The Religious Persecution in France 1900-1906Brodhead, J. Napier (Jane Napier)
History
The Religious Persecution in France 1900-1906
Brodhead, J. Napier (Jane Napier)
Catholic Church -- France; Church and state -- France
Civil war on a small scale has been raging since nearly two months in
various parts of France. It became quite monotonous to read the recital
of all these expulsions _manu militari_ which filled the columns of the
daily Press. The programme was almost the same in every case. The crowds
varied from three hundred to many thousands, according to the locality,
and were more or less violent in their denunciations of the Government;
the police and the regular army, employed to surround the convents and
disperse the crowds of manifestants, were also more or less numerous,
and acted more or less brutally. The troops as a rule left their
barracks at night, arrived on the scene at 2 or 3 a.m., and awaited
daybreak before surrounding the house. Then, the Commissaires ringing in
vain, the doors are battered down, police and soldiers enter the breach
and find a few old monks in the chapel, for as a rule the communities
had dispersed. The delinquents are marched off between two rows of
soldiers, the crowds break out in seditious cries of “Vive la liberté, à
bas les tyrans,” numerous arrests of both sexes are made, and the
country is informed that, fanaticized by the monks, men and women have
assailed the representatives of the law.
It was on one of these occasions that Mlle. de Lambert cried “Capon” to
a justice of the peace because he had beaten a hasty retreat when he
found, in a cloister, two or three hundred angry men instead of a few
old monks. She was condemned to be imprisoned for eight days. On the
expiration of her term some five thousand persons went to the prison to
give her an ovation, but found that she had been removed.
At Nice there was a small community of Franciscans on the Boulevard
Carabacel. Their chapel was very popular with the humbler classes of
Niçois, as well as with visitors, and manifestations like those that
occurred at the church of La Croix de Marbre, much frequented by
American sailors, were expected. Several companies of infantry and
cavalry were sent to surround the building at 3 a.m.; but hundreds of
persons had spent all night on the premises, and the usual
manifestations and arrests occurred. Even after the premises had been
sealed up, police agents were detailed to guard them night and day. This
was very amusing, considering that policemen are so scarce in Nice that
people are robbed in broad daylight in the most-frequented quarters.
All these grotesque executions _manu militari_ represent one of the most
recent violations of the law, wholly gratuitous in this instance, seeing
that the Government had itself traced the method of procedure. On
November 28th, 1902, M. Valle, Minister of Justice, said:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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