Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/177



Archbishop of Paris in 1870 was Mgr. Darboy. The records of his See had been recently a series of ghastly tragedies. His immediate predecessors were Quélen, Affre, Sibour, and Cardinal Morlot. Only the last had died a natural death. Affre was shot on the barricades, and Sibour assassinated by one of his own priests. Darboy himself was destined to be added to the same terrible list. He was shot in prison during the Commune in 1871. His religious sympathies were the reverse of Ultramontane.

Darboy strove to maintain the ancient rights and authority of the Episcopate, and made no secret of his repugnance to—nay, he openly rejected—the theory that the Roman Pontiff possessed direct and immediate authority over every separate diocese. And, while he was a strong supporter of the Pope's temporal power,