a parade of. Yet, surely, it does add something even to it, to find that one of them, addressed by one bishop to his friend another bishop, must have been sent by him to Colbert. He no doubt. felt that he was doing his friend good service. Colbert evidently felt that the French Church was useful only because its property enabled the king to make slaves of all the nobility of his kingdom, and because it provided magnificent appanages for all his own kindred-sons, brothers, nephews, cousins. He would probably have felt it an act of virtuous and patriotic disinterestedness to have swept away it and its possessions at a stroke.

What Alexander VIII. felt of these men, he expressed to Cardinal de Bouillon

What the king wished was the only thing that signified; what the bishops who were nominated might do, made no difference. He knew the system of France, and the extent to which the authority of the king had been carried, well enough to be sure that the bishops would have no other sentiments and no other religion than those of the king; that if the king wished the bishops of France to make a schism with the Holy See they would hardly hesitate to obey him; that if, on the contrary, the king's intention were that they should declare the Pope infallible in right and in fact, the same bishops would make whatever declaration was required of them on that subject. That was his opinion of the Church of France (p. 434).

Lewis himself said of his bishops, "no thanks to these gentlemen that I have not assumed the turban. I have only three bishops in my dominions" (page 260). These were exactly those who had refused to fall in with his plans-Cardinal Grimaldi, Archbishop of Aix; Lavardin, Bishop of Rennes; and the Bishop of Grenoble. Fénelon was not yet a bishop. When the Abbé de Polignac had been sent to him by Alexander VIII., and had had a long conversation with him, he said, "I have been talking with a man, and that a young man, who has always contradicted me without my ever being able to be angry with him for a single moment."

No doubt it is most likely that, if Lewis had thought fit to have made himself Head of the Church in France, he would have encountered no serious opposition from such men as de Harlay or Bourlemont. Yet we can hardly doubt that, even among the least promising of his ecclesiastics, some would have been found, who would have stopped short when they saw before them the abyss into which they were required to plunge. There were some among that noble army of martyrs and confessors who threw new glory upon the Church of France a century later, from whom little would have been expected beforehand. One, at least, of the Court Prelates of the Assembly of 1682, and at that time one of the least respected of them all, Chavigny, Bishop of Troyes, sixteen years later

resigned his bishopric to retire into a life of strict penance and solitude. One of our own most glorious martyrs under Henry VIII. had in earlier life expressed himself in a manner, to say the least, very unsatisfactory upon the supremacy of the Holy See, in defence of which he gained his crown. We by no means believe that Lewis XIV., despotic as he was, could have renewed the work of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and have made France a Protestant nation. They were assisted by a combination of circumstances which had gone by before his time, and which, in the nature of things, can never return. Protestantism, in their day, was just rushing out from the open gate of hell (like the winds from the cavern of Eolus) a living energetic power of Satan. Such is the nature of all heresies. But not less is it their nature very soon to sink into indifference and languor, and from thence to utter death. Protestantism, which is now dead, and only dangerous by the pestilence engendered by its corrupting corpse, was already sick to death at the end of the seventeeth century. Lewis might have done much mischief, but it would have required power far greater than his, greater than all the power of earth and hell, to put new life into that dying heresy.

Neither are we to think that the wretched flatterers of Lewis XIV. were really what they called themselves, the Church of France. M. Gérin says, after going through the members of the Assembly one by one,

Is there one among these priests and bishops whose name can be mentioned as that of a man who lived and saved souls like S. Francis of Sales, S. Charles Borromeo, S. Vincent of Paul, Berolle, Olier, Cæsar de Bus? Is there one whose name has been attached to any great Christian institutionto any important reform of discipline and manners? Which of them exercised a salutary influence on his contemporaries? Which of them whose memory is still blessed by generations who, kneeling before the altars, call him their spiritual father? (p. 259).

And then he mentions several men living at the time whose names are not to be found on the list. Lavardin, bishop of Rennes, to whom Lewis gave the testimony we have just quoted. The Abbé Aligre, and the great preachers and theologians of that age, Mascaron, Fléchier, Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Huet, Mabillon, Thomassin, Rancé, Tronson, Brisacier, Tiberge, La Salle, La Chetardie, and many more. There is but one man whose name we regret to see among the list of such a council, if it were to be held that one is Bossuet.

We have left ourselves no room to dwell upon M. Gérin's two last chapters. The ninth details the contest between the king and the Pope. It is better known than other parts of this history, because its nature has attracted the attention of secular

