The Anti-Christian Conjuration (5)
CHAPTER XIXUNDER THE SECOND EMPIRE
The revolutionary movement of 1848 was premature. The reaction that it brought about in public opinion, in France and in the various countries of Europe, made Freemasonry understand that, maintaining the Republic here meant setting back its work in other States. She therefore resolved to replace the Republic with a dictatorship, and chose, to be its holder, a man linked to her by terrible oaths, which she would later take care to remind her of: the carbonaro Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (1 ). We can see in the work of MM. Deschamps and Claudio Jannet (volume II, pages 315 to 324), how this dictatorship was prepared and sponsored by international Masonry, and particularly by one of its great leaders, Lord Pal-
1. Napoleon III had entered France Masonry at the age of 23. His brother had become a carbonaro like him and with him. The sect immediately set about suggesting it. She showed him the pure halo of glory reserved for the prince who would impose justice everywhere and restore people to themselves. Hence the policy of the nationalists.
merston (1), and how the sect which had taken so much care to restrict the power of Louis XVIII and Charles X, lent itself to the establishment of a true autocracy (2). The occult Power has continued to act like this. When he finds himself disconcerted by events, what he does is to raise up a so-called savior or to give his support to the one pushed by the circumstances of the moment. Because of its origins, it is condemned to save nothing at all. On the contrary, it continues to weaken the country materially and morally. It's that! who arrived with 1. Palmerston happened to be both a minister in England -and a grand master in universal masonry. There are those who suppose that he had a personal policy and that he imposed it on Masonry. This conception is completely erroneous. There is no personal action in matters of Freemasonry. All Masonic education has no other aim than to annihilate characters, to shape minds, and the degrees of initiation mark the progress made by the Mason in self-denial and in passive obedience. 2. We have spoken of the convention held in Strasbourg in 1847. In 1852 another convention of the heads of European secret societies was held in Paris. There the dictatorship, under the name of empire, in the person of Louis-Napoleon and the Italian revolution ended. Mazzini, then under the influence of a death sentence pronounced against him in France, only wanted to go there on a safe-conduct signed by Louis-Napoleon himself. Only three members of the great convent persisted with him in demanding the reestablishment of a democratic republic. But the vast majority thought that a dictatorship would do better for the Revolution and the empire was decreed. On October 15, 1852, ten months after the coup d'état of December 2 and six weeks before the proclamation of the empire, the Council of the Grand Master of the Grand Orient voted an address to Louis-Napoleon, ending thus: " Freemasonry owes you a salute; .don't stop in the middle of such a great career; ensure the happiness of all by placing the imperial crown on your noble brow; accept our homage and allow us to make the cry of our hearts heard: Long live the Emperor! » Napoleon I and Napoleon III, both left France, the plague of bleeding invasion in the side and as exhausted in soul as in body. However, by ascending the throne, Napoleon III had understood, or at least seemed to understand, where France's salvation lay, and what the interests of his dynasty required. He had said beautiful and good words, given satisfaction to the clergy, but none of those which could have achieved the conquests of the Revolution on the Church. Thus, having asked Pius IX to come and consecrate him, the Pope replied: “I am willing, but on the condition that the organic articles will be abrogated. » Napoleon preferred to renounce the coronation. In the work which he had previously published under the title: Idées napoléoniennes, Louis-Napoléon had laid bare the depths of his thoughts. “Great men have this in common with divinity, that they never die whole; their spirit survived them, and the Napoleonic idea sprang from the tomb of Saint Helena, just as the morality of the Gospel rose triumphant despite the torture of Calvary..., Napoleon, arriving on the stage of the world , saw that his role was to be the executor of the Revolution... He took root in France and introduced throughout Europe the main benefits of the great crisis of 89... The emperor must be considered as the Messiah of new ideas (1). » New ideas, new Gospel, new Messiah,
1. Works of Napoleon III, t. I. See pages 7, 28, 65, 102 and 125. Five years ago, the heir to the Napoleons said in a manifesto: “You know my ideas. I think it would be useful today to clarify them for my friends. Remember that you are the defenders of the Revolution of 1789. Napoleon, according to his own expression, “soiled the Revolution”. He strongly maintained its principles.”
no words can better characterize what the Revolution wants to introduce into the world and what Napoleon III, after Napoleon I, made himself the servant of. It was more concealed but as determined as his cousin, who, in the Senate, on February 25, 1862, endorsed these words of Mr. Thiers in 1845: “Listen to my feelings. I am of the party of the Revolution, both in France and in Europe. I hope that the government of the Revolution remains in the hands of moderate men; but when this government passes into the hands of ardent men, even the radicals, I will not abandon my cause for that; I will always be of the party of the Revolution. » The tradition continues. On the occasion of the centenary of the Civil Code, Prince Victor-Napoléon wrote a letter to Mr. Albert Vandal in which he said: “We are going to celebrate the centenary of the Code which summarized the social work of the French Revolution in its fundamental data, the emancipation of people and goods... The men of 1789 had proclaimed the principles of the new social order. He took hold of these principles; he gave them a clear and precise form; he made it the legislative monument that Europe later hailed as the “Napoleon Code”. The Napoleonic Code established the doctrines of 1789 in France. It even carried them well beyond our borders. » Napoleon I will always have, as we see, heirs of his thoughts and his work. Like Napoleon III, like Prince Jerome, Prince Victor received it as a deposit, he is its faithful guardian. From the first day, Napoleon III showed that he was indeed the man of the Revolution, believing, giving himself the mission "to take root in France and introduce it throughout Europe." . Barely had the French troops opened the gates of Rome to Pius IX when he wrote to Edgar Ney: “I summarize the reestablishment of the Pope's temporal power as follows: general amnesty, secularization of the administration, Napoleonic code and liberal government ". General amnesty was a new incentive given to his F.*, the Carbonari; secularization of the administration was secularization with no limits other than the absolute annihilation of ecclesiastical power (1); Napoleon's code meant: destruction of ancient property and abolition of legislation over which the name and authority of God presided; Liberal government, Napoleon did not want it for himself, and he claimed to impose it on the Pope. Masonry wanted more than all this. The attack on Orsini reminded the emperor of this, and he had to be faithful to his oaths. He therefore set about carrying out what the first Republic, then the first emperor, had attempted: the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes. We know this lamentable story: the emperor, caught between the obvious interests of France and his dynasty, and his desire to become, after his uncle, the executor of the Revolution, advanced, retreated, played double game, one official through its ministers and ambassadors, the other through an occult diplomacy including
1. According to the statements then established by Mr. Fr.- de Corcelles, there was in the administration of the Papal States, 6,836 secular officials against 289 ecclesiastics, including 179 prison chaplains and those attached to the Vicariate of Rome. Army officers were not included in this comparative table.
the agents were taken from secret societies (1). The goal is reached. For forty years, Italy has been one, temporal power has existed only in the state of memory or shadow. We do not prejudge anything about the designs of Providence. We do not know if, when and how it will restore to the sovereign Pontificate its ordinary and necessary means of action in the regular order of things; but the sect is sure that it is over. And if she wants a change to what she has done, it is the transformation of Italy's current regime into a republic. Uniting with the sister republic of France, with the Spanish and Portuguese republics which will be on the day and at the hour that masonry wishes, with still others no doubt, it will contribute to forming the core of the universal Republic, or of Jewry ruling the world in the open from one end of the universe to the other. The entire foreign policy of Napoleon III was inspired and directed by the desire to liberate Italy
1 In September 1896, Le Correspondant published under the title: 'A friend of Napoleon III, Count Arèse, unpublished documents on the very intimate relations which existed during the second empire between the crowned Carbonari and the Italian sectarian. Among these documents there is a letter which reveals the hypocrisy he used in the Roman question. While his ministers were making declarations to reassure French Catholics, he had conversations with Count Arese which the latter summarized as follows in a letter addressed to Count Pasolini: “Put the Pope to sleep; let us be convinced that you will not attack it and I ask no better than to leave (to withdraw the troops from Rome). Afterwards, you can do what you want. » This sentence attributed to the emperor by his friend Arese, does it not bring to mind the words of Mgr Pie: “Wash your hands, O Pilate!”
and to fulfill his oath of carbonaro. He had fought the war of 1859 for her, without being able to fully carry out his program. He saw in the Austro-Prussian conflict the means to liberate the Veneto, and this was the whole secret of his collaboration with Bismarck's cynical projects. “The emperor helped him,” said M. Emile Olivier, “not out of weakness or capture, but knowingly. He, of his free will, contributed to his fortune as much as to that of Cavour. He saw in him the providential instrument by which the emancipation of Italy would be achieved.” When the news arrived in Paris on July 3, 1866, of the victory won at Sadowa by the Prussians over the Austrian army, a victory which dealt such a severe blow to French power, the ministers insisted on mobilizing the army, The emperor initially subscribed to their wishes: but Prince Napoleon intervened on July 14 and gave the emperor a note in which it was said: “For those who dream for the emperor the role of reaction and European clericalism to achieve victory by force, they must push for an alliance with Austria and a war against Prussia. But those who see in Napoleon III, not the moderator of the Revolution, but its enlightened leader, would be very worried the day he entered into a policy which would be the overthrow of the true greatness and glory of Napoleon III. » Napoleon III surrendered to his cousin's views (1).
