The War Upon Religion Part 28

In the meantime the Holy Father's demand that the obnoxious laws be suspended until the consultation in regard to the Concordat should be ended, was received as an ultimatum at Madrid. In answer thereto, Ca.n.a.lejas determined to recall the Amba.s.sador accredited to the Holy See. In consequence he directed a telegram to that effect to Senor Ojeda, who at once set out from the Eternal City without fixing any day for his return, leaving the First Secretary of the Emba.s.sy as his representative. The Papal Secretary of State was informed that "The Amba.s.sador had been recalled to Madrid to receive directions."

This event, however, did not cause any great surprise in Catholic circles. It was well known that the mere recall of an amba.s.sador does not in itself always signify a definite rupture, although in this case it const.i.tuted at least a very serious step.

_FERRER AND THE BARCELONA RIOTS._

For a long time Spain, like Portugal, had been made the camping ground of so-called "progressives," men and women who set out with the theory that the world was wrong and they, the prophets appointed by "destiny"

to set it right. Among these self-const.i.tuted prophets of a new order was a certain Francisco Ferrer of Guardia, the son of a Catalonian farmer, who had acquired some wealth and influence by means that were shown to be disreputable. Fired with an unholy hatred of country and Church, his whole history is one of conspiracy and revolution. He had been actively connected with every effort to overturn established government since 1883. On every occasion he was known to be in active correspondence with the leaders of those revolutions, and was connected with everything they did. 1885, 1892, 1895, 1898 were years that stand out clearly marked in his career of disorder, down to the time when the anarchist Morral attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate King Alphonsus XIII.

After the movement of 1885 he fled to Paris where he chose for his friends men like the Jew, Nacquet, who has the unsavory honor of introducing divorce into the French code. An enemy to the sacred inst.i.tution of marriage, he soon abandoned his wife and three children, and shortly after sealed his desertion by a divorce. To support himself he devoted his time to the teaching of Spanish, in which occupation he made the acquaintance of a middle-aged spinster named Meunier. Out of this friendship Ferrer gained some pecuniary profit, for this woman on her deathbed left him a fortune amounting to $150,000.

With this fortune, after he had become affiliated with the Grand Orient of Paris, Ferrer returned to Barcelona. It was here, in 1901, that he inaugurated his notorious scheme of "the Modern School," while at the same time he increased his fortune by gambling, and lived in a scandalous companionship with a woman of ill fame.

In his "Modern School" Ferrer advocated every doctrine of disorder and insurrection. He chose for his teachers men well known for their anarchistic ideas. His object was to eliminate from the minds of the children every idea of religion, patriotism, and morality. It was not Catholicity alone that he a.s.sailed, but everything that society stands for: the flag, country, marriage, property, family, and State. His school-books contained such teachings as these: "The flag is nothing but three yards of cloth st.i.tched upon a pole;" or "The family is one of the princ.i.p.al obstacles to the enlightenment of men." Other doctrines contained in his teaching are too indecent for reproduction. His princ.i.p.al of the girls' school was Madame Jacquinet, an anarchist who had been driven out of Egypt, and who described herself as "an atheist, a scientific materialist, an anti-militarist, and an anarchist." Another of his professors was that Mateo Morral who attempted to kill the King on his wedding day. Another was Leon Fabre, one of the leaders in the Barcelona riots.

The schools of Ferrer increased in various districts of Catalonia, until about 1906, nearly 2000 children were receiving his instructions. In the spring of 1909, he went to London, where he lived in company with the ex-school mistress. It was while in England that the first signs of discontent in Catalonia began to manifest themselves. The war in Morocco demanded soldiers for its prosecution, and on hearing that the Government was about to make a requisition in Catalonia, Ferrer, on June 11, suddenly left England and hurried back to Barcelona. There he again entered upon his campaign of revolutionary teaching, inflaming the minds of the people against the Government which had the hardihood to ask soldiers for a foreign war.

