HOLY
398
HOLY
merits of these sufferings: (1) peace for the Church,
preservation of the Faith, and the cessation of
scourges; (2) the grace of a happy death for hardened
sinners who are about to die, and in general spiritual
aid for those in their death agony. It was founded
as a confraternity in 1862, at Valfleury, France, by
Antoine NicoUe (1S17-90), a priest of the Congre-
gation of the Mission (Lazarist). At its beginning,
Pius IX enriched it with indulgences. In 1865 it was
authorized to affiliate other confraternities in the
Diocese of Lyons. In 1S73 it was made an archcon-
fraternity for all France, and its head-quarters in-
stalled at the mother-house of the Lazarists, 95 Rue
de Sevres, Paris. After twice adding to its indul-
gences, Pope Leo XIII, in 1894, permitted its exten-
sion through the world. To join the confraternity
all that is required is to have one's name inscribed
upon the register, which may be done by apply-
ing to the promoters of this devotion, or to the
director. The practices are the daily recitation of a
short prayer found on the certificate of admission
usually given to members, or the recitation of an
Our Father and Hail Mary instead, for the intentions
of the association. Members are also recommended
to offer their actions each Friday, or some other day
of the week, to hear Mass once a week, and to offer a
Holy Communion once a year for the intentions of the
society. None of these practices is obligatory. The
members should be especially zealous in seeing that
those in danger of death have the assistance of a
priest and other aids to die well.
The head of the archconfraternity is the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, who puts the details of the work in the hands of a sub-director of the same congregation. The medal of the arch- confraternity bears on one side a representation of the Agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani, on the reverse. Our Lady of the Seven Dolours. The chief festival is that of the Prayer of Christ, which occurs on Tuesday of Septuagesima week. The society has spread all over the world and has been erected, chiefly but not exclusively, in the churches and chapels of the Lazarists and the Daugh- ters of Charity. While the chapel of the mother- house of the Lazarists in Paris is the seat of the arch- confraternity, and the monthly meetings and the novena preparatory for the feast of the PVayer of Christ are held there, in another part of Paris a chapel of the Holy .\gony has boon built in gratitude for the favours received by the association, and as a testi- monial of reparation and love at the end of the nine- teenth century. The "Bulletin of the Holy Agony" is published every other month in Paris; a quarterly edition in English appears at Emmitsburg, Md. All the details of the association can be found in the " Manual of the Archconfraternity " published at Paris, 95 Rue de Sevres. The director for England and Scotland resides at St. A'inceiit'.-i. Mill Hill, London; for Ireland at St. Peter's, Dublin; and for the L^nited States at St. Vincent's House, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Labigaldie, Antoine Nicolle (Paris, 1909).
B. Randolph.
Holy Alliance. — The Emperor Francis I of Aus- tria, King Frederick William III of Prussia, and the Tsar .\le.xander I of Russia, signed a treaty on 26 September, 1815, by which they united in a "Holy Alliance". Although a political act, the treaty in its wording is a statement purely religious in character. Having in mind the great events of the fall of Napo- leon, and in gratitude to God for the blessings shown to their people, the three monaichs declared their fixed resolution to take as the only rule of their future administration, both in internal and foreign affairs, the principles of the Christian religion — justice, love and peace. They declared that, far from being of value only in individual life. Christian moraUty is also
the best guide in public life. Accordingly the rulers
declared their fraternal feeling towards one another, in
virtue of which they would not only give support to,
but abstain from war with, one another, anti would
guide their subjects and their armies in a fatherly
manner. They declared that they would a<lminister
their office as representatives of God who were called
to guide three great branches of the Christian family
of nations; the rightful Lord of the nations, however,
remains the One to whom belongs all power, our
Divine Saviour, Jesus Christ. They also recom-
mended their subjects with the most tender solici-
tude to strengthen themselves daily in the principles
and practice of the duties which the Saviour taught,
because this was the only way to attain the enduring
enjoyment of that peace which arises from a good
conscience, and which is lasting. In conclusion they
called upon all the Powers to become members of the
alliance. In point of fact, Louis XVIII of France
joined it on 19 November and even the Prince Regent
of England did likewise.
The world had long learned not to expect from states- men official documents in which so religious a tone pre- vailed. When the wording of the agreement became known early in 1816, men saw in the alliance the consequence of the closest union of politics and reli- gion. To a certain extent the world suspected that it veiled a league of the rulers and the churches, espe- cially of the rulers and the papacy, against the nations and their freedom. I'or, besides the success of the Revolution and of Napoleon and the sudden revulsion, nothing occupied and surprised public opinion so much as the universal revival of faith in men's souls, of Chris- tian thought, and of the Catholic Church. Men watched with suspicion this unexpected turn of affairs which was contrary to all the prejudices developed by the rationalism of the eighteenth century. It was also considered possible that the conquerors of Napoleon had in the Holy Alliance bound themselves to the Church, which was regaining its old power, in order by its aid to oppose, for the benefit of royal and papal absolutism, the " liberal " development of States and civilization. The judgment of public opinion, which is always superficial, held a few external signs as evi- dence of the facts which it su.spected behind the alli- ance. Among these indications taken as proofs w'ere, perhaps, the restoration of the States of the Church by the Powers, or the casual and confuseil information that the pulilic grailually inferred from the mighty ideas of Joseph de Maistre, or from the more cir- cumscribed views of Bonald, Haller, and others. In reality, the Church, that is to say, its head, the papal councillors, and the bishops, regarded with coldness this alliance, which took under its wings schism, heresy, and orthodoxy alike, while Catholicism, that is, the total of Catholic individuals and masses taking part in the public life of the nations and states, was even averse or hostile to the alliance. Individual exceptions, in the opinion of the present writer, do not amount to a proof of the contrary.
In this case, as so often in the history of the world, words of seemingly great significance excited notions the more extravagant, the less substance and influence the matter indicated by the statement possessed. The testimony of Prince Metternich, the person most fa- miliar with the subject and the one who, next to the tsar, had the most to do with the founding of the alli- ance, is: "The Holy Alliance, even in the prejudiced eyes of its originator [the tsar], had no other aim than that of a moral manifesto, while in the eyes of the other signers of the document it lacked even this value, and consequently justified none of the inter- pretations which m the end party spirit gave to it. The most unanswerable proof of the correctness of this fact is probably the circumstance, that in all the following period, no mention was made or even could have been made of the Holy Alliance in the corre-
