ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS IN FRANCE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 25, 22 June 1905, Page 27

ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS IN FRANCE

In a recent letter (writes Mrs. C. E. Jeffery in the ' Catholic Times ') I 'directed the attention of your readers to a disgraceful event that has lately taken place in' Caen. I allude to the exhumation of the -bodies of twenty-one Ursuline Nuns, which were expelled from their gra^ es in the cemetery of their suppressed convent by order of the Government liquidator to enable him to sell tihe confiscated property of the co-immunity. Later accounts have now come to hand, and show that at the eleventh hour the Prefet interfered and forbade the reinterment of the remains with religious honours. The affair has caused unparalleled excitement in the town of Ciaen, though it has been passed" over without mention by the English newspapers in pursuance 1 of that policy which has rightly been stigmatised iby a contemporary as a conspiracy of silence. For the benefit of English readers who may be unacquainted wi/th the peculiar methods of the present French Government I propose to give the particulars as related in the French papers. A Caen correspondent writes : 'It had been decided in consultation with the Mayor tfiat the transport of the hallowed remains of the Ursuline Nuns should take place on Atfril 6at 2 p.m., attended by a cross-bearer and priest in surplice.

The Bishop of Bayeux had himself invited the clergy and faithful of Caen t 0 join in the ceremony, and haa promised to be present a.l the cemetery to bless the newly-made graves. The legal representatives of the families of the deceasea religious had taken all the steps necessary for the exhumation of the bodies; letters de faire part, and the ordinary notices to the papers had -been sent, and all was prepared. On Wednesday, however, at 4 p.m., the Prefet o! Calvados, fcari/ng the profound emotion that would naturally he excited in the people by the sight of the mournful ceremony, called upon the Mayor to forbid 'the interment. The Mayor refused with dignity, whereupon tftfe Prefet took it upon himself to <lo so. Thus the bongs

of the exhumed bodies still remain without sepulture, while the twenty-one coffins are ranged in the refectory of the former convent. r lhe population of the town, exaspe-rated at this ghastly war against corpses— this odious profanation of the dead— assembled in great force. More than two thousand persons flocked to the convent, where M. Legrand, Cure of St. Pierre, delivered an address and invited the crowd to chant with him the "De Profundis." During this M. Souron, the liq,uida,tor, enVjtred the convent and barred the door behind him, when cries of ' A bas Souron ! " and " Vive la liberte ! lT were heard.' His Lordship the Bishop of Bayeux has addressed the following letter, dated Caen, April (?, to the Preset of Calvados :— ' M. le Prefet,— lt is with profound regret that I have received the news or your order of yesterday Forbidding the Religious Ceremony that was to have taken place: to-day at the transferring of the remains of the twenty-one Ursuline Nuns exhumed from their private cemetery. As a reason for this interdiction, M. le Prefet, you allege that the letters de faire part inviting friends and relatives to the ceremony constitute a menace to the public peace. Against this allegation I feel it my duty to protest. It was in my name that the clergy and faithful of the town o% Caen were invited to follow the funeral cortege of the exhumed Ursuline Nuns. In default of their families, the greater number of whom have disappeared, and of their Community, which has been dissolved, and its members dispersed and exiled, it appertained to me, the Bishop of the Diocese, as father and Projector of the Community, to take care that the remains of these holy women, expelled from the graves in which they had hoped to repose in peace, should not be transported to a new place of sepulture without the religious honors prescribed by the Church. The letters of invitation simply expressed ray desire to see the mournful ceremony accomplished with the respect due to the beloved and reverenced Ursulines of Caen, and as a last mark of sympathy n,nd affection. In it there was nothing that in any way resembled provocation to sedition. The public order was in no way menaced. The arrangements had been made by the Mayor, with as much wisdom as benevolence, and the population of Caen have too high a sense of propriety and of respect for the dead to give cause for uneasiness. The ceremony would have maintained its character as exclusively funereal an(d religious. Far from exciting public resentment, it would nave allayed it. And now the twenty-one coffins of our beloved Ursuline Sisters, placed in a chamber of thoir deserted convent, await Wurial. You do not, I hope, M. le Prefet, desiro to inflict upon them the posthumous insult of a civil funer?l, or t>o prevent their venerated remains from receiving the last benediction of the Church before being consigned to their new tomib Receive, M. le Prefet, the assurance of my high consideration. Leon Adolphe, Bishop of Bayeux. 1 As A Sugigestive Commentary on the tyrannical action of the Prefet of Calvados and his scandalous infringement of Catholic rights come lurid accounts of uhe late serious riots m Limoges, and especially of. the funeral — civil, of course — of the victim of the strike shot down by the military during; the emeate. The coffin of the deceased was borne through the streets of the town attended by a tumultuous concourse of over 20,000 strikers and their friends, all the trades unions hemp/represented. Far from the demonstration being discouraged as calculated to disturb the public peace, the Mayor himself headed the cortege, fallowed by the Socialist Deputies who had come from Pari* *or the ourpose. From this it will he &een that though a valiant Prefet m<ay intervene to prohibit a Catholic funeral headed by a cross-bearer and followed by 'decent mourners, the powers that be think twice about interfering with the proceedings of an incendiary mob flaunting the red flag of anarchy, and bawling such revolutionary songs as the ' Carmagnole ' and the ' International ' Only a (lay or two before he was buried with civic honors under the personal auspices of the Mayor of Limoges the man had been Helping to Sack Factories and tear up the paving stones to erect barriers. The military had been called out, when 197 officers and men had been wounded— some severely— by the rioters Commenting on the incident, the ' Journal des Debats ' says: ' During several years the situation of Limoges has been quasi-revolutionary, and our only wonder is that serious disorders have not taken place before. A long s<\ries of weaknesses and of pusillanimous complaisance on the part of the Government ha,ve led to the inevitable donouement. The authorities have been warned, but have

systematically disregarded the warnings. It was necessary to humor the Socialists, and allow them full licence, in order to secure their votes in the Chamber. The Government has done all in its power to encourage and develop a,niarchy, and the infalliible result is lawlessness and \iolence.'