23rd August, 1902.

THE elections of May, 1902, have not improved the situation in France. No efforts, as I said, however earnest, could now retrieve the political situation. For twenty-five years the “Grand Orient” has been gathering into its hands all the threads of power; ministers, presidents, cabinets are made, unmade, remade, as it suits the well-conceived plans of this band of sectarian Jacobins, who differ from other Freemasons in that with them God is both non-existent and l’ennemi to be vanquished, while at the same time they are strictly a political organization, whose object is to control the country and conform it to their own image.

The Associations Bill, or to speak more accurately, the law against all Christian education, was decreed by the lodges in 1877. An abortive attempt was made to carry it through in 1880. That attempt was premature, because the “Grand Orient” had not yet gained complete control over the judiciary. To-day very nearly every part of the administration is in their power.

People wondered why Waldeck Rousseau resigned immediately after the elections, which seemed a tribute to the success of his administration. The reason of this shuffling of the cards is evident. It had been resolved, as soon as the elections were assured, to make a coup de main, and close, summarily, 3000 primary schools, frequented by hundreds of thousands of children of the poorer classes, and this a few weeks before the holidays, without the slightest regard to the fact that state lay schools were already inadequate, while in many places there were none but congregational schools.

Now Waldeck Rousseau, speaking for the Government, had most formally declared that these schools were in no wise affected by the law of 1901 (Associations Bill), and continued to be regulated by the law of 1885 on primary education. It was by making this solemn declaration that Waldeck Rousseau obtained votes enough to carry Art. XIII of the Associations Bill, which is now being flagrantly violated by the closing of these 3000 primary schools.

Many of these schools were conducted by a few Sisters in buildings owned by private individuals, and the sealing up of these premises was a distinct violation of property rights. In one instance, the proprietor resorted to the use of a ladder to go in and out of his house; in another the local tribunal removed the seals and restored the house to the owner; but the Government had the premises sealed again. I cannot say who had the last word, but it is certain that there is open conflict between the judiciary and the executive. The tribunals have not yet been sufficiently ÉpurÉs, nor the magistrates sufficiently domestiquÉs. It is consoling to think that there are still a few magistrates in France who have not “bowed the kneel to Baal, nor kissed his image.”

But a complete Épuration of the army and of the judiciary is going on. All the “suspects” are being displaced, from the humblest garde champÊtre to the highest prefect and magistrate. It will then be smooth sailing for the coalition in power.

The coup de main against the primary schools having been resolved upon, it is easy to understand how desirable it was that Waldeck Rousseau should not be on the Ministerial bench to undergo interpellations and eat his own words. A quondam Seminarist was put in his place, and bore the brunt of the interpellations. He contented himself with saying that “M. Waldeck Rousseau had made a mistake”—voilÀ tout! The Left meanwhile came to his assistance by banging their desks and vociferating against the deputies of the Right and Centre. A free fight was taking place in the hemicycle, when M. Combes produced the decree, closing the session, and so ended this disgraceful scene at two o’clock in the morning.

Of course it is pretended by Ministerialists that all these primary schools of the poor were closed in virtue of Art. XIII of the law of 1901. This is absolutely false. Jules Laroche, a Liberal who cannot even be suspected of “clericalism,” in his public letter, announcing to M. Combes an interpellation, expressed himself as follows, quoting M. Waldeck Rousseau’s own words, consigned in the Officiel of March 19th, 1901:—

“As to the right to open private schools, the Chamber knows that this is regulated by a special law; a simple declaration is enough, the school is then under the State Inspector. Art. XIII [Associations Bill] has absolutely nothing to do with the legislation on education, and the new law does not touch it at all.”

“Thus spoke Waldeck Rousseau,” continues M. Laroche. “It was on this formal, categoric, and solemn declaration that we voted Art. XIII. You, M. le President [Combes], are not applying Art. XIII. You are violating it, you are transforming the law of 1901 into a trap, and the loyal and categorical declaration of M. Waldeck Rousseau into the act of a traitor” (en oeuvre de trahison).

This is enough for any one who cares to know the truth. It is thus that the French people are fooled and led on, step by step, to their destruction.

Nevertheless, many admirers of these sectarian persecutors prefer to believe that all these primary schools and infant asylums were closed because they refused to comply with the Associations Bill! Many of these teachers belonged to amply authorized Congregations. Those of Savoy and the county of Nice had letters patent from the King of Savoy and Piedmont, and the treaty of annexation to France, 1860, distinctly stipulated that the religious congregations and ecclesiastical properties should never be molested; it was one of the conditions on which the inhabitants consented to be annexed. Of all this the Third Republic makes litter.

The amusing part of M. Combes’ coup de main is that his minions even went around expelling small groups of three to five sisters employed by the Government in the infirmaries of State Lyceums! In these instances, however, they neglected to seal up the premises, as they did in the case of private owners—a fine Jacobin distinction between mine and thine.

The Socialist Mayor of Reims recently took upon himself to laicize the civil hospital, which, strange to say, had been served uninterruptedly for two hundred years by a congregation called “Soeurs de l’hÔpital,” whom even the Revolutionists of 1793 had spared.

Ministerial organs like the Matin are now busy assuring the public that the sick, the blind, the insane, are not all to be cast into the streets like the children of the poor, until the Government finds time and money to build schools for them.

If the Congregations devoted to the sick, the maimed, and the blind could make common cause with the teaching Congregations, if all refused to demand authorization, which is merely a trap and a noose, the Government, I think, would be checkmated. But, of course, Christian charity will not allow them all to go on strike and throw their poor and sick and halt upon the hands of the Government. It will be their turn soon, and meanwhile they are holding the clothes of those who stone Stephen. No concessions, no pliancy on the part of the persecuted, will disarm or arrest the Government—the “Grand Orient,” I mean.

The final purpose of these Freemasons is to crush out Christianity by means of anti-religious education of all classes, and have, if possible, a national, Republican institution, to be known as the Church of France. It is said that M. Combes is preparing a formula of the oath to be taken by the clergy of this institution; it is a revival of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1793, and we may also look for a renewal of the persecution of the non-assermentÉs or non-jurors of that epoch.

Decidedly these modern Jacobins have no imagination; all their proceedings have a twang of ancient history. Read in Taine’s Ancien RÉgime, “La conquÊte Jacobine,” and it will seem like current history. You will read how prefects and maires and gens d’armes often knocked in the dead of night at the doors of peaceful sisters and ordered them to disperse. At Avignon, recently, the police had to barricade the streets to prevent thousands of indignant men and women from manifesting before the Prefecture. Lyons is preparing to resist. The speech pronounced by the Socialist mayor, M. Augagneur, at the political banquet on 14th July, would certainly warrant retaliation.

After the usual stereotyped glorification of that disgraceful performance known as La Prise de la Bastille, M. Augagneur said: “The new Bastille we must take to-day is that power, far more dangerous, of the spirit of the past incarnated in the Church, acting by its priests, its preachers, its monks, its professors, by all its lay accomplices. It is this Bastille we must destroy, if we do not wish to see wasted the immense efforts of 113 years ... thus, gentlemen, I invite you to drink to the success of the campaign being waged by the Government.” This is clear speaking. “No greater misfortune can befall a nation,” wrote Lecky, “than to cut itself away from its own past as France has done.” It is this misfortune that these blinded sectarians are seeking to consummate in hatred of the Catholic Faith, which is so bound up with the fibres of the nation that they can only be torn out with the last palpitating remnants of national life.