CHAPTER XVII.

The "Avertissement Pastoral" to the Protestants

 

In addition to the series of measures connected with the memorable Declaration, the Assembly of 1682 distinguished itself by putting forth an “Avertissement Pastoral” to the Protestant sectaries, exhorting them to reconcile themselves to the Church. This was couched in terms of much tenderness and charity; but it contained an intimation, nevertheless, that if they turned a deaf ear to these timely admonitions, they must prepare for a more rigorous line of treatment for the future than they had ever yet experienced. This was a significant warning of the severities which were already resolved upon, and which, to the disgrace of the government and the irreparable injury of France, followed shortly afterwards. For many years past, indeed, there had been a marked departure from those wise principles of toleration which Richelieu had observed towards the separatists, even while he destroyed forever their importance as a party in the State. Successive ordonnances had suppressed their National Synods, deprived them of the protection guaranteed by the “Chambers of the Edict,” imposed on them vexatious restrictions as to commerce and industry, excluded them from various lucrative public offices, interdicted their ministers from preaching beyond their place of residence, and prohibited them from quitting the kingdom under any pretence. These acts of oppression goaded the Protestants in certain districts into an attitude of resistance ; seditious outbreaks took place here and there, which were promptly repressed; a few of the ringleaders were capitally punished; and the government took advantage of the occasion to demolish many of the conventicles, and to quarter bodies of troops on the inhabitants of the disturbed localities. The numbers of the Reformed had much diminished since the last open revolt under Louis XIII, and were still on the decrease. According to a contemporary journal, the ‘Mercure de Vize,’ they amounted, in 1682, to something over 564,000; the pastors numbered about twelve hundred, and the  temples” eight hundred and forty-four.

It was long before Louis XIV resolved to attempt the restoration of religious unity by measures of violence. He directed that no exertion should be spared to reclaim his misguided subjects by gentler methods—by personal influence, by argument, persuasion, and intelligent conviction. In his circular to the provincial officers, which accompanied the pastoral letter of the Assembly, he desires them to deal with the religionists in the spirit of wisdom and discretion, to employ no force but that of reason, and by no means to infringe the terms of the edicts of toleration. The “Avertissement” of the Assembly was communicated to the Protestant consistories, and the clergy were ordered to support it by suitable addresses; but fairness and considerateness seem to have prevailed, and public discus­sions were held in all freedom between the divines of the two communions.

The Gallican bishops and their clergy now bestirred themselves in the work of conversion with laudable activity. Conferences, missions, controversial tracts, special devotional services, abounded on all sides. Bossuet took the lead in this as in all the great ecclesiastical movements of his time. He established missions in his diocese, where there were then but few Protestants, although it was at Meaux that the leaders of the Reformation had first found protection and encouragement in Prance. He published his ‘Conference with the minister Claude,’ and his ‘Traité de la Communion sous les deux Espèces.’ His ‘Exposition de la Doctrine catholique’ was circulated far and wide. By his advice also the king ordered 50,000 copies of the French translation of the New Testament by Father Amelotte to be printed for distribution, together with an equal number of selected prayers from the Catholic Liturgy; the object of both publications being to combat the mistaken notion so common among heretics, that the Church, by using a Latin version of the Scriptures, and celebrating her offices in the same tongue, designed to keep the common people in igno­rance both of one and the other. The efforts of Bossuet were seconded by several of his colleagues; by Le Camus, Bishop of Grenoble ; De Breteuil, of Boulogne; De La Broue, of Mirepoix; De Laval, of La Rochelle; De Seve, of Arras; De la Hoguette, of Poitiers. The Jesuits, Capuchins, and other religious orders, sent forth armies of preachers and controversialists; and a perfect ferment of missionary ardour prevailed among Catholics of all classes, laity as well as clergy. Of the results of this great propagandist enterprise it is impossible to speak without some hesitation. That there were many sincere conversions is unquestionable. Alexandre de Bardonnèche, a magistrate of Grenoble; Arbaud de Blansac, a wealthy seigneur of Lauguedoc; the ministers Desmahis, Gilli, and Vignes; Ulric Obrecht, a learned pastor of Strasburg; Isaac Papin and Joseph Saurin; were men who stood too high in reputation and character to be suspected of any unworthy motive in changing their religious profession. But when we are told that in certain parts of the country,—Poitou, Languedoc, Saintonge, Béarn, Dauphiné—the abjurations of Calvinism were counted by thousands; that sixty thousand persons recanted in a single town in three days; that the Bishop of Montpellier, on a visitation tour, was besieged by the whole population of parish after parish, demanding to be reconciled to the Church; we are tempted to assign such startling phenomena to causes of a less elevated kind. The king and his ministers seem to have acted in this matter under a singular illusion. The numerous cases which occurred of bona fide conversion among the intelligent classes led them to imagine that Protestantism was on the point of disappearing altogether—that it had lost its influence and was effete; and that if a determined effort were made at this moment, the blessing of unanimity in doctrinal belief might be secured to the nation without much difficulty. With this view they set in motion two engines which few are capable of resisting, namely, money and military oppression; the “Caisse des conversions” and the “Dragonnades.”

The chief agent of the Court in its scheme of bribing the Nonconformists into orthodoxy was Paul Pélisson-Fontanier; himself a convert from Calvinism, a man of talent and intellectual culture, an author of repute, a member of the Academy, and a councillor of state. The Assemblies of the clergy had for some years past been accustomed to vote large sums towards the maintenance of Protestant ministers who might be induced to return to the Church, and who, but for this succour, would have been left destitute of the means of subsistence. The king established a fund of the same character on a far more extensive scale, by allotting to it the yearly revenues of two great abbeys, and a third of the income of all vacant benefices, which belonged to the Crown in virtue of the “droit de régale.’’ The management and application of this treasure—the “ administration des économats,” as it was called—was entrusted to Pélisson; whose plan of operations was simple, and proved widely successful. He communicated with the bishops, and placed in their hands sums of money, with instructions to employ them in indemnifying persons who might abjure heresy for any loss they sustained, or imagined they sustained, by taking that step. They were to report to the minister at stated times, furnishing him with a list of the conversions effected, a copy of each abjuration, an account of their disbursements, and a receipt for the number of livres expended in each instance. Nothing could be more perfectly organised, nothing more business-like, than this system of wholesale traffic with the conscience. Forty, fifty, even a hundred livres, were in many cases given in testimony of the king’s good-will towards the newly converted; but in the rural districts the ordinary tariff was six livres. “M. Pélisson works wonders,” wrote Madame de Maintenon in 1683; “ he may not be so learned as Monseigneur Bossuet, but he is more persuasive. One could never have ventured to hope that all these conversions would have been obtained so easily.”' “I can well believe,” are her words in another letter, “ that all these conversions are not equally sincere; but God has numberless ways of recalling heretics to Himself. At all events their children will be Catholics. If the parents are hypocrites, their outward submission at least brings them so much nearer to the truth ; they bear the signs of it in common with the faithful. Pray God to enlighten them all; the king has nothing nearer to his heart.”