1. The Journal de Bruxelles reported the words spoken at this time by Prince Jérôme at a dinner at M. de Girardin's: “The hour has come when the flag of the Revolution, that of the Empire, must be widely displayed. » What is the program of this Revolution? » It is first of all the struggle engaged against Catholicism, struggle that must be continued and brought to an end; it is the constitution of large national units, on the remains of the factitious States and the treaties which founded these States; it is triumphant democracy, having as its foundation universal suffrage, but which needs, for a century, to be directed by the strong hands of the Caesars; it is Imperial France at the top of this European situation; it is war, a long war, as the instrument of this policy. » Here is the program and the flag. » Now, the first obstacle to overcome is Austria. Austria is the most powerful support of Catholic influence in the world, it represents the federative form opposed to the principle of unitary nationalities: it wants to make the institutions opposed to democracy triumph in Vienna, Pesth and Frankfurt; it is the last den of Catholicism and feudalism; it must therefore be knocked down and crushed. » The work was started in 1859, it must be completed today. » Imperial France must therefore remain the enemy of Austria; she must be the friend and support of Prussia, the homeland of the great Luther, and which attacks Austria with its ideas and with its weapons; it must support Italy, which is the current center of the Revolution in the world, while waiting for France to become it, and which has the mission of overthrowing Catholicism in Rome, just as Prussia has the mission of destroying it in Vienna . "We must be the allies of Prussia and Italy, and our armies will be engaged in the fight within two months."
The war of 1870 also had the same end in the designs of the sect; The Hamburg Gazette gave this explanation: “On the battlefields of the Rhine, we not only waged war against France; we also fought Rome which keeps the world enslaved; we shot the Catholic clergy (1). Breaking the papal throne, promoting the triumph of Protestantism in Europe, was certainly a great deal; it was not enough to satisfy the
1. Excerpts cited in Prussian Politics, by an anonymous German, pages 133-143.
demands of the sect. Napoleon III asked Mr. Rouland, Minister of Public Education and Religious Affairs, to draw up for his use a campaign plan against the Church of France. This plan, found in the emperor's drawers in 1870, was delivered to him in April 1860. It bears this significant title: Memoir on the policy to follow with regard to the Church. It begins by asking if he It is necessary to “suddenly change the system: expel religious congregations, modify the law on education, rigorously apply the organic articles (1). " No. “You have to arrive little by little and quietly.” With this word, who will not recognize the wisdom of the sect which gave the Gambettas and the Ferrys this slogan: “slowly but surely”? How blind are those who, in this continuity of persevering efforts for a century and more, still refuse to see the hand of a power still living and active, and who, in the current hostilities, find no solution. other cause than reprisals to be taken against those who, without conspiring against the republican regime, have only relative admiration for the Masonic republic (2). The Memorandum points out as a danger “the belief of the episcopate and the clergy in the infallibility of the Pope”; “the development of the conferences of Saint-Vincent de Paul and the societies of Saint-François Régis”, “the progress of religious congregations dedicated to popular education. » “It is impossible for the secular element,” says Mr. Rouland on this subject, “to fight on this ground against religious teaching which, in reality or in appearance,
1. This is the course that was followed until the separation of the Church and the State. Which clearly shows that it is still the same occult power that directed our rulers, yesterday as today. 2. See among others Democracy, Christian, March 1900.
will always present to families many more guarantees of morality and devotion. » And a little further: “We would be greatly weakened from the point of view of universal suffrage, if all primary information passed into the hands of the congregations. » How eloquent are these two sentences! Two new memoirs following the first were written by Mr. Jean Vallon, former editor of Y Etendard who moved after the council to the camp of the “old Catholics” of Switzerland (1). The plan was immediately put into action. First the society of Saint-Vincent de Paul. — The Minister of the Interior warned the prefects of his “dark activities”, and wanted to submit the central council, the provincial councils and the local conferences to the authorization of the government. Society preferred death to degradation and fell as it should fall. God later rewarded her by resurrecting her. Then the law of 1850 on freedom of education. — Rouland says, in his Memoir, that it is a "great evil", but that wanting to suppress it would raise "an immense, fierce struggle", words which show that by persecuting religion, all these men of Masonic government know that they go against public sentiment. Unable to suppress freedom of education, the government of
1. The originals of these three pieces are in the hands of Mr. Léon Pages, rue du Bac, 110, Paris. They were published in full in La Croix published in Brussels from February 6, 1874 to January 4, 1878. Mr. Rouland's memoir can be found in the issue of June 2, 1876; and those of Mr. Jean Vallon, in n03 of June 30, 1876 and July 28, same army. These come from the library of Mrs. Hortense Cornu, née Lacroix, childhood friend of Napoleon III and his confidante in many projects.
the emperor sneakily attacked him with administrative decrees. The congregations. — Rouland gave the advice to no longer tolerate any new establishment for religious people, to be severe for congregations of women, and to only approve with difficulty the donations and legacies that would be made to one or the other. The secular clergy. —, We are trying to sow discord in the field of the Church, by opposing the interests of the lower clergy to those of the episcopate. “Nothing would be more clever and more just at the same time,” said M. Rouland, “than to increase the salary of the lower clergy. » But, at the same time, he asks that we arouse “an anti-religious reaction which would police the faults of the clergy and form around them a circle of resistance and opposition which would compress them. » As for the bishops, Mr. Rouland had dictated this way of doing things: “Resolutely choose as bishops pious, honorable men (we do not say: educated and firm in character), but known for their sincere attachment to the emperor and the institutions of France..., without the Nuncio having the slightest glance. » In execution, we cease to invite every five years, as was done, the archbishops and bishops to confidentially designate the ecclesiastics whom they believe most worthy of being promoted to the episcopate. In addition, bishops are prohibited from meeting. Seven archbishops and bishops having believed they could sign, in Le Monde, a collective response on the need to consider the interests of the Church in the elections, Rouland wrote to them that, by doing so, they held a kind of private council, without regard to organic articles, and pursues them before the Council of State. The thoughts of the emperor and his entourage went even further. There came a time when they thought of a break with Rome. A prelate, who was then considered to be devoted to the dynasty, Mgr Thibault, bishop of Montpellier, was sent to Paris. The minister of religion began by teasing the poor bishop and reproaching him for the hostility of Pie, Gerbet, Salinis, Plantier and Dupanloup against the policy of the French government. Then Napoleon received him in a private audience. The sovereign explained that it was a matter of saving the Church of France and putting a barrier against the progress of irreligion.' The prelate promised to devote himself to the work expected of him and made a commitment to revive “the traditions and doctrines of Bossuet. » But Mgr Thibault had barely left the Tuileries when his conscience reproached him for the criminal acquiescence he had just given to what was nothing less than a schism project. Immediately, he ordered the coachman to take him to the archbishop of Paris. It was then Cardinal Morlot who occupied the seat of Saint Denis. “, Eminence, began Mgr Thibault, I am very guilty. I have just accepted from the Emperor the mission of promoting the rupture of the Church of France with the Holy See..." These last words had just expired on the lips of the prelate, when, suddenly, Mgr Morlot saw his interlocutor turns pale and collapses on the ground. Mgr Thibault was dead. At the same time as efforts were being made to demean the Church, Freemasonry was openly encouraged. It is officially recognized by the Minister of the Interior, Duke of Persigny; and Prince Murât, inaugurating his functions as Grand Master, said loudly: “The future of masonry is no longer doubtful. The new era will be prosperous for him; We are resuming our work under happy auspices. The time has come when masonry must show what it is, what it wants, what it can. » Comes the Syllabus which catalogs contemporary errors. The minister of religion allows himself to judge, and he transmits his sentence to the bishops. He wrote to them that “the Syllabus is contrary to the principles on which the constitution of the Empire is based. » Consequently, he forbids them from publishing it. Rouland said from the platform, and people shouted even in the villages, that the Syllabus “comes to block the path to modern civilization”. To the civilization of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Revolution, certainly. We let it be said. It is proclaimed that “the Church will modify its doctrine or the Church will perish”; it is Le Siècle which is responsible for pronouncing this ultimatum. The Church, remaining itself, still lives, but the Empire has foundered. There is no point in prolonging this review and talking about the league of education, responsible for preparing the neutral school, girls' colleges, the direction printed in the press, the composition of popular libraries, the multiplication of cabarets and bad places, all means of tearing the soul of the people from the empire of religion. All this prepares the Commune, which will formulate its first law as follows: Article 1. The Church is separated from the State. Article 2. The religious budget is abolished. Article 3. Property belonging to religious congregations, movable and immovable, is declared a national priority. Article 4. An investigation will be made immediately on these properties for; recognize their value and make them available to the nation. As punishment, came the shootings. This is the program carried out today by a government which has the appearance of a regular government. The sect also uses regular and irregular governments, legitimate ones and revolutionaries to pursue its goals. The rapid review of the events that we have just made, from the Concordat to the National Assembly of 1871, must convince all our readers.
CHAPTER XX
UNDER THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
No reaction was ever stronger and came more obviously from the bowels of the nation than that of 1871. Gambetta, who had power in his hands, did the possible and the impossible, first of all to delay the elections , then to make them favorable. Here are some very significant dispatches: GAMBETTA TO JULES FAVRE. — I persist more than ever in considering the general elections as disastrous to the Republic. I refuse to accept them, to have them carried out. TOURS DELEGATION IN PARIS. — The voters would probably be reactionary. This is fraught with peril. GAMBETTA TO PREFECT OF LA ROCHELLE. — We need a republican assembly. Do whatever the elections require. CHALLEMEL-LACOUR (Rhone). — Assembly will be bad, if appointed without republican pressure, etc., etc. Despite this revolutionary pressure, the national Assembly was Catholic and monarchist. We know what she did. \ Never more cruel disappointment followed so great a hope. The country saw the fall without regret, on September 4, 1870, of a regime which, for the third time, had compromised its existence. But, in the elections of February 8, 1871, he showed his little confidence in the Republic, which had been proclaimed without him. He sent to Bordeaux, to compose the National Assembly, a considerable majority of men known for their Catholic and royalist sentiments. From a political point of view, the Assembly included 400 royalists - legitimists and Orleanists approximately equal in number - 20 Bonapartists and 200 republicans of various shades (1). The first act of the National Assembly was to call for prayers in all churches "to beseech God to appease our civil discords and put an end to our evils." » Only three deputies opposed this motion. Then she declared of public utility "the construction of a church on the hill of Montmartre, in accordance with the request made by the Archbishop of Paris", that is to say to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart as ex- voto of repentance, prayer and hope. She wanted to raise up the humiliated and distraught country, and it was from God that she asked the means, obeying in this her mandate as well as her own feelings. The army needs to be rebuilt. The law which reorganizes it stipulates that, every Sunday and every holiday, sufficient time will be given to soldiers to fulfil their religious duties. The chaplains are rotated, no longer attached to the regiments, but, what is better, to the garrisons and camps.
