By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Johann Baptist Weiss
Let us study another episode of revolutionary hatred in the French Revolution. It is taken from the book, História Universal, by Johann Baptist Weiss.
“In order to increase the bloodlust and hatred for Christianity in the population, on November 10, the day in which Chaumette began to desecrate churches in Paris, they promoted a feast of [goddess] Reason in honor of Chalier, the savior god.”
This Chalier played the role of savior of mankind. (Chalier was a crypto-communist revolutionary who perpetrated great atrocities in Lyons. After his execution, he was deemed a kind of redeemer and a feast was organized in his honor.)
A ceremony of the new Republican Religion of Reason inside the Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1793.
So you see that he is a real executioner who committed atrocities etc. and was taken for a god. His feast – this is typically a devilish thing – was that of [goddess] Reason. This is how it works: The devil promises, ‘I am giving your reason independence’ – and you can be sure he will take it away. Their feast of Reason is to take a criminal and acclaim him like God!
“In the wee hours of the morning, the canons thundered in honor of the new god. At eight o’clock the crowd began to pillage all the sacred vessels of gold and silver and destroy all sacred images and statues in churches and everything that could stir up a feeling of devotion. Consecrated hosts were cast to the ground and trampled underfoot. There soon started a great procession in honor of Chalier. Four Jacobins marched as the military band played. On a beautiful float they carried a bust of Chalier and, on another, a box with his ashes.”
Joseph Chalier
As you know, the Jacobins were a kind of communists of their time.
“On another float they carried a dove with which he was said to have played in prison and which gave him one of his last joys. A band of Jacobins and unspeakably low level women continuously shouted: Down with the aristocrats! Long live the republic! Long live the guillotine!”
One sees how well they understand the connections between things. They hold a party in which at the same time they profane hosts, break statues and shout “down with aristocracy!” and “long live the guillotine!” All this to adore the new god. Yet when you talk to many Catholics about aristocracy, they say, “Oh, I don’t know what this has to do with religion.” The revolutionaries know. The devil knows. The bandit knows; the Catholic does not. This is how miserable things are.
Public announcement about the event.
“Then came the profaners of churches with the insignia of the Bacchae and barbarism of demons, drinking and getting drunk using the sacred vessels and chalices. They also brought in a donkey with a bishop’s miter on his head, a rain cover on his back, and a crucifix and a copy of the Old and New Testament hanging from his neck. The donkey also wore a stole. Behind the donkey came three representatives of the Convention: Fouché, Colot d’Herbois and Laporte (taking on devout airs ‘to stimulate laughter’) under a canopy like the one used in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. A military escort closed the procession, which went through many streets all the way to Terror square.
There they had erected, on a platform, a new altar on which the bust of the new god Chalier was respectfully placed to be worshiped. They formed a circle around the altar, from which came, one after another, each of the Commission representatives. [One by one] they bent their knees and said a prayer in the new religion of the murdered one. This prayer [by Colot d’Herbois, one of the main bandits of the French Revolution] said: “god and savior, look at the nation prostrated at thy feet, asking thee forgiveness for the impious crime that ended the life of one of the most virtuous of men. Thou wilt be avenged! We swear thee by the republic!”
The Republic, Chalier and Barra.
Fouché [an apostate seminarian] sighed and uttered these words: “Martyr of freedom! The rascals have sacrificed thee. The blood of criminals is the only luminous water that can make expiation before thy rightly irritated soul. Chalier, Chalier, we swear to thee before thy holy image, to revenge thy execution. Yes, the blood of aristocrats will perfume thee like incense.” And the awkward Laporte, filled with veneration, kissed the statue’s forehead and simply said, “death to the aristocrats!” They set fire in a censer and incensed the statue of that monster. Then everyone threw crucifixes and copies of the Old and New Testaments into the fire and had the donkey drink from the chalice. They cast consecrated hosts to the ground and trampled them underfoot. I was able to pick, from the middle of the profaned objects, a sacred object that I kept to prevent profanation by the crowd.”
I think it is no surprise to you that the French Revolution committed these horrors. But you need to think that the same thing happens today. In other words, this mentality has not changed. The French Revolution cannot be seen as an explosion of madness that came to an end and gave way to one hundred and fifty years of peace. On the contrary, the spirit of the French Revolution became more and more radical and intense. Its cruelties have been subsequently repeated in the revolutions it engendered.
Portrait of US Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick. While stationed in Brazil, the Ambassador was kidnapped from a road-block on September 4, 1969, and held for 78 hours by the Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8) in Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Fieldsofhay.
As examples, just think of the Russian Communist Revolution of 1917 and so many other Communist revolutions around the world. And you also find a manifestation of this cruelty in the kidnapping of the U.S. ambassador [to Brazil]. What could be more nefarious than this? There is no record this man ever committed any crime.
(Excerpt from a Saint of the Day, Friday, September 5, 1969 – Nobility.org translation)
