A Candid History of the Jesuits

by Joseph McCabe

Just at that time Toledo received the red hat, and the Spaniards begged the Pope to name "a cardinal" (Toledo) to preside at the Congregation. He refused; but Acquaviva was defeated in turn when he tried to expel Acosta from the professed house and have him excluded from the forthcoming Congregation. Not only Rome, but the Jesuits scattered over Europe, now joined in the feverish struggle. Memorials praying for the reform of the Society and the restriction of the General's power began to reach the Pope from provincial Jesuits; counter-memorials followed from the partisans of Acquaviva. In fine, Acquaviva triumphed, with certain concessions. The privileges of the Society which offended the Spanish Inquisition were to be abandoned in the Peninsula; and Acquaviva was to change his Assistants, and hold a Congregation, every six years (a command which, of course, "died with the Pope"). There was the customary review of the state of the Society and passing of admirable decrees, and the fathers returned to their provinces. Acquaviva then made a final and drastic clearance of the rebels, and many were expelled. They were still powerful enough to induce the Pope to nominate Acquaviva archbishop of his native city, but he eluded even this plot. They then persuaded the Pope that it was expedient for Acquaviva to visit Spain and see the province with his own eyes. The General clearly believed, and it is probable enough, that something like incarceration awaited him in Spain, and he made a desperate struggle to evade the Pope's order. He was saved by the death of the Pope, in 1605, and for several years afterwards we still find him struggling with the rebellious Spaniards.

This remarkable conflict, within the Society and with the Pope, which I take chiefly from the Jesuit Jouvency, the continuer of the official "Historia Societatis," well illustrates how dim the apostolic fire had become in one of the largest provinces of the Society; how its flame was choked and corrupted by material prosperity. When we turn to France and to England we have an equally valuable illustration of the way in which the command to seek power, for the glory of God, evolves what is known as the political Jesuit. There is no intrinsic reason that I can see why a priest should not seek political influence on behalf of religious interests. Assuredly in the sixteenth century there was no clean division of the religious and political spheres. But the complaint against the Jesuits is that their authorities ostentatiously forbid political action, yet permit and encourage their subjects secretly to pursue it, and even in ways that are unworthy of religious ideals; that, in short, the Jesuit approaches the field under the white flag of political neutrality, employs weapons which are condemned in civilised warfare, and then denies that he interfered. In reviewing forty years of their life in France we have an excellent opportunity of examining this charge.

When we last turned away from France, the Catholic League was just beginning to arouse passion in the country and the Jesuits were taking an active part in its work. The historical situation may be recalled in a few words. The children of that abominable type of feminine politician, Catherine de Medici, were perishing ingloriously. Henry III. still feebly occupied the throne, but it was a question how long he would, under the guidance of his Jesuit confessor Auger, continue to entertain Paris with his alternating fits of debauch and melodramatic penitence; and the legitimate heir to the throne was Henry of Navarre, a Protestant. The Catholics were naturally alarmed and formed the League to "protect their interests"; its specific aim was, as every man in France knew, to secure the throne for the Catholic Henry of Guise.

Here was a situation entirely to the taste of the more ardent and adventurous of the Jesuits, and (apart from the inevitable few who favoured Philip of Spain) they marched valiantly under the banners of the League, and fluttered about the Catholic courts of Europe in the interest of Guise. The Provincial, Claude Matthieu, earned the name of the "Courier of the League" from his many journeys in support of it. Father Henri Sammier traversed Italy and Spain, and penetrated Germany and England, to further its aim. He had a large wardrobe of disguises, which he wore with the grace of an actor, and he is said by the contemporary lawyer Pasquier to have been as familiar with dice and cards as with his breviary. Edmund Hay, the Scottish Jesuit and tender champion of Mary Stuart, lent his fervent aid to the cause. Father Auger, however, was not an ardent Leaguer, and he made an effort to silence his younger colleagues. He had persuaded Henry III. to join the League, lest the League should not be inclined to wait for the young king's natural death, but he rightly distrusted Guise. It must not be supposed that he cherished a more austere standard of Jesuit duty than the others, since his royal penitent was notorious for his licentious conduct, his morbid love of jewels and of feminine clothes, and the utter degradation of his real gifts. The fact is that he saw political rivals in Matthieu and Sammier, with their zeal for Guise, and Parsons and others, with their attachment to Philip of Spain. He complained to Acquaviva, and the General, feeling that such political work should not be done openly but through laymen controlled by the Jesuits, supported him. After a prolonged struggle Acquaviva deposed Matthieu and removed him to Italy, transferred the gifted Sammier and his wardrobe to Belgium, and then turned on Auger himself. After another severe struggle he dislodged Auger from the court. Jesuits are sometimes very lively "corpses" when their superiors wish to move them.

