CHAPTER XVIII.
1773-1814.
THE JESUITS DURING THEIR SUPPRESSION.
The Brief of Suppression, as our readers may have seen, made a provision by which the Jesuits might, as secular priests and individuals, exercise sacerdotal functions, subject, of course, to the episcopal authority. In consequence, some few of them had settled themselves quietly in different capacities. Others thought to conceal the Ignatian device under the new title of Fathers of the Faith, Fathers of the Cross, &c. But the greater part, the most daring and restless, would not submit to the Brief of Suppression, impugned its validity in a thousand writings, called in question even the validity of Clement’s election, whom they called Parricide, Sacrilegious Simoniac, and considered themselves as still forming part of the still existing Company of Jesus. Regardless, as we have shewn they always were, of the injuries they may cause to the faith, they declared war against Rome, against religion, and surpassed even the school of Voltaire in audacity in mocking and insulting a virtuous Pope.[417] Although overwhelmed on every side, they were not daunted, and their courage was still greater than their misfortunes. Driven from those countries in which they had been nurtured and cherished, and which ought to have been their natural abode, they turned their regards to the camp of their former enemies. As Themistocles, seeking protection from his ungrateful country, under the canopy of that Persian throne which he had shaken and almost destroyed, so those fiery persecutors of all religious sects which were out of the pale of Rome, and especially the Lutherans, had recourse for protection to the Lutheran Frederick of Prussia, and to the schismatic Catherine of Russia; and we do not hesitate to advance that, had those monarchs, in exchange for some advantages and privileges, asked of them to combat the Papal doctrines, they would not have imitated the Athenian hero, but would have fought against the Roman Catholic religion with the same ardour which they had employed in defending it.
But if it is easy to understand the versatile and interested behaviour of the Jesuits, strange must appear the conduct of the sovereigns who gave them protection and help. Above all, the anomalous proceeding of Frederick, the Solomon of the North, as the philosophers called him, ought to be explained.
We have already seen that Ricci, in his examination, confessed that he was in correspondence with his Prussian majesty; and it is a fact that Frederick, even before the suppression of the Society, proved himself its friend and protector, notwithstanding the reproaches and sneers of his friends and masters, the philosophers. D’Alembert, above all, assailed the king in all his vulnerable points; but in vain: Frederick remained firm in his purpose of supporting the Jesuits. “They say,” wrote D’Alembert on the 16th June 1769 to his royal friend, “that the cordelier Ganganelli does not promise sweet meats (poires molles) to the Society of Jesus, and it may be that St Francis of Assisi may kill St Ignatius. It appears to me that the holy father, cordelier as he is, will commit a great blunder in thus disbanding his regiment of guards out of complaisance to the Catholic princes. It seems to me that this treaty resembles much that of the wolves with the sheep, which were obliged, as a principal condition, to give up their dogs. Every one knows how they fared for this. However, it will be singular, sire, that while their most Christian, most Catholic, most Apostolic, and most Faithful majesties endeavour to destroy the grenadiers of the most Holy See, your most heretic majesty should be the only one who wishes to preserve them.”
This letter was written, as may be seen, before the suppression, and many other missives were addressed to Berlin by D’Alembert after the Brief was issued. When the Jesuits of Silesia, refusing to obey the Papal orders, remained in their convents and houses as before, and acted as if nothing had happened, D’Alembert, on the 10th of December 1773, wrote to Frederick, telling him that he “wished that neither he nor his successors might ever have cause to repent of granting an asylum to intriguers, and that these men might prove more faithful than they had been in the last war of Silesia.” Another time, sneering at Frederick’s condescension, he says, that “he much doubted whether the Jesuits would ever pay his majesty the honour of admitting him to their order, as they did the great Louis XIV., though he could well have dispensed with it, and the poor, miserable James II., who was much more fit to be a Jesuit than a king.”—January 1774. And passing from personal arguments to more general considerations, he says: “It is not on your majesty’s account that I dread the re-establishment of these formerly self-styled Jesuits, as the late Parliament of Paris called them. What harm, indeed, could they do to a prince whom the Austrians, the Imperialists, the French, and the Swedes united, have been unable to deprive of a single village? But I am alarmed, sire, lest other princes, who have not the same power as you have to make head against all Europe, and who have weeded out this poisonous hemlock from their gardens, should one day take a fancy to come to you and borrow seed to scatter their ground anew. I earnestly hope your majesty will issue an edict to forbid for ever the exportation of Jesuitic grain, which can thrive nowhere but in your dominions.”[418]
Frederick remained unmoved; and when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Breslau, thinking it was his duty to see the orders of the Holy See obeyed, attempted to interdict the Jesuits, the king interfered, confiscated the bishopric, and haughtily proclaimed that the fathers were under his protection. Then all throughout Silesia sprung up a great number of houses and colleges, and Jesuits assembled here from all quarters. It was on this occasion that the old Voltaire, laughing at his quondam disciple’s strange conduct, exclaimed that “it would divert him beyond measure to think of Frederick as General of the Jesuits, and that he hoped that this would inspire the Pope with the idea of becoming mufti.”[419]
