Chant pour la fête de la vieillesse.
Déjà le Génie et la Gloire, |
Song for the Festival of Old Age
Already the genius and the glory, |
Hymne pour la fête des époux, 10 floréal (1798)
Dieu, qui créas nos coeurs, |
Hymn for the Festival of Marriage (1798)
Lord, who created our hearts, |
Hymne du IX Thermidor.
Salut, neuf Thermidor, jour de la délivrance, |
Hymn of 9 Thermidor
Welcome, Nine Thermidor, day of delivery, |
Chant patriotique pour l'inauguration des bustes de Marat et Le Pelletier.
Citoyens dont Rome antique |
Patriotic Song on the unveiling of the busts of Marat and Le Pelletier
Citizens whose virtues |
Air des Marseillais pour le camp de la Fédération, le 10 août An 2.
Siècles fameux que l'on renomme, En vain le reste de la terre Marchez, marchez! |
Song of the Marseillais of the Federation of 10 August, Year II
The best of times from long ago, The rest of the world lives on in vain March on, March on! |
Marseillaise ( Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin) Allons enfants de la patrie! Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Refrain: Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons, Que veut cet horde d'esclaves, Francais! Pour nous, ah quel outrage! Refrain Amour sacré de la patrie, Sous nos drapeaux que la Victoire Refrain Refrain |
The Marseillaise (The War Song for the Army of the Rhine) Forward children of the homeland! Do you hear the roar of ferocious soldiers Refrain: To arms, citizens, form your battalions, What do they want, this horde of slaves, French people! For us, oh what an insult! Refrain Sacred love of the homeland, Beneath our banners to which Victory Refrain Refrain |
La Carmagnole
I Madame Veto avait promis, Refrain: Dansons la Carmagnole II Monsieur Veto avait promis (bis) Refrain III Antoinette avait résolu (bis) Refrain IV Son Mari se croyant vainqueur, (bis) Refrain V Les Suisses avaient promis, (bis) Refrain VI Quand Antoinette vit la tour, (bis) Refrain Refrain Refrain |
The Carmagnole
I Madame Veto has promised Refrain: Let us dance the Carmagnole II Mr. Veto had promised (repeat) Refrain III Antoinette had decided (repeat) Refrain IV Her husband, believing himself a conqueror, (repeat) Refrain V The Swiss had promised, (repeat) Refrain VI When Antoinette sees the tower, (repeat) Refrain Refrain Refrain |
Ô Richard! Ô mon roi!
Ô Richard! Ô mon roi! Ô Richard! Ô mon roi! Monarques, cherchez, cherchez des amis, Ô Richard! Ô mon roi! Ô Richard! Ô mon roi! Il n'est que moi, Il n'est que moi, |
O Richard, O, my King!
O Richard! O my king! O Richard! O my king! Monarchs search, search for friends, O Richard! O my King! O Richard! O my king! It's only me, It's only me |
How many times, whenever a public outcry echoed from all corners, has your parlement been ready to bring to the Sovereign its justifiable complaints against such obvious abuses as the Unigenitus Constitution? Touched by these public ills, only the justifiable fear of precipitously venturing facts of such importance when they have not yet been sufficiently proven in the judicial system could stop these dramatic steps.
Living in the city of Orléans, in the parish of Saint-Catherine, a woman by the name of Dupleix saw that she was falling dangerously ill from a disease and would soon die from it. She had asked the parish priest to administer the last rites. The priest went to her, but before doing anything else he asked her to state that she had submitted to the decisions of the Church. Not satisfied with the answer of this dying woman, who wanted to live and die within the Catholic, apostolic and Roman faith, the priest persisted. He asked her if she had submitted to the Unigenitus Constitution and told her that he would not administer the last rites until she accepted the Constitution. Then he left.
The illness became more threatening, and the priest was again summoned. The same questions, the same answers, the same refusal.
There are two important questionings here . . . the direct questions and preconditions requiring the dying woman to declare that she had submitted to the Constitution, as well as the priest's refusals to administer the last rites until she had satisfied him. . . .
The Church is necessarily a part of the body of the State. Any new danger from clerics, any enterprise that could lead to trouble for the State or shake the solid foundations of public tranquility, ties and commits ecclesiastics as members of the State and as subjects of Your Majesty.
Whatever they may say, two combined issues equally involve the rights of the Church and of the State. Also, the execution of these rights and the state police power belong to Your Majesty, both as the protector of the Church or as Sovereign responsible for maintaining the peace of the kingdom.
Such are the issues of marriage and vows. Such are the public scandals that Your Majesty always has an interest in suppressing and that the regulations accomplish for a number of royal cases. Such would be the abuse that the clerics could achieve with the power that is confided to them for administering the sacraments. From that point, there would be intervention and competition between the two powers in certain cases to conduct the clerics' trial in accordance with the laws of the kingdom. From that point, there would begin a means of recourse to the sovereign's authority or appeals as abuses, almost as old as the monarchy and that has been so useful to preceding kings, conserving the rights of your throne and our freedoms which always provide it the greatest support.
To contest the sovereign's rights in these important matters under the pretext that they deal directly or indirectly with the spirituality or administration of the sacraments, would be to attack the most permanent maxims and open a sure and easy way for clerics to increase their power and ruin royal authority. And in all of these cases your parlement, tasked by you and under your authority with watching over the public peace in the kingdom, has the right and obligation to propose legitimate solutions to this task as circumstances warrant and as soon as necessary.
If a confessor, unworthy of the sanctity of his ministry, got carried away to the point of profaning the sacraments in order to seduce the person confessing, whether it be on a spiritual or administrative matter, who could doubt that this abuse of the holy mysteries did not constitute an external and public crime which would immediately subject him to temporal law and the legitimate authority of the magistrates who exercise this justice in Your name? . . .