1. Hanotaux, Hist. of contemporary France, l, 384
After the army, intelligence. The Superior Council of Public Instruction is reformed. The Church receives its place there in the person of the bishops. Soon after, higher education was declared free, and Catholic Universities were formed. The administrative commissions of charitable establishments: hospices, hospitals, charitable offices, are reorganized; the priest is called to sit there alongside the mayor. The freedom of good is no longer hindered. Not only society; of Saint-Vincent de Paul is reconstituted, but circles of workers are founded in the cities, patronages multiply in the countryside, and religious instruction prepares Christian generations. How could this beautiful momentum be stopped and then turned in the opposite direction? Many members of the National Assembly were little accustomed to the intrigues of parliamentarism. They allowed themselves to be suggested. Many also had their minds full of the half-truths of liberal Catholicism, often more fatal, according to Pius IX, than the obvious errors. Mr. Thiers who, in his youth, had made an oath of hatred to royalty on the crucifix (1), and who, in his old age, had
1. In 1849, Michel de Bourges recalled the fact in the 15th office of the National Assembly : “We swear, Mr. Thiers and I, HATE THE MONARCHY, with this rather piquant circumstance: Mr. Thiers held the crucifix when I took the oath, and I held the same crucifix when Mr. Thiers sworn hatred to the monarchy. » It was in a vendita of Carbonari, provided that the police did not intervene; and, if she intervened, it was a gathering of friends to celebrate a laureate. La Provence, a newspaper from Aix, recalled these facts at length in its issue of December 1, 1872, when Mr. Thiers was President of the Republic and carefully monitored everything that was written about it. No denial came. Mr. Dupin elder explained how the revolution of 1830 was so sudden and so prompt and also spoke of this oath. "When, he said, carbonarism was established in France, following forms that men, at that time peers of France and public officials went to find in Italy and Germany, its aim was the overthrow of all irresponsible and hereditary power. One cannot be affiliated with it without taking an oath of hatred to the Bourbons and to the Bourbons. royalty. In some places even, this oath was pronounced on a crucifix and on a dagger. There are deputies and peers who remember it.
the ambition to govern France and to reign, quickly seized the direction of the National Assembly, to lead it wherever he wanted. And he himself was not led by those who flattered his ambition, hoping to benefit from it? It was first necessary to ward off the danger of a monarchical restoration in the person of the Count of Chaimbord, this prince who was so Christian and so French and was at the same time so firm in his views of government than any other; there could be no hope of making him repeat the mistake committed by Louis XVIII. All the forces of the Revolution, all its various factions, starting from Catholic liberalism, worked, not by a positive agreement, but each on its own and in its own way, to remove him from the throne of his fathers. It was first the Commune, protected by Mr. Bismarck, managed, in its early days, by Mr. Thiers, and supported by Freemasonry. She wanted in one fell swoop and through violence, in the fashion of 93, what is done today in a safer and more lasting way through legality. On April 26, 1871, fifty-five lodges, more than ten thousand Freemasons (1), led by their dignitaries, visited this city, numerous
1. Ten to eleven thousand, estimates the Official Journal of the Coimmune. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 265
of their insignia, went in procession to the ramparts to plant their banners, they displayed sixty-two of them, and to the Town Hall to salute the revolutionary power (1). They had said to the Communards: “The Commune is the greatest revolution that the world has ever seen,” and the reason he gave was that it was “the new Temple of Solomon”, that is that is, the realization of the Judaic conception of social organization. The one of the members of the Commune who was responsible for responding to him said: “We know that the aim of your association is 1. Here is the appeal that the Grand Orient of France made to universal Freemasonry, in favor of the Commune . It was published in 1871. “Brothers in masonry, brother companions, we no longer have to take any other resolution than that of fighting and covering with our sacred aegis the side of law.” Let us arm ourselves for defense! » Let's save Paris, let's save France ! » Let's save humanity ! » Paris, at the head of human progress, in a supreme crisis, makes its appeal to universal Masonry » to the companions of all corporations, he cry: To me, the widow's children! This appeal will be heard by all Freemasons and companions: all will unite for common action, protesting against the civil war that the supporters are fomenting! of the Monarchy. " Everyone will understand that what their brothers in Paris want is for justice to move from theory to practice, for love for one another to become the general rule, and that the sword is drawn from its sheath, in Paris, "only for the self-defense of humanity." In the session of the Commune of May 17 these significant words were pronounced: "We have hostages among the priests. let’s hit those preferably.” They were executed on the 24th. In May 1908 a monument of the Fédérés was inaugurated at Père Lachaise bearing this inscription: TO THE DEAD OF THE COMMUNE May 21-28, 1871. the same as that of the Commune, the social regeneration. “In each of our revolutions, it is the same words which are heard, marking the same goal to be achieved, and towards which we continue to march, sometimes directly, sometimes by circuitous routes: the annihilation of Christian civilization for the benefit of an opposing civilization”. Raoul Rigault said it brutally to the hostages: “This has been going on for eighteen hundred years: it has to end. » With the Commune defeated, intrigue took the place of violence. Mr. Thiers immediately employed all the faculties of his mind to disintegrate the royalist majority of the Assembly3, to raise all kinds of mistrust between people who everything should bring together and unite. However, the people, seeing that men failed them, raised their voices to God. Pilgrimages to the sanctuaries of Saint-Michel and La Salette, Paray-Ie-Monial and Lourdes, multiplied; on all the roads resounded this cry of appeal to the Sacred Heart: “Save Rome and France!” » On May 24, 1873, the National Assembly regained possession of itself. But the country was no longer what it had been under the avenging hand of God. The revolutionary propaganda, taken up by Mr. Thiers and his agents, demonstrated its progress day by day in the by-elections; and, on the other hand, Catholics had forced Henry V to make declarations which they used to definitively rule him out (1).
1. “The Assembly,” says Mr. Samuel Denis, in his Contemporary History, t. IV, p. 647, was composed largely of liberals neither were, moreover, fervent and convinced Christians. " These words, in the historian's mind, are not under a blame for the liberalism of these Catholics, on the contrary: this fourth volume is entirely about justifying them and blaming the failure of the monarchy on Henry V.
"Under various pretexts", says M. Hanotaux in his "History of Contemporary France", the National Assembly dismissed "all this which is the essence of strong powers: legitimacy, heredity and authority: legitimacy, in the person of the Count of Chambord, heredity, through the seven-year term and finally authority, through the republic. Mr. the Duke of Broglie, father, had published, in 1861^ a book entitled: “Views on the government of France” which was reprinted in 1870. The first edition seized by the police, “was not, says Mr. Hanotaux , known only to a fairly restricted circle, but this circle was made up of the leading heads of the future national assembly. » The Duke de Broglie had written: “Let us cut the word: a republic which touches the monarchy, a constitutional monarchy which touches the republic and which only differs from it by the constitution and the permanence of the executive power, this is the only alternative remaining to the friends of freedom. » He spoke of constitutional monarchy with a religious accent: “Admirable mechanism which is not made by human hands, simple development of the conditions attached by Providence to the progress of civilized societies”. He also said: “The worst of revolutions is a restoration (1).
