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4 t June 1, 1989
•
I ss
Fr. Francis E. Fenton
'he is a traditional publica- not, with two or three exceptions, speak out unequivocally
illustrious bishop staunch de- from to on this so very Would not
fender of the of the fourth century, Athanasius, some people (not knowing otherwise) assume that
"the champion of orthodoxy." Although many publications such priests accept John Paul II as a pope since by their
carry, in addition to their name, a subtitle identifying silence on the matter they presumably convey that impres-
them or specifying their purpose, this newsletter has always sion? (It is essential to the success of the nefarious efforts of
borne merely the name: The Athanasian. If, however, this the enemies and destroyers of the Church that the pretense of
publication were to have a subtitle, it might well "A Voice John II as a true Pope be preserved.)
Crying in the Wilderness." While I have no intention of adding
those words as a I do think it would a rather appro- In a word, because I believe that the papal validity or nonval-
priate one to Athanasian the generality idity of John Paul II is far and away the essential question
of broadly similar traditional Catholic printed in relating to the vast Church problem, it is my contention that
the USA. is not a solitary voice among such any priest who is a sedevacantist should so identify himself
publications but it certainly is a rare one. loudly and clearly. (A sedevacantist, a term anglicized from
two Latin words, is one who believes that the Chair of Peter is
And why do I think it appropriate to describe newsletter as presently vacant or, in other words, John II is not a
"a voice crying in wilderness"? For two reasons, the first valid pope.) Only when those priests and informed laity who
being the more obvious. And that is the outspoken, unquali- are sedevacantists openly and without reserve identify them-
fied, unc0mpromising position we have past sev- selves as such will it be possible, I even to begin the
eral years on the Church and its leader, John IL restoration of the Church, a process which demands as a
I know of I;JO comparable publication in the (of starting point the unmasking of John II. further, un-
those I would consider reputable and having any national cir- less and until the massive deception that he is an authentic
culation) which has publicly and dearly taken that inflexible Vicar of is publicly and effectively and ex-
stand, namely, that the Conciliar Church is not the Roman posed, John II will continue to one of the prime forces
Catholic Church that its head, John Paul II, is not a valid contributing to the long-planned establishment of a One
Pope. The true humanly speaking, has never been in World Church.
more dire straits in the entire course of history than it is
today-and, I contend, this utterly deplorable situation will And then there is a second reason which inclines me to de-
further and further degenerate as long as the Pope in scribe as "a voice in the wilderness"
the Vatican continues to be recognized as a true pontiff. Not and that reason is found in or derives from the writings of
that any widespread recognition and realization of the fact that John Weiskittel who, I might note, has no idea that he is
John Paul II is a non-Pope (to say nothing of the part he is the subject of a portion of this article.
playing in the formation of the One World Order) will in itself
solve the myriad problems besetting the Church-but the Some 50 articles by Mr. Weiskittel have appeared in the pages
awareness of this reality on a sufficiently large is an ab- of this newsletter over the past eight years. Those articles-
solute prerequisite for any possible beginning of a solution to accurate, comprehensive, informative and diligently re-
the Church situation. The Conciliar Church is not the true searched-have covered a wide variety of subjects, some of
Church and John n is not a true Pope-this is the bottom them being subjects but rarely, if at treated in other
line. publications of this kind (for example, Christi, the New
Age Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., Opus Dei, Mormon-
I firmly believe, proves beyond the ism and several articles on Freemasonry). article in this
'"''"'v''"''"""' doubt that he is a heretic- issue of on the French
a cellent quality
has provided. over past sev-
,,…,.,""""" "'' ~ in correspondence or in personal con-
commended Mr. Zh'ld have
I am to The
Athanasian. I am well aware
years.
