1855? The two important givens of the personal life of Fr. Galabert in 1855 are on the one hand his choice of Assumptionist Religious Life and on the other hand his being sent to Rome for his studies in theology, which givens were already treated above and it is useless to come back over them. We only have one letter for this year (21 of December 1855 to Fr. d’Alzon) which is too little for a full review of the year 1855 in its entirety. We are therefore forced to consider the national context and the international one of 1855, as a young religious could know it thanks to the sources of information which he had, the journals of the period. In France things are going well under the Empire, the second.(1852-1870) established with a new Constitution which was proclaimed on the 14th of January 1852 which gave the country a presidential regime after the coup d’état of December 2, 1851 which itself was strengthened by a referendum on the 21st and 22nd of December. This government which promotes peace (cf. Speech of Bordeaux) is at the same time authoritarian and democratic in words only. Fr. d’Alzon for whom the name of Napoleon was odious because of the post –revolutionary events of the first Empire (1802-1815) and the capture of Pius VII sees his name stricken off the list of the as of January 1853. It is true that the 30th of September of the preceding year, the one that we still call the Prince-President was in Nimes, stirring up of public opinion for the restoration of the Empire. He was received with all the civil decorations that one can muster and Msgr. Cart was there. The absence of Fr. d’Alzon, which did not go unnoticed, merited according to some, not to receive the Legion of Honor, interpretation much posterior and therefore subject to caution, as reported by Simeon Vailhé. Wanting the opinion of the people once again in I852, Napoleon III had himself proclaimed Emperor, the 2nd of December, that is the anniversary of the Victory of Austerlitz in 1805 and his consecration in 1804. January 30th 1853 he marries in pomp and circumstance in Notre Dame of Paris an aristocratic ranked Spaniard - the other European courts refused the hand of their princess. Eugenia Mary de Montijo gave him a son in March 1856, Eugene, Louis, John, Joseph Bonaparte, said to be the Imperial Prince, was baptized with all due solemnity with many bishops attending. Pius IX accepts to be the godfather by proxy. It is the time of the ‘Imperial feast’ from Compiegne to St. Cloud by way of the Tuileries. The universal exposition was held in Paris 1855, Flower of the wonders of the Human Industry, exposition which has its precedent in London 1851 and is the high point of this period. Sovereigns of the world in is entirety give themselves rendez-vous in the French Capital, such as the queen Victoria on the Saturday the 18th of August 1855, who arm in arm on the Emperor wants the people to ignore the painful slowness of the siege of Sebastopol, for the Emperor who proclaimed himself as peaceful is in the practice of having the army come out of its barracks! Even though the Empire proclaimed its pacific intentions, Napoleon III burns with the desire to see the shameful treaties of Paris of the years of 1814-1815 reversed. A first occasion to shine brightly on the international scene is given to him when in the Orient the War of Crimea busts out. To contain Russia who wants to dismember Turkey that sick man, is decided with England to stop the Russians from using the route of the Mediterranean and to block access to the warm waters of the seas via the Dardanelles and the Bosporus (the Detroits), with the alibi of defending the rights of Catholics to the Holy Places where the Orthodoxy itself makes itself felt with its cohorts of pilgrims and of diplomats. Turkey declares war on Russia on the 4h of October 1853, but one of its fleets is destroyed in the Black Sea the 30th of November, for the simple reason that Russia has one of is major maritime ports in the Black Sea. London and Paris get into the action and send a maritime squadron to the Black Sea on the 3rd of January 1854 and declare war on Russia on the 28th of March. The theatre of the war is the near isle of Crimea with disembarking of an expeditionary force of French and English soldiers and then Piedmontese. A fist victory at Alma , on the 29th of September, cannot conquer the resistance of Sebastopol but for a long and murderous siege (332 days) and a horrible war of the trenches. Mac-Mahon succeeds in taking the Tower of Malakoff on the 8th of September 1855 and the Russians are forced to abandon the city and destroy their ships by sinking them. In this conflict, Fr. d’Alzon lost one of his