Chapter XVII: The Church and the University

Liberty of teaching — “The Correspondant.” — A full professor — Disturbance of students in the Sorbonne — M. Lenormant’s lectures
1844-1845

The year 1843 and succeeding years recall the demands of French Catholics for freedom of teaching, as opposed to University monopoly. We have seen Ozanam affrighted at the recrudescence of infidel doc­trines, as well as at the honours showered on those in the University, who distilled venom into their lectures or writings. The Chairs of M. Quinet and M. Michelet were growing in popularity in the College of France by the side of the Sorbonne. They were armed against the Church with passion and with imagination, and with these they fascinated young men: the fascination of the serpent’s eye and the irridescence of its colours in the brilliant sun of the period.

The young Professor did not rest content with complaining. He wrote as follows to M. Dufieux on the 5th June, 1843: “I am making all possible efforts, feeble though they be, to maintain a vigorous struggle against the teaching of the Professors in the College of France. I am working in concert with M. Lenormant, M. Coeur, Professor of Sacred Eloquence, and several others. While M. Quinet and M. Rlichelet are attacking Catholicity itself, under the name of Jesuitism, I am upholding, in three consecutive lectures, the Papacy, the Friars and monastic obedience¹. I have delivered them to a large audience composed of the same individuals who stamped and applauded else­where the previous day. There was not any noise. I shall seize the many opportunities which are sure to arise in my subsequent lectures of establishing firmly the teaching, benefits and wonders of the Church.”

Those courageous lectures were at once published by him. “Read the Correspondant,” he wrote to his two brothers. “You will find in it a summary of my lecture on the Friars; it is a rejoinder to the attacks of the Professors of the College of France.”

The young professor notified M. Theophile Foisset, the main support of the Correspondant of his “willingness to enter for the Dissertation on Voltaire “established for competition by the French Academy. “All irreligion in France proceeds from Voltaire,” he wrote: “I am not sure if there is any more dangerous enemy to Voltaire than His­tory.”

It was through the Correspondant that Ozanam became a close friend of M. Foisset, whose name occurs here for the first time. He had resumed, in collaboration with M. de Montalembert, and with M. Wilson, as manager, the work of defence which had been interrupted since 1831. Ozanam, who had visited him in his country-place at Bligny, Cote d’Or, describes him as “surrounded by a loving family, devoting his leisure time after his busy magisterial duties to works of charity and to the cultivation of literature. There, was to be seen a picture of the dignity of life and of the patriarchal simplicity of the 17th century magistrates.” United in faith and affection, those two Christian men had prayed together for one another in the little chapel .attached to the house. A memorable stroll during the silent hours of the night, in a garden illuminated with lanterns, had led them thither. What principally attracted them one to the other was a spirit of modera­tion which removed them equally from the extremists of both sides. His example and advice were very dear to Ozanam, as witness: “You .are a man of counsel as well as of action. Your intervention will be probably more necessary than ever, at the opening of a critical campaign for Catholic interests ”

That campaign had just been brilliantly inaugurated by the manifesto of M. de Montalembert on The Duty of Catholics in the question of the Liberty of Teaching.

That manifesto mentioned the name of Ozanam with great emphasis, as one of the exceptions in the University. “Yes, indeed, there are in the University, from the College of France, and the Sorbonne down to the head-masters of the primary schools, a small number of upright men, who have what is greater than talent, faith. Christians like M. Lenormant and M. Ozanam, protest by the publicity of their Christ­ianity and the solidity of their knowledge, against the scandals of their colleagues in their lectures. But are such men in the majority in University establishments? Are they at one with their colleagues? etc.”

The mention of his name, as being in opposition to the main body of professors, could be a source of danger to M. Ozanam, and the prudent Foisset believed it was due to Ozanam to show it to him before it appeared in print in the Correspondant. Ozanam’s answer was at once decided and courageous, as well as being prudent and modest: “My dear friend, I wish to thank you at once for your kind enclosure. But I cannot conceal the fact that your communication makes the matter awkward for me. I should have preferred not to have known beforehand that my name was to appear in M. Montalembert’s article. There is certainly both honour and danger in being named as an ex­ception to an offensive rule. But it is an honour, and it would be an act of cowardice on my part to have the reference deleted. I cannot therefore either accept or reject officially, and I should prefer not to know of it.” He gave his permission and the name appeared. A further letter conveyed his thanks: “I am grateful to you for having kept my name in the article.” That was the act of a courageous man.

