Gallicanism

“ Thus, against a bristling front of facts, he drives his theory that France has not been Romish enough, and lends all his energies to render her less Gallican and more Tridentine. Were he now alive, he might see reason to amend his doctrine in the condition of Rome itself! But the condition of France is quite as conclusive. Since the Restoration, the French Church has been growing more and more Ultramontane, and the people are worse and worse. Gallicanism is extinct, but results are all against the Reactionary theory. France has no more a la Vendée ”

“ In France there was, at an early day, an attempt made to reconcile paganism in politics with Catholicity in religion, in what is called Gallicanism, which, however, only served to systematize the antagonism between church and state, and to render it all the more destructive to both. We look upon Gallicanism, as expressed in the four articles adopted at the dictation of the government by the assembly of the French clergy in 1682, and which had shown itself all along from Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. ”

“ Le Gallicanisme n'est pas une doctrine, pas même une opinion, c'est une simple négation de prétentions nées au onzième siècle, et une résistance à ces prétentions, au nom de la tradition ancienne et constante des Églises. L'ultramontanisme, au contraire, est une doctrine, une opinion qui est venue s'entre sur le vieux tronc et qui a poussé des jets de croyances positives. Muselée au Concile de Florence, écartée au Concile de [pg 835] Trente, cette opinion reparaît furieuse au Concile du Vatican.
2. Le Gallicanisme est improprement nommé. Son veto appartient à toutes les nations Catholiques. ”

“ In the manuscripts that we are about to read you will encounter an admirable sentiment of the Gallic nationality and of its religious faith—a sentiment all the more irrepressible, all the more exaggerated, perhaps, by reason of the Roman and Frankish conquests being felt as galling yokes by those heroic men and women, who were so proud of their race and who carried their contempt for death to the point of superhuman grandeur. ”

“ JOHN. It is only natural.
GALLICANUS. Yet the glorious victory was not won by my valour nor by the help of their gods.
JOHN. No, assuredly; the glory belongs to the one true God.
GALLICANUS. That being so, we must pass the temples without going in.
JOHN. A wise decision.
GALLICANUS. And instead make a humble confession of faith in the Church of the Apostles.
PAUL. O happy man! And most happy thought! In this you show yourself a true Christian.
SCENE XI
CONSTANTINE. I am greatly astonished, soldiers, that Gallicanus should be so long in presenting himself before his sovereign. ”

“ The difficulties confronting those who attempt to describe the Gallic people are only realised when one grasps the fact that almost anything one writes is true or untrue of a fragment of the nation. Who could suppose that the inhabitants of soil facing the North Sea would have similar virtues and faults to those who dwell on the shores of the Mediterranean? They seem of a different race, and yet a curious unity pervades the Norman, the Breton, and the Burgundian, the Provençal, the dwellers on the great wheat plain, and the Iberians of Basses Pyrenees. ”

“ Gaul was to preserve all that could be preserved of the material side of Europe, and also of the European spirit. And therefore the New World, when it arose, with its Gothic Architecture, its Parliaments, its Universities, and, in general, its spring of the Middle Ages, was to be a Gallic thing.
The fourth characteristic of the Dark Ages was a material one, and was that which would strike our eyes most immediately if we could transfer ourselves in time, and enjoy a physical impression of that world. ”

“ The place of G. among historians is in the first rank, and if the vast scale of his work and the enormous mass of detail involved in it are considered along with the learning and research employed in accumulating the material, and the breadth of view, lucidity of arrangement, and sense of proportion which have fused them into a distinct and splendid picture, his claims to the first place cannot be lightly dismissed. His style, though not pure, being tinged with Gallicisms, is one of the most noble in our literature, rich, harmonious, and stately ”

