The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-12-25

They have been turning the Jeetits and
their colleges ont; Of their premises; they
civil functionaries; they have held courts
martial and condemned one priest to
death, who was afterwards respited by M.
Gambetta; they have stabbed themselves
and their horses in churches and cathedrals,
even where the municipal authorities offer
ed to provide them with other accommoda-
ton and, finally, they have broken into
private residences under pretence OF dOmi-
ciliatOry visits-amOng others into the
palace of the Bishop of Autun, whose
sleeping apartments they invaded with
drawn swords, rummaging about in dark
holes and corners round the bed and under
the bed in which the prelate was lying, in
quest, as they said, of Prussian spy but
taking away in the end, not the spy, who
did not exist, but the Bishops watch, and
the seal of his ,bishOpric. We would will
ingly discard such tales as untrue if the
statements had only occurred in French
newspapers; but we cannot set aside the
testimony of some of the Garibaldians
themselves, honest English correspondents,
enthusiastically attached to their leader,
who, Of course, cannot conceive that the
blame incurred by individuals should ex-
tend to the whole corps. His immediate
followers, mostly Italians, and thousands
of volunteers from all countries, and espe-
cially from the south of France, some of
whom have chosen Garibadi's red shirt as
their uniform, precisely because that gar
ment could best free them from all
| straints of divine and human law. Carl
| bafdi should have considered that he is a
| stranger in France; that his business there
| is to fight the Prussians, not to worry the
priests. 1t is true he contends, and very
probably believes, that the priests are
worse enemies of the people than the Prus-
| slams themselves but he should reflect how
easy it is for the priests to turn the tables
| -. l.
any enemy in the flesh or spirit, and how
naturally the people would trust their own
clergy rather than man of whom they
know nothing, except that he looks upon
the Apostle Peter as myth, and upon the
Apostles successor as Antichrist
When Garibaldi entered Autun-a town
! hardly known to him even by name-a
town with a population of IL 900 souls and
! no less than nine cOnvents-he addressed
| the crowds of Z" ladies and women" as he
described them, attracted by curiosity, and
warned them to beware of priests and
monks, who were their worst foes, and un-
der whose influence their country could
never hope to emancipate itself; but he
was cut short by a fair one in the audience,
| who was very sure the priests we're no him
drance to the young men who did their
duty to their country, but rather stirred
them up with word and example, followed
| them to the camp, tended them in hospital,
| harbored them in their cloisters witness
the Jesuit F. tiers, who had been lodging
| and feeding as many as SUI Mobiles for up
wards of a month";" For it is fact, of
which Garibaldi is not aware, and of which
he can form no conception, that in France
the Clerical, the Legitimist, and all other
reactionary parties, are by no means those
| which show the least zeal in the national
cause; because 10 the present state of in
terregnum, if not of anarchy, they feel
that those who wish to have France must
take her; that there is race between par
ties as to who shall go farthest in the ex-
hibition of patriotic devotion, who shall
lay the strongest claims to the public graft
tude by the utmost exertiOns In the work
of deliverance-Garibaldi ought to feel
that an alien like himself, however welcome
to be combatant, has no right to be a
partisan. The only way for him to fight
the priests is to fight, the Prus-
slams better than the priests, OF, at
least, than the priests partisans can do.
If the Republican freeshooters under his
son can do more for France than the Papal
Zouaves under Charette, there is some pro-
liability that the red, and not the white,
flag may, after the victory, become the
banner of France.