But while offering himself up, Ozanam appealed against the charge of irreligion made in the article against the majority of the professors in the University: “If you have carte blanche in the matter of small corrections, will you please make one in the following connection, not in my interest but in that of truth.”

” It is not true that Catholics in the University are an insignificant number; they are—the Archbishop of Lyons has just called them numerous—in all public functions a considerable minority. Neither is it true that M. Lenormant and M. Ozanam protest against the in­struction of their colleagues in the Sorbonne, who must not be con­founded with those in the College of France.” Ozanam reduces the number of aggressive professors of heterodox doctrines to two. He mentions on the other side M. Saint-Marc-Girardin, “who upholds true, moral, and Christian ideals.”

” Then again,” he adds, “we have not made any protest because there was not any occasion for us to do so. We have openly professed our own faith, refuted opposing doctrines, sought to do our duty as Christian professors and to serve God by advancing true Science. But we have not sought to introduce into the Faculty of Paris a divi­sion which does not exist, to create two camps, to engage in battles. I think, moreover, that it is a matter of great importance to the young men, that that should not be done. Our lectures must not be regarded by our colleagues as provocative steps calling for a retort. If there are many strangers to our faith, they are not to be made enemies.”

Père Lacordaire has summed up beautifully in his funeral notice, Ozanam’s delicate position in the Sorbonne, and the nobility and pru­dence of his behaviour in the circumstances. “In the conflict between the Church and the University, Ozanam,” he wrote, “was the most awkwardly placed of us all. An ardent Catholic, a devoted friend of social liberty, and particularly of liberty of conscience, he could not, however, fail to recognise that he belonged to the body which was the legal depository of the monopoly of teaching. Was he to break with the body which had welcomed him so warmly, and had overwhelmed him with distinctions? Was he, on the other hand, while remaining in its midst, to take an active and necessarily prominent part in the war which would be waged against it? In the first case, Ozanam would resign his Chair. Could he be recommended to that course? In the second, he was inviting dismissal. Could he be so advised? On the other hand, could Ozanam, the Christian Professor, be separated from us? ”

” Ozanam kept his Chair; that was his post in Truth’s critical hour. He did not expressly attack the body to which he belonged; that was the duty of a colleague as well as of one who did not forget kindness. But he remained in complete unity and touch with those who were defending with might and main the cause of liberty of teaching.”

” Not one of the bonds which united him to the main army was loosened. He was a part of every meeting, of every Association, of every inspiration of the time. Therefore the high place, which he had always occupied in our thoughts and in our ranks, did not abate one jot nor suffer one moment of distrust. I–Te completely retained the affection of Catholics and the regard and respect of the body to which he belonged. Outside both camps he won the sympathy of that formless and Protean mass called the public, which sooner or later, determines everything.”

When Montalembert had pleaded with brilliancy in the Chamber of Peers, the cause of Catholic instruction, Ozanam was not slow to express his admiration: I desire to express my great pleasure and my pride as a fellow Christian. I recognise the accents of St. Gregory VII., of St. Anselm, of St. Bernard in that defence of the liberties of the Church, at once the oldest and the youngest and the most imperish­able of all liberties.”

But Ozanam demands that, even above the accents of that great layman, we should first of all hear the voice of the Church in the person of its pastors: “It is indeed a pleasure to see the controversy drawn out of the mire of miserable insults and personalities, and raised to its true elevation by M. de Montalembert at first, and then by the Abbé de Came, the Abbé de Vatimesnil, Pere de Ravignan, their Lordships the Bishops, and especially by the Pastorals of the Archbishops of Lyons and Paris. They are the legitimate representatives of our rights, whom we can never have occasion to repudiate.”

