Unnatural Frenchmen by Cage E. Claire;

Author:Cage, E. Claire;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Woodblock print of a refractory priest denouncing Durif on account of her marriage and her husband later binding her to a ladder and stabbing her with a pitchfork. Grand assassinat arrivée dans le bourg de Talendre, commune de Monton en Auvergne, commis par un fanatique qui a evantré sa femme à coup de fourche, et lui à arraché l’enfant dont elle était en seinte de six mois, par la solicitation d’un prêtre refractaire. Paris: Chez Fleuret, 1797.

Bruslon was deported under the law of 19 fructidor in 1797, which was passed the day after the left-wing coup d’état of 18 fructidor (September 4). This law reinstated laws from the Terror against nonjuring and émigré clergy, requiring priests to swear a new oath and effectively authorizing the deportation of thousands of priests who did not comply—except married priests. The rationale for exempting married priests was the same as it had been during the Terror; that is, marriage constituted the ultimate proof of a priest’s loyalty to the patrie. The government’s exemption of married priests made the deportation of Bruslon, a married priest and an outspoken opponent of clerical celibacy, an exceptional and intriguing case. Bruslon made his marital status the focal point of his campaign for liberation from his detention on the island of Ré. Bruslon was one of the approximately 1,500 priests interned on the islands of Ré and Oléron off the west coast of France en route to French Guiana. Less than 600 were actually deported to Guiana, and nearly half died before reaching the destination. Desperate to avoid this fate, Bruslon wrote petitions on his own behalf and on behalf of a few other deported married priests.105

Bruslon viewed himself as a victim of calumny and prejudice. He attributed his deportation to prejudice against married priests and alleged that Duliepvre had publicly denounced married priests as apostates and their wives as concubines.106 Concerned that Bruslon might have been either falsely accused of being unmarried or unjustly denounced on account of his marriage, authorities called for investigations of both Bruslon and Duliepvre in order to determine if there had been solid grounds for Bruslon’s deportation sentence. Police determined that, despite his marriage, Bruslon was a social and political menace and thus rejected Bruslon’s demands for release. Bruslon and his wife both unsuccessfully appealed to the Council of 500 for his release and return.107

Bruslon’s internment on the island of Ré was relief for Grégoire and other leaders of the Constitutional Church who considered Bruslon a menace. Throughout the 1790s, Bruslon publicly attacked its leadership and developed a highly antagonistic relationship with the abbé Grégoire and the constitutional bishop of Indre-et-Loire, Pierre Suzor. Bruslon published attacks on Suzor and his stance against clerical marriage as well as the constitutional bishops’ encyclique of 1795.108 Grégoire and Suzor consulted with each other about the most appropriate way to handle Bruslon and the agitation that he incited. Often referring to Bruslon as “perverse” and “immoral,” Suzor condemned him and other married priests for “their sacrileges” and for having “openly scorned the laws of the Church.

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