We have now reached the end of our task. The Revolution of 1848 has as yet exercised no considerable action upon the Reformed communion, taken as a whole. If during the past three years the Protestants of France have held assemblies whereat new projects of ecclesiastical organization have been framed, nothing has as yet been actually accomplished.
The provisional government, pre-engaged with so many other matters, did not touch religious affairs. It only passed a decree declaring that all citizens detained in prison for acts relating to the free exercise of their religion, should be immediately set at liberty, and that all fines which they had been condemned to pay, should be remitted. This was a homage rendered, as the preamble expressed, to the most precious and the most sacred of all liberties.
The only question at the same time religious and political, which was discussed after the Revolution by the press and in the popular assemblies, respected the separation of Church and State. A placard posted on the walls of Paris, on the 24th of February, demanded as the wish of the people, absolute liberty of conscience, and complete independence of the two powers. It was known that M. de Lamartine, then at the summit of popularity, approved of this system, and M. de Lamennais maintained it with the utmost energy in his new journal, Le Peuple Constituant.
Those of the Protestants who were in favour of the principle of independence, formed a society for the application of Christianity to social questions, and published a placard declaring that—“It is unjust to compel a citizen to contribute to the expense of a worship, which he does not follow. That the support of religious creeds should no longer be borne by the public exchequer, but that every one should be left to provide for the form of worship he shall have freely chosen.... Thus, religious creeds would be propagated by those who accepted them, and there would be no more privileged religions. Thus, the State would no longer have its attention engaged by questions full of embarrassment or danger. Thus, the budget would be relieved to the extent of more than forty millions of francs. Thus, in short, the whole French people would be as free and equal in religious matters, as they are [were] in political matters.”
Nothing was impossible in the midst of the universal confusion of minds and institutions. The defenders of the communions officially recognised were kept in a state of anxious expectation, ready to submit to separation if it were pronounced by the Constituent Assembly, but showing their preference for the maintenance of the union of Church and State.
Some delegates of the Reformed churches assembled spontaneously at Paris, in the month of May, 1848. They had been in a manner convoked by the common necessities and apprehensions. There was no regularity in the origin of their mandates; some had been appointed by universal suffrage, others by the consistories, or even by the presidents of the consistories. Nor was there any proportion in the representation: certain churches, in the neighbourhood of Paris, reckoned five or six delegates for a single consistorial circuit; while on the other hand, some churches had only sent one deputy for three or four consistories. There, lastly, was no uniformity in the powers of the delegates: some were authorized to enter fully into a discussion of ecclesiastical questions, and others were not. Such an assembly could only prepare the way for a body more regularly chosen by the members of legal Protestantism.
The meeting first debated the question of the relations between Church and State, and the great majority were in favour of preserving the alliance, reserving expressly the dignity and liberty of the Church. An electoral regulation was then framed for the formation of an assembly, which might consider the affairs of the communion, with an established title.
This new assembly commenced its session on the 11th of September, 1848. The members were elected by suffrage of two degrees, the body of the flocks having chosen the electors intrusted with the appointment of the delegates. Each of the ninety-two consistorial churches was invited to nominate an ecclesiastical or a lay deputy. Only three consistories abstained, beside the two theological facilities of Montauban and Strasbourg, which sent no representatives. The number of members present at the assembly was not more than from seventy to eighty. It was, for the rest, an entirely non-official assembly. It received no authority from any legal text; the government did not recognise it, and the churches were quite free to accept its resolutions or to reject them.
Long and serious questions were agitated regarding the confessions of faith. Finally, the assembly decided, almost unanimously, that in accordance with the wish of the generality of the churches, it would not touch upon dogmatical subjects, and that the question should be deferred until a more opportune time. An address was drawn up, in which the majority expressed its common belief, without resolving the controverted points of doctrine in one sense or another.
Some of the members protested against this decision, and withdrew. They have since formed, with the independent congregations already in being, a new religious society, under the name of the Union of the Evangelical Churches of France. Their particular synod was opened on the 20th of August, 1849, and drew up a profession of faith, and an ecclesiastical constitution for the flocks it represented.