The Correspondant could stand unfalteringly by their side in the full light of truth and in the full certainty of rights. That is the duty of ortho­doxy which should never weaken: “I regard as equally dangerous that spirit of compromise which is willing to yield something of the rigidity of dogma in discussion, or of the rights of the Church in business affairs.”

A matter of a private nature was taking place at that time which made a great difference to his, and which crowned his wife’s happiness. lie wrote to M. Foisset as follows, Low Sunday, 1844: “In the midst of my work in Stanislaus College and the Faculty of Literature, I had to attend to a business matter, which will result in calling my father-in-law to the position of head of a branch of the Ministry of Education. It will bring my wife’s family near to us. It has been dragging on its weary course during three months, and although the affair is settled, the appointment has not yet been signed.” What held it in suspense? It was the moment when the retrograde legislation of Minister Ville-main, regulating public instruction, was violently attacked by the Catholic party. “You can well imagine,” adds Ozanam, “if it be advisable, in the present trend of affairs, to pay court and expose oneself to discussions on points of difficulty, in which conscience cannot yield.” He would not pay court, nor expose himself to those dis­cussions. His conscience would not yield. Nor must it be forgotten that the young Christian who was thus speaking, and who was facing with such independence public opinion and the views of those in high place, was only a temporary professor, that is to say, at the mercy of the administration of the University and removable at will. The signa­ture to the appointment was otherwise obtained. In the month of April in the following year, 1845, M. Soulacroix entered on the duties of his high post and of his new home in Paris. His branch dealt with accounts. It left him little or nothing to do with the administration of education or with the selection of educational staffs.

In the meantime an event took place which once more raised the question of Ozanam’s future. In the month of July of 1844, M. Fauriel, permanent Professor of the Chair of Literature, for whom Ozanam was acting with brilliant success, died suddenly at the age of seventy-two years. Ozanam mourned for him: “I had in him,” he writes) to M. Foisset, “a genial patron who solved many difficulties for me, one whose kindness ensured for me the occupation of his Chair in his stead, so long as his infirmity made it impossible for him to appear. His friendship was my security. His death came as a thunderbolt to me. It happened prematurely perhaps for his soul, prematurely for science which will find itself deprived of valuable works which he had almost completed and which will now be lost², prematurely for me, who still needed his advice and protection.”

I regard Ozanam’s appreciation of M. Fauriel as a masterpiece of eloquence and erudition, of respect and admiration, of delicacy and gratitude. But the Christian could not close those lines without congratulating the savant on having known how to bend his gifted mind before the mystery of the causes of things, of the First Cause: “That great intellect, which knew so much, knew also when it knew nothing. It was a maxim of his that we do not know the beginning of anything. He knew how to bow down before the regions of mystery, which he found at the beginning and tne end of all his research. Thence came the reserve and the modesty, which characterised his pronounce­ments, in which one often found illumination and always kindness.” The writer consulted him on one occasion on a point in history, which he sought to explain by the ordinary laws of human affairs: “I shall perhaps astonish you,” replied M. Fauriel, “but you do not, in my opinion, assign its proper importance to Providence.”

” What will happen to me now?” asks the young acting professor. Ozanam was of opinion that, after four years unexpected success, for which he had sacrificed everything, even his health, during which he had had nothing but the pleasantest relations with everyone, he would certainly not be passed over in order that the Chair should be given to another. He knew further that “the Faculty were also of that opinion, that the majority of its members would place his name first in the list to be submitted to the Minister, merely postponing the nomination for the Chair until the new Session should open.”

On the other hand, the candidate was only thirty; having regard to his youth, to the fact that he did not hold scientific Degrees, and that he had been such a short time in the University, another view favoured holding over the vacancy until the following year, to enable him to win his spurs. The course of lectures would remain the same, but the title for the time being would be that of Acting Professor.

But the temporary, the removable feature of that position was a sword of Damocles. Ozanam’s charming personality did not tend to injure him, but it was otherwise with his philosophy, the success of which in the Sorbonne offended and irritated the followers of Vol­taire on the Siècle and the Constitutionnel, as well as the fanatics of the College of France and the University. They found all too ready support from M. Villemain, Minister of Education, whom Catholic opposition had driven to very distraction; a fact which was shortly to become apparent.