“ When the first light of history dawns upon the Gallic race, we find them settled in that territory which is bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, and in the British isles. There they lived, leading a pastoral life, wandering about from place to place, and ready to descend with their flocks and herds wherever cupidity might lead, or fancy direct them. They first turned their footsteps towards Spain; tribe after tribe crossed the Pyrenees, and either expelled or amalgamated with the aboriginal inhabitants. ”

“ In their gloomy country of the north, however, the Franks find neither sunshine nor good wine, nor fine weapons, nor brilliant clothes, nor gold and silver goblets, nor large and well built cities, nor superb palaces, nor beautiful Gallic women—all these things are to be found among you, Gallic dogs! ”

“ The harpoons are of the same type as those which in the caves of South-Western France are assigned to the close of the Palaeolithic Age and to a time of transition between it and the following epoch, and which in recognized neolithic deposits have never been found either in Britain or in Gaul; and the general aspect of the Scottish and the Gaulish remains is virtually the same.215 There are, moreover, other indications that the British Neolithic Age began long before the period to which the great majority of the antiquities that lie in our museums belong. ”

“ Thou Who before time began wast born of God the Father, and in the fullness of time wast born again true man, of a mother's womb—I implore Thee, true Wisdom, co-eternal with the Father, the Creator, Upholder and Governor of the Universe, to grant my prayer! May Gallicanus, who seeks to gain the love which I can give only to Thee, be turned from his unlawful purpose. ”

“ For example, in History, the ill-defined period called the Middle and Dark Ages makes a considerable hiatus before, in the process of retrospection, we get back to a civilization which (in Europe at least) we ordinarily regard as Ancient. Again, in History, we distinguish commonly two provinces within the undoubted area of the Ancient, the Prehistoric and the Historic, the first comprising all the time to which human memory, as communicated by surviving literature, ran not, or, at least, not consciously, consistently and credibly. ”

“ How little the triumph of the conqueror’s laws, manners, and language, proves the extinction of the old race, we may see by looking at France; Gaul was Latinised in language, manners, and laws, and yet her people remained essentially Celtic. The Germanisation of Britain went far deeper than the Latinisation of France, and not only laws, manners, and language, but the main current of the blood became Germanic; but how, without some process of radica extirpation, of which, as I say, there is no evidence, can there have failed to subsist in Britain, as in Gaul, a Celtic current too? ”

“ Every Leaf almost stands charged with Gallicisms, more or less; and indeed 'tis odd enough to see a Man of Sir William Temples's Constitution, who all along declares such an invincible Aversion to the French Nation, so fondly doting upon their Expressions, even where he had no necessity to use them. But at the same time, I confess, I am of opinion, that his Digressions are not so faulty, it being not amiss in a just History, but especially in Memoirs, to relieve a serious Scene, now and then, with something that is diverting and agreeable. ”

“ The more frequent contact with the Orient better acquainted the Gauls with the beautiful objects made by the artisans of Laodicea, of Tyre, of Sidon; and the clever genius of the Celt, always apt in industry, drew from them incentive to create a Gallic industry, partly imitative, partly original, and to seek a large clientèle for these industries in Italy, in Spain, beyond the Rhine, among the Germans, in the Danube provinces. ”

“ Tezze; but in the oldest Gallo-Romance it may have been in use as an appellative, and thence have passed into Basque—e.g. Basq. tegi, “hut.” The permeation of the Latin vocabulary by Gallic elements dates from the time of the contact of Gauls and Roman forces. Many of these elements—e.g. bracae, camisia—were widely used at so early a stage as to have penetrated into Rumania (Rum. îmbrăcá “put on,” cămeașă, “chemise”) ; others again have scarcely, if at all, passed beyond their ancient limits, even those that Roman literature has preserved for us. ”

“ Take, for example, the delineation of the Gallic character, and compare it with some of the features still to be found in the mixed race, their successors, and no one can doubt of its accuracy, or of the deep and penetrating insight into human nature which generally indicates the powerful and practical intellect. Their elegance and polish is that which always mark even the least-laboured efforts of a refined and educated taste, not that which proceeds from careful emendation and correction. ”

