The origin of modern Ultramontanism is preceded and con ditioned by the collapse of Catholicism in the period of the French Revolution. Pius VI. and Pius VII. were expelled from Rome, deprived of the papal States, and banished to France. In that country the Church almost completely lost her possessions ; in Germany they were at least considerably curtailed; in both the hierarchical organization was shattered, while the Catholic laity surveyed the catastrophe in complete passivity. But from this severe fall the Church recovered with comparative readiness, and the upward movement is contemporaneous with the rise of Ultramontanism. The birth of that system, however, cannot be fixed as a definite event by the day and the hour ; nor was it created by any single personality. Rather it was the product of the first post-revolutionary generation. Neither is it merely f or tuitous that the reaction proceeded from France itself. For in no other country had hostility to religion attained such a pitch or assumed such grotesque forms; and consequently in no other country did the yearning for religion manifest itself so unequivo cally, when experience had demonstrated the necessity of a return to law and order. And in the other States of Europe there existed, more or less, a similar desire for peace and an equal dread of a fresh outbreak of revolutionary violence. In contrast to the strug gle for an ideal freedom, which was at first hailed with tempes tuous delight only to reveal itself as a dangerous tyranny, men became conscious of the need for a firmly established authority in the reconstruction of society. At the same time, the repression of idealism and sentiment during the period of "illumination" was amply revenged, and the barren age of reason gave place to Ro manticism. These tendencies in contemporary opinion favoured
the renovation of the Catholic Church.
The papacy signalized its reinstation by restoring the Society of Jesus (1814) and re-establishing the Index. In Germany Ultra montanism had to contend with great difficulties; for here ecclesi astical affairs were not in so desperate a case that the most drastic remedies possessed the most powerful attraction; while, in addi tion, the clergy were unwilling to renounce all scientific work. The result was that a series of struggles took place between the old Catholicism and the new Ultramontanism. But even here Ultramontanism gained ground and derived inestimable assistance from the blunders of government after government. The growth of Jesuitical influence at Rome—more especially after the re turn of Pius IX. from exile—implied a more definite protection of Ultramontanism by the papacy. The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 was more than the decision of an old and vexed theological problem; it was an act of conformity with a pietistic type especially represented by the Jesuits. The Syllabus of 1864, however, carried with it a recogni tion of the Ultramontane condemnation of some aspects of modern culture (see the articles Pius IX. and SYLLABUS). Finally, in the Vatican Council, the Jesuits saw another of their favourite theories —that of papal infallibility—elevated to the status of a dogma of the Church (see VATICAN COUNCIL and INFALLIBILITY).