Having avoided the questions of dogma, the general assembly of September discussed a scheme of organization for a legal establishment. Universal suffrage, under certain restrictions, lay at the base of the plan; the individual church was reconstituted as an essential element of the Presbyterian system; the institution of the general consistories was preserved, but made subordinate to the particular synods; finally, as the centre and crown of the ecclesiastical edifice, there was to be a general synod, which should meet at regular intervals.
The minister of public worship, to whom this project was communicated, applied to the churches for their opinions upon it. The consistories, while they were unanimous in asking for important modifications in the law of the 18th Germinal, did not agree upon the articles of the new plan of organization, and it is uncertain whether it will become the object of a legislative measure.
While Protestantism endeavoured to modify its internal government and its relations to the civil authority, the national assembly discussed the constitution. It adopted the two following articles: “Every one professes his religion freely, and receives from the State an equal protection for the exercise of his creed. The ministers of creeds actually recognised by the law, and of those which shall be recognised in future, have a right to receive support from the State.”
It will be remarked that the (Roman) Catholic religion is no longer named in the fundamental law. Not only has it ceased to be the State religion, but it has not even preserved the distinction given to it in the Concordat of Napoleon, and the Charter of 1830, namely, that of being the religion of the majority of the French people. There is no privilege, then, for (Roman) Catholicism; but a full, perfect, and absolute equality among all the recognised creeds, in such a manner that the constitution would be violated if the government granted to the Romish church any pre-eminence whatsoever. It has exhausted three centuries of efforts and struggles to gain the inscription of this great rule of justice upon the laws, and perhaps it has to be still better learned and applied by the manners of the people. A nation educated in (Roman) Catholicism practises with greater difficulty than any other, the complete equality of religious communions.
It is to be further observed, that this equality exists only for the creeds which are, or shall be recognised by the State. The advocates of the system of separation have not been satisfied with it, and the question of the suppression of the budget for the creeds continues to be mooted by some organs of the religious and political press. It is a problem for the future to resolve.
The conduct of the different governments that have presided over the destinies of France since the Revolution of 1848, has given rise to more than one dispute, whether on the part of the independent societies and churches, or whether on the part of official Protestantism. But we will not dwell upon facts that date only from yesterday. The country is in a period of crisis and transition; nothing is settled; and this fluctuating position explains many things, without, however, justifying them. Let us hope that the freedom and equality of creeds will eventually succeed in establishing themselves in the minds of the nation, as they have in the laws, and that they will become a sovereign maxim of conduct for the governing and the governed.[149]
French Protestantism has written nearly nothing within the last three years. It collects itself in the presence of the great political events that are passing; it observes, it waits. New ideas are commencing there as elsewhere. What will be the issue? God alone knows; for us, it is sufficient to know that God reigns. He has given to the Reformed churches of France days of faith and of triumph; He has protected them during long generations, against the blows of the persecutor; and His hand, that hath guarded the fathers, will not forsake the children.
THE END.
PRINTED BY COX (BROTHERS) AND WYMAN, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
[1] Bellarm. Op. vol. vi. p. 296.
[2] Hist. des Variations, book v. p. 1.
[3] Ephes. ii. 8.
[4] Bossuet, Hist. des Var. book ii. p. 13.
[5] Œcol. et Zw. Op. p. 9.
[6] Les Vrais Portraits, &c. translated from the Latin of Th. de Bèze, p. 85.
[7] Fontaine, Hist. Cathol. de notre Temps, p. 53.
[8] Hist. des Martyrs, p. 93.
[9] Erasm. Epp. vol. ii. p. 1206.
[10] It should be observed that the name of Protestant was not generally given in France to the followers of the Reformation, until the end of the seventeenth century, and that it would not be more exact to call them so in the former half of our history, than to designate by the name of Frenchmen the contemporaries of Clovis. They were called in the beginning, Lutherans, Sacramentarians, then Calvinists, Huguenots, Religionaries, or Those of the Religion. They called themselves Gospellers, the Faithful, the Reformers. The name of Protestant was at that time applied only to the disciples of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany.
