedition and treason; and, as he refused to appear, he was condemned to death for contumacy, and executed in effigy both at Toulouse and Pamiers. Innocent XI, transported beyond all bounds of moderation, exhaled his wrath in a brief declaring the appointment of vicars-general by the metropolitan null and void, cancelling their proceedings as devoid of jurisdiction, and excommunicating ipso facto all who might encourage them in disobeying his commands, not excepting the metropolitan himself. He also proclaimed that confessions made to priests under the sanction of this pretended authority were of no effect, that marriages celebrated by them were invalid, and that per­sons so married would live in concubinage, their offspring being illegitimate.

Other incidents added to the exasperation on both sides. A Carmelite friar at Paris had maintained, in a public thesis, not only that the claims of the Crown in the matter of the régale were well founded, but a variety of other sentiments derogatory to the authority of the Pope, which in the ordinary course of things would probably have been passed over without notice. At this moment of excitement, however, Innocent inflicted an interdict on the offender, deprived him of the privileges granted to regulars by the Holy See, and threatened the superiors of the Order with excommunication and deposition if they should oppose this decree. The monks showed a disposition to obey the mandate; whereupon the Parliament interfered, cited the prior and two of his brethren to its bar, and admonished them to forbear all further proceedings in the case, under pain of exemplary punishment. Another grievance to the Pope arose out of the conduct of Louis in the affair of the Augustinian sisterhood of Charonne. That Society had been in the habit of electing its own Superior at intervals of three years. Upon the death of the abbess in 1679 the king took upon himself to nominate a successor; and Marie Angélique De Grandchamp was accordingly installed in the office, by virtue of a commission from the Archbishop of Paris. Some of the nuns protested against this as a violation of their privileges; upon which the Archbishop removed them summarily from the convent. They now complained to the Pope. Innocent, in reply, commanded them to elect a superior in conformity with their statutes, and they complied immediately. The law officers of the Crown appealed against this measure, comme d’abus to the Parliament; and the Court ordered that the government of the convent should be maintained in the hands of the king’s nominee. Fresh briefs on one side and arrets on the other embittered the dispute. A Papal bull condemned the decrees of the Parliament to be burnt; and this document was at once suppressed by the magistrates at Paris.

The state of affairs had now become such that Louis and his advisers judged it necessary to take steps of a decisive nature for securing the independence of the royal authority, which they considered to be no less seriously endangered in the present case than it had been by the Papal enterprises of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Pope, on his part, viewed the question in an equally important light; for in his judgment it involved the principle of ecclesiastical liberty,—a principle for which he was bound, by the most sacred obligations of his office, to contend, if necessary, even to the shedding of his blood. In particular, he considered himself to be defending the legislative jurisdiction of the Church; for it was to the decree of the Ecumenical Council of Lyons that he unceasingly appealed, as expressing the verdict of antiquity upon the point in dispute.

There can be no doubt that the Gallican episcopate at this time was pervaded by a spirit of profound subserviency to the will and pleasure of the sovereign. Louis XIV had reached the culminating point of his prosperity; he was feared and courted abroad, extolled to the skies at home; the arbiter, in fact, of the destinies of Europe. The bishops, although many of them were men of high character and attainments, were not exempt from the weaknesses of humanity; and it is by no means surprising, under the circumstances, that they were found ready to swell the general chorus of courtly adulation. De Harlai, Archbishop of Paris, Le Tellier of Reims (son of the minister of that name), Montpezat of Sens, De Bonzi of Narbonne, with others of less note, were prelates whose views of ecclesiastical duty never failed to lie in the same direction with the genial sunshine of royal favour. If it had rested with them to guide the public action of the Gallican clergy at this crisis, the result might have been deplorable; but, happily for the Church, there were some among their brethren who pos­sessed more elevated aims, deeper knowledge, and sounder judgment; and their counsels ultimately prevailed.

On the application of the Agens-Généraux, the king permitted the bishops to hold an extraordinary meeting in March, 1681, to discuss the measures necessary to be taken with reference to the obnoxious briefs of the Pope, especially the last of the three, which was pronounced to be wholly irreconcilable with the maxims and liberties of the Church of France. Forty-one prelates assembled accordingly, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Paris; and a committee was appointed (the Archbishops of Reims, Embrun, and Alby, the Bishops of La Rochelle, Au tun, and Troyes) to draw up a general report upon the matters in hand. The following were the chief points submitted to them:

Whether the universality of the “droit de Régale” was clearly and absolutely determined by the second Council of Lyons ?

Whether, considering the different sentiments held by theologians, the Church ought not to declare positively what is the true meaning of that Council ?

Supposing the Pope to be correct in his interpretation of the Council, to whom does it belong to judge concerning the Régale ? Who have taken cognizance of it from the time of Innocent III to the present day ?

Supposing the Pope to be the proper judge, ought he to adjudicate in person at Rome, or by commissioners acting on the spot ?

Whether, inasmuch as the case is doubtful—the King asserting that the jurisdiction belongs to himself or to his Parliament, while the Pope maintains that he is the sole judge of a question which turns upon the interpretation and execution of a General Council—the prelates ought not to interfere for the purpose of checking further proceedings on the part of the Pope, especially if they should feel that such pretensions are more likely to engender scandals than to put an end to the dispute ?

The report of the Committee, presented on the 1st of May, is a lengthy and plausibly-argued document, virtually answering all the above-mentioned inquiries in favour of the Crown. It begins by endeavouring to prove from historical records that the droit de régale was authorised by the Church herself; for instance, that it was sanctioned by Popes Alexander III, Innocent III, Clement IV, Gregory X, Gregory XI, and by the Gallican Council of Bourges. The right of collation to benefices is one that can only be conferred by the act of the Church, or with her express consent. Upon this principle, those churches which were subject to the régale in 1274 (the date of the Council of Lyons) had no reason to complain; while, again, those which up to that time had preserved their canonical liberty were clearly right in defending it until the appearance of the royal declaration in 1673. But no sooner does the report proceed to treat of the régale as a branch of the royal prerogative, than the force of these considerations is altogether ignored. “Ever since the time of Philip the Fair this has been accounted a jus regium—so inalienably and imprescriptibly annexed to the crown, that in that respect the king is not subject to the laws and discipline of the Church. Since there is no human power to control him, the extension of the prerogative to churches where it had not hitherto been exercised is a matter which lies exclusively in his own hands. Moreover, it appears that the canon of the Council of Lyons, upon which so much reliance is placed, was never executed; that it was caused by complaints made against the royal officers, who were accustomed to plunder and destroy the property of the Church—an abuse which no longer exists, since the present practice is to preserve the entire revenue for the benefit of the newly-appointed bishop. Nor is it by any means certain that the canon in question has any reference whatever to the modern institution known by the name of the régale."Upon the whole, the Committee were of opinion that, for the sake of peace, and in order to avoid greater evils which there was much reason to apprehend, the Church would do well to tolerate the application of the régale according to the terms of the royal Declarations of 1673 and 1675; and that this conclusion, together with the grounds on which it had been arrived at, should be respectfully notified to the Pope.

