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 lees than the exultant hope of a Christian.
For what he says of himself is true. No man has
suffered more than he from disappointments and re-
buffs. Three-and-thirty years ago M. de Montelem-
bert entered public life with the consciousness of
talents oft he first-class, and with the far greater hap-
piness of a cause worp.y of ten-fold more than he
could give, and to which he was wholly devoted.
He cannot have failed to feel that he was born a
great orator. He was heir to a great name, to a scat
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-
timate 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 incessant
work, years ofncessant
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-
tiee of 1848 came the populace of Paris declared in
which in 1830 they had
support of the Church
and oppressor, and the
regarded as their enemy
proposed to the Chambers
and carried through it a measure for the freedom of
education which, though not all that could be de-
sired, was far more than the Catholics had ever
hoped to see. As another change, the Religious
Orders, which had been driven from France, were
so openlyrestored that Father Lacordaire took his
seat in the Chamber in his Dominican habit.
Thus far all had been victory ; not easy, indeed,
but eolid, 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 failing 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. All 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
down that a man who professes political libery can-
not be a good Catholic. The effect. of this last
change Frenchmen at large has been tomaikne.
them believe that the Catholic religion
isdrcelemYands
consistent with liberty, and that the loud
for liberty uttered by French Catholi:sti
from 183()
till 1848 were insincere. So strongly was this felt
a few years ego, that if s
notle doubted that theier Revolution hid
then taken place it can hardly be
~laymen whom it is
those
bishops, the clergy, and
'`clericals would have been
the fte_hion to call e
among its first victims. Of course there were very
felt with Montalembert but
their Catholics who ut
d because the only daily
was unheard
their voice
er published in FraCatholic nevvaPaP nce took
the opposite side.
strongly
Under these circumstances it was impossible that
m. do elontalembert should not feel that the work
of his life was being undone and dishonoured, and

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weighed by any loyal andthigh-minded :.man,
1(44
had cause enough. Those who for years had 10 dII 8
up to him as their political leader and r epresenta,
tive, were now taught to regard him with suspicion
and dislike. He has been grossly misunLierstood,
and hence, no doubt, habitually misrepresented.
When France the other day was called to elect
representatives, he was an unsuccessful candidate
for the situation which seems as much his own of
right, as that of O'Connell to be the represent ative
of Catholic Ireland, and it is impossible to
doubt that somewhere or other the clergy cornld
have secured his return, To all these causes of dc-
pression must be added that which made him so la, '0
in his arrival at the Congress of Malines, and so
early in his'departure, a tormenting chronic malady,.
Moreover, Montalembert cannot look forward with.:.
any certainty to a political change, such as Prance
has so often BCeri during the last century, and which
would restore him to his just station in political life.
Although not old, his head is already crowned with
grey (" a crown of glory," says Holy Scripture,
when found in the paths of justice"). He may even
anticipate the restoration of Parliamentary Govern-
ment in France, without expecting that he will to ko
a part in it. He has exactly reached the period of
life at which our unhappy countryman Gibbon, ba -
lancing the advantage and the evils of increasing,
years, felt compelled against his will to record that
" two circumstances, the abbreviation of time, and
the failure of hope, could not but tinge with a
browner shade the evening of life."

How deep a shade of melancholy the
political
changes of their country have thrown over many of
those who were once the most prominent among Met
politicians of the Parliamentary period, may be
imagined. It strongly reminds us of the expres-
sions of Cicero, when he found himself excluded
from public life by the success of Caesar in drawing
into his own hands all the power of the State..
High minded men who, in 1848, freely risked
their lives in the cause of " law and order'''
may be heard to profess that if civil strife again
broke out they would sit by their fireside with-
out looking out of the window, that the men of
our day are not worthy of liberty, being
" sales,
Pies et mechants," such is the natural effect of poli-
tical disappointment upon men who are conversant
only with the natural order.
Bearing this in mind, let us turn to the conclud-
ing columns of Montalembert's address, and see how
the hope of a Christian not merely " reconciles man
to his lot," but fills him in the darkest times with a
hope which relates not to himself alone bat to his
country.