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

by G. B. Nicolini

They also attempted to establish themselves in Styria, though with little success. But in 1838, they were at last permitted to re-open their former college at Innspruck, where they are now in the most prosperous and flourishing state. In no other part of the German Confederation have they a legal existence; and the late King of Prussia very wisely forbade any of his subjects to pass into foreign countries to be educated by the Jesuits.

In Holland, the Jesuits acted in very nearly the same way as they did in Russia. It seems as if, at the time of the Suppression, the Protestant countries, forgetful of all prudence, merely to shew their opposition to the Papal Court, vied with each other in cheering and patronising those monks whom Rome was persecuting. Even in England, Jesuits were never so well treated, nor perhaps so prosperous, as during their legal suppression. Some of the Jesuits recovered a standing in Holland, and lived there unmolested and protected, till the French armies drove them away, or obliged them to disguise themselves under another garb; but they re-appeared in 1814, and with their wonted activity they began to erect houses and novitiates. King William of Nassau tolerated them; but it would appear that they were not contented with being tolerated—they aspired to higher destinies. Spreading dissatisfaction among the Roman Catholic population, they encouraged them not to accept of, or submit quietly to, a constitution so unfavourable to their interests, and were preparing materials for a revolution. De Broglio, the Archbishop of Ghent, entirely devoted to the order, wrote in the same sense to all his subordinates. Aware of their intrigues and machinations, the government thought it necessary, by a decree of 1816, to banish them. The audacious monks, instead of obeying, repaired to the archbishop’s palace, as if to brave the laws. But the government maintained its rights. A warrant was issued against De Broglio, who, however, took to flight, and accompanied into France the Rector of the College of the Jesuits. The fathers then left the country, but not all of them. “Some sons of Loyola, nevertheless, remained on the spot directed by Father Demeistre, and, enrolled under the standard of the Church, they fought as volunteers.”[429] In other words, under different disguises, they kept up their intrigues, and breathed the spirit of revolution into the Popish population of Belgium. At the first opportunity, this spirit broke out. “The revolution of 1830 was made in the name of the Catholics and of the Jesuits.”[430] Very well! we like this bold and frank language; and the Jesuits have our felicitation for having helped an oppressed people to shake off a yoke which brutal force had imposed upon them. But then let them never come again and assert they are a religious order, entirely occupied in spiritual concerns, and quite indifferent to political matters.

Since the revolution of 1830, the influence of the Jesuits has greatly increased in Belgium, and this country is now one of the most flourishing provinces of the order, numbering more than 400 members. The extreme prudence and sagacity of Leopold has prevented them from doing much mischief; but they have done their best to acquire a supreme sway in that country, and to extinguish in it every civil and religious liberty. At the very moment we are writing these pages, they are striving hard to prostrate Belgium at the feet of their worthy protector, Louis Napoleon.

In France, the fathers have led a much more agitated and unsettled existence since their expulsion in 1765. Portugal and Spain, in expelling them, had resorted to such rigorous and universal measures, that few or no Jesuits were to be found in the two countries for some time after their banishment. But it was not so in France. No stringent measures had been taken to see the decree of expulsion executed. The Jesuits, it is true, had disappeared from their colleges and houses, and dropped the long mantle and large-brimmed hat; but a great part of them remained in the French territory, changing residences, and many of them metamorphosing themselves into the Fathers of the Faith, or the Brethren of the Doctrine Chretienne. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, they re-appeared everywhere in their own garb, and nobody knew whence they came, or where they had been. We find few traces of them during the first years of the French Revolution of 1789; but the moment Napoleon, for his own political ends, re-established the ancient form of religion, and restored to the clergy some liberty to fulfil their duties, the Jesuits, under the name of the Fathers of the Faith, re-appeared, and set themselves at once to work, endeavouring, by new contrivances, to re-acquire at least some of their lost influence and power. In 1800, the sister of Father Barat, under the direction of her brother, founded the Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart; while Father Baruffe established the Congregation of the Sacred Family; the first to preside over the education of the daughters of the aristocracy, the latter to instruct governesses and servants, whom they distributed especially amongst families whose secrets they were interested in knowing. Father Despuits was still more audacious, and established the Congregation of the Holy Virgin, in which he enrolled all sorts of persons, but particularly those of the upper class of society, and military men as often as he could. The two first institutions are at the present moment very flourishing in France, and almost all the French nobility send their daughters to be educated at the famous convent of Les Oiseaux, in Paris. The Congregation of the Virgin decayed after the revolution of 1830.

However, Napoleon, alarmed at the progress and the intrigues of the Fathers of the Faith, by a decree of Messidor, anno XII. (1804), abolished the brotherhood, and, by another imperial decree of 1810, the Congregation of the Virgin, and for some little time the Jesuits were obliged to be more prudent and less meddling.

