The church in France, two lectures delivered at the Royal institution;

# See Appendix IV., p. 147. Loi du 9 Décembre, 1905: Article 4. ‘en se conformant . . . l’exercice.”

that the State recognises no form of religion, inasmuch as it now provides for the distinct recognition of the Roman system.

The law goes on to enact that property which belonged to the State, the departments, or the communes shall go back to its original owners, subject to certain obligations on their part, exception being made for pious endowments subsequent to the Concordat — all disputed questions being decided by the ordinary tribunals of the land. Then comes Clause 8, which, certain Catholics argue, reduces the beneficial effect of Clause 4, in that it provides for the case of two or more associations cultuelles setting up rival claims, which will be decided by the Conseil d'État—that is, the civil authority -—which might thus have power to create at its pleasure a schism. Then follow some highly technical provisions concerning the destination of property of which the Church has had the administration for charitable or other purposes not connected with public worship.

This brings us to the important provisions as to pensions. Ministers of religion who are sixty years old and have for thirty years been in the pay of the State are to receive a life pension of three-quarters of their salaries ; while those who are forty-five and have been for twenty years salaried by the State receive a life pension of half their salaries. In any case, the pension is not to exceed 1,500f., or 601. a year. Since that has been the highest salary, as we have seen, of any beneficed priest, this limitation does: not touch the curés, though it affects the most highly paid Protestant pastors, a few of whom have received 3,000f. a year— the Protestant salaries being on a generally higher scale, as the pastors are married men. However, it is easy to see that it affects very seriously the Archbishops and Bishops, whose maximum pension is thus fixed at 601. Those ministers who are not qualified for the foregoing pensions are granted subsidies, in the following proportions, during ~ the first four years after disestablishment : —in the first year they are to receive the

whole of their salary, in the second year two-thirds, in the third one-half, and in the fourth one-third. The periods are to be doubled in the case of those exercising their ministry in communes of less than 1,000 inhabitants. This will be of great help in the first years of disorganisation in the poor rural districts, and will be of widespread effect, as more than 20,000 of the 36,000 communes of France have a population of less than 1,000 inhabitants.

All religious edifices in the land, cathedrals, churches, and chapels (as well as Protestant temples and Jewish synagogues), with the movable property therein, which belong to the State, the departments, or the communes, are left gratuitously at the disposal of the Associations to be formed under the Act. But presbyteries and seminaries are granted rent-free for only five years, while Archbishops and Bishops are to have the gratuitous tenancy of their palaces for only two years, at the end of which periods all these buildings will revert to the State, the departments or the communes. This

appears to be a harsh provision, especially in the case of humble presbyteries, which, with their little gardens—le jardin de mon curé—have been a picturesque feature of the precincts of thousands of village churches in France, sheltering for the most part simple lives of self-denying devotion.

The expropriation, too, of the Bishops from their residences seems to be a needless blow at the dignity of the Church. The notice to quit is, of course, not definitive, and it may be that at the end of two years, or of five, arrangements may be made for the continuance of the tenancies, much depending on the attitude of future Governments and of local authorities as time goes on. One Bishop, whose diocese is in that pleasant region where Gascony meets Languedoc, sent me on New Year’s Day a card of his modest palace, and being a Frenchman whose joyous nature has not been dulled by the present tribulations, signed himself under the little picture as ‘‘ L’usufruitier temporaire de cet immeuble,” that being his legal position under the Act, from

January Ist, 1906, with regard to his episcopal residence.

Buildings and movable objects of public worship, as well as ecclesiastical libraries and archives, will undergo an inspection for the purpose of classing all property affected by the Act as of artistic or historical value. Property so classed will be inalienable ; but in the case of certain precious objects the right of pre-emption will be granted by the Ministry of Fine Arts to the associations cultuelles, and in the event of their refusal to retain them for the use of the Church they will be offered on the same terms to the local and central authorities for the purpose of being preserved in museums.

This is a development of the law which has been in force since 1830 for the conservation of historic monuments, in which category most of the cathedrals and many of the ancient churches of France have been classed. It is a provision to which little exception can be taken ; as though the State, by the ruthlessness of its architects, of whom Viollet le Duc was perhaps the most

destructive, has been open to criticism, it has been a more faithful guardian of ecclesiastical treasures than the Church.

The clauses relating to the associations cultuelles are of high importance. These bodies are to consist of residents in the parish, and their numbers range from seven in communes of under one thousand inhabitants to twenty-five in the largest.

They fall under the provisions of the Law of Association of 1901. They are permitted to raise funds by means of subscriptions, collections in the churches, and fees for religious ceremonies. They are allowed to distribute their surplus to other associations —a most important faculty, enabling rich parishes to come to the aid of their poor neighbours. Their accounts are to be inspected yearly by agents of the Ministry of Finance, and the amounts of their accumulated funds are strictly limited by a scale proportionate to their revenues. These provisions do not accord with the aspirations of those whose ideal is a Free Church in a Free State.

