Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847

Monday, July 31. – Went to the Père de Ravignan. He told me that, since our last conversation, he had been looking in "Tournely," where he found a passage on the primacy of jurisdiction, which seemed to him quite convincing. He gave me a note for the Père Lacordaire, but my visit was cut short by an appointment, so he begged me to come again.

Went to M. des Billiers: he attacked me again on the primacy of jurisdiction. I said that the Ultramontane theory, when pushed to its absolute issue, demanded the infallibility of the Pope singly; that, indeed, this was involved in the primacy of jurisdiction; that the Pope had exerted the supreme power of withdrawing their authority from the French bishops when it seemed to him for the good of the Church. He did not like to admit that the primacy of jurisdiction involved infallibility, because infallibility of the Pope is not a dogma. But here lies precisely the difficulty of their position. Roman Catholics want, for the completion and impregnability of their system, the infallibility of the single papal chair, and this is precisely what has been ever denied by large schools among them, and is not even now an article of faith. For that they are the universal Church, that their dogma alone is true, that the Greek and every other communion is heretical or schismatical, or both, all this depends on the infallibility of the single papal chair. I said that, if they would prove the Greek Church to be in schism, I should give up our cause.

We went to see M. Gabet, at the Pères Lazaristes, who has been ten years in Central Tartary, or Thibet; gone through great dangers and privations; has come back safe; and is going out again. He was with a brother missionary, who remains at Macao till he rejoins him. His account of Thibet is most interesting, and in many respects very surprising. They have many Catholic practices there – such as holy water, the religious celibate. The Lamas, or priests, are very numerous. Two-thirds of the men of the country live in religious celibacy; and he believes that this is a real celibacy. He and his companions lived for six months in a great community of 5000 lamas; they were, perhaps, of ten different nations, and spoke four different languages. During that time they had not observed the least impropriety among them. They are religious, pray much, and have a complete contempt for those who do not pray. Faire l'esprit fort among them is a sure way to be thought little of. But this religion is very superstitious: they have not the power to choose what they should embrace and what refuse; they have the instinct and the need of religion very strong, but not discernment of what is true religion. Thus, if you read to them the Gospel, they will adore Jesus Christ, Pilate, Caiaphas, &c. Theirs is not an "incroyance raisonnée" like Protestantism, but a cloud of superstition which obscures their sight. He anticipated that Christianity would make large progress among them, because of their religious spirit. There is as yet no religious establishment in Thibet. All over Asia the ministers of religion observe continence. The character of priest and married man is to their notions incompatible. They look for a complete denial of self in one who would teach them religion. There are no laws against foreign religions in Thibet, as there are in China. A great number of the female sex also live in continence, though not so many as of men. I asked him how he accounted for the connexion between so many of their usages and Catholicity. He said some were of opinion that they had derived them from Catholicism; but as they are exceedingly tenacious of their rites, he did not himself think this: others again thought that Catholicism had borrowed from them. Neither of these views was necessary. There was no trace whatever of Christian missionaries having been among them. He thought that all the resemblance which was to be found in their rites, customs, and belief, might be accounted for as relics of the one true faith communicated to all the world originally, and handed down by tradition. This faith had been guarded in its purity among the Jews by a written law, and other institutions: but other nations had possessed it likewise, and retained it more or less corrupted. They had no bloody sacrifices, but offered wine, water, corn, and especially paper. He had been well treated on the whole: they had converted two Lamas – one of these had lately written to him: he had sent the letter to the Society for Propagation of the Faith at Lyons, for he believed there was no one in France who understood the Mongolese language. That of Thibet is taken from Sanscrit; but the continuous line above the letters which exists in the latter language is broken at each letter in this. But the strangest thing of all is the Grand Lama, who is at once High Priest, King, and Divinity. They believe in the transmigration of souls, and suppose that Buddha continually becomes incarnate for the redemption of man. When the Grand Lama dies, they wait till a successor is made known to them. And here M. Gabet said that, allowing for some jugglery, it was impossible not to conclude that there was diabolic agency at work. The present Grand Lama is a boy of ten years old; the son of a poor woodcutter 600 leagues from the Grand Lama's residence. The Grand Lama is discovered by a child of a few months or a year old announcing that he is the Grand Lama who died – that his soul has passed to him. Thereupon the most particular inquiries are made. A commission is sent to the spot, and the utensils used by the late Grand Lama are put among a number of others just like them; they then demand of the infant which belonged to the Grand Lama, and he replies, this and this was mine. Were this merely an arrangement of the men in power, would not have chosen the son of a poor man, at a great distance. They had not been, it is true, ocular witnesses of these things; but from what he had heard, he could not doubt that there were "des prestiges diaboliques." Under the Grand Lama there is a king for the management of temporal matters, and four ministers; these conduct matters in an interregnum. They had lived in intimacy with one of these four ministers. The missionary in these countries must be prepared for the most absolute self-denial – he must carry his life in his hand. He noticed that throughout Hindostan the religious indifference of the Europeans (save the Spaniards and Portuguese) injured them exceedingly in the opinion of the natives. With them religion is a first need of life: it does not matter so much what religion it is – to pray is sufficient; but a man who does not pray, – who has apparently no religion at all – is one of the lowest of beings in their eyes. The English might save themselves an immense expense if they showed themselves devoted to their religion instead of indifferent.