The report animadverted with severity upon the Pope’s briefs to the Chapter of Pamiers. Their tendency, it states, was to sow discord between the secular and ecclesiastical powers, to nullify the Canons received in Prance, and to destroy the Concordat; for they assumed that the Pope could adjudicate although no appeal had been made to him, “omisso medio”; that he could confirm, “ex motu proprio,” illegal uncanonical elections; that he could deprive bishops of their authority, and reverse the established order of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As to the clause declaring sacraments administered by the nominees of the Archbishop of Toulouse to be invalid and sacrilegious, its effect was to set up altar against altar in the same diocese, and to foment the spirit of schism.

The report was unanimously adopted; and in conformity with its advice, the prelates signed a petition to his Majesty, requesting him to convoke a National Council, according to various ancient precedents, or at least a General Assembly of the clergy of Prance; in order that the final decisions in a matter of such moment might be taken with all the imposing solemnity, and all the air of collective authority, which the occasion required;—a course which could hardly fail to secure for the Gallican Church a fair consideration of its claims at the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff.

The Jesuits, as has been already observed, were on this occasion in a false position, inconsistent with their past history and with the fundamental rules of their Order. On the appearance of the Pope’s outrageous briefs in the affair of Pamiers, they were sorely embarrassed; for on the one hand they could not openly oppose the mandates of the Holy See, while on the other they dared not offend the king, particularly as they themselves had instigated his proceedings in the extended application of the droit de régale. In this dilemma they affected to disbelieve the authenticity of the briefs, and ignored them on that pretext. Put Innocent, hearing of this manoeuvre, ordered their general at Rome to communicate those documents officially to the Provincials at Paris and Toulouse, with an express injunction to all members of the Society to make them public throughout France, and to attest their genuineness. They now, with characteristic dexterity, informed the legal authorities of the orders forwarded from Rome; and in consequence, the Superiors residing at Paris were summoned by the Parliament to undergo an examination on the affair. They obeyed, and, on attending the court on the 20th of June, 1681, were complimented by the President Novion on the prudence and fidelity with which they had acted under such difficult circumstances. It was fortunate, he remarked, that the despatch from Rome had fallen into the hands of persons so well known for their incorruptible probity and honour. Father Verthamont, Rector of the “maison professe,” then briefly stated the facts of the case; after which the Advocate-General, Talon, made an elaborate harangue upon the whole question at issue. He said that this mode of attempting to publish, and in some degree to execute, Papal briefs in France was new, contrary to law, and of dangerous consequence. If connived at, the Pope might in time to come introduce, by means of the religious Orders, documents seriously detrimental to the laws and welfare of the realm; it was necessary, therefore, to check such innovations, though at the same time the utmost endeavours should be used to preserve a good understanding between the king and the Pope, between the Apostolic See and the Gallican Church. “Whatever may happen, we will never on our part cause a breach in the sacred union between the Priesthood and the Crown, so essential to the glory of both, and to the preservation of religion. On the other hand, we will not tolerate a yoke unknown to our forefathers, nor the abolition of liberties of which they were so justly jealous. As we desire to observe the Concordat, so we expect the Pope to fulfil it also in things favourable to France, which we do not regard as privileges granted by the See of Rome, but as points of common law, and the groundwork of our immunities. Those persons who are the authors of the brief of the 1st January, and of many others similar, are misleading the Pope into conflicts far more likely to curtail his authority than to augment it. The régale being one of the most important rights of the Crown, how can it be imagined that the king will tolerate during his reign any diminution or suspension of that prerogative? His Majesty can no more renounce it than he can annul the Salic law, or abandon any of the provinces which compose the realm of France. It is useless to threaten him with spiritual censures; the execution of such menaces can never be permitted in this kingdom. We have a sovereign remedy at hand under such circumstances, namely, the ‘appel comme d’abus.’ This is an infallible expedient for repelling the usurpations of the Court of Rome, for maintaining the liberties of the Church, and for securing the subject against ecclesiastical denunciations which our ancestors invariably disregarded whenever there was no legal ground for them.”

The court, upon the requisition of the Advocate-General, issued a prohibition to the superiors of the Jesuits to publish the said briefs, or to further their execution directly or indirectly, upon any pretence whatever, under pain of forfeiting all the privileges enjoyed by the Society in France. Verthamont and his colleagues were then dismissed with an intimation that the Parliament was satisfied with their obedience.

The incident is eminently grotesque. The fathers of the Order of Jesus, it is well known, take a special vow of implicit obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff; yet here we find them ranged in direct opposition to him; invoking the interference of the civil authority—of an imperious temporal potentate—to protect them against the mandates of the Holy See, which by their constitution they are bound to receive as laws of paramount obligation. Nor is it less comic to hear them eulogized by the Parliament for their inviolable loyalty to the king and the State, while it is but too clear that the real motive of their conduct was enmity against a rival theological party, which for forty years past they had been moving heaven and earth to destroy.

