A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon / For the Use of Schools and Colleges

by John Lord

Their The Jesuits. arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull Unigenitus, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists; and the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side.

But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress of Louis XV. They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, the Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful of popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no man, and no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity with impunity; and destruction often comes from a source the least suspected, and apparently the least to be feared. Who could have supposed that the ruin of this powerful body, which had reigned so proudly in Christendom for a century; which had imposed its Briareus's arms on the necks of princes; which had its confessors in the courts of the most absolute monarchs; which, with its hundred eyes, had penetrated the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe; and which had succeeded in suppressing in so many places every insurrection of human intelligence, in spite of the fears of kings, the jealousy of the other monastic orders, and the inveterate animosity of philosophers and statesmen,—would receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman, who scandalized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated prince? But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And she incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts to power, to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their ruin.

In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible than in Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But the prime minister of Joseph I., the Marquis of Pombal, a man of great energy, had been insulted by a lady of the highest rank, and he swore revenge. An opportunity was soon afforded. The king happened to be fired at and wounded in his palace by some unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the objects of the minister's vengeance—the Marchioness of Tavora, her husband, her family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance followed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were Exposure of the Jesuits. expelled in the most summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul and Madame Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and watched their opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the failure of La Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It must be borne in mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commercial enterprises, while they were officiating as missionaries. La Valette aimed to monopolize, for his order, the trade with the West Indies, which commercial ambition excited the jealousy of mercantile classes in France, and they threw difficulties in his way. And it so happened that some of his most valuable ships were taken and plundered by the English cruisers, which calamity, happening at a time of embarrassment, caused his bills to be protested, and his bankers to stop payment. They, indignant, accused the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud, and demanded repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the brink of destruction? "Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat." The Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their order, which course would have been in accordance with their general policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of Paris, and the whole nation was interested in its result. It was decided by this supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were responsible for the debts of La Valette. But the commercial injury was weak in comparison with the moral. In the course of legal proceedings, the books and rule of the Jesuits were demanded—that mysterious rule which had never been exposed to the public eye, and which had been so carefully guarded. When this rule was produced, all minor questions vanished; mistresses, bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars,—all became insignificant, compared with those questions which affected the position and welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and "Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. Nothing was talked about but "probability," "surrender of conscience," and "mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous of the absorbing interest with which every thing pertaining to the régime of the Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of the Jansenists, who had exposed it. "What," said Voltaire, "will it profit us to be delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given up to the wolves?" But the philosopher had been among the first to raise the cry of alarm against the Jesuits, and it was no easy thing to allay the storm.

The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been their best friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He had been taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. He stood in fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so powerful and unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the prosecution would have been insurmountable, had it not been for the capriciousness of his temper, which more than balanced his superstitious fears. His minister and his mistress circumvented him. They represented that, as the parliament and the nation were both aroused against the Jesuits, his resistance would necessarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded so much as civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful necessity of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of his best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers. But he yielded with a moderation which did him honor. He would not consent to the Their Expulsion from France. expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been made to secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be written to Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. Choiseul himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the Jesuits would not hear of any retrenchment of their power or privileges. "Let us remain as we are, or let us exist no longer," was their reply. The parliament, the people, the minister, and the mistress renewed their clamors. The parliament decreed that the constitution of the society was an encroachment on the royal authority, and the king was obliged to yield. The members of the society were forbidden to wear the habit of the society, or to enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their colleges were closed, their order was dissolved, and they were expelled from the kingdom with rigor and severity, in spite of the wishes of the king and many entreaties and tears from the zealous advocates of Catholicism, and even of religious education.

But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to be persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having secured their expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and Pombal turned their attention to Suppression in Spain. Spain, and so successfully intrigued, so artfully wrought on the jealousy and fears of Charles III., that this weak prince followed the example of Joseph I. and Louis XV. But the king and his minister D'Aranda, however, prosecuted their investigations with the utmost secrecy—did not even tell their allies of their movements. Of course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when his measures were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing the suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. "On the same day, 2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in America, and in all the islands belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the alcaldes of the towns opened their despatches from Madrid, by which they were ordered, on pain of the severest penalties, immediately to enter the establishments of the Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel them from their convents, and transport them, within twenty-four hours, to such places as were designated. Nor were the Jesuits permitted to carry away their money or their papers. Only a purse, a breviary, and some apparel were given them."

The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to injustice and cruelty.

The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate craft. Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution. There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable refuge on the Island of Corsica.

Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope should be elected who would not favor their end. A Pope Clement XIV. cardinal was found,—Ganganelli,—who promised the ambassadors that, if elected pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would protect them. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was, to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,—any thing,—rather than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation, of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated, he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest. It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened assassination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his church, if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened secession from Rome, deposition—ten thousand calamities. His agony became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He decided to suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges were closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given to their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without organization, wealth, or power.

Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising from table, felt an Death of Ganganelli. internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was doomed—that he was poisoned—that he must die. The fear of hell was now added to his other torments. "Compulsus, feci, compulsus, feci!"—"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and died—died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander VI. knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their wealth. Pope Clement XIV. inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored; and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every corner of the world.

The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire. A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great, unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism. The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the noble of France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV. He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time." Soon after this heartless speech was made, Death of Louis XV. he was stricken with the small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.