? civil war in the privacy of the confessional. At the siege of Barcelona, the monks refused absolution to all who remained faithful to Philip V. In the last revolution of Genoa, it was intimated to all consciences, that there was no salvation for whosoever should not take up arms against the Austrians. penitentiary priests was abolished under the Emperor Theodosius. A woman having accused herself aloud, to the penitentiary of Constantinople, oflying with the deacon, this indiscretion caused so much scandal and disturbance throughout the city, that Nectarius permitted all the faithful to approach the holy table without confession, and to communicate in obedience to their consciences alone. This salutary remedy has in every age Hence these words of St. John Chrysos- been converted into a poison. Whether tom, who succeeded Nectarius :-"Con- a Sforza, a Medicis, a Prince of Orange, fess yourselves continually to God; I do or a King of France was to be assassinot bring you forward on a stage, to dis-nated, the parricide always prepared himcover your faults to your fellow-servants; show your wounds to God, and ask of him their cure; acknowledge your sins to him who will not reproach you before men; it were vain to strive to hide them from him who knows all things," &c. It is said that the practice of auricular confession did not begin in the west until about the seventh century, when it was instituted by the abbots, who required their monks to come and acknowledge their offences to them twice a-year. These abbots it was who invented the formula "I absolve thee to the utmost of my power and thy need." It would surely have been more respectful towards the Supreme Being, as well as more just to say, " May he forgive both thy faults and mine!" self by the sacrament of confession. Louis XI. and the Marchioness de Brinvilliers always confessed as soon as they had committed any great crime; and they confessed often, as gluttons take medicines to increase their appetite. The Disclosure of Confessions. Jaurigini and Balthazar Gérard, the assassins of William I. Prince of Orange, the dominican Jacques Clément, Jean Châtel, the Feuillant Ravaillac, and all the other parricides of that day, confessed themselves before committing their crimes. Fanaticism, in those deplorable ages, had arrived at such a pitch, that confession was but an additional pledge for the consummation of villainy. It became sacred, for this reason-that confession is a sacrament. The good which confession has done Strada himself says: "Jaurigni non is, that it has sometimes procured resti- ante facinus aggredi sustinuit, quàm extution from petty thieves. The ill is, piatam noxis animam apud Dominicathat, in the internal troubles of states, itnum sacerdotem cælesti pane firmaverit." has sometimes forced the penitents to be conscientiously rebellious and bloodthirsty. The Guelph priests refused absolution to the Ghibelines, and the Ghibelines to the Guelphs. "Jaurigni did not venture upon this act until he had purged his soul by confesssion at the feet of a Dominican, and fortified it by the celestial bread." We find, in the interrogatory of RaThe counsellor of state Lénet relates, vaillac, that the wretched man, quitting in his Memoirs, that all he could do in the Feuillans, and wishing to be received Burgundy to make the people rise in fa- among the Jesuits, applied to the Jesuit vour of the Prince Condé, detained at D'Aubigni, and, after speaking of several Vincennes by Cardinal Mazarine, was, apparitions that he had seen, showed him "to let loose the priests in the con- a knife, on the blade of which was enfessionals "-speaking of them as blood-graven a heart and a cross, and said, hounds, who were to fan the flame of "This heart indicates that the king's beart must be brought to make war upon the Hugunots." Perhaps, if this D'Aubigny had been alous and prudent enough to have informed the king of these words, and given him a faithful picture of the man who had uttered them, the best of kings would not have been assassinated. confession, of what nature soever, was to be interdicted and condemned to per{petual imprisonment. But this is not the worst: here are four popes, of the sixteenth and ninetenth centuries, ordering the disclosure of a sin of impurity, but not permitting that of a parricide. A woman, in the sacrament, declares or pretends before a carmelite, that a cordelier has seduced her; and the carmelite must denounce the cordelier. A fanatical assassin, think On the 20th of August, 1610, three months after the death of Henry IV., whose wounds yet bleed in the heart of every Frenchman, the advocate-general Sirvin, still of illustrious memory, re-ing that he serves God by killing his quired that the Jesuits should be made prince, comes and consults a confessor to sign the four following rules:- on this case of conscience; and the confessor commits a sacrilege if he saves his sovereign's life. 1. That the council is above the pope. 2. That the pope cannot deprive the king of any of his rights by excommuBication. 