书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第1103章

[78] "Manreze du prêtre," by the Rev. Father Caussette, I., 9. The Manreze is the grotto where Saint Ignatius found the plan of his Exercitia and the three ways by which a man succeeds in detaching himself from the world, "the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive." The author says that he has brought all to the second way, as the most suitable for priests. He himself preached pastoral retreats everywhere in France, his book being a collection of rules for retreats of this kind.

[79] Someone who, like me, have lived through the attempted Communist conquest of the world, in Eastern Europe, in China, Korea, Vietnam and other conquered territories, the terrible experiences of those imprisoned in re-education camps, come to mind. Did Lenin have Taine translated? Did Lenin and Stalin use this description of catholic brainwashing as their model? We might never find out. (SR.)[80] One of these enduring effects is the intense faith of the prelates, who in the 18th century believed so little. At the present day, not made bishops until about fifty years of age, thirty of which have been passed in exercises of this description, their piety has taken the Roman, positive, practical turn which terminates in devotions properly so called. M. Emery, the reformer of Saint-Sulpice, gave the impulsion in this sense. ("Histoire de M. Emery," by AbbéElie Méric, p. 115 etc.) M. Emery addressed the seminarians thus: "Do you think that, if we pray to the Holy Virgin sixty times a day to aid us at the hour of death, she will desert us at the last moment? " - "He led us into the chapel, which he had decked with reliquaries. . . .

He made the tour of it, kissing in turn each reliquary with respect and love, and when he found one of them out of reach for this homage, he said to us, 'Since we cannot kiss that one, let us accord it our profoundest reverence!' . . . And we all three kneeled before the reliquary." - Among other episcopal lives, that of Cardipal Pie, bishop of Poitiers, presents the order of devotion in high relief.

("Histoire du cardinal Pie," by M. Bannard, II.,348 and passim.) There was a statuette of the Virgin on his bureau. After his death, a quantity of paper scraps, in Latin or French, written and placed there by him-were found, dedicating this or that action, journey or undertaking under the special patronage of the Virgin or St. Joseph.

He also possessed a statuette of Our Lady of Lourdes which never was out of his sight, day or night. "One day, having gone out of his palace, he suddenly returned, having forgotten something - he had neglected to kiss the feet of his Heavenly Mother." - Cf. "Vie de Mgr.

Dupanloup," Abbé Lagrange, I., 524. " During his mother's illness, he multiplied the novenas, visited every altar, made vows, burnt candles, for not only had he devotion, but devotions. . . On the 2d of January, 1849, there was fresh alarm; thereupon, a novena at Saint-Geneviève and a vow - no longer the chaplet, but the rosary. Then, as the fête of Saint Fran?ois de Sales drew near a new novena to this great Savoyard saint; prayers to the Virgin in Saint-Sulpice; to the faithful Virgin; to the most wise Virgin, everywhere."[81] "Manreze du prêtre," I., 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 91, 92, 244, 246, 247, 268.

[82] Ibid. I., 279, 281, 301, 307, 308, 319.

[83] Just like the believing faithful 20th century international revolutionary Marxist-communist. (SR.)[84] "Le clergé fran?aise en 1890" (by an anonymous ecclesiastic), p.

72. (On the smaller parishes.) "The task of the curé here is thankless if he is zealous, too easy if he has no zeal. In any event, he is an isolated man, with no resources whatever, tempted by all the demons of solitude and inactivity." - Ibid.,,92. "Our authority among the common classes as well as among thinking people is held in check;the human mind is to-day fully emancipated and society secularized." -Ibid., 15. "Indifference seems to have retired from the summits of the nation only to descend to the lower strata. . . . In France, the priest is the more liked the less he is seen; to efface himself, to disappear is what is first and most often demanded of him. The clergy and the nation live together side by side, scarcely in contact, through certain actions in life, and never intermingling."