François de Montalembert

“ He made but one appearance, contenting himself apparently with “inaugurating in France,” as M. de Montalembert says, “the monastic frock, which she had not seen for fifty years.” He disappeared from Paris after this for two years more, dividing his time between the Italian cloister and the southern provinces of France, until in 1843 a new war began to rage in the French world, on that old question of liberty of teaching, for which the young ‘L’Avenir,’ years ago, had fought so stoutly, and for which its editors had made their appearance at the bar of the Chamber of Peers. ”

“ Montalembert's profound appreciation of monastic life was never more aptly illustrated than in the following declaration: "In the depths of human nature there exists without doubt, a tendency instinctive, though confused and evanescent, toward retirement and solitude. What man, unless completely depraved by vice or weighed down by care and cupidity, has not experienced once, at least, before his death, the attraction of solitude?" ”

“ He lived a life full of worthy labour and service, and doubtless found his reward.
Our space does not permit us to follow M. de Montalembert, in his quotations from the letters and sermons of his friend, though there are in these letters many snatches of brilliant and tender eloquence on which we are much tempted to linger. It is not, however, in his productions that Lacordaire is most remarkable; it is in his character and career. “The principal thing is to have a life,” he himself said, when deprecating the over-production of modern literature; and no man has more exemplified the saying. ”

“ In theology, as represented in literature, the dominant interest of the period belongs at first to the continuators of the Liberal-Catholic school of Lamennais. The greatest of these, beyond all question, was Charles Forbes de Montalembert, whose mother was a Scotchwoman, and his father French ambassador in Sweden. He was born in April, 1810, and died on the 13th of March, 1870. Montalembert was young enough to come under the influence of Lamennais only indirectly, and at the extreme end of that writer's orthodox period. His immediate master was rather the eloquent Abbé Lacordaire. ”

“ No better example can be offered for the imitation of American Catholic young men than that of Montalembert, the great orator of France. [213] Even in his schoolboy days, his aim was high and beautiful: he scorned all folly and idleness. When he was only seventeen, he solemnly selected as his motto through life, “God and Liberty,” to which he remained faithful until death. A young man of brilliant intellect, vivid imagination, and noble ambition, he determined to play a man’s part in the world, and earnestly longed for the time to commence his glorious work. ”

“ It is an error and a pertinacity proper to a man not far removed from heresy. In this case, we once more repeat, confession is not the thing wanted. The first elements of the faith, and of the Catholic profession, have to be set straight in this man's head (p. 547) .
It would almost seem as if Montalembert was personally pointed at in the two later articles. It is not a little curious to learn here that his bosom friend, Lacordaire, long the charm of the French pulpit, was called to Rome in 1850 to answer for his doctrine. ”

“ The Bishop of Orleans is a man of the people. "I do not know much; but what I know best and love best is the people." If Dupanloup's speech was the brightest gem of the congress in 1864, Montalembert, in his speech on "Religious Liberty," eclipsed all his competitors in 1863. Montalembert's discourse lasted five hours, two hours longer than Dupanloup's speech. Montalembert and Dupanloup are the most prominent representatives of Catholic France. Called by God to battle for his Church, both are leading millions of soldiers arrayed under the banner of Christ to victory and triumphs. ”

“ Our ancestors were religious, they were even superstitious to a very high degree, but they loved their individual liberty with a passion that the bulk of our socialistic contemporaries would be puzzled to understand. “Our proud ancestors ignored the very idea of that unlimited power of the State which is now so ardently appealed to,” wrote Montalembert, one of the greatest students of the Middle Ages, after twenty-five years of study. “A dead level has been regarded (in the nineteenth century) as a mark of progress, and identity of yoke as a guarantee. ”

“ The greatest men have travelled as we are doing. The Marchioness and Countess de Montalembert, the Countess of Podenas, Mademoiselle la Garde, the Marquis de Montalembert, rose from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine for these unknown regions, and the Duke de Chartres exhibited much skill and presence of mind in his ascent on the 15th of July, 1784. ”