The General Assembly of the clergy, which was convoked for the 1st of October, 1681, was looked forward to with considerable anxiety by those who were best able to judge of the real complexion of affairs at this crisis. This is especially apparent in the correspondence of Bossuet. He had recently been appointed Bishop of Meaux, and elected to the Assembly as one of the representatives of the province of Paris, In September, 1681, we find him writing thus to his friend De Rancé, Abbot of La Trappe: “I fear I shall be deprived for this year of the consolation which I hoped for, (that of visiting him at La Trappe). The Assembly of the clergy is about to be held; and it is desired, not only that I should be a member of it, but that I should preach the opening sermon. I may perhaps be able to steal ten days or a fortnight, if this sermon should be deferred, as is rumoured, till the month of November. Be this as it may, if I cannot go to pray with you, pray at all events for me; the affair is one of importance, and well worthy to engage your thoughts. You know what the Assemblies of the clergy are, and the sort of temper which usually prevails in them. I perceive certain dispositions which lead me to augur well of the present one; but I dare not trust these hopes, and, to say the truth, they are mingled with much apprehension.” He expresses the same feelings in writing to M. Neercassel, Bishop of Castoria, Vicar Apostolic in Holland, and to Dirois, theologian to Cardinal D’Estrées, the French minister at Rome. The danger which he foreboded was this; that the bishops of the Court party on the one band, out of complaisance to the sovereign and his ministers, and prelates of extreme Gallican views on the other, in their eagerness to reprobate the late uncanonical proceedings of the Pope, might be misled into a line of action tending to a positive breach of union with the Holy See. Colbert, the leading statesman of the time, was quite capable of encouraging, if not of suggesting, a movement in that direction; and Bossuet well knew that in French clerical assemblies there was no lack of men too ready to follow blindly a sudden impulse from high quarters, without perceiving or pausing to examine how far it was likely to carry them. The special favour which he enjoyed with the king, and the general confidence and esteem in which he was held by the clergy of all ranks and parties, enabled him to interfere with success at this moment as an advocate of moderation and discretion. He was too devoted a Catholic to listen to any proposals of which the drift was to place the National Church in open antagonism to the Cathedra Petri, the centre of unity. He was too profound a theologian, too familiarly acquainted with the whole stream of ecclesiastical tradition from its original sources, to abandon any of those principles which are essential to the liberty of the Church, according to its just and genuine interpretation.

The Assembly met at Paris on the 9th of November, 1681, under the presidency of Archbishop de Harlai; on which occasion Bossuet delivered, in the church of the Grands-Augustins, his magnificent sermon on the “Unity of the Church.” This has always been considered one of the most masterly efforts of his genius. Taking his text from the prophetic “parable” of Balaam, “How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob, and thy tabernacles, 0 Israel,” the preacher enlarges, first, on the beauty and glory of the Church Catholic, as exhibited in its inviolable union with its head, the successor of St. Peter. This union is founded on the promises of Christ to that great apostle, -whose prerogatives were not to cease with his life, but to survive in his successors to the end of time, so that the primacy of the Universal Church was to reside for ever in the apostolic See of Rome, and the chair of St. Peter was to be indefectible in maintaining the true faith. “Everything concurs to establish the primacy of Peter; everything, even his faults, which admonish his successors to exercise this vast authority with humility and condescension. They should learn from the example of Peter to listen to the voice of their subordinates, when, though far inferior to St. Paul both in position and in wisdom, they address them with the same object, namely, that of restoring peace to the Church. Humility is the most indispensable ornament of exalted rank; there is something more worthy of respect in modesty than in all other gifts; the world is better disposed to submit when he who demands submission is the first to yield to sound reason; and Peter, in amending his error, is greater, if that be possible, than Paul, who reprehends it.”

Bossuet proceeds to point out that the pastoral authority first conferred on St. Peter was afterwards extended to the college of the Apostles, and therefore to the collective episcopate in all ages. “It was manifestly the design of Jesus Christ to place primarily in a single individual what was subsequently to be placed in many. All receive the same power, and all from the same source; but not all in the same degree, or to the same extent; for Christ communicates Himself in what measure He pleases, and always in that mode which most conduces to the preservation of the unity of His Church. He begins with the first, and in the first He forms the whole. By virtue of this constitution the Church is strong throughout; because every part is divine, and all the parts are united in the whole. Hence our predecessors, who declared so often in their Councils that they acted in their churches as Vicars of Christ and successors of the Apostles who were sent immediately by Him, have said also in other Councils that they acted as “ Vicars of Peter,” “by the authority given to all bishops in the person of St. Peter.” Because everything was vested first of all in St. Peter; and such is the correspondence which reigns through the whole body of the Church, that whatever is done by each single bishop, according to the rule and spirit of Catholic unity, is done together with him by the whole Church, by the whole episcopate, and by the head of the episcopate.” From this fact he takes occasion to exhort his brethren to cast aside personal feelings and private ends, and to act in the spirit of cordial harmony and sympathy with the Church universal. “Let no one of us do, or say, or think anything which the Church universal would hesitate to acknowledge. May our resolutions be such as are worthy of our fathers, and worthy to be adopted by our descendants; worthy to be numbered among the authentic acts of the Church, and to be registered with honour in that celestial chancery, which contains decrees relating not to this present life only, but also to that which is future and everlasting.”

Bossuet discusses, in the second place, the most difficult part of his subject, namely the distinctive position of the Gallican Church, and the true nature of its so-called “liberties.” The turn which late events had taken made it unavoidably necessary that he should touch upon this tender point; and the considerations which governed him in doing so are set forth in an interesting letter which he addressed to Cardinal D’Estrées soon after the sermon was preached. His leading principle, he says, was to uphold the ancient Gallican tradition without derogating in any way from the true greatness and just authority of the See of Rome; and in order to this, he took care to expound the “ liberties ” “ in the sense put upon them by the bishops, and not as they are understood by the magistrates of the courts of Parliament.” “There are three particulars in which I have specially sought to avoid wounding the sensitive ears of the Romans;—the temporal independence of kings, the jurisdiction of the episcopate as derived immediately from Jesus Christ, and the authority of Councils. These are matters upon which your Eminence knows that we do not equivocate in France; and I have studied to speak of them in such a way as to keep clear of any offence to the majesty of Rome, without sacrificing the real doctrine of the Gallican Church. More than this cannot be expected of a French bishop, who is compelled by circumstances to handle these topics. In one word, I have spoken plainly, for we are bound to do so at all times, and especially in the pulpit; but I have spoken with due respect, and God is my witness that I have acted with the best intentions.” After tracing, from the time of St. Irenaeus downward, the intimate union which had always subsisted between the Gallican Church and the See of Rome, and showing that French monarchs have ever been the foremost defenders of the dignity and authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, he refers to the legislation of St. Louis in the Pragmatic Sanction which bears his name, and cites that edict as containing the pith and marrow of the Gallican liberties. The declared object of St. Louis was to maintain in his dominions “the common law and the canonical jurisdiction of ordinaries, according to the decrees of ecumenical Councils, and the institutions of the holy Fathers.”

