Immediately after the promulgation of this Brief, the prelates Macedonio and Alfani, accompanied by the Corsican soldiers, presented themselves at the Gesù, called together all the members of the Society, read to them the Brief of Suppression, and dispersed them, for the moment, in different ecclesiastical establishments; the General Ricci being confined to the English College. The two prelates, who were members of a commission appointed to examine and proceed in all this important matter, then took possession of the building, put the seal on all papers and other valuable things, and left the house in the keeping of the soldiers. Other commissioners resorted to the same proceedings in the thirty-one establishments which the Jesuits possessed in Rome; while in the provinces, the bishops received and executed the same orders. Next morning, the Collegio Romano, and all the other different schools of the Jesuits, were taken possession of, and served by the Capuchins. But we must here observe, that even before the Brief was published, the Jesuits had been brought before divers tribunals in Rome, and in other parts of the Papal States, accused and found guilty of various misdemeanours; that several of their houses, as in Bologna Mecerata Frascati, had been, by the bishops, subjected to visitation, and some of them shut up; and that even the possessions, and all the valuable things of the Collegio Romano, had been confiscated to pay creditors. So that it may be said that even had Ganganelli wished to preserve the Jesuits, he would have found it difficult to resist public opinion, which, even in his own dominions, was so decidedly against the order.
It will be perhaps well to take here a retrospective glance, and rapidly examine the progressive march of the famous Society.
As we have seen, ten homeless and penniless enthusiasts, under the guidance of a remarkable and superior intelligence, had decided upon establishing a new religious order in a country already so infested by such leprosy, that the Holy See itself had forbidden the establishment of any new brotherhood. They were without friends, without supporters; they met with many obstacles, which nothing but the courage and indomitable energy of their chief could enable them to overcome. They were obliged to beg, from door to door, a hard piece of bread, and had nothing to shelter their wearied heads but the roofs of hospitals. Yet all difficulties were vanquished, the Society was established, and sixteen years after, in 1556, when Ignatius died, the order numbered more than a thousand members, was established in thirteen provinces, and was in possession of many valuable establishments. A hundred years afterwards, the members of the Society had increased to twelve thousand, the provinces to thirty-four, their wealth and the number of their establishments to a very considerable extent. Already, at this epoch, they boasted of having three saints, eight or ten martyrs, and ten or twelve of Loyola’s disciples had sat in the College of Cardinals. At the time of the Suppression, the Society numbered thirty-nine houses of professed members, 669 colleges, 61 novitiates, 196 seminaries, 335 residences, 223 missions, and 22,782 members, dispersed all over the surface of the earth. The order then reckoned, as its chief glory, in the register of its members, 24 cardinals, 6 electors of the empire, 19 princes, 21 archbishops, 121 titular bishops (so much for the article in the Constitutions which forbids the member to accept of any dignity), 11 martyrs, and 9 saints.
We wish we could give, with an equal degree of exactness, the amount of their fortune, raised by some to a fabulous amount, and by others represented as very insignificant. Nevertheless, we shall try to come to a fair estimate of the whole, from what we know, from their own confession, to have been a part of it.
Crétineau gives a very minute detail of the fortune possessed by the Jesuits in France; and the total sum, according to his calculations, amounted to 58 millions of francs.[398] In the same volume, at page 303, the same historian says that the fortune the fathers possessed in Spain was much more considerable—beaucoup plus considerable—than that they had in France; let us, then, say 80 millions; while that which they possessed in Austria, according to the same authority, amounted to 125 millions.[399] So that the total sum of their fortunes in those three estates amounted, by their own account, to 263 millions of francs. We, who know almost all the establishments they had in Italy, do not hesitate to say that what they possessed there amounted to an equal sum, 263. Now, let us add to these 526 millions their other possessions in Belgium, Poland, in the remainder of Germany, in Portugal, in other small states, and in those rich mercantile establishments in both Indies, and we think it may be boldly asserted that their fortune amounted, in the whole, to a sum certainly not short of 40 millions sterling. So much for the article of the Constitution recommending holy poverty as the bulwark of religion. To this prodigious and almost incredible amount of property—which, however, was not all productive, part of it consisting in houses and colleges—the reverend fathers added the annual income arising from pensions, or incomes assigned by princes, towns, or chapters for the maintenance of divers colleges, some of which assignments were so considerable as to amount to £3000 yearly. Besides this, they had the annual revenues arising from the presents which twice a year they received from two or three hundred thousand pupils; the emoluments received by some of them as private tutors, agents, or stewards of great families; and, lastly, the——alms!!! Is not that a wonderful and astonishing fact, which proves forcibly the cunning and cleverness of those monks, who, to appearance, had nothing at heart but the conversion of souls and the gratuitous education of children, and who were able, in the space of 230 years, to accumulate the immense sum of forty millions sterling?
However, when Ricci was examined, he swore that he had no hidden treasures nor money laid out at interest; and we suppose that the good father, not to tell an untruth, must have added secretly after the words, we have no hidden treasures, “in the places where you have looked for them, or where you supposed them to exist.” We know, however, that after the Jesuits had been driven from France, Spain, Naples, and Parma, “they were so terrified, that Father Delci started instantly for Leghorn, carrying off the treasures of the order, with the intention of transporting them to England; but the General, who was less pusillanimous, stopped him in his flight.”[400] What then became of all the moneys and valuable things which the Jesuits possessed, since little or nothing was found in their establishments? This is a mystery which we are not able to explain. We can conceive, and every one may easily imagine, that the Jesuits, who, during the last twelve years of their existence, expected to be suppressed from day to day, were not so simple as to leave their transportable wealth at the mercy of their enemies; but we would not hesitate to affirm that the Society must have possessed a large treasure at the time, though, what became of it, we cannot say. Indeed they were so cautious, and so eager to accumulate specie, that for many years the revenues of the Collegio Romano were not employed for its maintenance, and the fathers preferred having their immovable possessions confiscated to pay its debts, in lieu of disbursing money. We know also, that when they were re-established in 1814, they at once got up their establishments in the most splendid style, and soon after made many acquisitions. How did they come by the means by which all this was effected? Was it the ancient treasure? and who had it in charge during all the forty years of their legal suppression? This rather resembles a romance than pure historical truth, and we have no means whatever of elucidating it.
Meanwhile a commission was named to commence proceedings against Ricci and some others of his brethren. The old General, when interrogated, answered with sufficient simplicity, and without any apparent resentment. He enlarged on the innocence of the Society, and protested that he had neither concealed nor lent out at interest any money; and of all the accusations that were brought against him, he only admitted that he had a correspondence with the King of Prussia; we shall see afterwards for what purpose.
About two months after, Ricci, the assistants, the secretary of the order, the Fathers Favre, Forrestier, Gautier, and some others, were sent to the Castel St Angelo, the state prison. The crimes of which they were accused and convicted were, that they had attempted, both by insinuations, and by more open efforts, to stir up a revolt in their own favour against the Apostolic See; that they had published and circulated throughout all Europe libels against the Pope, one of which had for its title, De Simoniaca electione fratris Ganganellii in Summum Pontificem—Simoniacal election of brother Ganganelli to the office of Chief Pontiff; while Favre, Forrestier, and Gautier were loudly repeating everywhere that the Pope was the Antichrist, and that the five cardinals of the commission were to be compared to the five propositions of Jansenius.[401] And in the following chapter, we shall see that they did not confine their anger to threatenings and imprecations.