“ L’Avenir existed only for one year and one month. It came to its early end from no lack of energy and patience in its writers, but in part from that mission of the editors to Rome (November 1831) which, at least for a time, necessitated the discontinuance of their newspaper. Human regrets had higher than human consolations. “Our labours” on L’Avenir, wrote Montalembert, with simple truth, “decided the attitude of Catholics in France and elsewhere, from the time of the July revolution to the time of the second empire.” ”

“ Without the fleurs-de-lis, no one—the Comte Charles de Montalembert insisted emphatically—had any quarrel with the Cross.
The objective of l'Avenir, then, was both political and literary; it was in sympathy with modern literature, and, in the person of the Abbé de Lamennais, it possessed, besides, one of the leading writers of the day; it was one of those rare papers (rari nantes) in which one could follow the human mind under its two aspects. ”

“ God is to be thanked because, according to the surest accounts, victory has remained pure, unsullied by crimes or excesses.... That nation rises now to the first rank among the great peoples of the world.... Some used to say: Don’t talk to us of your America with its slavery. She is now without slaves; let us talk of her.”
But happy as he was at the results, Montalembert rendered, nevertheless, full justice to the South and its great leaders: “The two parties, the two camps, have shown an equal courage, the same indomitable tenacity, the same wonderful energy ... ”

“ The accomplished authoress of Christian Schools and Scholars is another skilful miner in the gold-fields of Catholic history; and Mrs. Hope, also, has shown in her volumes on the conversion of the Teutons and Anglo-Saxons how specially adapted to labor successfully in this department are cultivated women. Montalembert’s Monks of the West is an unrivalled masterpiece, as all know; and if we were to catalogue all the various pieces of historical composition on similar topics to be found in recent European literature, enough of them would be found to make a small library. ”

“ No; she is a bright virginal creature, all confidence and candour, and she has yet to learn the mysteries of life. I wish I could think less of her and fall in love with Miss Montalembert—her name is plain Lambert, and she has added the Monta for the sake of euphony. I wish I could fall in love with Lizzie Lambert, popularly known as Elise Montalembert, the soubrette at the Phœnix. She is a good little girl, and earns a salary of four pounds a week. ”

“ For these, and other valuable services, the monks merit the praise of posterity. It is, however, too much to affirm, as Montalembert does, that "without the monks, we should have been as ignorant of our history as children." It is altogether improbable that the human mind would have been unproductive in the field of historical writing had monasticism not existed during the middle ages. While, also, the monks should be thanked for preserving the classics, it should not be supposed that all knowledge of Latin and Greek literature would have perished but for them. ”

“ One man, who had foreseen all this evil, and whose genius would have probably sufficed victoriously to combat it, had he only possessed the virtue of humility, was M. de Lamennais. Happily, the pleiades of chosen minds whom he had gathered around him did not lose courage after the melancholy defection of their brilliant master. The three most illustrious of these shared among them the defence of the faith against the floods of unbelief that threatened to overwhelm the country. Montalembert remained to defend the church in the public assemblies ”

“ In the years preceding the Seven Years’ War, Montalembert (who had become an associate member of the Académie des Sciences in 1747) devoted his energies to the art of fortification, to which Vauban’s Traité de l’attaque attracted him, and founded the arsenal at Ruelle, near his birthplace. On the outbreak of war he became French commissioner with the allied army of Sweden, with the rank of brigadier-general. He constructed the field fortifications of Anklam and Stralsund. ”

“ The work of a brilliant and accomplished layman and man of the world, dealing with a class of characters who have generally been left to the arid professional handling of ecclesiastical writers. Montalembert sees their life as a whole, and a human whole ”

