These articles, four in number, are considered the charter of Gallicanism. The first declares that "the jurisdiction of Saint Peter and his successors in the Roman see as vicars of Christ on earth, although divinely bestowed, is con fined to things spiritual, and does not extend to civil or temporal affairs." The second renews the declaration of the Council of Constance as to the superiority of a general council to the Pope, and declares that the articles passed in the third and fourth sessions of the council are not to be restricted in their application to a period of schism such as existed at the time of the council. The third asserts that the authority of the Pope is to be restricted by the canons of the universal Church, and that "the laws, customs, and constitutions of the realm and of the Gal lican Church remain in full force." The fourth declares that "the Pope has the principal share in the decision of questions of faith; his decrees re gard all the churches and each church in par ticular; nevertheless, his judgment is not irre formable unless the consent of the entire Church be added to it." It has been pointed out that since the Vatican Council, adherence to this last proposition would amount, for Roman Catholics, to formal heresy. The chief laws and customs referred to in the third article are that the National Church of France is not bound to re ceive all the decrees of councils and of popes in matters of discipline, and that only such decrees as are formally received are in force in France; that the Galilean Church holds itself free to re ceive or reject the rules of the Roman Chancery; that the Roman Pontiff cannot levy any impost upon the French clergy without their consent; that he cannot bestow of his own motion on a foreigner any benefice properly belonging to the Gallican Church; that neither the Pope himself, nor his legates, can hear French causes 'in the first instance,' and that even in cases of appeal he is bound to assign French judges to hear the cause, even should the appellant be a metropoli tan or primate; finally, it is asserted that the French bishops shall not be required to attend any general council, unless with the permission of the Crown. The last of these customs, as also those which make the reception of the general canons of discipline optional in France, and which practically throw the decision into the hands of the civil power, have been not unreason ably called the `slaveries' rather than the 'liber ties' of the Gallican Church. It was not long before Bossuet declared that "the liberties of the Church are constantly appealed to against the Church and to her detriment." Fenelon wrote: "In practice the King of France is now more the head of the Church than the Pope. Liberty toward the Pope; servitude toward the King. The King's power over the Church has fallen into the hands of the civil tribunal. Laymen lord it over the bishops. Secular judges go so far as to examine even those Papal bulls which relate only to matters of faith." Louis was resolved, nevertheless, to enforce the declarations strenuously. By royal edict he com manded the acceptance of the four articles and their incorporation into the acts of parliaments and universities. Professors were required to teach them and bishops to swear to them. The Sorbonne objected, but was compelled to submit. Outside of France, distinct disapproval marked the declaration; Pope Innocent XI. received it in silence, but refused to raise to the episcopate any members of the assembly who were subsequently nominated. His successor, Alexander VIII., con demned the declaration in 1690. Two years later Louis wrote to Innocent XII. that his edict con cerning the Declaration of Rights no longer held, and that he wished all the world to recognize his veneration for the Pope. The declaration was not, however, formally withdrawn, and was sub sequently condemned by Clement XI. in 1706, and again by Pius VI. in 1794.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes scarcely belongs in strictness to an ecclesiastical survey, since, like the original promulgation, it was sup posed to be an act of political wisdom. The Huguenots, as Lavalee remarks, preserved to ward the Government the attitude of children in disgrace, and toward the Catholics that of disdainful enemies; they persisted in their isola tion; they kept up a continual correspondence with their friends in England and Holland, even when those countries were hostile to their own.
"France," says Michelet, "found a Holland in its own bosom which was rejoicing at the success of the other." On the eve of the formation of the League of Augsburg against him, Louis XIV. could hardly have been expected to leave such a stronghold of anarchy within his kingdom as the privileges of the Edict of Nantes had come to constitute. The act of revocation was received with a chorus of enthusiastic applause from all sorts of people in France. Bossuet burst forth into a joyful panegyric; Fenelon, who has been represented as the apostle of toleration, laid it down clearly that "though no sovereign may re quire interior belief in religious matters from his subjects, he may prevent the public exercise, or the profession, of opinions or ceremonies which disturb the peace of the commonwealth, by the diversity and multiplicity of sects." The laity applauded the King not less than the clergy; the great Chancellor, Le Tellier, after a life of noble and high-minded service to his country, died with the Nunc dimittis upon his lips, saying that he had nothing left to wish for after this final act of his long ministry. The consequences to reli gion were not, however, altogether happy; and the gentle methods of persuasion employed by the Lazarists, Sulpicians, Doctrinaires, and Thea tines, who went as missionaries among the Huguenots, were probably far more efficacious in producing real conversions than were the dragon nades.
The general tone of laxity which characterized the eighteenth century did not fail to have its effect upon the Church, infecting at least the higher clergy with a spirit of worldliness and selfish devotion to ease and pleasure. A terrible punishment came upon them in the Revolution. The Constituent Assembly first laid hands upon the property of the Church to meet its financial needs, and then assumed to tamper with her organic structure. The 'Civil Constitution of the Clergy,' decreed on July 12, 1790, was but a natural outcome of Gallican principles; yet its arbitrary suppression of dioceses and estab lishment of others, its provision for the election of bishops and cures by the people and their pay ment by the State, whose stipendiaries they were to become, raised the weightier question as to whether, after all, the civil power was to impose laws upon the spiritual without the concurrence of its legitimate rulers. From this time Gal licanism, as a system, has steadily declined; and while it is true that French bishops in the nine teenth century have been, as a rule, less ultra montane than others, they seem to have learned the necessity for the supremacy of the head of their Church in religious matters. In fact, since the Vatican Council, it may be said that Gal licanism as a factor in French Church history has almost entirely disappeared.
The attempt just mentioned of the Constituent Assembly to separate the French Church from Rome, and to make it a mere department of the newly organized State, brought about a condition of affairs very like a schism. Those who sub mitted to take the oath to support the new order of things, the Constitutional clew as they were called, were regarded by the stricter Catholics as having forfeited their rights, and in the more conservative provinces, like Brittany, the people refused to attend their ministrations. On the other hand, those who refused the oath were sub jected to increasingly heavy penalties by the Revolutionary Government. and either exiled as a last resort to the pestilential swamps of Guiana or executed. Their faithfulness, however. had its reward; when religion once more held up its head after the excesses of the Terror, the Con stitutional organization gradually disappeared; and a modes rivendi was reached in the Con cordat of 1501 by Napoleon, who was acute enough to see the advantage to his newly founded dynasty of the support of the Church. This, having proved not entirely satisfactory, was re viewed after the Restoration, in 1817; but the new instrument, which was in many particulars a return to that of 1516, was not approved by the Chambers, and the Church remained for several years uneasily fluctuating between two concordats, neither of which was fully executed, until in 1822 an arrangement was concluded by which thirty prelates were added to the existing hierarchy, its total number being thus fixed at eighty.