M. Gabet has a very pleasing countenance: moustache and long beard, plentifully mixed with grey hairs. He looks in vigorous health. Yet when he went to the East he was delicate. He believes that the constitution adapts itself to the rigours of climate. The cold of Tartary is intense. From this high table land the rivers of Hindostan, China, and Siberia all take their sources. They slept continually on the earth; up to midnight, while the body was warmed with the day's exercise, they maintained some heat, but from that time to the morning they froze. Their only nourishment was wheat or oats, moistened with a little tea. He is going back to Great Tartary. We had no introduction, but nothing could exceed his readiness to hear and answer our inquiries: and he offered to give us again any information in his power.

We got from him the address of the young person who was cured of her blindness in the chapel of S. Vincent on the 12th May, three days after the former cure of the neck. We drove at once to see her at one of the houses of the Sisters of Charity, Rue de l'Arbalète, 25. We told the Sister who received us for what purpose we were come; she assented to it, went out, and brought back immediately the young girl. She is fourteen; very simple and homely in appearance, and looks the daughter of a peasant. She said, in answer to our questions, that it was hearing of the other cure which put it in her thoughts to go to S. Vincent's chapel, and ask for his intercession. She was taken there on Friday, May 12th, at 6¼ a.m., by the Sister who was then with us. I asked her if she could see at all in going there. She replied, "Not the least." She knelt and assisted at the Mass, but nothing took place; but "as soon as I received our Lord, I saw perfectly." "Could you not see at all the instant before?" "Not at all." "And the instant after you saw perfectly?" "Yes." "The cure did not come then by degrees?" "No; it was instantaneous." The disease called amaurosis had subsisted from the month of September before; and every variety of cure having been tried in vain, all treatment had been given up for a month previously. It was accompanied with violent pains in the head. Since the cure she has seen perfectly: she appears to be quite free from any disease in the eyes now. While she and the Sister were gone to the chapel, the rest united themselves at home at Mass in intention for her cure. I said I was going to copy the account of this at the Rue du Bac, when the Sister offered me a MS. copy, which would save me that trouble. And, as it contained the report of the physician who had attended her, we took it at once to get his signature, Rue Mouffetard, 94. He was out, but his wife received us, and it was settled that I should come to-morrow, between twelve and one, when he would be at home. The testimony of this young girl was so clear that I saw no possibility of doubting the effect produced.

I dined with Mr. Coppinger and his two sons: since 1824, he has resided here. The account they give of the irreligion of the shop-keeping class, and of the wretched education which has tainted the springs of French society, is terrible. They said by far the greater number of men at Paris dine away from home in public places, and often leave their wives and families to fare poorly at home, while they themselves feast at a restaurateur's. It appears that on the Sunday night of the last émeute the alarm at Paris was extreme: the rebels were thought to have the best of it; and it was their known intention to sack the quarter of the Tuileries and the Chaussée d'Antin. They think that the present state of things cannot last: but what is to come nobody can tell.

