1.1.Part 1
The French Revolution was chiefly the result of social and economic conditions of the time. To appreciate its origin and progress it is necessary to review the developments that led to it over a long period.
During the Middle Ages, the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the Church had transformed the bar¬barians of the Dark Ages into civilised Europeans, Society became divided into four chief classes: the Clergy, representing religion and the authority of the Church; the Nobility, who were professional warriors and local rulers, maintained by the peasantry, with their feudal, rights, their castles, and amusements; the Peasantry, tillers of the soil, freemen or serfs, relatively poor and ignorant; and lastly, the Bourgeoisie, tow dwellers, burghers, who comprised the merchants, guildsmen, artisans, and professional men generally.
The Holy Roman. Empire maintained a loose unity in Europe, though national kingdoms, such as France, England and Spain, existed in strength; the power of Governments was accepted as representing the authority of God over the people.
Trade had been mostly by barter, but with the adoption of money for exchange, commerce had grown, how-ever, it was restricted by the prohibition of interest, price-fixing by the guilds, and the fixed tenancy of the peasants. By the fifteenth century, following the re¬vival of principles of Roman law, these restrictions were removed, and land-capitalism and money-capitalism had come in, with the strengthening of absolute monarchies and autocracy. The landlords became employers of labour and moneylending was a lawful occupation.
The explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries served to change the medieval system of trade immensely. Trade outside Europe, with Asia and India, had been controlled by Italy, for it came through the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea; the Portuguese, Spanish and English sought to have their share by seeking new trade routes.
In 1488, Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese, went round the Cape of Good Hope at the extreme of South Africa, to the Indian Ocean; in 1497, Vasco da Gama went on the same route to India, and others sailed as far as the Spice Islands and China.
Spain sent Columbus to look for a way to India in 1492, and he crossed the Atlantic to find America. Henry VII of England sent the Italian, John Cabot, on a voyage in 1497, which also ended in America, and two years later, the Italian, Amerigo Vespuccil landed in Brazil.
In 1519, the Spaniard, Magellan, travelled around South America, across the Pacific to the Philippine Islands, where he was killed; one of his ships made the voyage home by the north of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.
England did not enter into the trade opened up by these new routes for the present, but France and Holland took an active interest in Africa, India, and America, to the detriment of Italian commerce. Europe's influence expanded with her trade; and as trade grew, manufactures began to be transported, with the consequent increase of wealth in Europe. More trade meant more money and more moneylending, with greater use of gold from the new worlds .and of paper money to represent it. Joint stock companies arose, demanding profits, free use of property, bargaining for prices and control of management; thus, the middle class became powerful. Money was power, and the bankers, merchants and businessmen had become as strong as the nobles. These, as absentee landlords, sought for more money from the peasants, and by taking over the rights of common lands forced the peasants to become labourers on hire, increasing industry and weakening the guild system. But the competition for power by the bourgeoisie secured their wish for a share in the government beyond what they had ever held before.
Rulers began to resist the influence of the Church. There was only one faith, but its economic laws were a restraint upon the wealthy. Advance in knowledge, of science, astronomy, geography and medicine, coupled with the growth of wealth among the few and big land possessions of the Church, as well as some scandals among the clergy, led to the questioning of the doctrines of the Church and the suspicion of the old ideas and institutions.
During the Middle Ages, the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the Church had transformed the bar¬barians of the Dark Ages into civilised Europeans, Society became divided into four chief classes: the Clergy, representing religion and the authority of the Church; the Nobility, who were professional warriors and local rulers, maintained by the peasantry, with their feudal, rights, their castles, and amusements; the Peasantry, tillers of the soil, freemen or serfs, relatively poor and ignorant; and lastly, the Bourgeoisie, tow dwellers, burghers, who comprised the merchants, guildsmen, artisans, and professional men generally.
The Holy Roman. Empire maintained a loose unity in Europe, though national kingdoms, such as France, England and Spain, existed in strength; the power of Governments was accepted as representing the authority of God over the people.
Trade had been mostly by barter, but with the adoption of money for exchange, commerce had grown, how-ever, it was restricted by the prohibition of interest, price-fixing by the guilds, and the fixed tenancy of the peasants. By the fifteenth century, following the re¬vival of principles of Roman law, these restrictions were removed, and land-capitalism and money-capitalism had come in, with the strengthening of absolute monarchies and autocracy. The landlords became employers of labour and moneylending was a lawful occupation.
The explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries served to change the medieval system of trade immensely. Trade outside Europe, with Asia and India, had been controlled by Italy, for it came through the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea; the Portuguese, Spanish and English sought to have their share by seeking new trade routes.
In 1488, Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese, went round the Cape of Good Hope at the extreme of South Africa, to the Indian Ocean; in 1497, Vasco da Gama went on the same route to India, and others sailed as far as the Spice Islands and China.
Spain sent Columbus to look for a way to India in 1492, and he crossed the Atlantic to find America. Henry VII of England sent the Italian, John Cabot, on a voyage in 1497, which also ended in America, and two years later, the Italian, Amerigo Vespuccil landed in Brazil.
In 1519, the Spaniard, Magellan, travelled around South America, across the Pacific to the Philippine Islands, where he was killed; one of his ships made the voyage home by the north of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.
England did not enter into the trade opened up by these new routes for the present, but France and Holland took an active interest in Africa, India, and America, to the detriment of Italian commerce. Europe's influence expanded with her trade; and as trade grew, manufactures began to be transported, with the consequent increase of wealth in Europe. More trade meant more money and more moneylending, with greater use of gold from the new worlds .and of paper money to represent it. Joint stock companies arose, demanding profits, free use of property, bargaining for prices and control of management; thus, the middle class became powerful. Money was power, and the bankers, merchants and businessmen had become as strong as the nobles. These, as absentee landlords, sought for more money from the peasants, and by taking over the rights of common lands forced the peasants to become labourers on hire, increasing industry and weakening the guild system. But the competition for power by the bourgeoisie secured their wish for a share in the government beyond what they had ever held before.
Rulers began to resist the influence of the Church. There was only one faith, but its economic laws were a restraint upon the wealthy. Advance in knowledge, of science, astronomy, geography and medicine, coupled with the growth of wealth among the few and big land possessions of the Church, as well as some scandals among the clergy, led to the questioning of the doctrines of the Church and the suspicion of the old ideas and institutions.
1.2.Part II
In the sixteenth century, northern Europe was separated from the Church. Luther, Henry VIII and Calvin brought in the sects which spread scepticism of all teaching, and opened the why for the Deists and rationalism. Calvin was a Frenchman, with about three per cent of Frenchmen following his ideas; they were mostly of the middle class, opposed to absolute monarchy, as they sought popular influence in the government. Calvinist influence in this regard was felt by Mary of Scotland, Philip II in the Dutch Republican move, Louis XIII in France, and Charles I and James II in Eng¬land in the Puritan revolt, where in each case the power of the people was being forced against the monarchs.
Religion had become identified with nations and thus with the government and autocracy; the rise of autocracy in kings rejecting the authority of the Church and of the Holy Roman Empire, the beginnings of national., literatures, and their competition in trade made the nations self—conscious and made the kings more autocratic.
And though there were some restrictions on monarchy, for instance, possible dethronement, parliament¬ary representation of the clergy, nobility and commons, and some recognised inviolable rights of the people, still, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its power grew beyond all limits because of their personal ability, their strength in armed forces with gunpowder weapons, their control of what was formerly Church property and affairs, and the revival of the idea that the king is above the law. The traders and merchants supported the king as against the nobles, and in return, had new colonies founded for them as well as having the protection of. the navies of their country for their ships.
In England, the Tudors, Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth urged their autocracy to the full. In France, which is our chief concern, the Bourbons brought it to its greatest development.
Henry IV of Navarre came to power after civil wars of devastation and chaos. He reduced the power of the petty nobles and local rulers and favoured the traders with security. His son, Louis XIII (1610 --1643) had his country administered by the very able Cardinal Richelieu, who strove for the removal of all limitation from the King's power. Hence, the Parlia¬ment or States General was never allowed to meet. In fact, from 1614 to 1789 it had not one session. He. destroyed all fortified castles of the nobles, crushed Calvinism, the Huguenots in France, and set up new local governors or "intendants" chosen from the middle class, to supervise the law and the collection of taxes in the provinces.
Louis XIV, at five years of age, succeeded his father in 1643, with Cardinal Mazarin as his prime minister. This reign of the Grand Monarch was the climax of autocracy. He lived in splendour and luxury, fawned upon by Dukes and Counts, but attending carefully to finance and the affairs of government.
Commerce and prosperity increased for the bour-geoisie after he had crushed the Fronde or Rising of the Nobles. He denied freedom of religion to the Huguenots, who fled the country, thereby consolidating his power. At times he had more than four hundred thousand men in arms, and wars were constant with their accompaniment of plunder and miseries.
