Anti-Sacrilege Act
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The Anti-Sacrilege Act (1825–1830) was a French law against blasphemy and sacrilege passed in January 1825 under King Charles X. The law was never applied (except for a minor point), and was finally revoked under King Louis-Philippe in the first months of the July monarchy.
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[edit] The draft bill
In April 1824, King Louis XVIII's government, headed by the Ultra-royalist Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Villèle, introduced a first draft of the law into Parliament, which consisted of the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies. The bill was not accepted by the Peers.
After the accession of Charles X in September of the same year, Villèle's government decided to seize the opportunity and reintroduced the bill, giving an increase in the stealing of sacred vases as reason.
The Villèle government initially envisaged graduating sentences. Concerning profanations, the sentences were to change according to various cases: if the profanation had been done on vases containing holy objects, on those containing consecrated hosts, or finally on the hosts themselves. In the first case, the crime was supposed to be punished by perpetual forced labour; in the second case by death; in the last case (sacrilege against the hosts) by the same sentence given to parricides: mutilation of the fist followed by decapitation (a sentence in force during the Ancien Régime and repealed during the Revolution, but reestablished in 1810). Following the debates, this last punishment was later replaced by an "honorable amend" made by the criminal before dying.
[edit] The government's argument
The Comte de Peyronnet, Justice minister in charge of the law project, described the law as a "necessary expiation after so many years of indifference or impiety." He was followed by the Comte de Breteuil, who said: "In order to make our laws respected, let us first make religion be respected." The counterrevolutionary essayist Louis, Vicomte de Bonald adamantly defended capital punishment before the Assembly.
[edit] The opponents' arguments
Some members of the liberal opposition formed by the Doctrinaires, including Amable, Baron de Barante, the Comte de Languinais, Pierre Paul Royer-Collard and Benjamin Constant, argued that the law created an interpenetration between human justice and God's judgment, and that the state was only supposed to protect liberty of religions (which is the basics of French laicité). Royer-Collard argued that "Just like religion which is not of this world, ... human law is not of the invisible world; both worlds, which touch each others, should never be confused: the tomb is their limit." He declared the law "anti-constitutional" and as "violating freedom of thought", imposing one specific religion over other ones. Benjamin Constant, a Protestant, argued that his religion itself prohibited him from voting for the law, as the real presence of the Christ in the host could only be considered as such by Catholics. Either the person said to be guilty believes in the dogma, and he is therefore "insane", argued Constant, or he doesn't, in which case sacrilege can't be said to be constituted, and he can therefore be only punished as a "heckler" (perturbateur).
Some reactionary politicians argued in the same manner: Lanjinais stated that the word deicide was in itself a blasphemy, and that the law could not "constitute itself judge of the offenses against God." Thus Justice Minister Peyronnet finally decided to limit the law to sacrileges "voluntarily and publicly" committed, as not to interfere with inner conscience and confession. Peyronnet even made an analogy with "indecent assaults" (attentats à la pudeur): one only shocks public morality by committing such acts in public, not in private. The same applies, argued Peyronnet, to concerns with sacrilege. Peyronnet's argumentation was seen by the press as adventurous and ill-founded. Frédéric de La Mennais published a pamphlet at the moment of the vote, in which he radicalized this argumentation to return it against Villèle's government. How can a sacrilege be a crime committed against religion but not against God?, he argued. Justice Minister Peyronnet was thus attacked on his left by Royer-Collard and on his right by La Mennais.
[edit] Vote
Following long and passionnate debates, the project was adopted by the Peers' Chamber by 127 voices against 96, then by the deputies by 210 voices against 95. The text benefited from the support of the thirteen peers who were also prelates, without whom the death penalty would not have been adopted by the Chambre des pairs. The Anti-Sacrilege Act specified that for the sacrilege to be constituted, the act must take place "voluntarily, publicly and by hatred or contempt for religion."
[edit] Impact and evaluation
The law was never applied (except for a minor point) and was revoked in the first months of Louis-Philippe's reign, which followed the 1830 July Revolution.
Historian Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, called the law "anachronistic." To highlight the Ultras' refusal of the Enlightenment ideas, he cited the article "Sacrilege" in Diderot's and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, in favor of non-intervention of the state concerning religious matters:
Comme les sacrilèges choquent la religion, leur peine doit être uniquement tirée de la nature des choses; elle doit consister dans la privation des avantages que donne la religion: l'expulsion hors des temples, la privation de la société des fidèles pour un temps ou pour toujours. (...) Mais si le magistrat va chercher le sacrilège caché, il porte une inquisition sur un genre d'action où elle n'est point nécessaire; il détruit la liberté des citoyens." [1]
[edit] References
- Quand le sacrilège était puni de mort en France (When Sacrilege Was Punishable By Death In France), Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in L'Histoire, June 2006, pp.68-72 (French)
[edit] Bibliography
- M. Duvergier de Hauranne, Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France, 1814-1848, t. VIII, 1867, chap.34 (analysis of the debates by an Orleanist historian)
- H. Hasquin, "La loi du sacrilège dans la France de la Restauration (1825)", in Problèmes d'histoire des religions, Editions de l'université de Bruxelles, t.XIII, 2003, pp.127-142
- J.-H. Lespagnol, La Loi du Sacrilège, Domat-Montchrestien, 1935
- L.F. du Loiret (Le Four), Histoire abrégée du sacrilège chez les différents peuples et particulièrement en France, t.II, self-published, 1825