1. The ideas of Mr. de Broglie and his friends dated back a long way. Under the first republic there were also “monarchians.” » In 1792, a brochure dedicated to Louis XVI, under this title, was published in Paris, with this mention: “Can be found in the Netherlands, among all booksellers”. : “Monarchianism revealed, by M; Abd. VS***". The author denounces the Society of Friends of the Constitution. Double monarchical, society founded “under the auspices of a name reminiscent of ancient French chivalry, M. de Clermont-Tonnerre”. The members of this society, he says, spread throughout France, under the name of monarchians. “To call ourselves purely friends of the Constitution,” he observed, “would have been to get too close to its creators. We added the word monarchical, because a little of it is needed in the plan of these gentlemen. But as sticking to this formula did not seem entirely in agreement with the system of the dominant party, we added to the monarchical expression this one “decreed by the National Assembly” (p. 7). The author, after having taken one by one the “designative expressions of this society” and the reasons given to approve its goal, concludes: “They are nothing other than the deceptive grass intended to cover and hide the opening of the precipice” . The founder of “monarchism” had given this society as a symbol, a Scale in which we saw, on one side a Crown and on the other a Phrygian Cap, with this motto: Live free and faithful. “Thus the Crown, such as an Assembly of Factieux, after having debased it, degraded it, after having torn it from the august head of our sovereign, still wants to preserve it; thus the cap of liberty, this frightening signal of boundless license, this bloody plume of all scoundrels; both on the same line, in a perfect level, this is the emblem under which the Monarchians announce themselves and the fidelity they promise, provided that they are free first, this is the motto of these modern knights. » (p. 8.) "We must not believe that they saw in the system which they strive to support, the happiness of their the other . Mr. Count de Chambord wanted the merger as it should be the pure and simple recognition of the monarchical principle of which he was the representative and the loyal approach of the two branches of the royal family. The question of the flag had been the main obstacle to the merger since 1848. While for the Count of Chambord, the white flag, symbol of the dynastic right of the Bourbons, was the necessary emblem of the traditional and republican monarchy, the parliamentarians and the liberal-Realists claimed irreducibility to the fatherland; this is not the reason for their predilection for this form of government of which the English offer us the model; but each of them found in its whole, or in its parts, enough to satisfy its dominant passion. » (p. 10.) After this accusation, the author, in the chapters which follow, examines the system of the Monarchians: 1° in relation to the king and the monarchy (p. 12), 2° in relation to the people \pr 20), 3° in relation to the nobility (p. 26), 4° in relation to religion and its ministers (p. 34). Then he adds (p. 46): “They said that the king, convinced. of the purity of their views, approved their plans, and it is with the appearance of a mission on their part that they seek to deceive the good faith of honest people. » “What I am asking for is the French constitution in its primitive purity. They say that wanting to re-establish the French constitution is a chimera: that everything is destroyed, disorganized, and that the only course left to take in such an occurrence is to only think of put the king on the throne, giving him as advisors and supervisors two rooms such as they propose” (p. 52). “But finally,” asks the author, “what titles do they have to thus become mediators between the outraged nation and the outraged nation? What mission is theirs? What do they want us to compromise on? » The author ends by saying that “the continuation of this chimera would irrevocably prevent the re-establishment of the throne”. History teaches little, even the people most interested in listening to it.
“This book and that of Prevost-Paradol La France nouvelle had, says M. Hanotaux, on the future destinies of France, and on the provisions of the National Assembly, an immediate influence. » The “fusionists wanted a restoration of the monarchy in the conciliation of two principles, of two orders of government which had hitherto been contrary. The merger consisted on the one hand of having the princes of the House of Orléans recognize the hereditary rights of the Count of Chambord, and on the other hand of winning over the grandson of Charles X to the constitutional and parliamentary monarchy of 1830. It maintains the maintenance of the tricolor flag representative of the ideas of 1789 and 1830. “If I had admitted all the concessions which were requested of me, accepted all the conditions which were wanted to impose on me, said the Count of Chambord to the Marquis of Dreux-Brézé, I would perhaps have reconquered my crown, but I would not have remained six months on my throne. Before the end of this short space of time, I would have been relegated again to my exile by the Revolution of which I had become, upon my return to France, the prisoner” (1). For its part, Germany did not hide its strong opposition to traditional royalty. Baron de Plancy, former deputy of Aube, former squire of Prince Jérôme-Napoléon, reports in his Souvenirs, this interview: “Republican, like Prince Napoléon Tait, and, as after a dinner at the castle of Monza ( at his brother-in-law King Humbert), he expressed it energetically to the imperial prince of Germany, since Frederick III, the latter having asked his permission to speak freely, told him these words, "that I urge everyone to meditate”: “Monseigneur, in France, the Republic, in my opinion, has no reason to exist, and if you wash it, it is because
1. Donoso Cortès: “This school (the liberal school) does not dominate that when the company dissolves; the moment of his reign is that transitory and fleeting moment when the world does not know whether it will choose Barabbas or Jesus, and. remains suspended between a dogmatic affirmation and a supreme negation. Society then willingly lets itself be governed by a school which never dares to say: I affirm, which also does not dare to say: I deny, but which always responds: I distinguish. Everything in between will be crushed by the Revolution or rejected with disdain by reconstruction.”
we gave it to you (1)... for your misfortune! » “I have this story of imperial frankness from the Prince himself. » We finally know that in 1872, secret societies concerted throughout Europe to prevent the accession of Henry V. Fifteen days after his. died, on September 9, 1883, a number of Freemasons gathered at the lodge of the Hospitallers of Saint-Ouen, and Brother Cuénot drank "to the health of the death of Henri V." This toast was covered with applause and laughter. Immediately afterwards, the same Cuénot drank to the health of M. de Bismarck. On October 28, 1873, Mgr Dupanloup wrote to a Protestant minister, M. de Pressensé: “My
1. Bismarck's letters published by his son show, in fact, that the Republic was imposed on us by Prussia. When the Prince of Hohenlohe published his Mimai *es, we found in the journal of the prince's mission to Paris, from 1874 to 1885, new proofs of the support that Bismarck lent to the re-establishment of the republic. The instructions that Bismarck had given to the prince when entrusting him with the German embassy in Paris were: the interest of the empire requires that France remain in the state of division and weakness that the republic guarantees. He even wants this republic to be “as red as possible” and for anticlericals to become its masters. In the March 1906 issue of the Correspondent, Mgr Vallet, former chaplain of the Lycée Henri IV, gave the account of a conversation he had with Bismarck in 1879, during his stay in Gastein. Bismarck then contemplated ceasing the Kulturkampf and coming to an agreement with Rome. Speaking of the state of Europe, the wishes of Germany and the means of France, he said with his abruptness, to his interlocutor, who had just pronounced the name of the republic: "To make something, France needs a stable government, it needs a Monarchy. Me, if I were French, I would be Carlist. — Carlist, for the Count of Chambord? — Yes, yes, that's what I mean: legitimist. Prussian interest demanded that France be a republic. Mr. de Bismarck had said in his own words to Mr. d'Arnim: "It is certainly not our duty to make France stronger by consolidating its internal situation and establishing a monarchy in good standing." These words to d'Arnim complement those to Mgr Vallet. It is difficult to be more consistent with oneself than Bismarck was on this subject. He had another interest in opposing the restoration of legitimate power. He had the minister of Bavaria write to d'Arnim: “In no case can we march with the Legitimists, given that they will always be committed to the cause of the Pope. " In an interview with Prince Orloff, Russian ambassador in Paris, he also said: "France can rebuild an army if it wants, but there is one thing that we would not tolerate, which is that France became clerical.”
profound conviction, it is that the evils of France, if what is being prepared fails (1), will astonish the world; we will go from calamity to calamity to the bottom of the abyss. The curse of the future and of history will attach to those who, being able to establish the country on secular foundations in stability, freedom and honor, will have prevented this work and precipitated this unfortunate France, at the moment when she was making a last effort to save him, on the fatal slope where she has been dragged, for almost a century, from catastrophe to catastrophe. What sadness and what remorse for certain men then forced to say to themselves: “There was a day, an hour when we could have saved France, when our help would have decided everything, and we did not want to (2 )!” We can clearly see which characters Mgr Dupanloup had in mind in his reproaches, on whom he wanted to place the heavy responsibility of having blundered.
1. A parliamentary monarchy characterized by the tricolor flag. 2. Published by Mr. Marquis de Dreux-Brézé. Notes and Memories to be used in the history of the royalist party, 1872-1883, pages 167-168.
They refused his assistance to the salvation of France, and thus having deserved the curses of the future; but we doubt that history associates itself with the thought which inspired these words and agrees with the prelate on the people to whom it will attribute this responsibility. Whatever the case, the prophecy was to come true: we were, from that moment, precipitated down the fatal slope; and now we are driving towards the abyss. The National Assembly made excellent laws and allowed the founding of excellent institutions but soon the Republicans abolished these laws, destroyed these institutions, forged laws and established institutions to the contrary. The assembly rightly gave, in its esteem, first importance to religious and moral questions, then to social questions. She was wrong in placing the political question last, in the order of succession. In the work of plowing, the plow is much more important than the oxen that drag it; However, the plow is not placed before the horse. It was first necessary to restore power; it was not up to the assembly to do what it could not ensure either the defense or the duration. His only duty was to reconstitute authority, to let his august representative come and take his place at our head. It did not do so, because many of its members were more or less affected by modernism, that is to say imbued with modern ideas. “The essence of modernism,” says Mr. Charles Perrin, “is the pretension to eliminate God from social life. Man, according to the modern idea, being his own God and the sovereign master of the world, it is necessary to believe in society everything is done by him and by the sole authority of the law he carries. This is absolute modernism, giving the radical contradiction to the social order that the Church had founded, to this order according to which public life and private life were related to the same end, and where. everything was done directly in view of God, and under the supreme authority of the instituted power of God to govern the spiritual order. “There is a temperate modernism which does not openly wage war against God, and which, in a way, composes itself with him. Without denying it, or the? to fight, he measures, by placing him in common law, the place he can occupy among men. By this tactic, while maintaining the appearance of a certain respect, he places God under the domination and tutelage of the State. This temperate and circumspect modernism is liberalism of all degrees and nuances. » We can say with equal truth: it is Masonism, as we will see later. “Depending on the circumstances,” continues Mr. Charles Perrin, “the revolution inclines to one side or the other, but it always remains the same as to its fundamental claim: the secularization of social life to all its degrees and in all its forms. shapes. » What a strange illusion! cruel singular contradiction to flatter ourselves of restoring some stability to our time, while accepting, to any degree, in one way or another, however attenuated it may be, the idea of modernism (1) . » In the contemplation of his last years, M. Guizot, the man of 1830, had nevertheless made
1. Modernism in the Church, according to unpublished letters from Lamennais
this confession and addressed to those of his party this exhortation: “We believed ourselves to be the wise, the prudent, the politicians: we misunderstood not only the limits of our power, but the rights of the Power sovereign who governs the world and ourselves; we have not taken into account the eternal laws that God has made for us, and we have formally claimed to put in their place, and everywhere, our own laws... Let us hasten to get out of the ruts into which the revolutionary spirit has thrown us ; they would always lead us to the same abysses. » He was not listened to by those who came from him. Henry V had shown his firm resolution to settle all the political and social questions of the time, not according to modernism, but according to Christianity. He had thus formulated his sovereign thought: Bring God into society as master, so that he himself could reign as king (1). This statement shocked liberal Catholics; and for those who were not infected with modernism, or were only in small doses, they did not know what Freemasonry is and the role it has played for two centuries. This is the admission that M. de Marcère made loyally. This ignorance made them hesitant, unsure of what they should do, and faced with these hesitations, the Revolution became emboldened and ended up taking the place.