Churches are, as heretofore, to be exempt from land-tax and house-duty. In return for this exemption they are to be used exclusively for religious purposes, and never for political meetings. The law relating to processions and other ceremonials outside the churches remains as it has been since 1884, when the question was left in the hands of the local municipalities. Thus one of the most picturesque features in French provincial life is retained in localities where the Church and the civil authority are on friendly terms. Bell-ringing is also left to the discretion of the municipality, and its continuance will probably depend less on the politics of the councillors than on their nerves or the proximity of their dwellings to the church. For in France neither the English peal nor the Belgian carillon exists, the bells being of universal cacophony.

A clause which has been much eriticised is one which prohibits the erection of any religious emblem in a public place, excepting churches, cemeteries, and

museums. No more Calvaries will, therefore, be set up on French waysides.

Happily, those in existence may not be touched, so the beautiful monuments which are the pride of Brittany will be preserved.

The concluding clauses are of miscellaneous effect. Religious instruction may be given to children between the ages of six and thirteen who attend the public schools, only out of school hours. Libellous or provocative utterances in the churches are punished by fine and imprisonment, the same penalties being inflicted on those who interrupt a religious service and on those who by violence, menaces, or dismissal from employment try to keep people from going to church or to force them to attend.

The dispensation from military service hitherto accorded to ecclesiastics is maintained, as is also the observation as a public holiday of Sunday and the four great festivals of the Church—Christmas, Ascension Day, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and All Saints’. Ecclesi-

astics for eight years will not be eligible H 2

as municipal councillors in the communes where they minister. Finally, the Budget of Public Worship, which in 1905 amounted to 1,700,0001. sterling, will be proportionately divided among the communes of France for the alleviation of taxation— but it will not be entirely available for that purpose till all the life-pensioners under the Act are dead.

Such in its main outlines is the Law of 1905, separating the Church from the State, which, by its last clause, repeals the Concordat and a few minor Acts of legislation passed since the great treaty of 1801 was ratified. There are three classes of commentary made upon it by French politicians, who represent the average opinion of the nation. I leave out of consideration the extreme views of reactionary ultramontane zealots and of bigoted anti-clerical sectaries, though their respective extravagances have contributed to the denunciation of the Concordat.

Many moderate Republicans, together with the survivors of the old Liberals and the like-minded members of the Right, regard the law as an act of repression intended to starve religion out of the land, and aimed against religious liberty. This they consider was best safeguarded by the Concordat, which likewise was an admirable instrument for subordinating the spiritual power to the temporal in the State.

There is then the Governmental view, held by the more moderate supporters of the Ministry which passed the law and of M. Falliéres when he was elected President of the Republic a month after its enactment, as well as by a very small minority of the clergy. The line that they take is that circumstances had made the relations between the French Government and the Vatican intolerable, so that a rupture could not be avoided. It was better, therefore, for everybody that separation, having become inevitable, should be effected before new irritation should provoke a less conciliatory Act, than they claim the law to

be. They say that it is a law which restores to the Church its nominations and its councils; which leaves to the faithful the indefinite enjoyment of their places of worship; which regulates in an equitable manner the devolution of ecclesiastical property ; which authorises the constitution of private budgets of public worship, and permits rich associations to go to the aid of poor parishes; which, by its transitory arrangements in the matter of pensions, makes the change gradual for ministers of long service; which contains no vexatious regulations as to ecclesiastical costume or processions—this, they say, is not a measure which can be called a law of violence, of persecution, and of hatred.

The third view is that taken by certain philosophical Radicals, some of whom are too sceptical to be sectarian in their anticlericalism. Their view was set forth by M. Clemenceau in a remarkable speech in the Senate on November 23rd, 1905. He declared that the Chamber of Deputies, while professing to desire the denunciation

of the Concordat, had acted entirely in a Concordatory spirit; that the sole preoccupation of the promoters of the Bill was to conjure two dangers—the peril which threatened the State if it renounced its prerogatives, and the peril menacing the Church if those prerogatives were not surrendered to it. The real peril, M. Clemenceau declared, was that of maintaining . a system of privilege for the authority of Rome in a régime of liberty.

I will not decide on the respective justice of those three views. What seems to me to be the most anomalous feature of the Act is that it is not a law of separation of Church and State. It is a law of reestablishment, under which the Church will eventually lose a revenue of nearly two millions sterling, receiving in compensation the right to nominate its own Bishops, who, in turn, will have the privilege of meeting in synods and councils. ‘“ Witha great sum obtained I this freedom,” might be the motto to set up in their Convocationhouse, if indeed it was freedom that they had

procured. But it is not real liberty. The Concordatory spirit to which M. Clemenceau refers is visible in every line of the new Act. The difference between it and the statute or treaty of 1801, under which Church and State have lived at peace in France for a century, is that the Concordat was the work of a stupendous genius, and the Separation Law of ordinary mortal men.

On this impartial platform it would not be becoming for me to regret the denunciation of the Concordat, on political or religious grounds. But for another reason I may express my regret. It is the first important breach made in the great administrative edifice reared by Napoleon in his reconstruction of France after the Revolution, which has survived a century of revolutions and changes of régime, as the permanent framework of stable government.