The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-03 00:00:00

When, after the Revolution of 1830, the Avenir
was established, it encountered opposition on all
sides. The Legitimist party, the moderate Or-
leanists—known by the name of the Juste Milieu
party— the Republican infidels, and soon the
bishops of France, followed by a large body of
clergy, protested on different grounds against some
of the political doctrines and political measures
enforced and recommended by the new journal.
The very able articles, however, which it con-
tained in defence of religion and of the rights of
the Church ; its valuable foreign correspondence ;
the boldness with which it denounced any encroach-
m?,nts of the Government and its officials on the
rights of the Church ; the terror with which it in-
spired the enemies of religion in France awoke
admiration and sympathy in many quarters. In
Belgium and in Catholic Germany it excited the
liveliest interest ; and in France the young and
the inexperienced among Catholics—all who, in
fact, were little conversant with political matters,
and were unconnected with the Royalist families,
became enthusiastic admirers of the Acenir.*
The Abbe de la Mennais, brought up in the
political traditions of faithful Brittany, was, in the
early and flourishing period of his career, a distin-
guished ornament of the monarchical party of
France. At this time he wrote those beautiful
essays on the anniversary of the execution of Louis
XVI., on the Holy Alliance, on the state of revolu-
tionary Spain—in which he roused the Government
and people of France to put down the anti-Chris-
tian Revolution in that country—and on Christian
Greece and her struggle for independence.t It
was, however, chiefly to moral subjects, such as
the observance of the Sunday, the religious re-
forms to be introduced into the State colleges, the
rights of the Church as opposed to certain preten-
sions of the Government, he devoted his especial
attention. A mind mathematical in its construc-
tion, and a character prone to exaggeration, ren-
dered him less eminent in the sphere of politics
than in the regions of theology and philosophy.
Hence he never obtained over the Royalist party
the same influence as his illustrious friends, de
Maistre, de Bonald, and even de Chateaubriand.
Two prosecutions, instituted by the administration
of M. de Villele (the most fatal mistake ever com-
mitted by the Royalist Ministry), one for an attack
on the University, the other for an attack on the
Gallican Declaration of 1682, alienated him by de-
grees from the court and its defenders. Hence
the ultra-Royalist, who used to cry out in the
Drapean Blanc "Vivo le Roi quand meme," began
in the last years of the Restoration to feel a latent
inclination towards the American institutions, that
at least secured the freedom of the Church, the
freedom of education, and the freedom of the
press.
As an anti-Gallican the Abbe had to combat
the opinions of many of his superiors in the hier-
archy ; and this was in itself a perilous position
for a clergyman. The bishops sometimes attacked
him in their pastorals ; and these assaults some-
times provoked on his part a certain exaggeration
of sentiment, and a certain acerbity of language,
wanting in the respect due to the princes of the
C hurch.s

Again, his philosophical system on the authority
of mankind in religious matters § excited great
differences of opinion ; and the great majority of
the French prelates were adverse to his views.
Yet a considerable number of the laity and of the
junior portion of the clergy were ranged on his
side.

Such was his position when the Revolution of
1830 broke out. The coup de"tat of 1830, pro-
voked by the aggressions of the Liberal party on
the rights of the Church, and by its menacing
attitude towards the Crown, was ill-advisedly con-
ceived and most clumsily executed. The Royalist
party, discouraged, divided, and (to use a military
phrase) demoralized by the Royal ordinances of
1828 against certain rights of the Church, did not
give to the new, extra-legal measures of Charles
X. that sympathy and support which, by moderat-
ing and applying them, might have rendered
them successful.

The Abbe de la Mennais, always laudably anxi-
ous to promote the freedom of the Church, thought
the July Revolution presented a favourable oppor-
tunity for emancipating her from the fetters im-
posed by the ancient Parliaments, the Republic,
and the Emperor Napoleon I. " This Revolution
has been so rapid," he wrote to a friend at this
time, " that the people have not had time to do
mischief. The Church will be placed in a better
position ; and the Royalists, who prefer religion to
royalty, will have no reason to be dissatisfied."

The Church of France which, since the com-
mencement of the century, had been growing in
moral and intellectual power, was now, indeed, to
pass through new trials, and gain new victories.
But the means proposed by the writer in question
for insuring those victories, and the consequent
moral regeneration of the French people, were not
more dangerous than impracticable. " The infinite
and the finite, the absolute and the relative, the
spiritual and the temporal," says the illustrious
Giirres, " run into each other in this world ; and
religion and civil society can never be absolutely
sundered." But the attempt to bring about even
a partial severance of Church and State is most
destructive.

The object and the principles of the Avenir
were recently set forth in these columns. We
will now say a few words of its principal writers. Of
its founder enough has been already said. We have
already seen that partly on personal, partly and
more especially on public grounds, the Abbe de la
Mennais, in the Avenir, abandoned his ancient
system of policy. Ilis chief associates in the new
undertaking were the Abbe Gerbet, the Pere La-
cordaire, the Count de Montalembert, and M. de
Coux. The young Abb6 Gerbet, afterwards pro-
moted to the See of Perpignan, was a dialectician
of the first order, and withal endowed with a bril-
liant imagination—qualities which he had even
then displayed in several admirable works. But
he had not turned much of his attention to poli-
tical science. 11 The Pere Lacordaire had just
given the world some tokens of those wondrous
powers of reasoning and eloquence, that were for
thirty years to enchain France to the chair of
truth, and to win countless souls to Christ. But
still young and inexperienced, with a character as
ardent and impetuous as that of de la Mennais,
though united with 'more tact and prudence, he
still retained, even after his conversion to Christia-
nity and his elevation to the priesthood, a strong
predilection for the political doctrines of the Con- ,
stituent Assembly in which he had been brought
up.l At this period, as was the case with most
of the writers in the Avenir, the Pere Lacor-
daire betrayed an ill-disgu:sed leaning towards the
Republican form of government. And though, as I

* The Pere Chocarne, in his new life of the Pere La-
cordaire, points out some of the services which the Avenir
rendered to religion.
f In the Drapeau Blanc, 1823.
Even those prelates who did not hold the Galilean
opinions disapproved, of course, of this language.
§ Though this philosophical system had been pro-
pounded in 1820, yet, in 1824, Pope Leo XII. received the
author with open arms, wished to retain him at Rome,
took steps to promote him to the cardinalitial dignity,
and to the end of his life corresponded with him. Rome
tolerated, but did not approve of the philosophical sys-
tem in question. It was only after the author's sad
secession from the Church the Holy See pronounced a
censure on this philosophy. It is highly probable that,
had ha remained true to religion, this system, at least in
his lifetime, would not have been condemned.
H The syllabus to the Quanta Curl was drawn up by
Mgr. Gerbet. "A burned child dreads the fire." He had
in his youth a lively experience of the folly and dangers
of political Liberalism. _

Even in his mature- years e find him, in 1848, pub-
licly controverting some statement of his friend, Count
de Montalembert, as too aristocratic, and designating him
the citoyen Montalembert—a title which even extreme
Liberalism was ashamed to revive. We find him as a
deputy to the National Assembly, taking his place, not
like other ecclesiastics with the Party of Order, but—
probably with tho view of winning them over to better
sentiments--sitting beside Jacobins and Socialists. His
position was so false, that he soon tendered his resigna-
tion as deputy. Those facts we state to show, that the
holy priest and the mighty preacher was not a sound prac-
tical
politician.