He sought to extend his boundaries to the Rhine and to get the mastery over the House of Hapsburg, which, however, continued to rule Austria, Spain, part of Italy, part of the Netherlands, Hungary, Bohemia, part of east France, and the American colonies. During the sixty seven years of his rule, France was at war for nearly thirty two years. Such European wars impeded France's commerce and colonies and naval development, though they gave strength to the monarchy and the idea of the divine-right, whilst they entailed enormous expense of funds.
Louis XV succeeded in 1715, just after the close of the War of the Spanish Succession. Devoted to ease and luxury, he spent lavishly the taxes he imposed, produced no reforms for the benefit of his people, and buried the country in debt by his wars.
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1714 - 17)8, and the Seven Years' War, 1756 -- 1763, left Britain , mistress of the seas with a vast colonial empire; whilst France and Spain, the monarchical autocracies, had been unable to defend their trade and possessions, and France was practically bankrupt. This state of affairs had its effect in fostering the revolutionary spirit.
This same spirit was aided by the knowledge of the success of the English revolution against the ab¬solute monarchy in 1688; the break away of Holland from Spain finalised in 1648; the American revolution of 1776 against English rule, and the writings of the French philosophers Montesglaell., Rousseau, and Quesnoy, who borrowed much from John Locke, the Englishman. The philosophers found a ready hearing among the bourgeois, who were reasonably educated, for their theories of liberty, equality, sovereignty of the people, freedom of trading and distrust of religion.
The French nation at the end of the eighteenth century was divided into three classes or "Estates." The First Estate was that of the clergy; the Second, that of the nobility; the Third being the rest, that is, the peasants and the burghers or merchants, towns-men, professional men. The first two classes were "privileged" and were about one and a half per cent of the population; they were assured of their income and paid no taxes.
The Clergy - the country priests were poorly salaried, laboured for their people and were respected by them. The higher clergy - Bishops and Arch-bishops - were mostly sons of noble families, with many benefices and big incomes, spending their time about the Court in luxury and ease.
The Nobility - since Richelieu's time they had little power, but lived near the Court, absentee land-lords, hated by their peasants. .
The Third Estate - the peasants, had to support the King and the "privileged" classes by about four fifths of their income for taxes and rents. The bour¬geoisie as business men and professional men and arti¬sans, had many government restrictions on their trading from the guilds, chartered stock companies, customs barriers within the country, and royal monopolies.
In a word - the interests of the Third Estate clashed with those of the First and Second.
Louis XV had dissipated the prestige and the finance of his country. - Louis XVI (177.-- 1792) set upon some reforms for taxation and commerce, but, on protest from the nobles, he desisted. Then he yielded to the desire for revenge upon England, and declared war against her in 1778, during her difficulties with the revolution in America. As a result, his country became bankrupt, and the success of the American venture again¬st the English king, gave a headline for the agitation in France.
The "privileged" classes were asked to share the common burdens of expenses and refused.. Louis decided to summon the three Estates, the Estates General, to Versailles in May, 1789. The Clergy had three hundred representatives, the Nobility had the same number, and the Third Estate had six hundred. Each Estate voted as a unit, and any two could together carry any measure; the First and Second generally stood together.
When the three Estates met, because the Third, led by Mirabeau, though a Count, represented the bulk ' of the people, it demanded a change in organisation and in the voting system. It wanted a single body, a National Assembly, where each member should have one vote, and the majority would carry any measure. This demand was backed by some of the Second and many of the lower clergy of the First Estate. Louis, afraid to displease the nobles, refused the demand, and, in June, 1789, locked out the Third Estate from the meetings.
These representatives then met in a public builde ing nearby, which was used as a tennis court, and took an oath that, as members of the National Assembly, they would draw up a Constitution for France. This was de-fiance of the King and of autocracy.
A week later, Louis weakened and had the three Estates sit together as a National Assembly, with voting by heads. But the royal troops were ordered to cone verge upon Versailles at the same time. The Assembly asked for their withdrawal, which the King refused. The populace of Paris then sided with the Assembly against the King and wild rioting was everywhere in the city.
The Bastille, a royal fortress and symbol of its authority, was captured and rased to the ground by the mob. Paris was now outside of royal control; the Commune was organised by the prominent citizens for local government, and the National Guard. was ex enrolled for the citizens' army, with Lafayette as its commander.
Louis withdrew the royal troops from Versailles, but they soon again appeared. In October, news was abroad in Paris that the soldiers were feasting and drinking liberally. Paris was in a state of starvation because of the failure of crops the summer before, and it seemed the King's army would not help the food posi¬tion. A large host of women, enraged with hunger, with sticks and clubs in their hands, walked the twelve miles to Versailles to demonstrate and yell for bread.
Religion had become identified with nations and thus with the government and autocracy; the rise of autocracy in kings rejecting the authority of the Church and of the Holy Roman Empire, the beginnings of national., literatures, and their competition in trade made the nations self—conscious and made the kings more autocratic.
And though there were some restrictions on monarchy, for instance, possible dethronement, parliament¬ary representation of the clergy, nobility and commons, and some recognised inviolable rights of the people, still, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its power grew beyond all limits because of their personal ability, their strength in armed forces with gunpowder weapons, their control of what was formerly Church property and affairs, and the revival of the idea that the king is above the law. The traders and merchants supported the king as against the nobles, and in return, had new colonies founded for them as well as having the protection of. the navies of their country for their ships.
In England, the Tudors, Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth urged their autocracy to the full. In France, which is our chief concern, the Bourbons brought it to its greatest development.
Henry IV of Navarre came to power after civil wars of devastation and chaos. He reduced the power of the petty nobles and local rulers and favoured the traders with security. His son, Louis XIII (1610 --1643) had his country administered by the very able Cardinal Richelieu, who strove for the removal of all limitation from the King's power. Hence, the Parlia¬ment or States General was never allowed to meet. In fact, from 1614 to 1789 it had not one session. He. destroyed all fortified castles of the nobles, crushed Calvinism, the Huguenots in France, and set up new local governors or "intendants" chosen from the middle class, to supervise the law and the collection of taxes in the provinces.
Louis XIV, at five years of age, succeeded his father in 1643, with Cardinal Mazarin as his prime minister. This reign of the Grand Monarch was the climax of autocracy. He lived in splendour and luxury, fawned upon by Dukes and Counts, but attending carefully to finance and the affairs of government.
Commerce and prosperity increased for the bour-geoisie after he had crushed the Fronde or Rising of the Nobles. He denied freedom of religion to the Huguenots, who fled the country, thereby consolidating his power. At times he had more than four hundred thousand men in arms, and wars were constant with their accompaniment of plunder and miseries.
He sought to extend his boundaries to the Rhine and to get the mastery over the House of Hapsburg, which, however, continued to rule Austria, Spain, part of Italy, part of the Netherlands, Hungary, Bohemia, part of east France, and the American colonies. During the sixty seven years of his rule, France was at war for nearly thirty two years. Such European wars impeded France's commerce and colonies and naval development, though they gave strength to the monarchy and the idea of the divine-right, whilst they entailed enormous expense of funds.
Louis XV succeeded in 1715, just after the close of the War of the Spanish Succession. Devoted to ease and luxury, he spent lavishly the taxes he imposed, produced no reforms for the benefit of his people, and buried the country in debt by his wars.
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1714 - 17)8, and the Seven Years' War, 1756 -- 1763, left Britain , mistress of the seas with a vast colonial empire; whilst France and Spain, the monarchical autocracies, had been unable to defend their trade and possessions, and France was practically bankrupt. This state of affairs had its effect in fostering the revolutionary spirit.
This same spirit was aided by the knowledge of the success of the English revolution against the ab¬solute monarchy in 1688; the break away of Holland from Spain finalised in 1648; the American revolution of 1776 against English rule, and the writings of the French philosophers Montesglaell., Rousseau, and Quesnoy, who borrowed much from John Locke, the Englishman. The philosophers found a ready hearing among the bourgeois, who were reasonably educated, for their theories of liberty, equality, sovereignty of the people, freedom of trading and distrust of religion.
The French nation at the end of the eighteenth century was divided into three classes or "Estates." The First Estate was that of the clergy; the Second, that of the nobility; the Third being the rest, that is, the peasants and the burghers or merchants, towns-men, professional men. The first two classes were "privileged" and were about one and a half per cent of the population; they were assured of their income and paid no taxes.
The Clergy - the country priests were poorly salaried, laboured for their people and were respected by them. The higher clergy - Bishops and Arch-bishops - were mostly sons of noble families, with many benefices and big incomes, spending their time about the Court in luxury and ease.
