by which the King declares that he confirms the Papal bulls granted to that bishop "vu qu'il ne s'y est trouvé aucune chose contraire aux priviléges, franchises et libertés de l'Eglise Gallicane." But this Edict does not say that the liberties of the Gallican Church ever did exist in Canada. The King, as protector of the Church in France, simply declares by these words that he had no intention of making or permitting innovations in the status of that Church. Such a declaration was the more necessary, because the edict was promulgated to confirm the appointment of a bishop, holding not from the Gallican Church, but immediately and directly from the See of Rome.

It is further contended that the name of "Catholic, Apostolic and Roman," given to the Church in the official papers of the colony, was a form generally adopted to distinguish it from the reformed churches. But what reason is there for supposing that any confusion could have been caused by the use of the term Gallican or Catholic Church? Was it not thus that the Church in France was universally and invariably designated; although the danger of confounding it with other religious bodies was much greater in the Mother Country than in Canada, where the number of the reformed was extremely small? No, the reason for so designating the Catholic Church in the colonial ordinances and statutes and in the articles of the capitulations and in the Treaty of Paris was a very different one; it was because she depended immediately on the Holy See. The Church of France was indeed a Catholic Church, but her civil status was very different from the status of the same church in the other European countries, and especially in England and Scotland. In France the civil courts took cognizance of appeals in ecclesiastical matters and even in matters purely spiritual, while in England and in Scotland, before the Reformation, those appeals were carried directly to Rome, as they are to-day in Canada.

The court of the officiality, at first ignored by the Superior Council, is confidently asserted to have been at a later period recognized by that supreme tribunal. Whether there was or was not an officiality in the French colony is of no consequence, there being none in Canada to-day; for it is well-known that the appel comme d'abus existed in France, because the eccle

* In most of the dioceses of France, the Rituel de Paris, not the Rituel Romain, was followed,

siastical jurisdiction had been created and exercised by the State. No authority can be quoted to show that the civil courts of France possessed or claimed original jurisdiction in ecclesiastical måtters, although that jurisdiction is the one claimed for ourcourts in the name of the French King.

What results from the various decisions cited by Messrs. Doutre and Laflamme? Do they prove that the Superior Council of Quebec attempted to review the spiritual judgments of the Bishop or of his official-for, as we have shown in the first part of this article, an officiality, invested with private and voluntary jurisdiction, did exist in Canada, but destitute of the coercive and civil powers which it had in France? In the cause of the Grand Chantre de Merlac, letters of relief, lettres de relief,* and not a writ of appeal, or intimation en appel, were granted from a decision of the bishop by which he disposed of the installation of the canons, and which consequently affected their temporal income or benefices. In the case of Saint Fort, † the matter in dispute was a question of marriage, and the appeal was allowed only on the clause forbidding the said St. Fort to contract marriage. The arrêt of the 10th September, 1714, rendered in the cause of the official Calvarin and Le Boulanger, proves nothing more than that in a suit against a Recollet father, the nature of which is not stated, the Superior Council sent the parties back to the officiality. Like the other judgments in the two cases before cited, it is merely interlocutory and appears to be of the same nature as the judgments of our present courts in the cases of Lussier v. Archambault, and Vaillancourt v. Lafontaine; for it reserves the costs, thus giving it to be understood that the case would again come before the Council. In the case of the widow Peuvret, § the dispute originated in the violation of a temporal right created by a general regulation or règlement of the Council itself concerning the position of widows' seats in the church. The judgment of the 12th June, 1741, is of the same nature; it forbids the curés to solemnize the marriage of minors without their parents' con

* Ed. & Ord., Vol. 2, p. 129-130. The lettres de relief were a remission or grace supposed to be granted by the King in person. (Guyot, vis Relief précis and Grand Bailli).

† Ed. & Ord., Vol. 2, p. 160.

Ed. & Ord., Vol. 2, p. 163.

2 lbid, 193.

sent. (Ibid, 204.) The proof sought to be drawn from the arrêts rendered in the matter of the Canon Tonnancourt and the Curé Récher is no more satisfactory. In that case the matter in dispute had referenee to the division of a parish by the Bishop. Letters of relief were granted on the 30th June, 1750; but on the 16th October following, the appeal was dismissed on the merits, and the canons condemned to a fine of 75 livres and costs, the Council holding that there was no abus. (Ibid, 228-232.)

The judgments recorded on pages 58, 63, 154-157 of Vol. 2 of thé Edicts and Ordinances, also all relate to the temporalities of the Church. Far from proving the arguments of the learned advocates, they render it certain that no appeal comme d'abus lay from the acts of the ecclesiastical authorities except in civil matters. Thus the ordinance of the Council on page 58 relates to abuses committed by the churchwardens and the curé in the management of the Church property. The decision on page 63 commands M. de Bernières or Messire Dudouyt to file immediately in the office of the Council the titles of their alleged ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The règlement on page 154 has reference to the honors due to the seigneurs in the churches, and declares among other things that "le seigneur aura droit de sépulture dans le choeur, hors du sanctuaire, pour lui et sa famille, lors. qu'il aura donné la terre sur laquelle l'église aura été bâtie-"

Upon the representation of the Vicars-General that this regulation was founded neither in right nor in possession, and would be contested by the Bishop, the Council decided that the seigneur and his family could be buried in that part of the Church wherein his pew was placed.