[11] 1 Tim. iv. 1-3.
[12] See the narration of Lambert in Gerdes, Hist. Réform. vol. iv. Doc. pp. 21-28.
[13] Les Vrais Portraits, &c.
[14] We can only sketch here the chief features. Those, who are desirous of knowing what the mystic school of the first periods of the French Reformation was, should read the monograph of Gérard Roussel, by Professor C. Schmidt, &c.
[15] Hist. des Egl. réf. p. 6.
[16] Recherches sur la France, book vii. p. 911.
[17] There are some remarkable pages of M. Guizot’s on this subject in the Musée des Protestants célèbres, art. Calvin. The execution of Michel Servet has furnished the subject of a never-ending discussion. A skilful historian of our time, M. Mignet, has devoted to it a long and learned dissertation. It would be wholly departing from our plan, to enter into these details. We will confine ourselves to the indication of the following points:—1. Servet was not an ordinary heretic; he was a daring pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all the great Christian communities, by saying that the God in three persons was a Cerberus, a monster with three heads. 2. He had been already condemned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne, in Dauphiny. 3. The affair was tried, not by Calvin, but by the magistrates of Geneva; and if it be objected, that his advice must have influenced their decision, it must be remembered that the counsels of the other reformed Swiss cantons approved the sentence unanimously. 4. It was of infinite importance to the Reformation, that it should separate its cause clearly from that of an unbeliever like Servet. The (Roman) Catholic church, which this day accuses Calvin of having participated in his condemnation, would have accused him still more, in the sixteenth century, had he solicited for his acquittal.
[18] Vie de Calvin, pp. 44, 128, and passim.
[19] Florim. de Rémond, Hist. de la Naissance, &c., de l’Hérésie de ce Siècle, book vii. p. 931.
[20] Book vii. p. 874.
[21] Book vii. p. 910.
[22] Book vii. p. 864.
[23] John de Serres, Recueil de Choses mémorables, &c. p. 64.
[24] Page 189.
[25] Vol. i. pp. 108, 109.
[26] Abrégé Chron. vol. v. p. 14.
[27] It must be remembered here, and in other parts of this book, that we are speaking of the Italians of the sixteenth century, nobles and priests, who, eternally witnessing at Rome, Florence, Naples, scenes of assassination, poisoning, and the utmost turpitude, had sunk into the very lowest degree of depravity. It is they, history attests it, who planned, advised, prepared, and finally executed in France the most monstrous crimes of the epoch. But we are far from seeking to load the Italian nation of to-day with this terrible responsibility: a generous and intellectual nation, which has raised itself by its very misfortunes, and which adversity renders doubly entitled to our respect.
[28] Vol. iv. p. 204.
[29] Mémoires de Coligny, p. 18. It is thought that these memoirs were the work of Cornaton, one of the most faithful servants of the admiral. What follows is an abridged extract from the edition printed at Grenoble in 1669.
[30] Page 20.
[31] Page 22.
[32] Pages 94-97.
[33] Vol. i. p. 147.
[34] La Planche, Histoire de France sous François II. p. 214.
[35] See upon this point, Regnier de la Planche, Jean de Serres, D’Aubigné, De Thou, and among the more modern historians, Anquetil, Sismondi, M. Lacretelle, and others.
[36] Page 128.
[37] Hist. du Calvinisme, pp. 192, 193.
[38] Vol. iii. p. 278.
[39] Vie de Theodore de Bèze, pp. 207, 208.