The Nobility - since Richelieu's time they had little power, but lived near the Court, absentee land-lords, hated by their peasants. .
The Third Estate - the peasants, had to support the King and the "privileged" classes by about four fifths of their income for taxes and rents. The bour¬geoisie as business men and professional men and arti¬sans, had many government restrictions on their trading from the guilds, chartered stock companies, customs barriers within the country, and royal monopolies.
In a word - the interests of the Third Estate clashed with those of the First and Second.
Louis XV had dissipated the prestige and the finance of his country. - Louis XVI (177.-- 1792) set upon some reforms for taxation and commerce, but, on protest from the nobles, he desisted. Then he yielded to the desire for revenge upon England, and declared war against her in 1778, during her difficulties with the revolution in America. As a result, his country became bankrupt, and the success of the American venture again¬st the English king, gave a headline for the agitation in France.
The "privileged" classes were asked to share the common burdens of expenses and refused.. Louis decided to summon the three Estates, the Estates General, to Versailles in May, 1789. The Clergy had three hundred representatives, the Nobility had the same number, and the Third Estate had six hundred. Each Estate voted as a unit, and any two could together carry any measure; the First and Second generally stood together.
When the three Estates met, because the Third, led by Mirabeau, though a Count, represented the bulk ' of the people, it demanded a change in organisation and in the voting system. It wanted a single body, a National Assembly, where each member should have one vote, and the majority would carry any measure. This demand was backed by some of the Second and many of the lower clergy of the First Estate. Louis, afraid to displease the nobles, refused the demand, and, in June, 1789, locked out the Third Estate from the meetings.
These representatives then met in a public builde ing nearby, which was used as a tennis court, and took an oath that, as members of the National Assembly, they would draw up a Constitution for France. This was de-fiance of the King and of autocracy.
A week later, Louis weakened and had the three Estates sit together as a National Assembly, with voting by heads. But the royal troops were ordered to cone verge upon Versailles at the same time. The Assembly asked for their withdrawal, which the King refused. The populace of Paris then sided with the Assembly against the King and wild rioting was everywhere in the city.
The Bastille, a royal fortress and symbol of its authority, was captured and rased to the ground by the mob. Paris was now outside of royal control; the Commune was organised by the prominent citizens for local government, and the National Guard. was ex enrolled for the citizens' army, with Lafayette as its commander.
Louis withdrew the royal troops from Versailles, but they soon again appeared. In October, news was abroad in Paris that the soldiers were feasting and drinking liberally. Paris was in a state of starvation because of the failure of crops the summer before, and it seemed the King's army would not help the food posi¬tion. A large host of women, enraged with hunger, with sticks and clubs in their hands, walked the twelve miles to Versailles to demonstrate and yell for bread.
1.3. Part III
The next morning, the King agreed to accompany the mob back to Paris. He never returned to his palace. The National Assembly followed the King, and Paris was - now the seat of the Revolution, with the Assembly in-dependant of the King and dependant on the populace of Paris. This was the end of autocracy. Revolt spread to the towns, which set up their own officers and National Guard. In the country districts, the houses of nobles and of some of the clergy were attacked and burned. The intendants or local governors left their posts and the royal courts ceased to function.
The National Assembly, in June 1789, began its reforms. Though its convention as the States General had been intended by the King to secure him financial aid, many grievances and reforms were on the agenda. Privilege was now abolished, introducing equal taxation, cessation of tithes to the Church and feudal dues, and the great estates were divided among the peasants, now to be proprietors. "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" was proclaimed with stress on liberty and equality.
Because the Church was reckoned the ally of auto-cracy, and because its possessions would stay bankruptcy, its lands were confiscated and monasteries and religious establishments suppressed. The measure styled "The Civil Constitution of the Clergy" reduced the number of Bishops and priests, demanding their appointment by the people, under State control and payment, and subtraction from the Church jurisdiction. The clergy were obliged to take an oath of allegiance to this Constitution in 1790. Pope Pius VI forbade the oath under pain of excommunication. Those who refused it lost their salaries, were threatened with prison and later deportation.
The old provinces were reorganised into departments and districts and communes; all local officers were elected by the people, but the King was still supreme ruler, though limited by a Constitution and a legislative assembly. There was still peace and calm in 1790.
Many nobles and clergy emigrated to neighbouring countries and tried to stir up civil war in France and to induce foreign intervention. In June, 1791, the King and Queen Marie Antoinette fled from Paris, but were captured and brought back, to be guillotined later on. Austria and Prussia threatened invasion and France declared war on them in April, 1792; she was ill--equipped but the army and people were enthusiastic, in spite of reverses, In Paris, August 1792, the mob had the King im-prisoned; the government officials ceased to function, and Danton, head of the Paris Commune, became dictator.
The National Assembly, in June 1789, began its reforms. Though its convention as the States General had been intended by the King to secure him financial aid, many grievances and reforms were on the agenda. Privilege was now abolished, introducing equal taxation, cessation of tithes to the Church and feudal dues, and the great estates were divided among the peasants, now to be proprietors. "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" was proclaimed with stress on liberty and equality.
Because the Church was reckoned the ally of auto-cracy, and because its possessions would stay bankruptcy, its lands were confiscated and monasteries and religious establishments suppressed. The measure styled "The Civil Constitution of the Clergy" reduced the number of Bishops and priests, demanding their appointment by the people, under State control and payment, and subtraction from the Church jurisdiction. The clergy were obliged to take an oath of allegiance to this Constitution in 1790. Pope Pius VI forbade the oath under pain of excommunication. Those who refused it lost their salaries, were threatened with prison and later deportation.
The old provinces were reorganised into departments and districts and communes; all local officers were elected by the people, but the King was still supreme ruler, though limited by a Constitution and a legislative assembly. There was still peace and calm in 1790.
Many nobles and clergy emigrated to neighbouring countries and tried to stir up civil war in France and to induce foreign intervention. In June, 1791, the King and Queen Marie Antoinette fled from Paris, but were captured and brought back, to be guillotined later on. Austria and Prussia threatened invasion and France declared war on them in April, 1792; she was ill--equipped but the army and people were enthusiastic, in spite of reverses, In Paris, August 1792, the mob had the King im-prisoned; the government officials ceased to function, and Danton, head of the Paris Commune, became dictator.
When Verdun was attacked by the enemy, a wholesale mas¬sacre of royalist supporters and clergy raged. in Paris for the first three days of September. Among the victims of this time were Blessed. Louis Joseph Francois, C.M, and Blessed Henry Gruyer, C,M, Danton assembled a National Convention in Sept-ember, which decreed the abolition of royalty and the inauguration of the French Republic on the 22nd, King Louis XVI was put on trial and condemned by the Conven-tion. Early in 1793, this Convention gave supreme executive authority to a "Committee of Public Safety;" its policy was terrorism in order to secure unity and. destroy any opposition. Its agencies, under the direc¬tion of Robespierre, were the Committee of General Security and Revolutionary Tribunal. It is estimated_ that, during this Terror of 1793 - 94, two thousand five hundred were guillotined in Paris, and ten thousand elsewhere.
Meantime, the war against the foreign enemies was progressing successfully, and the country was clear¬ed of foreign troops. A new Constitution of the Re-public was brought into effect in 1795, giving executive power to the Directory of five members, with two legis¬lative chambers to supplant the National Convention. This was the end of the Revolution in France.
Meantime, the war against the foreign enemies was progressing successfully, and the country was clear¬ed of foreign troops. A new Constitution of the Re-public was brought into effect in 1795, giving executive power to the Directory of five members, with two legis¬lative chambers to supplant the National Convention. This was the end of the Revolution in France.
2.1 Part I
It was into this bankrupt France of Louis XV that Louis Joseph Francois was born at the town of Busigpy, in the neighbourhood of Cambrai in the north of France, on the 3rd Februaxy, 1751. His parents were Farmers of modest means, good and generous people, who were blessed with three vocations to the priesthood and one to the Daughters of Charity for their children.
Louis Joseph went for his schooling to the Jesuit College at Chateau-Cambrensis, a few miles from his home. At the age of sixteen, he entered the Congregation of the Mission at the Mother House of Saint Lazare in Paris, accompanied by a fellow student from Cambrai.
At this time the Congregation of the Mission was in a very flourishing condition. It maintained over forty different houses of missionaries for its chief work, besides fifty three Major Seminaries and nine Minor Seminaries more than half the training colleges for the priests of France. Besides, it had care of a dozen parishes, and the royal chapels and parishes of the Invalides in Paris, Versailles, and Fontainebleau. Outside France, it had its works in Poland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Its foreign missions were soon, in 1783, largely increased by a direction of the Holy See giving it charge of the Jesuit Missions in the Levant and in China, following the suppression of the Society in 1772. The French Jesuits and the French Government had requested this arrangement, and the Fathers expressed their satisfaction in living with the Vincentians and finding, as they said, "a second mother to console them for the loss of their first." One of them, Father Bourgeois, wrote from China: "These priests are really good men, full of zeal and piety and talents. Their customs, their methods and their rule are completely like ours. We live in comm. in the greatest friendship; you would say that they have become ex-Jesuits, and we have be-come Vincentians."
