[332] July 1, 1742.
[333] September 12, 1744.
[334] June 29, 1748.
[335] March 18, 1751.
PIUS VII. AND THE REVOLUTION
Benedict XIV. had maintained Papal power and prestige in his Catholic world by prudent concessions to a European spirit which he recognized as having definitely emerged from its mediæval phase. His successors for many decades lacked his penetration; though one may wonder if, without sacrificing essential principles of the Papal scheme, they could have advanced farther along the path of concession to a more and more exacting age. However that may be, they generally clung to the autocratic principles of the Papacy, and as a consequence they ceased to be the leaders of their age and became little more than corks tossed on heaving waters. Not until Leo XIII. do we find a Pope with a human quality of statesmanship. In the intervening Pontificates the barque of Peter drifted on the wild and swollen waters, pathetically bearing still a flag which bore the legend of ruler of the waves.
Clement XIII. (1758-1769) and Clement XIV. (1769-1774) were occupied with the problem of the Jesuits. One by one the Catholic Powers—Portugal, France, Naples, and Spain—swept the Jesuits from their territory, with a flood of obloquy, and then made a collective demand on the Pope for the suppression of the Society. Clement XIII. had made a futile effort to assert the old dictatorial power; and Catholic nations had retorted by seizing part of the diminished Papal States. France had occupied Avignon and Vennaissin, and Naples had taken Benevento and Pontecorvo. The bewildered Pope found peace in the grave, and the Powers ensured the election of a man who did not regard the suppression of the Society as an impossibility. For four years Ganganelli, Clement XIV., resisted or restrained the pressure of the Catholic Powers, but in 1773 the famous Bull Dominus ac Redemptor Noster disbanded the most effective force of the Counter-Reformation, plainly endorsing the charge against it of corruption.[336]