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How to write a great review Do Say what you liked best and least Describe the author's style Explain the rating you gave Don't Use rude and profane language Include any personal information Mention spoilers or the book's price Recap the plot. Bitterly disappointed, he wrote to his friend Comudet in June It now seems to me that I have lost a beloved friend". Montalembert still devoted a lot of his time to Ireland.
In June , he wrote for the Correspondant a passionate article on this "country of wonders" where "religion, freedom and poetry better than in any other land". Indeed whether he was dealing with the Emerald Isle, the faith and fate of the Church, or the sacred cause of freedom, Montalembert was and would remain all his life a dedicated romantic for whom intuition, imagination and emotion counted far more than abstract reasoning or the sober examination of facts.
He welcomed the fall of the Bourbons because they were old- fashioned, dull and suspicious of freedom and everything he loved and craved for ; and because he had convinced himself that the union of the throne and the altar had paralysed the Church and alienated from religion the youth and the people of France. By constrast, the situation in Ireland where O'Connell had united the people and the Church in a formidable non-violent campaign for freedom which had extracted the emancipation of all Catholics in the British Isles from a reticent State, appealed strongly to his imagination eager for heroic action and to his intelligence convinced of the necessity to achieve a total separation between Church and State.
It was in this exalted frame of mind that Charles de Montalembert crossed the Irish Channel at long last and set foot in the country of his dreams, at the beginning of September My heart "is full of admiration and love for this dear Ireland". More than my own country, he added, Ireland "gratifies all my beliefs, all my tastes, and even the slightest of my prejudices". Funnily enough, the only disappointment of his idyllic journey occurred when Montalembert met Daniel O'Connell. The twenty-year-old French aristocrat, full of romantic ideas about Ireland "this living remnant of the Middle Ages", probably expected to meet in O'Connell a white Knight in shining armour.
But the King of the Beggars was not Arthur in Camelot.
When Charles de Montalembert arrived at Derrynane, the door was besieged by one hundred and fifty peasants eager to submit their dispute to the Councillor. He was brought in by O'Connell himself who displayed a great affability but left him alone in a drawing room overcrowded by a family of biblical proportions! During the dinner the two men were able to talk at great length: Fitzpatrick, to celebrate the Paris Revolution of July.
Unable to attend, O'Connell had sent a public letter rejoicing over the event and anticipating, as it happened, the complete separation of Church and State. Because it is an important treatment of the situation in France as well as a major exposition of O'Connell's unorthodox views on religious freedom, and one which would have a determining influence on Montalembert and his associates, it is worth quoting the Liberator at some length:. The French Revolution is in all its aspects consolatory and deserving of the highest praise There is one feature in this great and satisfactory change which I hail with the most profound conviction of utility — the complete severance of the Church from the State.
The Catholic clergy of France are learned, pious, exemplary and most charitable and zealous. But they were placed in a false position. The events of the first revolution, written in characters of blood, convinced them that the safety of religion was connected with the security of the throne I heartily rejoice that the last revolution has altered the position Religion has regained its natural station.
Montalembert was thrilled by the message, but rather put out by the messenger. The next day, after another conversation with the Liberator, he confided to his diary: Later on, in Killarney, he attended a banquet: Years later, however, Montalembert would scribble in the margin of this intemperate youthful utterance "Oh! After seven weeks in Ireland, unable to restrain his enthusiasm, Montalembert confessed: My faith and my earnest attachment to Catholicism are completely changed.
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I have drawn here ten years of strength and life". Back in Paris, he submitted a long article on Ireland to Lamennais who readily agreed to publish it in L'Avenir out of consideration for the brilliant qualities of thought and style displayed by the author, and out of deep concern for an exemplary situation that had attracted his attention from the outset. Indeed, it is easy to see that Lamennais himself dreamed of emulating "this O'Connell who pushes, with a strong arm, the old world in the abyss and proclaims the reign of a new right, the right of the people, of liberty and equality Montalembert's Lettre sur le Catholicisme en Irlande was published in three separate issues of L'Avenir dated January 1st, 5th and 18th, It sang the praises of a popular Church sharing the pains and miseries of the people and, like them "free, poor and invincible".
It marvelled at the "stubborn love of freedom and nationalism" of Catholic priests which explained why, in the face of so many persecutions, the native Irish remained steadfastly faithful to the old religion. It rejoiced in the love of France exhibited by the Irish of every origin and class, and more specifically in the warm sympathy expressed by the Irish bishops for the Revolution of July, a sympathy that Montalembert had already seen at work at the Irish College in Paris.
Couched in the most romantic language, Montalembert's eulogy of the Emerald Isle was an immediate success. It was widely quoted ; issued in pamphlet form ; highly praised by Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve and Alfred de Vigny ; and even translated into German and English in Ireland, it was published in the Cork Mercantile dated 26th October, In the Spring of , famine having once more broken out in Ireland, Montalembert published a vibrant appeal to the innate sense of charity of French Catholics.
