foresight of the Holy See: the martyrs, smitten with interdiction, saw the Catholic faith sacrificed by Rome to the Greek policy; and Poland, discouraged in her godlike resistance, submitted to her fate without understanding it.*
How is it that the representative of God upon earth has not discovered that, since the treaty of Westphalia, all the Avars of Europe are religious wars ? What carnal prudence is it that can have so disturbed his vision as to have led him to apply to the direction of heavenly things, means proper enough for earthly monarchs, but unworthy of the king of kings ? Their throne has only a transient duration ; his shall endure fur ever — yes, for ever: for the priest who is seated upon that throne would be more great, more clearsighted in the catacombs than he is in the Vatican. Cheated by the subtilty of the sons of the age, he has not penetrated below the surface of things; and, in the aberrations into which his fear-policy has led him, he has forgotten to draw his strength from its only real source — the politics of faith.†
* These remonstrances, which, it is believed, do not overstep the bounds of respect, have been justified by the later edicts of the court of Rome.
† Ignorance on religious points is so 'great in the present day, that a Catholic, a man of talent, to whom I read this passage, interrupted me, saying, ' You are no longer a Catholic, you blame the pope!' As if the pope was impeccable, as well as infallible, in matters of faith. Even this infallibility itself is submitted to certain restrictions by the Gallicans, who yet consider themselves Catholic. Has Dante ever been accused of heresy ? Yet what is the language that he addresses to such of the popes as he places in his hell ? The ablest minds of our times fall into a confusion of id?as that would have excited the Q 2
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But patience ! the times are ripening ; soon every question will be clearly defined, and truth, defended by its legitimate champions, will regain its empire over the minds of nations. Perhaps the struggle which is preparing will serve to convince Protestants of an essential truth, which I have already more than once dwelt upon, but on which I insist, because it appears io me the only truth necessary to expedite the reunion of all Christian communities: it is that the only really free priest that exists is the Catholic priest. Everywhere else, except in the Catholic church, the priest is subjected to other laws and other lights than those of his conscience and his doctrine. One trembles on seeing the inconsistencies of the Church of England, as well as the abjectness of the Greek church at Petersburg: when hypocrisy ceases to triumph in England the greater part of the kingdom will again become Catholic. The church of Pome has alone saved the purity of faith by defending throughout the earth, with sublime generosity, with heroic patience, with inflexible conviction, the independence of sacerdotal power against the usurpations of temporal sovereignties. Where is the church which has not allowed itself to be lowered by the different governments of the earth to the rank of a pious police ? There is but one, one only — the Catholic church; and that liberty which she has preserved at the cost of the blood of her martyrs, is an
laughter of the schoolboys of past ages. I answered my critic by referring him to Bossuet. His exposition of Catholic doctrine, confirmed, approved, always praised and adopted by the court of Rome, sufficiently justifies my principles.
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.341
eternal principle of life and power. The future is her own, because she has kept herself pure from alloy. Let Protestantism agitate and divide, — to do so is the very principle of its nature; let sects quarrel and dispute, — this is their vocation: the Catholic church waits ! . . . .
The Greco-Russian clergy have never been, and never will be, any thing more than a militia dressed in a uniform rather different from that of the secular troops of the empire.
The distance which separates Russia from the West has wonderfully aided hitherto in veiling all these tilings from us. If the astute Greek policy so much fears the truth, it is because it so well knows how to profit by falsehood; but what surprises me is that it should succeed in perpetuating the reign of that influence.
Can the reader now understand the importance of an opinion, of a sarcastic word, a letter, a jest, a smile, or, with still greater reason, of a book in the eyes of a government thus favoured by the credulity of its people, and by the complaisance of all foreigners ? A word of truth dropped in Russia is a spark that may fall on a barrel of gunpowder.
What do the men who govern the empire care for the want, the pallid visages of the soldiers of the emperor ? Those living spectres have the most beautiful uniforms in Europe; what matters, then, the filthy smocks in which the gilded phantoms are concealed in the interior of their barracks ? Provided they are only shabby and dirty in secret, and that they shine when they show themselves, nothing is asked from them, nothing is given them. With the Q 3
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Russians, appearance is everything, and among them appearance deceives more than it does among others. It follows, that whoever lifts a corner of the curtain loses his reputation in Petersburg beyond the chance of retrieving it.
Social life in that country is a permanent conspiracy against the truth.
There, whoever is not a dupe, is viewed as a traitor, — there, to laugh at a gasconnade, to refute a falsehood, to contradict a political boast, to find a reason for obedience, is to be guilty of an attempt against the safety of the state and the prince; it is to incur the fate of a revolutionist, a conspirator, an enemy of order, a Pole ; and we all know whether this fate is a merciful one. It must be owned the susceptibility which thus manifests itself is more formidable than laughable; the minute
People must and ought to employ all manner of precautions under a master who shows mercy to no enemy, who despises no resistance, and who considers vengeance as a duty. This man, or rather this government personified, would view pardon as apostacy, clemency as self-forgetfulness, humanity as a want of respect towards its own majesty, or, I should rather say, its divinity !
Russian civilisation is still so near its source that it resembles barbarism. The Russians are nothing more than a conquering community; their strength does not lie in mind, but in war, that is, in stratagem and ferocity.
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Poland, by its last insurrection, has retarded the explosion of the mine ; it has forced the batteries to remain masked: Poland will never be pardoned for the dissimulation that she has rendered necessary, not towards herself, for she is immolated with impunity, but towards friends whom it is needful to continue making dupes, while managing their stormy philanthropy. The advance-guard of the new Roman Empire, which will be called the Greek Empire, and the most circumspect at the same time that he is the most blind of the kings of Europe*, to please his neighbour, who is also his master, is commencing a religious war. If he can be thus led astray, it will be easy to seduce others.
If ever'the Russians succeed in conquering theAYest, they will not govern it from their own country, after the manner of the old Mongols; on the contrary, there will be nothing in which they will show such eager haste as to issue from their icy plains : unlike theu· ancient masters, the Tartars, who tyrannised over the Slavonians from a distance — for the climate of Muscovy frightened even the Mongols — the Muscovites will leave their country the moment the roads of other countries are open to them.
At this moment they talk moderation ; they protest against the conquest of Constantinople ; they say that they fear every thing that would increase an empire where the distances are already a calamity; they dread — yes! even thus far extends their prudence ! — they dread hot climates ! . . . . Let us wait a little, and we shall see what