His teaching had its effect. On July 26, Barcelona broke out into open revolt. There were only 1600 soldiers in the town to meet the a.s.saults of the rioters. The general strike ordered by the workingmen's a.s.sociations crippled all means of trade and commerce. The mobs first a.s.sailed the banks and stores, but finding them too strongly guarded turned their attention elsewhere. The city was placed under martial law, and the small detachment of troops were divided where the danger seemed most imminent. There was no thought of the churches, convents, and religious houses.

Mr. Andrew Shipman, in his expose of the case for McClure's Magazine, describes the horrors of the few days that followed. "The day of July 27 was a ghastly one, filled with smoke, murder, and terror. The kerosene can was used after looting had secured every valuable article, and before midnight the mob had attacked and burned some twenty-two inst.i.tutions in the newer and outer part of Barcelona. The police pursued them as best they could; but the revolutionists were divided by their leaders into sections, attacking churches, schools, and houses simultaneously at remote distances from one another. During the night the King and ministry, who were communicated with by cable--for all telegraph lines were cut--suspended the const.i.tutional guarantees, leaving the city and province in an actual state of war.

"All day on the 28th the burning, looting, and destruction of churches, convents and schools went on; but by nightfall the troops had broken some of the barricades, and began to subdue some sections of the rioters. On Thursday, the 29th, they had the rioting under control, and the revolt was crushed. On Friday the roving bands of anarchists, rioters, and idlers were entirely stopped, and the next day street traffic began again.

"It is sickening to tell of the savagery of the mob. Even the dead nuns were dragged from their coffins and paraded with revolting and obscene orgies, and then thrown into the gutters. Clerical teachers in the schools were stripped, tortured and shot. Even little children were not spared. Churches that had stood as monuments from the days of the Crusades were destroyed; while everything valuable was plundered from them, and from the schools and religious houses. They even stole the clothes and petty jewelry of the girls in the boarding schools."

Immediately after the cessation of hostilities the arrest and punishment of the ring leaders were begun. Among those arrested was Francisco Ferrer, who was tried by a court-martial, found guilty of rebellion and treason, and, on October 13, 1909, was executed.

Although the trial was fair, and has been officially declared such by Ca.n.a.lejas, a man who holds no friendship for the causes of Catholicity and Spanish right, nevertheless the news of Ferrer's execution raised a commotion throughout the world. Strangely enough the odium of the act was saddled directly upon the Catholic Church, against which the secular press delivered itself of diatribes full of bitterness. The fact seemed to be forgotten, or concealed, that the Church had no more to do with the execution than an infant just born. In fact the Holy Father himself had written in terms of clemency; but his advices were disregarded. The matter was purely a political one, the case of a convicted revolutionist, found guilty by one of the fairest courts in the world, and upon the most disinterested testimony. Happily the better instincts of civilization soon awoke to the real character of the whole proceeding, and the Church was exonerated among good men from any complicity, however just, in the death of the traitor.

CHAPTER IX.

The Crisis in Portugal.

Portugal has never yet recovered from the disasters which crushed it at the end of the sixteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth it was already in a state of decadence, which followed princ.i.p.ally on the ruin of the marvelous empire of the Indies, won by Vasco de Gama, Albuquerque, and Juan de Castro, the subjection of Portugal to England by the Treaty of Methuen, and finally in a moral abas.e.m.e.nt such as the times were then producing in France and all countries affected by the French Revolution. This decadence was easily favorable to the reign of the sophists, the encyclopaedists and other open or secret enemies of religion.

It was in Portugal that the notorious Pombal exercised his power by a brutal expulsion of the Jesuits, who had brought so much glory to their fatherland by their missionary successes in Brazil, Paraguay and India.

Pombal had misused the resources of Portugal, leaving that little nation a prey to a profound demoralization, which betrayed itself especially in the higher cla.s.ses of society.

When the French Revolution broke out, Portugal was weakened by its economic dependence on England, a country which took away the wines and olives, and flooded the land with its own industrial products. In this way the triumphal progress of the French armies placed Portugal in a very delicate position. It became a question of following England, and inviting the wrath of the French, or of yielding to Napoleon with the consequent certainty of invasion and ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANUEL II.]

