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8 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Droste-Visohering Druid

less received from the king in reparation of his honor the declaration that the king had never entertained the thought that he had taken a part in machinations of political and revolutionary character. Moreover, the requirements previously made about mixed marriages were allowed to drop, the placet was waived, and in 1841 there was founded in the Prussian Kultusministeriurrt a special Roman Catholic department which lasted down to 1871. Droete-Viechering spent the rest of his days in Miinater far from public life. In no respect was he an important man, but he possessed great energy and perseverance. Since he aided his Church in winning a great triumph he was praised by G6rres as an Athanasius, but his blustering manner reminds one rather of Epiphanies. CARL MIRBT.

BIBLIOaaAPHY: For the life consult: J. von Gorrea, Athanaaiua, Regensburg, 1837 (a Catholic eulogy; of. J. G. Schlemmer, GOrrea in eeinem Athanaaiua ale Vcrtheidaper du Erzbiachofa von Droste zu Viacherinp. Nuremberg, 1838); C. A. Hess, Die beiden Erzbiachnfe, Leipsie, 1839; P. C. Marheineke, Der Erzbiachof C. A. von Droste zu Viachering ale Friedenatifter, Berlin, 1843; F. A. Meth, in Deutachlanda Episcopal in Lebenabildern, Wiirzburh, 1873. On the Cologne controversy, of fundamental importance for the relations of the Prussian state to the Catholic Church, consult: G. F. H. R.heiawald, Ailpomeinea Repertorium fur die theologiache Literatur, vole. zaii.-xxxvii., 1838-42 (lists of contemporary literature); C. C. J. von Bunsen, Aua aeinen Briefer, Leipaic, 1868, Eng. transl., London, 1889; E. Friedberg, Grenun zuri achen Staat and Kirche, Tilbingen, 1872; idem, Grundlapen der preuaaiachen Kirchenpolitik enter Friedrich 4Vilhelm IV., Leipsie, 1882; H. Schmid, Geachichte der katholiachen Kirche Deutachlanda, Munich, 1874; H. von Sybel, Klericale Politik im 19. Jahrhurutert, Bonn, 1874; C. Mirbt, Die preuaaiache Geaandtacha/t am Hofe den Papatea, Leipsic, 1899; H. Briick, Geachichte der katholiachen Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. ii., Miinater, 1903.

DROZ, dry, FRAN90IS XAVIER JOSEPH: French moralist and historian; b. at Besanpon Oct. 31, 1773; d. at Paris Nov. 5, 1850. In 1792 he went to Paris to study law, but on the declara tion of war joined the volunteer battalion of Doubs, and served in the army of the Rhine for the next three years. Obliged by ill health to abandon his military, career, he obtained the chair of eloquence in the military, career, Centrale in his native town. In 1803 he removed to Paris, where for a time he held a position in the pension office; but after 1814 he devoted himself exclusively to his favorite pursuit of literature. In 1824 he became a member of the French Academy, and in 1838 president of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. At first an epicurean and a sensualist, be became more re ligious as he grew older. His last work was Pen sEes sur le Christianisrtxe (Paris, 1844), to which he added Aveux d'un philosophe Chretien in 1848. Other works were: De la philosophie morale (Paris, 1823); (Euvres morales (2 vole., 1826); and His toire du r~gne de Louis XVI. (3 vole., 1839-42).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. P. Damiron, Easai our L'hiatoire de la philoaophie en France au dix-neuvieme aitcle, ii. 79 aqq., Paris, 1834; Lichtenberger, ESR, w. 104-105.

DRUID: A member of an order in Celtic Gaul and Britain, or of a class in Ireland, which in preRoman and pre-Christian times had charge of religious rites. The subject is most obscure. The early disappearance of the druids in Gaul and

Britain before the advance of Roman. civilization and in Ireland before Christianity, so obliterated traces of them that all information is ultimately derived from the classical writers and from early

Irish hagiological works. The name Name and has been falsely connected with the Sources of Greek drys, " an oak," to which the Knowledge, worship in the oak groves gave fac-

titious verisimilitude; it is really derived from a Celtic root which bears the idea of magical dealing. The sources of information are on the classical aide: Csesar, De hello Gallico, vi. 13-20; Tacitus, Annales, xiv. 30, and Historic, iv. 54; Pliny, Hist. rtat., xxx. 4, 13, xxxi. 1; Cicero, De ditrinatione ; A mmianus Mareellinus, Hist., XV. ix. 8, and scattered notices in Suetonius (Claudius, xxv.), Diogenes Laertius, and Diodorua Siculus; from the Irish side the Tripartite Life of Patrick, Adamnan's life of Columba, and a large number of scattered notices mainly, legendary.

Ca'sar's account, which is much the fullest of all which can claim historical value, states that above the mesa of the people in Gaul (who were slaves) were two classes, the nobles and the druids. The latter officiated at public and private sacrifices, expounded religious duties and observances, trained the youth, decided public questions concerning succession, inheritance, crimes, boundaries, and the like. To their decisions submission was required under penalty of interdiction from participation in sacred rites, the severest punishment

conceivable to the people. A yearly Cgesar's meeting of chief druids was held, at

Account. which an arehdruid was selected by

vote. The members of the order were exempt from taxation and from military duty. Because of this they had many students, some of whom remained with them for twenty years, during which they learned a " great number of verses," which were transmitted orally, since sacred things were not committed to writing. They taught the transmigration of souls, the end of the world by fire and water, discussed natural science, astronomy, and the nature of the gods. They officiated at human and other sacrifices and at all religious rites. The human sacrifices were offered sometimes in holocausts, the victims being prisoners of war, criminals, or even voluntary sufferers, and they were burned after being enclosed in huge wicker images. Caesar equates the chief deity with Mercury as the god of culture, and other deities with Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. He guesses at a British origin for the institution.

Pliny, assigning a Gallic origin, tells of the ceremony of the cutting of the mistletoe (associated by the druids with immortality) and narrates a curious story of the " serpents' egg," an accretion

formed by a mass of writhing serOther Clas- pents and cast out of their midst, and

sisal and then caught by a druid before it Irish touched the ground and used for Accounts. magical purposes. Tacitus asserts

that they deduced auguries from human entrails, and that the groves, particularly of the Isle of Anglesey, were the sites of bloody sacrifices. Ammianus Marcellinus makes three classes