and to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father would feel the greatest repugnance to prescribe to the bishops of a whole nation the use of the same catechism in such a manner that the prelates could not vary from it according to the wants of their respective dioceses." (Vol. ii., 280.)

It is a remarkable proof of Consalvi's foresight that he should have suspected a trap so skilfully prepared for him. Never, probably, did he suspect what really happened. Caprara suppressed the letters, and falsely declared that "he had authority to approve the new catechism; and some days later (Februrary 30, 1806) formally approved it in the name and by the authority of the Pope." Next appeared an official notice that a catechism "uniform and obligatory upon all the dioceses of France was about to be published immediately with the official approbation of the Cardinal Legate." When this Moniteur reached Rome, Consalvi wrote in the name of the Pope a second letter, expressing his doubts whether the announcement could be correct; but strictly requiring Caprara to take no step in the matter without referring it to Rome. This letter also Caprara suppressed, and it cannot be imagined that the Emperor did not well know all about these letters, but Caprara took care that he should have no official knowledge of them.

It soon appeared why so much trouble had been taken. The new catechism professed to be that of Bossuet, whose name suffices to throw any Frenchman into an ecstacy of admiration which deprives him of the use of his intellect. In the main it was so; but, in explaining the fourth commandment of God, Bossuet had taught that it requires us "to respect all superiors, pastors, kings, magistrates, and others."

"The Prince himself," says our author, who was none other than Louis XIV., "was familiarly mixed up with the crowd of 'superiors.' What was enough for Louis was far from satisfying to Napoleon. M. D'Haussonville shows that this part of the catechism was drawn up by himself and his ininister. The duties of his subjects towards Napoleon fill three lessons. Napoleon at first wrote, "Is submission to the government of France a dogma of the Church?" The answer was his own writing-"Yes, Scripture teaches that he who resists the Powers resists the order of God. Yes; the Church imposes upon us the most special duties towards the Government of France, the protection of religion and of the Church. She requires us to love and cherish it, and to be ready to make any sacrifice in its service." This was modified

at the suit of the theologians at Paris.* But as the catechism finally stood it declares

"Christians owe to the princes by whom they are governed, and in particular we owe to Napoleon I., our Emperor, love, reverence, obedience, fidelity, military service, tributes, &c. &c."

It then gives the special claim of Napoleon I., as

66 raised up by God under circumstances of difficulty to re-establish public worship, and the religion of our fathers, and to be its Protector. By his profound and active wisdom he has restored and preserved public order. By his mighty arm he defends the State. By the consecration he has received from the Sovereign Pontiff, the Head of the Universal Church, he has become the Lord's anointed. Q. What must we think of those who fail in their duty towards our Emperor? A. According to the Apostle St. Paul, they resist the order established by God Himself, and make themselves worthy of eternal damnation."

There is a good deal more, but this is enough. One other thing Napoleon wanted to alter in Bossuet's catechismthe declaration, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. This, however, our author says he gave up when it was pointed out to him that he had insisted on pronouncing eternal damnation against all who opposed his government, or who even had not sufficient love towards him. This argument ad hominem, says our author prevailed, "especially as it was only a question of pronouncing the damnation of some souls." The fact is that Napoleon was enamoured of that style of argument. He was fond of calling together the clergy of a district and giving them a charge in a style of his own. To such an assembly at Breda (March 6, 1810) he delivered a long sermon, ending, "if you persist in your maxims, you will be wretched here below, and damned in the other world." It was well that the latter part of the sentence was less in his power than the former. To the clergy of the Department of the Dyle he declared, "I won't have either the religion or the notions of the Gregory VII.s, the Bonifaces, the Juliuses, who wished to subject kingdoms and kings to their power, and excommunicated emperors to disturb the tranquillity of peoples. I believe, let people say what they may, that they are burning in hell for the disturbance they stirred up by their extravagant pretensions."

*We must refer to our author for the circumstances which made it impossible for the Pope formally to denounce this catechism and expose the perfidy by which the sanction of it was obtained.

The mainspring of his government in matters ecclesiastical was perpetual imprisonment authorised by his simple fiat communicated in a letter to his Minister of Police. How many hundreds of country priests were left thus to die by inches in state prisons for years together, merely because some one had complained to the Emperor of a sermon delivered on some occasion, we have no means of estimating. The number must have been very large. Lord Shaftesbury's mouth must water when he thinks how the Ritualists would have fared under the great Emperor. First, he would have a check upon all appointments. To effect this he required that for all the high clerical offices a degree in the imperial university should be a sine qua non, and this, as he writes to his Minister of Religion, can be refused in the case of any man known to entertain notions ultramontane or dangerous to authority."* He writes to the same Minister to dictate subjects for Episcopal pastorals. It may suggest something to us to find him specially mentioning the wrongs of Ireland as a subject to be insisted upon. But he condescended lower than this. On one occasion, when no one as yet suspected that he was thinking of the divorce of Josephine, he was the guest of the Archbishop of Bordeaux. He was in high good humour and most munificent; even condescending to reprove the Archbishop for not allowing himself greater personal comforts. But the Grand Vicar and a chanoine ventured to state, in answer to some remark of the Emperor, the doctrine of the Church about divorce and the indissolubility of marriage. He was enraged, and had no sooner returned to Paris than he wrote to require the Archbishop to deprive them of their offices. To his Minister he wrote :