1. To those who criticized him for having made his government allied with the Church, Garcia Moreno responded with Henry V: “This country is incontestably the kingdom of God; it belongs to him in his own right and he has done nothing other than entrust it to my care. I must therefore make every effort possible so that God reigns in this kingdom, so that my commandments are subordinate to His, so that my laws enforce His laws.”
There were, however, a few men who had the intuition of the measures that it would have been necessary to take against international secret societies. We find proof of this in the Report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the insurrection of March 18. Here is in fact what we can read in H. Ameline, end of volume III of the depositions (1). “Mr. President of the Commission. — Special measures must be taken against secret societies affiliated with foreign factions. They say that we would be doing a great service to France by destroying the International; but what is the way to get there? It is not by deporting a few individuals. Those who are part of secret societies affiliated with foreign secret societies must cease to be French citizens and, therefore, be able, at any time, to be expelled from the territory. » Why were the measures proposed by the President of the Commission during the insurrection of 1871 not applied to Freemasonry? We didn't know, we didn't dare.
1. Investigation into the insurrection of March 18, 1871, p. 253. (Paris, Dentu, 1872.)
CHAPTER XXI
UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC
In October 1872, a meeting of the main leaders of Italian masonry took place... In this convention, Félix Pyat represented France, and General Etzel represented Prussia. The dictatorship of the freemason Gambetta was decided there. The realization of this project seemed very improbable and very impossible. Mr. Gambetta was returning from San Sebastian, placed between the ruins of war and the ruins of the Commune; he also told him about the FINANCIAL DISORDERS of his first dictatorship and the TRAFFIC which had marked it: these obstacles seemed insurmountable. Freemasonry knew how to smooth them out. The Assembly's commissions of inquiry were silent, the ministers abstained, although most of them were not Freemasons: which clearly shows to what extent the latter, through its secret influences, can extend its action. In the oratorical tour he made, after the National Assembly had declared its mission completed, Mr. Gambetta exposed the program that masonry, your days daring and thereby always victorious (1), proposed to the country: “The new assembly must rise and say: Here I am! I am still the France of free inquiry and free thought. » After May 24, 1873, MacMahon's government continued to treat the Grand Orient as an equal, ftj. Léon Renault, prefect of police, opened negotiations with Freemasonry as well as with a foreign power, with the knowledge of the Duke of Broglie, Minister of the Interior. The elections of February 20, 1876 replaced the conservative Republic, which the National Assembly had flattered itself with establishing, with the revolutionary and anti-Christian Republic. Mac-Mahon dissolved this Chamber on May 16, 1977. On the eve of the elections which were to replace it, the heads of the conservative government addressed France with a supreme adjuration. “If you name these men, — the 363 opportunists and radicals, — if they return to business, this is what they will do: “They will overturn all the laws. — They will disorganize the judiciary. — They will disorganize the army. — They will disrupt all public services. — They will persecute the clergy. — They will restore the law of suspects. — They will destroy the freedom of education. — They will close the free schools and reestablish the monopoly. — They will infringe on private property and individual freedom. — They will reinstate the laws of violence and oppression of 1792. — They will expatriate the religious Orders and recall the men of
1. “Dare, this word contains all the politics of our revolution. » Saint-Just, Report made to the Convention on behalf of the committees of public safety and general security, 8 Ventôse, year II.
the Commune. — They will undermine France from within and humiliate it from without. » All these threats said in fact what should be, what we have seen and what we see; but it is not with objurgations that we stop a people on the slope of evil. “Mr. Gambetta's main means of influence and corruption throughout France to make his people triumph in the vote,” said Le Citoyen, a socialist newspaper, “were based on the action of Freemasonry (1), and in Paris especially on the administration of Public Assistance. » One month before the date of the decree of convocation of the electors, all the Masonic lodges of
1. Here is a very curious and very characteristic feature: While Mr. Gambetta was President of the Chamber, he one day gave a large official dinner at which he invited the entire office of the Assembly, and the order of precedence sat at. on his right the oldest vice-president, the honorable Count de Durfort de Sivrac, one of the leaders of the Catholic and monarchical right. During the meal, the deputy from Anjou noticed the singular and even extraordinary glass which his amphitryon was using; and with the courteous familiarity that the president's character authorized, he expressed his astonishment by asking him if this strange glass was linked to any particular memory. “Indeed,” replied Mr. Gambetta quite simply; it is Luther's glass, which had been preserved in Germany for three and a half centuries as a relic, and which the Freemasonic societies across the Rhine did me the notable honor of offering me as a token of sympathy . Chateaubriand, in his Memoirs, also speaks of Luther's glass, which he had seen in Berlin, surrounded with veneration, just as Calvin's chair is piously guarded in Geneva. So that the Germans were able to give up an object so precious in their eyes, and so that they paid tribute to the very man who posed to personify in France the idea of war to the death and revenge implacable against Germany, what exceptional services he must have rendered to the international sect
France were called to deliberate on the electoral question, with regard to Gambetiist politics were no longer convened; but those whose support was noted became, throughout the election period, and still remain permanent centers of political action in favor of opportunism. y> As for the Public Assistance, we know that considerable sums were distributed, in the form of relief, to carry out electoral propaganda in all the districts of Paris where gambettism was more particularly undermined (1). » It is especially in Belleville that we have noticed these unusual distributions for two months. » Cosmopolitan Freemasonry had made it clear to foreign chancelleries that the future was in Gambetta and that they had to start talking to him. A few months before March 16, he had been received twice by Victor-Emmanuel and the king's relations with Gambetta have since been brought to light. The elections take place, they are against “the government of the priests”. Mac-Mahon submits, then resigns. Then the Republican Union was founded, which ranged from the center left to the extreme left and declared that it had an enemy to fight: “clericalism”. Clericalism is Catholicism; we proclaim it loudly, and we impose the duty to exterminate it “slowly and surely” (2).
1. Needless to say, throughout France the commissions of hospices and charitable offices were completely renewed. 2. It was on March 26, 1876 that Mr. Spuller tabled a report favorable to the government “reform” and said: “We will vote for it because it is consistent with the law that we want to follow, because we want to go slowly but surely. » On September 18, 1878, Gambetta went to Romans, and there — in this small town which had had an abbey as its cradle — in front of five to six thousand people gathered in a plank shed, which had been built for the occasion, he expressed himself in these terms: “The clerical question, that is to say the question of the relationship between Church and State, commands and keeps all other questions in suspense. It is there that the spirit of the past takes refuge and is strengthened. I denounce this, the ever-increasing danger posed to modern Society by the ultramontane spirit, the spirit of the Vatican, the spirit of the Syllabus, which is nothing but the exploitation of ignorance with a view to general enslavement. » These words were applauded furiously. Wishing not to offend the Israelites and Protestants, Gambetta continued: “I spoke about the relationship between Church and State. I know well that to be correct, I should say: churches, but from a governmental and national point of view, it is only ultramontanism which persists in thwarting the State. When I examine the incessant usurpations to which ultramontanism engages, the invasions it makes every day on the domain of the State, I have the right to say: The social danger - there it is! The clerical spirit seeks to infiltrate everywhere, in the army, in the judiciary, and there is this particularity that it is always when the fortunes of France decline that Jesuitism rises! » The audience applauded the speaker for a long time. Senator Malens, who chaired the session, had as his main assessor Mr. Emile Loubet, the future President of the Republic. Already in 1872, in Saint-Julien, Gambetta had presented the program of the so-called “republican” party. This religiously followed program is contained in three words: War on Catholicism.
The time is coming for new elections; will the country show itself to be better enlightened, more far-sighted? The Chamber of August 21, 1881 is worse than the previous one. She is doing “the big ministry”, Gambetta in the lead? The Minister of Religion and Public Education, Paul Bert, proclaimed the need to destroy “black phylloxera”. This House establishes the law of the neutral school, the law of divorce, law of civil burials. The elections of October 1885 were better. The country seems to change its mind, and is making an effort to shake off the Masonic yoke. But the sect is too powerful, too well organized, too well governed, to allow itself to be pushed out by a vote. The Republican Union has 380 members in the new Chamber and the opposition 204. That's too many. The majority shamelessly abuses its strength to invalidate its adversaries en masse, intimidate voters, and give itself as free rein for evil as before. As retaliation, four to five hundred priests were deprived of their salary, if we must use that word; and authority, without agreement with the bishops, most of the vicariates subsidized by the State are abolished. From then on, nothing stops the sect, it does what it wants, at its own time and to the extent that it deems it appropriate to surely achieve its ends. The general plan for the war against the Church was tabled in the House on March 31, 1883 by Mr. Paul Bert. It remains the capital document of this time. — Separation of Church and State — Denunciation of the Concordat — Secularization of the property of the regular and secular clergy. This is what must be patiently pursued (1).