[40] Etudes, Hist. vol. ii. p. 198. This remark is applicable to all great ideas, political as well as religious. In the days of the Revolution, the people overturned the monuments of the old régime. Symbols bear before the masses the penalty of their origin and of their destination. One example, which we may select from a thousand, will illustrate the ardent passion of the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century. The great church of Sainte Croix, at Orleans, had been entered in the night, and pillaged during the first religious war. Condé and Coligny hastened to put a stop to these disorders. The prince even pointed an arquebuse at a soldier, who stood upon a ladder ready to break an image. “My lord,” said the Huguenot to him, “have patience till I have broken this image, and then let me die, if you will.”
[41] Hist. des Guerres civiles de France, tome i. p. 115.
[42] Agrippa d’Aubigné, Hist. Universelle.
[43] Tome i. p. 141.
[44] Tome ii. p. 162.
[45] Histoire de M. G. Bosquet, sur les troubles advenus en la ville de Toulouse, p. 25.
[46] Page 50.
[47] Tome ii. p. 223.
[48] Page 696.
[49] Tome v. p. 104.
[50] Esprit de la Ligue, tome i. p. 249.
[51] Page 700.
[52] Tome v. p. 117.
[53] Tome v. c. 18.
[54] Tome i. p. 383.
[55] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tome xix. p. 2.
[56] Recueil des Choses mémorables, p. 417.
[57] A writer of the present day, M. Capefigue, carrying the ideas and the passions of the nineteenth into the sixteenth century, insists that Charles IX. and his court were coerced by the people of the markets, and that the masses were moved by hatred against the gentry, or the Huguenot aristocracy. Then applying to these allegations the system of revolutionary fatality, he concludes that no one is to be blamed. (La Réforme et la Ligue, pp. 341, 346, 361, 373, et passim.) Such dreams are pointed out to the reader; they are unworthy of refutation!
[58] Read again the note upon the Italians of the sixteenth century, p. 89.
[59] Journal de Henri III. tome i. p. 45.
[60] This Besme received the reward of his crime from the Cardinal de Lorraine, who permitted him to marry one of his natural daughters: a double disgrace for a priest to recompense such a man, and to have such a reward to bestow.
[61] Maimbourg, Hist. du Calvinisme, p. 486.
[62] Aignan, Biblioth. étrangère, tome i. p. 229.
[63] Le Stratagème de Charles IX. p. 178.
[64] Hist. d’Angleterre, vol. vii. p. 201.
[65] M. Lacretelle has collected the proofs in his Hist. de Guerres de Religion.
[66] Etudes hist. tome iv. p. 296.
[67] Page 462.
[68] Journal of Henry III. vol. i. pp. 71, 72.
[69] Recueil de Choses mémor. p. 546.
[70] Book iv. c. 5.
[71] Book iv. c. 3.
[72] For the history of this period, consult the Règne de Henri III., by Mézeray, 3 vols. 8vo. The new editor, M. Scipion Combet, has added to it a summary of the history of the French Protestants from the commencement of the Reformation to the law of the 18th Germinal, year 10.—This is a solid work, and may be read with profit.
[73] See De Thou, l. xcvi. vol. vii. p. 495, and the memoirs of the sixteenth century. Among the moderns, see the Etudes Histor. of M. de Châteaubriand, vol. iv. p. 371. “It was the policy of this pope,” says he, in speaking of his sacrilegious comparisons, “to encourage fanatics, who were ready to kill kings, in the name of the papal power.”
[74] Elie Benoit, Hist. de l’Edit de Nantes, vol. i. p. 121.
[75] Vol. ii. p. 295.
[76] Elie Benoît, vol. ii. p. 377.
[77] Le Mercure Français, vol. viii. p. 637.
[78] Arcère, Hist. de la Rochelle, vol. i. p. 288.
[79] Vol. i. p. 88.
[80] Eclaircissements histor. vol. i. pp. 46, 47.
[81] Those who are desirous of acquainting themselves minutely with the situation of the Reformed at this period, must read the Histoire de l’Edit de Nantes, by Elie Benoit. The author has filled five 4to. volumes with the recital of the vexations, injustice, violence, and persecutions, which his co-religionists suffered from the reign of Henry IV. to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
[82] Staeudlin, Geschichte der Theol. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. pp. 58, 59. See also Schroeck, Christl. K. Geschichte, vol. v. pp. 297-309.