It was to the Mother House of the Congregation and to the Internal or Private Seminary for its own subjects that Louis Joseph came in 1766 for his spiritual training as a novice. During two years he practised its exercises, acquiring the means and habits of a life given to God in the cultivation of virtue.
After consolidating his character by this apprenticeship and having taken his vows, he was piloted through the usual course of studies in Philosophy and Theology during the following five years. His talents made the study interesting and fruitful for him, and after his ordination to the priesthood, he was placed in one of the Seminaries as a junior professor.
Here, he showed marked skill in his teaching, and a very good capacity for the handling of young men. After only eight years experience he was placed in charge of the Major Seminary of Troyes. It was a diffi¬cult and responsible post for a man of thirty years of age, but, during his five years as Rector, he gave full' satisfaction to the Bishop of Troyes, and devoted himself fully to the formation of the clergy of the diocese.
At the end of 1786, he was transferred to Paris, to become the Secretary General of the Congregation of the Mission, and thus to have a close association in its government, with its Superior General, Father Jacquier, and to be in contact with the ecclesiastical world of Paris. Clerical Conferences were held every Tuesday at Saint Lazare, after the manner of a day's retreat, and whenever Father Francois was to be the speaker, the roll-call was noticeably greater. He gave the Clergy Retreat in some of the neighbouring dioceses and was invited to come again by their Bishops a tribute to his power of preaching and to his right guidance of souls.
On the death of Father Jacquier, a new Superior General, Father Cayla de la Garde, was elected in 1788, who appointed Father Francois to the superiorship of the Seminary of Saint Firmin in Paris. This was the old College des Bons Enfants where Saint Vincent de Paul had first established his Congregation in 1625.
It was in this house that Saint Vincent began a Minor Seminary in 1625, in accord with the ideas of the Council of Trent. This failed because of the mixture
of junior and senior students, so the juniors were transferred to the Seminary of Saint Charles which he opened in the grounds of Saint Lazare, and the seniors continued in the Bons Enfants. In the vacated portion of this house, he established a sort of a Seminary for priests, to receive those who came to Paris for studies or vacation, providing them with decent and respectable accom¬modation as well as spiritual advantages. Later, the name was changed to Saint Firmin's Seminary. Extensive renovations and alterations were made, and the house was full of students when Father Francois took control in September, 1788.
Six months later, in May, 1789, King Louis XVI, in need of finances, convoked the States General of the three bodies of representatives. Within six weeks the Estates General was transformed into the National Assembly, with the bourgeoisie in control and the King dependant upon it, being asked only to sanction its decrees.
Clergy and nobility were in very bad favour and the capture of the Bastille on the 14th July, showed the temper of the Parisian people. On the 13th, at 2.30 a.m., a band of criminals broke into the property of Saint Lazar to sack and pillage it. An eye-witness account from the Bishop of Metz, Monsignor Jauffret, tells of a band of two hundred men with swords, axes, rifles and clubs breaking down the doors, and rushing to the refectory asking for food, drink and. money. Meantime, a crowd had come in by the open doors, and there was noise of general destruction on all sides. Windows, doors, tables, cupboards, chairs, beds all were smashed. Looters of every age and sex came and went, carrying off whatever they could lay hands on - linen, cutlery, clothes, cooking utensils. They broke up and threw out the beds, mattresses, blinds, chairs and tables; over a thousand doors and fifteen hundred windows were wrecked in their fury. The tables, seats, and crockery in the refectory were crashed in pieces and strewn about, whilst the hundred and sixty portraits of Popes and Bishops in the Retreat Room were slashed and cast among the broken furniture and trodden upon.
The main Library of fifty thousand books, and four other libraries, were ruined, book-cases and all, by axes and swords and by being torn and thrown out of the windows to the courtyard and the roadways below. The Physics Hall was annihilated, and every useful article broken or stolen. Deeds and Titles to property were cast to the winds, and all the money in the house was seized. The room in which Saint Vincent had died, and where some of his goods and personal articles were preserved, was ransacked, and the arms of his statue were broken off, whilst the head was put upon a pike to be paraded in the streets.
After ravaging the house, the mob out don the fruit trees in the garden, cut the throats of the sheep they could catch, and set alight to the barns. Some of the looters got to the cellars and, having knocked the bungs out of the vats of wine., drank their fill, many of them being dreamed in the flood of the fermenting wine. Others swallowed indiscriminately the chemicals they found in the Apothecary's office and were poisoned.
It was a scene of fury and desolation. The at-tack had been made, as usual in such circumstances, on the weakest and defenceless, and there was no one to restrain the destruction. The priests, clerics and brothers had to flee before the irresistible assault.
The Superior General, Father Cayla, retired to Saint Firmin's. As one of the deputies of the Metropolitan Clergy in the National Assembly, he attended its meetings and vigorously defended the rights Qf the Church in the current debate for the confiscation of Church property, which might aid the financial state of the kingdom, He published his views in a pamphlet for the people. The decree of confiscation was passed in November, however, and this gave Father Francois the occasion to write his first of a series of similar treatises.
Louis Joseph went for his schooling to the Jesuit College at Chateau-Cambrensis, a few miles from his home. At the age of sixteen, he entered the Congregation of the Mission at the Mother House of Saint Lazare in Paris, accompanied by a fellow student from Cambrai.
At this time the Congregation of the Mission was in a very flourishing condition. It maintained over forty different houses of missionaries for its chief work, besides fifty three Major Seminaries and nine Minor Seminaries more than half the training colleges for the priests of France. Besides, it had care of a dozen parishes, and the royal chapels and parishes of the Invalides in Paris, Versailles, and Fontainebleau. Outside France, it had its works in Poland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Its foreign missions were soon, in 1783, largely increased by a direction of the Holy See giving it charge of the Jesuit Missions in the Levant and in China, following the suppression of the Society in 1772. The French Jesuits and the French Government had requested this arrangement, and the Fathers expressed their satisfaction in living with the Vincentians and finding, as they said, "a second mother to console them for the loss of their first." One of them, Father Bourgeois, wrote from China: "These priests are really good men, full of zeal and piety and talents. Their customs, their methods and their rule are completely like ours. We live in comm. in the greatest friendship; you would say that they have become ex-Jesuits, and we have be-come Vincentians."
It was to the Mother House of the Congregation and to the Internal or Private Seminary for its own subjects that Louis Joseph came in 1766 for his spiritual training as a novice. During two years he practised its exercises, acquiring the means and habits of a life given to God in the cultivation of virtue.
After consolidating his character by this apprenticeship and having taken his vows, he was piloted through the usual course of studies in Philosophy and Theology during the following five years. His talents made the study interesting and fruitful for him, and after his ordination to the priesthood, he was placed in one of the Seminaries as a junior professor.
Here, he showed marked skill in his teaching, and a very good capacity for the handling of young men. After only eight years experience he was placed in charge of the Major Seminary of Troyes. It was a diffi¬cult and responsible post for a man of thirty years of age, but, during his five years as Rector, he gave full' satisfaction to the Bishop of Troyes, and devoted himself fully to the formation of the clergy of the diocese.
At the end of 1786, he was transferred to Paris, to become the Secretary General of the Congregation of the Mission, and thus to have a close association in its government, with its Superior General, Father Jacquier, and to be in contact with the ecclesiastical world of Paris. Clerical Conferences were held every Tuesday at Saint Lazare, after the manner of a day's retreat, and whenever Father Francois was to be the speaker, the roll-call was noticeably greater. He gave the Clergy Retreat in some of the neighbouring dioceses and was invited to come again by their Bishops a tribute to his power of preaching and to his right guidance of souls.
On the death of Father Jacquier, a new Superior General, Father Cayla de la Garde, was elected in 1788, who appointed Father Francois to the superiorship of the Seminary of Saint Firmin in Paris. This was the old College des Bons Enfants where Saint Vincent de Paul had first established his Congregation in 1625.
It was in this house that Saint Vincent began a Minor Seminary in 1625, in accord with the ideas of the Council of Trent. This failed because of the mixture
of junior and senior students, so the juniors were transferred to the Seminary of Saint Charles which he opened in the grounds of Saint Lazare, and the seniors continued in the Bons Enfants. In the vacated portion of this house, he established a sort of a Seminary for priests, to receive those who came to Paris for studies or vacation, providing them with decent and respectable accom¬modation as well as spiritual advantages. Later, the name was changed to Saint Firmin's Seminary. Extensive renovations and alterations were made, and the house was full of students when Father Francois took control in September, 1788.