Tuesday, August 1. – This evening I had nearly an hour's talk with Le Père Lacordaire. He remembered that M. and I had called on him three years ago. I recalled to his mind what he had said, that well-informed and sincere persons could not remain out of the Church of Rome. Since then I had been especially studying the question of the Roman Primacy, and yet the conclusion to which I had come, after a most careful examination of antiquity, was in favour of a primacy of order, but against that of jurisdiction. He dwelt on the obscurity of the first three centuries: they were times of persecution, in which the popes had other work to do than to defend their primacy. Yet how remarkable it was that at the Nicene Council this primacy was seen at once emerging from the storm. The legates of the Roman Pontiff presided there. I observed that Hosius, Bishop of Corduba, who signed the first, was not marked as Roman legate, whereas the two priests who followed were; that it was as imperial commissioner, and friend of Constantine, that he presided. He seemed disposed to assume that Hosius must have been papal legate. I said that I by no means impugned the primacy, but entirely recognised it: my defence was in the difference between a primacy and an absolute monarchy: for the claim of universal jurisdiction, as at present exercised, amounts to that. He said they did not consider the papacy an absolute monarchy at all: they who lived within it felt that in fact it was limited in a great number of ways. There were rights inherent in bishops which the Pope could not touch: he could not suspend them from the government of their dioceses without cause given, and a regular ecclesiastical judgment rendered; he could not take from the priest his right to offer the Holy Sacrifice, or to confess, without the like judgment. I quoted the calling in of all the powers of the French episcopate in 1801, because it seemed to the Pope for the good of the whole Church. He admitted the case, and that the power did exist; but it was altogether an exceptional case, such as had never occurred before. I said that in controversy it was necessary to push principles to their absolute issue: it was natural enough that they, born and living under the papacy, should not feel it to be an absolute monarchy. He quoted Bellarmine as saying that it was a monarchy tempered by aristocracy and democracy. The Pope could not destroy the episcopate. I said our new converts maintained that he could: that if all the bishops of the world were on one side, and the Pope on the other, he could make a new episcopate. "I regard," he said, "as anticatholic, such opinions as these." He dwelt on the primacy of Peter, as shown forth in the Acts: nothing seemed to him clearer or more marked. He seemed to argue as if, the primacy granted, the degree to which its power was extended was a mere matter of discipline, of arrangement and growth in the Church itself. Besides, there was another point: without living in a system it is nearly impossible to understand it. Invaluable as Scripture is, and written tradition, the works of Fathers, Councils, &c., they are writing after all: without a living oral tradition, they will not be understood. The Church holds the truth as a living body; it circulates in her veins. We see the same sort of thing all around us. A young man may study diplomacy for four, five, six, years; he may have the history and treaties of Europe at his fingers' end: this knowledge is excellent; but he wants one thing, without which he could never be a diplomatist – practical initiation; this will be the most valuable part of all his knowledge. You may know perfectly how to sew, but could any one make a coat without seeing others make it, and the practical acquaintance with many little points? This was seen most strongly in religious orders: there was a traditional life in them of which no mere knowledge could take the place. "I had studied well the rules of the Dominicans, but until I saw their practical working I could not understand them at all. Or again, in ten minutes' conversation with a person, you will catch more of their mind and feelings, and tone of thought, than by studying ten volumes of their works. There is something in the contact with persons for which no study can make up. Or again, the sight of a city. Half a day in a place will give you a better notion of it than all the descriptions ever written. You