This, however, was in the main a personal quarrel. Odon Pigenat, the new Provincial, and a score of other fathers were ardent Leaguers. The Jesuit house at Paris was still used for the secret meetings of the League, and the "Committee of Catholic Safety" was inspired by Pigenat. The French apologist does not question their enthusiastic share in the League's work, and no one questions that the aim of the League was to prevent the accession of the legitimate heir to the throne. Indeed, at the next dramatic turn of French affairs all this was made plain to everybody.

In 1588 Guise was invited to Paris and acclaimed there with such wild rejoicing that Henry III. fled to Blois, and shortly afterwards Guise and his cardinal-brother were invited to Blois and foully murdered there by Henry. The League now shook its banners in the breeze, and Henry was execrated from a hundred pulpits. When he went on to defy the Pope and form an alliance with Henry of Navarre, who advanced rapidly on Paris, Catholic feeling rose to a fanatical pitch, and Henry III. in turn was assassinated by the Dominican monk Jacques Clément. The Jesuits were assuredly not the only preachers to applaud this murder, but they were amongst the first to perceive, and the loudest to declare, that if a king may be dispatched by private hand for a crime, he may certainly be removed when he meditates the far graver misdeed of plunging a nation into heresy. Father Commolet, the superior of the Jesuit house at Paris and a distinguished preacher, called from his pulpit for "a second Ehud" to remove Henry of Navarre. Father Mariana, who shortly afterwards wrote his famous De Rege, hailed the assassin as "the eternal glory of France" and spoke of this "memorable spectacle, calculated to teach princes that godless enterprises do not go unpunished."

It has been said on behalf of the Jesuits that even their old enemy the Sorbonne joined in the general rejoicing over the assassination of Henry III., but those who make the point forget or ignore that for several years past the Jesuits had been sending pupils to the university in order gradually to permeate its faculties. It was no longer the distinct anti-Jesuit body which we have met in earlier years. Nor is there any need to discuss the abstract question whether the Jesuits taught tyrannicide. Crétineau-Joly himself quotes fourteen Jesuit theologians of the time who permitted the assassination of kings, to say nothing of more or less obscure writers, and we may be sure that the politicians of the Society were not more scrupulous than their theologians on the point. The well-known work of Mariana to which I have referred, De Rege et Regis Institutione (1599), was authorised for publication by the Jesuit authorities, and it was not until the assassination of Henry IV. in 1610 that Acquaviva, anxious to save the French Jesuits from expulsion, forbade his subjects to teach the dangerous doctrine. Even then he wrote at first to the French Jesuits alone, and it was only when the cry of indignation was echoed in other countries that he made the order general. In fine, his general order was so ambiguous that even a less supple politician than a Jesuit could find his way through it. It condemned the doctrine that "any person, on any pretext whatever, may kill kings and princes"; which leaves it open to the casuist to conclude that certain persons may do it for certain reasons.[11]

