ble opposition of the Catholic
hierarchy and clergy to the principle of absolute religious equality
established by the Fundamental Law (Articles CXC-CXCIII). Their leader,
Maurice de Broglie, Bishop of Ghent, actually published a _jugement
doctrinal_ in which he declared that the taking of the oath to the
Constitution was an act of treason to the Catholic Church. In this
defiance to the government he had the support of the Pope, who only
permitted the Count de Mean to take the oath on his appointment to the
Archbishopric of Malines on the understanding that he held Articles
CXC-CXCIII to refer only to civil matters. From this time to take the
oath "dans le sens de M. Mean" became with the ultra-clerical party a
common practice.

Other measures of the government aroused Catholic hostility. In this
year, 1819, a decree forbade the holding of more than two religious
processions in a year. In such a country as Belgium this restriction was
strongly resented. But the establishment in 1825 by the king of a
_Collegium Philosophicum_ at Louvain, at which all candidates for the
priesthood were by royal decree required (after 1826) to have a
two-years' course before proceeding to an episcopal seminary, met with
strenuous resistance. The instruction was in ancient languages, history,
ethics and canon-law; and the teachers were nominated by the king. The
first effect of this decree was that young men began to seek education
in foreign seminaries. Another royal decree at once forbade this, and
all youths were ordered to proceed either to the _Collegium_ or to one
of the High Schools of the land; unless they did so, access to the
priesthood or to any public office was barred to them. This was perhaps
the most serious of all the king's mistakes. He miscalculated both the
strength and the sincerity of the opposition he thus deliberately
courted. His decrees were doomed to failure. The bishops on their part
refused to admit to their seminaries or to ordination anyone who
attended the _Collegium Philosophicum_. The king, in the face of the
irrevocable decision of the Belgian hierarchy, found himself in an
untenable position. He could not compel the bishops to ordain candidates
for Holy Orders, and his decrees were therefore a dead letter; nor on
the other hand could he trample upon the convictions of the vast
majority of his Belgian subjects by making admission to the priesthood
impossible. He had to give way and to send a special envoy--