But if the “caisse des conversions” was a discreditable mode of making proselytes, what is to be thought of the “dragonnades?” Happily it is needless, in a work like the present, to enter into any description of these frightful atrocities, which have left so indelible a stigma of disgrace upon the “age of Louis XIV.” But the reader must, nevertheless, be reminded that, although the scandalous expedient itself was suggested by civil functionaries, such as Louvois and Chateauneuf, the principle from which it sprang was explicitly sanctioned by men who spoke in the name of religion; by the king’s confessor La Chaise, by his Jesuit brethren, and by two, at least, of the leading prelates of the Gallican Church, Le Tellier and De Harlai. They urged upon Louis that it was his duty to enforce external conformity to the established Church, however rigorous the measures that might be required for the purpose. Internal assent, they assured him, would follow in due time. At the worst, those whose conversion was only nominal would but be consigned to perdition as hypocrites, instead of suffering the same punishment as heretics. As to the lawfulness of penal enactments against heresy, they defended it on the authority of St. Augustine, in his epistles to Vincentius the Donatist bishop, and to the Tribune Boniface. “The fear of suffering,” says that great Bather, “tends to dislodge obstinacy; it makes men open their eyes to the truth; it helps them to rid themselves of error and prejudice, and causes them to desire that which formerly they were most averse to.” And, again, “This authority of which they (the Donatists) complain is wholesome and useful to them, inasmuch as it has reclaimed and is reclaiming every day, numbers of men who praise God for having cured them of such a dangerous infatuation, and who, prompted by the same charity that we have shewn to them, now join us in demanding that others shall be treated in like manner who still persist in error, and with whom they themselves were once involved in all the peril of perdition.” The Scriptural precept, “Compel them to come in,” was likewise appealed to in justification of this policy. Nor were such sentiments peculiar to any one school of theology; they were those of the clergy in general; even Bossuet did not scruple to defend them openly. More than this, they were not confined to the Church of Rome, but were common to all Christian denominations. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that Protestant governments, as well as Catholic, have sanctioned coercive legislation against those whom they deemed dangerously heterodox. The penal laws of the English Statute Book at that period, and those of other European states, were more sanguinary than those of France; and it may be proved, without any extraordinary amount of historical research, that on occasions they were put in execution with a no less barbarous cruelty.

The Assembly of 1685 presented to the throne a series of resolutions embracing the further measures of disability which they considered necessary against the Huguenots. They desired that their worship might be interdicted in Cathedral cities, and in places where the seigneurial fiefs were held by ecclesiastics; that their ministers should be incapable of receiving legacies and endowments; that members of the so-called Reformed religion should be excluded from the profession of the law, and from employment as secretaries, notaries, lawyer’s clerks, book­sellers, printers, and officers of municipal corporations; and that wherever there was no public exercise of their religion their children should be baptized by the Catholic clergy, the parents being compelled to give them due notice for this purpose. Most of these demands had been anticipated by various royal edicts; and the king promised to grant the rest without delay. The Assembly, moreover, complained of libellous attacks upon the doctrine of the Church which were continually issuing from the Protestant press; and a memorial to the king was drawn up, setting forth, side by side, the genuine tenets of Catholicism as opposed to the misrepresentations, falsehoods, and perversions, disseminated in the works of the pretended Reformers. Thereupon an ordonnance appeared forbidding Huguenots to preach or publish anything injurious to the Catholic religion, to impute to Catholics doctrines which they disavowed, or even to discuss their belief directly or indirectly. The Archbishop of Paris published an “Index expurgatorius” of the books thus stigmatized; and they were immediately suppressed by an arrêt of the Parliament.

The ultimate conclusion towards which all these preliminary steps had long been converging was reached on the 18th of October, 1685, on which day Louis XIV signed what is called the “Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.” By a single stroke of his despotic pen he annulled all that had ever been enacted in favour of the Huguenots; decreed the immediate demolition of their remaining places of worship, forbade them to hold any meetings whatever for the exercise of their religion, and ordered their pastors to quit the kingdom within fifteen days, unless they were willing to embrace Catholicism. To those who might make abjuration considerable advantages were promised; they were exempted from the “ tailies ” and the obligation of lodging troops; and were to receive, moreover, pensions exceeding by one-third the salaries which had been paid to them as ministers. Their flocks were prohibited, under severe penalties, from leaving France; all children hereafter born to them were to be baptized and educated as Catholics. As to those who had already emigrated, they were exhorted to return within four months, in which case they were to be re-admitted to their privileges as French citizens, and to the enjoyment of their confiscated property.

The Chancellor Le Tellier, on affixing the great seal to this celebrated edict, testified aloud his joy and satisfaction in the words of the aged Simeon, “ Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” He looked upon it as the most fortunate act of his long official career, which was brought to a close by death within a month afterwards. Bossuet, in his Funeral Oration for the deceased minister, did not hesitate to refer to the edict of Revocation in terms of unequivocal and impassioned admiration. “Our fathers had not witnessed, as we have, the fall of an inveterate heresy ; the deluded flocks returning to the fold in troops ; our churches too narrow to receive them; perfect calmness maintained in the midst of such a mighty movement; the world contemplating with astonishment so decisive and at the same time so felicitous an exercise of sovereign authority, and a proof that the merits of the sovereign are more highly estimated than even his authority itself. Impressed by such marvels, let us raise our acclamations to the skies! Let us say to this second Constantine, this second Theodosius, this second Marcian, this second Charlemagne, what the six hundred and thirty fathers said of old at the Council of Chalcedon:—You have confirmed the Faith, you have exterminated the heretics; it is a work worthy of your reign. Through your exertions heresy exists no longer. God alone could have wrought this miracle. 0 King of Heaven, preserve our earthly monarch; this is the prayer of the Church ; this is the prayer of the bishops!”

It is curious to find that Antoine Arnauld, who certainly had no inducement to regard either the person or the policy of Louis XIV with undue partiality, approved no less decidedly of the repeal of the laws of toleration, and the compulsory suppression of Protestantism. In one of his letters to De Vaucel he quotes the sentiment of Grotius, who had warned the Non­conformists not to imagine that the Edict of Nantes, and others of like tenor, were treaties of alliance; whereas they were simply royal ordonnances passed for the good of the public, and liable to be revoked whenever it might appear that the public interest would be served by such a step. “The laws against the Donatists,” Arnauld continues, “ are sufficient to authorize what has been done in France against the Huguenots as to any temporal injury inflicted on them by the quartering of troops and the banishment of their ministers. The laws of the Empire were not only directed against the criminal excesses of the Circumcellions, but had in view the complete extirpation of the heretical sect; private persons who refused to submit to the Church were mulcted with heavy fines; and the bishops, priests, and other ecclesiastics who would not renounce the schism, were condemned to exile.” He thought it as well, indeed, that no rejoicings had been made at Rome on the occasion of the Revocation, since the measures taken had undoubtedly been somewhat violent; but he adds that “he could not allow that they were unjust.”

