Such were the fortunes of the Society of Jesus during the decade which closed with the death of Lainez in 1565. The hundred establishments which Ignatius had bequeathed to him in 1556 had now increased to a hundred and fifty; the thousand subjects had become three thousand. From Portugal to Poland the Jesuits were the most ardent soldiers in the war against the advancing heretics, and there was hardly a Catholic court in Europe that did not welcome the children of Ignatius and bow in secret to their advice. Yet a keen observer like Lainez must have perceived that this prosperity was less solid than it appeared, and his last years were saddened by announcements of hostility and defeat. In France and Belgium the gain was wholly disproportionate to the exacting struggle they had maintained; in Portugal the material success and political action were lowering the ideal of the Society; in Spain the Catholic monarch, the Inquisition, and the higher clergy were hostile; and England kept its doors sternly closed against the Jesuits. The future was still uncertain, and another Caraffa might at any time accede to the papal chair. With a last glance at the ex-Duke of Gandia, as if to intimate that Borgia was the fittest to take up the burden he laid down, the second General of the Society, able, energetic, and high-minded to the last, sank wearily to his rest.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [3] Relatio ad Reges, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.
GENERAL FRANCIS BORGIA
The election which followed the death of Lainez was not marred by any of the painful incidents which we frequently find on such occasions in the Jesuit chronicles. When the leading fathers of the Society reached Rome in the early summer, to compare their stories of warfare in every clime of Europe and consult about the future of their great organisation, there was one amongst them who had so natural a pre-eminence that his election was assured. This was Francis Borgia, ex-Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia. There were in the distinguished gathering many of far greater ability and service—indeed, there was probably none of less ability than Borgia—but his high birth, his friendship with half the kings of Europe, his venerable person and austere life marked him clearly for the supreme command. Philip of Spain had outgrown his hostility, and, at the death of Lainez, Borgia was appointed Vicar-General. So plain was the intention of the electors that he sincerely begged them not to impose on him so heavy a responsibility. They disregarded his protest, and on 2nd July he became General of the Society.
He was then a feeble and venerable man of sixty-five, worn with austerity, profoundly sincere and religious. In his person he singularly illustrated the change that had come over Catholicism. The name of Borgia at once suggests the groves of pleasure or the chambers of crime out of which the Papacy had been startled by the voice of Luther: his father had been a son of Pope Alexander VI., his mother an illegitimate daughter of the Archbishop of Saragossa, who in turn had been a natural son of Ferdinand V. But with his hair-shirts, his bloody scourges, and his long fasts, Francis belonged to the new age, and seemed to have taken on himself the expiation of the scarlet sins of the Borgias. He had been Viceroy of Catalonia from 1539 to 1543, and had then suffered for some years a mild and obscure disgrace. During this enforced retirement to his duchy he had met, and fallen under the charm of, Peter Favre, and he was, as we saw, secretly admitted to the Society. Although he had been driven from Spain only a few years before, the Pope had restored his prestige, and his election was acclaimed throughout the Society and the Church.
We may, perhaps, see a reflection of his religious spirit, as well as an indication that grave abuses had crept into the Society, in the long series of decrees which the Congregation proceeded to pass. No Jesuit was henceforward to live at a royal court—at least, "not for more than two or three months": Jesuit communities were not to own and manage large farms, and sell their produce in the public markets; lawsuits on behalf of legacies were to be avoided; salaries for teaching were to be abandoned when a teacher joined the Society. These and other commands give us an authoritative assurance that there was much disorder. Even in the Congregation the liberals or casuists were represented. When, in the discussion of the impropriety of going to law to secure legacies, one of the sterner brethren quoted the Sermon on the Mount, another plausibly argued that it was wrong to yield to worldlings funds which might be used in the service of God. The Puritans won, and their decrees went forth; but the farms were not abandoned, as we shall see, nor the lawyers impoverished.