CHAPTER XII
DARBOY, DUPANLOUP, MARET, GRATRY, AND
MONTALEMBERT
The Archbishop of Paris in 1870 was Mgr. Darboy. The records of his See had been recently a series of ghastly tragedies. His immediate predecessors were Quélen, Affre, Sibour, and Cardinal Morlot. Only the last had died a natural death. Affre was shot on the barricades, and Sibour assassinated by one of his own priests. Darboy himself was destined to be added to the same terrible list. He was shot in prison during the Commune in 1871. His religious sympathies were the reverse of Ultramontane.
"By his early theological training, by mental tendencies, and not less by the traditions of the Diocese and See of Paris, Mgr. Darboy," says a biographer, "was devoted to the ancient principles of the Church of France."[1]
Darboy strove to maintain the ancient rights and authority of the Episcopate, and made no secret of his repugnance to—nay, he openly rejected—the theory that the Roman Pontiff possessed direct and immediate authority over every separate diocese. And, while he was a strong supporter of the Pope's temporal power,
- ↑ Guillermin, p. 124.
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