1, July
Class Mall)
Air
never or watered
any matter which we felt that that
equivocally stated-what, I occasionally myself, AOlrutmn.al c«mie:s: single copy. $ L50
show, in terms of concrete achievements, for our 10 -$12.00
past decade? impact we made or more to same -,riri ..occ – $1.00 ea
during that of time? I know that,
not concrete results that count but rather we have a right Box
intention that what we are publishing is the unvarnished Colorado Snriini:Js. CO 80937
buth. Still, it would be nice if we could see some substantial
results of our efforts over the past ten years. The Athanasian's Telephone: (719) 636-1575
voice crying in the wilderness" for that of time
can indeed become disheartening and does tend to Manuscripts sent to us for possible publication in The
tion. Athanasian should typewritten, double-spaced and no
in length. If not accepted, they will
As long as our finances hold out we fully intend to be returned to sender. No articles from newsletter
keep plugging away, always cherishing hope that The Ath- may be reproduced either in whole or in without the
nn,7<:Mrn may beCOffie a ,.,,,-,,,.,,frn Significant written permission of the
for God and moral upon the scene.
Hope springs etemalt
2 JUNE 1,
John Kenneth Weiskittel
ach year on July millions of French citizens celebrate effect5 … (Martin McCrory & Robert Moulder, French Revo-
eir nation's "Independence Day." This year's Bastille lution for Be.qinners; Writers & Readers, p. 44)
Day-which commemorates as always a Parisian mob's storm-
ing the fortress prison called the Bastille (symbolically The capture was made easier because the commander of the
representing start of the French Revolution)-is sure to Paris troops had not been decisive. a result, Launay, the
include more than the usual amount of spectacular fireworks prison's governor, was forced to surrender, after receiving as-
and political pontificating, since it marks the 200th anniver- surances that no harm would come to him or his men. What
sary of the event followed was at once a display of the Revolution's mentality
and a grisly preview of the horrors that would haunt France
Already travel agents are promoting attractive tour packages for much of the next decade: No sooner was the drawbridge
to France (it doesn't hurt that this year is also the centennial lowered than the mob murdered Launay and five officers. His
of the Eiffel Tower). Business will undoubtedly be good, but severed head was paraded through the streets of Paris as a
we have to wonder just how many among the throngs of tour- battle trophy.
ists will have an inkling of precisely what the French Revolu-
tion really signifies. Our guess is, probably very few; Myth No. 2-The Fall of the Bastille was a spontaneous pop-
ular uprising. On the face of it this would seem plausible since
By and large, they would, if asked, regurgitate the pat formula thousands of rank-and-file Parisians took part However,
they learned in history class: The French Revolution was a other elements need to be factored into this scene. Only
popular uprising of a freedom-starved people against a ty- weeks before at sessions convoked at Versailles, the Estates
rannical monarch and marked a major turning point in mod- General-a council of mostly upper-class representatives-
em history. As we will show in the next few pages, the first had defied King Louis XVI and set up a National Assembly.
part of this is utterly false and the second true, but true in a Many of these men embraced the anti-Catholic freethinking of
sense quite unlike that imagined by the average sightseer in Voltaire and other philosophes, and there were a number of
Paris. them who conspired against the crown and thought nothing
of buying agitators. There is much evidence to suggest that
Myths The Kev'oh11tion the siege of the Bastille was merely the final in a series of
Before examining causes, characters and consequences of manipulations. As a dress rehearsal for the Revolution,
the French Revolution, it might be a good idea to dispense broke out in several cities in the spring of 1775, less than two
with a few common misconceptions regarding it This is nec- months before Louis' ascension to the throne. The first of
essary (as is the article in general) because so much of the vast these, which took place on April 18 in Dijon and which osten-
literature written about Revolution comes down squarely sibly protested the high price of bread, "bore the ea.."111arks
on the of the "liberators" and accepts their views as es- outside engineering" according to the anonymous author of
sentially accurate ones. This bias tends to pervade a sizable the excellent and (alas) unfinished study. Seventeen
portion of those volumes often found in bookstores, libraries Nine. (American Opinion Preview Series, 1968, p. 30) He
and classrooms. Some of the myths reside more commonly in goes on to note that, "for some curious reason, (the rioters)
the public imagination and are permitted to remain there- protested the scarcity of grain by breaking into and destroying
some of these even refuted by pro-Revolution writers, but all the grain they could find in town," and that, eleven days
there is little effort made to communicate this to the man in later, "two whole boatloads of grain were dumped into the
the street. river at Pontoise." (ibid) Following on the heels of these dis-
turbances was the "organized rioting" at Versailles and Paris
Myth No. taking of the Bastille was done to free hun- (the so-called Flour War) that had as its leaders-"not peas-
dreds of political prisoners. One of tl-ie most persistent false- ants but hired thugs." (ibid)
hoods regarding the Revolution is the claim that the mob
moved against Hie ancient fortress to liberate victims of op- Who was capable of financing not one but numerous such dis-
pression. So thoroughly has this been disproved that rare is turbances from 1775 to No doubt several noblemen
the author who will risk his reputation by suggesting it To cite contributed to the Revolutionary coffers because this was-
but one recent work: regardless of what historians would have us believe-primarily
an upper-class struggle, a "revolution from above." Rising
The Bastille was stormed in order to obtain ammunition above all others, however, was the Duke of Orleans, the cou-
and not, as popular mythology would to insist, out of sin of Louis who coveted his crown. (One of his less bloody
any particularly strong desire to release its prisoners. The enterprises was to pay a crowd to cry "Long live the Duke of
infamous dungeons had long since fallen into disuse and, Orleans!" as Queen Marie Antoinette passed by at the open-
at the time of the attack, those unfoitunates lodged within ing of the Estates General.) As France's wealthiest citizen (his
the building itself numbered only seven … With the fortress estates covered 10,000 square miles or I/20th of the nation's
already scheduled for demolition, the significance of the total area), such expenditures were ridiculously easy for him.
