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LAMENNAIS, HUGUES

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 126 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LAMENNAIS, See also:HUGUES FtLICITE See also:ROBERT DE (1782-1854), See also:French See also:priest, and philosophical and See also:political writer, was See also:born at See also:Saint Malo, in See also:Brittany, on the 19th of See also:June 1782. He. was the son of a shipowner of Saint.Malo ennobled by See also:Louis XVI. for public services, and was intended by his See also:father to follow See also:mercantile pursuits. He spent See also:long See also:hours in the library of an See also:uncle, devouring the writings of See also:Rousseau, See also:Pascal and others. He thereby acquired a vast and varied, though superficial, erudition, which determined his subsequent career. Of a sickly and sensitive nature, and impressed by the horrors of the French Revolution, his mind was See also:early seized with a morbid view of See also:life, and this See also:temper characterized him throughout all his changes of See also:opinion and circumstance. He was at first inclined towards rationalistic views, but partly through the See also:influence of his See also:brother See also:Jean See also:Marie (1775-1861), partly as a result of his philosophical and See also:historical studies, he See also:felt belief to be indispensable to See also:action and saw in See also:religion the most powerful See also:leaven of the community. He gave utterance to these convictions' in the Reflexions sur l'etat de l'eglise en See also:France See also:pendant le i8ieme siecle et sur sa situation actuelle, published anonymously in See also:Paris in 18o8. See also:Napoleon's See also:police seized the See also:book as dangerously ideological, with its eager recommendation of religious revival and active clerical organization, but it awoke the ultramontane spirit which has since played so See also:great a See also:part in the politics of churches and of states. As a See also:rest from political strife, Lamennais devoted most of the following See also:year to a See also:translation, in exquisite French, of the See also:Speculum Monachorum of Ludovicus Blosius (Louis de See also:Blois) which he entitled Le See also:Guide spirituel (1809). In 1811 he received the See also:tonsure and shortly afterwards became See also:professor of See also:mathematics in an ecclesiastical See also:college founded by his brother at Saint Malo. Soon after Napoleon had concluded the See also:Concordat with See also:Pius VII. he published, in See also:conjunction with his brother, De la tradition de l'eglise sur l'institution See also:des eveques (1814), a See also:writing occasioned by the See also:emperor's nomination of See also:Cardinal See also:Maury to the archbishopric of Paris, in which he strongly condemned the Gallican principle which allowed bishops to be created irrespective of the See also:pope's See also:sanction. He was in Paris at the first See also:Bourbon restoration in 1814, which he hailed with See also:satisfaction, less as a monarchist than as a strenuous apostle of religious regeneration.

Dreading the Cent fours, he escaped to See also:

London, where he obtained a meagre livelihood by giving French lessons in a school founded by the See also:abbe Jules Carron for French emigres; first impression of him as an See also:imbecile changed into friendship. On the final overthrow of Napoleon in '8'5 he returned to Paris, and in the following year, with many misgivings as to his calling, he yielded to his brother's and Carron's See also:advice, and was ordained priest by the See also:bishop of See also:Rennes. The first See also:volume of his great See also:work, Essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion, appeared in '8'7 (Eng. trans. by See also:Lord See also:Stanley of Alderley, London, '898), and affected See also:Europe like a spell, investing, in the words of See also:Lacordaire, a humble priest with all the authority once enjoyed by See also:Bossuet. Lamennais denounced See also:toleration, and advocated a See also:Catholic restoration to belief. The right of private See also:judgment, introduced by See also:Descartes and See also:Leibnitz into See also:philosophy and See also:science, by See also:Luther into religion and by Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists into politics and society, had, he contended, terminated in See also:practical See also:atheism and spiritual See also:death. Ecclesiastical authority, founded on the See also:absolute See also:revelation delivered to the Jewish See also:people, but supported by the universal tradition of all nations, he proclaimed to be the See also:sole See also:hope of regenerating the See also:European communities. Three more volumes (Paris, '8'8–'824) followed, and met with a mixed reception from the Gallican bishops and monarchists, but with the enthusiastic See also:adhesion of the younger See also:clergy. The work was examined by three See also:Roman theologians, and received the formal approval of See also:Leo XII. Lamennais visited See also:Rome at the pope's See also:request, and was offered a See also:place in the Sacred College, which he refused. On his return to France he took a prominent part in political work, and together with See also:Chateaubriand, the vicomte de See also:Villele, was a See also:regular contributor to the Conservateur, but when Villele became the See also:chief of the supporters of absolute See also:monarchy, Lamennais withdrew his support and started two See also:rival See also:organs, Le Drapeau See also:blanc and Le Memorial catholique. Various other See also:minor See also:works, together with De la religion consideree darts ses rapports avec l'ordre See also:civil et politique (2 vols., 1825–'826), kept his name before the public. He retired to La Chenaie and gathered See also:round him a See also:host of brilliant disciples, including C. de See also:Montalembert, Lacordaire and See also:Maurice de See also:Guerin, his See also:object being to See also:form an organized See also:body of opinion to persuade the French clergy and laity to throw off the yoke of the See also:state connexion.