3. That ecclesiastics, like other persons, are entirely subject to the king. 4. That a priest who is made acquainted, by confession, with a conspi- { racy against the king and the state, must disclose it to the magistrates. On the 22nd, the parliament passed a decree, by which it forbade the Jesuits to instruct youth before they had signed} these four articles; but the court of Rome was then so powerful, and that of France so feeble, that this decree was of so effect. A fact worthy of attention is, that this same court of Rome, which did not choose that confession should be disclosed when the lives of sovereigns were endangered, obliged its confessors to denounce to the inquisitors those whom their female penitents accused in confession of having seduced and abused them. Paul IV., Pius IV., Clement VIII., and Gregory XV. ordered these disclosures to be made. This was a very embarrassing snare for confessors and female penitents; it was making the sacrament a register of informations, and even of sacrileges. For, by the ancient canons, and especially by the council of Lateran under Innocent III., every priest that disclosed a This absurd and horrible contradiction is one unfortunate consequence of the constant opposition existing for so many centuries between the civil and ecclesiIastical laws. The citizen finds himself, on fifty occasions, placed without alternative between sacrilege and high treason. The rules of good and evil being not yet drawn from beneath the chaos under which they have so long been buried. The Jesuit Coton's reply to Henry IV. will endure longer than his order. Would you reveal the confession of a man who had resolved to assassinate me? "No; but I would throw myself betwixt him and you." Father Coton's maxim has not always been followed. In some countries there are state mysteries unknown to the public, of which revealed confessions form no inconsiderable part. By means of suborned confessors the secrets of prisoners are learned. Some confessors, to reconcile their conscience with their in{terest, make use of a singular artifice. They give an account, not precisely of what the prisoner has told them, but of what he has not told them. If, for example, they are employed to find out whether an accused person has for his accomplice a Frenchman or an Italian, they say to the man who employs them, the prisoner has sworn to me that no Italian was informed of his designs; whence it is concluded that the suspected Frenchman is guilty. Bodin thus expresses himself, in his book de la République: "Nor must it be concealed, if the culprit is discovered to have conspired against the life of the sovereign, or even to have willed it only; as in the case of a gentleman of Normandy, who confessed to a monk that he had a mind to kill Francis I. The monk apprised the king, who sent the gentleman to the court of parliament, where he was condemned to death; as I learned from M. Canage, an advocate in parlia- { ment." The writer of this article was himself almost witness to a disclosure still more important and singular. decides on all the possible cases of con- Whether Laymen and Women have been As, in the old law, the laity confessed to one another; so, in the new law, they long had the same privilege by custom. In proof of this, let it suffice to cite the celebrated Joinville, who expressly says, that "the constable of Cyprus confessed himself to him, and he gave him absolution, according to the right which he had so to do." St. Thomas, in his dream, expresses himself thus: "Confessio ex defectu sacerdotis laico facta, sacramentalis est quodam modo"-"Confession made to a layman, in default of a priest, is in some sort sacramental." We find in the life of St. Burgundosarius, and in the rule of an unknown saint, that the nuns confessed their very grossest sins to their abbess. The rule of St. Donatus ordains that the nuns It is known how the Jesuit Daubenton betrayed Philip V. King of Spain, to whom he was confessor. He thought, from a very mistaken policy, that he ought to report the secrets of his penitent to the Duke of Orleans, regent of the kingdom, and had the imprudence to write to him what he ought not, even verbally, to communicate to any one. The Duke of Orleans sent his letter to the King of Spain: The Jesuit was discarded, and died a short time after. This is an authenticated fact. It is still a grave and perplexing ques-shall discover their faults to their supetion, in what cases confessions should be disclosed. For, if we decide that it should be in cases of human high treason, this treason may be made to include any direct offence against majesty, even the smuggling of salt or muslins. Much more should high treasons against the Divine Majesty be disclosed; and these may be extended to the smallest faults, as having missed evening service. It would, then, be very important to come to a perfect understanding about what confessions should be disclosed, and what should be kept secret. Yet would such a decision be very dangerous: for how many things are there which must not be investigated! Pontas, who, in three folio volumes, rior three times a-day. The capitulars from public preaching :-" Although," says he, "the blessed Virgin Mary was superior to all the apostles in dignity and in merit, yet it is not to her, but to the apostles, that the Lord has confided the keys of the kingdom of heaven." So ancient was this right, that we find it established in the rules of St. Basil. He permits abbesses to confess their nuns, conjointly with a priest. Father Martène, in his Rights of the Church, allows that, for a long time, abbesses confessed their nuns; but, adds he, they were so curious, that it was found necessary to deprive them of this privilege. Confession Tickets. In Protestant countries, confession is made to God; in Catholic ones, to man. The Protestants say, you can hide nothing from God, whereas man knows only what you choose to tell him. As we shall never meddle with controversy, we shall not enter here into this old dispute. Our literary society is composed of Catholics and Protestants, united by the love of letters: we must not suffer ecclesiastical quarrels to sow dissension amongst us. We will content ourselves with once more repeating the fine answer of the Greek already mentioned, to the priest who would have had him confess in the mysteries of Ceres: "Is it to God, or to thee, that I am to address myself?""To God." 66 Depart then, O man." The ex-Jesuit Nonotte ought to confess himself and do penance; not for having been one of the most ignorant of daubers on paper, for that is no crime; not for having given the name of errors In Italy, and in all the countries of to truths