IN THE GERMANIC LANDS
When we come to record the culmination of the earlier history of the Jesuits in a solemn and reasoned condemnation of the Society by the Papacy, we shall note a singular circumstance of the reception of the news in Europe. The Catholic monarchs of France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples applaud the act, and there is little serious demur to it among the millions of southern Catholics under their control. The Catholic Emperor assents very willingly to the destruction of the Society, and the Jesuits and their friends cannot succeed in inspiring any wide revolt in Austria and the neighbouring principalities. But the Protestant King of Prussia and the Greek Catholic Empress of Russia open the doors of their dominions to the fugitives from Roman lands, and protest that the Jesuits have been ill-used. For two hundred years the Jesuits have strained every nerve, and every canon of controversial decency, in an attack on heresy and schism, yet they secretly ask Frederick of Prussia to declare himself the "protector of the Society," and they shelter from Catholic hostility in the court of Catherine of Russia!
On this singular circumstance much explanatory light will be thrown at the proper moment, but I anticipate the fact itself because it suggests a general point of view. Clearly, the behaviour of the Jesuits differed in Catholic and in Protestant countries, and we have seen from the start that Jesuit conduct in German Protestant lands often contrasted very favourably with Jesuit conduct in Catholic countries. They do indeed betray their unedifying jealousy of all other workers in the papal army, they seek opportunities for intrigue and for acquiring wealth, but the presence of large bodies of Protestant observers has its effect on their moral and cultural standard. They adapt themselves to the environment as we have found them do in China or India. However, the group of countries which we are compelled to associate in this chapter are very varied in creed, and we will glance at the outstanding Jesuit experiences in each down to the time of the suppression of the Society.
Commencing with Scandinavia, we have first to consider the romantic episode of the conversion of Queen Christina. The daughter of Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the throne in her sixth year, in 1632, and was carefully trained for the task of ruling. Her native disposition, no less than the masculine work which lay before her, made her resent every tendency toward the softness of her sex, and she became a hard rider, an assiduous student of art and letters, a companion of great scholars, and a resolute spinster. For many years the Swedes were proud of their Amazon Queen, as she loved to represent herself, and even admired her command of southern culture and tongues (Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). She slept only five or six hours, discussed philosophy with scholars like Descartes (who was a month or two in Sweden) at five in the morning, conversed with the ambassadors in their own tongues, and might then hunt for ten hours in her amazon costume. Altogether a romantic person, and the Jesuits approached her.
We remember Professor Nicolai and Ambassador Possevin and other Jesuits who had tried to convert Sweden. The new missionary, Father Macedo of Portugal, was disguised as the secretary of the Portuguese ambassador, Pereira. It may be that Macedo went merely to act as confessor to Pereira, but he soon took an independent line. He found the way to the Queen's study, impressed her with his learning, and confided to her that he was a disguised Jesuit. Christina, in turn, confided that she had doubts about Lutheranism, and would discuss with learned fathers of the Society. Macedo discovered that the climate was too rigorous for him, and, as the ambassador refused to give him leave of absence, fled to Rome; and two very learned Jesuits, also in disguise, sailed in a very roundabout way for Stockholm. Christina was soon converted by the two "merchants," and, after some rather shady manœuvres to secure her art-collections and her revenues, she fled in the disguise of a man to Brussels, where a brilliant gathering of Catholics welcomed her into the Church (1655).
As Christina had little to do with the Jesuits after her conversion, and the Swedes promptly closed the gates against further Catholic invasions, we might leave the story, but it is of some interest to consider whether the "conversion" was genuine. There is good reason to believe that Christina was tired of the bleak north, and decided to secure her revenue, change her creed, and spend the rest of her years in the sunny and artistic south. The Jesuits were to be the guarantors of her orthodoxy to the Pope, on whom she must rely if the angry Swedes cut off supplies (as eventually happened). She had no deep religious feeling. When a Belgian Jesuit remarked that they might yet see her among the saints, she answered that she would prefer to be put among the sages; and it is said—though with less authority—that when she was told that there was to be a comedy on the day of her public reception into the Church at Innspruck, she observed that it was very proper "after this morning's farce." She is, at all events, described by some who knew her as "almost libertine in speaking of religion and morals," and the amorous attentions of Roman cardinals did not improve her piety. After a few years' enjoyment of her liberty, her passionate nature brought serious difficulties upon her, and her life proved a lamentable failure and waste of ability.
In the kingdom of Poland the Jesuits found the most congenial home that they ever discovered apart from the southern Latin countries to which most of them belonged. Nor is this the only or the most serious parallel; Poland, like Portugal, Spain, and France (after 1700), decayed rapidly after the Jesuits attained the height of their power in the country. Catholic writers in the latter part of the seventeenth century used to contrast the prosperity of the States which had adhered to the Vatican with the failure or stagnation of States which accepted the Reformation. France, Spain, Portugal, and Austria were the great world-Powers, and, under Sobieski, Poland promised to attain an important position. England, on the other hand, was still a small empire; Holland was falling from its momentary greatness; Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were regarded as half-barbaric; the Swiss cantons were a small pastoral folk; the German Protestant States were exhausted and distracted. The argument has recoiled on the Romanist with terrible force. The Catholic States have increasingly decayed, or defied the authority of the Pope; the Protestant States are the great world-Powers. The Protestant colonies in America have become a great civilisation; the Catholic colonies rise to prestige only in proportion as (like Argentina) they abandon their creed.