Charette: a noble Catholic warrior against the evil of revolution

General Baron Athanase Charles Marie de Charette de la Contrie (born Nantes, 3 September 1832, died La Basse-Motte, Saint-Père, Ille-et-Vilaine, 9 October 1911) was a French Catholic royalist military commander.

His father was a nephew of the famous Vendean General François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie who was the most famous of the commanders of the Grand Catholic and Royal Army which rose in the Vendee and Brittany to oppose the French revolutionaries. He was the last great royalist commander to be captured in the Vendee and was shot at Nantes on 29 March 1795 after a show trial.

His great nephew followed in the same great and glorious tradition of French Catholic royalism. The Baron's mother, Louise, Countess de Vierzon, was the daughter of the Duc de Berry and Amy Brown Freeman. The Duc de Berry was a cousin to the King and a source of loyalty to French royalism.

As the Duchesse de Berry was at that time in hiding at Nantes, and Charette's father was being sought by the police, the child's birth was concealed; he was secretly taken from Nantes on 17 September and was registered in the commune of Sainte-Reine as born on 18 September 1832.

Unwilling, by reason of his legitimist antecedents and beliefs, to serve in France under Louis Philippe I, usurping Orleanist King of the French, young Charette, in 1846, entered the Military Academy of Turin, the capital city of the ancient Savoyard monarchy.

General the Chevalier François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie, famous Vendean commander-in-chief, and great uncle to General Baron de Charette

However, the Savoyard kingdom of Piedmont was soon to become a tool in the hands of anti-Catholic revolutionaries and, in 1848, the revolutionary policy of that kingdom quickly becoming evident to him, Charette left so as to avoid serving in a revolutionary army.

In 1852 the Habsburg-Este Duke of Modena, Francesco (Francis) V, the brother-in-law of HRH the Comte de Chambord, the true Bourbon successor to the throne of France, appointed Charette a sub-lieutenant in an Austrian regiment stationed in the duchy.

Duke Francis V of Modena, Archduke of Austria-Este and Jacobite successor to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, he gave Charette a command in an Austrian regiment in Modena

Duke Francis V was not only ruler of Modena but was also an Austrian archduke and the Jacobite successor to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Duke Francis was a most exemplary ruler who served the victims of cholera in his duchy with his own hands (there is a plaque to that effect in one of the main churches in the duchy). His duchy, too, was later toppled by the Piedmontese revolutionaries and incorporated into the new, anti-Catholic Italy.

Charette was thereby compelled to relinquish regimental service as, once again, he did not wish to serve in the new revolutionary Italian national army.

However, in May 1860, when two of his brothers, like him eager to fight the Italian revolutionaries, offered their services to the King of Naples, Charette went to Rome and placed himself at the service of Blessed Pope Pius IX, who had commissioned Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière to organize an army for the defence of the Papal States from attack by the red-shirted revolutionaries.

Charette was appointed captain of the first company of the Franco-Belgian Volunteers, known after 1861 as the Pontifical Zouaves, and was wounded at the battle of Castelfidardo (September 1860) when the Papal Army suffered a defeat at the hands of a huge Piedmontese revolutionary army.

A party of Canadian Pontifical Zouaves

After the taking of Rome by the Piedmontese, Charette negotiated with the French republican political leader, Léon Gambetta, then in power, for the employment of the French Zouaves in the service of France against Germany; he was permitted to organize them as "Volunteers of the West".

Wounded at Loigny, Charette was made prisoner but he escaped, and on 14 January 1871, the Provisional Government of France made him a general.

He was thereafter elected as a monarchist deputy to the National Assembly by the Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, but resigned without taking his seat as he was not willing to serve a revolutionary republican regime.

Louis-Adolphe Thiers, then French Head of State (and provisional President), proposed his entering the French army with his Zouaves, but Charette declared his intention of remaining at the pope's disposal.

On 15 August 1871, his Zouaves were mustered out of the French army.

Retiring into private life, Charette passed his last thirty years serving the cause of religion and hoping for the restoration of the French monarchy.

He was a brave, loyal and true Catholic hero of France.

General de Charette with Zouave comrades with an image of his great uncle in the background

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On the Queen and revolution: he who has ears, let him hear...

In response to my last post, I have a message from a correspondent called Viator Catholicus, who says:

"It is lamentable that you are so protective of the Queen of England on a site devoted to 'Roman Christendom'.

Of course, she is a figurehead with no power. But, then, what purpose does she serve? Should she not at least assert some moral authority?