which he did not understand; obedience, every one, without distinction, but for having, with the most insolent must confess and communicate. If you stupidity, calumniated the author of this have a stock of enormous sins on hand, article, and called his brother raca (a you have also grand penitentiaries to fool), while he denied these facts and absolve you. If your confession is worth many others, about which he knew not nothing, so much the worse for you. At one word. He has put himself in dan- a very reasonable rate, you get a printed ger of hell fire: let us hope that he will receipt, which admits you to commuask pardon of God for his enormous nion; and all the receipts are thrown folly. We desire not the death of a sin-into a pix: such is the rule. ner, but that he turn from his wickedness and live. It has long been debated why men, very famous in this part of the world where confession is in use, have died without that sacrament. Such are Leo X., Pélisson, and Cardinal Dubois. The cardinal had his perineum opened by La Peyronie's bistoury; but he might have confessed and communicated before the operation. Pélisson, who was a Protestant until he was forty years old, became a convert that he might be made master of requests and have benefices. As for Pope Leo X., when surprised by death, he was so much occupied with temporal concerns, that he had no time to think of spiritual ones. These bearers' tickets were unknown at Paris until about the year 1750, when an archbishop of Paris bethought himself of introducing a sort of spiritual bank, to extirpate Jansenism and ensure the triumph of the bull Unigenitus. It was his pleasure that extreme unction and the viaticum should be refused to every sick person who did not produce a ticket of confession, signed by a constitutionary priest. This was refusing the sacrament to nine-tenths of Paris. In vain was he told: "Think what you are doing: either these sacraments are necessary, to escape damnation; or salvation may be obtained without them, by faith, hope, charity, good works, and the merits of our Saviour. If salvation be attainable without this viaticum, your tickets are useless if the sacraments be absolutely necessary, you damn all whom you deprive of them; you consign to eternal fire seven hundred thousand souls, supposing you live long enough to bury them this is violent: calm yourself, and let each one die as well as he can." In several countries of Europe it is a received maxim, that whosoever confiscates the body, confiscates the goods also. This usage is established in those countries in particular where custom holds the place of law; and in all cases, an entire family is punished for the fault of one man only. In this dilemma he gave no answer, To confiscate the body, is not to put a but persisted. It is horrible to convert man's body into his sovereign lord's religion, which should be man's conso- basket: this phrase, in the barbarous lation, into his torment. The parliament, language of the bar, means to get possesin whose hands is the high police, finding sion of the body of a citizen, in order that society was disturbed, opposed (ac- either to take away his life, or to condemn cording to custom) decrees to manda-him to banishment for life. If he is put ments. But ecclesiastical discipline would to death, or escapes death by flight, his not yield to legal authority. The magis-goods are seized." tracy were under the necessity of using force, and to send archers to obtain for the Parisians confession, communion, and interment. By this excess of absurdity, men's minds were soured; and cabals were formed at court, as if there had been a farmer-general to be appointed, or a minister to be disgraced. In the discussion of a question, there are always incidents mixed up which have no radical & connection with it; and in this case so much so, that all the members of the parliament were exiled, as was also the archbishop in his turn. These confession tickets would, in the times preceding, have occasioned a civil war; but happily, in our days, they produced only civil cavils. The spirit of philosophy, which is no other than reason, has become, with all honest men, the only antidote against these epidemic disorders. CONFISCATION. Ir is well observed, in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique, in the article CONFISCATION, that the fisc, whether public, or royal, or seignorial, or imperial, or disloyal, was a small basket of reeds or osiers, in which was put the little money that was received or could be extorted. We now use bags: the royal fisc is the royal bag. Thus it is not enough to put a man to death for his offences; his children, too, must be deprived of the means of living. In more countries than one, the rigour of custom confiscates the property of a man who has voluntarily released himself from the miseries of this life, and his children are reduced to beggary because their father is dead. In some Roman catholic provinces, the head of a family is condemned to the gallies for life, by an arbitrary sentence, for having harboured a preacher in his house, or for having heard one of his sermons in some cavern or desert place, 2 and his wife and family are forced to beg their bread. This jurisprudence, which consists in depriving orphans of their food, was unknown to the Roman commonwealth. Sylla introduced it in his proscriptions; and it must be acknowledged that a rapine invented by Sylla, was not an example to be followed. Nor was this law, which seems to have been dictated by inhumanity and avarice alone, followed either by Cæsar, or by the good emperor Trajan, or by the Antonines, whose names are still pronounced in every nation with love and reverence. Even under Justinian, confiscations took place only in cases of high treason. Those who were accused having been, for the most part, men of great possessions, it |