Note 152 — Chapter XXXII

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."