CHAPTER V. THE LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH.* THE author of this "Manuel" was the Rapporteur, and the principal author, of the Charter of 1830, which provided for the constitutional government of France under the monarchy of the House of Orleans, and he is now the President of the Assembly which represents and rules the French Republic. During the intervening period, he occupied important public situations, distinguished himself at the bar and in the Chamber of Deputies, and acquired celebrity by his writings. He took a very active and prominent part in opposing the Jesuits, and in resisting the attempts of the clergy to extend their control over the universities and public schools. The controversy between the clergy and the universities led to a revival of the discussions about the Liberties of the Gallican Church. The Jesuit, or Ultramontane party, who were opposed to these Liberties, were most zealous in maintaining the jurisdiction of the clergy over universities and seminaries. This led their opponents, as matter of policy, to undertake the defence of the Liberties, and all the more because they could appeal to laws of the realm which prescribed the inculcation of the principles of the Liberties in schools and colleges, and had thus a strong argument against the clergy's claim to control education, founded on their unwillingness to enforce this legal requirement. The first edition of this work of M. Dupin was published in 1824; and when the third edition came out in 1844, it was de * NORTH BRITISH REVIEW, No xxvi., August 1850. Art. v.-Manuel du Droit Public Ecclésiastique Français, contenant les Libertés de l'Eglise Gallicane, la Déclaration du Clergé de 1682, le Concordat et sa Loi Organique, avec une Exposition des comme Principes sur les Appels 1845. nounced as containing erroneous and dangerous views in a mandement published by Cardinal Bonald, Archbishop of Lyons, who is the head of the Jesuit or Ultramontane party in the Church of France. This 'mandement' of the Cardinal was brought under the cognizance of the Council of State in March 1845, and, by a decree of that body, it was condemned and suppressed "as infringing upon the liberties, privileges, and customs of the Gallican Church, which are consecrated by the acts of the public authorities." Cardinal Bonald's denunciation of Dupin's Manual only increased its popularity, and led to the publication of two enlarged editions of it, one in the end of 1844, and the other in April 1845. The work is a very valuable one, and contains a great deal of interesting matter. It exhibits the leading documents connected with the legal or juridical history of the Gallican Liberties,—a defence of the principles on which they are based,—and a proof that they form, and have always formed, a part of the constitutional law of France, with illustrations of the modes in which they have been practically applied and enforced down to the present day. Dupin discusses these subjects as a lawyer and a jurist, and not as a theologian. He professes his belief in the truth of Christianity and of Roman Catholicism, and there is nothing in his work at all inconsistent with this profession. In the conclusion of his Introduction, he says-" This is the work of a Catholic, but of a Gallican Catholic-of a man who loves religion, who honours the clergy, who reveres in the Sovereign Pontiff the head of the universal church and the common father of the faithful; but it is the work also of a jurist, who wishes that the laws should be guarded and observed by all ranks of citizens,-the work of a public man, who holds, as a maxim, that the church is in the state, and not the state in the church." These are the views which have been generally entertained and professed by the defenders of the Gallican Liberties, both theologians and lawyers. From an early period there are indications that the Church of France was less disposed than some other churches to submit to all the claims and pretensions of the Papal See. Their peculiar views gradually assumed the form of a regular system of theological opinions, and of civil laws and legal arrangements,-a system which is commonly called the Gallican Liberties, which has been defended by many men of the highest learning and ability, and has given rise to a great deal of very interesting discussion. The chief eras in the history of this subject are, the quarrel between King Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII. at the commencement of the fourteenth century; the pragmatic sanction of 1438, based upon the decrees of the Councils of Constance and Basle; the dispute between Louis XII. and Julius II. in the beginning of the sixteenth century, followed by the Concordat of 1516 between Francis I. and Leo X.; the excommunication, deposition, and absolution of Henry IV.; the declaration of the Gallican clergy, under Bossuet's influence, in 1682; the controversy about the acceptance of the Bull Unigenitus in the early part of the eighteenth century; the Concordat of 1801 between Buonaparte, then first Consul, and Pope Pius VII., and the organic law that was founded upon it. On all these occasions there was much discussion about the respective functions and provinces of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, and about the nature and extent of the Pope's jurisdiction as head of the church. The Sorbonne-that is, the theological faculty of the University of Paris-and the Parliament of Paris generally showed themselves to be strenuous defenders of their country's liberties against the encroachments of the Papal See, and were supported in the course they pursued by many of the most eminent men whom the Church of France has ever