attack lay more in psychological rather than actual (Joseph Barry, Passion & Politics: A Biography of Versailles,
ATHANASIAN 3 JUNE 1, 1989
pp.
in his important
was behind a
factory owned by a man was
ployees and whose only "crime" was
elected to instead of the ,, …………,,u..,.., of food were being
tected by O'Brian, hfDCYnn,CH by one the prime conspirators,
p. 322) When Bastille fell, the mob was by army There can be no doubt, historian Webster
serters and, as L'i.ough scripted, on the same day the provost confirmed in French Revolution, "that the famine of
of Paris was murdered. There was also "open t.alk" in the days 1789 was deliberately engineered by agents of the duke,
that preceeded it at the Duke's palace in Paris "of dethroning and that by this means the people were driven to pitch
Louis XVI and replacing him by Orleans." (ibid, p. 326) In of desperation necessary to produce the Revolution." 2)
October of the same year the Duke sponsored a march on
palace at Versailles by 15,000 traitorous soldiers and 18,000 But this was only the first stage; next,
civilian troublemakers; royal guards were murdered and the
king and queen forced to return to (Father Guggen- … word was spread that "the court" was deliberately
berger, A History of the Christian Era, Vol. ducing a shortage food. an interesting coincidence,
Herder, 1928, pp. 149-50) This contrived uprising was clearly the masses chose exactly the week in March-while
seen as such when "(t)he Duke of Orleans acknowledged, be- the representatives of the Estates General were being
fore his death, he expended above Sterling chosen by H1e provincial assemblies-to rise up against the
the " (John Robison, "speculators." In Provence alone there were in fifty
Western Islands, of communes (the smallest territorial divisions-JKW).
work, p. conspirator, the Mira- the military commander at Marseilles, wrote in
summed it up in a perfectly French way: a hundred his report that it was no longer a question of "isolated riots
louis you can have a very elegant riot" (cited, Fay, p. 322) as at ordinary The process is directed by unifonn
principles." There was but one exception to the uniform
Myth No. was fought to help economic principles. One commune was spared disorder, the com-
lot of the common folk. romantic view fails to take much mune of Mirabeau. (Seventeen Eighty Nine, p. 119)
into account France, most prosperous European state at
the time (it held half the money in circulation), no more But it is revealing that, even after Louis was overthrown, he
poor than any other nation and arguably less. historian remained quite popular-especially with members of the
Charles Breunig writes: working class, for whom he had a particular affection. In
September, 1792, four months before the King's execution,
One of the most common misconceptions about revolu- the revolutionist Danton complained, "the Republicans are an
tions is· that they occur in societies that are economically infinitesimal minority … the rest of France is attached to the
depressed and on the of collapse. Never this view monarchy." (cited, Hoar, p. The Revolution did not put an
been more clearly it wa<; by state of end to famines (one in was so severe tl-iat in Paris
affairs in prerevolutionary which, during the half meat was reserved for the sick) and the poor by the thousands
century before 1789, enjoyed a period of steady economic perished in the Reign of Terror. Their "crime" of being pro-
growth indicated by rising industrial production, an expan- monarchy was only surpassed by another offense: loyalty to
sion of the volume of foreign trade, and the increasing the Roman Catholic Faith.