The biographer of Bossuet has taken great pains to prove to the satisfaction of his readers that that illustrious prelate was not consulted by the government as to the final decree which suppressed the Reformed religion in France. It appears, he says, from a memoir on the subject drawn up by the Duke of Burgundy, that two theologians were summoned to assist at the “ Conseil de Conscience " in which the question was discussed; but their names were not mentioned, and he had failed to ascertain them. The point, however, is of small importance. Most probably Bossuet was not personally consulted; but from what we know of his opinions it is clear that he would have given his assent to the measure had it been required; and it may be added that Louis and his ministers must have been perfectly well assured of the general views and wishes of the Gallican clergy before such an important change of ecclesiastical policy was resolved upon. We may well believe, indeed, that not only Bossuet, but the great majority of his colleagues in the episcopate, revolted with heartfelt indignation from the barbarities which were afterwards perpetrated on their fellow­countrymen in execution of the Edict; and it is even doubtful whether Louis himself was cognizant of the extent of perse­cution of which his officers were guilty in carrying out his orders. But one thing is certain, that bishops and clergy, sovereign and ministers, parliaments and universities,—in a word the whole French nation,—concurred in stamping with their sympathy and approval an act which destroyed the legal status of schism and heresy, and re-established, so far as outward profession went, the one religion of their forefathers.*They must be judged in this matter, not by the standard of the nineteenth century, but by that of their own age. Their mistakes were those of the state of society in which they had been born and educated; of a system which may be defended without difficulty on the score of logical consistency, although it has long since been abandoned as impossible in practice. Their error consisted, not in desiring that all professed Christians should agree in doctrinal belief, but in imagining that it was possible to compass that end by means of external constraint and violence. The mischievous effects of this great moral solecism were not at once apparent; but there can be no question that it contributed indirectly to a result precisely opposite to that designed and desired by its authors. It tended to discredit the principle of religious dogma, and to prepare the way for indifferentism and scepticism. The attempt to impose by physical force an iron stereotyped uniformity produced a formidable recoil, and that at no distant date, against the whole theory of authoritative teaching. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes furnished a magazine of specious argument for the school of Bayle and the “philosoplies,” the “libertins,” the free­thinkers, which rose into notice almost immediately afterwards;— a school which was destined eventually, not only to subvert the National Church of France, but to imperil the very existence of Christianity, and to sap the foundations of the social fabric. Nothing in all history is more solemnly instructive than the progress of that momentous reaction.

The bishops now received orders to repair to their several dioceses for the purpose of furthering the work of the reconciliation of the Protestants with the Church; and for many years in succession their labours in that field were incessant. Bossuet published at this time his ‘Lettre pastorale aux nouveaux Catholiques sur la Communion Pascale; ’ his ‘Avertissement aux Protestants;’ and that truly original work, the interest of which is scarcely less vivid in our own day than when it was first written, the ‘Histoire des Variations des Églises Protestantes.’ The Bishops of Mirepoix, Montauban, Tournay, Auxerre, and Boulogne, exerted themselves in the cause with distinguished zeal. The operations of the missionary clergy, regular and secular, were carefully organized under the direction of Archbishop de Harlai, and the Assembly voted ample funds for their support. The Jesuit Bourdaloue was sent to exhibit his marvellous eloquence at Montpellier, and the accomplished De la Rue preached in other parts of Languedoc. Upwards of a hundred priests of the Oratory devoted themselves to the work. The Lazaristes, the Congregation of St. Sulpice, the Pères de la Doctrine chrétienne, the Theatins, all contributed their full quota of labourers. The opportunity, too, gave scope for the exercise of his talents to a young ecclesiastic whose name was to become one of the household words of the Drench Church—the Abbé de Fenelon. François de Salignac de Lamothe Fenelon, son of a nobleman of ancient family in Perigord, was at this time thirty-four years of age. He was attached to the Congregation of St. Sulpice, and was Superior of the “Nouvelles Catholiques,” an institution founded at Paris for the training of converted Protestant females. He already stood high in the esteem of Bossuet, and was recommended by him to the king as leader of the missions in Poitou, Saintonge, and the Pays d’Aunis. He commenced the under­taking with the assistance of nine trusty fellow-labourers, among whom were the Abbé de Langeron, his confidential friend through life; Claude Fleury, afterwards the celebrated author of the ‘ Histoire Ecclesiastique;’ and the Abbes Bertier and Milon, who became bishops of Blois and Condom. We are told by his biographer that the only condition made by Fenelon with the king was that before he entered on bis ministry all troops should be removed from the district, and that no demonstration of military force should be made during his stay. His treatment of the “dévoyés” was marked by invariable gentleness, forbearance, and charity; so much so, that the Secretary of State De Seignelay felt it necessary to intimate to him that he was complained of as lax and overindulgent in his duty. The only pretext for this charge was that Fenelon was less rigid than some other missionaries in enforcing both the extreme doctrines and the system of devotional observances which, though recommended by certain sections of the Church of Rome, have never been declared indispensable by the authorities of the Church herself. Fenelon made it his object to soften the bitterness of Protestant prejudice against Catholicism, by tracing a clear line of dis­tinction between what is necessary and what is permissible; by separating articles of faith from matters of opinion; pre­cepts of obligation from counsels of perfection. The same method had been pursued with eminent success by Bossuet in his 'Exposition de la Doctrine catholique.’

The labours of the missionaries were not unrewarded; but the obstacles they had to encounter were gigantic, and their progress was slow and partial. On the whole, Fenelon seems to have been disappointed with the results of his mission. Juriu, Claude, and others of the proscribed ministers, commenced a course of fanatical agitation, which ere long bore fruit in the disastrous insurrection of the Cevennes; and the work of religious reunion was thus interrupted and indefinitely adjourned. In process of time Louis discovered that conversions made by violence are of little or no value; that the remedy is worse than the disease. A more moderate tone was adopted in dealing with the “nouveaux convertis.” Orders were given to desist from the practice of compelling them to receive the Eucharist according to the Catholic rite, and to wink at their neglect of Extreme Unction and other ceremonies. The magistrates were enjoined to leave it to the ecclesiastical authorities and confessors to judge of the fitness or unfitness of the converts, as of all others, to partake with profit of the Sacraments. The royal instructions to the Intendants, and the circular letter addressed at the same time to the bishops, breathe an eminently wise, discreet, and tolerant spirit.}: The subject, however, was one which gave rise to considerable differences of opinion. Basnet discussed it with his usual vigour in a correspondence with Lamoignon de Basville, Intendant of Languedoc, and certain of the bishops of that province, which may be read at length in his collected works.

But these measures of concession on the part of the government came too late. The edict of Revocation was practically a failure. The outward semblance of unity which it produced was hollow and fallacious; the “mauvais convertis” infinitely outnumbered those who embraced Catholicism from conviction; and the result was a mask of equivocal conformity, which served no cause save that of irreligion and unbelief. The tide of emigration, too, in spite of numberless precautions and inhuman penalties, proved irresistible. Among the many conflicting calculations it is impossible to ascertain the real number of those who became refugees in foreign lands; but the conjecture of the Due de Noailles may be taken as a probable one, that it did not much exceed one hundred thousand. Benoit, author of the ‘ History of the Edict of Nantes,’ raises it to two hundred thousand. On the other hand, the Duke of Burgundy, in the memoir already referred to, reduces the number to sixty-eight thousand in twenty years. The majority of these were intelligent manufacturers and skilled artisans, who carried away with them experience, ingenuity, and energy which France could ill afford to lose; and there were also among the exiles names of high distinction in the world of science, philosophy, and general literature. “True Catholics,” says Saint-Simon, “wept bitterly over the lasting and irremediable odium cast upon their religion by these melancholy events; while, on the other hand, our neighbours exulted at seeing us thus weaken and ruin ourselves by our own acts; and, profiting by our folly, gathered materials for plots against us out of the hatred which we had drawn upon ourselves from all Protestant powers.”

Such was the deep-rooted antipathy borne by Innocent XI to Louis XIV, that he even expressed disapprobation of the act by which that monarch had extirpated heresy from his dominions. “It is true,” said the Pope, “that he has driven away the Huguenots from France; but he did so merely from political motives, and not at all out of zeal for religion. We gave Cardinal d’Estrées to understand as much when he presented to us his Sovereign’s edict of Revocation. We altogether disapprove of these forced conversions, which, generally speaking, are not sincere. It is a misfortune for the king that all his measures are successful. He has already received his reward.” But whatever may have been his private sentiments, it is certain that the Pope subsequently wrote to congratulate his Majesty on the zeal and piety he bad displayed in the great work of uprooting Protestant error. He moreover made a speech to the Consistory expressing his satisfaction at this glorious enterprise, and ordered it to be celebrated by a Te Deum and public rejoicings.

