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Rh letter at the archiepiscopal palace, to avoid the evils of publicity, Mgr. Sibour next clay sent a very kind note to M. Guettée, expressing himself touched by the terms of his response, restoring to him the authority to celebrate mass, accepting the deposit of the copies of his printed letter, and desiring to see him to give him some further proof of his satisfaction. At a personal interview the same evening, Mgr. Sibour promised him shortly new ecclesiastical functions.

It would seem, however, that the Archbishop's eyes were beginning to be opened toward Rome. His submission and absolute conversion had so satisfied that court that it was in no haste to confer the promised cardinal's hat; and Mgr. Sibour feeling that he had been amused with words, repented of his acts of injustice and was meditating some reparation, of which his gentler disposition toward M. Guettée was a sign, when these better intentions were arrested by the tragic death he so suddenly met at the hand of the assassin Verger, in the church of St. Etienne du Mont.

His successor, Cardinal Morlot, was a man of political ideas and aspirations, astute and scheming, who never lost sight of the importance or neglected the means of maintaining the best relations with the powerful. He made every needful concession to the successive governments in France, and at the same time conciliated Rome, feeding its insatiable greed of riches by sending large sums of money for its necessities. Such a man could have no thoughts to bestow upon the trivial work of repairing the wrongs of his predecessor. On the contrary, he was not long in showing himself yet more severe against M. Guettée, and at the close of the year 1855 finally refused to renew his permission to say mass in Paris. From this moment began the war in earnest which ended in the separation of our author from the Church of Rome. After having in vain endeavored to procure from the Archbishop in writing the refusal to sanction the continuance of his ministry in the diocese of Paris — a refusal that was prudently communicated to him verbally by the proper official — he published his appeal to the Pope against the decision as a gross violation of canon law, and another to the government, as an abuse of authority and an invasion of his civil-eccles-