With Rome at his back, as he thought, he adopted a See also:

frank and bold attitude in denouncing the liberties of the Gallican See also:church. His See also:health See also:broke down and he went to the See also:Pyrenees to recruit. On his return to La Chenaie in 1827 he had another dangerous illness, which See also:power-fully impressed him with the thought that he had only been dragged back to life to be the See also:instrument of See also:Providence. See also:Les Progres de la revolution et de la guerre contre 1'eglise (1828) marked Lamennais's See also:complete renunciation of royalist principles, and henceforward he dreamt of the See also:advent of a theocratic See also:democracy. To give effect to these views he founded L'Avenir, the first number of which appeared on the '6th of See also:October '830, with the See also:motto " See also:God and See also:Liberty." From the first the See also:paper was aggressively democratic; it demanded rights of See also:local See also:administration, an °nlarged See also:suffrage, universal freedom of See also:conscience, freedom of instruction, of See also:meeting, and of the See also:press. Methods of See also:worship were to be criticized, improved or abolished in absolute sub-See also:mission to the spiritual, not to the temporal authority. With the help of Montalembert, he founded the Agence generale pour la defense de la liberte religieuse, which became a far-reaching organization, it had agents all over the See also:land who noted any violations of religious freedom and reported them to See also:head-quarters. As a result, L'Avenir's career was stormy, and the opposition of the Conservative bishops checked its circulation; Lamennais, Montalembert and Lacordaire resolved to suspend it for a while, and they set out to Rome in See also:November '831 to obtain the approval of See also:Gregory XVI. The " pilgrims of liberty " were, after much opposition, received in See also:audience by the pope, but only on the See also:condition that the object which brought them to Rome should not be mentioned. This was a See also:bitter disappointment to such See also:earnest ultramontanes, who received, a few days after the audience, a See also:letter from Cardinal Pacca, advising their departure from Rome and suggesting that the 125 be also became See also:tutor at the See also:house of See also:Lady Jerningham, whose See also:Holy See, whilst admitting the See also:justice of their intentions, would like the See also:matter See also:left open for the See also:present. Lacordaire and Montalembert obeyed; Lamennais, however, remained in Rome, but his last hope vanished with the issue of Gregory's letter to the See also:Polish bishops, in which the Polish patriots were reproved and the See also:tsar was affirmed to be their lawful See also:sovereign. He then " shook the dust of Rome from off his feet." At See also:Munich, in 1832, he received the encyclical Mirari Dos, condemning his policy; as a result L'Avenir ceased and the Agence was dissolved.

Lamennais, with his two lieutenants, submitted, and deeply wounded, retired to La Chenaie. His See also:

genius and prophetic insight had turned the entire Catholic church against him, and those for whom he had fought so long were the fiercest of his opponents. The famous Paroles d'un croyant, published in 1834 through the intermediary of Sainte-Beuve, marks Lamennais's severance from the church. " A book, small in See also:size, but immense in its perversity," was Gregory's See also:criticism in a new encyclical letter. A tractate of aphorisms, it has the vigour of a See also:Hebrew prophecy and contains the choicest gems of poetic feeling lost in a whirlwind of exaggerations and distorted views of See also:kings and rulers. The work had an extraordinary circulation and was translated into many European See also:languages. It is now forgotten as a whole, but the beautiful appeals to love and human brother-See also:hood are still reprinted in every See also:hand-book of French literature. Henceforth Lamennais was the apostle of the people alone. Les A,jjaires de Rome, des maux de l'eglise et de la societe (1837) came from old See also:habit of religious discussions rather than from his real mind of 1837, or at most it was but a last word. Le Livre du peuple (1837), De l'esclavage moderne (1839), Politique a l'usage du peuple (1839), three volumes of articles from the See also:journal of the extreme democracy, Le Monde, are titles of works which show that he had arrived among the missionaries of liberty, equality and fraternity, and he soon got a See also:share of their martyrdom. Le Pays et le gouvernement (1840) caused him a year's imprisonment. He struggled through difficulties of lost friendships, limited means and See also:personal illnesses, faithful to the last to his hardly won See also:dogma of the See also:sovereignty of the people, and, to See also:judge by his contribution to Louis Blanc's Revue du progres was ready for something like See also:communism.