The mutual enmity which reigned between the French court and the Vatican was aggravated by the affair of the Franchises, as it is called, which occurred in 1687. Foreign ambassadors at Rome enjoyed by custom the privilege of independent jurisdiction not only within their own mansions, but also in the surrounding district of the city; these localities swarmed in consequence with thieves and criminals of all kinds, who found there a secure asylum from the terrors of the law. The abuse had been denounced by several preceding Popes, and Innocent resolved to put an end to it. He notified to Louis that other European sovereigns had acquiesced in his regulations for this purpose, and begged that his most Christian Majesty would follow their example. Louis returned a disdainful answer, and his newly-appointed ambassador, the Marquis de Lavardin, insisted on the privilege to its full extent, and with more than usual arrogance. This brought him within the terms of a bull of excommunication which the Pope had published before his arrival;! and the Ambassador having presumed to attend mass notwithstanding, the French Church of St. Louis, in which the act took place, was laid under an interdict. The Ambassador protested, and the Procureur-General at Paris entered an appeal “comme d’abus” against the Papal proceedings to the next General Council lawfully assembled. Talon, the Avocat-Général, made an energetic speech on this occasion, and roundly censured the Pope for employing spiritual weapons in an affair of a purely temporal nature. He next touched upon the sore point of the refusal of the bulls of institution to the Gallican bishops-designate. “Who would believe,” he exclaimed, “that so saintly a Pontiff would leave thirty-five Catholic churches without pastors, merely because we are not disposed to acknowledge his infallibility?”. The evil, however, he proceeded to point out, was not without a remedy. In times anterior to the Concordat, bishops-elect were consecrated by the Metropolitan, and received from him canonical institution without reference to Rome; nor was there anything to hinder a recurrence to that discipline. Since the Pope refused to perform the part assigned to him by the Concordat, it was to be presumed that his age and infirmities made him wish to be relieved in some degree from the burden of the pastoral care; and under these circumstances the heads of the Gallican Church were perfectly justified in proceeding to consecrate those who had been nominated by the Sovereign to vacant sees. Moreover, if the Pope thought proper to neglect the execution of the Concordat, there could be no necessity to continue sending money to Rome for the provisions of benefices and dispensations, which might easily be supplied within the realm. Talon likewise reproached his Holiness for his alleged indulgence towards the Jansenists and the new-fangled vagaries of the Quietists. He concluded by demanding that Provincial Councils, or a National Council, should be summoned to take measures for filling up the vacancies in the episcopate; that his Majesty should be requested to maintain the franchises of his ambassadors with the whole weight of his authority; and that French subjects should be forbidden to hold intercourse with Rome, or to make any payments to the Papal coffers. The Parliament assented to these requisitions by an arret of the 23rd of January, 1688. In the month of September following a formal act of appeal from the Pope to a future General Council was deposited on behalf of the king at the “officialité” of Paris; his Majesty at the same time declaring that it was his full attention to remain inviolably attached to the Holy See as the centre of unity, to maintain its rights and authority with the same zeal which he had shown on so many important occasions, and to treat the head of the Church with all due respect and deference. This document was communicated to the bishops, who in reply respectfully congratulated the king on the wisdom of his conduct. Innocent remained inexorable, and refused to receive a letter which Louis wrote to him on this occasion with his own hand; and thereupon the monarch, according to the usual precedent in such circumstances, ordered his troops to take possession of Avignon and the County of Venaissin. These events spread serious alarm among good Catholics in France. But their apprehensions of an imminent religious disruption were in reality groundless; Louis XIV, however peremptory in asserting what he deemed the just prerogatives of his Crown, had not the slightest intention of proceeding to extremities which would have isolated France from the rest of Catholic Christendom.

In this state of perturbation affairs remained until the death of Innocent XI, which occurred in August, 1689. Soon after the election of his successor, Alexander VIII, the French court opened negotiations with a view to accommodate its differences with the Holy See; and for this purpose Louis restored Avignon, and offered considerable concessions in the matter of the franchises. The Abbé de Polignac was sent as a special envoy to treat with Alexander, but his mission proved unsuccessful. The Pope required, as a sine qua non, a distinct retractation of the Declaration of 1682, and of the act of consent by the clergy to the extension of the droit de regale. The king appointed a Commission of French prelates to discuss the terms specified by his Holiness, and it was unanimously deter­mined to reject them. Louis now gave the Pope to understand that if the bulls of institution for the vacant dioceses were not granted before the ensuing feast of Easter, he should be compelled to re-establish the Pragmatic Sanction, or at least that part of it which provided for the consecration of bishops irrespectively of the court of Rome. Alexander, upon this, relaxed in his demands to some extent; but continued to stipulate that the execution of the king’s edict enforcing the acceptance of the Declaration should be suspended, and that the bishops- nominate should address a letter to his Holiness, so expressed that it might be regarded as an act of apology; assuring him that, in the part they had taken in the proceedings of the Assembly, they had not intended to define or ordain anything that could give offence to the Apostolic See. Louis accepted these conditions, and the negotiation proceeded; but it was found impossible to arrange the terms of the proposed letter to the Pope. The king refused to sanction anything that could be construed as a retractation of the principles enunciated by the Parisian divines; and although less than this would doubtless have satisfied Alexander had it been offered promptly, he lost patience at length, and assumed an openly hostile attitude. By a constitution bearing date August 4th, 1690, he annulled all the deliberations and resolutions of the Assembly of 1682, as well as all the acts of the authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, founded upon them. From prudential considerations, however, he kept this document secret for several months. In January, 1691, he became aware that his end was approaching; and on the 30th of that month he communicated the bull to the Cardinals, and ordered it to be published with the usual formalities. It reached France at the same moment with the tidings that the Holy See was vacant; and under these circumstances Louis signified to the Parliament that it was unnecessary to take any official notice of it. It might be hoped, he added, that the next Pope would refrain from confirming this injudicious act of his predecessor.

This anticipation was happily realized. Cardinal Pignatelli, who succeeded to the Chair under the name of Innocent XII, lost no time in assuring the King of France of his friendly dispositions. The negotiation was resumed; the bull of the deceased Pontiff, without being revoked, was quietly suppressed; and, after some further delay, both parties agreed upon the draft of a letter to the Pope to be signed individually by the bishops nominated to French sees; which his Holiness con­sented to accept as a sufficient reparation for the part they had acted in the Assembly of 1682.

It is obvious beforehand, that any document which, after a contest of such magnitude, was to prove satisfactory at once to the court of Rome and to the King of France must be to some extent of an equivocal character. “This letter,” says D’Aguesseau, “was so worded that it might be considered as merely expressing the sorrow which the bishops experienced on finding that the Pope was ill-disposed towards them on account of what had passed in the Assembly of the clergy in 1682.” But it is certain, likewise, that it might be interpreted as a disavowal of theological tenets promulgated by that Assembly, which were well known to be in the highest degree distasteful to the Roman See. It runs as follows:—“Prostrate at the feet of your Holi­ness, we confess and declare that we are profoundly and beyond all words distressed by those acts of the aforesaid Assembly which have given such serious offence to your Holiness and your predecessors. Accordingly, whatever may have been deemed to be decreed in that Assembly concerning the power of the Church and the Pontifical authority, we hold as not decreed, and declare that it ought to be so held. Moreover we regard as not synodically determined that which may have been taken so to be determined by that Assembly to the pre­judice of the rights of Churches.” This language sounded so like a renunciation of the unpalatable doctrines contained in the four Galli can Articles, that the Pope was fairly justified in understanding it in that sense, and agreeing to a reconci­liation on these terms.

