Page "Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire" Paragraph 26

Lacordaire supported the Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states and the later French invasion of the Papal States: " We must not at all be too alarmed by the possible fall of Pius IX ," he wrote to Montalembert.

He found the Falloux Laws a disappointment despite their attempt to establish a degree of freedom for Catholic secondary education.

Opposed to the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Lacordaire condemned his coup d ’ état of 2 December 1851.

He retired from public life, and later explained: " My hour had come to disappear with the others.

Many Catholics followed another line, and separating themselves from all they had said and done, threw themselves with ardor before absolute power.

This schism that I do not want at all to call here an apostasy, has always been a great mystery to me and a great sadness.