Nos amis across the Channel

The French Exiled Clergy by Dominic Aidan Bellenger, (Downside Abbey, Bath, f15).
THE arrival of 7,000 clerical refugees from the French Revolution on our shores in the 1790s was a rare example of close contact between English and French in large numbers which brought out the best in both sides.
Recognising the murderous irreligion on the other side of the Channel for what it was, the Anglican clergy swallowed their anti-papist prejudices; the government displayed guarded goodwill; and the public responded mostly with sympathy and generosity. The exiles, for their par(, conducted themselves with both piety and discretion, thanks to the supervision of the indefatiguable Bishop of St Pol de Leon, Brittany, who quickly emerged as their leader.
Hardly surprisingly, the greatest problems were institutional, involving either the foundation of new schools or the replanting of old religious communities. Indications of parental wishes or a suggestion by Bishop Milner that nuns should eat an English breakfast brought out all the emotion pent up in a self-consciously logical race.
Although this study, containing a full list of the exiles, is primarily a scholarly tool, Br Adrian Bellenger's long and judicious introduction is packed with incidents which bring out the human stories buried in the statistics.
He is cautious in attributing any consequences of this extraordinary charitable exercise, but the whole affair can only have fuelled the change that was coming in both the established Anglican communion and the closed Catholic community. One has only to ponder what might happen if several thousand South African priests suddenly arrived here today to appreciate the extent of the problem.
David Twiston Davies