But it was very far from the design of the authors of the famous Declaration to stultify themselves by an unconditional surrender. They were willing to admit that the Four Articles did not amount to an episcopal judgment, a synodical definition of doctrine; they did not pretend to enforce them as universally binding on the conscience; but they adhered to them nevertheless, as expressing the long-descended tradition which they had received from their forefathers, and they maintained that they never had been—never could be—condemned with justice as opposed to the Catholic faith. They forbore to insist on the particular document which had excited such grave displeasure at Rome; but the truths and principles propounded in it were too ancient, too venerable, and too precious, to be abandoned. “As for the Declaration,” says Bossuet, “it may go wherever it pleases; but the time-honoured doctrine of the Parisian Faculty remains unshaken, and altogether free from censure.”

It must be observed, further, that the letter to the Pope above quoted was only the act of individuals, and not that of the General Assembly of the clergy which adopted the Four Articles; far less did it carry with it the authority of the whole National Church of France. Even supposing, therefore, that it involved a retractation of doctrine, the responsibility of the proceeding cannot be laid upon the Gallican Church in its corporate capacity.

Conjointly with the letter of the bishops-designate, Louis himself wrote to the Pope to inform him that he had given orders that the edict issued in pursuance of the Declaration should not be put in execution; and the obligation to inculcate the doctrine of the Four Articles in all the great seats of National Education was thus withdrawn. “By this act,” says D’Aguesseau, “his Majesty established complete liberty upon these questions, in common with many other problematical opinions which do not affect the Faith, and which are left to the speculations of the schools.” These important documents had the effect of restoring the relations between France and the Holy See to their ordinary footing. They are dated September 14th, 1693.

The restless spirit of controversy on the mysteries of Grace, which had already agitated Christendom for near a century, had reappeared of late in a somewhat different shape, engendering fresh complications and new dangers to the Church. The discussion was resumed by a disputant of no ordinary powers, Nicolas Malebranche, a priest of the Oratory; who published, in 1674, his ‘Recherche de la Vérité,’ and in 1680 his ‘Traité de la Nature et de la Grace.’ Malebranche had derived his first lessons in the science of ideas from Descartes; but, being a man of original genius, and at the same time of sincere piety, he was not content to pursue the path of abstract investigation traced by his master, but diverged from it into the sphere of revealed theological doctrine. He applied himself to the task of harmonizing Christianity with philosophy, and vindicating the perfect consistency of the Divine attributes.

Malebranche made many disciples, and became widely celebrated as one of the most profound metaphysicians, as well as one of the most attractive writers, of his day. Nevertheless the tendency of his system was in many respects dangerous. His theory of causation is open to grave objection in reference at once to natural religion, to Scripture, and to the cardinal truth of man’s moral freedom. God, according to Malebranche, is the sole absolute Reality, the sole effective essential Substance. He contains in Himself all that has substantive existence. All ideas reside in Him, and are communicated to us from Him. We can neither see nor know, neither purpose nor perform, anything, except in and through God. Our mental perceptions, and the movements of our will, are but impressions wrought upon our souls by His Supreme Intelligence. Creatures have no strength in themselves; it is God who does everything, in the region of the intellect as well as in that of outward physical action. By His power the character of the mind is moulded; from His wisdom its ideas emanate; by the impulse of His love all its motions are determined.

Such statements, though they undoubtedly exhibit one side of a sublime truth, are exaggerated and hyperbolical. It were easy to show that they lead almost inevitably to inferences which are fatal to any true belief in man’s free will and personal responsibility.

But difficulties still more serious arise from the views propounded by Malebranche as to the economy of Grace. God, he argues, produces His most perfect works by the most simple methods. He governs for the most part by fixed general laws, not by constantly repeated acts of volition. As the primary, paramount Cause, He does not interfere in the details of secondary action, but leaves them to the control of secondary agents—of “occasional causes.” God desires, in a general sense, the salvation of all men; but He acts, in the order of grace, through a mediate, ministerial, or “occasional” cause, namely through His Son, the Word Incarnate. The Incarnation of Christ was part of God’s original design in the creation of the world; it was absolutely necessary to the perfection of His work, and would have been so even if Adam had never fallen. Christ is the instrument through whom all Divine gifts and graces are dispensed to mankind. Those individuals in behalf of whom He intercedes with His Father are called into the way of Life, obey the call, and are finally saved; but Christ, in respect of His human nature, is a being of limited capacities and faculties. He is continually making choice of living stones to be built up in the spiritual Temple which He is rearing to His Father’s honour; but, being finite, He cannot think of all, cannot attend to all; and hence it happens that many are omitted from His intercession, receive no grace, are never added to the mystical Temple, and perish eternally. Consequently Christ, considered in His humanity, is chargeable with all the deficiencies and inequalities which occurs in the operation of Divine grace. Such is the strange expedient by which Malebranche proposes to reconcile the justice and omnipotence of the Deity with His attributes of perfect benevolence and love. What is this but to solve one difficulty by substituting another? In what sense is the Divine goodness vindicated by the interposition of a Mediator who is incapable, after all, of fully effecting the object of His mission? The practical result remains the same, that the majority of mankind are left to perish. How then is God justified by attributing this to the imperfection of the Mediator in His human character, when, by the hypothesis, He was thus constituted by the Sovereign Creator?

These rash speculations, and the credit and popularity acquired by their author, alarmed the orthodox clergy. Bossuet, with his usual penetration, discerned at a glance the pernicious principle which lay at their root, and the sinister results, both in theology and morals, towards which they pointed. “Pulchra, nova, falsa,” was his terse annotation on the ‘Traité de la Nature et de la Grace,’ which Malebranche had submitted to him in manuscript. In one of his letters he explains at some length the grounds of his apprehensions as to the general drift of the new philosophy. “I will not conceal from you that I foresee not only in this question of nature and grace, but also in reference to many other points of deep religious importance, the approach of a grand attack upon the Church, under the name of the Cartesian philosophy. Brom its principles, wrongly understood, more than one heresy may take its rise; and I prophesy that the consequences which are drawn from it in opposition to the doctrinal belief of our fathers will render it odious, and deprive the Church of all the beneficial results which might have been hoped from it.” He proceeds to expose the dangers which might follow from a misinterpretation or abuse of the Cartesian axiom, that nothing is to be admitted as true but what the reason clearly comprehends. “Within certain hounds,” he says, “this is quite true; but upon this pretext people take the liberty to approve or reject whatever they please, according as they fancy that they understand it or the contrary; without considering that, besides those ideas which we apprehend with perfect distinctness, there may be some of a mixed and obscure nature, which nevertheless contain truths so essential, that in denying them you would deny everything. Such is the freedom of judgment thus engendered, that men recklessly advance whatever happens to occur to them, without regard to traditional teaching; and this license has never been carried to greater lengths, in my opinion, than by the new system (that of Malebranche), which seems to me to embrace the aberrations of all the sects, and in particular of Pelagianism. I grant that you demolish Molina in some respects no less than the Thomists; but since you have nothing positive to propose in their place, you only amuse the world with fine speeches. What you have adopted from Molina you push to an extreme which he himself would never have ventured on; and his disciples will disown you as well as the rest, when once they perceive, on examining your doctrine to the bottom, that you have only been flattering their vanity... So long as Father Malebranche listens only to persons who, for want of deep acquaintance with theology, do nothing but admire and worship him for the beauty of his language, there can be no remedy for the evil which I anticipate, and I cannot feel at ease with regard to the heresy which I feel will originate from your system. I speak as in the presence of God, and as a bishop who is bound to watch over the integrity of the Faith. The evil is spreading. Either I very greatly deceive myself, or I perceive a grand conspiracy forming against the Church; and in due time it will break forth, unless an early opportunity is taken of coming to an understanding, before matters proceed to extremities.”

