Vatican Decree. It also shook the whole constitution of the Church of France. Its effect on Gallican ideas was naturally great.
The French Minister Ollivier goes so far as to maintain that the Roman Court, in spite of its persistent efforts, would only have secured uncertain advantage if the French Revolution had not come to its aid.[1]
But still down to 1870 the French Government retained in its control the right of nominating the Bishops. And this right it exercised independently of the papal desires. Pronounced Gallicans were elevated to the Episcopate in spite of Pius IX.'s objections. At times, when his concurrence was delayed, pressure was instantly brought to bear from France. And that pressure it was not prudent to resist; for at that period France was the protector of the Papacy.
It is sometimes said that the old Gallicanism perished in the French Revolution. This is misleading. The Church and the Monarchy had stood together, and the overthrow of the one broke the power of the other. In the altered circumstances the papal claim over monarchs became practically impossible. It was never denied at Rome, but it was not asserted. It was left discreetly in the background, and consequently the old Gallican political protest became meaningless. But the old spiritual principles were re-affirmed in France in 1820 by Cardinal de la Luzerne with not less vigour and frankness than in the days of Bossuet.
The independence of the temporal power from papal authority, says Cardinal Luzerne,[2] is a question which he does not intend to discuss. Not because he has the slightest doubt upon the subject; on the contrary, the complete independence of the temporal power is of all the Gallican maxims that to which