In this anxiety of mind, what were Ozanam’s thoughts, what did prudence recommend, what did religion claim? That we learn from the following letter: “I shall sacrifice nothing, neither my duty to the State through imprudence, nor my duty as a Christian through cowardice.” The Christian adds: “What I ask of God is that He would take in His hands the management of this delicate business. It may, indeed, be for the good of my salvation that I should not succeed. If that be so I ask only for strength, resignation and peace of mind; resignation to suffer everything, even what is uncertain and precarious, since God has made all things so, life, death, health, fortune. He has willed that we should live in the most terrible of all doubts, whether we are worthy of His love.”

Divided between affection for the young professor, and regard for his own political interests, M. Cousin devised the following expedient with quite bona-fide intentions: “The Chair of Foreign Literature was to be offered to M. Ampère, who would be substitute Professor, M. Ozanam, his close friend, would continue to be Acting Professor; an arrangement which would permit M. Ampère to gratify his desire for foreign travel. However pleasant and flattering it might be for the one, it was certainly not so for the other, for the position would remain precarious. Jean Jacques Ampère had no hesitation as to what to do; he refused point blank. He did more. He availed himself of the opportunity to urge the appointment of his friend with all the weight of his influence as a scientist, and with all the warmth of his friendship.

The Academic Council unanimously presented the name of the candidate just as the Faculty had done. The Royal Council followed suit. But M. Villemain seemed afraid to pronounce the final word. Pursuant to his orders, the notice of the course appeared, with a blank for the name of the Professor, thus gaining time for reflection. M. le Clerc had to use more than ordinary skill and determination literally to snatch the signature from the Minister. “The matter is settled at last:” wrote Ozanam on the 23rd November, 1844. “It was closed yesterday when I made the statutory declaration before the Dean. It became official to-day and will become known to my friends through all the usual avenues of publicity.”

His news was told in thanksgiving. He wrote to Ampère, and in what exquisite terms! “I knew well from experience that one needed friends in adversity, but I did not knchi that one stood in such need of them in prosperity. . . . It is meet that you should derive pleasure from what you have done, you who, next to God, are the author of all my prosperity, Z ou who received me into the house of your saintly and distinguished father, who placed my feet first on the road, who guided me from trial to trial, step by step, to this professor­ial Chair, in which I am now sitting, because the only one worthy of the position was not willing to occupy it.”

Ampère set out for Egypt. Ozanam expressed the wish that “the recollection of his goodness would accompany him as a sweet blessing with which God visits beautiful characters.”

From this moment a new link was added to the chain of friendship connecting Ozanam and Ampère. They were engaged on the same studies. While Ozanam was occupied on the Histoire de la Civilisa­tion cltritienne aux temps barbares, Ampère had just published in 1840 the Histoire litteraire de la France jusqu’ au XI P siecle. Was there any danger of clashing, in coming to such close quarters? They were not walking in the same paths. Ampère said with a smile: “I have taken from you the men of Letters and the men of State: but make your mind easy, I have left you the missionaries and the saints.” It is none the less true that in the study of the same period they employed similar literary terms; so that a contemporary remarked: “When I am reading them I am never sure that the phrase which was commenced. by one has not been finished by the other.”

Friendship was acknowledged, Heaven was praised: “It is God,” Ozanam wrote to Lallier, “Whose merciful love has made my duties easier, because He knows that I am weak; doubtless also to prepare me by a period of happiness for the trials of the future.” This humil­ity had its counterpart in his Christian independence. It asserted that the support of the Faculty, of the Academic Council and of the Royal Council was not gained, either by the sacrifice of ideals, or by the compromise of his principles. “You will learn with pleasure that neither advances, concessions nor reservations were required of me. I was taken for what I am, without insisting, as they might have tried to do, that I should be more prudent in my instruction, or at least that I should send in a written application, which is quite usual. They did not wish even to appear to have imposed conditions on me.” That was indeed to know him for what he was. It was also honourable to him.