historians. But upon this he has thrown much new light. Innocent XI. refused to accept any man who had taken part in the Assembly of 1682, when offered for a bishoprick. Lewis nominated two. Their Bulls were refused, and the king forbad any other of his nominees to receive his Bulls as long as theirs were refused. This went on for years, until there were more than thirty sees vacant in France. The king and his flatterers threw the blame on the Pope. The Pope published his declaration. that he was ready to grant Bulls to any nominee of the king who had not been a member of the Assembly, or who, having been so, would make a fitting retractation. The dispute was further embittered by the question of the "franchises," which we have already mentioned. Innocent declared that he would receive no ambassador who did not engage to give up the claim which was destructive of the peace and moral order of Rome. Every other European king agreed to resign so odious a privilege. Lewis alone refused. The Pope sent an embassy to entreat him. The Nuncio mentioned that the emperor and all other monarchs in Europe had acceded to the desire of the Pope, but Lewis haughtily replied that God had placed him in a position to set the example to others, and to follow that of no man. He refused to surrender the franchise. Innocent declared that he would receive no ambassador by whom they were claimed. Lewis resolved to send an ambassador to Rome, in spite of the Pope's refusal, and to support him by an overwhelming military force. He selected expressly for the purpose the most haughty and overbearing man he could find, who entered Rome by force, attended with a military array. Upon this Innocent excommunicated him. The ambassador, in despite of the excommunication, went to the midnight mass at the Church of S. Lewis of France, and the Pope placed the Church under an interdict. There were not wanting men among the advisers of Lewis who urged him to make a direct schism by directing his nominations to bishoprics to the archbishop of the province, and those to archbishoprics to the provincial bishops. But unscrupulous as he was, Lewis refused to be guilty of a crime which would have placed him by the side of Henry VIII. To any length short of that he was prepared to go. He seized Avignon, and arrested a bishop living peaceably in the Pope's dominions, and by an act worthy of Napoleon himself, committed him to prison at Ré, giving instructions that he should be made uncomfortable on his journey, and should be told that he was to be transported to Canada-which in those days was not unlike being banished to another planet. He even instructed his ministers to appeal in his name to a future general council. This appeal was made in the presence of the archbishop of Paris and of the Père La Chaise.

But he would not quite take the step, which would have consummated the schism. The Pope was firm, and at last the king gave way. When Innocent XI. died he sent an ambassador to the new Pope, Alexander VIII., authorizing him to give up the claim. to the franchise." At last he allowed the men nominated to bishoprics to sue for their Bulls, and those who had been members of the Assembly made their recantation in the terms demanded by the Pope. Lewis XIV. himself wrote a letter to the Pope promising that his edict enforcing the four articles should be without force or effect. It is characteristic that care was taken to conceal this submission, and it was never known in France for a century. M. Gérin in fact gives many details about it never published until

now.

We attach great importance to the publication of this work, and feel that M. Gérin has done the Church great service. Some men may be inclined to regard the question as merely historical. But in truth it is far more. It is important that the world should. know that it is a mere error to suppose that Gallican principles ever were received by the Church of France; that they were merely put forward by a handful of the flatterers of Lewis XIV., not less to the disgust of the true church of France in their own days than in ours. And this M. Gérin has made so plain that nothing but ignorance or disingenuousness can in future deny it.

ART. V.—MR. TROLLOPE'S LAST IRISH NOVEL.

Phineas Finn, the Irish Member. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
Virtue & Co.

MR.

London:

R. ANTHONY TROLLOPE wishes to be a member of Parliament. It is difficult to understand why he of all men should be smitten by such a sore temptation. He possesses an enduring fountain of fame and fortune in his own imagination. He speaks to a constituency as wide as the limits of the English language, who are never weary of hearing him. He can hardly be supposed to have retained to this time of his life any illusions as to the magic value of the letters M.P. He knows by sad experience what a nauseous task it ordinarily is to canvass a British borough. He is evidently aware of what is "behind the scenes" of the House, as well as if he had sat through half a dozen Parliaments. Yet he still feels the mysterious longing to lounge with his hat on in the presence of Mr. Speaker, and to form the 365th unit in a great party division, as strongly as any youth who leads his

side with laurels in a college debating society. Why should not some Irish constituency do itself the honour of gratifying this harmless propensity? Alas, or rather ochone! the standard of the Irish member of the present day, and so far as can be seen of the coming time, is not a very elevated one. A sort of curious hybrid of lawyer and grazier seems to be the favourite type of candidate rising steadily in popular favour. The Irish member of the last generation was often dissipated, sometimes disreputable; but he had generally good manners and good education, was even occasionally an accomplished scholar, and, for the rest, he did what the great Dan bade him to do. Nowadays, with a dozen to a score of exceptions, nothing can be more dull, witless, commonplace-in a word, un-Irish-than the character of the Irish members on both sides of the House. If Mr. Trollope were to get the chance from some disgusted borough, we should begin to see our way to the end of this system, for he would be irresistibly tempted to write a book with portraits of some of his colleagues; and the effect, though caustic, would be salutary. Besides, Mr. Trollope would, if he were to succeed in the House at all, succeed far better, in our opinion, as an Irish than as an English or a Scotch member. His Irish sympathies are strangely deep, and true, and tender. He has half-avowed that he would even wish to be a Catholic if he only could; and he would find it so easy in Ireland. "I love their religion," he says in his book on North America. "There is something beautiful and almost divine in the faith and obedience of a true son of the Holy Mother. I sometimes fancy that I would fain be a Roman Catholic if I could, as also I would often wish to be still a child, if that were possible." But this is exactly the way our Lord put it, when, on a memorable occasion, he said, "Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven." Then Mr. Trollope would succeed admirably well, we have little doubt, in winning and in keeping the confidence of an Irish Catholic constituency, if only he were not out-bellowed and out-bribed in the first instance by some fresh combination of Smithfield and the Four Courts. Meantime, his exact apprehension of the true difficulty to be settled in Ireland is significantly indicated in his last Irish novel. It is, after its fashion, a contribution to the literature of the Land Question, and has, we imagine, by its light but effective touches, helped to shape the growing conviction among English people, who read and think, that something large and liberal must be done to meet the wishes and the wants of the Irish in regard to the land on which they live.