Henry of Navarre invested Paris, and it is not questioned that the Jesuits were amongst the most ardent advocates of resistance to him. In the later trial before Parlement, which we shall consider, they admitted that the crown-jewels were deposited in their house during the siege, and that the chiefs of the League met there. A curious incident of the siege is worth quoting. Food became painfully scarce, and half-famished citizens struggled over the possession of cats and rats, but the inmates of the religious houses remained sleek and comfortable. The civic authorities ordered an inspection of their houses, and it is admitted by their apologist that the Jesuits tried to obtain exemption from this search. When the authorities insisted, a rich store of food was found in their house. Their fervour in the popular cause, however, was enough to outweigh this unpleasant discovery, and they continued to thunder against the heretic. The Duke of Mayenne was now the Catholic candidate for the throne, though a considerable number of the Jesuits now looked to Philip of Spain. He was to be, as in England, the "protector of the faith"—until it was safe for him to annex the country to his swollen dominions. Sixtus V., however, by no means shared this Jesuit and Spanish ideal of making Philip the head of a vast world-power, and he began to negotiate with Henry, whose forces were gaining ground. Then Sixtus died, and the accession of a pro-Spanish Pope gave fresh energy to the League. But Paris was weary of the siege, and, when Henry prudently announced that he was about to make a serious study of the evidences for the Catholic faith, the opposition collapsed. The Jesuits were amongst the last in Paris to fan the dying embers of the League, and when at length, in March 1594, Henry entered Paris and received the crown, they (with the Capuchins and Carthusians) refused to submit until the Pope had absolved him.

But they very soon parted company with the less nimble-witted Capuchins and the cloistered Carthusians, and the next page of their story in France is not without humour. Henry's politic scrutiny of the Catholic creed had, of course, led to his "conversion," but the Pope had a sufficient decency of feeling to distrust so opportune and profitable a change of creed, and he coldly rebuffed the genial monarch. When Henry sent the Duke de Nevers to Rome to plead his cause with the Pope, Clement ordered the Jesuit Possevin to intercept him in Italy and say that the Pope refused to see him. We remember Possevin as the ingenious and accommodating Legate to the Swedes, and we shall see other proofs of his diplomatic ability. With an audacity which must almost be without parallel in the chronicle of papal diplomacy he did the exact opposite of what the Pope had commanded; he encouraged de Nevers to see the Pope, and then fled before the stormy anger of Clement and the Spaniards. It was the first service rendered to Henry by a Jesuit, and was quickly followed by other useful services. They had perceived the strength of Henry and reversed their policy. The Jesuit-Cardinal Toledo, although a Spaniard, intervened in Henry's favour, and the head of the Jesuit house at Paris, Commolet—the preacher who had urged the assassination of Henry—came to Rome to say that he and his colleagues were now convinced of the King's sincerity and begged the Pope to yield.

This change of front was opportune. Although the hostility of the university to the Jesuits had been enfeebled by the penetration of Jesuit pupils into the theological faculty, it still, as a body, hated the Society, and its leaders felt that they might take some advantage of the stubborn resistance to Henry. In April the university begged the Parlement to expel the Jesuits from the kingdom. Another great debate, in which the anti-Jesuit lawyers of Paris battered the Society and flung at it all the charges that could be found in Europe, entertained the sympathetic citizens. Arnauld, who was now in the field, estimated the total yearly income of the Jesuits at more than two million livres; he said that in France alone they had, in a few years, secured an income of two hundred thousand livres a year, and he eloquently denounced their interference in politics. The Jesuits made the remarkable defence that they had only mingled in the League in order to moderate its ardour, that they had no unpatriotic attachment to Spain, and that they would scrupulously avoid politics for the future. Henry permitted them to remain. A short time before (August 1593) Barrière had attempted to assassinate him, and, as Barrière had had a Jesuit confessor, it was suggested that the Jesuits had inspired him. Henry said that, on the contrary, it was the Jesuits who had warned him of the plot. A fuller knowledge of this warning would be extremely interesting, but we have no evidence of it beyond Henry's blunt declaration at a later date. The Jesuits were to remain, to avoid politics, and, as Henry had previously decreed, to destroy all literature concerning the League and the past turbulence.