1. After proposing the measures to be taken, Paul Bert noted what had already been done. “First, all the monastic institutions disappeared. We no longer see these numerous orders which devoured without advantage the substance of the people. . . and which only served, in modern States, to maintain a foreign and fatal spirit. » Secondly, the privileges which were only intended to protect the recruitment of the clergy against the intention of the populations, are suppressed: the seminarians are with the other students; no special allocation is any longer granted to major seminaries, which will cease to occupy buildings belonging to the State, departments and municipalities. » Bishops, classified according to their rank of precedence among departmental officials, no longer enjoy the extraordinary honors conferred on them by the decrees. They will leave the palaces, whose habitation, sometimes princely, increased their moral authority at least as much as their material resources. » Key economic establishments can no longer own buildings, and their movable wealth must contribute to the increase in public credit, through their investment in state annuities. The priests from whom you have already taken away the domination of the cemeteries, lose that of the factories, whose well-established accounts no longer allow abuse, and whose municipalities are no longer obliged to make up the deficits. » The clergy, by the laws that you have already passed, no longer has any part in the direction of public education, and the separation of Church and State is clearly established. “The priest, whatever rank he occupies in the hierarchy, can no longer count on the impunity almost always guaranteed until now for the most culpable discrepancies of language. He will no longer be able, without being justly punished, to leave his religious role to get involved in administration, politics and elections. Whether he is provided with a compositional treatment or a simple allowance due to the benevolence of the State, he will see these advantages taken away when his guilt is proven. » At the same time, government decisions, in the form of decrees or orders, will have repealed a host of measures taken in the interest of the Church, and of which none of the prescriptions of the concordat make an obligation on the State. » The Church, thus brought back to the strict execution of the Concordat which it signed, without any appearance of persecution being able to be invoked precisely by it, no longer receiving from the State any concession likely to increase its wealth and its influence political, will only have the very large and very legitimate share of authority granted to it by the docility of the faithful. " It is at this time, it is after having noted the results of this legislative operation unknown since 1804, that it could be, in our opinion opportune and expedient, to examine whether it is appropriate to pronounce the separation of the Church and the State returned to the fullness of its power, "with the Church Educated to its own strength and to its strict law." We will have fulfilled our task in preparing this future.”
Pending the realization of this desideratum, we must use the Concordat as a weapon to surely strike the Church. “The Concordat,” said in closing Paul Bert, gives the State a powerful weapon, if it knows how to use it; and this weapon is the choice of bishops and the approval given to the appointment of priests. Ferry, Waldeck, Combes, Lonbet, Briand, Clemenceau had no personal policy. They passively carried out the orders of Masonry for the realization of the plan of which Paul Bert, under his dictation, had drawn the lines. Each ministry had a part of this plan to execute, and it did its job with more or less skill. But he moved forward with the order. The Chamber of 1889 passed the law on factories; that of 1893 made the law of increase; that of 1898 prepares the separation of Church and State, meeting under the flags in the law on associations; that of 1902 accomplished the separation; that of 1906 brings out the effects that the sect expected. In January 1892, fifteen years after the substitution of the Masonic republic for the conservative republic, the six French cardinals, to which adhered twelve archbishops, including two coadjutors, and sixty-five bishops, including two titular bishops, published An EXPOSURE OF THE SITUATION MADE AT THE CHURCH OF FRANCE followed by a DECLARATION. They began by recalling words which had just been said from the top of the French tribune in the name of the government: “The Republic is full of respect for religion. No republican government has had the thought of offending religion in any way or of restricting the exercise of religion. We do not want to, and the entire Republican party does not want to. to be represented as having, at no time, wanted to encroach on the religious domain and attack the freedom of conscience." To these impudent words, the cardinals came to oppose the facts. They began by saying: "What is unfortunately true. is that for twelve years, the government of the Republic has been something other than a personification of public power: it has been the personification of a doctrine, let's say a program, in absolute opposition to the Catholic faith, and it applies this doctrine, carries out this program, so that there is nothing today, neither people, nor institutions, nor interests, which have not been methodically struck, diminished, and as much as possible destroyed. » Our readers know what this doctrine is, where it comes from, to what period it dates back, who were its inventors; and they are also not unaware that it is the dark association which was responsible for making it triumph and establishing its reign over the ruin of all Christian institutions, to the great detriment of all legitimate interests. Going into detail, the Presentation reviewed the conduct of the government with regard to God and the worship due to him, with regard to the clergy, with regard to teaching, with regard to family. Thirteen years have passed since then. Each of these years saw the promulgation of new laws and new decrees all marking the same trend: the desire to annihilate Catholicism in France. This is what Pope Leo XIII observed a few days after the Cardinals' Declaration; “Would we not be seized with deep pain, at the present time, by considering in depth the scope of the vast plot that certain men have formed to annihilate Christianity in France, and the animosity with which they pursue the realization of their design, trampling underfoot the most elementary notions of freedom and justice for the feeling of the majority of the nation, and of respect for the inalienable rights of the Catholic Church ?... Poor France! God alone can measure the abyss of evil into which it would sink, if this legislation, far from improving, persisted in such a deviation which would result in tearing from the minds and hearts of the French the religion which has such great facts (1)”. It would take a volume to recall all the legislative acts, all the decrees, all the measures taken during the last quarter of a century to destroy Catholicism in France. Because this is what the sect aims for: it always considers France to be the earthly support point of the Church, built on Peter by Our Lord Jesus Christ. She would like to make it disappear from among the nations. We drew up a summary assessment of the persecution, in the Religious Week of the diocese of Cambrai, during the penultimate legislative election. No need to reproduce it here; the facts are still in the memory and before the eyes of all (2).
1. Encyclical Inner Solicitudines. 2. Those who would like to have at hand the table of the legislative acts of persecution, promulgated over the past twenty-five years, could resort to several brochures: Persecution for fifteen years by a patriot, (Maison de la Bonne Presse). Twenty-five years of government without God, by Paul GRÈVEAU, (Paris, anti-Masonic committee). The acts of the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, (Paris., at Louis Tremaux). The war on religion. Presentation of anti-religious bills, submitted to the French Chambers
But what is important to note is that all these measures of persecution were imposed by Freemasonry. “We can assert without being rash - said in September 1893 a newspaper which was considered to reflect the predominant ideas within the Grand Orient, Le Matin - that most of the laws that the French are subject to - we are talking about the major political laws - have been studied by Freemasonry before appearing in the Official. » He added: “The laws on primary education, on divorce, the laws of growth, the military laws, and among others the law on the obligation of service for seminarians, took their flight from rue Cadet towards the Palais-Bourbon; they returned inviolable and definitive. » And as a conclusion, this cry of triumph: “We are still all-powerful, but on the condition of synthesizing our aspirations in a formula. For ten years, we marched repeating: “Clericalism is the enemy!” » We have secular schools everywhere - the priests are reduced to silence, the seminarians carry the sack. This is not an ordinary result in a nation that calls itself the eldest daughter of the Church (1).”
We find in the Bulletin du Grand-Orient proof of what Le Matin said. In 1891, on September 18, the Convent voted on the following proposition: “The Masonic Conviant invites the Council of the Order to convene at the hotel
1. C. GROUSSAU, (General Society of Catholic Bookstores). Persecution for twenty years, by Jean Lefaure. (Paris, rue Bayart, 5). And especially the book published by M. Louis Hosotte, History of the Third Republic, 1870-1910. in-8° of 835 pages. Paris, L ibrairie des Saints-Pères.
1. Morning article cited by “Franc-maçonnerie Démasquée”, September 1893, pages 322-325.
of the Grand Orient, all members of Parliament who belong to the Order, in order to communicate to them the wishes expressed by the generality of masons, as well as the political orientation of the Federation. After each of these meetings, the Bulletin will publish the list of those who have attended the convocation of the Council of the Order, that of those who have excused themselves, that of those who have left the invitation unanswered. These official communications from the Grand Orient, as well as the exchanges of views which will follow them, must be made in one of our temples, in the form. Masonic, at the rank of apprentice, the Council of the Order directing the work, the guests standing on the columns (1). masons, it was by Freemasons obeying an instruction, sometimes put on notice by the sign of distress, that Br. Brisson is responsible for making it clear to the assembly that they were voted on and finally aggravated, after promulgation, by the circulars and regulations of MM. Freemason ministers. At the convent of 1894 the following vow was adopted, published in the Masonic Recueil, page 308: “Any layman admitted to receive the light must first make the following commitment: — I promise on my honor, whatever the political or other situation to which it is given to me to arrive one day, to respond to any summons that may be addressed to me by Freemasonry, and to defend, by all means in my power, all the solutions given by it to political and social questions .
