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something she has always claimed for herself. We could expect her to fight for
this so-called right as violently as for her financial privileges.
(66) and (67) Abbe Brugerette, op.cit., pp. 185,196,191.
(67a) See Jan Cotereau: "Anthologie des grands textes laiques" (Fischbacher, Paris)
94 THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
In 1883, the Roman congregation of the Index, inspired by Jesuitism,
enters the fight by the condemnation of certain school books on moral and
civic teaching. Of course, the matter is grave: one of the authors, Paul Bert,
dared to write that even the idea of miracles "must vanish before the critical
mind!" So, more than fifty bishops promulgate the decree of the Index,
with fulminating comments, and one of them, Monseigneur Isoard,
declares in his pastoral letter of the 27th of February 1883 that the teachers, the
parents and the children who refuse to destroy these books will be barred
from the sacraments.(67b)
The laws of 1886, 1901 and 1904, declaring that no teaching post could be held
by members of religious congregations, also started a flood of protestations
from the Vatican and the "French" clergy. But, in fact, the teaching monks
and nuns only had to "secularise" themselves. The only positive result of these
legal dispositions was that the professors of the schools "so-called free" had
from now on to produce adequate pedagogic qualifications, a good thing
when we know that, before the last war, the catholic primary schools in France
numbered 11, 655 with 824,595 pupils As for the "free" colleges, and
especially the Jesuits', if their number is being reduced it is because of several
factors which have nothing to do with the legal wrangles. The superiority of
the university's teaching, acknowledged by the majority of parents, and,
more recently, its being without change, are the main causes for its growing
popularity. Besides, the Society of Jesus has voluntarily reduced the number
of its schools.
(67b) See Jean Cornec: "Laicite" (Sudel, Paris).
95
Section IV
Chapter 8
The Jesuits and General Boulanger
The Jesuits and the Dreyfus Affair
The hostility of which the devout party pretended to be the victim, at the end
of the 19th century, from the Republican state, would not have lacked
justification, even though this hostility, or more accurately mistrust, had
been even more positive. In fact, the clerical opposition to the regime which
France gave herself freely showed itself at every opportunity, according to the
Abbe Brugerette. In 1873, the attempt to restore monarchy with the Count
of Chambord failed, even though strongly supported by the clergy, because
the Pretender stubbornly refused to adopt the tricoloured flag, to him the
emblem of Revolution.
"Such as it is, Catholicism seems bound to politics, or to a certain kind of
politics... Loyalty to the Monarchy was transmitted from generation to
generation in the old noble families as well as in the middle-classes and the
common people, in the Catholic regions of the West and South. Their
nostalgia of an ancient and idealised Regime, pictured in an epic Middle Age
was coupled with the wishes of fervent Catholics whose main preoccupation
was the salvation of the religion; they rallied, behind Veuillot, with the
legitimate and devout royal family of Chambord, considered to be the form
of government most favourable to the Church. Out of the union of these
political and religious forces was born, in the strained situation after the war, a
kind of reactionary mysticism, illustrated perfectly by Monseigneur Pie,
bishop of Poitiers, and its best incarnation in the ecclesiastical world: "France,
who awaits another chief and calls for a master..., will again receive from God
"the sceptre of the Universe which fell from her hands for a while", on the day
when she will have learned anew how to go down on her knees".(68)
This picture, described by a Catholic historian, is significant. It helps to
understand the moves which followed, a few years later, the unsuccessful
(68) Adrien Dansette, op.cit., II, pp.37, 38.
96 THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
restoration attempt of 1873.
The same Catholic historian describes in the following manner the
political attitude of the clergy at that time:
"At election time, the presbyteries become centers for the reactionary
candiates; the priests and officiating ministers make home-calls for the
electoral propaganda, slander the Republic and its new laws on teaching [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]