He was named See also:

president of the " Societe de la solidarite republicaine," which counted See also:half a million adherents in fifteen days. The Revolution of '848 had his sympathies, and he started Le Peuple constituant; however, he was compelled to stop it on the loth of See also:July, complaining that silence was for the poor, but again he was at the head of La Revolution democratique et sociale, which also succumbed. In the constituent See also:assembly he sat on the left till the See also:coupe d'etat of Napoleon III. in 1851 put an end to all hopes of popular freedom. While See also:deputy he See also:drew up a constitution, but it was rejected as too See also:radical. There-after a translation of See also:Dante chiefly occupied him till his death, which took place in Paris on the 27th of See also:February '854. He refused to be reconciled to the church, and was buried according to his own directions at Pere La See also:Chaise without funeral See also:rites, being mourned by a countless concourse of democratic and See also:literary admirers. During the most difficult See also:time of his republican See also:period he found solace for his See also:intellect in the See also:composition of ' Une voix de See also:prison, written during his imprisonment in a similar See also:strain to Les paroles d'un croyant. This is an interesting contribution to the literature of captivity; it was published in Paris in '846. He also wrote Esquisse de philosophic (1840). Of the four volumes of this work the third, which is an exposition of See also:art as a development from the aspirations and necessities of the See also:temple, stands pre-eminent, and remains the best See also:evidence of his thinking power and brilliant See also:style. There are two so-called CEuvres completes de Lamennais, the first in to volumes (Paris, 1836-1837), and the other in to volumes (Paris, 1844); both these are very incomplete and only contain the works mentioned above. The most noteworthy of his writings subsequently published are: Amschaspands et Darvands (1843), Le Deuil de la, Pologne (1846), Melanges philosophiques et politiques (1856), Les vangiles (1846) and La Divine Comedic, these latter being See also:translations of the Gospels and of Dante.

Part of his voluminous See also:

correspondence has also appeared. The most interesting volumes are the following: Correspondence de F. de Lamennais, edited by E. D. Forgues (2 vols., 1855–1858) ; Euvres inedites de F. Lamennais, edited by Ange Blaize (2 vols., 1866) ; Correspondence inedite entre Lamennais et le See also:baron de Vitrolles, edited by E. D. Forgues (1819–1853) ; Confidences de Lamennais, lettres inedites de 1821 a 1848, edited by A. du Bois de la Villerabel (1886) ; Lamennais d'apres des documents inedits, by See also:Alfred Roussel (Rennes, 2 vols., 1892) ; Lamennais inlime, d'apres une correspondance inedite, by A. Roussel (Rennes, 1897) ; Un Lamennais inconnu, edited by A. Laveille (1898) ; Lettres de Lamennais a Montalembert, edited by E. D. Forgues (1898) ; and many other letters published in the Revue bleue, Revue britannique, &c. A See also:list of lives or studies on Lamennais would fill several columns.

The following may be mentioned. A Blaize, Essai biographique sur M. de Lamennais (1858); E. D. Forgues, Notes et souvenirs (1859); F. Brunetiere, Nouveaux elssais sur la litterature contemporaine (1893) ; E. See also:

Faguet, Politiques et moralistes, ii. (1898) ; P. See also:Janet, La Philosophie de Lamennais (189o); P. See also:Mercier, S.J., Lamennais d'apres sa correspondance et les travaux les plus recents (1893) ; A. See also:Mollien et F. Duine, Lamennais, sa See also:vie et ses idees; Pages choisies (See also:Lyons. 1898) ; The Hon.

W. See also:

Gibson, The Abbe de Lammenais and the Liberal Catholic See also:Movement in France (London, 1896) ; E. See also:Renan Essais de morale et de critique (1857) ; E. See also:Scherer, Melanges de critique religieuse (1859); G. E. See also:Spuller, Lamennais, etude d'histoire et de politique religieuse (1892); Mgr. See also:Ricard, L'icole menaisienne (1882), and Sainte-Beuve, Portraits contemporains, tome i. (1832), and Nouveaux Lundis, tome i. p. 22; tome xi. p. 347.

End of Article: LAMENNAIS, HUGUES

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