"Make known my displeasure to M. Robert, priest at Bourges. He preached a very bad sermon on the 15th of August." Sometimes he addressed his Minister of the Interior, to require him to set right ecclesiastics who, in his opinion, erred from their duty. More commonly, however, the orders were given to his Commandant of Gendarmerie, or by preference to his Minister of Police, the Duke of Otranto (Fouché), whom he charges to watch attentively the manner in which the members of the French clergy conducted themselves. "The Abbé de Courcy," he writes to M. Lacépède, "does me great mischief. He is always corresponding with his parishioners [à ses diocesains]. I desire that that man be arrested and confined in a convent." But before long convents did not seem to him a place of retreat sufficiently secure. Some days later Napoleon, this time addressing Fouché, wrote, "It is important that you keep your eyes open upon the diocese of Poitiers. It is really shameful that you have not yet had the Abbé Stewens

*Vol. ii., p. 243.

arrested. They are asleep, for how else could a wretched priest have escaped" (June 30th, 1805). His Minister of Police had generally a more lucky hand, and then his master addressed compliments to him, even from the heart of Poland. "I see by your letter of the 12th that you have arrested a curé of la Vendée. You have done quite right. Keep him in prison." It is needless to say that these arrests were not preceded by any investigation or followed by any trial. In proportion to the difficulty of the relations to the Holy See their number became more considerable, and thus little by little, in France as in Italy, the prisons were peopled by a multitude of obscure priests. They were committed sometimes to the dungeon of Vincennes, sometimes to the Isles of Sainte Marguerite, to Fenestrella, to Ivrée, and to all the places of confinement set apart for political offenders. In many cases there was nothing alleged against them except suspected opinions on matters of religious discipline, some thoughtless act (propos ?) or insignificant fault into which they had been imprudently led by an excess of Ultramontane zeal. Once imprisoned, these unfortunates became dangerous to release, for they would have been applauded and made much of as martyrs by the enthusiastic partizans of the Holy Father, who himself was confined as a prisoner at Savona. In prison, therefore, they were kept indefinitely. Of these poor priests, whose plebeian names have never figured in any history, every one either perished in the dungeons which the Emperor had assigned to them (if they were old men) or else never left them till after his fall. Many of them never had any means of guessing the particular reasons which led to their arrest (Vol. ii. p. 246).

We regret that our space forbids us to call attention to many details of extreme interest, especially with regard to the relations of the Emperor to the French clergy and laity.

NOTE. We have been disappointed at not finding such clear information as we desired as to the grounds of the sentence of nullity passed upon the marriage of Josephine. The author says there are documents on this subject to which he has been refused access. They seem, although in this we may be mistaken, to have been made accessible to M. Thiers. One important fact he was the first to establish, viz., that a religious marriage between Napoleon and Josephine was celebrated by Cardinal Fesch the night before the Coronation at Nôtre Dame. The question is whether there were any real grounds for pronouncing that marriage null. The great fact to prove that there must have been such grounds is that M. Emery, a man far above suspicion, delivered his opinion against the validity of the marriage. His reasons he did not state. The author says that Napoleon was so inconceivably shameless as to desire that the sentence of nullity should be grounded upon his having withholden his consent. It is difficult to suppose that other grounds would not be found were all the documents accessible. They may have been connected with a subject at which the author only hints in reference to the marriage of Louis Bonaparte with Hortense Beauharnais, and with the anger of Louis when it was proposed that the eldest son of that marriage should be declared presumptive heir to the Emperor, which he refused to sanction, as it would give colour to reports already existing as to the birth of that child (Vol. p. 293).

ART. VI.-CHURCH MUSIC AND CHURCH CHOIRS.

Liturgical Rules for Organists, Singers, and Composers. A Manual compiled from Rubrical and authentic sources; with Imprimatur of the Archbishop of Westminster. London: Burns, Oates, & Co. 1868. Publications on Church Music. By CANON OAKELEY and Rev. JAMES NARY. 1868.

OUR

UR last number contained the first portion of a paper in which we proposed to lay before our readers a compendious as well as practical view of the subject of Church Music and Church Choirs, with reference more especially to the present circumstances of the Catholic Church in our own country. Our object was to bring to a point some of the more important questions relating to the choral services of the Church, and, if possible, to find a common ground on which the divergent opinions of thoughtful writers amongst us might be reconciled. We should not have ventured upon an undertaking, confessedly so difficult, but for the appearance of the Manual of "Liturgical Rules," recently issued with the approbation of our own diocesan, which seemed to us to indicate, in no doubtful manner, that common ground which was required for the object in view.

In what has been already written we have briefly discussed the first part of our subject, viz., the various kinds of music proper to be used in Catholic worship; and we have based our conclusions upon the "Instructions to composers of music and to singers, promulgated by the Holy See, and contained in the Manual just alluded to. These instructions, as we have seen, refer to points which apply not only to one locality but to all parts of the Church and to all countries, and are found, moreover, to be in accordance with everything that has been said on the subject by the Supreme Pontiffs from the Council of Trent downwards; not to speak of the voice of the great body of the Episcopate, whenever it has spoken, and the exhortations of canonized saints and holy men in all ages.

After speaking of the Church Chant, we traced briefly the progress of musical art in connection with the services of religion, and described the various styles which have successively flourished, ending with the school of Beethoven as representing the latest style of sacred composition. With this style (which in all important respects is also that of