Can she not refuse to sign the abortion bill to avoid any appearance of cooperation? You also made some points about the illegitimacy of Revolution.

However, the pope can certainly call for Revolution against a regime which he by his authority declares unlawful. By the way, was not the legitimate English monarch overthrown in 1688 by a the invasion of a Dutch king in alliance with certain English traitors?"

The last two questions seem to me perfectly good and fair ones and I shall try to answer them later.

Sorry to say, however, the Queen-related question is precisely an example of the very kind of parroting and re-parroting about which I complained in my previous post.

It is also self-contradictory. How can one say "the Queen has no power" and then, in the same post, say she should exercise her (non-existent!) power to refuse to sign legislation?

One cannot have it both ways.

I have VERY FULLY answered the Queen-related questions numerous times over.

How is asking and re-asking and re-re-asking and re-re-re-asking the same question that has been answered several times over, helping to resolve the issue or even explain an alternative position?

If anyone disagrees with my answers, ah, well, that's quite another thing. But then they must tell me WHY they disagree and WHAT their REASONS are.

Simply repeating the question that has already been answered several times over just looks, I'm afraid, like mindless barracking - even of the "4 legs good, 2 legs bad" variety that George Orwell lampoons so effectively in Animal Farm.

I can but say to Viator: go and read my earlier replies to people who have asked the self-same question. They can be found under "comments" at the end of each post.

In short, no, the Queen is not just a figurehead and, no, she is not devoid of all power. She has very limited but still very important power to act against a rogue government (e.g. one that banned elections) or, perhaps, to resolve a deadlock that the courts did not otherwise have the jurisdiction to resolve.

I am open to persuasion that I am wrong about that or have got the law wrong but challengers will need to point to some counter-authorities since this is the view accepted by, for example, Erskine-May on Parliamentary Procedure.

These are vitally important powers protecting us from tyranny and dictatorship. But they are very limited, "port of last resort" powers.

If this is right, then the Queen simply does not have the power to refuse other legislation. If she tried to do so she would be acting illegally and when a head of state acts illegally this is called a coup d'etat or palace revolution.

In Roman Catholic theology no-one has the right to instigate a revolution or rebellion against a superior, unless the same has been legitimately and lawfully authorised by someone more superior still.

Now the Queen is not above the law or the Constitution. The law and the Constitution are above her and she must obey them both.

As the late Lord Denning, former Master of the Rolls and former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, put it "Be ye never so high, the law is above you".

One may not like that situation and may prefer that she be a Monarch in the old mould with much wider powers but that is not our current Constitution.

And neither we, nor the Queen, have the right to overthrow that Constitution by unilateral illegal acts or a coup d'etat.

She could not, therefore, "refuse to sign the Abortion Bill just to avoid any appearance of co-operation". If she did so she would be overthrowing the Constitution and would thereby be sinning. And one may not do evil that good may come of it, as St Paul says (Rom 3:8).

We may use legitimate constitutional means to change the Constitution such as campaigning for a change but we cannot use illegitimate, unconstitutional means. That is sin.

It is Roman Catholic teaching that Catholics may not rebel against their superiors and overthrow their legitimate governance, even if that governance is oppressive or immoral.

Some Catholics have got it into their heads that Catholic teaching permits such rebellion. It does not.

The reasoning is simple enough: a subject does not have the right to sit in judgment upon his superior, for if he did have, then there would be no authority at all since any subject could, at any time, aver that the authority was being exercised oppressively and so overthrow it at his own discretion.

In short, that would be an anarchist's charter.

As I have now said, I think, 3 times this is all very clearly explained in De Regimine Principum (On the Rule of Kings) by St Thomas Aquinas, citing proper authorities.

I am open to persuasion that the Queen DOES still have more residual prerogative powers than I have stated but, to be persuasive, I think it would be necessary to point to some recognised legal or constitutional authority that says so e.g. Erskine-May on Parliamentary Procedure or Dicey or perhaps Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford or, of course, some decision of the higher courts.

To answer the remainder of Viator's questions, which I believe are good and fair ones, I say this: yes, the Pope, if it can still be said that he is superior to the Queen, could authorise her overthrow or that of the Constitution.

But does he still have that superior power?

I rather fear that he does not. If any superior power now exists it might exist in international law but I suspect not in the Pope. Indeed, the Pope claims no such power any more.

I am open to persuasion on that point, however.

As for the Dutch invasion yes, that was certainly illegitimate, indeed, a very good example of an unjust rebellion against a legitimate and lawful authority - treason or treachery, in short.