[83] I.e. an arbitrary warrant of imprisonment, without accusation or trial.—Trans.
[84] “The Right Use of the Fathers,” a work which cannot be too widely circulated or studied in the present times.—Trans.
[85] Vol. iv. p. 99.
[86] Vol. iii. p. 139.
[87] Vol. i. p. 175.
[88] Vol. xxv. p. 481.
[89] Vol. i. p. 97.
[90] Vol. iv. pp. 479, 480. The author, who was a contemporary of these events, relates the facts with precision, indicates the localities, and cites names; so that his narrative bears the impress of perfect veracity, which is, besides, confirmed by the memoirs of the times. We suppress the details, as almost too painful for perusal.
[91] Vol. iv. p. 502.
[92] Pages 124-126.
[93] Vol. v. p. 681.
[94] Vol. v. pp. 832, 833.
[95] Page 52.
[96] A more disgraceful peace to England than that of Utrecht was probably never made; and if its terms are considered to have been “hard” to France, most assuredly it must ever be acknowledged,—to use the words of Lord Mahon, in his admirable History of England (vol. i. p. 6, ed. 1853),—to have been “a sin against light; not the ignorance which is deluded, but the falsehood which deludes.”—Trans.
[98] Vol. v. pp. 953, 554.
[99] Essai sur l’Etablissement Monarchique de Louis XIV. p. 413.
[100] Insurgents in the reign of Louis XIV., who were so called.—Trans.
[101] Capefigue, Louis XIV. vol. ii. chap. 24, p. 258. The author is in error as to the number of pastors, or he has included in his list professors, students of theology, and other persons indirectly connected with ecclesiastical functions. Rulhières also speaks of two thousand ministers. Elie Bénoit, who was much better informed on the subject, since he was himself one of the refugee pastors, makes the number only seven hundred.
[102] See l’Histoire abrégé des souffrances du Sieur Elie Neau sur les galères et dans les cachots de Marseille: Rotterdam, 1701.
[103] Edition Lefevre, p. 33. Some of the verses have a very striking allusion:
[104] Hist. des Camisards, book i. p. 25.
[105] Vol. ii. p. 278.
[106] Lettres Pastor. vol. iii. p. 60.
[107] Théâtre Sacré des Cevennes.
[108] Page 80 and seq.
[109] M. N. Peyrat. Hist. des Pasteurs du Désert, vol. ii. pp. 513, 514. The author has carefully collected and related, in a lively and interesting manner, the principal circumstances of the war of the Cévenoles.
[110] Vol. vii. p. 18 et seq.
[111] Page 413.
[112] The reader, if desirous of more ample information concerning this period, may peruse with advantage the work of M. Charles Coquerel, entitled: Histoire des Eglises du Désert, in two vols. 8vo. M. Coquerel had access to important documents, and has used them most judiciously. We shall have frequent occasion to refer to his work in the course of this history. The Histoire de l’Eglise Chrétienne Réformée de Nismes, by M. le pasteur Borrel, may also be consulted: the work is exact, and under a particular or local title, contains many things of general interest.
[113] Mélanges de relig. et de morale, vol. v. p. 181.
[114] Vol. xxvii. p. 514.
[115] Hist. de France pendant le dix-huitième siècle, vol. ii. p. 7.
[116] After reading the correspondence of the intendants, M. Lemontey, in his Essays upon the Monarchical Establishment of Louis XIV., asserts that certain curates required of the heretics, before they would bless their marriages, “that they should curse their deceased parents, and swear that they believed in their everlasting damnation!”—Vol. ii. p. 157.
[117] Pages 35, 103.
[118] Bibliothèque Française, vol. xxii. pp. 288, 289.
[119] Armand de la Chapelle, La Nécessité du Culte public, &c.
[120] Pages 9, 45, 46.
[121] Pages 48, 49.
[122] Mémoire Hist. pp. 65, 66.