prosperity of the merchant class … The French peasants
were undoubtedly better off in many respects than Myth No. 4-Louis XVI was a tyrant and had to be removed.
counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe but they were This notion, fostered by the Revolutionists, is today held, for
still far from satisfied with their lot (The Age of Revolution the most part, only by those who haven't researched the
& Reaction, 1789-1850, Norton, 2nd ed., 1977, p. 2) period very closely. Pick up the average Establishment history
book and you will probably search in vain for the word "ty-
Even Thomas Jefferson, certainly no friend of throne, was rant," so long discredited is the calumny. Instead, those books
forced to admit to the Marquis de Lafayette: "I have been fall back on milder fonns of libel. Louis, they would have us
pleased to find among the people a less degree of than believe, suffered from a "lack of character," was "fatally inde-
I had expected. They are generally well-clothed have cisive," "a well-meaning man but not clever" and "a vulgar
plenty of food … " (William Hoar, Architects of Conspiracy, oaf, simpleminded and cowardly." These remarks, and so
Western Islands, 1984, p. 2) In Seventeen Eighty Nine we many others like them, have continued to sully the memory of
read that economic reforms were already under way: a ruler who in many ways was one of the finest Christian kings
"Serfdom itself had already disappeared in France; and the who ever lived.
peasants owned more land than anybody else." (p. 2) So how
do we explain why a fair amount of working people were When one reads an objective study of Louis XVI it quickly be-
drawn into Revolution? To answer, we need only turn our comes evident that, as a Catholic who took his faith seriously,
attention again to the activities of the Duke of Orleans and his he would have quite literally regarded despotism as a grave
cohorts. In the years leading up to 1789, the nation was hit by sin. His equally pious father, Louis Dauphin, who patiently
THE 4 JUNE 1, 1.989
endured taunts of philosophes ary ot Quotations, 2nd 1955, p. 329, and Macmillan
built at Versailles in honor of the Sacred earlier had Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases, 1968, pp.
written that a "must the Divinity as his model when 274-75) Frankly, it is hard to imagine the queen expressing
he wields power… mustsubmit to U1e laws, although he is their any sort of harsh feelings toward the less fortunate: she was
chief master''; that the nobility should act as "the link" be- the daughter of the pious Catholic Empress Maria Theresa,
tween the ruler and his subjects"; that Parliament "acts as a who certainly taught her better, and the wife of Louis, a char-
repository for the laws"; and that "(t)he power of the clergy is itable man in every sense. The fact that a recycled saying was
very right and proper; it sets limits to tyranny without physi- used to villify her indicates that the conspiracy was desperate.
cally resisting il" (cited, pp. 344) This is the political Similarly, they shamelessly hired pamphleteers to print false
philosophy he passed on to his son who, in a kind of cate- (and sometimes obscene) tracts claiming to e:x-pose her end-
chism on statecraft he compiled before his coronation, held it less line of adulterous lovers. Then there was the charge that
to be his duty to seek always his subjects' happiness and recall her gambling and extravagant tastes had thrown the nation
their natural rights which existed before "any political or com- into debt-"Madame Deficit," she was called.
mon law-the right to life, to honour, to freedom and the
ownership of property." (cited, ibid, p. 60) As king, he vigor- True, she had gambled-a habit Louis tolerated but de-
ously pursued the ideals he had set down. Among refonns plored-yet not enough to wreck a national economy. That
during his reign: enormous debt came from war expenses-those already exist-
ing when Louis became king, including the Seven Years' War
Louis XVI abolished forced labor on public works. He fought under his grandfather Louis XV, as well as those he
down the practice of implisonment without provable added to it by supporting America in the War of Independ-
charges being presented. He outlawed the use of torture in ence. (Because of the popularity of this cause, the conspira-
interrogation, emptied the prisons, convoked the Estates tors found it necessary to pin the blame elsewhere for the
General for the first time in a century and, upon popular debt) As early as Marie had written her mother to com-
demand, restored the ancient courts of magistrates known plain about "these miserable gazettes whose lies affect me
as the Parliaments. Not only that, he himself set an ex- so.'' (Oliver Bernier, Secrets of Marie Antoinette, Doubleday,
ample of strict economy, called for the abolition of espe- 1985, p. 165) What, we wonder, would she make of today's
cially burdensome taxes, besought the nobility to give up history books!