That new government was illegal and could legitimately be opposed and overthrown by anyone, not least Catholics. That, indeed, is what Jacobites tried to do by the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745, which were legitimate uprisings against an usurped authority and undertaken with the aim of restoring the legitimate king and constitution.

Such a restoration is expressly permitted by Catholic teaching since the subject is not judging its own legitimate government for the very simple reason that the government is not legitimate since it usurped power, itself, by a revolution. An usurped power has already judged itself, just as a robber has put himself in the wrong and may then be lawfully apprehended, preferably by the Police but, if necessary, by any citizen.

The Jacobite uprisings failed, sadly.

Eventually, the Jacobite pretenders ceased to press their claim and the Cardinal Duke of York eventually transferred the royal heirlooms to King George III.

For the other reasons why the Jacobite claims can no longer be seriously pressed, albeit their memory and principles ought still to be honoured and upheld, see my earlier and first post on the subject, To Lochaber No More...

This being so, from the time of King George III, the Hanoverians became the legitimate British royal dynasty. Moreover, the popes began to recognise them from around that time.

For this reason, among others, the American Revolution of 1776 was also an illegitimate one. It did not seek to restore the legitimate Stuart dynasty but, instead, basing themselves upon heterodox Protestant and secularist ideas, subjects of the King expressly claimed to sit in judgment on their lawful superior, the King himself, just as Cromwell had earlier illegally done.

Such rebellions are expressly forbidden by Catholic teaching.

However, once again, the legitimate dynasty ceased to press its claims to rule America and against the American revolutionary government, so that, eventually, that government, too, gained legitimacy and, after a time, it would have been disproportionate, and therefore a sin, to rebel or make war against it.

So much is no more than Roman Catholic teaching on the subject of just or unjust war and just or unjust uprising.

In the same way that a just war is no violence, so a just uprising is no rebellion. Rebellion and violence are sins. Legitimate restoration by proper, reasonable and proportionate force is neither violence nor rebellion but, as its name implies, a just and lawful restoring of the true and legitimate constitution - a bit like the Police apprehending a terrorist by minimum and proportionate force.

This is our faith.

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Dios, Fueros, Patria y Rey! The Spanish Carlists and Christ the King

Carlism began as a dynastic struggle for the Spanish throne which emerged within the Bourbon dynasty when King Ferdinand VII on 29 March 1830, dissolved the Salic Law, permitting his only child to become Queen Isabel II, rather than the monarchy pass only through the male line to his brother Don Carlos Maria Isidro (pictured), Infante of Spain.

This change of law was not only to cast away the traditional dynastic law of the Spanish Royal house but, more importantly, was to give a chance to Spanish anti-clericals, inspired by the French Revolution, to adopt the cause of Queen Isabel as a means of gaining power and so over-throwing both Church and Monarchy and so bring in a secular state in imitation of the French revolutionaries.

The Spanish traditional Catholics flocked to the standard of Don Carlos and so the Carlist Party was born to fight against the secularisers and anti-clericals. They were determined to protect and defend the traditions of Catholic Spain and its regions from Galicia to Valencia, from Granada to Aragon.

The anti-clerical "liberals" were equally determined to fight against the Catholic traditions of Spain although they were careful to couch their language in terms of liberty and supposed pragmatism. In reality they intended to bring in a bourgeois monarchy, such as was to obtain in France, so that they, the anti-clerical bourgeois revolutionaries, could then assume key positions in the state and so enrich themselves fabulously at the expense of the ordinary people.

The people had remained staunchly Catholic and so, where they had not been suborned by the lies of the revolutionaries, they followed the Church and Don Carlos. The divisions between conservative Catholics and liberal revolutionaries led to a series of wars throughout the 19th century which weakened Spain, already economically weak from the loss of her Empire during the Napoleonic occupation. Bonaparte's occupation of Spain allowed the anti-clerical, Freemasonic revolutionaries in Latin America to seize power and break the power of the Church and Monarchy, re-introducing slavery and enriching the revolutionary leaders at the expense of the poor.

Throughout three Carlist Wars (the last in 1893), numerous coup plots, and wedding schemes - almost all of which took on international political overtones - the Carlists made some headway but were headed off by an international revolutionary alliance supporting the Isabellinist "liberals".

The fourth Carlist War was called off in 1936, when, faced with a much greater threat from Communism and the corruptly elected "Popular Front" government, the Carlist pretender, Alfonso Carlos I, decided he had to back General Francisco Franco, the leader of the Nationalist revolt.