A Relief Committee was set up and a subscription was launched by L'Avenir. Local committees were formed in Alsace, Auvergne and Provence.
Eighty thousand francs — quite a considerable sum for the time - was eventually collected and sent to Ireland between June and September Individually, Montalembert helped many Irish expatriates. His Archives are full of letters of thanks and notes about his assistance. He seems to have rendered numerous services to the Irish College in Paris.
Furthermore, he was the best propagandist that Ireland could have dreamed of. He gave precious indications to Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, prior to their famous Irish journey of And it is not hazardous to suggest that he was probably influential in shaping the ideas expressed by Lacordaire in his brilliant funeral oration on O'Connell pronounced at Notre-Dame on the 10th February Ireland and O'Connell never ceased to occupy the mind and the heart of Montalembert.
Moines d'Occident, his last work, published in seven volumes between and , vividly recalled "the shining cradle of Ireland" and the time when the "Island of Saints" was sending legions of scholars and monks to teach and evangelize the Continent. At the very end of his life, he would again express his sadness at not having been able to write the history of this "modern Palestine", "a splendid history that has not found yet a historian worthy of it".
Indeed, he gratified the memory of O'Connell "with the immortal glory of having liberated his religion and given a new life to his country by the sole means of legal action, without having spilled a single drop of blood in the process". The Liberator of Ireland and the leader of the French Catholic Liberals shared the same open and generous conception of civil and religious freedom.
Not surprisingly, he would be, in his turn, hailed as "the O'Connell of France". Numerous plays written in the same vein were staged to the utter delight of the Voltairian bourgeoisie which was to become the backbone of the regime of Louis-Philippe. He lived in the English-speaking Protestant world where Catholicism had little to lose and much to gain from religious freedom and separation of Church and State. During the French Restoration, which lasted fifteen years, from Waterloo to the "three glorious days" of the Revolution of July , Catholicism and royalism had been walking hand in hand. This was not just a moment's excess in the heat of a short-lived It lasted for months after the proclamation of Louis-Philippe and the constitution of a Cabinet which could not or did not want to interfere.
They also clung to the belief that Catholics had an inalienable right to receive a Catholic education in schools, colleges and universities placed under ecclesiastical control. This basic freedom was denied to French Catholics, even though Catholic institutions for girls were tolerated. In , Montalembert, Lacordaire, de Coux and their associates launched a vigorous campaign which roused a great deal of enthusiasm in public opinion and made it impossible for the government to preserve the system of disqualification set up by Napoleon: The ensuing campaign to obtain the freedom of secondary education was fiercely resisted by the political establishment and only faintly supported by the French hierarchy.
All the same, it was. On many occasions during these stormy campaigns, M ontalembert referred to Ireland, quoting the Liberator and praising the achievement by peaceful means of religious freedom and "political equality of Catholics and Protestants within the vast British Empire". Montalembert not only shared most of O'Connell's ideas, he was also inspired by his methods. In November , he professed to have already in mind "a Catholic Association founded on the same principles as the Catholic Association of Ireland".
Unlike O'Connell, however, Montalembert failed to mobilize the Church: The difference between the father of modern Irish democracy, as Sean O'Faolain calls the Liberator, and the founders of the Catholic Liberal tradition in France resides essentially in the attitude of the Church. In Ireland, the Church was carried away by O'Connell who resorted to persuasiveness and flexibility to cement the unfailing support of the clergy and the Catholic masses.
Whether willingly or reluctantly, Rome had to follow. In France, the picture was very different.
Lamennais showed himself difficult and unflinching. He antagonized a wide section of the clergy which still adhered to gallicanism, irritated conservative Catholics who could not envisage a Church separated from the throne, failed to mobilize the masses in the country and, finally, lost whatever support and sympathy he had in Rome. The encyclical Mirari Vos having emphatically condemned his "errors", Lamennais broke away from the Church and was abandoned by his former friends, Montalembert and Lacordaire, who remained faithful to the Holy See as "penitent Catholics and impenitent Liberals".
The Syllabus, coming after Mirari Vos would further distress those defeated Liberals who still dreamt of the fusion of Catholicism and democracy. That O'Connell should have escaped censure by Rome for his unorthodox views is easily explained,. He lived in the English-speaking Protestant world where Catholicism had little to lose and much to gain from religious freedom and separation of Church and State.
Furthermore he was a layman, and Rome was more tolerant of heterodoxy in laity than in clergy. His enormous popularity in Ireland and his normally friendly relations with the Irish clergy were additional reasons why Rome would hesitate to confront him. He was careful to express his views in a political rather than theological frame.
However, the seed of Catholic liberalism had been sown on French soil. Ireland remained a source of inspiration to some of the leaders of this political persuasion. But, the last leader of public opinion in France who may have been inspired by O'Connell was not a Christian Democrat, even if he was a sincere Christian and a true democrat.