350 DEBATES ON RELIGION. And again: "When the religion sent you into the world, did it say to you go, prosper, and acquire?" : There was then in the Assembly a good-natured simple Carthusian friar, named Dom Gerles, a well-meaning short-sighted man,—a warm patriot, but no less a good Catholic. He believed (or very probably he allowed himself to be persuaded by some cunning ecclesiastic) that what gave so much uneasiness to the prelates, was solely the spiritual danger, the fear lest the civil power should meddle with the altar. "Nothing is more simple," said he; "in order to reply to persons who say that the Assembly wishes to have no religion, or that it is willing to admit every religion in France, it has only to decree: "That the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, is and shall ever be the religion of the nation, and that its worship is the only one authorised" (April 12, 1790). Charles de Lameth expected to escape the difficulty, as on the 13th of February, by saying that the Assembly, which, in its decrees, followed the spirit of the Gospel, had no need to justify itself in this manner. But the word was not allowed to drop. The Bishop of Clermont bitterly rejoined, and pretended to be astonished that, when there was a question of doing homage to the religion, people should deliberate instead of replying by a hearty acclamation. All the right side of the Assembly arose, and gave a cheer. In the evening they assembled at the Capucins, and to be provided in case the Assembly should not declare Catholicism the national religion-prepared a violent protest to be carried in solemn procession to the king, and published to a vast number of copies throughout France, in order to make the people well understand that the National Assembly desired to have no kind of religion. CHAPTER VIII. RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE.-SUCCESS OF THE COUNTER- Continuation. The Assembly eludes the question.-The King dares not receive the Protest of the Clergy (April.)-Religious Outbreak in the South (May.)-The South ever inflammable.--Ancient Religious Persecutions; Avignon and Toulon.-Fanaticism, grown lukewarm, skilfully rekindled. - The Protestants still excluded from Civil and Military functions.-Unanimity of these two forms of Worship in 1789. -The Clergy rekindle Fanaticism, and organise a resistance at Nimes (1790.) They awaken Social Jealousies.-Terror of the Protestants.— Outbreak at Toulouse, at Nimes (April.)-Connivance of the Municipalities.-Massacre at Montauban (May 10th.)— Triumph of the CounterRevolution in the South. THE motion made by that plain man had wonderfully changed the aspect of affairs. From a period of debate, the revolution appeared suddenly transported into an age of terror. The Assembly had to contend with terror of two kinds. The clergy had a silent formidable argument, well understood; they exhibited to the Assembly a Medusa, civil war, the imminent insurrection of the west and the south, the probable resurrection of the old wars of religion. And the Assembly felt within itself the immense irresistible force of a revolution let loose, that was to overthrow everything,—a revolution which had for its principal organ the riots of Paris, thundering at its doors, and often drowning the voices of the deputies. In this affair, the clergy had the advantage of position; first, because they seemed to be in personal danger; that very danger sanctified them: many an unbelieving, licentious, intriguing prelate suddenly found himself, under favour of the riots, exalted to the glory of martyrdom-a martyrdom nevertheless impossible, owing to the infinite precautions taken by Lafayette, then so strong and popular, at the zenith of his glory, the real king of Paris. The clergy had moreover in their favour the advantage of a clear position, and the outward appearances of faith. Hitherto 352 DEBATES ON RELIGION. interrogated and placed at the bar by the spirit of the age, it is now their turn to question, and they boldly demand "Are you Catholics?" The Assembly replies timidly, in a disguised equivocal tone, that it cannot answer, that it respects religion too much to make any answer, that, by paying such a religion, it has given sufficient proof, &c. Mirabeau said hypocritically: "Must we decree that the sun shines?" and another: "I believe the Catholic religion to be the only true one; I respect it infinitely. It is said the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Are we then to confirm such language by some miserable decree?" &c. &c. But d'Espremesnil tore away this mask of hypocrisy by his energetical language: "Yes," said he. "When the Jews crucified Jesus Christ, they said, 'Hail, king of the Jews! Nobody replied to this terrible attack. Mirabeau remained silent, and crouched, like a lion about to make a spring. Then seizing the opportunity afforded by a deputy who was quoting, in favour of intolerance, some treaty or other made by Louis XIV.: "And how," cried he, "should not every kind of intolerance have been consecrated in a reign signalised by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If you appeal to history, forget not that hence, from this very tribune, I behold the window whence a king, armed against his people by an execrable faction, that disguised personal interest under the cloak of religion, fired his arquebuss, and