Barrière was executed, but his fate did not deter other fanatics from making similar attempts, nor the Jesuits from giving them encouragement. A few months after Henry had made his entrance into Paris, a youth of nineteen, named John Chastel, raised an impious hand against the king. The blow was aimed at his throat, but happening to bend his head at the instant to salute one of his courtiers, it only wounded his lips. Chastel was a student of philosophy in the Jesuits’ College under Father Gueret. He confessed that “in the Jesuits’ house, he had been often in the chamber of meditation, into which the Jesuits introduced the greatest sinners, where they were shewn the pictures of devils and other frightful figures to induce them to lead a better life, and, by working upon their spirits, to induce them by these admonitions to perform some extraordinary deed.” He further confessed that he had heard the Jesuits say “that it was lawful to kill the king, since he was out of the Church; and that no one ought to obey him, or acknowledge him as king, till he should be approved of by the Pope.”[185] The murderer, on his examination, boldly maintained this last proposition; and “this avowal,” says Mezarai, “joined to the injurious libels against Henry III. and the reigning king; joined to the ardour which the Jesuits had shewn for the interests of Spain, and to the doctrines their preachers had propounded against the security of the king, and against the ancient law of the kingdom; joined also to the opinion held of them, that by means of their colleges and auricular confession, they directed the minds of the youth and timid consciences to whatever they pleased, gave an opportunity to the parliament to involve the Society in his punishment.”[186] In fact, the parliament, by the same arrêt (29th Dec. 1594), by which Chastel was condemned to the punishment of the parricide, enacted that “the priests and scholars of Clermont College, and all others of the so-called Society of Jesus, as corrupters of youth, disturbers of the public peace, enemies to the king and the state, shall, three days after the present intimation, be obliged to leave Paris and other towns and places where they have colleges, and, within a fortnight after, the kingdom; under the penalty, if found in France after that time, of being punished for high treason. Their property, movable and immovable, shall be employed for charitable purposes, and all the king’s subjects, under the same penalty, are forbidden to send pupils to the colleges of the Society which are beyond the territories of the kingdom.”[187]
All the Jesuits, except Fathers Gueret and Guinard, who were arrested, were expelled from France. Gueret, against whom no substantial proofs of being an accomplice with Chastel, could be produced, was soon after liberated from prison and banished. This is a striking proof of the justice and rectitude of the parliament. Guinard, in whose possession were found most abominable writings, subversive of every principle of justice and morality,[188] was condemned and executed; in conformity with a proclamation issued some months before by the king, in which it was ordered that all books and writings referring to the past troubles should be burned, under pain of death. Crétineau confesses the fact, but exculpates the man, by saying that these writings were composed in the time of the League in the year 1589. But this assertion is contradicted by the quotation we have given in the note, which shews that some of them at least were composed after Henry’s abjuration, which occurred four years later, in 1593. And again, if they had been written at the time specified, why did he not burn them, in obedience to the king’s commandment?
Great horror was now felt throughout France at these repeated acts of regicide, with an abhorrence of the Jesuits, as the well-known instigators of such nefarious deeds. The parliament, the interpreter here of the public opinion (Henry having gained over to him many of his former opponents by his clemency and generosity), by another arrêt, January 10, 1595, ordered that Chastel’s house should be destroyed, and a pyramid be erected in its stead, to perpetuate the memory of his infamy and that of his associates. In consequence, four inscriptions were engraved on the four faces of this pyramid, in all of which, the name of Chastel was coupled with that of the Jesuits. In the first inscription, the assassin was described as impelled to the commission of the crime “by the pestilential heresy of that new sect (the Jesuits), which, concealing under the garb of piety the most atrocious crimes, had of late taught that it was lawful to kill the king.” In the second was the arrêt of parliament, condemning Chastel and the Jesuits, part of which we have already given. In the third, the senate and the people of Paris congratulate the king on his having exterminated “that pestilential sect” (the Jesuits). And the fourth inscription was, “A house once stood here, which was destroyed for the guilt of one of its inhabitants, who had been instructed in a school of impiety by perverse masters.”[189] In 1605, the Jesuits were again powerful enough in France, to get the pyramid demolished; and in 1606 a fountain was erected in its place.
And this seems to us to be the proper place to lay before our readers the political creed of the Jesuits. Observe, the following extracts are taken from none but their most approved authors, and such as are held in high estimation among their brethren.
Emmanuel Sa. Aphorismi Confessariorum. (Venet. 1595. Coloniæ, 1616. Ed. Coll. Sion).—“The rebellion of an ecclesiastic against the king is not a crime of high treason, because he is not subject to the king.”
“He who tyrannically governs an empire, which he has justly obtained, cannot be deprived of it without a public trial; but when sentence has been passed, every man may become an executor of it; and he may be deposed by the people, even although perpetual obedience were sworn to him, if, after admonition given, he will not be corrected.”
John Bridgewater. Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Anglia adversus Calvino-Papistas. (Augustæ Trevirorum, 1594.)—“If the kings be the first to break their solemn league and oath, and violate the faith which they have pledged to God, the people are not only permitted, but they are required, and their duty demands, that, at the mandate of the Vicar of Christ, who is the sovereign pastor of all the nations of the earth, the fidelity which they previously owed or promised to such princes should not be kept.”
Robert Bellarmine. Disputationes de Controversiis Christianæ Fidei adversus hujus temporis Hæreticos, tom. I. (Ingolstadii, 1596. Parisiis, 1608. Ed. Mus. Brit.)—“The spiritual power, as a spiritual prince, may change kingdoms, and transfer them from one sovereign to another, if it should be necessary for the salvation of souls.”
“Christians may not tolerate an infidel or heretic king, if he endeavours to draw his subjects to his heresy or infidelity. But it is the province of the sovereign Pontiff, to whom the care of religion has been intrusted, to decide whether the king draws them to heresy or not. It is therefore for the Pontiff to determine whether the king is to be deposed or not.”
John Mariana. De Rege et Regis Institutione libri tres. (Moguntiæ, 1605.... 1640. Ed. Mus. Brit.)—“It is necessary to consider attentively what course should be pursued in deposing a prince, lest sin be added to sin, and one crime be punished by the commission of another. This is the shortest and the safest way;—to deliberate, in a public meeting, if it can be held, upon what should be determined by the common consent, and to consider as firmly fixed and established whatever may be resolved by the general opinion. In which case, the following course must be pursued. First of all, the prince must be admonished and brought back to his senses. If he does not amend, begin by refusing to obey him; ... and, if necessary, destroy with the sword that prince who has been declared a public enemy. But you will ask what is to be done if a public meeting cannot be held, which may very frequently happen. In my opinion, a similar judgment must be formed; for when the state is oppressed by the tyranny of any of the princes, and the people are deprived of the power of assembling, the will to abolish the tyranny is not wanting, or to avenge the manifest and intolerable crimes of the prince, and to restrain his mischievous efforts: I shall never consider that man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public wishes, would attempt to kill him!”