Six months later, in May, 1789, King Louis XVI, in need of finances, convoked the States General of the three bodies of representatives. Within six weeks the Estates General was transformed into the National Assembly, with the bourgeoisie in control and the King dependant upon it, being asked only to sanction its decrees.
Clergy and nobility were in very bad favour and the capture of the Bastille on the 14th July, showed the temper of the Parisian people. On the 13th, at 2.30 a.m., a band of criminals broke into the property of Saint Lazar to sack and pillage it. An eye-witness account from the Bishop of Metz, Monsignor Jauffret, tells of a band of two hundred men with swords, axes, rifles and clubs breaking down the doors, and rushing to the refectory asking for food, drink and. money. Meantime, a crowd had come in by the open doors, and there was noise of general destruction on all sides. Windows, doors, tables, cupboards, chairs, beds all were smashed. Looters of every age and sex came and went, carrying off whatever they could lay hands on - linen, cutlery, clothes, cooking utensils. They broke up and threw out the beds, mattresses, blinds, chairs and tables; over a thousand doors and fifteen hundred windows were wrecked in their fury. The tables, seats, and crockery in the refectory were crashed in pieces and strewn about, whilst the hundred and sixty portraits of Popes and Bishops in the Retreat Room were slashed and cast among the broken furniture and trodden upon.
The main Library of fifty thousand books, and four other libraries, were ruined, book-cases and all, by axes and swords and by being torn and thrown out of the windows to the courtyard and the roadways below. The Physics Hall was annihilated, and every useful article broken or stolen. Deeds and Titles to property were cast to the winds, and all the money in the house was seized. The room in which Saint Vincent had died, and where some of his goods and personal articles were preserved, was ransacked, and the arms of his statue were broken off, whilst the head was put upon a pike to be paraded in the streets.
After ravaging the house, the mob out don the fruit trees in the garden, cut the throats of the sheep they could catch, and set alight to the barns. Some of the looters got to the cellars and, having knocked the bungs out of the vats of wine., drank their fill, many of them being dreamed in the flood of the fermenting wine. Others swallowed indiscriminately the chemicals they found in the Apothecary's office and were poisoned.
It was a scene of fury and desolation. The at-tack had been made, as usual in such circumstances, on the weakest and defenceless, and there was no one to restrain the destruction. The priests, clerics and brothers had to flee before the irresistible assault.
The Superior General, Father Cayla, retired to Saint Firmin's. As one of the deputies of the Metropolitan Clergy in the National Assembly, he attended its meetings and vigorously defended the rights Qf the Church in the current debate for the confiscation of Church property, which might aid the financial state of the kingdom, He published his views in a pamphlet for the people. The decree of confiscation was passed in November, however, and this gave Father Francois the occasion to write his first of a series of similar treatises.
2.2. Part II
After the decree, all persons holding Church property and benefices were obliged to draw up a detail¬ed account of it for the authorities. Father Francois showed his buildings of Saint Firmin's to be heavily mortgaged, with his expenses exceeding his income by far, The law now put these properties into the hands of the directors of the districts, and the clergy were to receive a fixed salary from them.
Attack was next directed against weaker parties who would make no resistance. There were about eighteen thousand religious men and thirty thousand religious women devoted to various works and missions in France. These were suppressed as organised bodies by the State in 1790, and their vows declared annulled. By July of the same year a Constitution for a new Church was voted, supplanting the divine constitution. It recognised the Holy See with primacy of honour, but Bishops and priests were in future to be elected, Papal jurisdiction was denied, and the Church would. be a State department. During July, King Louis XVI had been warned by Pope Pius VI against approving such a measure, but he ordered its promulgation nevertheless.
To stop the mounting reaction in the National Assembly, an oath of fidelity to this Civil Constitution of the Clergy was imposed upon all its members. About one third took this oath and the rest were excluded from office. Sunday, the 9th January, 1791, was fixed as the day for this oath to be taken in the Cathedral of Notre Dame by the clergy of Paris; government lists showed that about three fifths of these twelve hundred clerics conformed to the regulation, being styled "jurors." Many reasons could be alleged for this de¬fection and many bogus clerics were added to the lists; but Father Frangois, whose life had been devoted to the instruction and formation of the clergy, many probably . in the ranks of the Metropolis, thought he should make an effort to sustain and encourage the firm and to strengthen and recall the weak.
He wrote a forty eight page booklet in January with the title: " My Defence," dealing with the oath and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. He indicated that he had not taken it himself and wished to give his justification for not doing so; he examined in detail its dispositions, and in a clear and scholarly way showed their opposition to Faith, to the history and practice of the Church, and to reason. Then he met the possible objections from the pamphlets already issued to justify it — the example of good priests who had taken the oath, the danger of schism if some took it and others refused, the disturbance of the peace, and the need ar-gued for clerical reform. It was a brief and masterly defence, and was published in at least seven editions, being widely read by the people and especially by the clergy.
This "Defence" caused anxiety tc the National Assembly because of its effect among the people; and it caused an Instruction to be drawn up by a deputy, Chassey, to counteract it, protesting attachment to the Church and the Pope and respect for the spiritual authority, and trying to justify the Constitution by discrediting the clergy. This was to be read as a sort of pastoral letter in all churches without delay, after the Sunday Mass by the Pastor or Curate or by a munici¬pal officer.
Father Francois rejoined with an "Examination of the Instruction of the National Assembly on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy" -- another booklet of thirty eight pages, in which he fully answered all the allega¬tions, concluding with the closing words of the Instruc¬tion itself: "Frenchmen., now you know the sentiments and principles of your representatives; do not let yourselves be led astray any longer by lying statements."
A few days later, he published another brochure: "Reflections on the Fear of Schism, by which Justifica¬tion is being sought for the taking of the Civil Oath" in which he turns the blame of any schism on to those who recognise or elect or consecrate or occupy the post of new Bishops; and he outlined the tactics for the priests and people in regard to such pastors who would be forced upon them.
Within a fortnight, in mid February, Father Francois had his fourth pamphlet published. Seeing that so many Bishops and priests stood firm, the Assembly offered to how them to resign on a pension without taking the oath; this would then leave the parishes and dioceses open for the Constitutional clergy. Father Francois' booklet: "No Resignation; a further Word about the Oath" showed strongly and clearly that the clergy could not resign to the Assembly as to their superior, and that they should not, because their ministry is from God; the people are still with them, they can continue to do good; their punishment will be suffered for duty's sake, and their fidelity will not cause schism. He praised the courage of the non—jurors who had refused the oath, and the retraction of others who had failed momentarily.
Again, in March, he directed an essay: "There is yet Time," to those clerics who had taken the oath, in order to show them how they had been deceived., and urging their duty to retract. His high esteem of the priesthood as the Ministry of God made him repudiate vigorously the notion of their being State functionaries on State salaries.
Nevertheless, the Civil Constitution was being implemented. Bishops and parish priests were elected and substituted for the non-jurors. The first consecra¬tion of Bishops by Tallyran.d, former Bishop of Autun, took place in the church of the Oratory in Paris on February 25th, 1791. Some lead was still awaited from Rome. In march, Pius VI sent the Brief : "Quod aliquantum," to the Bishops, and in April, the Brief: "Caritas," to the clergy and people, wherein he expressly condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy as "heretical in several articles, and in others, sacrilegious, schismatical, overthrowing the rights of the Holy See, and opposed to the ancient discipline as well as to the new."
It was a time for pamphleteers. These Briefs were attacked, and Father Francois published an answer. This was followed by another with the title: "The People informed at Last, or Short Clear Answers to the Common Objections of the Partisans of the Constitution-al Religion," where he answers thirty two popular ob¬jections in simple, clear, homely language for the bene¬fit of the laity.
On October 1st, 1791, the Legislative Assembly replaced the Constituent Assembly, and it was more hos¬tile to the Church and the King. On November 29th, it decreed the imposition of a new oath on the clergy with new penalties for the refractory who refused it. The oath was to be taken within a week in the form: "I swear to be faithful to the nation, to the law and to the King, and to maintain with all, ray power the Consti¬tution of the Kingdom decreed by the National Assembly in the years 1789, 1790 and 1791." Those clergy who refused it would be deprived of their pension and salary, and be suspected of treason; moreover, they could be removed from their domicile and imprisoned.
The King refused to sanction this decree, demanding time to consider it. This brought great opposition to him. Father Francois brought out another booklet of sixty six pages: " Deffence of the King's Veto on the Decree," energetically and lucidly showing this Civil Oath to be an act of apostasy, and its en¬forcement a persecution, to refuse which was a confession of the Faith. To encourage the victims of injustice, he reminds them of their privilege to suffer and the glory of bearing the wounds of Christ in their flesh and of giving testimony to their religion by their lives; "the glory of confessors surrounds them, the crown of martyrs is on their heads."