drink in the knowledge of it at all pores. I have read a great deal about London, but I assure you that I am unable to form any notion of it to myself. The mere look of the place would instruct me more than any books. Now such is the force of oral tradition in the Church: it is the life of an organised body which dwells in its members. Only think what would laws be without jurisprudence: why the most important part of all laws is their interpretation; if a man had the most perfect knowledge of the laws themselves, he would be no jurisconsult without knowing their practical application. Now this is a sort of knowledge which fails you entirely, being outside the Church; thus it is that we have no difficulties, while you are perpetually seeing them." I said, "I found it very difficult to represent our real position to them. The question was, not whether one might be a Roman Catholic, for of that I had no doubt; we all admitted that they were a part of the Church. The question was, whether I was forced to become a Roman Catholic; to deny all my past life; supposing that we had the succession, and formularies which conveyed the episcopate and priesthood, – whether I should be forced to affirm that the grace of the Sacraments was intercepted by the sin of schism or heresy. We saw and deplored the division of the Church; but might not such a state of things be allowed, as in the great Western schism the Church was, as a fact, divided for forty years; might it not then be for 300 years?" "As to that," he said, "supposing the question of faith did not exist, supposing you could interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in a Catholic sense; granting there were no variance as to the number of the Sacraments; supposing that you individually, or the whole English Church, were to admit the faith of the Roman Church, – for you must come to her, not she to you, – then there would be the una Fides, but there would still remain the unum Corpus. Now every branch that is severed from a tree does not immediately die, it may sometimes be planted afresh, and take root beside the parent trunk; it may even bear leaves and some fruit, but that will not be unity. The Greeks have a vast deal in common with us. Supposing that the question of the Procession could be resolved by explanations on their part, there would only remain the authority of the Roman See to be admitted by them. You again have retained much more than the Lutherans and Calvinists. What you have of good is ours, is Catholic. If persons among you believe in God, believe in the Redemption, lead a holy life, bring forth good works, I do not deny that all this is Catholic in them; if they are ignorant as to the sin of schism or heresy, this, which is good in them, may be sufficient for their salvation. When I hear persons saying there is this or that good in Protestants, I always admit it; I say this is a portion of the truth they have carried away from us; they have a certain root, and yet they are not joined to the tree. Why, Mahomet himself carried away much truth from the Catholic faith; and though he mixed and adulterated this, Mahometanism lives still by those remains of truth. So it is with those who have separated from the Church; the full life remains in her; unity is in her alone: portions of the truth, portions of life, may exist in other bodies; may suffice for the salvation of those who, by no fault of their own, and with no consciousness of their own, are in those bodies; but she alone has the full truth, she alone is one. Whether you can exist with safety out of her depends on the degree of your personal knowledge." I said, "It is very hard to represent to you one's difficulties." "Because," he replied, "they are matters of detail: you may study the question for sixty years and never come to a result, unless you lay down clearly general principles. Grant that the Church in Luther's time was in a frightful state of corruption, that great tyranny had been exercised in England by the Pope; grant this and much more – would that excuse separation? There are always such causes as this at work. Men are not quite absurd. They do not make revolutions for nothing, as we have just seen. Why, Louis Philippe, was turned out, rightly or wrongly, because by his conduct he had made nobody care to defend him. Grant that there were these causes for your separation, does that excuse the state of schism?"

