FRANCE. 



287 



M. Kiranl, when he i>ecame Minister of .Justice 

 ami <>!' Worship, applied the, laws against clerical 



activity in politics s ewhal nmrc rigorously 



tlian liis predecessor. Priests who participated 

 in the electoral canvass for municipal offices 

 had their stipends stopped. Pamphlets against 

 secular education published by the Bishop of 

 Mendes were suppressed. Conferences or lee- 

 tun- on controversial subjects given by priests in 

 their churches gave rise to riotous disturbances, 

 which M. liieanl ordered the law ollieers to take 

 measures to stop: and in the same circular he 

 reminded the bishops that their priests wero 

 mainly responsible for the tumults and ought to 

 lie restrained. Proceedings were begun against 

 the Bishop of Mendes for a pastoral in which 

 he laid down the doctrine that no one is bound 

 to obey laws of which he conscientiously disap- 

 proves, and against the Archbishop of Avignon 

 and his suffragans for a similar pronouncement. 

 Political catechisms issued by bishops for the 

 instruction of the laity had been the subject of a 

 complaint made by the French Government to 

 the Vatican. On May 3 the Pope addressed a 

 brief to the French cardinals, in which he en- 

 joined them, and all Catholics, to recognize the 

 republic unreservedly, making unmistakably 

 clear the lesson of the encyclical, which many 

 pretended to misunderstand. Having convinced 

 the republicans that they are not partisans of 

 the deposed dynasties seeking to transform the 

 Government, but have sincerely accepted the 

 legally constituted order, the French Catholics 

 could display their activity and use their effect- 

 ive influence to induce the Government to 

 change for the better iniquitous laws without 

 giving rise to the suspicion that they are hostile 

 to the authorities deputed to govern public af- 

 fairs. " But the men who would subordinate 

 everything to the previous triumph of their re- 

 spective parties, even were it on the plea that it 

 was fittest for the defense of religion, would 

 place, by a pernicious perversion of ideas, the 

 politics which divide before the religion that 

 unites. In this second encyclical letter Leo 

 XIII enforced the doctrine that the republican 

 form of government is as divinely sanctioned as 

 the monarchical, and with his benediction to a 

 congress of Catholics held in May, at Paris, he 

 sent an injunction to obey its instructions. 



Anarchists. A violent explosion of dyna- 

 mite occurred in the Faubourg St. Germain, in 

 Paris, on March 1, in front of the house occupied 

 by the Princess de Sagan. On March 12, a house 

 which had for one of its occupants a judge who 

 had recently presided at a trial of some anarchists 

 was partially destroyed by dynamite. On March 

 1."), a bomb filled with picric acid was exploded on 

 the sill of the Lobau barrack, the principal dam- 

 age being the destruction of ancient stained-glass 

 windows in the neighboring church of St. Ger- 

 vaise. The Government submitted a bill to the 

 Chamber to punish with death attempts to 

 blow up edifices, dwellings, bridges, ships, boats, 

 or vehicles of any kind. Beforo this, mysterious 

 robberies of dynamite had taken place in various 

 parts of France. Arrests were made of persons 

 suspected of stealing dynamite at Soissv-sous- 

 fitoiles, and of five who were supposed to be con- 

 cerned in the explosions, and cartridges and 

 bombs were discovered in domiciliary searches. 



Threatening letter- wire received by various 

 persons. On March 1(J, a dynamite cartridge 

 was placed against the door of the President of 

 the Criminal ( 'oiirt, who the same day had passed 

 sentence on three anarchists. The panic that 

 sei/ed Paris after the first explosions had partly 

 subsided, when one more startling occurred in 

 the Hue Clichy, on March 27. Many persons 

 were injured. The outrage was supposed to be 

 directed against M. Bulot, deputy public prose- 

 cutor, who had prosecuted many anarchist pris- 

 oners in the last few months. Many foreign 

 anarchists wen- expelled from France by the 

 police. Ravachol, the supposed ringleader of 

 the anarchist band, evaded the police until 

 March 30. He was identified from a published 

 description by a waiter in an eating-house, who 

 informed the police when he came into the 

 place again, and he was taken after a desperate 

 struggle. He had been in the hands of the 

 police before for theft and other offenses. An 

 accomplice of Ravachol, named Chaumartin, 

 had turned state's evidence against Ravachol. 

 The latter had fled from St. Etienne after com- 

 mitting a murder there a year before, by which 

 he obtained 80,000 francs by a robbery, and was 

 devoting this to terroristic dynamite outrages, 

 lie was an adept in the chemistry of explosives, 

 and had invented a panclastite of prodigious 

 power. Ravachol, whose real name was Francois 

 Konigstein, was arraigned before the Seine Crim- 

 inal Court, with Simon, Jao Beala, Chaumartin, 

 and a girl named Soubere. On April 25, two 

 days after, 122 anarchists had been arrested in 

 Paris and other places on the charge of belong- 

 ing to societies of malefactors. The restaurant 

 of M. Very, who had been the chief instrument 

 in delivering Ravachol up to 'justice, was com- 

 pletely wrecked by a dynamite bomb, and M. 

 Very and four others w'ere badly injured. On 

 April 27 a jury found Ravachol and Simon guilty, 

 and the other three prisoners innocent; but ex- 

 tenuating circumstances reduced the penalty of 

 the two who were convicted to penal servitude 

 for life. Altogether, 167 anarchists were ar- 

 rested in the provinces, of whom 118 were lilxT- 

 ated after a few weeks of detention. In Paris, 

 71 arrests were made, and of those arrested 7 

 were convicted, 8 were held for trial for various 

 offenses, and 56 were set free again. Ravachol 

 was tried on the charge of murdering the old 

 man, and was guillotined. 



The anarchists of France are divided into 

 four general classes. The Anarchist Federation, 

 composed of advanced Socialists, theoretical anar- 

 chists, and ex-soldiers of the commune, pursues 

 no revolutionary or active propaganda, but allies 

 itself with any party opposed to the Government, 

 and aids the movement with its votes and its 

 influence. The members of this organization 

 are strongly opposed to the employment of 

 criminal means or the commission of dynamite 

 outrages. They have a governing committee of 

 30 members, and collect funds from the adherents, 

 with which they are enabled to play an impor- 

 tant part in strikes and in the Socialist agitation. 

 Their headquarters have never Iteon discovered 

 by the police. The league of the Internationtu- 

 is'ts and Antipatriots i* coni|>osed of young 

 men. and has some noted anarchists at its head. 

 The Antipatriots are not numerous, but are di- 



