As a matter of fact most of them went into exile and remained there until 1914. When the war broke out, all those who were of military age returned to France ready to defend their country.
When one of two contracting parties thus treats the other, a rupture is morally certain and a trifle will suffice to precipitate it. But something remains to be said of three incidents which aggravated the situation and served as a pretext for the inevitable conclusion of these quarrels, namely, the divorce of the ill-mated union which the Church in France and the state had formed.
According to Article 5 of the Concordat athe nomination to the bishoprics should rest with the Chief Council and canonical institu tion should be administered by the Holy See? It appears as if this article, properly inter preted, safeguarded the rights of the two powers. The government presented candidates to the Pope; their qualifications were considered and discussed, if there was occasion to do so; and when an agreement was reached be tween the two powers, their names appeared in the official journal of France. Afterward the Pope conferred spiritual authority upon the candidates, who were so nominated. Nothing on the face of it could be simpler than this. Some difficulties having arisen about the Latih translation of the word nomination in the offi cial letter instituting the bishops, Pope Pius X yielded and altered the letters according to the requirements of M. Combes. But the Minister was not content with that victory. He de clared that in future the candidates chosen as bishops by the government would be nominated in the official Journal without waiting to in quire whether the Holy See would accept them or not. The consequence was that priests worthy of the honor refused to be nominated under these conditions, which were without doubt contrary to the spirit of the Concordat, and it came to pass that 15 dioceses were de prived of bishops.
The second incident was of a quite dif ferent order. Even if the Holy See itself ap pears to regard as impossible the restora tion of the temporal power, it does not wish to recognize by any formal act of renunciation the spoliation which it suffered in 1870, and it requires that the heads of Catholic countries do not come officially to Rome and thus ap parently condone such spoliation. All Catholic sovereigns have thus far conformed to that desire. The French government did not deem it its duty to conform to the demand; and hav ing received in Paris in October 1903, a visit from the Italian sovereigns, it was thought that courtesy and the interests of France demanded that the President return that visit in Rome, and M. Loubet was sent there for that purpose
in April 1904. At the end of the same month a confidential protest was sent by Cardinal Merry del Val, Papal Secretary of State, to all the powers with which he was in diplomatic relations, to the effect that the official coming of the French President to Rome was a grave offense against the right and dignity of the Holy See.
As long as the protest remained secret, nothing resulted from this platonic document; but about a month after its issue, a Socialist newspaper published a copy of it, and the storm burst. The newspapers friendly to the government declared that France had been grossly insulted, and the Cabinet of M. Combes ordered the immediate recall of the French Ambassador at the Vatican.
The Papal nuncio, however, still remained in Paris, and a secretary was left in the French embassy at Rome. The relations were not therefore entirely broken. The affair of the bishops of Dijon and Laval served to cut the last remaining knot. Those two prelates had long before been denounced to Rome as utterly unfit to govern dioceses. It is very difficult to know the truth of the matter, for political passions were much excited against them.. At any rate, the important question was not that of knowing whether they were in nocent or guilty, but whether the Pope could, according to the Concordat, compel their res ignation without prior agreement with the French government. The Cabinet maintained that the bishops, having been nominated by mutual consent, could only be deposed by mutual consent. Pius X did not directly op pose this principle, since he requested their resignation instead of issuing an order for their deposition. While they were trying to escape a decision, he ordered them to come to Rome under penalty of suspension from their spiritual powers. The Minister, on his side, forbade them to leave France and sent an ultimatum to Rome to require the withdrawal of its last orders and threats. Cardinal Merry del Val replied by conciliatory explanations, but main tained, in principle, the right of the Pope to deprive unworthy bishops of spiritual power. Without any more discussion, the Minister tele graphed to the French chargé-d'affaires to notify the Vatican that °the government of the Republic had decided to put an end to the official relations which, by the will of the Holy See, had become superfluous." This notice was handed in without delay, and on 30 July 1904, the chargi-d'affaires of France left Rome, while the nuncio received orders from the Pope to -quit Paris. And thus sadly ended the re lations which had lasted for 14 centuries be tween France and the Holy See.