Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 1)Trollope, Frances Milton
History
Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 1)
Trollope, Frances Milton
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
There is something exceedingly curious, and, perhaps, under our
present lamentable circumstances, somewhat alarming, in the young and
vigorous after-growth of the Roman Catholic religion, which, by the
aid of a very little inquiry, may be so easily traced throughout France.
Were we keeping our own national church sacred, and guarded both by
love and by law, as it has hitherto been from all assaults of the Pope
and ... Mr. O'Connell, it could only be with pleasure that we should
see France recovering from her long ague-fit of infidelity,--and, as
far as she is concerned, we must in Christian charity rejoice, for she
is unquestionably the better for it; but there is a regenerated
activity among the Roman Catholic clergy, which, under existing
circumstances, makes a Protestant feel rather nervous,--and I declare
to you, I never pass within sight of that famous window of the Louvre,
whence Charles Neuf, with his own royal and catholic hand, discharged
a blunderbuss amongst the Huguenots, without thinking how well a
window at Whitehall, already noted in history as a scene of horror,
might serve King Daniel for the same purpose.
The great influence which the religion of Rome has of late regained
over the minds of the French people has, I am told, been considerably
increased by the priests having added to the strength derived from
their command of pardons and indulgences, that which our Methodist
preachers gain from the terrors of hell. They use the same language,
too, respecting regeneration and grace; and, as one means of regaining
the hold they had lost upon the human mind, they now anathematize all
recreations, as if their congregations were so many aspirants to the
sublime purifications of La Trappe, or so many groaning fanatics just
made over to them from Lady Huntingdon's Chapel. That there is,
however, a pretty strong force to stem this fresh spring-tide of
moon-struck superstition, is very certain. The doctrinaires, I am
told, taken as a body, are not much addicted to this species of
weakness. I remember, during the prevalence of that sweeping complaint
called the influenza, hearing of a "good lady," of the high
evangelical _clique_, who said to some of the numerous pensioners who
flocked to receive the crumbs of her table and the precepts of her
lips, that she could make up some medicine that was very good for all
POOR people that were seized with this complaint.
"What can be the difference, ma'am," said the poor body who told me
this, "between us and Madame C---- in this illness? Is not what is
good for the poor, good for the rich too?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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