Minister; and his attempt at establishing a political understanding with the Napoleons, in spite of the general condemnation of the events of December. In order to be just I must admit that he, at that time, saw more keenly into the future than all of us, as we saw through glasses darkened by indignation at the coup d'état. The Russian madness certainly made the Franco-English alliance a political necessity, and Palmerston may justly say that he recognised that necessity sooner than we. He certainly had the better of us.' CHAP. VIII. BOOK CHAPTER IX. DECEMBER 20, 1851. THE famous letter which the Count de Montalembert addressed to the electors of France, through the papers, on the duty of citizens in regard to the Prince President's appeal to the nation, set forth the case between the Prince and France in a clear light. The letter was dated December 12: 'I receive every day letters consulting me on the proper course to follow in present circumstances, and especially as to the Ballot, which commences on the 20th inst., in order to respond to the appeal made by the President to the French people. It is physically impossible for me to write to each of the persons who do me the honour to address me, and yet I should be grieved to reply by silence and an apparent indifference to the confidence manifested towards me, and which has been gained for me by twenty years' political struggles in the cause of the Church and of society. Permit me to express, through the medium of your journal, my opinion. 'I begin by declaring that the act of December 2 has put to flight the whole of the Revolutionists, the whole of the Socialists, and the whole of the bandits of France and Europe; and that alone is, in my opinion, a more than sufficient reason for all honest men to rejoice, and for those who have been most mortified to console themselves. I do not enter into the question as to whether the coup d'état (which had been foreseen by IX. everyone) could be executed at another moment, and in CHAP. another manner; to do so I should have to go back to the causes which produced it, and to give my opinion on persons who cannot now reply to me. I do not pretend to guarantee the future any more than to judge of the past. I only look to the present-that is to say, the vote to be delivered on Sunday week. "There are three courses open-the negative vote, neutrality, and the affirmative vote. 'To vote against Louis Napoleon would be to sanction the Socialist revolution, which, for the present at least, is the only one which can take the place of the actual Government. It would be to invite the dictatorship of the Reds, instead of the dictatorship of a Prince who has rendered for three years incomparable services to the cause of order and Catholicism. It would be (admitting the most favourable and the least probable hypothesis) to re-establish that Tower of Babel which people called the National Assembly, and which, in spite of the honourable and distinguished men it counted in such great numbers, was profoundly divided in the midst of peace and legal order, and which there is no doubt of the fact-would be powerless in the presence of the formidable crisis we are now exposed to. To abstain from voting would be to belie all our antecedents. It would be to fail in the duty we have always recommended and fulfilled under the Monarchy of July as under the Republic; it would be to abdicate the mission of honest men at the very moment that mission is the most imperative and the most beneficial. I highly respect the scruples which may suggest to many honourable minds the idea of abstaining; but I know also great politicians, who are unscrupulous, and who, after having brought us to the point where we now are-after having condemned us to the loss of all our BOOK IX. liberties by the abuse they have made of them, or allowed to be made of them-now come and preach to us that we must make a vacuum round the Government. I respect scruples; I protest against tactics. I can conceive nothing more immoral or more stupid; I defy any man alive to justify such conduct to his conscience or to history. History will tell how all France, after the ignoble surprise of February 24, recognised the authority of the men of the Hôtel de Ville, because they offered a chance of escape from the abyss that they themselves had opened. Let those chivalrous persons-if any such there arewho in 1848 protested against the destruction of royalty; against the brutal expulsion of the two Chambers ; against the disarming of the army; against the usurpation of every branch of the Government; against the violation of every law-let such persons, I repeat, claim the right to protest and abstain from voting; I have no objection. But I refuse to recognise such a right in any one of those who sent representatives to take the place of the Deputies hunted from their benches by a horde of barbarians; to any of those who themselves sat there, and who so sat to proclaim that the Government had merited well of the country, and to vote for the banishment of the House of Bourbon. The conscience that accepted such a yoke, for fear of something worse, surely cannot feel any serious difficulty in confirming the power that restored order and security in 1848, and which has alone preserved us from anarchy in 1851. The instinct of the masses is no more led astray now than then. Louis Napoleon will be in 1852, as in 1848, the elect of the nation. Such being the case, I believe there is nothing more imprudent-I should say more insane for men of religious feeling and men of order, in a country like ours, than to put themselves in opposition to the wishes of the nation, where these mean nothing contrary to the law of God, or to the fundamental conditions of society. There are far too many among us, men worthy of respect, whose policy seems to be to act quite in opposition to the general opinion. When this country went mad for liberty and Parliamentary institutions, these same men appealed to the absolute right of royalty; now that it is for the moment hungering for silence, calm, and authority, these same men would impose the sovereignty of the tribune and of discussion. If ever the country demand monarchy, the men I allude to will be condemned by such conduct to the perpetuation of the Republic. 'For those men who boldly declare that there is one sole right in political affairs, and that France can only be secured by one principle, I can, strictly speaking, understand the possibility of abstaining, provided these men also abstained in 1848. But for us who are Catholics above all, who have always professed that religion and society should coexist with all forms of government that do not exclude reason and the Catholic faith, I am unable to find a motive that can justify or excuse voluntary selfannihilation. 'I now come to the third course-namely, the affirmative vote. Now, to vote for Louis Napoleon is not to approve all he has done; it is only to choose between him and the total ruin of France. It does not mean that his government is the one we prefer to all others; it is simply to say that we prefer a prince who has given proofs of resolution and ability to those who are at this moment giving their proofs of murder and pillage. It is not to confound the Catholic Church with the cause of a party or family. It is to arm the temporal power, the only possible power at this day, with the necessary strength to vanquish the army of crime, to defend our churches, our homes, our wives, against those who respect CHAP. IX. |