“Behold,” exclaims Bossuet, “the liberties of the Gallican Church! they are all comprised in these precious words of the ordonnance of St. Louis; we know, and desire to know, no other liberties but these. We place our liberty in being subject to the canons; and would to God that this principle were equally effective in practice as it is comprehensive in theory!” To the neglect of it he attributes the existing abuses of the Church ; lamenting a state of things “in which privileges overwhelm the law; in which exemptions (graces) are so multiplied that they almost take the place of the common law; in which the ancient regulations seem only to exist in the formalities which are required to obtain a dispensation from them.” “How necessary, then, to preserve at least that portion of the primitive discipline which still remains to us! If the bishops solicit from the Pope the inviolable observance of the canons, and of the power of ecclesiastical ordinaries in all its grades, let it be remembered that they are but following the footsteps of St. Louis and of Charlemagne, and imitating the saints whose sees they occupy. This is not to disjoin ourselves from the Holy See, God forbid; on the contrary, it is to sustain, down to its minutest ligaments, the organic coherence between the head and the members. This is not to lessen the plenitude of the Pontifical authority; the ocean itself has its appointed bounds; and were it to break through those limits, its plenitude would become a cataclysm which would engulf the universe.”

Bossuet next reminds his hearers of that memorable application of the Gallican maxims to the pressing exigencies of the Church, which was so signally successful in the time of the great Schism. France pointed out the way to cure that monster evil; and was followed, in the Councils of Pisa and Constance, by the whole Church. “The same maxims will be held in deposit for ever by the Church Catholic. Factious spirits may seek to make them the means to breed disturbance; but the true children of the Church will employ them according to rule, and for the sake of substantial advantages. It were easy to specify the cases in which that course should be adopted; but we prefer to hope that the deplorable necessity of dealing with such cases will never occur, and that we shall not be so unhappy in our days as to be forced to resort to such remedies.” An allusion follows to the Councils of Basle and Bourges, and the second Pragmatic Sanction; and the policy of France under the perplexing circumstances of those times is extolled as a model of wisdom and moderation. None knew better than the preacher that he was here treading on extremely delicate ground, and that the Roman Curia, together with the entire school of Ultramontane divines, must needs view this part of his argument with unqualified dissent. Indeed it admits of a question whether he was justified, strictly speaking, in appealing to the enactments of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges; inasmuch as it had been annulled by the Concordat of 1517, which formed part of the statute law of the land, and was recognized as obligatory by the Gallican canonists.

On the subject of the relations between the ecclesiastical and the temporal power, Bossuet expresses himself with admirable judgment. “Woe to the Church when the two jurisdictions began to regard each other with jealous eyes! Why should division spring up between the ministers of the Church and the ministers of Sovereigns, when both are alike ministers of the King of Kings, though constituted in a different manner? How can they forget that their functions are in fact identical; that to serve God is to serve the State, and that to serve the State is to serve God? But authority is blind; authority is ever seeking self-aggrandizement; authority thinks itself degraded when any attempt is made to fix its limits.” He then appeals to the legislation of past times, especially that of Charlemagne, in proof of the care which was then taken to avoid encroachment by one power into the province of the other. At this point he introduces a glowing eloge of the reli­gious zeal of Louis XIV; of his efforts to suppress the Calvinist heresy, and of the great advantages enjoyed by the Church under his auspices. “Why should a Pope of such known saintliness delay to unite himself to the most religious of monarchs? Such a Pontificate, so holy, so disinterested, ought to be memorable above all things for peace, and for the fruits of peace; and these, I venture to predict, will be the humiliation of unbelievers, the conversion of heretics, and the re­establishment of discipline. Such are the objects of our desires; and if it were even necessary to make some sacrifice in order to realise such blessings, ought we to be afraid of being blamed for submitting to it?”

The prelate concludes his discourse by insisting on the vital importance, in all circumstances of difficulty between Church and State, of assembling the Episcopate in Council; citing various historical examples of the success of that expedient. Nothing can be more apposite than a quotation which he makes from an epistle of St. Bernard to Louis VII, exhorting that prince to convene a meeting of bishops on the occasion of some difference which had arisen with the Pope of the day. “If Rome,” he says, “in its Apostolic authority, has acted with any excess of rigour, so as to give your Majesty just cause of offence, your faithful subjects will use their best efforts to obtain a revocation, or at least a modification, of what has been done, to that extent which is necessary to maintain your honour.”

This noble sermon undoubtedly gave the tone to the deliberations of the Assembly. The bishop had submitted it beforehand to the Archbishops of Paris and Reims and the Bishop of Tournay, and also to the king, who expressed his entire approval of it. The Assembly received it with distinguished favour, and ordered it to be printed—an unprecedented honour.

The first business submitted to the Assembly was the affair of the régale. The committee on this question, of which Bossuet was the most influential member, had made proposals with a view to its settlement by way of compromise. Negotiations were accordingly opened with the court; and it was at length arranged that the clergy should recognize the general extension of the régale as declared by the royal edict of 1675, while the king, on his part, consented to make an important concession to the spiritual jurisdiction, by enacting that, in all cases of benefices having cure of souls, his nominees should apply to the bishop of the diocese or his representatives for canonical institution, before taking possession. This removed, in point of fact, the most objectionable of the pretensions of the Crown; it guaranteed the principle of Church authority, and the substance of Church discipline; and, under all the circumstances, it was perhaps the wisest and most politic method of putting an end to the dispute. The Assembly felt, of course, that they were making a sacrifice thereby for the sake of peace; but it was the sacrifice of a right which they did not regard as essential or indispensable, and which, moreover, was already lost beyond all chance of recovery; while, on the other hand, the terms of the new settlement were such as to give the Church a great and manifest advantage.