produced. Richer, whose labours and sufferings in defence of the Gallican Liberties we shall have occasion to notice, collected the ancient theological testimonies of the school of Paris upon this subject, in a work entitled "Vindicia Doctrinæ Majorum Scholæ Parisiensis, seu constans et perpetua Scholæ Parisiensis doctrina de auctoritate et infallibilitate Ecclesiæ in rebus Fidei et Morum. Contra defensores Monarchiæ universalis et absolutæ Curiæ Romanæ." This work was published at Cologne in 1683, long after his death. It is divided into four parts, the first containing a series of decrees by the Sorbonne condemning Ultramontane views; the second, treatises by Ægidius Romanus, and John of Paris, who defended Philip the Fair against Boniface, about the same time that Marsilius of Padua, and William Occam, the celebrated English schoolman, were rendering a similar service to the Emperor Louis of Bavaria; the third, treatises by Cardinal d'Ailly, or Alliaco, Archbishop of Cambray, and John Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, in defence of the doctrine of the Councils of Constance and Basle, as to the superiority of a general council over a Pope; and the fourth, containing treatises by James Almain and John Major, in defence of Louis XII. against Julius II. and his advocate Cardinal Cajetan. Most of these productions of the school of Paris are likewise collected in Goldastus's "Monarchia Sacri Romani Imperii," and are far from being destitute of interest, though they are valuable more from their opposition to the Pope's spiritual supremacy, as absolute monarch of the church, than from any great light they throw upon the principles that ought to regulate the relation of the civil and the ecclesiastical powers. The interferences of the Parliament of Paris, in support of the Gallican Liberties, are to be found chiefly at a later period than that embraced in Richer's Vindiciæ, and indeed principally since the Reformation, when, as has been alleged by De Maistre,* that venerable body was much under the influence of Calvinists and Jansenists. Most of the arrêts of the Parliament, issued chiefly for the purpose of condemning and suppressing books in which Ultramontane principles were asserted, are given in the appendix to a work entitled "Traité de l'Autorité des Rois, touchant l'Administration de l'Eglise," by Vayer de Boutigny, Master of Requests to Louis XIV., by whose orders the work was written. But though the Sorbonne and the Parliament were, upon the whole, consistent and decided in maintaining the Gallican Liberties, in opposition to the Papal encroachments, and though many of the most eminent of the clergy supported them, it must be admitted that the French Church, as a body, has not shown much steadiness, integrity, or courage in this matter. The Gallican Liberties have always been very obnoxious to the Court of Rome, and all the influence and skill of the Popes have been put forth on a variety of occasions to prevent the inculcation and the practical enforcement of them. The conduct of the Kings of France, in regard to the Gallican Liberties, has usually been more or less * "De l'Eglise Gallicane," liv. i. c. ii. iii. influenced by their political relations to the Papacy at the time; and this, as well as the direct influence of the Pope, has often told largely upon the views and conduct of the clergy. It is foolish to place any reliance upon the consistency and integrity of any body of Romanists in maintaining the cause of truth and righteousness; and there are melancholy instances of the perverting and demoralizing influence of Popery in the conduct even of those who have gained some credit for their defence of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The earliest formal exhibition, in a legal shape, of the Liberties of the Gallican Church, was made by Pithou, a celebrated jurist, in 1594, and was dedicated to Henry IV. He laid down as the fundamental principles on which they were based, the two great doctrines, first, that the Pope has no jurisdiction in temporal matters; and, secondly, that even in spiritual matters he is subject to the jurisdiction of a general council, and is bound to regulate his conduct by the ancient canons of the church. The practical applications of these principles he exhibited in eightythree articles, which had all a foundation, more or less explicit, in the ancient common law of France. These articles of Pithou were generally regarded at the time, and have been regarded ever since, as an authoritative representation of the Gallican Liberties, and as such they are given at length by Dupin, in the first part of his Manual. But the Jesuits, having assassinated Henry IV. in 1610, improved with great assiduity and address the minority of Louis XIII., for promoting Ultramontane views. When, at a parliament held in 1615, the Third Estate proposed that a formal condemnation should be issued of the doctrine, that the Pope has the power of deposing kings, Cardinal Perron succeeded in persuading the other two orders, the clergy and the nobility, to refuse to concur in it, though nothing could be plainer than that, if the Gallican Liberties meant anything, they implied the falsehood of this doctrine. Perron was a very remarkable man, of great learning and ability, but utterly destitute of moral and religious principle. He was the son of a Protestant pastor, and was very carefully educated by his father, with a view to the ministry; but not finding in the Protestant Church a sufficient field for his ambition, he joined the Church of Rome, and became in due time Archbishop of Sens, and a "Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church." His speech to the Estates on the occasion above |