With what singular accuracy the presentiments of this far-reaching intellect were verified by the event, will appear in the sequel. Bossuet, however, was too sagacious to attribute the rise of Rationalism, which he thus scented from afar, exclusively to the abuse or perversion of Cartesianism. He well knew that the seeds of that monster heresy had been sown at a much earlier date; and that Descartes and Malebranche were but incidental factors, however powerful and damaging, in the work of its development.

It appears that Bossuet had some intention of personally entering the lists against the accomplished Oratorian; but the Prince of Condé, by repeated and earnest entreaty, succeeded in inducing him to renounce the idea. Antoine Arnauld, however, at the bishop’s request, consented to undertake the task of refuting him. In reply to the ‘Recherche de la Vérité’ he published, at the age of seventy-four, his treatise ‘Des vraies et des fausses idées;’ to the dissertation ‘ De la Nature et de la Grace ’ he opposed his ‘Reflexions philosophiques et theologiqnes sur le systeme de la Nature et de la Grace.’ Both must be placed among his happiest productions.

Bossuet likewise persuaded Fenelon, whose position in the world of letters was not yet completely established, to employ his pen in the same cause, and promised to revise his manuscript. The ‘Refutation du système du Père Malebranche’ was the earliest of Fenelon’s efforts in the polemical arena. It evinces an extensive knowledge of the nature of the difficult problems in dispute, and considerable argumentative power; but in parts it is inconclusively reasoned, and lacks perspicuity. On the whole it gave satisfaction to the Bishop of Meaux, who corrected it throughout. That Fenelon should have commenced his theological career by attacking Malebranche is a circumstance worth noting in the history of both. The future Archbishop of Cambrai had not as yet betrayed any tendency towards the hallucinations of Mysticism; but before many years had passed he had embraced, with a warmth of sympathy almost amounting to enthusiasm, the sentiments held by Malebranche as to the union of the soul with God, together with other singularities of the school in question. These kindred spirits were little aware that their mental proclivities lay so strongly in the same direction; nor does it appear that at any time of their lives relations of confidence were established between them. Fenelon’s theology during his earlier years was free from the slightest taint of heterodoxy. So long as he wrote under the vigilant superintendence of Bossuet, he was not likely to wander from the paths of truth and soberness; and had he but faithfully adhered to the guidance of that consummate master of Catholic tradition, he would have been preserved, in all probability, from those sophistical snares which afterwards proved so injurious to his fame. But there was that in the nature of. Fenelon which could not rest satisfied with the trite paths of scientific and historical religion. Louis XIV., no mean judge of character, early divined his passion for the ideal, the imaginative, the transcendental. “He is a genius,” said his Majesty, after a long conversation with the gifted abbe; “but he has the most chimerical mind in the kingdom.” The works of Malebranche were denounced in due course to the Congregation of the Holy Office, and were successively placed on the ‘Index.’ The treatise on Nature and Grace was proscribed in May, 1690; the ‘Recherche de la Verité’ in March, 1709; the ‘Eutretiens sur la Métaphysique’ in January, 1714.

The controversy with Malebranche was one of the last undertakings of the great Arnauld. His whole life had been a conflict; and even in extreme old age he found it impossible to lay down his arms. In 1690 he denounced to the Pope the erroneous doctrine known by the name of “ Péché philosophique,” which had lately been inculcated by certain Jesuit professors. Like others of their favourite maxims, it was full of plausibility, but capable withal of being so perverted as to excuse an in­definite laxity of morals. One of the Company, F. Meunier, had taught at Dijon that “a sin against the law of nature or the light of reason, if committed by one who has no knowledge of God, or who at the moment has no thought of God, is philosophical sin, as contradistinguished from theological; and as such, does not offend God or deserve everlasting punishment.” With the help of this ingenious device, how many gross crimes might be transformed into venial infirmities, and proved to be harmless to the soul! Father d’Avrigny, however, assures us that no such proposition was seriously maintained by any Jesuit teacher; and that if F. Meunier ever broached it at Dijon, it was in a “ hypothetical ” sense, and not as a matter of positive fact; as an opinion commonly received in the schools, but which the Society by no means wished to adopt or recommend. Be this as it may, the “ Péché philosophique ” was condemned by a decree of the Holy Office in August, 1690. Arnauld’s five ‘Denunciations’ of the error are printed among his works.

By way of retaliation, the Jesuits procured from the Pope (Alexander VIII) a condemnation of a long list of propositions in moral theology derived chiefly from the writings of the disciples of Jansenius. Some of them were quoted almost verbatim from Arnauld’s famous treatise ‘Sur la fréquente Communion,’ which, as the reader will remember, had been examined at Rome no less than forty years previously, and was then pronounced irreprehensible. Such, for instance, was the statement that “the order of Penance is subverted by the practice of giving absolution immediately after confession, and that the modem custom of administering that Sacrament is a grave abuse.” And again, “that it is sacrilege to presume to receive the Communion before one has made satisfaction by deeds of penance proportioned, to the greatness of one’s sins”, that “it is necessary to repel from the Holy Table persons who have not attained to the love of God in a very elevated and transcendent degree.” These sentiments are indisputably those of the book on Frequent Communion; but on what principle the court of Rome consented to condemn them on the present occasion, after having formerly declared that the work was undeserving of cen­sure, it is somewhat difficult to understand. Such a proceeding was scarcely consistent with the theory of Papal infallibility.

The malice of the Jesuits pursued Arnauld even to the confines of the grave. In 1691 they contrived to subject him to fresh annoyance by means of a disgraceful machination which is known in history as the “Fourberie de Douai.” Some professors of that University, practising on the vanity and ignorance of one of their junior colleagues, addressed forged letters to him under the name of Arnauld, one of which contained an exaggerated version of the doctrines commonly imputed to the Jansenists, purporting to be the substance of a thesis lately maintained in public at Malines. The young divine was requested to express his approbation of this document, in testimony of his zeal for the truths which had been defended with so much constancy by the “disciples of St. Augustine” against the persecution of a tyrannical majority. Flattered beyond measure by such a mark of consideration and confidence from one of the most celebrated personages of the day, De Ligny fell into the snare, and signed the fictitious thesis, together with several friends who, like himself, sympathised with Arnauld. The authors of the fraud had thus in their hands evidence sufficient to convict their opponents of heresy, and to procure their removal from their posts at the University, which was their principal object. But not content with this, they proceeded to play off a further hoax on their unlucky dupe De Ligny. The false Arnauld invited him to leave Douai for Paris, where he promised to meet him secretly, and engaged, moreover, to obtain for him, through his influence with one of the French bishops who favoured the party, an honourable and lucrative appointment in a remote southern diocese. Such was the almost incredible simplicity of De Ligny, that this second part of the plot was equally successful with the first. He forwarded his books and papers to the address of his correspondent (thus placing himself, without knowing it, completely in the power of his enemies), and repaired to Paris, where, it is needless to say, he found no trace of Antoine Arnauld. Still unaccountably blind to the delusion, he traversed the whole of France to Carcassonne, the residence of the prelate to whom he believed himself to be so powerfully recommended. His arrival was, of course, altogether unexpected; and, to cut the story short, he at last discovered the whole tissue of deceit by which he had been victimised. He at once retraced his steps to Douai, and lost no time in apprising the real Arnauld of the cheat which had been perpetrated in his name. Arnauld indignantly de­manded justice of the Bishop of Arras, to whose diocese Douai belonged. The bishop cited the parties before him; but the Jesuits had taken the precaution to deposit all the original documents in the hands of the Rector of their college, and that official, when called upon to produce them, was not forthcoming. Eventually the papers were forwarded to Father La Chaise, and by him were laid before the king, who, as D’Avrigny assures us, was already aware of the circumstances, and considered the trick as nothing more than “a stratagem of war.” The doctors of the Sorbonne, being consulted, pronounced the doctrine of the Douai professor to be identical with that of the first three propositions of Jansenius, and directly opposed to the Papal constitutions. Thereupon De Ligny and his friends were deprived of their offices, and banished to distant parts of the kingdom. Meanwhile a report was spread, and widely credited, that the letters addressed to De Ligny were, after all, indited bona fide by Arnauld himself; that he had been robbed by a faithless servant, who had betrayed his secrets to the adverse party. The tale passed current, in spite of its palpable absurdity; and the cause represented by Arnauld suffered in proportion. The real projectors of this vile imposture escaped without punishment.