The royal edict regulating the future exercise of the régale appeared in January, 1682, and an act of the Assembly in accordance with it was signed immediately afterwards. It had been expected that the Pope would signify his acquiescence without difficulty. The Assembly addressed a letter to his Holiness, setting forth the reasons which had governed them, and entreating him to take a favourable view of their proceedings. They reminded him that there had been occasions in history when the bishops, not apprehending any danger to the essence of faith or morals, had thought proper to yield to circumstances of pressing necessity—necessity of such a kind as might even justify an alteration of the law itself; and they quoted, with considerable force, the words of Ivo of Chartres,—“even if the canons, taken in their strict application, were opposed to the concession which we have made, we should not have hesitated to make it, because the repose of the Church imperatively required it; for, inasmuch as charity is the fulfil­ment of the law, it is clear that we obey the law when we do what charity demands.” They were persuaded, they said, that the present was a case for the employment of a wise condescension ; and therefore they had cheerfully resigned a right which might be held justly to belong to them, in favour of a sovereign from whom they were constantly receiving so many benefits.

Innocent did not answer this letter till more than two months afterwards, April 11th, 1682. In his brief of that date he severely rebukes the Assembly for their pusillanimity in surrendering to the temporal power a point which he deemed of vital and paramount importance to the interests of the Church. “The bishops and clergy of France, once the joy and crown of the Apostolic See, are now conducting themselves in a way which makes us sorrowfully repeat the complaint of the Prophet, “The sons of my mother have fought against me”; though it is rather against yourselves that you are fighting, since the cause in hand involves nothing less than the safety and the liberty of the Gallican Church. Your letter appears to be dictated by fear; a motive which never yet prompted bishops to be magnanimous in defence of religion and ecclesiastical discipline, courageous in attack, and constant in endurance. You have yielded to fear where you ought to have felt no fear. You ought only to have feared incurring the just reproofs of God and man for having betrayed your honour and your duty. You ought to have called to mind the ancient Fathers, and those great bishops in all ages who have left you examples of episcopal boldness and heroism. It was for you to combine your efforts with the authority of the Apostolic See, and to plead the cause of your churches before the king with true pastoral energy and humility, even at the risk of exciting his irritation against you; that so you might be entitled to address God in the words of David, “I have spoken of Thy testimonies even before kings, and have not been ashamed.” Forgetting your responsibility, you seem to have kept silence in a matter of such moment. We do not see what right you have to say that you have been vanquished in discussion—that you have lost your cause. How can he have fallen who never stood upright? How can he have been defeated who never took the field ? Which of you has vindicated in the king’s presence a cause so weighty, so just, so sacred? Who has emulated the ancient freedom of speech in defence of the house of Israel? According to your account the king’s ministers clamoured in behalf of their master, and that in a bad cause; but you, whose cause is unexceptionable, you have never opened your lips to contend for the honour of Christ.” The Pope goes on to say that he had read with dismay their statement that they had abandoned their rights and transferred them to the king; “ as if they were the masters, instead of the guardians, of the churches committed to their custody; as if spiritual franchises could be given away to the secular power by bishops, who ought to submit to bonds and imprisonment themselves rather than permit the Church to be enslaved. Urged by such considerations, Innocent concludes by annulling all that had been done by the Assembly in the matter of the regale, as well as everything that had been done in consequence of their resolution, and whatever might be attempted to the same effect for the time to come. This vigorous, but ill-judged and intemperate effusion was of course utterly impotent to arrest the march of events in France. The consent of the Pope to the Concordat arrived at between the Sovereign and the National Church had been asked as a matter of respect; but it was one of those cases in which his refusal was of no practical consequence, except so far as it might add to the bitterness of the existing discord.

There is reason to believe, however, that the tone of Innocent’s letter to the bishops on the affair of the regale was considerably affected by another, and a far more serious, proceeding on the part of the Assembly of 1682;—a proceeding which was all the more mortifying, inasmuch as it was scarcely possible for him to take notice of it in the way of direct reprimand or condemnation. During the long interval which elapsed between the letter of the bishops and the arrival of the reply from Rome, the Assembly adopted the four celebrated “Articles” on the independence of the temporal power and the constitutional limits of the authority of the Pope, which have been quoted from that day to the present as forming the authorised resume of the Gallican tradition on those subjects.

This step was resolved upon in opposition to the wishes and advice of Bossuet. That prelate was satisfied with what had been already done to check the exaggerated pretensions of the Papacy in the matter of the regale, and was averse to any further measures which might tend only to aggravate and prolong the quarrel. The minister Colbert was the real instigator of the four Gallican articles. He represented to the king that the existing dispute with Rome was precisely the opportunity for reviving the ancient national doctrine as to the power of the Popes in relation both to the State and to the Church; since, in times of peace and concord, the desire to preserve a good understanding, and reluctance to be the first to stir up strife, would naturally tell against any such movement. To these views he won over his colleague Le Tellier, the Archbishop of Reims, and finally the king himself; and the cringing parasite De Harlai submissively followed in their wake. In vain Bossuet pointed out that to proclaim solemnly, and, as it were, synodically, propositions notoriously odious to the Holy See would be the way to drive the Pontiff to extre­mities, and to render reconciliation impossible. “The Pope has provoked us,” exclaimed De Harlai; “he shall repent of it!”

It was intimated to the Assembly, by the king’s orders, that they were expected to put forth a formal statement of the doctrine of the Church of France as to the relations between the spiritual and the temporal authorities; and a committee was named in consequence, of which Gilbert de Choiseul, Bishop of Tournay, was chairman. In due course that prelate presented to the house an admirable report upon the subject, tracing the tradition of the Church as to the independence of the civil power from the earliest age to that of Gregory VII, who was the first to assert for the Apostolic See an absolute supremacy over temporal sovereigns. Then follows a masterly sketch of the Ultramontane doctrine from that date, both as to this first question and as to the assumed autocracy of the Pope in the government of the Church. The whole document is a model of learned and conclusive argument, and was received with unanimous approbation by the Assembly.

