The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-29 00:00:00

FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORA7ION.

In the turmoil of the great Revolution of
1792 the sanctity of religion was destroyed in
France. France was launched into a new arena

into a system of equality repugnant to Vie
national character. A new kind of noblesse
had been created—men whose talents had only
been formed in camps and on battle-fields.
These men had adopted the revolutionary spirit,

their cry was-7-death to every priest, and to
every man or woman consecrated to God. The
institute of the Sisters of Charity charged with
the care of the sick and wounded in the hos-

pitals was the only remnant left of those great
religious corporations which had constituted
until then, by their virtue and by, their• learn-
ing, the chief glory of France. There was no
longer to be a master nor a servant. The word
master to this day is only used in those pro-
vinces which did not abandon their religion.

Then a tyrant sprang up—a tyrant whose iron
will was to be obeyed by all the nations of
the earth. The fashion, the human respect of

those days, was to obey the orders Of that
tyrant, although the lives of every son of France
had to be sacrificed on the altar of ambition, of

vain glory. Religion was described as an in-
vention of man to keep mankind in abject
subjection ; obedience to the Ten Command..
ments, the Commandments of the Church,
was the vilest, of slaveries. The most infamous
caricatures, the vilest stories, were invented
and published to pervert public opinion. France
by such means was brought down to so 'low a
grade of morality that no kind of religion was
left in the governmental circles. The pride of
the tyrant had reached its climax ; he could
exclaim—" You see there is no God, for I alone

am obeyed." - It was seated on that pinnacle of
pride, supported by the world, by fashion, and
by human respect, that he dared attack the
only moral power left upon the earth—the
Pope at Rome. " The Pope shall bend to my
pride ; my iron will shall be universal." But
what is the will of man against those words of
Christ, " The gates of hell shall not prevail
against thee." The rage of the tyrant boiled
over at the resistance of that rock, represented
by an aged, feeble old man. It was the only
rock left standing upon which liberty, morality,
charity, and honesty could rest. " Bring me
that rock," cried out the tyrant in his rage ;
"my iron will shall be obeyed." The Pope
was conveyed to Fontainebleau, as Peter, in
days of old, was taken to prison and put in
chains. In spite of its extreme horrors there
was a certain honesty in the great Re,iolution ;
the Church property was not confiscated as in
England for the benefit of a few favoured fami-
lies, but was put up to the hammer and knocked
down to the highest bidder, and its proceeds
were carried to the general balance-sheet of
the nation.
The great. Revolution ended by placing re-
ligion in the hands of the civil power, and in
obtaining the apparent sanction of Rome to
such a result by a species of fraud—the tack-
ing on to the Concordat of 1802 the organic
articles which were in reality condemned by the
Pope. The Church in France, however, was
obliged to accept a measure such
as the position of a master' able,
indeed,
e placed practically
with his servants, but
without
powerfalilt
of enforcing obedience. The
ed,
toanyfitn ind
Church might tell the people the law of God
and of the Church, forbid servile work on Sun-

days, but it could not hinder the civil authority
from repairing on a Sunday the pavement be-
fore the church door. The Church might ex-
pound to the people the Ten Commandments,
forbid swearing and profane and impious lan-
guage, but it could not prevent the civil autho-
rity from employing men in the habit of swear-
ing and making use of impious language on
Sundays, within hearine, even of those attend-
ing divine service. Such was the way liberty
was understood in 1815, when the ancient
Kings were restored to their throne. They
found France completely changed, upset, and
ruined ; there was not a public road in repair ;
the mail coaches could not travel more than
five miles an hour ; public opinion had adopted
the most strange ideas of liberty and equality ;
men felt that they were • out of the hands of
the tyrant, that they were no longer subject to
the iron will of one man, that they had recovered
liberty; of speech, liberty of printing and pub-
lishing whatever they liked. It is true the sons
of France had been decimated, shot down by
cannon's mouth ; there was scarcely an able-
bodied man left. An eloquent writer at the
time exclaimed—" Rejoice, ye mothers of
France, the butcher of your sons has disap-
peared ifrom among us." With the resto-
ration of the ancient Kings every liberty was
restored. But what use did the nation make
of that liberty ? The public press gave a double
meaning to every act of the Government, in
order to bias public opinion against the royal
authority. The King was powerless •he had
accepted a charter which chained his liands in
the same way as the Concordat chained the
hands of the Church. The King was called
a Jesuit, because he attended church on Sun-
days. The priest was represented as a man
trying, by recovery of the tithes, to rob the
people ; as a tyrant, because he wished to pre-
vent the people from working on Sundays.
The bishops and religious orders were repre-
sented as the teachers of antiquated, retro-
grading ideas, propagated solely with the object
of getting back their monasteries and landed
estates, confiscated by the Revolution. The
King was called a Jesuit. The word Jesuit
meant at the time everything vile and degrad-
ing; it was made the watchword of every secret
society. It had, in a sense, the same mean-
ing as the calumnies taught in England; such
as that priests forbid the reading of the Bible,
adore images, are not Englishmen because they
recognize a foreign King—the Pope at Rome.
In France the word Jesuit meant torture, in-
quisition ; a man with a double face, with a
double meaning i a man who knew how to in-
sinuate himself into the secrets and privacy
of every family. Just as in England, the priest
is represented also as a lover of persecution,
of the inquisition, as a traitor to his country.
In France the word Jesuit served as a weapon
to frighten those who went to church on Sun-
days; as a weapon against those who still re-
tained some respect for Church authority. It
was a name of reprobation bestowed on Chris-
tian writers, who raised complaints against the
Concordat, because it had chained the hands
of the clergy, against the charter which had
chained in the same way the hands of the
King. If a man entered a church to pray even
on Sunday, he was pointed at and called a
Jesuit. If he was known to say his morning
and evening prayers he was put down as a
Jesuit. If he visited the poor or the sick,
or gave alms, he was a Jesuit. In a word, if
he did any adieu that ram man above the