1. Bulletin du Grand-Orient, 1891, page 668.
» The said commitment, after the light given, must be forthwith, transcribed in full, by the neophyte on a sheet. - ad hoc and signed by him, after having been dated in full. This written commitment will be transmitted by the V. . of the. *. to the Council of the Order, which will classify it alphabetically in its archives (1). Several times, the newspapers have reported on the ministers having sacrificed their free will at the feet of the Grand Orient. In all firms, for twenty years, they have always formed the vast majority. Also the F, . Was Colfavra able to say in all truth: “It is from our ranks that the men-
1. This proposition was voted unanimously. It is impossible to deny the scope of this document, it is "the imperative mandate in all its extent" Here is an example of the way in which its application is made: Following the Dide and Hubard interpellations on the reports of the Church and State, all the Freemason deputies were summoned to rue Cadet. The meeting was chaired by Br. : . Thulié, president of the Council of the Order. Several speakers strongly criticized some of their colleagues for not having voted in favor of the proposal for separation of Church and State. This fact clearly shows: 1<> that the Council of the Order of the Grand Orient, in accordance with the decision taken or renewed in September 1891, addresses for political purposes, "summons to the Freemason deputies, and that these they obey these summons; 2° that there is consequently an occult power in France, not named by the nation, and that a good number of deputies consider themselves to be subject to this occult power. things of Parliament and its domination over a large number of deputies and senators, was even more asserted in the General Assembly of the Grand Orient at the Convent held from September 12 to 17 of the year 1892. F . Laffont made the following proposition: “Considering that the strict duty of every Mason is to bring all the acts of his private and public life into conformity with the Masonic principles, The Convent declares that Masons who do not conform to these principles have failed in their duty, and imposes a reprimand on them. » This is indeed a precise, formal notice. This is indeed the injunction to Masonic duty in all its force.
most considerable members of the government of the Republic and the Republican Party (1). » Nothing truer than the words of Mgr Grouthe-Soulard: “We are not in the Republic, but in Freemasonry”; or that of Mr. Gadaud, then Minister of Public Works: “Freemasonry is the closed Republic; the Republic is open Freemasonry”; or that of Mr. Massé: "The day when the Republic will truly be Freemasonry in the open, just as for a long time now Freemasonry has been nothing other than the Republic in the open..." (2). A man who was one of the main actors in the politics of this time, Mr. de Marcère, published four volumes under this title: THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF 1871, At the time when he participated in the events he recounts, as president of the center left, then minister in the Dufaure cabinet, having kept his portfolio in the Wadington cabinet which followed the fall of the marshal, he did not even suspect the existence of the mysterious power which tied the meshes of the net in which France is caught today 'today. He admits it with admirable good faith: "In the state of things created in 1871, we do not distinguish, the members of Freemasonry who belong to Parliament and to the elected assemblies have the obligation to continue through their votes for the realization of the Republican Masonic program, and, first and foremost, the abolition of the religious budget and the separation of Churches and State”.
1. International Centenary Congress, proceedings, p. 98- 2. General agreement. Session of September 29, 1903.
We had not yet discovered the deep causes of the evil, now in an acute state, from which France was suffering... no one, even among the most anti-revolutionary conservatives, had the idea of the designs formed by the followers of the Revolution. No one could imagine that through the help, long unconscious, of the Republican left, and through the initially secret, dark work of the Jewish and Masonic sects, work little by little confessed, professed, then become official, we would arrive at this extraordinary event: the dechristianization of France and the triumph of Masonry... France would never have allowed this party to establish itself, if the moderates, now excommunicated, had not been its guarantor before the country. Freemasonry aims to destroy Christianity and especially the Catholic Church; it pursues the satanic design denounced by J. de Maistre from the time of the Revolution.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
The main organ of Calvinism, the Journal de Genève, during the convention of the Grand-Orient de France in 1906, confirmed in these terms what was said above of the sect's desire to annihilate Christianity in France: “Freemasonry is currently holding its meeting in Paris where four hundred delegates from the various lodges of the country are deliberating. It's a big event. We must not hide the fact that Freemasonry holds the destiny of the country in its hands. Although it only has twenty-six thousand members, it directs French politics as it wishes. All the laws of which Catholicism complains so bitterly were first elaborated in its churches. She imposed them on the government and the Chambers. It will dictate all measures intended to ensure their application. No one doubts it, and no one, not even the most independent, would dare to clash head-on with his sovereign will. He would soon be broken if he even allowed himself to misunderstand it. Never since the time when Rome commanded kings and princes has such power been seen. “The desire of Freemasonry, no one is any longer unaware, is to destroy Catholicism in France. She will have neither cessation nor respite until she has thrown him down. All its springs are uniquely directed towards this goal. » The Revolution had already set itself the mission of realizing this goal. She believed it could be achieved through the civil constitution of the clergy. Through it, she separated the Church of France from Rome and she knew well that abandoned to herself the Church of France could not exist for long. Article IV of Title I of the Constitution stated: It is forbidden to any church or parish in France and to any French citizen to recognize in any case and under any pretext whatsoever, the authority of an ordinary bishop or metropolitan whose seat would be established under the domination of a foreign power, nor that of its delegates residing in France or elsewhere. » This formula was directly aimed at the Pope, whose jurisdictional authority over French bishops was denied in principle. Article 19 of Title II stated: “The new bishop (elected by a secular electoral college) will not be able to address the Pope to obtain any confirmation; but he will write to him as to the visible head of the universal Church, in testimony. of the unity of faith and communion that he must maintain with him. » It was a schism not only organized, but commanded, since it is, on the one hand, forbidden to any church and to any French citizen to recognize, in any case, the authority of a bishop foreign to the France, and on the other hand, bishops appointed under the new constitution are also prohibited from contacting the Pope to obtain any confirmation.” It was well thought that, deprived of the sap of supernatural life whose source Jesus Christ placed in the Vatican, the Church of France would not take long to perish from starvation. We know that clergy and faithful, through the shedding of their blood, obtained that relations between the Church of France and its Head were reestablished in accordance with the institution of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What had been attempted at the end of the first period of Masonic action was attempted in the same way at the end of the second period. The law of Separation of Church and State is made to resume the work of the Civil Constitution of the clergy, and like it, and for the same purpose, organize the schism. The sect experiences the same resistance and will have the same failure. Four laws were forged successively to surprise, by trickery, the consent of the clergy to its entry into a covered way which wanted to end in schism, a fifth was announced, but the Vigie had its eyes open and the crew was docile to his watchwords. Like the Ferrer affair, the preparation, creation and application of the law of separation sheds a dazzling light on the way Freemasonry acts, and shows how it knows how to impose its wishes on public authorities. This is why we must stop there. Already, in 1868, under the Empire therefore, Jules Simon exposing the program of the "republicans", promised the laceration of the Concordat and the separation of Church and State. Mr. Jules Simon was only the spokesperson for the anti-Christian sect. For more than half a century this program was one of the chapters of the plan drawn up for Masonry for the war to be waged against Christian civilization, and which had been carried out without interruption since then. The organic articles began by placing the clergy, worship and even doctrinal teaching under the dependence of the State. The compositional indemnity had become a salary since Protestant ministers first and then Jewish rabbis were included in the budget in the same way as Catholic priests. They were, from then on, considered as civil servants, presented as such to the public and treated as such. Churches and cathedrals were gradually assigned to departments and communes. It was no longer possible to build them, even with the sole offerings of the faithful, without making a civil donation, under penalty of not being able to deliver them for worship, so that when the time of separation came they could, without difficulty , be delighted to Catholics. Likewise, despite an express clause in the Concordat, the Church of France was no longer allowed to acquire land and other buildings; all its resources had to be converted into rents from the State so that the latter would not would only have to close the hand that held them, when the time of separation came. Can we, in the presence of these long-term designs, the realization of which is pursued in a continuous manner, deny the existence of an agent who conceived them, who executes them, or causes them to be executed, the various parts, according to the facilities presented by times and circumstances? The infinite multitude of men, who, in the various branches of the administration and even in the high functions of power, lent their assistance to this mysterious agent, for the most part did not know what they were working on. The occult power which suggested them, which made them act, knew what it wanted, and what its persevering action was aimed at. In 1871, Mr. Pradier, a Catholic Republican, introduced a separation bill. We do not want to say that in this he made himself the direct and conscious servant of Freemasonry, we are certain of the contrary, but by the openness given in his mind to the ideas that Freemasonry propagates, he found, like so many others, prepared to do his work, while ignoring or hating it. From the moment the Republicans found themselves in the majority in the House, the question was raised in every discussion of the religious budget. At the convent of 1899, on September 23, Br. Prêt gave the reason for this tactic in these terms: “When we have obtained the separation of Church and State that we have been calling for so long with all our wishes - because you realize that obtaining it will be due to your influence - if we are then asked how we managed to obtain it, we will answer: by proposing it and by always having it proposed” (1). Thus recalled from year to year, the proposition seemed less and less strange and less and less unrealizable. Mr. Paul Bert had begun this tactic in 1873. "The time will come," he said, "let's be patient, wait until the laws on education have produced their effect, wait until the education of women is freed from religious beliefs, and during This time, let us press the break with the Church through a series of measures which will gradually weaken it. » Ten years later, he announced that the time had come to begin by bringing the Church of France back to the
1. Report, p. 266.
1. Mr. Emile Ollivier thus translated the action program drawn up by Paul Bert: “Keep the Church attached to the pillar of the temple, so that it does not have not the free field, and castigate her at ease, until, exhausted of strength, degraded, she can be finished off without danger.
