Louis Veuillot: The Liberal Illusion [1866]

[Stone]

The Liberal Illusion

Chapter XXXII

This is not what their own experience should lead them to expect. We are in a position to speak of that experience; we went through it, too, in the same endeavor and with the same sentiments.

The experience was prolonged; the time seemed as favorable as the present day seems unfavorable. Though we were few in number, our unity made us strong. The constitution then in force made it obligatory to reckon with us; it afforded us certain advantages for which we were grateful, it made us certain promises that we wanted to believe and which were of more concern to us than what it withheld. Who were so desirous as we that the Charter should turn out to be true, who else gave it greater support, who else entertained more sincere and ardent hopes on the strength of it? Though upholding our principles against the revolutionary doctrine, what in point of fact did we reject? What more did we demand than the simple right to oppose liberty with liberty?

We did not form an isolated or unimportant party. We had at our head the princes of the Church, one especially who was as eminent for his character and talent as he was for his position: it was Bishop de Langres, who died as head of the see of Arras, beloved of God and honored of men. Mgr. Parisis studied the question of bringing religion and liberty into accord, with less of an eye to seeing what the Church should retain than what concessions it could make. One draft that met with his approval thus summarizes the platform of the Catholic party: "The Catholics have said “to the princes, to the doctors and to the priests of modern ideas: We accept your dynasties and your charters; we leave to you whatever you have won. We ask of you only one thing, which is of strict right, even in your eyes: liberty. We will contend with you and convince you on the sole ground of liberty. Cease to subject us to your monopolies, your restraints and your prohibitions; allow us to teach as freely as you do; to form associations for the works of God as freely as
you form them for the works of the world; to open up careers for the whole range of beautiful labors, about which all you seem able to do is to impose restrictions or to drive hard bargains. And don’t be afraid of our liberty: it will heal and save yours. Wherever we are not free, no one else is for very long.”38

That is what we demanded. And, without wishing unduly to praise or disparage anyone, our adversaries of that day were more serious, more sincere, more enlightened, more moderate than our adversaries of today. They were the Guizots, the Thiers, the Cousins, the Villemains, the Broglies, the Salvandys, and their leader, King Louis-Philippe. None of these heads of the directorate had any of that irreligious and antichristian fanaticism we have seen so much of since then. Their subsequent attitude gave honorable proof of this. Moreover, they honestly believed in liberty, at least, they had the will to believe.

What did we obtain from their wisdom, their moderation, their sincerity? Alas! the computation is as easy to make as it is painful to tell: we obtained nothing, absolutely nothing, the result that the mathematicians call zero.

A catastrophe occurred; fear proved a more efficacious motive than reason, justice and the Charter. Under the influence of fear, they made some small concessions to us, but with the ill-disguised design of curtailing or abolishing these paltry advantages at the earliest opportunity! The storm blew over. Those of our adversaries who were toppled over by it showed no conspicuous signs of having been chastened by the experience; those who managed to weather it seemed unable to forgive themselves for having been intimidated by the thunder; in general, they all showed themselves more hostile than one would ever have imagined.

Did we ourselves, then, change and take away from the modern ideals the allegiance and practical support we formerly gave them? The liberal Catholics claim as much, but they gratuitously deceive themselves. We said it then, we repeat it now, that the philosophical groundwork of modern constitutions is ruinous, that it exposes society to deadly perils.

We have never said that one could or should resort to violence in order to change this groundwork, nor that one should not avail himself of what is guaranteed by these constitutions in cases where it does not conflict with the laws of God. It is a question of a fact wholly independent of our own volition, a state of things in which we find ourselves, in certain respects, like strangers in a foreign land, conforming to the general laws regulating public life, making use of the general rights of the community, but never entering the temples to offer incense. The author of these pages, if it be in order for him to cite his own case as an illustration, has long made use of the freedom of the press and still insists on enjoying it, without, however, committing himself thereby, or ever having committed himself, to the belief that freedom of the press is an unqualified good.

In short, with reference to modern constitutions, we conduct ourselves in much the same way that a person does with reference to taxes: we pay the taxes while demanding that they be reduced, we obey the constitutions while demanding that they undergo amendment. This effectively disposes of the difficulties urged against us on that score; the liberal Catholics are quite well aware of it.

To expect more of us is to expect too much; if we are supposed to pay taxes without ever being allowed to complain of their being too heavy; if we are supposed to transfer to modern civil constitutions our religious faith, so that we may not question their excellence without running afoul of what are virtually dogmatic definitions; if we are not allowed to look forward to any amendment of them except in the form of a yet more drastic elimination of the whole Christian idea, then what sort of liberty have we in prospect, and what advantage can liberal Catholics expect to reap from that liberty, which will be meted out to them in the same measure as to us?

They willingly swear by the principles of the French Revolution; they call them the immortal principles. It is the shibboleth39 which gives entrance to the camp of great Liberalism. But there is a special manner of pronouncing it, and our Catholics are not quite equal to it; hence, in spite of everything, they are coldly received; even the more progressive among them are kept in quarantine.40 I congratulate them on it. “We read in the Book of Judges (12:5-6) that when the ‘Galaadites, in order to have the proper accent, one must first have the proper understanding of the thing itself and accept it in its proper sense.

If they once understood the thing, they would never, I venture to say, accept it.


38 Author’s note on Mgr. Parisis.

39 Judges, 12:6.

40 Said Louis Cardinal Billot, commenting on this paragraph of Veuillot’s L’illusion liberate: “For our dispute is not upon the question of whether it would not be well to bear patiently what escapes our control, but of whether we ought positively to approve of that social condition which Liberalism introduces, to celebrate with encomiums the liberalistic principles that are at the bottom of this order of things, and by word, teaching and deed, to promote the same, as do those who along with the name Catholic lay claim to the surname Liberal. And they above all are the very ones who will never succeed at all, because they are lame on both feet, and attempting in vain to hit on some compromise, they are neither acknowledged by the children of God as genuine nor accepted by the
children of the Revolution as sincere. They come, indeed, to the camp of he latter with the password of the principles of ’89, but, because they pronounce it badly, they are denied entrance.