The Prince Regent of Portugal at the time was John VI. of Braganza, who was enjoined by Napoleon to close his ports to the English, and to expel all English persons residing in the country. Upon the refusal of the Regent, Napoleon sent General Junot with an army against Portugal, and John VI. in his terror embarked with his Court for Brazil.

The fortunes of the Portuguese throne were diversified from that time until the present. After the flight of the Regent, John VI., the country was governed some years by the brother of Napoleon, King Joseph Bonaparte. When the French were driven out by Wellington and Moore, the throne reverted to the house of Braganza, but remained under the control of the English Lord Beresford, governing in the name of the absent Regent, then exiled in Brazil. In 1816, the Regent, upon the death of his imbecile mother, Maria I., succeeded to the throne. In 1820 the Cortes adopted a Const.i.tution, and the King, John VI., returning from Brazil in 1821, swore to observe it, accepting it for Portugal and Brazil.

In 1826 John VI. died, and the Portuguese crown should descend in the regular line to his eldest son, Dom Pedro, then reigning in Brazil. As Emperor of the latter country, he could not at the same time be king of Portugal. Hence, in 1826, he renounced his claim to the Portuguese throne in favor of his daughter, Maria da Gloria, a child of seven years. The regency for the child was conferred upon the brother of Dom Pedro, the exiled Dom Miguel, who returned upon invitation for that purpose. The latter, however, recalling the laws which prohibited succession to the throne to the female children, while a brother of the preceding monarch or a son remained, contrived to place himself upon the throne. Dom Pedro, in anger at the event, returned to Portugal in 1831, after abdicating the Brazilian Empire in favor of his son, Dom Pedro II., and began a war with his brother, in favor of the deposed Maria da Gloria. In 1834, Dom Miguel was defeated and forced to leave Portugal.

Thenceforth, the Portuguese crown descended by succession to Dom Pedro V., who succeeded his mother, Maria da Gloria in 1853 and reigned until 1861; Louis I., from 1861 to 1889; Carlos I., from 1889 to 1908, when he was a.s.sa.s.sinated. He was then succeeded by Manuel II., the present unhappy victim of the Revolution of 1910.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEOFILE BRAGA, Provisional President of the Portuguese Republic.]

The Revolution of 1833 was especially marked for its violence. Bishops and priests were imprisoned, and men of very questionable virtue were put in their places. Ecclesiastical property was confiscated, for which indemnity was promised, but never accorded. Convents were suppressed and the religious persecuted. The sacred rites in the administration of the sacraments were regulated by the civil procedure. Only the death of the tyrant, Maria da Gloria, brought some relief to the Church.

The history of Portugal for many years has been a story of gradual decadence. The secret societies aided by English encouragement have honeycombed the country until the terror of the lodges invaded every inst.i.tution and home in the land. A dynasty represented by a king like Carlos I., who showed himself utterly incapable of manly feelings or kingly instincts, gave color to the evil machinations of the hypocritical crew who love to feast upon the decay of ancient glory.

_a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF CARLOS I._

On the first day of February, 1908, a terrible event horrified the world. In the afternoon of that day Carlos I., the King of Portugal, and his son Luis, the heir apparent, were a.s.sa.s.sinated, as they were returning with their family to the royal palace at Lisbon. The conspirators had shot their victims. Queen Amelia courageously shielded her loved ones with her own body, but in vain. If she herself was spared it was not through any pity on the part of the regicides, who would have stricken her as fiercely, if they had not believed they had extinguished the royal line in the blood of the King and his children. For the time being, however, the hopes of the revolutionists were not realized, and the monarchy yet lived in the person of the younger son.

The blood of the victims, in fact, seemed to have infused new virtue into the Portuguese people, who in the horror of the royal tragedy, and the pity aroused for the remainder of the family, tried to forget the past with its faults, and sustained the crown.

The younger son, Dom Manuel, a young man of eighteen, was proclaimed king, in the gloomy afternoon of that sad day, with the t.i.tle of Manuel II. His proclamation to the people made mention of the "abominable crime," declared his adhesion to the Const.i.tution, and promised his every effort for the welfare of his country and the affection of his people.