The Carlists had an uneasy relationship with Franco who attempted to force them into a merger with the much more Right Wing Falange (literally "Phalanx"), founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, so as to present a united front against the revolutionary "Popular Front" government who had set about murdering clergy and religious.

The motto of Carlism was "Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey" ("God, Country, our ancient customs, and our King").

Carlists preserved the Catholic ideals of the Spanish Empire, fighting both by military and political means to restore Catholic rule to Spain as it had existed for centuries. "Throne and Altar" was their guide just as it was for Catholic legitimists all over Europe.

With this vision came all the principles and liberties associated with Catholic Social teaching including a respect for local autonomy and subsidiarity, the principle of de-centralising power save where it was otherwise necessary to do otherwise.

This was what sometimes set them at odds with the Falangists and with Franco, both of whom saw a need for one, united Spain to fight the evil of Communism. This the Carlist leaders agreed with up to a point but they wanted the old local autonomies - and their fueros or local customary rights - restored as soon as possible.

The Carlist concept of fueros attracted many U.S. conservatives, who realised it was akin to the concept of "states' rights" which the US Constitution was supposed to preserve (but failed to do during and after the American civil war).

Under this system, when Carlists ruled certain regions of Spain during one of their wars, they gave maximum "community control" to ethnic provinces.

The flag of the Carlists was that of the Spanish Empire, itself brought to Spain from Burgundy by the Spanish Habsburgs. It is the red serrated saltire cross of Burgundy.

After the Spanish civil war was over, the Carlists were somewhat sidelined by Franco but still maintained a presence in the Spanish Cortes or Parliament. Moreover, there were splits in the movement when the heir-presumptive, Don Carlos VIII Hugo ( Don Carlos Hugo de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, the Duke of Madrid), became a Socialist which was alien to the Carlist tradition.

The traditional Carlists formed the COMUNIÓN TRADICIONALISTA CARLISTA which looks to his brother, Don Sixto Enrique (Don Sixto Enrique de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, Duke of Aranjuez) as putative Regent during the time that Don Carlos Hugo remains a Socialist, hoping for better from his sons.

In the meantime, General Franco decided to recognise Don Juan Carlos (Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón Dos Sicilias, Count of Barcelona) who fused both the Isabellinist line, the Alphonist line and the Carlist line of Borbon y Austria which arose at the death of King Alfonso Carlos I in 1936. Many Carlists had refused to recognise this line because its head, King Alfonso XII did not share the full Carlist ideals, especially of local regional autonomy, however it was arguably the direct male line of Don Carlos.

Thus King Juan Carlos I represents the fusion of the Legitimist and the Isabellinist lines which made a lot of sense in terms of stability.

However, traditional Carlists still recognise Don Sixto Enrique because he supports the traditionalist Catholic and regionalist principles of Carlism.

Carlists fought with the nationalists in the Civil war because the common enemy were the Communists, Socialists and Anarchists who were brutally murdering bishops, priests and religious and raping and murdering nuns and Catholic men, women and children.

On Sunday 28 October 2007, the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Benedict XVI beatified no less than 498 Spanish martyrs, brutally killed by the crazed and bloodthirsty Assault Guards, secret police (the dreaded SIM) and thugs of the revolutionary republicans.

This raised howls of protest from the modern secularists who could not stomach the idea that the Church dared to show any kind of support for those who were the victims of Communist and Anarchist brutality. These people are very happy when the Church beatifies the victims of Nazism and Right Wing regimes but the minute the Church shews balance and also beatifies the victims of the equally brutal Communist regimes, they howl. That this view is wholly unbalanced needs hardly to be stated - but nevertheless large sections of the media still vilify the Church for being so even-handed.

Apparently this kind of religious vilification is deemed acceptable by their editors and programme-makers. More balanced readers and viewers are able to judge more fairly and can see that it is no better than any other kind of religious vilification and, indeed, all the more odious for being practised by hypocrites who claim to object to such religious vilification.

The Carlist anthem is the hymn El Oriamendi.

It can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDikhUw8P9s

sung for the Regiment of Requetes of our Lady of Montserrat, and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzrKhRX0CP4

The words are:

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Cueste lo que cueste
se ha de conseguir
que venga el rey de España
a la Corte de Madrid.

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

+++++++++++++++++++

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!

Together we'll fight all as one
Together in unison,
Defending the standard as one
Of our holy tradition.

Whate'er the expense may be
To be counted at the end
The king of Spain shall enter
The court of Madrid at the end.

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!


Viva Cristo Rey!
Long live Christ the King!


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