The duty of drawing up the official Declaration which was to be founded upon it, and which was to embody the doctrinal articles expressing the sentiments of the Gallican Church, was entrusted to the Bishops of Tournay and Meaux; and there ensued between these two theologians, who were close personal friends, a remarkable dispute upon the vexed question of infallibility ; where it resides, and what are its true conditions and extent. Of this we have an interesting account from the pen of Fenelon, in his treatise ‘De Summi Pontificis auctoritate,’ who declares that he had heard the particulars repeatedly from Bossuet himself. The Bishop of Tournay, in his draft of the Declaration, had stated that the Apostolic See, as well as the individual Pope, is liable to fall into heresy. Bossuet denied this, and maintained, both from the promises of Scripture and from the universal tradition of the Church, that the “faith of Peter” can never fail from the seat of his Divinely-ordained authority. “But such a privilege,” rejoined De Choiseul, “is tantamount to infallibility ; and you must therefore acknowledge that all decrees emanating from Rome are absolutely unalterable, since they rest upon infallible authority. This objection Bossuet met by distinguishing between infallibility and indefectibility. The See of Peter is indefectible in holding the true faith; but the particular decisions of each reigning Pope are not incapable of error. “How can that be?” asked his colleague. “If it be possible that an individual Pope, speaking ex cathedra, may promulgate heresy instead of Catholic truth, does it not follow that the See of Peter may, pro tanto, depart from the faith, and, consequently, is not indefectible ? And if this be not possible, is it not clear that every Pope must be virtually infallible?” The Bishop of Meaux, however, adhered to his position. “The Apostolic See,” said he, “ is by Divine promise the perpetual foundation and centre of the Church; and therefore it can never so fall away from the faith as to remain permanently in heresy or schism, after the example of those churches of the East, which, having been originally Catholic, are now committed to formal misbelief. Such a calamity can never happen to the See of Rome. If that See should ever err concerning the faith, it will not persist in error; as soon as it perceives its error, it will repudiate it; it will be promptly brought back to the right path by the fellow members of its communion. Thus, although a Pope may chance to be carried away by some transient blast of vain doctrine, the faith of Peter will remain, nevertheless, irreproachable ; the See will be always Catholic in intention and affection, and can therefore never be heretical. I assert, accordingly, that the Roman See is indefectible; but, at the same time, I utterly reject the fictitious infallibility of the Ultramontanes.”

These reasonings, based as they are upon distinctions and refinements which are by no means beyond the reach of criticism, failed to carry conviction to the mind of the Bishop of Tournay; and the result of the discussion was that he begged to be relieved from the task which the Assembly had imposed upon him. It devolved, in consequence, upon Bossuet; and the authorship of the Declaration, with its four dogmatic Articles, must be regarded as belonging undividedly to him.

It appears that he took for his model in framing it the six articles put forth by the Sorbonne on the same subject in 1663; introducing such alterations of form and style as he considered suitable to an assembly of bishops pronouncing judgment in the name of a great National Church upon matters of such grave and critical import. After much consultation, the following document was ultimately sanctioned and subscribed on the 19th of March, 1682.

Declaration of the Clergy of France concerning the Ecclesiastical Power.

“There are many who labour to subvert the Gallican decrees and liberties which our ancestors defended with so much zeal, and their foundations which rest upon the sacred canons and the tradition of the Fathers. Nor are there wanting those who, under the pretext of these liberties, seek to derogate from the primacy of St. Peter and of the Roman Pontiffs his successors; from the obedience which all Christians owe to them, and from the majesty of the Apostolic See, in which the faith is taught and the unity of the Church is preserved. The heretics, on the other hand, omit nothing in order to represent that power by which the peace of the Church is maintained, as intolerable both to kings and to their subjects; and by such artifices estrange the souls of the simple from the communion of the Church, and therefore from Christ. With a view to remedy such evils, we, the archbishops and bishops assembled at Paris by the king’s orders, representing, together with the other deputies, the Gallican Church, have judged it advisable, after mature deliberation, to determine and declare as follows:—

1. “St. Peter and his successors, vicars of Christ, and likewise the Church itself, have received from God power in things spiritual and pertaining to salvation, but not in things temporal and civil; inasmuch as the Lord says, My kingdom is not of this world; and again, Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s. The Apostolic precept also holds, Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God; whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. Consequently kings and princes are not by the law of God subject to any ecclesiastical power, nor to the keys of the Church, with respect to their temporal government. Their subjects cannot be released from the duty of obeying them, nor absolved from the oath of allegiance; and this maxim, necessary to public tranquillity, and not less advantageous to the Church than to the State, is to be strictly maintained, as conformable to the word of God, the tradition of the Fathers, and the example of the Saints.

2. “ The plenitude of power in things spiritual, which resides in the Apostolic See and the successors of St. Peter, is such that at the same time tire decrees of the Ecumenical Council of Constance, in its fourth and fifth sessions, approved as they are by the Holy See and the practice of the whole Church, remain in full force and perpetual obligation; and the Gallican Church does not approve the opinion of those who would depreciate the said decrees as being of doubtful authority, insufficiently approved, or restricted in their application to a time of schism.

3. “Hence the exercise of the Apostolic authority must be regulated by the canons enacted by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the reverence of the whole world. The ancient rules, customs, and institutions received by the realm and Church of France remain likewise inviolable; and it is for the honour and glory of the Apostolic See that such enactments, confirmed by the consent of the said See and of the churches, should be observed without deviation.

4. “The Pope has the principal place in deciding questions of faith, and his decrees extend to every church and all churches; but nevertheless his judgment is not irreversible until confirmed by the consent of the Church.”

“These articles, expressing truths which we have received from our fathers, we have determined to transmit to all the churches of France, and to the bishops appointed by the Holy Ghost to preside over them, in order that we may all speak the same thing, and concur in the same doctrine.”

The Declaration was signed by the sixty-eight members who composed the Assembly,—thirty-four bishops and the same number of the second order—and was afterwards presented to the king at St. Germain; who thereupon ordered it to be registered by the Parliament, and published an edict enjoining that the four Articles should be taught in all colleges of every University, and subscribed by all Professors of Theology before entering on their functions. The archbishops and bishops were likewise exhorted and admonished to employ all their authority to enforce the reception of the Articles throughout their dioceses.

