FRANCE
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FRANCE
shop. What the Restoration really aimed at was a
public token of obedience to the precepts of religion.
The Law of 12 July, 1880, on the contrary, permitted
work on Sunday. The evil social effects of this law
were soon perceived. Subtile discussions arose in the
Chambers: should the weekly rest, which the labour
organizations demanded, be a day fixed by legislation,
or should it be Sunday? It was for some time feared
that such a legislative prescription would look like
a concession to denominationalism, but the decision
of the Committee on Labour (conseil superieur du
travail) and of many labour unions was explicit in
favour of the Sunday. On 10 July, 1906, a law was
passed finally establishing Sunday as the weekly day
of rest, and providing, moreover, numerous restric-
tions and exceptions the details of which were to be
arranged by administrative regulations. An uncon-
scious homage to the Divine law rendered by an unbe-
lieving parliamentary majority, this enactment, on
account of a certain temporary disturbance which it
occasioned in the country's industry and commerce,
and in the supply of commodities, was the object of
unfortunate animadversions on the part of certain
journals which were in other respects defenders of
Catholic interests. The hostility manifested by a
certain number of prominent Catholics towards the
Sunday rest, and their co-operation with every at-
tempt to restrict the application of the law, produced
a regrettable effect on public opinion.
(b) Oaths. — The form of oath administered in courts of justice is not peculiar to any creed. It supposes a belief in God. The images of Christ have disappeared from the court rooms. Proposals are being considered by the Chambers to suppress the words " devant Dieu et devant les hommes" (before God and man) in the legal form of oath, or to authorize a demand on the part of any atheist to have the oath administered to him in a different form.
(c) Immunities. — Since the law made military ser- vice a universal obligation in France, three enact- ments have followed one another: that of 27 July, 1872, dispensmg ecclesiastics from the obligation; that of 15 July, 1889, which fixed the term of active service for ordinary citizens at three years, and for priests at one; that of 21 March, 1905, fixing the term of active service at two years for priests as for others, and imposing upon them, up to the age of forty-five, all the series of obligations to which members of the reserve and of the territorial army are subject.
(d) Marriage. — Under the old regime parish priests officially registered births, deaths and marriages for the State. In 1787 LouLs XVI accorded to the Protestants the same privilege, which, indeed, they had enjoyed under the Edict of Nantes, from 1595 to 1685. The Revolutionary laws and the Code Napoleon deprived the clergy of this status. Civil marriage was instituted, and the priest was forbidden to solemnize any marriage not previously contracted in the presence of a civil functionary. Immediately after the separation of Church and State (1905), the question was raised, whether this pro- hibition was still to be maintained; the Supreme Court of Appeals {Cour de Cassation) replied in the affirmative, and punished a priest who had blessed a marriage not contracted before the mayor. Certain courts have admitted that if, after a civil marriage, one of the two parties, contrary to previous engage- ments, should refuse to go to the church, this would constitute an injury to the other party so grave as to justify a suit for divnrrr; but this opinion Ls not unan- imous. Catholics, foi- ih.il iiiMllcr, wish to abolish the law requiring the iirc\ ions (■i\ il marriage.
Some of the impiMlinii-nts dcliiied by the Church are not recognized by the State, such as, e. g., the iinpeili- ment of spiritual relationship. One impediment recognized by the civil code (articles 148-150), but which the Council of Trent refused to make a canoni-
cal impediment, in spite of the solicitations of Charles
IX's ambassadors, is that which results from the re-
fusal of parents' consent. The Law of 21 June, 1907,
the chief advocate of which was the Abb^ Lemire,
considerably lessened the obligations imposed on
adults with regard to parental consent, and the dis-
crepancies in this respect between the state law and
the church law have, in consequence, become less
serious.
The Law of 20 September, 1792, admitted divorce, even by mutual consent, and abolished that form of separation which, while terminating cohabitation and community of possessions, maintains the indissolubil- ity of the civil bond. The CivU Code of 1804, though imposing conditions more rigorous than those of the Law of 1792, maintained divorce, and at the same time re-established legal separation {separation de corps). The Law of 8 May, 1816, abolished divorce and maintained separation. The Law of 27 July, 1884, re-established divorce on the grounds of the condemnation of one party to an afflicting and in- famous punishment, of violence, cruelty, and grave injuries, of adultery on the part of either husband or wife; it did not admit divorce by mutual con- sent; it maintained separation and authorized the courts to transform into a divorce, upon the de- mand of either party and cause shown, at the end of three years, a separation which had been granted at the suit of either. This law has recently been aggra- vated by two enactments which permit the adulterous husband to contract marriage with his accomplice and, instead of merely permitting the courts to convert separation into divorce at the end of three years, de- clare this conversion to be of right upon the demand of either party. The annual proportion of divorces to population has increased, from 3.68 per 10,000 inhab- itants in 1900, to 5.57 per 10,000 inliabitants in 1907.
(e) Interments and Cemeteries. — The Decree of 23 Prairial, Year XII, ordered that there should be dis- tinctions of religious beliefs in regard to cemeteries. This decree was abrogated by the Law of 14 Novem- ber, 1881, and since then a Protestant or a Jew may be buried in that part of the cemetery which had until then been reserved for Catholics. The Law of 15 November, 1887, on free interments, forbids any proceedings which may contravene the wishes of a deceased person who has, by "an authentic act", ex- pressed a desire to be buried without religious cere- monies. To annul such an "act", the same normal conditions are required as for the revocation of a will, and in consequence of this law certain death-bed con- versions, when the deceased has not had time to com- ply with the legal conditions of revocation, have been followed by non-religious burial.
The society founded in 1880 to promote cremation brought about, in 1886, the insertion of the word incineration in the law of free interments and, in 1889, the issue of an administrative order defining the condi- tions in which cremation might be practised. Be- tween 1889 and 1904 the number of incinerations performed in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise amounted to 3484.
The Decrees of 23 Prairial, Year XII, and of 18 May, 1806, assigned to the public establishments which had been constituted to administer the property and resources devoted to public worship (fabrigues and consiMoires) a monopoly of all undertaking, that is to say, all moneys received on account of funeral proces- sions, burials or exhumations, draperies, and other objects used to enhance the solemnity of funeral pro- cessions. Most of the jabriques, in the important towns, exploited this monopoly through middlemen. Some years ago, attention was called in the Chambers to the fact that fhi' ])r(ifits derived from non-religious interments, as well as frmn religious, were being taken by the jabriques, and upon this pretext the Law of 28 December, 1904, laicized the business of funeral-