their privileges of right founded hospitals, established
schools, refonned the law, built canals, drained marshes
and constructed bridges. For all these reforms the Revolu- Blood And Blasphemy
tion cut off his head. (Seventeen E,'ighty Nine, p. 3) When one begins to study the French Revolution in any
depth, a certain mystery is bound to present itself~namely,
In fact, in 1789, it was proposed that the Bastille which, as how could a nation, which set the standards for refinement
we've seen, was hardly being used, be demolished "and a and culture, and which was in many ways the center, of
noble column erected on site bearing the inscription, 'To Westem Civilization of that era, fall to levels of such cruelty
Louis XVI, Savior of the Public Liberty!" Hardly the record of and barbarism not seen since the Age of the Martyrs? great
a despot It is understandable, then, that Louis, when he are crimes of the Revolution that its apologists find them-
would be tried as such, protested: "Me, a tyrant! A tyrant sees selves quite put upon to explain them away as mere
everything with reference to himself; have I not invariably "excesses" of the times. Indeed, it is difficult to come away
seen everything with reference to my people? Is it they or I from such a study without concluding that these atrocities, far
who loathe tyranny more?" (cited, Fay, p. 394) from being exceptional cases, are in keeping with the evil
spirit that animated the Revolution. As John Adams put it,
Myth No. Royal Family's contempt for the poor was "Dragons' teeth have been sown in France and come up as
shown when Marie Antoinette, hearing the cries of the hungry monsters."
for bread, sneered, "Let eat cake!" Of the lies invent-
ed by the conspirators, this one is most apt to be heard re- Frequently, people think that the bloodshed is primarily con-
peated by the misinformed, who point to it as the most fined to the period known as the Reign of Terror. While it did
damning proof that the Revolution was a just one. If the state- reach a fever pitch then, it neither began nor ended there. In
ment has that kind of power even today, think of the effect it July, 1789, Gouverneur Moms, the U.S. Ambassador to
earned when word of it began circulating among the poor. France, wrote that the nation was "as near to anarchy as so-
Effect enough, as it turned out, that a once-beloved queen be- ciety can approach without dissolution." Nesta Webster, a
came object of a most violent hatred. But we must give the leading researcher of the conspiracy, writes of attack on
devil-or, in this case, his human agents-their just due for the royal palace of Tuileries in Paris:
having arrived at clever deceit for, you see, those words
never passed from Marie's They (or words much the Still worse horrors took place that cannot be written,
come from the of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, nameless indecencies, hideous debaucheries, ghastly muti-
a philosophe the Revolution's godfather, who attributes lations of the dead and as after the seige of the
them to a "princess" and refers to them as "a well-known say- tille, cannibal orgies. Before great hastily kindled in
ing." But he makes mention of this years Marie left her the apartment (at Escalier du Midi), "cutlets of Swiss
as a in Diction- (Guards)" were grilled the actor Grammont-
ATHANASIAN 5 1, 1989
one of the earliest hirelings of the Due d'Orleans and the problem." (Palmer, p. 170. Palmer states tha~ although 64
last man to insult the Queen on her way to the scaffold-in percent of Lyon's victims were upper or middle class, else-
a fit of revolutionary frenzy drank down a of blood. where in the figure is only 28 percent of those classes,
(cited, Hoar, p. 6) which indicates strong lower-class for altar and
throne.) Other forms of execution
This raid, engineered by the Revolutionary squads, throwing pairs of victims-bound together-
the Jacobins, put an to the myth of a mon- into rivers and, as a variation of this, the drowning of boat-
archy and, on 10, 1792, netted Louis and his family, loads of prisoners. In all, 1,200,000 died (in a country of 24
who were thrown into a prison called In the million) during the Reign of Terror. Some 200,000 fled the
mont1 that followed, the Jacobins gave France a taste of what country, including many to England. (Thus, in a sense, re-
to expect from the "liberators." Paid murdered a turning a favor: two hundred years earlier, many English
minimum of 1,400 people in less than a week in Paris, fol- Catholics during the Anglican persecutions found haven in
lowed by similar massacres in other cities, records Father France.}
Guggenberger, who enumerates part of the death toll as
follows: For faithful Catholics living through the Revolution, it must
have seemed as if the very army of hell had converged on
Among the victims were the Archbishop of Aries, two France. (Over 300 martyrs from those days have been beati-
bishops, Princess Lamballe, 250 priests, a number of fied by Popes from Saint Pius X to including three
nobles belonging to the best families of France, many for- bishops.) The war against the Catholic Church began in