“ Ceolfrid, who became Abbot of Jarrow, and who subsequently was also placed in charge of the monastery of Wearmouth, took considerable interest in the scriptorium. Montalembert quotes the statement that Ceolfrid had had made two complete copies of the Bible according to the version of St. Jerome, as a refutation of the “stupid calumny” which represents the Church as having interdicted the reading and study of the scriptures. [23] The preservation of such Anglo-Saxon literature as remains, is undoubtedly due to the action of some of the monastic scribes. ”

“ We mean the author of the Monks of the West, the Count de Montalembert. There has not been since the seventeenth century till now such an assemblage of men of genius and lofty character gathered round the standard of the church, combating for her and leaving behind them works that will never die. Attacked on all sides at once, the church has found magnanimous soldiers to bear the brunt of the battle, and meet her enemies in every quarter. ”

“ She has made several translations from the French, Spanish and Italian languages, notably Montalembert's brochure, "Pius IX.," the abstruse philosophical work of Donoso Cortes from the Spanish, and the monograph of the Marquis de Chambrun on "The Executive Power" (Lancaster, Pa., 1874) . These translations brought her many complimentary recognitions, among others a flattering etter from the illustrious Montalembert, an autograph letter from Pope Pius IX., the thanks of the Queen of Spain, and a complimentary notice from President Garfield. ”

“ Life is over for the rebellious priest who breaks with his church; his possibility of service in his vocation has come to an end; even the most careless peasant in his parish will turn from him. He is a deserter from his regiment in the face of the enemy, false to his colors, a man no longer of any human use.”
It was during Montalembert's sojourn in Italy, on his remarkable Avenir pilgrimage, that he became the intimate friend of Albert de la Ferronays, the hero of Mrs. ”

“ There were several representatives, M. de Cazalès, M. de Falloux, l'Abbé Sibourg,—and M. Bonnetty, M. Le Normand, Guizot's successor at the Sorbonne. The conversation was chiefly on the state of politics, the doings of the Assembly, M. Proudhon's recent developement. M. de Montalembert was the liveliest and best converser. He said he was greatly obliged to M. Proudhon; they were in a cavern with a gulph at the bottom of it, and Proudhon had lighted a torch to show them where the gulph was. "What good will the torch do, if no one will beware of the gulph?" ”

“ He prohibited the reading, circulating, or possession of these letters either by clergy or faithful in his diocese." [21]
5. Montalembert, ruined though he was in health by an incurable malady, was roused by this reticence among the men who secretly approved, and came to Gratry's support. "Since the strong do not support their own champion," said Montalembert, "the sick must needs rise from their beds and speak." [22]
"I venture to say that you will not find ... ”

“ It is not this which systematically threatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the signal of M. Montalembert or M. Carlier. It has gone on since the beginning of the world; France was carrying it on long before the revolution of February--long before the appearance of socialism--with all the ceremonies of magistracy, police, gendarmerie, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds. It is the law itself which is conducting this war, and it is to be wished, in my opinion, that the law should always maintain this attitude with respect to plunder. ”

“ It is possibly to me, to my rash folly, that Montalbert owes much of his present uneasiness: his mother may have driven him from her with reproaches, with anger—he may, on my account, be loaded with a parent's curse!——Dreadful thought! I dare not dwell upon it.
"I cast my eyes round the high and gloomy room where I sit: all is silent and forlorn; cold and faint, my heart seems to sink within me, and I listen, with even a degree of eagerness, to hear the slow footsteps of Cattina, along the apartments, bringing me my evening meal. ”

“ As to the young ladies, I find they are frequently to visit their mother, but I shall avoid them as much as possible, for they are so much changed since we played together as children of the same family, that there is no longer any affection probably between us—I shall be despised as the daughter of a country curate; and though, I hope, I am not proud, I do not love to be despised......Ah! Montalbert, it is your partiality that has, perhaps, taught me to feel this sensation more than I ought to do. The little rustic thinks that she is preferred by Montalbert, and forgets her humility. ”