His last, the tenth booklet, on Episcopal Juris-diction, was the final written act in 1792 of this virile defender of the Faith. He was now brought closer to the turmoil of Paris and to sealing his pure Faith with his life's blood.
For their refusal to take the Civil Oath about two thirds of the clergy of France were reduced to utter destitution and declared suspect of disloyalty; in many places they were arbitrarily arrested and subjected to vexatious treatment and indignities.
Attack was next directed against weaker parties who would make no resistance. There were about eighteen thousand religious men and thirty thousand religious women devoted to various works and missions in France. These were suppressed as organised bodies by the State in 1790, and their vows declared annulled. By July of the same year a Constitution for a new Church was voted, supplanting the divine constitution. It recognised the Holy See with primacy of honour, but Bishops and priests were in future to be elected, Papal jurisdiction was denied, and the Church would. be a State department. During July, King Louis XVI had been warned by Pope Pius VI against approving such a measure, but he ordered its promulgation nevertheless.
To stop the mounting reaction in the National Assembly, an oath of fidelity to this Civil Constitution of the Clergy was imposed upon all its members. About one third took this oath and the rest were excluded from office. Sunday, the 9th January, 1791, was fixed as the day for this oath to be taken in the Cathedral of Notre Dame by the clergy of Paris; government lists showed that about three fifths of these twelve hundred clerics conformed to the regulation, being styled "jurors." Many reasons could be alleged for this de¬fection and many bogus clerics were added to the lists; but Father Frangois, whose life had been devoted to the instruction and formation of the clergy, many probably . in the ranks of the Metropolis, thought he should make an effort to sustain and encourage the firm and to strengthen and recall the weak.
He wrote a forty eight page booklet in January with the title: " My Defence," dealing with the oath and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. He indicated that he had not taken it himself and wished to give his justification for not doing so; he examined in detail its dispositions, and in a clear and scholarly way showed their opposition to Faith, to the history and practice of the Church, and to reason. Then he met the possible objections from the pamphlets already issued to justify it — the example of good priests who had taken the oath, the danger of schism if some took it and others refused, the disturbance of the peace, and the need ar-gued for clerical reform. It was a brief and masterly defence, and was published in at least seven editions, being widely read by the people and especially by the clergy.
This "Defence" caused anxiety tc the National Assembly because of its effect among the people; and it caused an Instruction to be drawn up by a deputy, Chassey, to counteract it, protesting attachment to the Church and the Pope and respect for the spiritual authority, and trying to justify the Constitution by discrediting the clergy. This was to be read as a sort of pastoral letter in all churches without delay, after the Sunday Mass by the Pastor or Curate or by a munici¬pal officer.
Father Francois rejoined with an "Examination of the Instruction of the National Assembly on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy" -- another booklet of thirty eight pages, in which he fully answered all the allega¬tions, concluding with the closing words of the Instruc¬tion itself: "Frenchmen., now you know the sentiments and principles of your representatives; do not let yourselves be led astray any longer by lying statements."
A few days later, he published another brochure: "Reflections on the Fear of Schism, by which Justifica¬tion is being sought for the taking of the Civil Oath" in which he turns the blame of any schism on to those who recognise or elect or consecrate or occupy the post of new Bishops; and he outlined the tactics for the priests and people in regard to such pastors who would be forced upon them.
Within a fortnight, in mid February, Father Francois had his fourth pamphlet published. Seeing that so many Bishops and priests stood firm, the Assembly offered to how them to resign on a pension without taking the oath; this would then leave the parishes and dioceses open for the Constitutional clergy. Father Francois' booklet: "No Resignation; a further Word about the Oath" showed strongly and clearly that the clergy could not resign to the Assembly as to their superior, and that they should not, because their ministry is from God; the people are still with them, they can continue to do good; their punishment will be suffered for duty's sake, and their fidelity will not cause schism. He praised the courage of the non—jurors who had refused the oath, and the retraction of others who had failed momentarily.
Again, in March, he directed an essay: "There is yet Time," to those clerics who had taken the oath, in order to show them how they had been deceived., and urging their duty to retract. His high esteem of the priesthood as the Ministry of God made him repudiate vigorously the notion of their being State functionaries on State salaries.
Nevertheless, the Civil Constitution was being implemented. Bishops and parish priests were elected and substituted for the non-jurors. The first consecra¬tion of Bishops by Tallyran.d, former Bishop of Autun, took place in the church of the Oratory in Paris on February 25th, 1791. Some lead was still awaited from Rome. In march, Pius VI sent the Brief : "Quod aliquantum," to the Bishops, and in April, the Brief: "Caritas," to the clergy and people, wherein he expressly condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy as "heretical in several articles, and in others, sacrilegious, schismatical, overthrowing the rights of the Holy See, and opposed to the ancient discipline as well as to the new."
It was a time for pamphleteers. These Briefs were attacked, and Father Francois published an answer. This was followed by another with the title: "The People informed at Last, or Short Clear Answers to the Common Objections of the Partisans of the Constitution-al Religion," where he answers thirty two popular ob¬jections in simple, clear, homely language for the bene¬fit of the laity.
On October 1st, 1791, the Legislative Assembly replaced the Constituent Assembly, and it was more hos¬tile to the Church and the King. On November 29th, it decreed the imposition of a new oath on the clergy with new penalties for the refractory who refused it. The oath was to be taken within a week in the form: "I swear to be faithful to the nation, to the law and to the King, and to maintain with all, ray power the Consti¬tution of the Kingdom decreed by the National Assembly in the years 1789, 1790 and 1791." Those clergy who refused it would be deprived of their pension and salary, and be suspected of treason; moreover, they could be removed from their domicile and imprisoned.
The King refused to sanction this decree, demanding time to consider it. This brought great opposition to him. Father Francois brought out another booklet of sixty six pages: " Deffence of the King's Veto on the Decree," energetically and lucidly showing this Civil Oath to be an act of apostasy, and its en¬forcement a persecution, to refuse which was a confession of the Faith. To encourage the victims of injustice, he reminds them of their privilege to suffer and the glory of bearing the wounds of Christ in their flesh and of giving testimony to their religion by their lives; "the glory of confessors surrounds them, the crown of martyrs is on their heads."
His last, the tenth booklet, on Episcopal Juris-diction, was the final written act in 1792 of this virile defender of the Faith. He was now brought closer to the turmoil of Paris and to sealing his pure Faith with his life's blood.
For their refusal to take the Civil Oath about two thirds of the clergy of France were reduced to utter destitution and declared suspect of disloyalty; in many places they were arbitrarily arrested and subjected to vexatious treatment and indignities.
2.3. Part III
On April 6th, 1792, the Legislative Assembly sup-pressed all secular Congregations of men or women, even those devoted to hospitals and schools. Then it forbade the 'wearing of religious or ecclesiastical, dress, and in May, it decreed the deportation of the clergy who would not swear. The King refused to sign the de¬crees, and the agitators took occasion to rouse a mob
by spreading reports of the King's invitation to foreign powers to interfere in the country's government.
The Royal Palace of the Tuileries was invaded on the 20th January by a host of some thousands of brigands and foreigners and the riff-raff of Paris, with threats on the King's life; but with his calmness and courage the rising was turned into an occasion for his applause.
On August 10th, another crowd of irrosponsibles, in rags and red caps, was led to the Tuileries, and to avoid bloodshed and disturbance, the royal family transferred to the Assembly Hall, to be then taken to the Temple, virtually the their prison. The Legislative Assembly pronounced the suspension of the royal author¬ity, and convoked a National Convention with full powers. It was the overthrow of the throne. The rabble probably only one tenth of the city's population - was now feeling that it had power, under the urge of its opportunist leaders.
In the meantime, the Seminary of Saint Firmin was practically empty, the students having been dispersed. Father Francois had directed his zeal outside of Paris to the neighbouring diocese of Chartres, to aid the clergy there and to try and stem the spread of unrest. Before leaving Paris and because of his financial straits, he had rented one vacant wing of the College to the administrators of that part of the city, the Section of the Botanical Gardens, as a guardhouse and meeting rooms. These administrators were loyalists and there seemed nothing to fear from their presence, as they were expected to maintain order in that Section.