mer magistrates officials, the surviving SwL-;s guards earnest with the abolition of religious orders and prohibition
and some criminals who were of no service to Jacobins. of monastic vows in February, 1790. Six months later, the in-
(p. 160) famous Civil Constitution of the Clergy was adopted (signed
by the unsuspecting Louis XVI) which the positions of
Although a recounting of the details of the butchery of Prin- bishop parish priest elected posts (non-Catholics as well
cess Lamballe would convey a very revealing picture of the as Catholics to vote on them); forbade appointed bishops to
Revolutionary mentality, we refrain from doing so because of apply for the Pope's confirmation; declared ecclesiastical
its heinousness utterly appalling barbarity. estates to be the property of the st.ate; and likewise said that
henceforth priests would receive their salaries from the civil
But the 1792 slaughter was a mere prelude for the Reign of government Guggenberger, p, 153) "Out of 130 arch-
Terror. It was only when the Terror began, a year later, that bishops, bishops and coadjutors, only four, three of whom
what one Jacobin dubbed "the holy guillotine" fell with such were skeptics and profligates, took the required oath on the
fiendish regularity. According to Maximilien the Civil Out of 70,000 priests nearly 50,000 re-
most powerful man during France's dark of the soul, fused to the oath.'' (ibid) When Louis saw the document,
terror "is an emanation of virtue." (R. R. Twelve he promptly withdrew his support and declared, "This law is
vVho Ruled: 'Vear Terror in the contrary to my religious opinions: I see it as the signal for
Princeton, 1973, pp. If so, Citizen Kobes;p1e:rre endless persecution in my kingdom." Fay, p. 341) In
a highly "virtuous" land. eleven rritnn:~r.,.,,….r~ 1791, condemned Civil Constitution, "sus-
ironically named Committee for Public pended sworn priests and declared the new ecclesiastical
tion went far beyond those manifesting elections invalid sacrilegious." Guggenberger, p. 154)
sympathies (though these were still the
one could be put to death for simply Revolu- Louis' prediction of "endless persecution" proved only too ac-
tionary policies. Even members of rival factions were not curate. Nonjuring priests (those who would not take the civil
safe-hence the saying, "the revolution eats own children." oath) were forced to go into hiding and those captured were
(It was during period that the Duke of Orleans was either deported or tortured to death; 37,000 nuns were re-
executed.) moved from convents, including 14,000 driven from hospitals
and thousands who were teachers in the only existing girls'
The blood that flowed beneath the guillotine was a seemingly schools; pious, charitable missionary and educational associa-
endless torrent. a time, executions averaged to 60 a tions were dissolved; seminaries and colleges seized; tithes
day in Paris. same ghoulish scene of death by decree and money set for the poor, sick and children were redistrib-
blanketed the country: uted-not to the needy but to rich landholders and Revolu-
tionists; the papal states of Avignon and Venaissin were
Outside of every Revolutionary Committee had its invaded (hundreds murdered in the process), annexed to
guillotine. There were stationary, traveling, and elegant France and plundered by the Jacobin conspiracy. (ibid)
house guillotines: the latter for the execution of sick
persons who could not be moved from their homes. (Fr. Another sorrow for Catholic France was the rise of a false
Guggenberger, p.172) religion, the so-called Cult of Reason. This was a worship of
nature that sometimes fell into open atheism. (For a time the
At Lyons, a staunchly Catholic city subdued only after the worship of God and belief in the immortality of the soul were
fiercest of fighting, a special commission was fonned because abolished.) The Christian calendar was replaced with one that
"(t)he stench and filth around the guillotine became a public began with the founding of the French Republic (September
THE ATHANASIAN 6 Jl.INE 1, 1989
as Year I. A new '10-day week was instituted to keep vot.e-that being cast his Judas cousin, the Duke of
people from church. The names of the months and days were Orleans. On January 20, 1793, revolutionary officials visited
changed to reflect nature. day was dishonored the cell to pronounce the verdict: guilty of conspiracy against
the name of day (le chien)." (ibid, p. 171) of the nation's freedom. According to the king, ap-
church and religious mockery were rampant preciating the irony of the slightly at the
word 'conspiracy."' 402)
all of this can be seen the simple fact the from coward the pro-Revolutionists pretend to see,
with its cry of "Liberty," sought as much to be free from the Louis went to his death with the courage of a martyr. His
One True as from its Catholic ruler. death cell reading was the Imitation Christ and the life of
Charles I, the English monarch who died quiet dignity
official title of French monarchs was Most Christian King after being deposed by Oliver Cromwell's Puritan conspiracy.