gave the signal for the "Saint Bartholomew ! And, with his gesture and finger, he pointed to the window, which from that place it was impossible to perceive; but he mentally saw it, and everybody saw it. The blow struck home. What the orator had said revealed precisely what the clergy wanted to do. Their plan was to carry to the king a violent protestation which would have armed believers, and to put the arquebuss into the king's hands, to fire the first shot. How Louis XVI. was not a Charles IX.; but, being very sincerely convinced of the right of the clergy, he would have accepted the peril for what he considered the safety of religion. ever, three things prevented him his natural indecision, the timidity of his ministry, and, lastly, more than all the rest, his fears for the life of the queen, the terror of the 6th of SCHEMES OF THE CLERGY. 353 October daily renewed, that violent menacing crowd beneath his windows, that ocean-multitude beating against his walls. At every resistance the queen seemed in peril. Moreover, she herself had other views and different hopes, far removed from the clergy. An answer was returned, in the name of the king, that if the protest were brought to the Tuileries, it would not be received. We have seen how the king, in February, had discouraged Bouillé, the officers, and the nobility. In April, his refusal to support the clergy would deprive them of courage if they could ever lose it when the question concerns their wealth. Maury said in a rage that people should know in France whose hands contained royalty. It now remained to act without the king. Were they to act with the nobility? And yet the clergy could not rely much even on their assistance. They still had the monopoly of all the grades; but, not being sure of the soldiers, they were afraid of an outbreak and were less impatient and less warlike than the priests. Froment, the agent of the clergy at Nimes, although he had obtained an order from the Count d'Artois, was unable to persuade the commandant of the province to allow him to make use of the arsenal, and yet the business was urgent. The great confederations of the Rhone had intoxicated the whole country, and that of Orange in April had completed the general enthusiasm. Avignon no longer remembered that it belonged to the pope, but sent to Orange, with all the French towns. Had they waited a moment longer, it would have escaped them. If the chief towns of aristocracy and fanaticism, like Avignon and Arles, with which the clergy were ever threatening, themselves became revolutionary, the counter-revolution, held moreover in close quarters by Marseilles and Bordeaux, had no longer any hope. The explosion must take place now or never. We should not at all understand the eruptions of these old volcanoes of the South, if we did not previously examine that ever burning soil. The infernal flames of the stakes which were there kindled so many times, those contagious sulphurous flames seem to have gained the very soil, so that unknown conflagrations are there ever undermining the land. It is like 354 THE PALACE OF AVIGNON, those burning coal-pits in the Aveyron, the fire is not at the surface; but, if you plunge a cane into that yellow turf, it smokes, takes fire, and reveals the hell that is dormant at your feet. May animosity ever decline!-But it is necessary that reminiscences should remain, that so many woes and sufferings be never lost for the experience of men. It is necessary that the first and most sacred of our liberties, religious freedom, go to strengthen itself and revive at the sight of the horrible ruins left by fanaticism. The very stones speak in default of men. Two monuments especially deserve to be the objects of a frequent pilgrimage,— two opposite yet instructive monuments, the one infamous, the other sacred. The infamous one is the palace of Avignon, that Babel of the popes, that Sodom of legates, that Gomorrah of cardinals; a monstrous palace covering the whole brow of a mountain with its obscene towers, the scene of lust and torture, where priests showed to kings that, in comparison to them, they were mere novices in the abominable arts of sensuality. The originality of the construction is that the places of torture not being far removed from the luxurious alcoves, ball rooms, and festive halls, they might very easily have heard, amid the singing in the courts of love, the shrieks and groans of the tortured, and the breaking and cracking of their bones. Priestly prudence had provided against this by a scientific arrangement of the vaults, proper to absorb every kind of noise. The superb pyramidal hall where the flaming piles were erected (imagine the interior of a cone of sixty feet) testifies a frightful knowledge of acoustics; only here and there a few traces of oily soot still call to mind the burning of flesh.* The other place, both holy and sacred, is the Bagne (for galley-slaves) at Toulon, the Calvary of religious liberty, the place where the confessors of the faith, the heroes of charity, died a lingering death beneath the lash. Be it remembered that several of these martyrs, condemned to the galleys for life, were not Protestants, but men accused of having allowed Protestants to escape! * This pyramidal hall for burning victims, must not be confounded with the Tour de la Glacière, of which I shall speak hereafter. |