“ Archaeologists collected the pottery, the tools, the weapons, and the ornaments which were found beneath the soil, in the beds of rivers, in barrows, cairns, caves, earthworks, and elsewhere, described them, classified them, and compared them with those of other countries. Philologists studied the forms of the Celtic dialects, and endeavoured to discover in them traces of dialects older still. Finally, folk-lorists formed an association, and joined the army of inquirers. The united efforts of all these seekers after truth have stored up a huge mass of information ”

“ The French people have, as I have already remarked, an undoubtedly Celtic basis, yet so decisive in its effect upon a nation’s habit and character can be the contact with a stronger civilisation, that Gaul, without changing the basis of her blood, became, for all practical intents and purposes, a Latin country, France and not Ireland, through the Roman conquest. ”

“ Our science is based on Greek science transmitted to us by Rome. The reawakening of ancient thought in the fifteenth century in Italy, in the sixteenth century in France and Germany, was the cause of Europe being born anew in science and in reason. The proconsul of Achaia did not deceive himself: Rome is not defunct, since she lives in us. Let us, in the fourth place, examine Gallio's philosophical ideas. No doubt he was not equipped with a very sound natural philosophy, and he did not always interpret natural phenomena with sufficient precision. ”

“ It is evident that such a people would produce in Africa, not a European and a general, but a Gallic and a particular effect. They boast themselves in everything the continuators of the Romans. They do, indeed, inherit the Roman passion for equality, and they, like the Romans, have tenaciously fought their way to equality by an effort spread over many hundred years. ”

“ But in spite of the extent and the fame of Gallic studies there come to us, every now and then, hints of decadence in education. The fourth-century Ammianus says that even the few homes in which the studious atmosphere of earlier days had survived were in his day given over to vanity. All they abound in is the trifling of sluggish idleness, while they resound with voices and the wind-borne tinkling of the lute. ”

“ In fine, it would seem that the Gallic peoples had progressed in civilization as far as their limited political capacity and self-control would allow. These were the limitations set by the Gallic character. It is a Gallic custom, says Caesar, to stop travellers, and insist upon their telling what they know or have heard. In the towns the crowd will throng around a merchant and make him tell where he has come from and give them the news. Upon such hearsay the Gauls enter upon measures of the gravest importance. ”

“ Though he recovered later, his horizon remained dark. The patriot suffered to see party spirit and warring factions rending the nation he had so often called the pilot of humanity’s bark, which seemed now to be going straight on the rocks. “Finis Galliæ,” murmured the historian, who to the end lived and died with his native land.
Thousands yearly mount the broad steps of the Panthéon to lay their wreaths upon his tomb, and thousands more in every Gallic schoolroom are daily learning, in the pages of his history, to love France la Dulce. ”

“ The author of the Celtic Dictionary [AL] tells us, that the Romance is derived from the Latin, the Celtic, which he more frequently calls Gallic, and the Teutonic; in admitting of which latter he deviates from most other authors, [AM] who deny that the Teutonic had any share in the composition of the Romance, since the Franks found it already established when they entered Gaul, and were long before they could prevail upon their new subjects to adopt any part of their own mother tongue, which however appears to have been afterwards instrumental in the formation of the modern French. ”

“ JULIAN. Return and force Gallicanus to quit the realm or sacrifice to the gods.
SCENE III
GALLICANUS. Do not waste your breath, fellows. Your advice is useless. I hold all that exists beneath the sun as nothing compared with eternal life. Banished for Christ's sake, I shall retire to Alexandria, where I hope to win the martyr's crown.
SCENE IV
SOLDIERS. Gallicanus, exiled by your orders, fled to Alexandria. He was arrested in that city by the Governor, Ratianus, and has perished by the sword.
JULIAN. That is well.
SOLDIERS. But John and Paul still defy you. ”