Antoine Arnauld departed to his rest, after a short illness and with little suffering, on the 8th of August, 1694, in the 83rd year of his age. He died at Brussels, in an obscure and humble dwelling in the faubourg, and was buried in the church of St. Catherine, under the steps of the altar. The place of his sepulture was kept mysteriously secret for many years, through apprehension, it is said, of the unrelenting vengeance of those who had been his foes through life. His heart, embalmed and encased in silver, was sent to the abbey of Port Royal, and presented to the community, in a few touching words, by M. Ruth d’Ans, Canon of St. Gudule at Brussels.

Two of the most distinguished members of the sacred College, Cardinals D’Aguirre and Casanate, harangued the Consistory in eloquent praise of the illustrious deceased. The former said of him, that although M. Arnauld had never attained any more elevated title or dignity in the Church than that of priest, he did not hesitate to rank him higher than any living prelate, and to place him on a level with the most celebrated and most saintly ecclesiastics of antiquity; that he had done no less honour to Paris and to France than Clement, Alexander, and Origen had done to Egypt, St. Jerome to Dalmatia, Claudian Mamertus to Dauphiné, Tertullian, before his perversion, to Carthage; that he deserved, more truly than St. Claudian, the eulogy passed upon the latter by Sidonius Apollinaris, that he was the most accom­plished of all philosophers, and the most learned of all the learned. D’Aguirre also observed that the place which he occupied in the College of Cardinals had been at first designed by Pope Innocent for M. Arnauld;—a place which he would have filled with far greater merit and success than himself.

On the other hand we need not be surprised, considering the position which Arnauld had filled as an energetic party leader during a long period of unexampled excitement, to find that his removal from the world was looked upon in some quarters as a subject of thankfulness and satisfaction. His friends were much pained by a passage in a letter written on the occasion by De Rancé, Abbot of La Trappe, to M. Nicaise, a canon of Dijon. “So M. Arnauld,” he said, “ is dead at last. His career having been prolonged to the furthest extreme, its termination was inevitable. Let people say what they will, many questions must now be brought to a conclusion; his learning and authority were of infinite importance to the Party. Blessed are they who know no party save that of Jesus Christ! ”. De Rancé, on being upbraided for these disparaging expressions, willingly gave testimony to Arnauld’s extraordinary gifts and virtues, but avoided, nevertheless, anything which could be taken in the sense of a retractation. It is on record, also, that Bossuet, whose admiration of Arnauld was unbounded, frequently lamented that he should have applied his vast talents to such an unworthy task as that of persuading the world that the doctrine of Jansenius had not, after all, been condemned.

Archbishop De Harlai died in August, 1695, at the age of seventy. This prelate, though far from irreproachable as to his private conduct, had at least the merit of preventing, by his tact and skilful management, any fresh ebullition of the contending passions which had been tranquillized by the “Peace of Clement IX.” It was very generally expected that Bossuet would be appointed to succeed him; but Louis XIV was fastidious upon the point of aristocratic birth, and the lineage of the Bishop of Meaux was not sufficiently distinguished to entitle him to such an exalted dignity. The royal choice fell I upon Louis Antoine de Noailles, Bishop of Châlons, brother of the Duc de Noailles; a man who in most respects was a perfect contrast to his predecessor. His moral character was stainless, his piety unquestionable, his pastoral zeal universally acknow­ledged; but he was of an irresolute temper, and deficient in intellectual depth and solidity of judgment. He laboured, consequently, under great disadvantages as an administrator. He was already an object of suspicion to the Jesuits, and this pre­judice was augmented by the fact that he had been selected for the See of Paris without their recommendation or concurrence. He showed at first a disposition to conciliate their confidence, and studied to preserve neutrality in all matters of party controversy. It was not long, however, before he was driven from this position.

Father Gerberon, a noted Jansenist, published, in 1695, a posthumous treatise by the Abbé de Barcos, nephew of the celebrated St. Cyran, entitled ‘L’Exposition de la Foi Catholique touchant la Grace et la Predestination,’ which was reported to renew the condemned necessitarian errors. A loud clamour arose instantly; the work was denounced to the Chancellor, and all the copies at Paris were seized; the Archbishop was appealed to, and found himself compelled to notice the affair judicially. On the 20th of August, 1696, he issued a “Pastoral Instruction” in condemnation of Gerberon’s publication. This document consisted of two parts. In the first the prelate reviewed the notorious facts of the history of Jansenism; lamented that a system which had been branded as heretical by so many Papal constitutions, and by the whole episcopate of France, should again be attempting to raise its head; and pointed out that the lately published brochure was all the more dangerous, inasmuch as, being written in the vulgar tongue, it was addressed to the ignorant as well as the learned. He proceeded to declare that the ' Exposition de la Foi ’ comprised all the poison of the Five Propositions; that the doctrine therein propounded was “false, rash, scandalous, derogatory to the goodness of God, and heretical”; and that “the author was specially to be censured, in that not only he had taught as matter of faith what is not of faith, but also tenets contrary to the Faith, and abhorred by the whole Catholic Church.” The second part of the Instruction sets forth the genuine doctrine of the Church Catholic as to grace and election; which, based on the authority of the great Augustine, is shown to be as far removed from Molinism as from the exaggerations and misrepresentations of Jansenius. In conclusion, the Archbishop announced that, “while he would firmly oppose those who might cither speak or write, directly or indirectly, in contravention of the decisions of the Popes, at the same time he would not suffer persons as devoid of authority as they were of charity to set themselves up as judges of the belief of their brethren, and to injure their reputation by groundless suspicions.”

The Abbé Ledieu, in his Journal, mentions a fact of much significance and interest, namely that the dogmatic portion of this manifesto was penned by Bossuet, at the request of his Metropolitan, with whom he was on terms of cordial confidence. This is a sufficient guarante that it faithfully represents the mind and teaching of the “ Doctor of Grace.” No divine, probably, was ever better qualified than Bossuet to speak with authority upon that question.

The step taken by the Archbishop was prompted by the best motives; but the result was, as it commonly happens in like circumstances, that the attempt to mete out praise and blame in equal measure to two hostile parties satisfied neither, and drew upon him no small amount of ill-will from both. The Jansenists were offended by the sweeping terms which he had used in speaking of the. condemnation of the doctrine of Jansenius, which most of them maintained to be untouched by the Pontifical censures; while the Jesuits resented still more deeply the concluding paragraph of the Instruction, which they felt to be aimed against themselves. The Archbishop, they said, could not help deciding in their favour as a matter of official form, inasmuch as they were manifestly supported by the verdict of the Apostolic See ; but it was clear that in his heart he shared the convictions of the Jansenists, even at the very moment when he verbally condemned them.

