ably no Bishops in Christendom were such autocrats as the French. The account given by the French statesman Ollivier, which is confirmed from other sources, represents the ordinary priest as subjected to a virtual slavery. If the despotic power of the French Bishops over their priests was to some extent moderated by piety, yet anxiety to maintain their authority constantly issued in acts of pitiless severity. The greater portion of the French priests were dismissible at will, without judicial process, or adequate opportunity for self-defence. Ollivier considers the causes of dismissal to have been frequently quite insufficient. One Bishop alone removed one hundred and fifty priests in a single month, and the State declined to interfere. Under these circumstances the Pope intervened. He took the part of the priests against the Bishop, and asserted the right of the inferior clergy to appeal to himself. From that moment, says Ollivier, Ultramontanism, hitherto forlorn enough, pervaded the mass of the priesthood. Down-trodden by a Gallican Episcopate, the priest hastened to proclaim the infallibility of a Pope by whom his own superiors might be the more effectively controlled. Ultramontanism grew to be a passion in the clerical world. And this movement from beneath affected the Episcopate. Either they were driven on by the force of the stream, or left stranded without the general sympathy. Ollivier says that whereas, in the past, men spoke of Gallican independence, it became a commonplace of Vaticanism to speak of French docility.[1]
5. Another impressive step in the direction of Papal Infallibility was taken in 1854 by Pius IX. when he
- ↑ Ollivier, i. p. 300. See also the anonymous pamphlet, "Pourquoi le Clergé Français est Ultramontane" (1879).
