History of the Jesuits: Their origin, progress, doctrines, and designs

by G. B. Nicolini

While the despotic Louis XIV. ruled France with an iron hand, and Lachaise and Letellier had a full disposal of lettres de cachet, few dared openly to give vent to the hatred they bore to the Society; but hardly had the bigoted prince expired, when the long-restrained animosity broke forth, and the Jesuits were assailed on every side. The Jansenists, the other religious orders, the curates, the bishops, all now attacked the monks, who, some months before, had kept them in such awe, and had been masters of their fortunes. It has also been asserted—and the Jesuits repeat it every day—that the abolition of their order was due to the then fast spreading subversive doctrines of the Encyclopædists, and that Ganganelli suppressed this bulwark of the Christian religion to please the atheist Voltaire and his disciples. But this, in the exclusive sense in which the Jesuit takes it, is by no means true. The Encyclopædists were not the Jesuits’ particular enemies, nor the auxiliaries of the Jansenists. They were, perhaps, more opposed to the strict and ascetic character of the recluses of Port-Royal, than to the worldly and accommodating morality of the progeny of Loyola. But the Jesuits had identified themselves with the Roman Catholic religion, and all its bigoted and superstitious practices, and the philosophers were happy that they had introduced into it so many ridiculous superstitions and ceremonies, upon which they could exercise their sarcastic and trenchant wit. Voltaire and his school could not have awakened in the hearts of their contemporaries such dislike, nay, contempt and abhorrence, for the religion of Christ, had not the Jesuits furnished them the means, by having introduced into it contemptible and idolatrous superstitions. The Encyclopædists’ principal aim was to destroy the Christian religion; and for this purpose, coupling with malignant sagacity the sublime doctrines and pure morality of Christ with the ridiculous practices and impure doctrines of the Papists, and especially of the Jesuits, held up the whole to the derision and profanation of a superficial public; who, unwilling to make any distinction, boldly asserted that nothing was true, nothing was holy, nothing respectable, in the Christian code. Again, the philosophers, in their praiseworthy endeavours to introduce the principles of civil and religious liberty, attacked the Jesuits, now become the unconditional supporters of all despotism and tyranny. In this sense, and in this sense alone, it is true that the Encyclopædists largely contributed to the overthrow of the order. The pamphlets and books printed and widely circulated at that time against the reverend fathers were mainly a mass of evidence exposing their iniquity, and tending to effect their ruin in the opinion of Europe.

Nor did the Jesuits, blinded as they were by past success, oppose any efficacious resistance to the torrent which threatened to sweep them away. Without changing their conduct in the least, they had recourse to expedients, and thought that a little patience and cunning would suffice to shelter them from the passing hurricane. This was their general practice. However, not to be altogether passive spectators in the contest, they made an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the sceptical and profligate Philip of Orleans, regent of France, not, indeed, by granting him absolution, which he cared very little for, but by negotiating for him with the Papal Court, by discovering to him the secrets of Philip V. of Spain, who had intrusted to his confessor his intention of abdicating, and by procuring for the libertine and ignoble Dubois an episcopal seat and a cardinal’s hat. But if D’Orleans, for political ends, seemed to be the Jesuits’ friend, he was not assuredly the man to use his authority to defend them; and they were, from 1716 to 1729, deprived of the exercise of every ecclesiastical function, having been interdicted by Cardinal de Noaille. Under the sensual and voluptuous Louis XV., the Jesuits attempted again to regain their lost influence, and, as far as the favourable hearing of the sovereign was concerned, they in part succeeded. They contrived to insinuate to him that their cause was the cause of religion and of the throne, both menaced by the philosophers; and, to a certain extent, they persuaded many that such was the case, and their enemies did not remain unmolested. But while the parliament and the court, in their official capacities, condemned the Encyclopædists to the Bastile, and their works to be burnt, they individually read with avidity whatever epigram was aimed at the Jesuits and the Christian religion, and Louis XV. was not the last to participate in the sneer.

Meanwhile, the new doctrines of political reform and civil liberty had spread so fast, and were so eagerly embraced by the populations of different kingdoms, that their sovereigns thought proper to give some satisfaction to public opinion, and call to their councils reforming ministers. In France, Choiseul; in Spain, Wall and Squillace; in Portugal, Carvalho; in Naples, Tanucci—were placed at the helm of the state, and began to attack the most obnoxious abuses against which people had set their minds. Now, in this disposition of the public opinion, it was evident that, at the first favourable circumstance, the ruin of the Jesuits, who had been so greatly damaged in popular favour, would be actually consummated; because it was to be expected that in this case would happen what generally takes place in political movements, that when once the moral revolution is accomplished, the smallest pretext suffices to achieve the triumph of the material one also.

Either the Jesuits furnished this pretext to Carvalho, prime minister of the King of Portugal; or, at any rate, imagining that he had himself discovered it, he attempted the overthrow of the Order. But the causes of this overthrow were not, as is asserted by the able historian of the fall of the Jesuits, wholly local, and of a private and personal nature.[322] Any other occurrence would have served the purpose as well. It may be that Carvalho accelerated their ruin; but even without him the Jesuits must have fallen. We shall briefly trace the order of events which issued in their expulsion from Portugal.