In the remainder of the house, Father Francois now had the pleasure of giving hospitality to five of his Confreres and thirteen other secular priests, driven from their homes for refusing the oath. The names of sixteen of these are on the list of Martyrs, one of them being Blessed John Henry Gruver, C.M., whilst two es¬caped at the moment of the attack on their house. Father Francois was happy to show this fraternal charity to these confessors of the Faith. He welcomed them eagerly, being honoured to assist them, and- though urged by his mother and father at this stage to come home from the dangers of the city to the safety of Cambrai, he refused to leave his post of charity. He shared their life as they prayed and talked together, strengthening one another against the evil they saw threatening them, for now the leaders of the rising had a free hand, and their hired assassins were in a state of fury.
After August 10th, the leglslative authority was in the hands of the Jacobis; executive power was given to the Ministers, with Danton as Minister of Justice. Paris was administered by the Council of the Commune, elected by the forty eight Sections of the city; each Section also had a committee of sixteen administrators. A central office was set up at the Town Hall of Paris, as the place of communication between the different Sections, each of which had a deputy there* This body, with no authority and no charter, took over all munici¬pal power as the Revolutionary Commune, and began the "era of liberty," changing the term of address to "citizen." This Commune rivalled the Assembly in its hostility to the non juring priests.
The Assembly urged the people to take measures themselves to put down what they thought were infractions of the law; it declared that its decrees would have the form of law without any royal sanction; it voted the "Police Law" entrusting to the municipal bodies the de¬tection of illegal activities, and inviting the citizens to betray their fellows. However, the large majority of the people seemed uninterested, so it was planned to rouse them by a reign of terror and a wholesale massacre of nobles and priests who were in prison or who would at once be sought out and gaoled. Numbers of Southern¬ers, Marseillaise, the rabble of Paris and liberated prisoners were enlisted on the plea of taking revenge on the prisoners said to be in conspiracy with foreign powers, who were now attacking Verdun, and of intending to slaughter the people.
At once, on August 11th, domiciliary visits began, to arrest and bring the non-swearing clergy to the Carmelite Church or the Seminary of Saint Firmin. The leader of the Section who had rented the building and who was friendly to Father Francois had had to flee the country, being a loyalist, so the Seminary had now be-come a prison, and its eighteen residents were enclosed.
Thirty five priests were added to their number on the 13th August, arrested and gathered from the Colleges, Hospitals and Seminaries in the neighbourhood.
Father Francois prepared their lodgings, and armed guards were installed. By the end of the month, thirty five more Professors, Chaplains, Canons and pastors had been brought to the same prison. These ninety captives had some little knowledge of the state of affairs out-side, but were buoyed up by hope of release.
One of the eighteen who were released through influential friends or who escaped, related the circum¬stances of their lives in prison. They were in charge of six gaolers; visitors were allowed under supervision; all letters were censored by the guard, and a newspaper was given them for reading in common. Father Francois made what provision he could for their material needs. The guard did nothing towards their maintenance; those who had anything shared it with the others, and friends brought parcels of food when they heard the state of affairs.
Moral support was equally necessary. Some priests came in disguise to see their Confreres, but Father Francois was the greatest strength. He had made a retreat and general confession since his deten¬tion, in readiness for any event, and now he organised the spiritual welfare of the others. He heard many confessions, giving a picture of the Sacred Heart to all as a reminder of their source of strength. Mass was said daily by a number, and much time was spent in, prayer in their own rooms. The library was at their disposal, and meals were taken in common. Some who were offered freedom delayed their exit because they were so happy to be together with such faithful and holy company.
by spreading reports of the King's invitation to foreign powers to interfere in the country's government.
The Royal Palace of the Tuileries was invaded on the 20th January by a host of some thousands of brigands and foreigners and the riff-raff of Paris, with threats on the King's life; but with his calmness and courage the rising was turned into an occasion for his applause.
On August 10th, another crowd of irrosponsibles, in rags and red caps, was led to the Tuileries, and to avoid bloodshed and disturbance, the royal family transferred to the Assembly Hall, to be then taken to the Temple, virtually the their prison. The Legislative Assembly pronounced the suspension of the royal author¬ity, and convoked a National Convention with full powers. It was the overthrow of the throne. The rabble probably only one tenth of the city's population - was now feeling that it had power, under the urge of its opportunist leaders.
In the meantime, the Seminary of Saint Firmin was practically empty, the students having been dispersed. Father Francois had directed his zeal outside of Paris to the neighbouring diocese of Chartres, to aid the clergy there and to try and stem the spread of unrest. Before leaving Paris and because of his financial straits, he had rented one vacant wing of the College to the administrators of that part of the city, the Section of the Botanical Gardens, as a guardhouse and meeting rooms. These administrators were loyalists and there seemed nothing to fear from their presence, as they were expected to maintain order in that Section.
In the remainder of the house, Father Francois now had the pleasure of giving hospitality to five of his Confreres and thirteen other secular priests, driven from their homes for refusing the oath. The names of sixteen of these are on the list of Martyrs, one of them being Blessed John Henry Gruver, C.M., whilst two es¬caped at the moment of the attack on their house. Father Francois was happy to show this fraternal charity to these confessors of the Faith. He welcomed them eagerly, being honoured to assist them, and- though urged by his mother and father at this stage to come home from the dangers of the city to the safety of Cambrai, he refused to leave his post of charity. He shared their life as they prayed and talked together, strengthening one another against the evil they saw threatening them, for now the leaders of the rising had a free hand, and their hired assassins were in a state of fury.
After August 10th, the leglslative authority was in the hands of the Jacobis; executive power was given to the Ministers, with Danton as Minister of Justice. Paris was administered by the Council of the Commune, elected by the forty eight Sections of the city; each Section also had a committee of sixteen administrators. A central office was set up at the Town Hall of Paris, as the place of communication between the different Sections, each of which had a deputy there* This body, with no authority and no charter, took over all munici¬pal power as the Revolutionary Commune, and began the "era of liberty," changing the term of address to "citizen." This Commune rivalled the Assembly in its hostility to the non juring priests.
The Assembly urged the people to take measures themselves to put down what they thought were infractions of the law; it declared that its decrees would have the form of law without any royal sanction; it voted the "Police Law" entrusting to the municipal bodies the de¬tection of illegal activities, and inviting the citizens to betray their fellows. However, the large majority of the people seemed uninterested, so it was planned to rouse them by a reign of terror and a wholesale massacre of nobles and priests who were in prison or who would at once be sought out and gaoled. Numbers of Southern¬ers, Marseillaise, the rabble of Paris and liberated prisoners were enlisted on the plea of taking revenge on the prisoners said to be in conspiracy with foreign powers, who were now attacking Verdun, and of intending to slaughter the people.
At once, on August 11th, domiciliary visits began, to arrest and bring the non-swearing clergy to the Carmelite Church or the Seminary of Saint Firmin. The leader of the Section who had rented the building and who was friendly to Father Francois had had to flee the country, being a loyalist, so the Seminary had now be-come a prison, and its eighteen residents were enclosed.
Thirty five priests were added to their number on the 13th August, arrested and gathered from the Colleges, Hospitals and Seminaries in the neighbourhood.
Father Francois prepared their lodgings, and armed guards were installed. By the end of the month, thirty five more Professors, Chaplains, Canons and pastors had been brought to the same prison. These ninety captives had some little knowledge of the state of affairs out-side, but were buoyed up by hope of release.
One of the eighteen who were released through influential friends or who escaped, related the circum¬stances of their lives in prison. They were in charge of six gaolers; visitors were allowed under supervision; all letters were censored by the guard, and a newspaper was given them for reading in common. Father Francois made what provision he could for their material needs. The guard did nothing towards their maintenance; those who had anything shared it with the others, and friends brought parcels of food when they heard the state of affairs.
Moral support was equally necessary. Some priests came in disguise to see their Confreres, but Father Francois was the greatest strength. He had made a retreat and general confession since his deten¬tion, in readiness for any event, and now he organised the spiritual welfare of the others. He heard many confessions, giving a picture of the Sacred Heart to all as a reminder of their source of strength. Mass was said daily by a number, and much time was spent in, prayer in their own rooms. The library was at their disposal, and meals were taken in common. Some who were offered freedom delayed their exit because they were so happy to be together with such faithful and holy company.
2.4. Part IV
On Saturday morning, the 1st of September, a copy of the decree of transportation for refractory priests was handed to the Superior; it deceived everybody with a hope of deliverance from death. That afternoon, many prisoners were killed at the main Paris prison, and two hundred priests were slaughtered at the Carmelite Church. As excitement and disorder and danger became more intense in that neighbourhood, some friends made an effort to rescue Father Francois and his Procurator.
At eight o'clock in the evening, a butcher boy, sent by his employer, told of the massacre at the Carmelites, and urged the two Fathers to come with him or it would soon be too late. After hesitation and some speculation with his Superior, the Procurator returned to make further enquiries, when the butcher boy, now accompanied by two others, rushed him out into the street and spirited him away.