and, for King Louis XVI, it was a title to be taken seriously for When he had made his confession and fervent Communion,
he saw it as his duty to lead the nation according to the Louis asked his confessor, Abbe Edgeworth, an Irish Eudist,
manner commanded by the King of kings. Thus, for Louis, to for a final blessing and that he "pray to God that He sustain
rule was to serve. me to end." (ibid, pp. 404-405) Then, arriving at the guil-
lotine, king protested when they attempted to tie his
never lost his love of his subjects nor thought himself far hands. At Abbe Edgeworth said in a low voice: in
above them, always recalling the words his had told him fresh outrage I see yet one more likeness between your
on his deathbed: "God alone is immortal, those who are Majesty the God that is about to be your reward." At
called the masters of world are subject to disease and which Louis replied: "Indeed, I need nothing short of His
like everybody else." (cited, p. his favor- to bear such an insult," then, speaking to his
ite pastimes-hunting, clock repair, metal work and map murderers, he said: "Do what you wish: I shall drink the cup
drawing-suggest a down-to-earth approach to things. He to " His steps never wavered as he the
preferred company of common people to that of his scaffold. At top he addressed the crowd: "I die innocent of
courtiers, and biographer relates an amusing of the all the crimes I am accused of. I forgive the authors of my
he drew the indignation of the by helping workmen death and pray to God that the blood you are about to spill
a palace (pp. 83-84) in short, saw his sub- shall never fall upon head of France … " (ibid, pp. 405-406)
jects as fellow creatures of the poorer of whom he often It is reported that even some soldiers wept at his death. Truly,
aided from his own pocket, while the Revolutionary "benefac- Louis XVI would have been justified in joining another
tors of mankind" saw them, at best, as an abstraction and, at Shakespeare's Lear, in the complaint that he was "a man
worst, as stepping stones to power. more sinned against than " Pius VI said that the
king's death was brought about chiefly out of hatred for the
The Catholic Church was suffering much in France at this Catholic Faith.
even before Revolution many priests had become
worldly or attached to King Louis would have Mention should be made, too, of the equally death of
nothing to with sort of but rather did all in his Queen Marie Antoinette. She had come to court a flighty
power "to call the back to their spiritual vocation." and frivolous girl but, by the time she was sarcastically called
(ibid, p. likewise worked to prevent the spread of the "Widow Capet" by the Revolutionary tribunai, she had
decent and blasphemous literature which he viewed as a poi- grown into a woman who wholeheartedly embraced the duties
son in nation's bloodstream. of her station. On the eve of her death she wrote what is aptly
described as an "admirable letter" to her sister-in-law, of
"I brought a love of peace to the throne," Louis wrote, de- which we cite a few excerpts:
fending himself to the National Assembly a week before his
arrest in 1792, "because peace, which is the most importa.11t have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, for
need of nations, is the most important duty of kings." (cited, it is shameful only for criminals, but to rejoin your brother.