relatives, Mr. Eduard Albarel, one of his cousins, fallen in victory to the tune of 110,000 Russians, 95,000 Frenchmen, 22,000 British and 2000 Sardenia-Piedmontese, many of them from cholera,) The death of the Russian tsar, Nicholas I, the 2nd of March doesn’t put an end to the fighting but his successor Alexander II is forced to seek a compromise, accepts the negotiations signed at the treaty of Paris on the 30th of March 1856. The Black Sea is neutralized, forbidden on sea waters are ships of war, the totality of Turkey is kept; the autonomy of Wallachia-Moldavia is assured even though the Russian forces have left it, the European prestige of Napoleon III is reinforced; England and Austria remain neutral and go back to their splendid isolation, which set p to the bellicose enterprises of the Prussian and the Piedmont union, they not intervening Russia folds back on its immense Empire to consecrate itself to importanant interior reforms opposing slavo-philes and pro-occidentals. The life of the Church is split up in two antagonistic currants of unequal value: the Gallican- liberal stance and the ultramontane- intransigent faction and all is opposed and transformed in a crisis which is typically franco-french ; the liturgy with the initiatives of Dom Prosper Gueranger and the slow movement in favor of the Roman Rite in the Dioceses of France; the political role of the laity under the leadership of Montalembert and its opponent, intransigent, Veuillot who gives his voice in the Universe. the classical formation in the private free colleges the “Gaumists’ wanting to bar all pagan authors in the teaching sector, the return or no-return to Rome for all decisions of jurisprudence of the canonical order in the dioceses; the nomination of Bishops which gives way to a conflict between the French government and the nonciature; the prefectures , the tenors of the episcopacy, and the clergy and the laity consulted by the Ministry of Cults : Rome chooses the candidates ultramontane and Paris because of the Concordat and the Organic Articles is inspired by other considerations political or of influence and the declared obedience of the candidates. The Pope on his part, Pius IX since 1846 has more credit than before, just as his political power and territorial grows smaller and smaller. A contact man, warm and very accessible, Pius IX plays the card of the development of international missions and gets the approval of the Religious Orders, in general all favorable to the ultramontane cause, and as a grateful response for the freedom that they have towards their own bishop which frees them from his interference and the heavy hand dealing in religious affairs. A Marian tone without precedent colors his pontificate, with the appearances at rue du Bac, (Paris, 1846) in 1848 La Salette (Isere) and in 1858 Lourdes (the High Pyrenees) to name but the principal ones, apparitions which are encouraged and recognized after a canonical investigation. It is with nearly universal approbation that the Bishops of the World help Pius IX proclaim in 1854 the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and helps an ever increasing movement of pilgrimages to the Eternal City which honors them with grandiose liturgical celebrations and canonizations of a baroque style and other jubilees. On the other hand, there is no movement in the ecumenical world. The other Christian confessions stay marled mutually with invectives and exclusions. Enemy brothers and separated export their rivalries and their enmities to the four corners of the planet. As for the intellectual world of letters, science and art does not cease to free itself from the dogmas of the Church and to laicize itself. The year 1855 is marked with a white stone for the Church in Nimes which loses is chief shepherd, Msgr. Cart (1838-1855) and welcomes its new Bishop Msgr. Plantier (1855-1875) of a reputation at the beginning of being Gallican but worked on as every diocese by the ultramontane fervor of his Vicar General, Fr. d’Alzon , who takes him in as Vicar General. It is this year also that the Religious of the Assumption establish the foundation of a community in Nimes, at first, provisionally, on rue de Roussy before the construction of the Priory in 1859 on de Bouillargues Street in back of the tracks of the train. The City is thus garnered by a second family of the Assumption Religious Life, influent and dynamic. In 1865, it will be the turn of a third Family of the Assumption to take hold with the Oblates of the Assumption. first of all at the Vigan and then in Nimes in1868.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 15:26:41 +0000
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