XI.
DUTY.
Meanwhile let Statesmen repress without mercy the progress of the country towards social democracy and towards the extinction of Religion. Let the Government in power cause the Parliamentary Representatives to understand that they are not to consider themselves entitled to direct the policy of the Cabinet, that Ministers are not their servants, and that a Minister may not be dismissed at their pleasure without necessarily dismissing the whole Cabinet. Let the nation prostrate herself in their temples and implore God to forgive her crimes and errors; let her make her peace with Heaven. Heaven alone can restore a country to the esteem of nations in preference to their mistrust; good example from the upper classes will restore the whole country to self-respect. For, while the wretches, the hypocrites, and the foolish, already cry out for more revenge and thirst for civil war, those who believe in God and in France confess with grief that they have been justly smitten for their outrageous pride, apostasy, and rebellion. Every man should remember his forefathers, and so should the nation. Michelet writes: "Let us remember (and things are so different now that our words carry weight) that nothwithstanding our levity, our follies, our vices even, ancient France was justly called the most Christian People. Our ancestors were certainly the people of love and grace, whether taken in a human or Christian sense, both are equally true. The Frenchman, even when vicious, preserved more than others his right reason and good heart. Let not contemporary France forget the watchword of ancient France."
"Our real enemy is Demagogy; and I will not betray the last remnant of social order, that is to say, the Catholic Church, into its hands" (Thiers). The watchword of ancient France then is Faith. Those nations who walk loyally in the sacred paths of their forefathers are of the elect. They may have wounded themselves in thorny by-ways of History; they may have had their follies, their frailties, their falls, their revolutions. But they will survive their misfortunes, and in spite of the injustice of neighbouring States, and the chastising hand of Providence, they will ever be the children of that same Providence.
The whole history of France asserts and proclaims it. It is Christianity that made France great, happy, and prosperous; it is heresy, unbelief, revolution, that rend, degrade, and ruin her. Many lies and sophistries have been spread abroad to disguise the truth. We will not allude even to the πρῶτον ψεῦδος of the 19th century: the cheating Declaration of the Rights of Man hatched in 1789. To the ignorant and the interested, hints are useless. But amongst gross untruths it is advanced by Freethinkers and revolutionary politicians of the New Reformation School, that Frenchmen as Catholics acknowledging the supremacy of the Holy See, whose interests might not always agree with those of their country, are bound in certain circumstances to give precedence to their duty as Christians over their duty as Frenchmen. It is easy to answer this lying calumny. Frenchmen as Catholics acknowledge but one Master, and this Master is God. They honour Him at Rome in the person of His earthly Representative and there serve Him as Christians. In France they serve Him as citizens by the due observance of the laws of their country, by earnestly fighting in the defence of truth, justice, and rightful liberty. These two duties, so distinct from each other, are far from being antagonistic; indeed each is the complement of the other, and are of mutual assistance. Properly understood, they could never be placed in opposition. If at times it seems difficult to make them agree, the fault lies, not with French Catholics, but with those designing sectarians who assail the most sacred rights of conscience in striving to destroy the faith and convictions which form the happiness and dignity of man; who dishonour France and lead her to certain destruction by handing her over to every passion and licence; mischievous, selfish, and costly ribalds, who really detest moral and good government and good people, because these will not shelter Socialists, Anarchists, and incendiaries. Such infernal men are making a nation, as a civilized nation in the world, false to her destiny, which is to spread abroad in that world and to defend therein with all her might the religion of Christ, which alone can lead man in the way of truth, and outside of which he finds neither law, truth, liberty, nor justice, and consequently neither peace, greatness, nor true civilization. But young Frenchmen as well as young Englishmen should be taught by the example of their parents and friends and often reminded that fidelity to one's flag and testimony to one's truth are of the first necessity if they would be honest men, and not apes for whom the most tolerant can have no respect nor the most charitable pity.