LAMENNAIS, InneniV, lItouEs F•racrrf; ROBERT DE ( 1782-185 t). A French religious and political writer, of great influence in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. He was born at Saint-.Malo, and educated largely by his uncle, a fervent opponent of the Encyclopedists. The boy, however, was a passionate admirer of seau. His first published work. leglerions stir l'Oat de 17.glise en France pendant le XVIIHme sh'ele (1808), was a vigorous attack on istic philosophy. In conjunction with his brother, after the fall of Napoleon. who had suppressed the former work, he produced La tradition (le su• l'institution des (1814). On Napoleon's return lie was obliged to take refuge in England. where lie was befriended by Abbe Caron. In 1813 lie entered the Seminary of Saint Sulpice• and was ordained priest the following year. His next work—the first volume of his Essai stir l'indiVrence en atolls-re de religion (181S)—made his name famous throughout rope. The second volume (1820) was occupied with the difficult problems of the theory of knowledge, and put forward his doctrine of the communi8 ,,cfisits as the only secure criterion of truth. lie expanded his system at greater length in two succeeding volumes (1821-23), and put forward a Defense de ressai stir rencc (1822) against an opposition of increasing violence, in which his old Seminary of Saint Sulpice and most of the French bishops joined. lie turned from these controversies to (Aurally convinced and eager public action. With Cha teaubriand he defended absolute monarchy in the Consercateu• of 1818-20; in the fhljeffscuir, the Dropeau Blane, and the Quotidiennc he stood with the extreme Royalists. lie attacked the re mains of the Gallican spirit in the clergy, and criticised the University of Paris, the religious Orders, and the bishops with a bitterness that did no good. On his visit to Rome in 1824 his friendly reception by Pope Leo NH. gave rise to the rumor that lie was to be made a cardinal; but Lamennais soon alienated the Pope as well as the bishops of France by endeavoring to reconcile political liberty with ecclesiastical absolutism.
Upon the accession of Louis Philippe, Laliten nais, with Lacordaire and Montalcinbert, estab lished a journal called L'A renir, which de manded liberty of conscience, of education, of the press, free intercourse with Home, abstinence from Government interference in episcopal elec tions. The paper grew powerful, and the Govern ment, which had laughed at it, now threatened it. Lanicnnais and Lacordaire were prosecuted, and the former threw himself more ardently into opposition. lit 1832, after some of his writings had been censured by a synod of Southern French bishops at Toulouse, the Papal encyclical Mirari Vos was accompanied by a personal letter from Cardinal Pacca which Wa rned him to be more sub missive. In obedience to the Pope, lie suspended the publication of L'.Irenir, and professed sub mission, which, however, lie showed in his letters and anonymous articles was far from being thor ough, and on November 5, 1833, lie spoke out un mistakably in a letter addressed to the Pope lint published at the same time. which made an unequivocal claim to the right of perfect freedom of thought and expression in matters purely political and secular. However, when an
answer came from Rome requiring an uncondi tional submission to the teaching of the encycli cal, lie finally yielded to the entreaties of his brother and the Archbishop of Paris, and on De cember llth signed the required formula. None the less, lie took occasion to make it known that he had submitted merely for the sake of peace.
It became abundantly clear, in fact, that La inennais was.drifting further away from his old faith, when in May 1834, lie published Paroles d'iin croyant—in Guizot's phrase, "the words of a believer who has lost his faith." It was noth ing less than a formal declaration of Ivor against monarchy and Papacy at once, preaching revolu tion as a sacred duty, and looking to the emer gence of a new civil society and a new Christian ity. Various governments suppressed the hook as fast as it was translated; and the Pope con demned it in the encyclical Singulari Nos of July 15, 1834. Lamennais's defense appeared under the title A 'Mires de Rome (2 vols., 1836) preach ing a combination of deism and democracy as the religion of the future. For Le pays et le gourcrnement (1840) he was condemned as sedi tious and punished by a year's imprisonment and a fine of 2000 francs. On his release he pur sued his crusade with unrelenting bitterness. Though rejecting the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, he endeavored to retain it as a re ligion of brotherhood, and in his E•quisse d'unc philosophie (4 vols., 1841-46) threw his ideas into philosophical form. He hailed the Revolution of 1848 as the dawn of the new day, and, as a Deputy to the Constituent Assembly, drew tip a complete plan for a social organizathm which was to be the salvation of France and of Europe. \\ hen it was rejected, he took no further part in public affairs, and now despaired even of his COM ntunktie Christianity. Ile withdrew to La Chesnaye, and the coup cFkat of December, 1851, put the finishing stroke to his hopes. Ile died February 27, 1854, refusing all religious minis trations, and was buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave in Pere-Lachaise.
Consult: his works, (EUVrC8 complites (10 vols., Paris, 2d ed. 1844-47) ; (Et/Tres posthumes, edited by Forgoes (5 vole,, ib., 1855-58) ; (Eurres inMits, edited by Blaize (ib., 1866) ; Correspond once (2d ed. by Foroues, ib., 1864) ; Confidences de Lamennais, edited by Bois de la Villerabel (ib., 1886) : inedites d Montalembert, edited by Fo•g-ues (fit., 1898) Henan, Essais de morale et de critique (ib., 1854) ; Scherer, Etudes Site In lith'rature contcmporaine (lb., 1876-83) ; Sa inte- Ben ve, Portraits coutemporains (iii., 1351 ; Dowden, Studies in Literature (2d ed., London. I890) ; danet. La philosophic de La i s (Paris, 1890) ; Spuller, Lamennais 1892) ; Gibson, The :Ibbe sic Lamennais and the Liberal Catholic Morement in ['ranee (London, 1896) : Lamennais intimc (Paris, 189i 1 ; Lilly, "Laniennais," in Fortnightly Re view (London, I499) ; Kaufmann, Christian So cialism ISSS) ; Brandes, Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Literature, English transla tion. vol. iii., "The French Reaction" (London, 1903).