Abstract
These seditious words were in a letter, written in 1825, by a village curé to a fellow priest.1 They define the political outer limits of clericalism and the extravagant hatred felt by some members of the clergy for liberal thought. The period after 1815 was one of ascendant political involvement by the Catholic clergy; an inevitable reaction to twenty-six years of secular domination which either had suppressed or neutralized its influence. After the duc de Berri’s murder in 1820, neither liberals nor the good intentions of the King could stay their hand as the Gallican high clergy and the counterrevolutionary priests of the “little Church”, grew more impatient and demanding. The Society of Jesus, still formally an outlaw in France, had regained Papal recognition in 1814 and its members were allowed to return in increasing numbers.2 Their novitiate in the suburb of Montrouge was regarded as a nest of sinister plots by the Left, as were the two lay organizations, the Congrégation and the more covert Chevaliers de la Foi. The latter had disbanded politically by 1826 because of its resentment of Villele’s attempts to manipulate it,3 but the former society continued to be politically effective and had a membership estimated at over two thousand.4 A religious revival was also expanding in the rural areas, partly as a result of “missions”. These included outdoor sermons by friars who evoked fervid emotions in their rustic audiences with the aid of such props as jack-o-lanterns. The anticlerical press made much of this and also reported that these harangues often resulted in bonfires of “wicked” books.5 Shades of the auto da fé! For all these incidents, real or imagined, the liberals usually managed to blame the Jesuits.
... Charles X is not a Christian if he wishes to uphold the Charter which is an act against religion. We should not pray for him any more than for Louis XVIII, who was the founder of that Charter. They are both damned.
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References
Adrien Dansette, Histoire réligieuse de la France contemporaine de la Révolution à la I/I` République (Paris, 1948), p. 241. (Hereafter cited as Dansette, Histoire réligieuse.) This passage is also cited as a part of a sermon by a priest who asked for, and received, a hearty endorsement from his congregation; and, for the latter action, was brought to trial. See, Stanley Mellon, The Political Uses of History (Stanford University Press, 1958), p. 188.
Dansette, Histoire réligieuse, p. 247. The term “little church” refers to clergy who were not licensed under Imperial law, i.e., royalist.
Bertier de Sauvigny, Restoration, pp. 383, 390.
Dansette, Histoire réligieuse, pp. 254–55.
Ibid., p. 270. For another viewpoint on these missions by a Catholic royalist, see, Thureau Dangin, Parti libéral, pp. 364–65.
Revue de Paris, VII (2d ed.; Brussels, 1829), pp. 202–4.
Adrien Gamier, Frayssinous, son rôle dans la université sous la Restauration (1822–1828) (Paris, 1925), pp. 133, 148. (Hereafter cited as Gamier, Frayssinous.)
Ibid., p. 138.
Vaulabelle, Histoire, VII, 300.
Lucas-Dubreton, Restauration, pp. 100–01: see also, Globe, 26 June, 1830, for a reference to Charles X’s religious outlook, also Vincent Beach, Charles X, Boulder, 1971, pp. 218–19 briand’s devotion to the romantic and mystic splendors of the Church still broke through the polemic in an infrequent passage. Nevertheless, even these journals did not hesitate to speak of a Parti-Prêtre, or to show alarm over a “clerical” victory in the courts, such as the Senancour case in 1828. Despite a brilliant defense by Berville, a fifty-eight year old publisher, Etienne de Senancour, was imprisoned for nine months for merely reprinting an edition of the sceptical work, Résumé des Traditions Réligieuses.
Constitutionnel, 7 November, 1827. This case is reviewed in Jacomet, Le Palais, pp. 176–78.
Gazette des Tribunaux, il December, 1828.
Le Moniteur, 22 January, 1828.
Gazette de France, 22, 23 January, 1828. ’ Courrier Français, 22, 23 January, 1828.
Journal des Débats, 9 March, 1828.
Constitutionnel, 17 April, 1828.
Ibid., 2 June, 1828.
Le Moniteur, 28 May, 1828. The report stated: “Even though these priests follow the rule of Saint Ignatius for their internal rule, it is not contrary to the laws of the Kingdom”.
Daudet, Martignac, p. 198.
Gazette de France, 15, 20 June, 1828.
Ibid.
Letter from curés of Amiens to the Archbishop of Amiens, which termed Jesuits “models of the clergy”. See Gazette de France, 20 June, 1828.
Journal des Débats, 17 June, 1828.
Ga:ette de France, 21 July, 21 September, 1828.
Daudet, Martignac, p. 204.
Courrier Français, 17 June, 1828.
Constitutionnel, 7 August, 1828.
Ibid. These prelates were the Bishops of Bordeaux, Saint-Flour, Strasbourg, and Beauvais.
Journal du Commerce, 21 July, 1828.
Gazette de France, 21 September, 1828.
Ibid., 19 August, 1828.
Ibid., 21 July, 1828
Quotidienne, 24 September, 1828.
Constitutionnel, 16 November, 25 September, 1828.
Collins, Newspaper Press, p. 53.
Globe, 21 September, 1828.
Quotidienne, 24, 25 September, 1828.
Chateaubriand, Mémoires, III, Chateaubriand to La Ferronays, 12 January, 1829, 471. 4° Récamier, Souvenirs, II, Chateaubriand to Mme. Récamier, 14 October, 1828, 237.
Daudet, Martignac, pp. 204–5.
Loménie, Chateaubriand, II, 306.
Récamier, Souvenirs, II, letters, 31 March, II April, 1829, pp. 351–52.
Courrier Français, 8 April, 1829.
Gazette de France, 5 April, 1829.
Constitutionnel, 25 January, 1829.
Ibid., 25 May, 1829.
Gazette des Tribunaux, 26 January, 1829.
Ibid., 27 June, 1829. Again we prostrate ourselves, but for a moment and when it is the painting which asks it, before the pious images which have subjugated our fathers. The virgins of Raphael have not ceased to be divine, though their altars be half-destroyed. The immortal spectacles of the Last Supper, the Transfiguration, and the Communion of Saint Jerome will still be masterpieces, even when Christian beliefs will be completely vanished, if the durability of their fragile materials could last until then.5°
Gazette des Tribunaux, 27 June, 1829. For Chatelain’s famous acquittal on appeal, see chapter ix. Dammartin, the French people cannot doubt the permanence of Christian beliefs. (26 June, year of Grace, 1829.)
Ibid., 5 July, 1829.
A fourth article was directed against capital punishment and appealed for sympathy for a recently executed murderer. This had brought the charge of “troubling the public peace”, of which the editors were acquitted.
Gazette des Tribunaux, 15 July, 1829.
Ibid.
Jules Garson, “L’évolution Napoléonienne de Victor Hugo”, Le Carnet, I1 (1900), p. 43. 58 Globe, 15 August, 1829. The Constitutionnel, August 8, 1829, remarked: “Marion left the censor’s office even less a virgin than when she had entered”.
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Rader, D.L. (1973). The Political Press and the Parti-Prêtre: The Anticlerical Campaign of 1828–1829. In: The Journalists and the July Revolution in France. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7456-3_6
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