Meanwhile, the courts of France and Spain were pressing Ganganelli’s successor to execute rigorously the Brief of Suppression, pointing out all the different places, and especially Prussia, where the Jesuits were still in existence and prospering, and asking, not without a certain arrogance, the Pope to comply with their wishes. But the reigning Pontiff was not a man to be easily frightened. To the humble, plain, unpretending monk had succeeded, on the chair of St Peter, Ange Braschi, a prince in the best acceptance of the word. In the Conclave, he, after a long struggle between the two parties, had re-united the votes of both, as a man really indifferent to all political intrigues, but possessing in the highest degree qualities which commanded esteem and admiration, and as one who could restore to the low-fallen tiara some of its ancient splendour; and if any man could accomplish such a miracle, Braschi was indeed the man. In all his personal qualities shone forth something royal and great. Tall, handsome, with a slightly bald forehead, his features were impressed with majesty, tempered by a sweet and serene expression. His expenditure was royal, his magnificence such as Rome had not witnessed since the time of Leo X. His ideas were lofty and great, his love for the arts enlightened and persevering. Many are the monuments which he has left to posterity of his love for the arts and for useful enterprises. He formed and enriched the museum begun under his directions in the Pontificate of Clement, which, as we said, bears the name of Museo Pio-Clementino, and which is the greatest wonder of modern times. He spent an immense sum of money to prevent the entire fall of the Coliseum. He attempted, though with little success, to drain the Pontine Marshes, and was a generous friend and protector of all literary persons. In his capacity of Pope, Pius VI.—such was the name he assumed—was also extraordinary. While he opposed every reform, even the most necessary and urgent, and decided upon taking the singular step of going himself—the Pope—to Vienna to dissuade Joseph II. from accomplishing them, in Rome, the churches and his own chapel were filled with persons of all religions, to whom Pius granted the same protection and favour as to his own subjects.
In regard to the Jesuits, in which we are more particularly interested, Braschi, according to Bernis, neither loved nor hated them. He was persuaded that they had poisoned Ganganelli; and as he set an immense value on his own life, he would not endanger it by following the example of his predecessor. It seems that Pius, naturally of a benevolent disposition, pitied them; and, if he had not feared to irritate the Bourbons, would perhaps have bettered their condition. Under him the Jesuits made Titanic efforts to regain the position they had lost. They assembled in Rome, and set at work every engine which was still at their disposal, to attain their desired object; but in vain. Florida Blanca was implacable in his hatred toward the disciples of Loyola, and, as we have said, made the strongest remonstrances against the favour which he pretended was shewn to the Jesuits by the Court of Rome. Braschia, as we say, was not so pusillanimous as Ganganelli, and those intrigues or diplomatic negotiations were not able to affect him so much as to disturb his constant placid serenity; yet he thought proper to do something to appease the Bourbons, and live on good terms with everybody. He accordingly sent a copy of the remonstrances he had received from Spain and France to Frederick, asking him to withdraw his protection from those monks whom the Holy See had condemned. Frederick’s satiric spirit must have rejoiced to see the Pope implore him to disperse Roman Catholic votaries; but he answered scornfully, as a great monarch aware of his rights and dignity. The Pope insisted anew with infinite management, till at last Frederick, while maintaining the Jesuits in all their revenues and charges, consented that they should change their garb. The Pope, satisfied perhaps with this solution, wrote to the King of Spain: “I have done all in my power; but the King of Prussia is master in his own dominions.”
The accurate and impartial historian of the fall of the Jesuits, in an admirably well written chapter, explains the conduct of Frederick, in supporting the Jesuits, by the fact, that the Prussian monarch had got angry with the philosophers, when the latter, not content with attacking the Christian religion, set to work to destroy monarchy, and ridicule every noble sentiment which had till then been held sacred. He says that not only Frederick, but almost all the ministers of other princes, if not the princes themselves, and the aristocracy, far from restraining the audacity of the philosophers, had, to follow the fashion, made it a point of honour to encourage and protect it while attacking religion and priestcraft; but when they, leaving the churches and cloisters, penetrated into the antechambers and staterooms, and their attacks became personal, then the great of the world, who had treated Christ and the Apostles with irreverence, would not endure the like towards themselves. He says, moreover, that when the school of D’Holbach produced the too famous work, the Système de la Nature, Frederick’s indignation knew no bounds. In this book, in fact, written by thirty clever, daring, and excited individuals, nothing was left standing: “each of them found something to take to pieces; one began upon the soul; another, the body; one attacked paternal love, gratitude, conscience; all subjects were examined, dissected, disputed, denied, condemned loudly without appeal. It was a kind of Old Testament, which prefigured the new by types and symbols.... Frederick read this hideous but prophetic book; a fatal light gleamed across his mind, and made him dread the future.”[420] All this is admirably well said; and by the answer which the King of Prussia made to the Système de la Nature, it clearly appears that Frederick would not go the length of the new school, and wished to have nothing more to do with them.