Such are the precedents,* drawn from the records of a Court possessing legislative power over a colony having a national church, which have been invoked to prove the existence of the appel comme d'abus in ecclesiastical matters. All these decisions relate to the temporalities of the Church. There is nothing to show that in the greatest number of instances the judgment was a final one; and it seems to us not more logical to deduce from them the conclusion that the appel comme d'abus existed in New France as in the Mother Country, than to infer the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of our Superior Court from the fact of its issuing a writ of mandamus in order to hear the

⚫ They are also reproduced by Mr. Gonzalve Doutre in a communication published farther on.

civil part of a mixed cause. Finally, the reader may form an idea of the legal weight of some of these decisions when he is informed that there were no lawyers in the colony, it being thought to its advantage to exclude them; and that even the greater part of the judges, as the King says in his instructions to the Intendant Duchesneau, were possessed of very little experience. It is therefore not surprising to find that some of these decisions are based upon statutes of the Mother Country which were never in force in the colony; as for instance that of 1714 rendered in the case of the Recollet Father in pursuance of the ordinance of 1695, although it is universally admitted that this ordinance had never been registered by the Superior Council, and consequently has never formed part of the laws of Canada.

It is further argued that General de Tracy was commissioned to "commander tant aux peuples qu'à tous nos autres sujets, ecclesiastiques, nobles et gens de guerre et autres de quelque qualité et condition qu'ils soient." Who has ever pretended that the ecclesiastics were not subjects of the French King, as they are to-day of Her Britannic Majesty?

Messrs. Doutre and Laflamme likewise bring forward the instructions given by the King to M. de Tracy, dated 15th November, 1664: "de tâcher de n'avoir pas de querelle avec les RR. PP. Jésuites, ce qui a été la cause pour laquelle le gouverne ment a été retiré à M. d'Avangour et à M. de Mézy; mais en les ménageant, qu'il prenne garde de les laisser rien entreprendre sur l'autorité qui lui a été commise ainsi que contre les intérêts de sa Majesté." It must be confessed that a very clear mental vision is required to find in this counsel any trace of the introduction into Canada of the liberties of the Gallican Church.

The instructions given to M. Talon on the 23rd March, 1665, and to Count de Frontenac on the 7th April, 1672, do not afford any stronger proofs. M. Talon is informed "que ceux qui ont fait des relations les plus fidèles et les plus désintéressées du pays ont toujours dit que les Jésuites (dont la piété et le zéle out beaucoup contribué à y attirer les peuples qui y sont à present) y ont pris une autorité qui passe au-delà des bornes de leur véritable profession, qui ne doit regarder que les consciences. Pour s'y maintenir ils ont été bien aises de nommer le Sieur Evêque de Pé

1 Ed. et Ord. 107.

trée (Mgr Laval) pour y faire les fonctions épiscopales, comme ils l'ont dans leur entière dépendance, et même jusqu'ici où ils ont nommé les Gouverneurs pour le Roi en ce pays-la, où ils se sont servi de tous moyens possibles pour faire révoquer ceux qui avaient été choisis pour cet emploi, sans leur participation; en sorte que comme il est absolument nécessaire de tenir en une juste balance l'autorité temporelle qui réside en la personne du Roi, et la spirituelle qui réside en la personne du dit Evêque et des Jésuites, de manière toutefois que celle-ci soit inférieure à l'autre, la première chose que le dit Sieur Talon devra bien observer et dont il est bon qu'il ait en partant d'ici des notions presque entières, est de connaître parfaitement l'état auquel sont maintenant ces deux autorités dans le pays et celui auquel elles doivent être naturelle⚫ment."

It is true that this document mentions the spiritual as being inferior to the temporal jurisdiction. But it cannot be denied that in mixed matters the civil authorities alone were competent to draw the line of division between the civil and the spiritual; and it is in this sense only that the spiritual authority in Canada was subordinate to the civil, just as it is to-day under the British Crown. And what is the meaning of the recommendation made to Talon "de connaître parfaitement l'état des deux autorités dans le pays et celui auquel elles doivent être naturellement ?" Does it not demonstrate in the most convincing manner that the civil status of the Catholic Church in France had not been transplanted into, and was not yet settled in Canada?

The instructions given to M. de Frontenac command "que le dit Sieur de Frontenac aît beaucoup de considération pour eux (les Jésuites), mais en cas qu'ils voulussent porter l'autorité ecclésiastique plus loin qu'elle ne doit s'étendre, il est nécessaire qu'il leur fasse connaître avec douceur la conduite qu'ils doivent tenir, et en cas qu'ils ne se corrigent pas, il s'opposera à leurs desseins adroitement, sans qu'il paraisse ni rupture ni partialité, et donnera avis de tout à Sa Majesté, afin qu'elle y puisse apporter le remède convenable."

The instructions given to M. Talon, as above cited, show that the ecclesiastical authority extended to spiritual matters. And even in the event of encroachment upon the temporal authority, the instructions to M. de Frontenac are not that recourse should be had by appel comme d'abus. On the contrary, he is directed to oppose their designs, adroitement et sans rupture, and to make a report of the whole to His Majesty.