The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-26 00:00:00

The Count de Montalembert.

We would take the liberty of especially request-
ing our readers, says a weekly contemporary
(the .Register), to observe the answer given by anti-
cipation by the Count de Montalembert himself (in
the second portion of his great speech the other day
at Malines) to the objections suggested to many per-
sons whose opinions deserve great weight, by read-
ing the first half of his address without the second.
It would of course be too much to expect that all
will agree with all that he says, even as his meaning
is explained by himself. But we do not see that
particular objections which have been raised could
have been more exactly answered if they had lain
before the Count as he wrote.
There are few things more remarkable than the
confident, joyful, nay, triumphant tone of these
anticipations of the condition and prospects of the
Church and religion in Europe. For this cannot be
mere sanguineness of natural character. It is no-
thing less than the exultant hope of a Christian.
For what he says of himself is true. No man has
suffered more than he from dieappointments and re-
buffs. Three-and-thirty years ago M. de Montalem-
bert entered public life with the consciousness of
t %lents of the first-class, and with the far greater hap-
piness of a cause worthy of ten-fold more than he
could give, and to which he was wholly devoted.
He cannot have failed to feel that be was born a
great orator. He was heir to a great name, to a seat
in the French House of Peers (which, like the
Senate in the United States, was far more impor-
tant than the lower house), and to a future which,
judged by French standards, is very considerable.
Before his years enabled him to take his seat, he
made an impression upon the peers, which has not '
even yet been forgotten, by his speech in defence of
liberty of education, when he pronounced for teach-
ing poor children, without authority from the or-
gans of the Government. Soon after he became the
leader of the Catholic party in Parliament, the in-

mate friend and sharer of the counsels of the bis-
hops and priests who were its life out of doors.
English travellers who were electrified by the sacred
eloquence of Father Lacordaire from the pulpit of
Notre Dame, thought it almost as great a thing to
have seen the great layman at its foot. For years
he had the joy of seeing the high success of a work
in which he was by no means the least important
labourer. No English Catholic could possibly be
what Montalembert then was ; because there is no
other Catholic party large enough to place him in
such a position. At last, after 18 years of incessant
work, in opposition to the powers of the State and
the leading statesmen of France, the National feel-
ing was so greatly leavened that when the Revolu-
tion of 1848 came the populace of Paris declared in
support of the Church which in 1830 they had
regarded as their enemy and oppressor, and the
Ministers of the Republic proposed to the Chambers
and carried through it a measure for the freedom of
not all that could be de-
education which, though
sired, was far more than the Catholics had ever
hoped to see. As another change, the Religious
Orders, which bad been driven from France, were
so openly restored that Father Lacordaire took his
seat in the Chamber in his Dominican habit.
Thus far all had been victory ; not easy, indeed,
but solid, and so much the dearer, because crown-
ing an obstinate long-continued struggle. And
what has followed ? Two objects had hitherto
been inseparable in the life of this great and good
man--the maintenance of free institutions, and
parliamentary government, and the uniting all
French Catholics together as loyal subjects, both
to support these institutions of their country and to
demand, not as a favour but as a right, that they
should be enjoyed to the full Catholic Church, no
less than by politicians and traders ; that religions
worship and education should be as free as political
action or political discussion. For many years all
Frenchmen had demanded liberty; all French
Catholics had demanded its application to reli-
gion. As the leader in maintaining these prin.
ciples he had come to the prime of life, and now
that he was approaching tailing years he might
expect that the success would make him, for many
years to come, one of the most powerful and most
useful public men in France. Ail at once
came a state of things in which the nation is ruled
by one man whose strength is in the support of
the army. Very many Catholics, probably the
great majority, have become advocates of absolute
power, almost if not quite to the extent of laying
dawn that a man who professes political libcry can-
nut be a good Catholic. The effect el this last
change Frenchmen at large hes been to make
them believe that the Catholic religion is really
consistent with liberty, and that the loud demands
for liberty uttered by French Catholics from 1830
till 1848 were insincere. So strongly
was this felt
a few years ego, that if another Revolution had
then taken place it can hardly be doubted that the-
bishops, the clergy, and those iiymen whom it is
the fashion to call
" clericals" would have been
among its first victims. °-
f course there were very
many Catholics Nv h o felt with Montalembert, but
their voice was unheard because the only daily
Catholic newspaper published in France
ooj
7
strongly the opposite side.
Under these circumstances it was impossible that
M. de Montalembert should not feel that the work
of his life was being undone and didaonourfA, and