The studied moderation, and withal the strict theological precision, which characterise this Gallican manifesto, deserve the highest praise. The language was so carefully chosen, and the doctrine so undeniably identical with that which the Church, by the mouth of her most illustrious teachers, had sanctioned in all ages, that no one occupying the Chair of St. Peter could venture openly to repudiate or condemn it. The French clergy, it must be observed, made no assumption of a degree of authority beyond that which rightfully belonged to them. They enunciated their own opinions, but they did not pretend to impose them upon Christendom as necessary articles of faith; they did not intrude upon the functions of a General Council; they simply made a Declaration, without passing any synodical judgment upon those who might differ from them. Bossuet, as has been already mentioned, was personally disinclined even to such a qualified expression of sentiments which he felt to be uncalled for and inopportune; but the pressure from official quarters was not to be resisted; and if any such protest were to be made at all, it was assuredly made, through the discreet and skilful management of that great prelate, in the most inoffensive way possible under the circumstances. Nevertheless, the dissatisfaction excited at Romo was intense. The Pope appointed a congregation of Cardinals and divines to frame a censure of the propositions; and for some time it was feared that his wrath would impel him to indefensible severities. “ The affairs of the Church,” writes Bossuet to the Abbé de Rancé (October 30, 1682), “ are going on very badly. The Pope threatens us with constitutions of au outrageous kind, and even, it is said, with new formularies of faith. Goodness of intention, combined with small enlightenment, is a great evil in such an exalted position. Let us pray, let us weep.” And again, in a letter to Dirois, “ Your picture of the present state of things at Rome makes me tremble. What ? Is Bellarmine to be all in all, and monopolise in his own person the whole of Catholic tradition? Where are we if such is the case, and if the Pope is about to condemn whatever that author condemns ? Hitherto this has never been attempted; they have not dared to impugn the Council of Constance, nor the Popes who approved it. What answer are we to make to the heretics, when they throw this Council in our teeth and appeal to its decrees, reaffirmed as they were at Basle with the express approbation of Eugenius IV? If Eugenius did right in solemnly approving those decrees, how can they be attacked? and if he did wrong, what becomes, they will ask, of this pretended infallibility ? Are we to get rid of the authority of all these decrees, and of so many other like decrees ancient and modern, by means of scholastic distinctions, and the sophistries of Bellarmine? Is the Church, which up to this time has stopped the months of heretics with irrefutable arguments, now to be reduced to defend herself by such pitiful equivocations ? God forbid. Do not cease, Sir, to set before them the true position to which they are about to commit themselves, and to which we shall all be committed. I doubt not that his Eminence (Cardinal d’Estrées) will speak on this occasion with all possible vigour, as well as with all possible ability. He holds the well-being of the Church in his hands.”

It must be mentioned to the honour of Antoine Arnauld, who was at this time a refugee at Brussels, that he cordially sympathised with the French clergy in the doctrine of their four Articles, and exerted himself, through his friend M. de Vaucel, to dissuade Innocent XI from publishing any formal disavowal of them. In the case of the regale he had sided with the Pope, in common with the rest of the Jansenist party; but upon the question of infallibility he was thoroughly Gallican, and was too conscientious to conceal his convictions; although it would have been easy for him, by acting otherwise, to make himself almost all-powerful at Rome, and to inflict no small humiliation upon many who had shown themselves his enemies. “It would be giving his Holiness bad advice,” writes Arnauld, “to induce him to condemn as erroneous the four Articles of the clergy: for the clergy would be at no loss for writers to defend them; whereas advocates are not easily to be found with reference to other points on which their views are mistaken. This would only call forth a quantity of publications on one side and the other, the effect of which would be to throw immense advantage into the hands of heretics, to make the Roman Church odious, to raise up obstacles to the conversion of Protestants, and to provoke a still more cruel persecution of the poor Catholics in England.” He then adverts to an extravagant Ultramontane treatise which had just appeared under the title of ‘Antigraphum ad Cleri Gallicani de ecclesiastica potestate declarationem,’ by the Marquis Ceroli de Carreto. This author argued that, since Jesus Christ is the supreme sovereign of the whole earth, and the Pope is His vicar, the latter must possess in like manner an universal monarchical authority, comprehending, by the force of the terms, princes as well as their subjects. “I pity the Holy See,” continues Arnauld, “for having such defenders; it is a terrible judgment of God upon the Church, if Rome should condescend to such methods of self-vindication against the bishops of France.” He concludes by quoting a passage from the well-known work of Duval “on the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff,” to the effect that it is not an erroneous, nor even a rash opinion, that the Sovereign Pontiff may be mistaken in his decisions.

Innocent, after a time, viewed the affair more calmly, and abandoned the project of passing a judicial censure on the obnoxious Articles. But, in order to testify his displeasure, he refused the bulls of institution to all ecclesiastics named by the king to bishoprics, who had been members of the Assembly of 1682; and so pertinaciously was this policy adhered to, that at length no less than thirty-five dioceses—nearly a third of the whole number in the kingdom—were destitute of pastors canonically instituted. Such a state of things stirred up a ferment of rebellious feeling against the See of Rome, and vague rumours were set afloat that the form of Papal institution was to be dispensed with for the future, and that French bishops were to be consecrated, according to the ancient rule, by the metropolitans, without any application for license to a foreign power. Louis XIV, however, contented himself with directing that, since the Pope declined to grant institution to some of his nominees, he should not be solicited to bestow it in the case of others, against whom he had no such ground of objection. The consequence was that this provision of the Concordat of Bologna fell into disuse, and remained so until the reconciliation between the French court and Innocent XII in 1693. Meanwhile, the bishops nominated by the Crown enjoyed their revenues and temporal prerogatives, but were incapable, according to the terms of the Concordat, of executing any part of the spiritual functions of the episcopate.

There cannot be a clearer or more forcible proof of the false position in which the Gallican Church had been placed by that unfortunate compact. The Concordat proceeded on the principle that there can be no ecclesiastical mission except through the direct ministry of the Roman patriarch;—a doctrine unknown to antiquity, and at variance with the organic constitution of the Church. The jurisdiction of the Metropolitans, to whom it belonged originally to confirm and consecrate their suffragans, was thus annihilated; and in addition to this, it was put into the power of the Roman Pontiff to suspend, and pro tanto to suppress, the action of that Apostolic form of diocesan government which in all ages had been esteemed essential to the perfection of the Church. Such machinery might work smoothly in ordinary times; but it was liable to derangements and dislocations, which, as in the present instance, might throw the relations between Church and State into confusion, and might even prove subversive of the framework of Catholic unity.

Louis, having attained his object by the acceptance of the régale and the proclamation of the Four Articles, showed considerable self-control and moderation in repressing ulterior measures, which could only have served to prolong the existing state of embroilment with the court of Rome. The Assembly had adopted a circular letter to the prelates of France, which was intended as an indirect reply to the late reproachful brief from the Pope. The king intimated his pleasure that this should not be forwarded; and on the 23rd of June a royal message somewhat abruptly put an end to the session of the Assembly. It was prorogued, pro forma, to the 1st of November following, but did not in reality meet again till the spring of 1685.