Manuel was not educated for the throne, and now under the horror of the awful murder, and with the heavy burden of an unexpected royalty, he made every sacrifice to bring about a thorough pacification.

In the two years of his reign Manuel appeared to be, but was not, the ruler. Seven ministries succeeded one to another in the government, all of them under the influence of one determination: to hush up as far as possible the a.s.sa.s.sination of the former king. It would not do to divulge the mysterious connection between the revolutionary regicides and the secret societies.

The first ministry was conservative, but it was quickly driven out of power, to be succeeded by the party of the Left. The door was thus opened to the Republicans. Already in secret they had manifested their power; they had organized plots against individuals, conspiracies against the monarchy, and violent measures against the Church and religion.

Manuel II., as yet too young to give a strong impress to his regime, made close relations with England and France. At home, unhappily, he fell under the secret and malign influence of the very men who had a.s.sa.s.sinated his father. In the Speech from the Throne, delivered on September 23, 1910, at the opening of the Cortes, he betrayed his subjection to the sectaries who surrounded his throne. The Minister Teixeira de Sousa deceived the King in the anti-clerical struggle against the religious orders. His promises were only a sop thrown to the revolutionaries to calm their anger, but they signified that the last blow was being prepared to destroy the monarchy, since the Catholic people showed themselves friendly to it inasmuch as it held out the only guarantee of peace and security.

_REVOLUTION ALWAYS ACTIVE._

In the meantime the Republicans were active, building up their forces, and gaining over the army and navy by their promises and insinuations.

Portugal had forgotten the old traditions which inspired Camoens, the greatest of her poets, to sing the memory of those kings who made the name of Portugal glorious in far-off lands. The modern muse of Portuguese song is represented by a renegade, Guerra Junqueiro, who reviled the ancient glories of his country, and now a demoralized sense sees only the glory of the regicide and the license of anarchy.

The proclamation of the new Republic in Portugal followed a military p.r.o.nunciamento of the type that obtained formerly in uncivilized countries, a manifesto of the army and navy rather than of the people.

The new political inst.i.tution with a poet for its President is the fruit of the revolt of insubordinate officials armed for the a.s.sa.s.sination of their superiors, and of all who would dare to remain faithful to their oath and to their flag. The horde of pretorians, janizaries, and other instruments of tyranny, meant only the momentary preponderance of military power, the followers of a few agitators, the illuminati who relied more on the sharpness of the bayonets than on the justice of any reasons they might adduce.

The European and often the American press viewed the whole disgraceful affair with favor. The daily reviews of the situation spoke in glowing terms of the "pacific and honest" event at Lisbon, while breaking into tirades against the wickedness of the religious.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COSTA.]

Certain it is that on the night of October 4, 1910, while the King was at Lisbon for the purpose of receiving with due honor the new President of Brazil, Marshal Hermes de Fonseca, then visiting Portugal, the Republican conspirators decided to antic.i.p.ate the stroke of revolt by imprisoning the King and preventing him from flying to the Northern provinces. The Vice-Admiral, Candido Reis, awaited with his squadron in the Bay of Lisbon, and gave the signal to turn the fire of the cannon upon the Royal Palace. On land the Sixteenth Regiment of infantry killed the royal officials, joined with the revolutionary mob, took possession of the a.r.s.enal in order to arm the rebels, and launched the war against their sovereign and the throne.

Manuel, taken unawares, found himself practically alone. While his uncle, the Duke of Porto, attempted a desperate defence by placing himself at the head of the mountain artillery, and was constrained to retreat, the young King, abandoned by his councillors and his courtiers, the friends of his brief day of power, determined to shed no unnecessary blood and took refuge in exile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOLDIERS ARRESTING RELIGIOUS.]

There was indeed a moment when the tide of revolution seemed forced back towards failure, and in that moment Candido Reis, the princ.i.p.al instigator of the revolution, committed suicide. The news only aroused the mob to increased fury, and sent them burning with anti-clerical hatred against the helpless religious. The horrors and the excesses of that oppression have been demonstrated by the numberless murders and by the horrible cruelties practised upon the defenceless victims of "Liberty."