[123] M. C. Coquerel, Histoire des Eglises du Désert, vol. ii. pp. 168-170.
[124] The edition from which this translation is made, was revised by the author in 1851. Since that time, the voice of France is silenced by tyranny and oppression; the Roman Catholic priesthood is gaining strength, and commencing its work of persecution; and two prisoners, for the political offence of liberty of thought and speech, have been sentenced to transportation at Cayenne, by the mere order of a minister of police, without the form of a trial!—Trans.
[125] A word of explanation is necessary in respect of the restriction with regard to other ecclesiastics than the proper curates; there were, even then, priests, either complaisant or venal enough, to bless the marriages of the Reformed for a certain price, and without any examination. As public opinion gradually grew satisfied with the laws against the Calvinists, the number of these priests also increased to such an extent, that the bargains became an open kind of traffic, of which, however, the rich alone could avail themselves. Many of the Protestants, besides, declined, from conscientious motives, to incur even the appearance of hypocrisy by inscribing their marriages upon the registers of the priests.
[126] J. Pons, Notice Biographique, &c.
[127] Archives du Christianisme, vol. xx. p. 293.
[128] In many respects, the celebrated George Whitfield seems to have resembled Rabaut; his voice could also be heard at an immense distance, and from his published discourses, no one would suppose that their effect upon his hearers could have been so startling.—Trans.
[129] Vol. ii. p. 347.
[130] Les Toulousaines, Lettre xxii.
[131] They were gentilshommes verriers. The trade of a glass manufacturer did not disparage their nobility.—Trans.
[132] Book xxv. c. 10.
[133] Répertoire Ecclésiast. pp. 7, 8.
[134] A work has been published in the German language, entitled: “The Protestant Church of France from 1787 to 1846” (Die Protestantische Kirche Frankreichs, &c.), 2 vols. 8vo: Leipsig, 1848. The author is not named; but his work is edited by M. Gieseler, a professor of theology, well known for his excellent ecclesiastical history and other writings. The book we also refer to above is full of valuable materials and documents.
[135] Lauze de Peret, Eclaircissements histor., &c. 2nd book, p. 163.
[136] Lauze de Peret, 3rd book, p. 35.
[137] J. Pons, Notice biographique.
[138] M. Artaud gives the details of this curious and generally unknown negotiation, in his History of Pope Pius VII. vol. i. p. 265, et seq.
[139] Vues sur le Protestantisme en France, vol. ii. p. 265.
[140] Vol. ii. p. 266.
[141] Page 192
[142] M. Lauze de Peret, book iii. p. 10.
[143] It is said that certain advisers of Louis XVIII. had endeavoured to persuade him to put the sixth article before the fifth. The king answered with much wisdom, that it was not right to put the exception before the rule.
[144] Archives du Christianisme, vol. iii. p. 406, et seq.
[145] Arch. du Christ. vol. xi. p. 241, et seq. See another notice upon the life of M. de Staël, at the head of his Œuvres Diverses, published in 1829.
[146] Critiques et Portraits littéraires, vol. v. pp. 144, 147.
[147] Le Semeur, vol. xvii. p. 141.
[148] M. Grandpierre, Notices sur le Vice-Amiral Ver-Huell, p. 38, et passim.
[149] The hopes of the author, raised by the enlightened political views of the amiable and upright Lamartine, have not been realized. The coup-d’état of December, 1851, by which Louis Napoleon rejected the opportunity of displaying to the world that he could sacrifice personal ambition to the patriotic observance of the oath he had sworn, to maintain the Constitution inviolably, has induced a policy of intimate alliance with the Romish priesthood. Passing events daily show that whatever advantage the sacerdotal order of the (Roman) Catholics may be supposed to derive from a State connection, that union deeply injures the vitality of Protestantism. As stated in Louis Napoleon’s proclamation promulgating his constitution, “It is still the Concordat that regulates the relations of the State with the Church.” The 20th article of the Constitution makes the cardinals ex officio members of the senate.—Transl.