Sire, we know that the love of your People and the zeal and fidelity of your parlement is sufficient to prevent and ward off these extreme ills which we can only remember with sorrow. But the enslavement of the principles that strengthen royal authority and the tranquility of the State are the same in all of these cases mentioned above.
The sovereign to whom providence has confided the government of this great kingdom is, by the sole title of king and the right of his crown, also the defender of the Church. To defend the Church is to defend its legitimate rights and its ancient canons, and to have them executed by the clerics themselves in the entire expanse of his realm. From this defense comes the title of external bishop that is accorded to emperors and sovereigns. From this defense comes many examples of trials against clerics who, while teaching the truth of the Gospel, by their spurious enthusiasm slandered and personally attacked those where listening to them. This defense is often reiterated in the decrees and laws against causing public scandals by the indiscreet refusal of those who work in front of the altar. The strict observance of these ancient canons, which make up the fundamental basis of our freedoms, also make up the laws of the State. This observance is still in the hands of Your Majesty, and as soon as the clerics infringe on it, He is in his rights and has the obligation to provide it with his authority. . . .
These immutable principles have always been the solid foundation of the monarchy, and your parlement is tasked by you with watching over the public order. It has learned however that under the direction of a few bishops the priests of their dioceses are trying to establish the Constitution as a rule of faith, or at least all of the characteristics of such. They are attempting to remove the communion of the faithful from the heart of the Church, as well as all participation in the sacraments by those of your subjects who do not state above all else that they accept the Constitution purely and simply. Your parlement has the proof, acquired through judicial inquiry and by similar depositions given by honest witnesses, that under this pretext the parish priest of Saint-Catherine persists in repeatedly refusing to allow a sick woman to die without the sacraments. This woman states that she wants to die in the communion of the Catholic, apostolic and roman Church.
The threat of her imminent death increases every second. Based on new complaints, your parlement again sends back a request to the bishop of the diocese to provide the sacrament. At the same time, it is forced to again remind him of the need to warn us of anything that he deals with that could tend to disrupt the peace of the Church and State. . . . What will the consequences be when clerics can use fear to wring declarations that they have no right to require from people who would never declare as much if they were fully conscious and with their full faculties? With such suspect and dangerous ways as these to spread the rights of the Constitution, would it not be more proper to destroy them than to strengthen them? . . .
Respectfully,
Parlement, 24 July 1731
Signed: Portail.
The arbitrary refusal of the sacraments given to the dying, notably confession or the right to name their own confessor, multiplies daily. These nascent scandals and difficulties are capable of destroying respect for religion, tainting the submission due to Your Highness and delivering a cruel blow to public peace.
Your parlement, Sire, believes it is giving you one of the greatest proofs of its loyalty by representing to Your Majesty that now is the time to put into action the reform of equally pernicious abuses.
We protest, Sire, in truth, that your parlement does not intend, and has never intended, to impinge on the Legitimate rights of [the Roman Catholic Church's] spiritual power.
Full of the respect and veneration that all Christians must bear towards our religion, the parlement knows that is is only the Church which has the right to teach the faithful, to guide them on the path to salvation, to make decisions upon everything that concerns the dispensation and administration of the sacraments, and to determine the cases in which the faithful can participate and when they must be excluded.
But the same respect with which a Christian magistrate recognizes the Church's legislative power, in that which concerns the passage of souls and the dispensation of our holy mysteries, forces him to perceive the necessity that these laws, once established, must be exactly observed. And what greater and more indispensable work could there be for a Christian king, than to carry out these duties?
To the King alone belongs supreme power along with the ability to put into effect that which he commands; but this power derives from God; his principle duty therefore is to use this power to serve Him who bestows it.
The voice of the Church is the voice of God. Its decrees, in that which is within the province of its power, are absolute laws to which all the faithful and, in particular, the ministers of religion must obey . . . if they stray, should the Christian monarch allow these laws to be trampled with impunity?
The Church, whose power is entirely spiritual, does not have the exterior force to exact obedience. It is therefore necessary for the prince to come to its aid, to employ against offenders those weapons which God has placed in his hands; and while a prince might fear blame for undertaking this under the authority of the Church, it is, on the contrary, a tribute which he pays to the Church, in accordance with his views, by lending it the force which it does not have, to execute those laws which it has established. . . .
When [the Church] abuses its power by unjustly refusing benefits to those who have a right to claim them, there must be a reclamation of the spirit that employs force to remind them [the clergy] of their work.
The prince, by making use of his authority in this way, fulfills the dual protection which he owes, one to the Church to execute its orders, the other to his subjects so that they might enjoy the spiritual and material advantages that have belonged to them from the moment they had the good fortune to be born in his realm. . . .
How many times, Sire, did princes, your predecessors, use their authority to curb the persecutions which some ministers of the Church wanted to exercise against their subjects by prohibitions, censures, or unjust excommunications? . . .
The principles which govern your authority and your absolute sovereignty, are generally known, and no one dares to question them; we can hope that we shall never see anything arise to contradict this [situation]; but these fundamental truths, which constitute the essence of the sacred rights of your crown, demand that we, your magistrates, must always be alert against anything which could be a means to disturb them. . . .
If, therefore, a high minister of the Church should one day undertake to resuscitate false doctrine and to reestablish opinions which are contrary to your authority. . . subordinate ministers . . . feared to openly contravene them. They would have to refuse to give the note of confession to those who were known not to agree with this instruction [from the Archbishop of Paris], and sick people, who would not be able to speak out, might find themselves, in that situation, deprived of those longed-for alleviations and sources of help at the point of death.
What thing is more capable of making an impression on one of the faithful?