The Gallican Declaration was not allowed to pass without vehement adverse criticism from the Ultramontanes. Various writers attacked it with more or less ability; Nicolas Dubois, a professor at Louvain, and an anonymous divine of the same university; the Archbishop of Gran or Strigonia, Primate of Hungary; Charlas, a priest who had been banished from Prance on account of his zeal in defence of the Bishop of Pamiers; Father Gonzalez, General of the Jesuits; the learned Cardinal d’Aguirre; Sfondrati, Abbot of St. Gall, afterwards cardinal; and lastly, Roccaberti, Archbishop of Valencia in Spain, whom Bossuet describes as the most bitter of all his opponents. Bossuet felt it to be bis duty, as the prelate upon whom the chief responsibility had rested in this memorable transaction, to undertake its public vindication; and with this view he now commenced the noblest and most renowned of all his works, the ‘Defensio Declarationis Cleri Gallicani.’ He was engaged three years upon this treatise, and completed it, in its original shape, in 1685. But there were strong reasons for not giving it to the world at that moment. Louis was negociating for a settlement of his differences with the Pope; the affair was complicated and difficult, and it would have been the height of imprudence to take any step which might be construed as an additional grievance. Years elapsed before an arrangement was effected; and Bossuet’s work seemed to be doomed by circumstances to an indefinite suppression. But in the beginning of the year 1696, after the commotion caused by the violent attack of Roccaberti, and the prohibition of his volumes by the parliament, the bishop revised his manuscript, and made an important change in its original plan. It was now, probably, that he obtained the king’s permission to prepare the work for the press; but other concerns of urgent import­ance intervened, and it was postponed from year to year, though never abandoned. It never saw the light during the great prelate’s lifetime. At his death in 1704 he bequeathed it to his nephew, afterwards Bishop of Troyes, expressly charging him to let it fall into no hands but those of his Majesty himself, who had hitherto, for grave reasons of state, objected to its publication, and who might very probably, in his (Bossuet’s) opinion, continue to be opposed to it. The MS. was accordingly presented to the king by the Abbé Bossuet, and it appears that in the year 1708 a proposal was made to publish it; but the design was combated by the abbe himself, who feared that opprobrious reflections might be provoked at Home against his uncle’s memory, and that the edification to be derived from his works might thus be in great measure lost to the Church. The king yielded to these arguments, and the matter dropped. In the year 1730, however, an edition of the ‘Defensio’ was printed at Luxemburg, from an incorrect and imperfect copy which had belonged to Cardinal de Noailles. This contained none of the additions and emendations made by the author in his latter years ; the preliminary dissertation (Dissertatio praevia) did not appear in it at all. The Bishop of Troyes, to whose custody the precious manuscript appears to have been restored after the death of Louis and of the Regent Orleans, at length took the resolution of placing it in a com­plete form before the public; and it issued from the press in 1745, in the shape in which we now possess it. In consequence of the alterations which are known to have been made in the original text, and the singular history of the work during the forty years which intervened between its composition and its publication, doubts have been expressed in some quarters as to its authenticity. These, however, are without foundation. The testimony of the Abbé Ledieu proves beyond question that Bossuet was occupied, in 1699 and three following years, in revising his work from beginning to end; that he made extensive changes in it, not with regard to its general scope and character, but by introducing fresh matter and correcting mistakes; and that, in particular, he suppressed the first three books of the original draft, and substituted for them a preliminary Dissertation, to which he gave the title of ‘ Gallia orthodoxa, sive Vindiciae Scholae Parisiensis.’ Moreover, the identical manuscript which Bossuet entrusted to his nephew, and which the latter, by his uncle’s instructions, placed in the hands of Louis XIV, was discovered in 1812, in the Royal Library at Paris. Cardinal Bausset, author of the ‘Histoire de Bossuet,’ had an opportunity of examining it, and remained fully satisfied of the accuracy of the printed work as now circulated.

The ‘Defensio Cleri Gallicani’ possesses an importance, both in regard to theological doctrine and to the true principles of political government, which can hardly be over-estimated. All the contested questions affecting the limits and exercise of spiritual authority, all the critical passages in the manifold feuds between Popes, emperors, and kings—the continuous tradition of Ecumenical Councils ancient and modern, and the controversies which have arisen from their acts—the testimonies of the Fathers of the East and West, of the Schoolmen, and of other illustrious doctors whose names the Church can never cease to venerate—all are passed in review with consummate analytical talent, in a tone of never-failing moderation, and with exhaustive fulness and minuteness of detail. The impression which the work produced, in quarters where it was least likely to be regarded with partiality, may be gathered from two remarkable attestations which have been put on record by Cardinal Bausset, the biographer of Bossuet. The first is that of Cardinal Orsi, in the preface to his treatise on the Infallibility of the Pope. “I have heard,” he says, “both at Rome and elsewhere, many persons distinguished for their virtues, learning, and experience, declare that, after having perused this work of Bossuet’s with the utmost attention, they were convinced that Roman theologians ought no longer to persist in maintaining the cause which he impugns, but that it must be abandoned as desperate, since it was impossible to find arguments wherewith to combat truths so transparently clear.”

The second is extracted from a letter of Pope Benedict XIV to the Archbishop of Santiago, dated July 21st, 1748. “You are doubtless aware that a few years ago a work was published, the object of which was to support the propositions adopted by the clergy of France in the Assembly of 1682. Although the name of the author is not given, all the world knows that it was composed by Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. In the time of our immediate predecessor, Clement XII, it was seriously debated whether this work ought to be proscribed; but it was finally determined that no censure should be passed upon it. This decision was arrived at, not only out of regard for the author’s memory, who in other respects so worthily served the cause of religion, but also out of just apprehension of provoking fresh dissertations, and renewing the dispute.”

The same salutary dread of resuscitating a hopeless controversy—hopeless because it exhibits Ultramontanism in a position of irreconcilable conflict with the stubborn facts of history—has never ceased to operate from that day to the present. Whatever other measures may have been taken to overthrow the authority of the Articles of 1682, the ‘Defensio’ of Bossuet remains uncensured, and without an answer. It is a monument, not of mere evanescent agitation or insubordinate self-assertion, but of a system which has lived through all the storms and revolutions of all Christian centuries, and is imperishable.

CHAPTER XVII.

The "Avertissement Pastoral" to the Protestants