We shall never tell him that ignorance consists in this, namely, that after he has read the Encyclical and the Syllabus, and re-read them, he could not understand that the modern opinions, which he retained, have been truly condemned, or that they have been condemned rightfully. This is not ignorance. It is an error and a pertinacity proper to a man not far removed from heresy. In this case, we once more repeat, confession is not the thing wanted. The first elements of the faith, and of the Catholic profession, have to be set straight in this man's head (p. 547).
It would almost seem as if Montalembert was personally pointed at in the two later articles. It is not a little curious to learn here that his bosom friend, Lacordaire, long the charm of the French pulpit, was called to Rome in 1850 to answer for his doctrine. The points on which he had to set himself right with Rome were anything but, in our sense, religious ones: (1) The coercive power of the Church; (2) The origin of sovereignty; and (3) The temporal power of the Pope. He did set himself right. Father Jandel, the General of the Dominicans, exulting over his answer on the question touching the coercive power, says, "It avenges his memory from the suspicion of complicity with certain opinions which some Catholics would fain shelter under the authority of his name."[117] Avenges his memory! It proves that whatever Lacordaire believed, he submitted to write as his own the doctrine of Rome, that the Church has power to "employ external force," and to inflict bodily pains. And so France sees the memory of her Bossuet held up to reproach, and the memory of her Lacordaire yoked by the Dominican General to his beloved Inquisition. She sees her Montalembert driven from public life, assailed, yea, reviled, while living, preparatory to being insulted when dead.
Any one acquainted with the high spirit and immense emotional force of Montalembert, can imagine his reddening and shivering at finding the following among the citations from Renan to prove that the sceptic understood the doctrine of "Catholicism" better than its professed friends in France--
The remedy applied by the Church of Rome to the liberty of worship and liberty of thought is the Inquisition. The Councils have established and approved the Inquisition, the Fathers and bishops have counselled and practised it. The Inquisition is the logical outgrowth of the whole orthodox system, and the quintessence of the spirit of the Church.[118]