The impression which prevailed that the new Archbishop sympathised to a considerable extent with the theology of Port Royal was not without foundation. A few years previously, while Bishop of Châlons, he had been induced to give his sanction to the ‘Reflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament’ by Father Quesnel of the Oratory;—a work which was destined to engender a no less violent tempest in the Church than even the redoubtable ‘Augustinus’ itself. Pasquier Quesnel was an ecclesiastic of superior talent, learning, and piety, but withal a vehement propagandist of the Jansenistic system of divinity. He had quitted the Oratory in 1684, in consequence of his repugnance to subscribe a formulary against Jansenism and other errors, which that Society had imposed as a test upon its members. Soon afterwards he retired to Holland, where he joined Antoine Arnauld; he lived for many years in inti­mate companionship with that illustrious exile, and ministered to him in his last moments. After his death, Quesnel was recognised by common consent as the leader of the party;— “the Elisha,” as Cretineau-Joly expresses it, “of the Jansenist Elijah and if indefatigable energy and industry are sufficient qualifications for such a post, no party was ever more worthily governed. The work in question was, in its original shape, a modest duodecimo volume, consisting of short practical notes on the Gospels, and designed chiefly for the use of the younger brethren of the Oratory. It appeared in 1671, with the approbation of the excellent Felix Vialart, Bishop of Châlons, who recommended it to the clergy and laity of his diocese. Being well received, it was gradually enlarged by the author, and when reprinted in 1693, it filled four octavo volumes. It was this latter edition that bore the endorsement of De Noailles, who had succeeded Vialart in the see of Châlons. The bishop described it in highly laudatory terms, as containing the substance of the best Patristic commentaries on the New Testament, as giving a clear explanation of many difficulties, as treating the most sublime truths of religion with a power and sweetness which could not fail to touch the hardest heart, and in short, as abounding with wholesome nourishment and edification for the flock of Christ. Soon after De Noailles was translated to Paris, application was made to him to repeat his approval of the work for his new diocese; but it would seem that in the interval unfavourable comments had been passed upon it in various quarters, and that it was already stigmatized as being more or less deeply imbued with Jansenistic heterodoxy. Under these circumstances, the Archbishop declined to authorize it afresh until it should have undergone a searching revision; and he submitted it to Bossuet and other theologians for this purpose. A new edition was in contemplation; and it was hoped that with the help of certain corrections and omissions it might be brought into full accordance with the standard of Catholic teaching. But the Archbishop’s compliance in the first instance had placed him in a false position. The Ordonnance of 1696, taken in connexion with his antecedents, offered a tempting opportunity of twitting a great dignitary with inconsistency and tergiversation; and it was not neglected.

While the work of Quesnel was under examination, an anonymous pamphlet made its appearance with the title of ‘Problème ecclesiastique, propose a M. l’Abbé Boileau de l’archeveché; a qui l’on doit croire, de M. Louis Antoine de Noailles, Evêque de Châlons en 1695, ou de M. L. A. de Noailles, Archevêque de Paris en 1696. It was an argumentum ad hominem; and it must be confessed that the difficulty which it propounded was in no small degree embarrassing. The doctrine of the ‘ Reflexions morales,’ the writer urged, was identical with that of the ‘Exposition de la Foi.’ How then could the same prelate approve the former and condemn the latter without falling into palpable self-contradiction? He illustrated this by comparing together various passages from the works in question, and showed that, although differing in form, the sentiments they conveyed were in substance precisely the same. He offered no opinion as to their soundness or unsoundness, but affected entire impartiality; simply requesting to be informed which of the two episcopal utterances was to be received and obeyed; that of Châlons, which sanctioned the views thus advocated, or that of Paris, which proscribed them?

We learn from D’Aguesseau that the Jesuits were at first credited with the authorship of this production; but, as it was afterwards discovered, erroneously. It was written in reality by an “outrageous Jansenist,” Dom Thierri de Viaixne, a Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Vanne, who was subsequently imprisoned in the Bastille by the king’s orders. The archbishop felt it necessary to vindicate his honour; and, after consulting the king, he brought the affair before the Parliament of Paris. D’Aguesseau, at that time Avocat-Général, eloquently denounced the ‘ Problème ’ as a defamatory libel, the very title of which was an insult. It was not known, he said, who were the authors of this mystery of iniquity; but it was certain that a prelate of such exemplary and unblemished life could have no other enemies than these of the Church herself. Upon his demand, the court sentenced the pamphlet to be publicly torn and burned by the “executeur de haute justice” in the parvise of Notre Dame; which was done accordingly on the 29th of January, 1699. It was afterwards suppressed by a decree of the Holy Office at Rome.

The Archbishop, however, was anxious that his opponent should be repulsed by force of argument as well as by the iron hand of judicial authority. He appealed to Bossuet to write in refutation of the Problème. That prelate consented, and drew up an ‘Avertissement sur lo livre des Reflexions morales,’ which was designed as a sort of preface to the forthcoming edition of Quesnel’s work. This ‘Avertissement’ is an ingenious attempt to excuse and justify the Reflexions, by showing that even the author’s strongest statements did not amount to any of the heretical dogmas of Jansenius, and that his views on the subject of Grace harmonized with those of the Thomist school, which had ever been held admissible in the Church. Bossuet placed the result of his labours at the archbishop’s disposal, only stipulating that, if it were published, his name should not appear. But, for some reason which has never been clearly explained, De Noailles thought proper to abstain from making use of the ‘Avertissement’ for the purpose contem­plated by the author. Instead of printing it entire, he contented himself with causing certain parts of it to be embodied in a series of letters which were published anonymously by way of reply to the Problème. Bossuet complained of this proceeding, declaring that the most important and conclusive portion of his argument had been suppressed. Cardinal Bausset asserts that Bossuet made it a condition of his assistance that numerous passages of the work should be expunged, and others materially altered; that the friends of Quesnel refused to acquiesce in this demand, and that thereupon the negotiation fell to the ground. De Noailles, whose appre­hensions were excited by the objections urged by Bossuet, declined to grant any fresh approval of the ‘Reflexions,’ and accordingly the edition of 1699 appeared without the sanction of his name as Archbishop of Paris, although that which he had formerly given as Bishop of Châlons was carefully reprinted. Bossuet’s ‘Avertissement’ was laid aside among his papers, and was afterwards published surreptitiously in Holland. It now finds a place in the collection of his works.

It is not improbable that the archbishop’s conduct in this matter was determined by an intimation from the king, that he would do well to withhold any further direct token of favour from an individual in the suspicious predicament of Father Quesnel. The rooted antipathy borne by Louis to the Jansenists was notorious the recent renewal of agitation had doubtless embittered his mind; and such feelings of alarm and resentment would be encouraged by his Jesuit confessor. Some expression of them was possibly conveyed to De Noailles. He could not avoid acting in accordance with it, and indeed probably welcomed it with satisfaction, as furnishing him with the means of escaping from a somewhat perplexing difficulty. But it was of no advantage to him whatever as regards the character for impartiality which he desired to enjoy with the two great antagonist parties in Church and State. From that time forward De Noailles was unalterably identified in the eyes of the nation with the Jansenistic faction. It was to no purpose that he and his friends on all occasions deprecated and repelled the insinuation. It clung to him for the rest of his days; and the conviction was deepened by the unfortunate mixture of obstinacy and weak concession which he displayed in the stormy scenes of his subsequent career.

 

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Controversy on Quietism