When Stanislaus College heard of his promotion, the first feelings were expressed by the Abb6 Caro: “It seemed to each of us that his appointment was our appointment, that we mounted with him into the professorial Chair, that his triumph was our triumph. But when we learned that, according to University regulations, Ozanam as whole-time professor would be obliged to give up his teaching in the College, desolation reigned supreme. The students drew up a petition to M. Villemain praying him to make an exception in their favour, and to let them continue to have their well-beloved master. One student was entrusted with the duty of advising M. Ozanam of this unusual proceeding, and of re-stating their deep and sincere regret.

The letter was as follows: “Sir, we cannot adequately express to you the surprise and grief with which we learned for the first time yes­terday of the misfortune which has befallen us. Those who have been with you for a few months only, those who passed a year at your lectures and who looked forward to passing a second, those whom other courses have claimed after Rhetoric, have all been equally affected. I have been charged with the sad duty of communicating to you that general sense of grief.”

” However, all hope has not been abandoned, and we pray you to support our petition and to help to preserve to us, if it be possible to do so, our most beloved master. If the claims of secondary instruction are more burdensome than others, be assured that nowhere will those duties be repaid with a livelier or more lasting appreciation.

In any case, whatever may be the Minister’s decision, we shall never forget the many acts of kindness which you have showered on us. Deign to accept our sincere gratitude, and pardon this indiscretion for the sake of the love and affection which is hereby conveyed to you by all the students of Stanislaus College.”

They did not succeed in keeping their master. M. Villemain had other matters to concern him. France heard a few days later, on the 3oth December, that her Minister of Education had gone mad. Jesuits attacked and pursued him. They were everywhere present to his gaze, even on the pavements of the streets. “The Jesuits! The Jesuits!”

War on the Jesuits was then the policy of the day in the State Coun­cil and in Parliament, as well as in the College of France: of Villemain, Cousin, Thiers, Dupin, Isambert, as well as of Quinet and Michelet.

Those were the days that Ozanam selected to bring Pere de Ravignan to a Quarterly General Meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which was attended by many students: “I was present at that memor­able meeting,” wrote Leonce Curnier. “I still have present to my eyes the dignified appearance of Pere de Ravignan, the inspired air, the seraph’s glance, when he cried aloud, pointing up to Heaven, at the close of an address, which inflamed us with a burning desire to work for the poor: “We shall rest up there.” It was not the voice of a man which we heard, it was the voice of an angel. I have never experienced to such a degree the power of genius enhanced by holiness.”

Ozanam wrote at the close of the Paschal Retreat which had been given by the holy religious: “After all that has been done to seduce young men, the way in which they receive and welcome Catholic addresses is truly marvellous.”

There was trouble with the students in Ozanam’s near vicinity. That was the time when the Sorbonne was the scene of disturbances which must be mentioned. We shall see Ozanam’s calm and intrepid figure standing forth in the defence of truth and the protection of liberty.

His own Chair was safeguarded by his popularity. It was not indeed that he had not noticed a timid and shamefaced spirit of contradiction arising in his lecture hall. For instance, it could have been noticed that on one occasion the announcement “Course of Foreign Literature” had been altered to “Course of Theology.” Ozanam was told of it as he entered. He merely smiled. He finished his lecture without reference to the impertinence. As he was about to leave the Chair he said with disdain but with dignity: “Gentlemen, I have not the honour to be a theologian, but I have the happiness to be a Christian; the happiness to believe and the ambition to devote my mind, my heart, and all my strength to the service of truth.” The clear and simple expression of faith was received with general applause.

It is also reported that on another occasion strange faces were noticed in the lecture-hall, exchanging grimaces when a suitable moment for an outburst seemed likely to arrive. The suitable moment did not arrive. “We were present,” says Dufieux. “The hall was packed, the crowd overflowed into the corridors: something was in the air. Ozanam opened his lecture, calm and alert: The Church, its Institu­tion, Associations, Popes, Clergy, Saints. I overheard a remark to the effect that eloquence could not soar higher. The master had never gripped his audience better. He brought down the house: the conspirators applauded as loudly as the rest. He had disarmed them.”

