FRANCE
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FRANCE
and at the request of the Government, undertook in
Guiana the work of civilizing the unfortunate negroes
taken by the men-of-war from tlie captured slave ships,
and whom she eventually employed as free workmen.
Her example alone would suffice to refute the slander so
often repeated that the French are not a colonizing race.
Only in one part of the world — the Ea.st — is this vast missionary movement aided, however slightly, by the French Treasury. In the Levant a certain number of church schools receive state aid as a help to the spread- ing of the French language, but of late years these suljventions have been opposed and diminished. On 12 December, 1906, M. Dubief, in moving the Budget of Foreign Affairs, proposed to suppress the sums voted in aid of schools contlucted by religious congre- gations in the East. M. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, promised to hasten the work of laicization, and by means of this promise he secured the continuation of the credit of 92,000 francs. It is a matter for regret that the aim of the Chambers for some years past has been to cut down the assistance given by France to these religious schools, and to create in the East French educational institutions of a purely secular character. M. Marcel Chariot, in 1906, and M. Au- lard, in 1907, the one in the name of the State, the other in the interest of la Mission La'iquc, made a crit- ical study of our religious schools in the East, and con- tributed to the laicizing movement which, if success- ful, would mean the dissolution of France's religious clioilllc in the East and a lessening of French political influence.
France at Rome. — Side by side with the part which France has played in the missionary field, the diplo- matic activity at Rome of the Third Republic, in its character of a protector of pious institutions, is worth noting. It tends to prove the depth, the reality, the force which underlay the old saying: Gallia Ecclesice Primogenita Filia.
In 1890, on the occasion of the French working- men's pilgrimage, Count Lefebvre de Behaine, the French ambassador, formally renewed the claims of the French Republic over the chapel of St. Petronilla, founded by Pepin the Short in the basilica of St. Peter. The principal religious establishments over which certain prerogatives were exercised by the French Embassy at Rome, until its suppression in 1903, were: the church and community of chaplains of St. Louis of the French, the French national church in Rome, dating back to a confraternity insti- tuted in 145-1; the pious foundation of St. Yves of the Bretons, which dates from 1455; the church of St. Nicholas of the Lorrainers, which dates from 1622; the church of St. Claudius of the Burgundians, which dates from 1652; the convent of the Trinita on the Pincian Hill, which was founded by Charles VIII, in 1494, for the Friars Minor, and became, in 1828, a boarding school under the care of the French Ladies of the Sacred Heart. There has also been an ancient bond between France and the Lateran Chapter, by reason of the donations made to the chapter by Louis XI and Henry IV, and the annual grant apportioned to it by Charles X, in 1825, and by Napoleon III, in 1863. Although this grant was discontinued by the Republic in 1871, the Lateran Chapter until the sup- pression of the Embassy to the Holy See (1904) always kept up official relations with the French ambassador whom, on the 1st of January each year, it charged with a special message of greeting to the President of the Republic. Lastly, since 12.30 there has always been a French auditor of the Rota. In 1472 Sixtus IV formally recognized this to be the right of the French nation. The allowance made by France to the auditor was discontinued in 1882, but the office has survived, and the reorganization of the tribimal of the Rota made by Pope Pius X (September and Octo- ber, 1908) was followed by the appointment of a French auditor. VI.— 12
EccLE.siASTicAL DIVISIONS. — In 1789 France, with
the exception of the Venaissin, which belonged immedi-
ately to the pope, was divided into 135 dioceses: eigh-
teen archbishoprics or ecclesiastical provinces with one
hundred and six suffragan sees and eleven sees depend-
ing on foreign metropolitans. The latter eleven sees
were: Strasburg, suffragan of Mainz ; St-Die, Nancy,
Metz, Toul, Verdun, suffragans of Trier; and live in
Corsica, suffragans of Genoa or of Pisa. The eighteen
archiepiscopal sees were: Aix, Albi, Aries, Auch, Besan-
9on, Bordeaux, Bourges, Cambrai, Embrun, Lyons,
Narbonne, Paris, Reims, Rouen, Sens, Toulouse,
Tours, Vienue. In 1791 the Constituent Assembly
suppressed the one hundred and thirty-five dioceses
and created ten metropolitan sees with one suffragan
diocese in each department. The (Concordat of 1801
set up fifty bishoprics and ten archbishoprics; the t'on-
cordat of 1817 made a fresh arrangement, which was
realized in 1822 and 182.3 by the creation of new
bishoprics. France and its colonies are at present
divided into ninety dioceses, of which eighteen are
metropolitan and seventy-two suffragan, as follows: —
Metropolitans Suffragans
Aix Marseilles, Fr^jus, Digne, Gap, Nice,
Ajaccio.
Albi Rodez, Cahors, Mende, Perpignan.
Algiers Constantine, Oran.
Auch Aire, Tarbes, Bayonne.
Avignon . . .Niraes, Valence, Viviers, Montpellier.
Besan^on. . . Verdun, Belley, St-Di(5, N,ancy.
Bordeaux . .Agen, Angouleme, Poitiers, Pdri- gueux, La Rochelle, Lu^on, La Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe, W. I.), Reunion (Indian Ocean), Fort-de- France (Martinique, W. I.).
Bourges. . . . Clermont, Limoges, Le Puy, Tulle, St-Flour.
Cambrai . . . Arras.
Chamb^ry . . Annecy, Tarentaise, Maurienne.
Lyons Autun, Langres, Dijon, St-Claude,
Grenoble.
Paris Chartres, Meaux, Orleans, Blois, Ver- sailles.
Reims Soissons, Chalons-sur-Marne, Beau-
vais, Amiens.
Rennes. . . . Quimper, Vannes, St-Brieuc.
Rouen Bayeux, Evreux, S^ez, Coutances.
Sens Troyes, Nevers, Moulins.
Toulouse. . .Montauban, Pamiers, Carcassonne.
Tours Le Mans, Angers, Nantes, Laval.
The Third Republic and the Church in France. — The policy known as anticlerical, inaugurated by Gambetta in his speech at Romans, 18 September, 1878, containing the famous catchword " Le cleri- calisme, c'est I'ennemi", was due to the influence of the Masonic lodges, which ever since that date have shown their hatred even of the very idea of God. If one carefully follows up the series of aspirations ut- tered at the Masonic meetings, there will surely be found the first germ of the successive laws which have been framed against the Church. To justify its action before the people, the Government has asserted that the sympathies of a great number of Catholics, includ- ing many of the clergy, were for the monarchical parties. This policy also presented itself as a retalia- tion for the attempt of the 16th of May, 1877, by which the monarchists had tried to impede in France the progressive action of the Liberals (la Gauche) and of the democratic spirit. Its first embodiments were, in 1879, the exclusion of the priests from the admin- istrative committees of liospitals and of boards of charity; in 1880, certain measures directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890, the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals; and, in 1882 and 1886, the "School Laws" (lois sco- laires) which will later on be discussed in detail.
The Concordat continued to govern the relations of
