| Introduction | Part I | Part II | Part III |
Now after the fall of Napoleon's Empire and the return of the monarchy in 1815, we have a long, extended period of what is collectively referred to as "the Restoration." I'm joining together several different regimes here because, for our purposes, they are all relatively equivalent to one another. We are going to ignore the differences between the Bourbon monarchy (which lasted for fifteen years) and the Orleanist monarchy (which ruled for the next eighteen years), as well as the very brief Second Republic, followed by the Second Empire (another twenty-two years). Both of these were controlled by the nephew of Napoleon I, Louis. Napoleon Bonaparte. He was elected president of the republic, then connived to get himself crowned Emperor Napoleon III. But all three of these regimes, at least in part, restored the principle that the monarchy (or the empire) protected and supported the Catholic Church. All three also went on to restrict the church, too, so it was not an entirely happy marriage. The church was certainly protected by these three regimes, but once again, it was not really helped.
By "help" I don't necessarily mean financial support -- money really had nothing to do with what the French church needed. What I'm referring to is the kind of help that persecutors give the Church: reining in some of the normal disorder making people rethink why they are following the Gospel, forcing discussion and defense of values, and so forth. Persecution is never comfortable for the Church or anyone else, but it has a way of keeping us fairly "lean and mean."
The restored church of 1815 was not the same one that had provoked such hatred in 1789. Although it had been shorn of much of its land and wealth, the Restoration church was much more spiritual and zealous, better disciplined and far more conscious of Gospel values than its predecessor. Most of the old prince-bishops had either died off, or been replaced, or had simply resigned and fled to save themselves, By the end of the nineteenth century, Catholics had regained their confidence and political power, especially in more conservative provinces, such as Thérèse's Normandy.
However, one problem remained. The church (the hierarchy in particular) continued to identify with hopeless royalist causes. (even after the Bourbon monarchy had been replaced in 1830), and promoted anti-republican sentiment. Unfortunately, they were generally not following the best of their own people. Most of the new prelates, the ones named after the Restoration, were very good bishops. They were generally holy, learned, hard working individuals. But they could not seem to let go of that old idea that royalism was essential to a free church. It was not until the time of the Third Republic, the time of Thérèse, that we begin to see the first glimmers of a new and conciliatory attitude: that maybe a strong, healthy, free-standing church could live within republic. Maybe all would get along. Maybe the mission efforts of the church would work after all ... even alongside republican institutions. Perhaps if one built in some basic controls within the republican constitution (who would even have thought that a century before?), maybe one might even be able to build the best church France ever had.
During the first Restoration of 1815, (the restoration of the ancient Bourbon family which had ruled France for centuries) the church was the most protected ever, but it was also the least effective.
After 1830, we have the Orleanist regime of King Louis Philippe -- from a junior branch of the Bourbon family -- which was administered largely by ministers. rather than the king. The most famous of these was François Guizot who, incidentally, was elected to Parliament from the district which represented Lisieux. This fact tells us something of the Lisieux voters: Guizot was a Protestant, but the voters were still broad-minded enough to go outside their own religious community to elect a deputy with obvious talent. Admittedly Guizot was a strong Conservative, but for the times in which he lived he developed a very good policy for France, and deserves to be remembered for that. One might also note that it was during the Orleanist period that the Carmelites were actually reestablished in France. Many of the convents of nuns had actually been restored secretly after the first restoration. It was not as though they were clandestine houses, just that they were "off the record," with no formal permissions. By 1880, when Thérèse herself was already considering religious life, there were 113 monasteries. of Discalced nuns in France. But only sixteen of them were "legal;" only sixteen of the total had gone through the red tape of getting the government's authorization, with all of the permits, clearances and legal safeguards to ensure their future as a functioning religious community. All the rest were a bit on thin ice. But the mere fact that nearly a hundred unofficial, illegal monasteries were still alive and flourishing indicates something about the enforcement procedures. Most magistrates, judges and police officials, agnostics or not, Freemasons or not, were certainly able to see that these sisters were doing no harm to the people at large. So when it came to "keeping the peace" in their districts, they nearly always asked "Why bother them?"
By 1839, the Discalced friars were able to begin refounding their community in France, too. And even though they sometimes continued to experience difficulties, the growth was fairly steady through the end of the century. In 1838, the year just preceding that event, the monastery of Lisieux was founded on the Rue de Liverot. The founders were sisters from the monastery of Poiters. I believe that Lisieux was one of the "legal" monasteries but once again, in Normandy, people were rather solidly religious. They liked the idea of having sisters nearby, praying for them and their needs, so they could overlook the legal niceties. It was probably a good reaction.
Following the overthrow of the Orleanist monarchy (1848) we have the Second Republic, the one with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as president; but within four years this folded into the Second Napoleonic Empire, with the same man crowned as Emperor Napoleon III. He certainly was not the military genius that his uncle was, but as a political leader he was, I believe, far more successful. For one thing, he simply lasted longer. Likewise, he was able to keep the French people happy, proud, strong, growing and developing without the constant warfare that had monopolized so much of his uncle's genius for so long. Napoleon III did fight several wars of his own, but they were usually short, and at least at the beginning, successful for France. The one large exception was the final one, the Franco-Prussian war, which was his undoing.
One notes with interest that the same Louis Napoleon, before he got himself a crown and an number, was a wandering exile himself. He had made a couple of pathetic attempts to seize power in France, and also participated in a revolution in the Papal States (1831), of all places. He would have been captured by the police if it had not been for the good graces of the Archbishop of Spoleto, Giovanni Mastai-Feretti (the future Pius IX). So, when the failed revolutionary became Emperor of the French, he made it a point to protect the Papal States and to support the pope's general foreign policy throughout Europe. I'm sure there was an element of gratitude there, but his best motive was just good political sense. Napoleon III was sharp enough to see that support of the French Catholics was crucial to his survival. He was a fairly conservative leader, and realized that all of the more radical forces were firmly against him; so the Catholics were too important to ignore.
| Introduction | Part I | Part II | Part III |