4 6 4
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
teaching and thwarted his designs. The bishops he railed at as idiotic devotees, incredibly blind, super- naturally foolish. "The J esuits,H he said, " were grenadiers de la folie, and united imbecility with the vilest passions." 1 He fancied that in many dioceses there was a conspiracy to destroy religion, that a schism was at hand, and that the resistance of the clergy to his pr-inciples threatened to destroy Catholicism in France. Rome, he was sure, would help him in his struggle against her faithless assailants, on behalf of her authority, and in his en- deavour to make the clergy refer their disputes to her, so as to receive from the Pope's mouth the infallible oracles of eternal truth. 2 Whatever the Pope might
ecide, would, he said, be right, for the Pope alone was infallible. Bishops might be sometimes resisted, but the Pope never. s It was both absurd and blasphemous even to advise him. "I have read in the Diario di ROlna," he said, "the advice of M. de Chateaubriand to the Holy Ghost. At any rate, the Holy Ghost is fully warned; and if he makes a mistake this time, it will not be the ambassador's fault." Three Popes passed away, and still nothing was done against the traitors he \vas for ever denouncing. This reserve astounded him. Was Rome herself tainted with Gallicanism, and in league with those who had conspired for her destruction? What but a schism could ensue from this inexplicable apathy? The silence was a grievous trial to his faith. "Let us shut our eyes," he said, "let us invoke the Holy Spirit, let us collect all the powers of our soul, that our faith may not be shaken." 4 In his perplexity he began to make dis- tinctions between the Pope and the Roman Court. The advisers of the Pope were traitors, dwellers in the outer darkness, blind and deaf; the Pope himself and he alone \vas infallible, and ,vould never act so as to injure the faith, though meanwhile he was not a\vare of the real state of things, and was evidently deceived by false
1 April 12 and June 25. 1830. S March 30. 1831.
2 Feb. 27. 1831. 4 1'Iay 8 and June 15. 1829.