The Jesuits, from their first entrance into the kingdom, had exercised a great influence over the destinies of Portugal. This influence, which they had in part lost during the interval that Portugal was under the sway of the Spanish monarch, became paramount under the new dynasty. The Jesuits governed in the name of the two queens, the widow of John IV. and the wife of Alphonso VI., who had married her brother-in-law during the lifetime of her first husband, whom she dethroned, and chained to a rock.[323] Under John V., their power reached its climax, and it was while they ruled the nation that “Portugal fell exhausted under the protecting power of England, never again to recover her position.”[324] At the commencement of Joseph I.’s reign, which we are now considering, they possessed an equal and again unlimited power; but at that juncture a man arose to arrest their progress. This man was Carvalho. He was born in 1699, of a family of the middle class, or at the most of the lowest grade of the nobility. He was endowed with many rare qualities, with a great aptitude for business and administration, with unequalled energy and courage, and with a mind vast and capable of great designs; but he was proud, vindictive, cruel, and not seldom unjust. To arrive at power, Carvalho (subsequently Count of Oeyras, and Marquis of Pombal, under which last name he is better known to history, and by which we shall henceforth designate him) had courted the friendship of the Jesuits, and was by them brought into favour. He soon became the favourite, and then the master, of the weak and contemptible Joseph I. Pombal, in appearance, shewed himself grateful to the Jesuits, and to the last moment assured them of his friendship. But whether, in his capacity of statesman, he thought them to be prejudicial to the welfare of the Portuguese nation, or whether he began to hate them, because the fathers, perceiving that they could in no way govern such a man as Pombal, had leagued with the nobility, a class of citizens whom the vindictive minister wished to annihilate, it is unquestionable that at a certain period Pombal resolved, if possible, to rid Portugal of these dangerous monks. But, prudent and crafty, he dissembled his sentiments till a pretext or a favourable moment should arrive.

A first unjust pretext he thought he had found in the conduct of the Jesuits in 1753. At this epoch a treaty between the Kings of Spain and Portugal effected a mutual exchange of provinces in America; and, in order that the inhabitants might remain under their former sovereigns, it was stipulated that they should respectively quit the ceded territories. These people resisted such an unjust and tyrannical order; and the population of the Reductions took up arms and fought bravely for their own country, although in vain. The Jesuits were accused by the minister of having excited them to revolt, which they have denied, even affirming that the General wrote to his subordinate of Paraguay to prepare the neophytes for such a change, and warning them that, if difficulties should arise, he would transport himself to the place, to see that the orders of the kings were obeyed.[325] But, from what we know of the power exercised by the Jesuits in the Reductions, it is evident that these submissive beings would never have dared to stir without the consent and the encouragement of the fathers—encouragement which possibly they may have given them underhand, while preaching, in public, obedience to the sovereign’s orders. By resorting to this duplicity, they incurred the blame of both parties, while, if they had boldly asserted their interference in vindicating the inalienable right of men not to be bartered as cattle at the caprice of every despot, they would have earned the applause and the eulogy of every noble and generous soul.

However, Pombal had not as yet acquired that unlimited power which he afterwards attained, and did not dare, or was not able, to strike the blow he was meditating against the Society, and was obliged to be contented to prepare the way for their ruin. But an event soon occurred which rendered him absolute master of the destinies of Portugal, and left him at liberty to deal with the Jesuits as he pleased.

On the 1st of November 1755, an earthquake destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon. A conflagration added to the desolation, and, that nothing might be wanting in this scene of horrors, an armed band of brigands preyed in open day on the unfortunate victims of the direful calamity. Discouragement and despair had seized on the boldest. The courtiers insisted that the court should emigrate to Oporto, and the king and the royal family ardently desired to leave the desolate Lisbon. Pombal alone refused to let them depart. “The king’s place,” said he to Joseph, “is in the midst of his people; let us bury the dead, and take thought for the living.”[326] Under appalling and difficult circumstances, the power belongs to the most energetic. Pombal seized on the helm of the state as his right, declared himself prime minister, and, unaided and alone, prepared to conquer all the difficulties with which Portugal was at this moment threatened. There was something of antique greatness in the courage which Pombal displayed that excited general astonishment.[327] In fact, he was everywhere; he thought about everything; he provided for every emergency; and soon, by his unequalled energy, a new town sprung up on the ruins of the ancient capital.

And now Pombal, having attained a position which permitted him to attempt everything, thought of putting in execution the two great projects he had conceived—the subjection of the aristocracy, and the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal. He had already published a number of edicts to restrain the power and humiliate the pride of the nobility, against whom he had conceived a great hatred, for the scorn they had offered him in refusing to admit him among them. And now the turn of the Jesuits had come. On the morning of the 19th September 1757, without any new motive or circumstance having determined the proceeding, he removed from the court the three Jesuit confessors, and assigned to the royal penitents three ordinary priests. This first act of enmity was immediately followed by manifestoes which soon inundated Europe, in which the premier brought against the Jesuits several terrible accusations. Then, to countenance his accusations, Pombal applied to the Pope, as ecclesiastical chief of these monks, and in his complaint he gave especial prominence to that which was most calculated to displease and provoke the censure of the Court of Rome. He represented to the Holy See that the great mercantile operations of the Society impeded the accomplishment of his commercial plans and the promotion of the national prosperity, and asked for a prompt and efficient measure to put a stop to it. The chair of St Peter was at that time occupied by the amiable, learned, and upright Lambertini. Benedict XIV. did not hesitate a moment to comply with Pombal’s desires, and committed the visitation of the Order to Cardinal Saldanha, a very intimate friend of the minister.