Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text every sentiment of affection for you.--Your affectionate
NAPOLÉON."]
[Footnote 151: "MY DEAR BRADLAUGH,--I have received the
draft--at this distance and in writing it is difficult for me to fully
understand it. I propose to talk it over with you on my next visit
to London, which I shall perhaps make shortly. Receive, my dear Mr
Bradlaugh, the assurance of my most distinguished consideration.
NAPOLÉON."]
At Madame de Brimont's Mr Bradlaugh also met Monsieur Emile de
Girardin, then of course well on in years, but remarkable for his keen
wit and clear-headedness--although I must confess that I did not, at
that time at least, admire his keen wit. One evening, while we were
in Paris for our schooling, my sister and I were introduced to him;
he looked at us both critically, then again at my sister, and, not
knowing that we understood French, turned to Madame de Brimont and
said: "J'aime mieux celle-ci." I was quite conscious that my sister was
better liked than I, and deservedly so, but to hear such a preference
stated thus coolly before one's face is rather a shock to any girl.
Then there was Monsieur Emanuel Arago, a tremendous talker, who had
been one of the Government of the 4th of September, and with Jules
Favre stood at the window of the Hotel de Ville with Gambetta when he
proclaimed the Republic of France; there were also M. Dupont-Whyte,
the economist; M. Massé, a judge of appeal; M. Edouard Pourtalés,
a journalist of great pertinacity and even greater notoriety, and
many others whose names now escape my memory. Léon Gambetta,[152]
Mr Bradlaugh first met, not, I think, at Madame de Brimont's, but
elsewhere. Yves Guyot, too, had long been a fast friend.
[Footnote 152: In the following extract from an article written by
Mr Bradlaugh in January 1884 upon "The Attitude of Freethought in
Politics," allusion is made to an interesting conversation held with
Gambetta:--"My personal attitude as a Freethinker in politics," said
Mr Bradlaugh, "was the subject of some hostile discussion in France
about four years ago, when the partisans of M. Jules Ferry were
rigorously and, as I thought, harshly, enforcing the laws against the
clerical orders. I strongly disapproved of the application of penal
laws to the religious orders. It was very forcibly and very justly
urged to me by my Radical French friends, that these religious orders
had been, and were, the persevering and persistent foes of liberty,
and that when their party was in power, the clerical legion were
merciless in persecuting the Republicans and Freethinkers. My answer
was and is: 'As I do not admit the right of the Church to use the law
to suppress or punish me, neither will I claim or countenance the use
of the law against the Church.' It was urged, and quite truly, that
the Roman Catholic Church throughout its whole history had been the
never-ceasing persecutor and oppressor of all aspirations for human
liberty. My answer still was and is: 'We should fight with the pen,
the press, the tongue, the school; not the gaol or the officer of the
law.' If we cannot win with reason, I will not try to win with force.
Victory with the latter only decides which it is that is temporarily
strongest. In a long conversation some eleven years ago--which went
far into the night--with the late M. Léon Gambetta, in which he
plainly put difficulties caused to the Republican party by the enmity
of Clericalism to progress in France, and painted in vivid colours
the danger of the struggle, I took the same ground, and here again I
maintain it."]
For his intimacy with such people as Prince Napoléon and M. de
Girardin, Mr Bradlaugh was much attacked by a certain section of
the French Republicans, as well as by Dr Karl Marx, who held him up
to public obloquy for having committed the terrible crime of dining
with such people. Mr Bradlaugh's answer to this was: "As to where I
may or may not have dined, it is too ridiculous for serious reply. I
have dined with a bishop, without giving allegiance to the Church of
England; with a Jewish Rabbi, without adopting the faith of Abraham;
I broke bread more than once with good old Father Spratt of Dublin,
without inclining to Roman Catholicism." Such attacks as these troubled
him little, but, although it made no difference to his conduct, he felt
deeply hurt when some two or three French friends for and with whom
he had worked did not understand that he could know a Prince and yet
remain a Republican.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A DOZEN DEBATES, 1870-1873.
In 1870 Mr Bradlaugh held five oral debates: one with Mr G. J.
Holyoake, in London, in the month of March; the next with Alexander
Robertson of Dundonnochie, at Edinburgh, in June; the third and fifth
with the Rev. A. J. Harrison, at Newcastle, in September, and at
Bristol, in December; while the fourth debate was held with David
King,[153] at Bury, in December. Besides these there was a written
debate upon Exodus xxi. 7-11, with Mr B. H. Cowper.
[Footnote 153: No accurate report of this debate exists.]
The discussion with Mr George Jacob Holyoake occupied two successive
nights, the 10th and 11th of March, and was by far the most important
of the five. It represents different schools of Freethought, and was
for many years--is, perhaps, at the present day--copiously quoted,
especially by persons opposed to every view of Freethought, who would
confound representatives of one school by quoting opinions taken from
the other. The full wording of the subjects discussed was: for the
first night "The Principles of Secularism do not include Atheism;" for
the second "Secular Criticism does not involve Scepticism." Mr Holyoake
maintained the affirmative of these propositions, and each disputant
occupied two half-hours on each evening. Mr Austin Holyoake took the
chair on both occasions. The difference between Mr Bradlaugh and Mr
Holyoake was not so much a difference of opinion as a difference of the
methods of advocacy of their opinion. Both were Freethinkers of the
most convinced kind; but while Mr Bradlaugh called himself an Atheist,
Mr Holyoake chose rather to describe himself as a Secularist, and the
whole difference between them is indicated in these two names. The
word "Atheist" had been--and is still, to some extent--used as a term
of opprobrium; it has been perverted from its natural meaning to imply
everything that is vile; Mr Bradlaugh wore the name defiantly, and
held to it the closer for the sake of the slandered Atheists of the
past. He was an Atheist, _i.e._ "without God," in the simple meaning
of the word; if others chose to attach to it an odious significance,
the discredit lay in the narrowness of their minds and not in the
Atheist, compelled to endure the baseless calumnies heaped upon him.
Mr Bradlaugh was no "Infidel:" he least of any could be branded as
unfaithful; but since Atheist and Infidel were often used as synonymous
terms, he did not even flinch from sharing the name of "Infidel" with
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