A few of the other priests made their escape over the walls and neighbouring roofs at the same time, tak¬ing advantage of the confusion and the night; one, however, James Rabe, went back to his room for his Breviary and did not return. Most of the priests spent this evening of the 2nd -- 3rd September preparing for death. The inmates of half a dozen prisons had been given over to a popular tribunal and to the mob, with the resulting death of over four hundred. The local Section Committee was in session at a short distance from Saint Firmin's, and knew that this prison would be raided, but took no measures to protect it.
At 5.30 in the morning of the 3rd September, its doors were broken open. A priest was seen hurrying to give warning, and the intruders charged after him; as he knew the run of the house he escaped to the roof, where two bullets were sent through his hat, but he landed safe in the courtyard of the College next door, after leaving some of his clothing on the points of the grille he had had to climb over.
Some of the cut-throats retired then to collect from the Section Administrators the salary of seventy five francs each for the seventy two prisoners they had already murdered. Meantime, others roamed about the Seminary to find some of the prisoners for whom orders of release had been given. Some of the other priests and brothers escaped or hid themselves, so that in all thirty one were deprived of their martyr's crown. There was a lull in the disturbance, and the group of prisoners was allowed to scatter through the house again. Some few went to the refectory. A bunch of assassins followed them, when their leader called out: "These gentlemen are going to have their dinner; I will make them take their coffee," and seizing one of them, aided by some of the band, he threw him out of the window. This was a signal for the rest to rush the prisoners, knocking them down with clubs.
Meantime, Father Francois, with two other priests, had hastened to the meeting of the Administrators to ask an explanation of this invasion of his Seminary. Embarrassed and powerless, the authorities offered him immediate escape. He insisted, and was begging for safety for all his guests, when the butchers rushed in-to the hall, and seizing him, threw him out of the window. On the street below, women beat out his life with clubs.
The massacre then became general in the house, and the other seventy one victims, four laymen among them, were bayonetted or stabbed or stunned and thrown to the rabble below, who mutilated and killed them. Their bodies were heaped together, and sand and vinegar used to remove the traces of blood from the building. Soon the tumbril drays came to cart away the precious relics for burial in the catacombs of Paris, where they were unidentifiable, awaiting their resurrection to glory. The murderers drew their pay of seventy five or twenty francs from the Section authorities, and went off to the nearest tavern to spend it. The authorities did their best to escape respons-ibility by blaming the excesses upon the unruly people, but history shows that the savage September massacres were organised by the persons in control of local government, under the direction of the leaders of the Assembly. Father John Henry Gruyer, the other Vincentian mentioned here, was a native of the diocese of Besancon. He had spent some time in giving missions, and was for eighteen years a pastor in the parish of Saint Louis at Versailles. When his church was given over in April to the Constitutional clergy, who had taken the oath, Father Gruyer asked to return to his home town. He returned to Paris in June to his Confrere, Father Francois, at Saint Firmin's. He was fifty nine years of age. A third among these Blessed Martyrs was Father John Charles Caron, at the age of sixty two. He had been in charge of a little country parish of a hundred and fifty seven souls at Collegien, now in the diocese of Meaux, For a time he was under suspicion as a spy, but he was able to make his retreat to Paris in 1791, when he came to live at Saint Firmin's.
Nicholas Colin was the fourth Vincentian among this group. After preliminary studies with the Jesuit Fathers, he joined the Congregation of the Mission, where he was ordained priest in 1754. After seventeen years of mission works as a renowned orator, he was in charge of a parish at Genevrieres for twenty years. In 1789, he became an elector of the States General, Mayor of the town and Administrator of the District. He took an oath to be faithful to the nation in the political sphere, repudiating the articles of the Con¬stitution regarding spiritual authority. In 1791, he said farewell to his parishioners and came to join his Confreres at Saint Firmin's to share their martyrdom.
The Process for the Beatification of the September Martyrs was begun in 1901, and the Cause of two hundred and sixteen of them was introduced in 1916. In 1926, the official list contained a hundred and eighty seven names, with the four Vincentians, and the Decree of their Martyrdom was given. On October 17th, 1920, Pope Pius XI declared them Martyrs of the Faith of the Holy Catholic Church. May their strength of Faith, their courage in sufferings of mind and body, be a pattern and model for all who love justice and hate iniquity.
At eight o'clock in the evening, a butcher boy, sent by his employer, told of the massacre at the Carmelites, and urged the two Fathers to come with him or it would soon be too late. After hesitation and some speculation with his Superior, the Procurator returned to make further enquiries, when the butcher boy, now accompanied by two others, rushed him out into the street and spirited him away.
A few of the other priests made their escape over the walls and neighbouring roofs at the same time, tak¬ing advantage of the confusion and the night; one, however, James Rabe, went back to his room for his Breviary and did not return. Most of the priests spent this evening of the 2nd -- 3rd September preparing for death. The inmates of half a dozen prisons had been given over to a popular tribunal and to the mob, with the resulting death of over four hundred. The local Section Committee was in session at a short distance from Saint Firmin's, and knew that this prison would be raided, but took no measures to protect it.
At 5.30 in the morning of the 3rd September, its doors were broken open. A priest was seen hurrying to give warning, and the intruders charged after him; as he knew the run of the house he escaped to the roof, where two bullets were sent through his hat, but he landed safe in the courtyard of the College next door, after leaving some of his clothing on the points of the grille he had had to climb over.
Some of the cut-throats retired then to collect from the Section Administrators the salary of seventy five francs each for the seventy two prisoners they had already murdered. Meantime, others roamed about the Seminary to find some of the prisoners for whom orders of release had been given. Some of the other priests and brothers escaped or hid themselves, so that in all thirty one were deprived of their martyr's crown. There was a lull in the disturbance, and the group of prisoners was allowed to scatter through the house again. Some few went to the refectory. A bunch of assassins followed them, when their leader called out: "These gentlemen are going to have their dinner; I will make them take their coffee," and seizing one of them, aided by some of the band, he threw him out of the window. This was a signal for the rest to rush the prisoners, knocking them down with clubs.
Meantime, Father Francois, with two other priests, had hastened to the meeting of the Administrators to ask an explanation of this invasion of his Seminary. Embarrassed and powerless, the authorities offered him immediate escape. He insisted, and was begging for safety for all his guests, when the butchers rushed in-to the hall, and seizing him, threw him out of the window. On the street below, women beat out his life with clubs.
The massacre then became general in the house, and the other seventy one victims, four laymen among them, were bayonetted or stabbed or stunned and thrown to the rabble below, who mutilated and killed them. Their bodies were heaped together, and sand and vinegar used to remove the traces of blood from the building. Soon the tumbril drays came to cart away the precious relics for burial in the catacombs of Paris, where they were unidentifiable, awaiting their resurrection to glory. The murderers drew their pay of seventy five or twenty francs from the Section authorities, and went off to the nearest tavern to spend it. The authorities did their best to escape respons-ibility by blaming the excesses upon the unruly people, but history shows that the savage September massacres were organised by the persons in control of local government, under the direction of the leaders of the Assembly. Father John Henry Gruyer, the other Vincentian mentioned here, was a native of the diocese of Besancon. He had spent some time in giving missions, and was for eighteen years a pastor in the parish of Saint Louis at Versailles. When his church was given over in April to the Constitutional clergy, who had taken the oath, Father Gruyer asked to return to his home town. He returned to Paris in June to his Confrere, Father Francois, at Saint Firmin's. He was fifty nine years of age. A third among these Blessed Martyrs was Father John Charles Caron, at the age of sixty two. He had been in charge of a little country parish of a hundred and fifty seven souls at Collegien, now in the diocese of Meaux, For a time he was under suspicion as a spy, but he was able to make his retreat to Paris in 1791, when he came to live at Saint Firmin's.
Nicholas Colin was the fourth Vincentian among this group. After preliminary studies with the Jesuit Fathers, he joined the Congregation of the Mission, where he was ordained priest in 1754. After seventeen years of mission works as a renowned orator, he was in charge of a parish at Genevrieres for twenty years. In 1789, he became an elector of the States General, Mayor of the town and Administrator of the District. He took an oath to be faithful to the nation in the political sphere, repudiating the articles of the Con¬stitution regarding spiritual authority. In 1791, he said farewell to his parishioners and came to join his Confreres at Saint Firmin's to share their martyrdom.
The Process for the Beatification of the September Martyrs was begun in 1901, and the Cause of two hundred and sixteen of them was introduced in 1916. In 1926, the official list contained a hundred and eighty seven names, with the four Vincentians, and the Decree of their Martyrdom was given. On October 17th, 1920, Pope Pius XI declared them Martyrs of the Faith of the Holy Catholic Church. May their strength of Faith, their courage in sufferings of mind and body, be a pattern and model for all who love justice and hate iniquity.
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