Fay, p.379) Like him innocent, I hope to display the same firmness he
did in his last moments.. .I die in the Catholic, Apostolic
Never the tyrant, king, when knowing he would be exe- and Roman religion, in religion of my father, in which I
cuted, made son swear never to avenge his death and re- was brought up and which I have always professed, having
jected appeals to rescue him through violence, saying, "I did no expectation of spiritual consolation, and not even know-
not want any (blood) shed when it might have preserved my ing if lhere still exist any priests here, and in any case the
throne my life, and I do not regret (cited, ibid, p. 399) place where I am would expose them to too much danger if
should enter… As I am not free, they will perhaps bring
As expected, the Louis was a travesty of justice. me a (conformist) priest, but I protest here that I shall not
Robespierre worked to see there would be no popular say a word to him that I shall treat him as a complete
knowing people would free king. When stranger. 0/ife're pleased to note that Marie receive the
Louis defended himself, did so without malice, not even Sacraments before her Abbe Magnin
taking the to denounce anyone. being to smuggle a break-apart chalice and a small and
judged he was sentenced to death by a margin of one missal her where, he states, "gave Communion
7
to the queen who, the nourishment of the is named
bread, received the courage to a recent
complaint, torments awaiting her."
and rnar-
age; and
In some circles against Louis
were helping Jacques De Molay's
curse against the French line. When the king's head
fell guillotine, an unknown man is reported to
have leaped on the scaffold. He dipped his hand in the
monarch's blood, flung it out over the surrounding throng
and cried, "Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged!" (M.
John Robison and accepted Lodge responsibility for and others, Delacorte, pp.
the Revolution, including the Abbe Barruel and a Mr.
Lefranc, president of the Eudist seminary at a ranking French Bon, declared,
murdered in publishing an expose the Jacobins, which was the great author of
Lodge's hand in Revolution. (Robison, pp. Revolution, was only aspect of the
Other advanced the same " we can rest his was no idle
eluded Bernard Augustin Cochin Guggen-
berger, E. Cahill Fahey-and, in an indirect way,
Pope Leo XIII. Revolution
dictator Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the
last December he a point of linking the
Krn;s1a,n Revolutions-and he was right to do so.
Revolution may to the template
succeeding insurrections taken shape. In
''Everything rrw,D'l'r,lf1 Prince Petyr Duke of Or-
the monarchy, his era-proclaimed: "What we today from the
bourg, the the Revolution is that it was the sour.ce and
Orient de France, present communist, anarchist, and socialist
knew perfectly interest, on 1889, socialists
joined forces at the International in
In France, master ID'>>''nDn to use "real, nationwide terror…through
and other was in control of Revolution achieved (sic)" from
signed one his to Ju\.v,..n.u methods. Even revolt as
Chaumont, IKo•rn::irn friend, ,~,_,,,,.,…,..,_, of the
Without rr.,nn,-nrr"" he made use of
the "simpleton king," advance of godless by conquest is
to take. (p. 318) the way the spirit of Revolution affects
the world today. The subversion the Church has its
But he was not alone, of course, for, writes Robison, "the roots there as well, such a.'> with philosophe priests who, if
chief actors in the Revolution, Mirabeau, Condorcet, Roche- alive today, would be active in "liberation theology." Signifi-
foucault and were distinguished office-bearers in the cantly, the Conciliar Church bishops issued a dec-
great Lodges." (p. Then there is of the laration fall in which they praised the Revolution and
American Revolution who, when tie Bastille fell, sent key stated their intention to meet this summer at Notre Dame
to his "brother" George Washington. (Hoar, p. 3. It is Cathedral in to commemorate it praised in parti·
more than a little odd that America, which not have won the of that time who were "representatives"
its independence without the support of Louis, absolutely the people. important here is that those were the very
nothing to come to his aid at any time during the years priests VI suspended for giving their support to
of 1789-1793. A case of Lodge loyalty over In his the Jacobins!
defense, it is probable that Lafayette was a naive idealist who
thought a bloodless coup could be run. It is known when Madame Roland, a Revolutionist executed during the Reign
the Revolution reached most fanatical stage, he was forced of is said to have cried, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are
to flee for his life to Austria after being branded a to committed in your name!" For two the crimes have
the Republic. continued to multiply. Liberty, let it be remembered, was,
with and Equality, one of the catchwords of
There is May we always remind this world, as
and French stressed in Humanum that these three
der of the ideals can achieved in union with All else is a
such that there are to sham a snare. t