He quoted S. Cyprian's conduct as proving that reference was made to Rome, asserted that the Pope presided at all the general councils. Throughout his conversation it struck me that he was weak in facts, but strong in principles; and this seems to apply to the whole Roman controversy on this point.

Here Count Montalembert came in, and, as it was very late, I retired. He begged to be remembered to M., and asked if I was going to stay some days longer.

This morning went to call on M. Defresne. No sooner was I there than he began to read me parts of his friend M. Reboul's poetry, in a whirlwind of enthusiasm. This continued, with one little interval of detestation expressed for Louis Philippe, till breakfast. M. Reboul was there, and read, at his request, his verses on the death of the archbishop, treating it as a sort of expiation. M. Defresne is full of charity towards the Puseyites, as he called them, but he seemed not to be quite aware that we formed a part of the English Church.

I then went to the other side of Paris to see M. Fernet, the surgeon who attended the young girl so strangely cured. He entirely confirmed her having been completely blind: she used to come to him with her companions, crying, and after many vain attempts to relieve her, he sent her to M. Sichel, a famous oculist: but he could do nothing. He saw her a few days after she recovered her sight: she then saw perfectly. Amaurosis is a paralysis of the nerves of the eye: it is sometimes cured, but then gradually, and not instantaneously. He added a few lines to the certificate stating that he had examined her after the cure, and found the sight quite restored. After this interval the cure might be esteemed complete. I inquired if he had any way of accounting for this cure. He said, none whatever. It was a phenomenon which he could not explain. He mentioned that he had been told she had once before seen for an instant, and then lost her sight again. Hearing this, I went to her pension again, to ask for an explanation. The mother told me that, at Christmas last, when she took the Holy Communion, she had for an instant seen the priest, and then became blind again; that before September her sight had been more or less affected, but that from September till May it had been quite lost save this momentary restitution.

Calling on M. Bonnetty afterwards, I mentioned this and the other case. He said they were very cautious and backward in assenting to such things. As to the loss of the Pope's temporal power, he did not believe 200 millions of Catholics would suffer him to be deposed by four lawyers, who were the instigators of disaffection. Others, however, anticipate that the time is come for this temporal sovereignty to be given up, and that the spiritual power may come forth the brighter when it is gone.

Wednesday, August 2. – Called on M. l'Abbé Pététot. The last revolution has had a happy effect on the side of religion. The utmost respect has been paid to the priests; they have never ceased a moment to go abroad en soutane. In 1830 they were obliged to give this up for two years, and only recovered popularity by their devotion to the sick in the time of the cholera. But now they have come to the priest to bless the trees of liberty. He had blessed six. They even went in procession with the Cross, which is contrary to the laws, and woe to him who did not take off his hat. But this is the only good side of the late movements. Commerce is at a standstill; and the very boutiquiers talk freely of the necessity of having a king. Paris subsists by articles of luxe, and a republic is not favourable to these. But what is coming nobody can see. In the riots of June, the insurgents had possession of the church of S. Paul, in the Faubourg S. Antoine. The curé induced them to go elsewhere; and, before leaving the church, they came to him for his blessing, saying they were going to fight: and so they went forth to kill and be killed. But all the middle class – the bourgeoisie – is profoundly hostile to religion: they will do anything to prevent its gaining influence. Although liberty of teaching would follow naturally from the principles of the republic, yet the Assembly has just passed a law on primary instruction as bad as can be; and another on secondary instruction will follow like it. Religion does not make any way with these classes; money is their idol. A workman or poor woman will give five francs to a charity, where these people think much of ten sous.

M. Pététot, with two companions, went, last September, to see l'Addolorata and l'Estatica. They were at Capriana on the Thursday evening and Friday morning, 9th and 10th September. They saw the wounds of the hands and forehead, as we did, quite dry on the evening, and in the morning fresh with blood. The sister had gone out both evening and morning, and they had to find her, so that Domenica was left alone. Her state, in the six weeks which had elapsed since our visit to that of M. Pététot, seems to have become much worse. She was quite unconscious, and terrible to behold. All three were profoundly convinced of the truth of the stigmata and of the miracle. They went from Paris on purpose, with the full intention of rigorously observing the facts. One of the party was then a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique: has since become priest. They were likewise three days at Caldaro, and saw l'Estatica several times. They saw her elevated in trance on the tips of her feet, extremis digitis, – "so," said M. Pététot, "as I could not have remained a minute, and that on the soft bed." They saw her repeatedly shoot herself from the recumbent position to the kneeling one. The Holy Sacrament was exposed the day when they found her in trance on the point of her feet. They addressed her through her confessor, and recommended to her prayers a design which they had in their thoughts. After she had prayed for it, they inquired if God had made known to her the subject of it. She assented: said that it was pleasing to God, but that one of those who took part in it would shortly withdraw from it. "Fortasse unum ex vobis Deus excipiet seu tollet; non agitur de morte," the confessor interpreting said. This has since taken place. The information she gave was so precise as to their design, which it was impossible for her to have divined, that they were quite convinced of its having been made known to her preternaturally.