We have noticed Montalembert connect, in his manifesto to Catholics, the name of M. Charles Lenormant with that of Ozanam, as one of the few Christian Professors in the Sorbonne. He was doing duty for M. Guizot in the Chair of History. He had been conducting the course for three years with marked success, but in such a way as to show a mixed spirit of scepticism and respect for holy things. But the day had arrived when the Truth of the Gospel was revealed to his elevated mind, and a public profession of faith became necessary from him as a man of honour. The audience in the Sorbonne therefore listened to the reading of the following courageous letter: “I had reached in my historical course the period of the beginning of the Christian reli­gion. Up to then I had only cast the idle and careless glance of a man of the world on the facts of Christianity. Henceforward I had to trace the origin and weigh the proofs with the care and the sense of responsibility imposed on me by my duty to the public. The results of that investigation developed slowly but surely. As I advanced in my task I felt the irreligious prejudices, which I owed to my educa­tion and to my times, growing feebler and feebler and ultimately disappearing. From coldness, I passed quickly to respect and regard; thence directly to Faith. I became a Christian and I desired to co­operate in the making of Christians.”

It was exactly against that conversion that the storm burst. The very men who had beaten themselves in vain against the popularity of Ozanam, sought their revenge against this latter-day Christian whom they nicknamed the “Sorbonne convert.” Those demagogues of the College of France, M. Michelet and M. Quinet, incited their infuriated groups secretly against the Chair which was now grounded on honour and truth. The lectures of M. Lenormant, which had been much appreciated, now became scenes of impious disorder and savage violence.

We are now at the close of 1845. Ozanam announced to Lallier that he had resumed his lectures, informing him at the same time of the uneasiness which the rowdy opposition to his colleague caused him: “I have observed the disorders closely and I can assure you that it is not an uprising of the schools. It has been carefully arranged in the offices of the revolutionary Press. As that bigoted -crowd will persist in its hostility, and as the Government is showing all its usual weakness when it is a question of defending belief, it is to be feared that the disturbances will be renewed. Even if there be only a few score rowdies, if they return ten times they will succeed in closing the course of lectures. But it will not be without a struggle; for the Catholic young men have shown themselves firmer than usual in this matter. It will at least serve to close up our ranks and strengthen our hearts.”

To see “such honourable and beneficent teaching threatened by intrigue, and betrayed by the cowardice of the administration “aroused Ozanam’s anger: “Ah! my dear friend, how much evil is done in this world by the carelessness and the timidity of good people! As far as I am concerned, I shall do all I can to keep my position identified with that of M. Lenormant. As long as his lectures con­tinue to be disturbed I shall continue to be present. I shall use all my influence to recruit young men for the lectures. On Thursday the 8th January the lectures are to be resumed.”

On Thursday the 8th January, Ozanam was present. A volley of cat-calls heralded M. Lenormant’s arrival. He attempted to speak and was answered with a storm of hissing. Ozanam could not restrain himself. He jumped up, stood up on his seat and contemplated in silence for a time the wild outburst, with a mingled glance of pity and disdain. His bold stand was received with applause from some of the benches. Repressing the applause, Ozanam recalled the minds of the demonstrators to “that liberty on which they set such store, and besought them to respect it in the consciences of others.” Silence was restored. The effect of this short speech was that the professor was enabled to continue, or rather to commence, his lecture, which was completed almost without interruption.

That armistice could have been the beginning of peace. But the University administration yielded to violence. It was learned on the following day that the Course of lectures had been closed by order of the Government.

M. Lenormant handed in his resignation to take charge of the Cor­respondant, where we shall find him again.

1. See Civilisation chretienne au Ve siècle, chap. XII.
2. The valuable works noted by Ozanam were published after the author’s death: History of the Epic of Chivalry in the Middle Ages. History of Provencal Poetry, 3 vols., 1846. Dante and the beginnings of Italian Poetry and Literature, 2 vols. in octavo, 1846.