But, in 1814, those monks, who had for a moment disappeared from the scene, came forth again more alive and more intriguing than ever. They dropped the borrowed name of Fathers of the Faith, and reassumed that of Jesuits. The congregations received a new impulse, and that of the Virgin, above all, was eminently active in inducing military men to join it. Rendered wise by past experience, they perceived that they should never succeed in their designs without the concurrence, or at least the neutrality, of the secular clergy. To disarm, then, its animosity, which had been so ardent in former times, they spontaneously renounced their privileges, and shewed the utmost deference to the secular priests of all ranks. Father Simpson, the Provincial in 1819, writing to his subordinate, says to him: “Let us remember that we are only the auxiliaries of the secular priests, that we, in our quality of monks, must look upon them as our superiors, and that St Ignatius has given to our Society, as its distinctive title, The Little Society of Jesus.”[431] We wonder whether Lachaise or Letellier would have written so. Then, supported by a great part of the bishops, and encouraged by the government, part of the Jesuits went over to France as missionaries, to try what they could do to restore the reign of superstition and bigotry, and to bring back France to the good old times of civil and religious bondage; part again undertook to monopolise the education of youth; and in both undertakings they were, with certain classes, prodigiously successful.

But the sacrifices France had made to obtain liberty were of too fresh date that it should quietly submit to a priestly domination, which had become now too visible and threatening. Public opinion declared itself so strongly and so irresistibly against all priests in general, and against the Jesuits in particular, that the bigoted Charles X. himself was forced, in 1828, to issue an ordinance which deprived the fathers of the faculty of instructing youth, and providing, moreover, that no person whatever should be admitted to teach without taking an oath that he did not belong to any religious community not approved by law. The Jesuits, however, secretly encouraged by the court, and supported by the aristocracy, eluded these ordinances by a thousand different stratagems; and, although not so openly, they never rested from their intrigues, and from taking an active part in education.

The Revolution of 1830, due in a great measure to the aversion of the French nation to the domination of the priests and Jesuits, again dispersed them for a while. They left the scene; nobody knew when they disappeared, whither they went, and when they returned, till, towards 1836, they came to be spoken of and pointed out as becoming numerous, powerful, and dangerous; they, nevertheless, went quietly and prudently on, continually progressing, till 1845, when an affair of money now, as in 1761, again brought them into momentary trouble. A certain Affnaër—an arch-Jesuit, it would seem, since he cheated his dupes by feigning to be a converted sinner—became their confidential agent, and robbed them of the immense sum of £10,000, of which embezzlement they remained ignorant till he took to flight—(so poor they are!) The fathers had the imprudence to apply to the tribunals. The swindler was indeed condemned, but at the same time was brought to light the existence of the Jesuits, not as private citizens, but as a religious community, already possessing immense wealth and establishments of all kinds, till then almost ignored, or at least overlooked—all this being contrary to the existing laws. Thiers, courting popularity, called upon the government to advert to this subject, and the parliament unanimously declared that it felt confident that the ministry would see the laws of the land strictly executed. To avoid an open rupture with Rome, Rossi was sent thither, to obtain from the Pope and the General of the order a voluntary acquiescence in the wishes of the nation. Roothaan, the then chief of the Society, more prudent than Ricci, granted the request, and ordered his brethren to quit their establishments. However, not to renounce all the advantages they were deriving in educating the rising generation of Frenchmen, the fathers established a college on the very limits of the French territory, at Brugellette, and the French nobility sent their children either there or to Fribourg, where a part of the French fathers had emigrated. Once more the Jesuits were supposed to have left France. Little was seen of them in the last two years of Louis Philippe’s reign, and during the eventful year of 1848; but in ’49 they re-appeared, hesitatingly at first, but more boldly afterwards; and now, in 1852, they possess such an influence, that even the unscrupulous military usurper is obliged to court their friendship. In 1845, the number of the Jesuits in France amounted to 870.

In Switzerland, the bloody and inhuman acts by which the Jesuits sought to enter Lucerne are of too recent and terrible recollection to require to be related by us at length. The expedition of the Corps Franc, their defeats, 112 dead, 300 wounded, 1500 prisoners, the Sonderbund, and all the fraternal blood spilt in Switzerland in 1844, 45, and 46, must be laid to the charge of the Jesuits, who insisted on entering Lucerne against the will of half the population. Had they been true Christians, and religious men, they would have renounced their projects of installing themselves by force where they knew that the attempt would cost the lives of so many of their Christian brethren, and an Iliad of miseries to the unfortunate country.