[The Origins of Contemporary France Volume 6 (of 6) by Hippolyte A. Taine]@TWC D-Link bookThe Origins of Contemporary France Volume 6 (of 6) CHAPTER I 42/75
To state what influences he uses would require a volume[51110]--theological and canonical arguments, appeals to Gallican souvenirs and Jansenist rancors, eloquence and sophisms, preparatory maneuvers, secret intrigues, public acting, private solicitations, steady intimidation, successful pressures, thirteen cardinals exiled and deprived of their insignia, two other cardinals confined in Vincennes, nineteen Italian bishops conveyed to France under escort, without bread or clothes.
Fifty priests of Parma, fifty of Plaisance, besides one hundred other Italian priests, sent away or confined in Corsica.
All congregations of men in France--Saint-Lazare, Mission, Christian Doctrine, Saint-Sulpice--dissolved and suppressed.
Three bishops of the council seized in bed at daylight, put into a cell and kept in close confinement, forced to resign and to promise in writing not to carry on correspondence with their dioceses; arrest of their adherents in their dioceses; the Ghent seminarists turned into soldiers, and, with knapsack on their backs, leaving for the army; professors at Ghent, the canons of Tournay, and other Belgian priests shut up in the citadels of Bouillon, Ham and Pierre-Chatel.[51111] Near the end, the council suddenly dissolved because scruples arise, because it does not yield at once to the pressure brought to bear on it, because its mass constitutes its firmness, because men standing close together, side by side, stand all the longer.
"Our wine in the cask is not good," said Cardinal Maury; "you will find that it will be better in bottles." Accordingly, to make it ready for bottling, it must be filtered and clarified, so as to get rid of the bad elements which disturb it and cause fermentation.
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