strict execution of the Concordat (read organic Articles) and to come to the suppression of all the privileges granted to ecclesiastics and to the Church (1). “It is after having noted the results of this legislative operation unknown since 1804,” added Paul Bert, “that it could be, in our opinion, opportune and expedient to examine whether it is appropriate to pronounce the separation of the returned State. in the fullness of its power, with the Church reduced to its own forces and its strict rights. » In 1900, the convent of the Grand Orient was seized of a set of proposals and wishes emanating from various Congresses and At. Mac. ., notably the Congress of Lodges of the Paris region and the South-West Lodges; Gap Lodges; L. *. Friends of the Hautes-Alpes; from Boulogne-sur-Mer: Lodge VAmitié; from Melun: L.-. of the Children of Hiram; from Sommières: L. *, the March Forward; of Toulon*: L. *. the meeting; de Ribérac: L. . the Patriots’ Hive; of Caen: L. *. Themis; of Oran: L. . the African Union, etc. After having taken note of these wishes, the convent formulated its resolution as follows: "Considering that if the abolition of the Concordat, the separation of Churches and the State, the suppression of the budget for religions, the withdrawal of the French embassy to Vatican and the resumption of mortmain property remain among the most formal demands of the Republican Party; it is however appropriate, while awaiting the triumph of these demands, to pursue immediately achievable resolutions of expectation. » Follows a long series of wishes responding to this desideratum (1). . In February 1904, Mr. Relier in his Weekly Correspondence said that during this preparation, Mr. Loubet, who was not yet President of the Republic, walking in the Senate in the gallery of busts, said in a conversation : “I too am in favor of Separation, but I will only vote for it after we have finished restraining the Church and disarming the priests. » We worked on it through laws, through decrees, through various carefully spaced measures. However, the attention of Catholics to what was being done became more and more anxious day by day. President Carnot, was it on his own initiative or by Masonic suggestion? thought it necessary, in order to lull public opinion and papal vigilance, to write an autograph letter to Leo XIII, promising sincere observation of the Concordat and respect for the treaties which bear the signature of France. It was just a tactic, just a ploy. Thanks to the confidence these words inspired, the sect made its final preparations. After half a century of study and determination, she believed the time had finally come to take action. However, she did not yet dare to speak openly, to present in proper terms a law of confiscation and separation. Mr. Waldeck-Rousseau was responsible for having a law voted on and promulgated on associations in general; it would not be difficult to then declare that dioceses and parishes are religious associations and to make them pass
1. Convention of 1900. Session of September 8. Report, p. 313.
under the regime of other associations of the same character. Did Mr. Waldeck-Rousseau really intend to apply the law he had just obtained to congregations only sparingly and to leave it at that? Still, once the law was passed, he was overthrown and replaced by Mr. Combes. We know with what rigor he applied the law on associations and the massacres he committed and which he boasted about. But he did not believe this weapon was sufficient against the Church. On March 21, 1903, in the House, and on January 14, 1904 in the Senate, he spoke of an express law on Separation. “I have always been a supporter of the Separation of Church and State,” he said. » Then he added: “But when I took power, I judged that public opinion was not yet sufficiently prepared for this reform; I deemed it necessary to bring him there.” Shortly afterwards he published under this title: A Second Campaign: Towards Separation, these lines: “The congregations were dissolved, their houses were closed. In the aftermath of this operation, the deepest peace reigned everywhere, even in the localities most anciently abandoned to the activities of the convents. Silence fell, there as elsewhere, over the congregations that were so restless the day before. At present, oblivion has swallowed up even their names. » The same will be true of the social consequences of the Separation of Churches and State. » These words show that his opinion was made up and that he believed he could move forward. Also the convent of September of that same year began with an agenda of complete confidence in the Brother *. Combes, where it is said that “the delegates of the Lodges of France, meeting in General Assembly on Monday September 12, 1904, asked to have the Separation of Churches and State and the workers' pension fund discussed simultaneously at the January session; » And the F. . Combes responded on September 15: “I will apply myself with all my strength to carry out as quickly as possible the democratic reforms indicated in the address received. » However, for such a serious measure, it was good to deceive public opinion and make them believe that the faults were on the adversary's side. We know the odious means that were taken. A historian, who is in no way inclined to have divine intervention in human events, thus characterized the mission of France in the world: "At the conversion of Clovis, the country of the Franks and Gaul became the center of Catholicism, and thereby civilization. » How did this happen? Pope Stephen says it: by the role that France accepted from its origins of being the defender of the Holy See. In a letter written to Pepin, he makes the apostle Saint Peter speak thus: “According to the promise received from Our Lord and Redeemer, I distinguish the people of the Franks among all nations. Lend the Romans (the Popes) the support of your forces, so that I, Peter, may cover you with my patronage in this world and in the next. » France was still faithful to this mission in the 19th century; she restored Pius IX to his throne and stood guard near him. The anti-Christian sect suffered this with shudder. She demanded that Napoleon III remove the French flag from Rome, so that the Piedmontese could enter. Europe did not completely acquiesce to this criticism, it maintained its ambassadors near the Pope and thus preserved his rank among the sovereigns. For their part, Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius thus maintained the law in its entirety. The Catholic heads of state made it an inviolable law not to visit the kings of Italy in Rome, so as not to appear, in the eyes of the people, to recognize the sovereignty that the princes of Savoy illegitimately attributed to themselves there. The sovereigns of Austria, Spain, Portugal, Saxony, Bavaria and Belgium forbade themselves, for this purpose, even family visits to Rome without a political character, in order not to put themselves in the obligation moral to salute the usurper. The emperors and kings of the Schismatic nations, when they went to Rome, demonstrated the same desire to also safeguard the rights of the Holy See. Having to be admitted to pay their respects to the Pope, they resorted to this combination: they took up residence at their embassy, which is part of their territory, and from there they went to the Vatican, often in crews that they had sent directly from their country, thus making a visit to the Pope-King, in which they professed ignorance of the presence in Rome of the usurper. The sect bore this impatiently. She resolved to put an end to it, and to use the President of the French Republic to do so. She found three advantages there: making France complete the repudiation of its providential role; that the Paucity lost the last vestige of its sovereignty, and that the Republic had a pretext for its law of separation. Because she believed that the Pope would not allow such an insult to pass without protest, and she would arm herself with this protest to motivate a resounding separation. The scenario was executed from point to point. Mr. Loubet's trip was announced to the House and funds were requested. They were granted. The rallies left to Mr. Count Boni de Castellane in the Chamber, and to Mr. Dominique Delahaye in the Senate, the honor of defending pontifical right and the honor of France; and what is even more deplorable, of the two priest-deputies, one, Mr. Gayraud, abstained from voting, the other, Mr. Lemire, gave by his vote to Mr. Loubet "the means to accomplish his package On April 23, 1904, Mr. Loubet left Paris to go to Rome where he arrived the following evening. He behaved as a humble servant of international masonry. The Sovereign Pontiff secretly addressed a protest to the government of the Republic. the “grave offense” made by the head of state to the rights of the Holy See This protest was communicated to other governments, so that the fait accompli could not become law. to a newspaper to be published. Mr. Combes claimed that this publication was the work of the Holy See and requested explanations from the Ambassador. to such a legitimate and wise desire, the ambassador made it known that he had received the order to go on leave. Then Mr. Combes demanded the withdrawal of the two letters by which the two bishops of Laval and Dijon were called to Rome to justify the charges brought against them. The withdrawal of these letters entailed the abdication of all pontifical authority over the bishops of France. Upon the refusal of the Holy See, diplomatic relations were definitively severed. All things thus prepared, on the first day of February 1905 an interpellation by Mr. Morlot was discussed in the Chamber. It was closed with this agenda: “The Chamber noting that the attitude of the Vatican has made the Separation of Church and State inevitable and counting on the government to bring the vote to a successful conclusion immediately after the budget, passes on today's agenda ". Twelve years earlier, at the convent of September 1892, Br.-. Doumer, president, had proposed and had a proposal from the L.* accepted and accepted. Emancipation, O.-. of Paris thus conceived: “All F.-. M.-, invested with an elective mandate, has the obligation to vote on any proposal which should ensure, in the short term, the Separation of Churches and State under penalty of a Masonic offense. A contrary vote cast by this F.:. will result in his immediate indictment. A second contrary vote will be considered a first class offense (analytical report). When the bill was tabled in the House, the supporters, resuming the role of sleepers that they had already played so many times, shouted with one voice: This will not succeed! And when this comes to fruition there will be no need to be sorry, because the Church of France will thereby recover the fullness of its freedom. The Chamber began the discussion in March 1905. A preliminary question was necessary: Does parliament have the right to pass a law which affects so many interests without consulting the country? We were careful not to do so. Mr. Marquis de Rosambo expressed the opinion that the Catholic opposition group should refuse to cooperate in any way with this law and to discuss the conditions of our spoliation and our servitude. It seemed best to him to leave the meeting room, notifying France of the reasons for this attitude, and not to return until the work of the Lodges had been completed. The advice was wise. But we are no longer in the time of frank resolutions. In the first days of April, the passage to the discussion of the articles was voted by 358 votes against 217, and at the same time the urgency which rejected the guarantee enshrined in the law of a second deliberation. The lodge had said: Hurry. Mr. Berthouliet asked that before the final vote we take advantage of the session of the municipal and general councils to find out the state of opinion on this question. This motion was rejected. However, during the discussion the affair of the denunciation arises which sinks Mr. Combes. He is replaced by Mr. Rouvier. When Mr. Combes had introduced the question of Separation to the Council of Ministers, Rouvier had delivered a vehement speech against this project, ending with this sentence: “If you carry out Separation, I will give you my wallet, you can take. » Masonry orders, Rouvier obeys. The discussion continued, and, before separating at the end of April, the Chamber voted on the famous article 4. The culmination of the law, what it wanted to obtain above all, was the institution of religious associations according to the seven articles of Title IV. The factories, when they dissolved, had to transfer to them the property under their management. The big objection that was made is that these associations, such as the law wanted them, did not know the Catholic hierarchy, nor were they known to them. There were as many small schismatic churches as there were parishes in France that we wanted to create. The intentions, the ends pursued by the sect were too clearly revealed. It was understood that we would encounter resistance no less great than that raised by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. These ends had to be pursued, without abandoning them. We thought we could achieve this by an amendment introduced into article 4, title II. Here is this article. The italics mark the modification made to the project presented by the Government and the Commission: “Within one year, from the promulgation of this law, the movable and immovable property of the Menses, Fabriques, Presbyterian Councils, Consistory and other public establishments of worship, will be, with all the charges and obligations which burden them, transferred in the same amounts by the legal representatives of these establishments to the associations which, in conforming to the rules of general organization of worship of which they propose to to ensure the exercise, will have been legally formed according to the prescription of article 17, for the exercise of this religion, in the former constituencies of the said establishments. » Thus amended, article 4 was voted on by 509 votes to 44. We see from these figures that this article was accepted by the center and part of the right: In …