I now return to our authorities. I have anticipated several great names incidentally, while engaged in canvassing those cited against the Jesuits; to these I have now to add the empress Catherine of Russia; of many popes, Clement XIII in particular, and the very destroyer of the society, Clement XIV; M. D'Eguilles, president of the parliament of Thoulouse; the abbé Proyart, author of a work entitled, Louis XVI dethroné avant d'etre Roi; Montesquieu, Haller, Muratori, Buffon, Grotius, Leibnitz, Bacon, Frederick the Great, Johnson, Bausset, Richelieu, Raynal, Juan, and Ulloa; with a multitude
of historians and biographers, to say nothing of the Jesuit writers themselves. But the most striking testimony in favour of the society, is a formal judgment given by the bishops of France on certain articles proposed for their examination, by Louis XV, relative to the doctrine, the government, the conduct, and usefulness of the French Jesuits. How any man can withstand such an array of testimony, I am at a loss to conceive; and still more how he can venture, at this time of day, to arm himself with the calumnies and horrors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to attack a body of men, and a code of regulations, nowise accountable for the errors and crimes of individuals, at periods when men, in general, were as inveterate on the score of religious doctrines, as they have lately been on that of liberty and equality; when the Catholic and the Hugonot were alike ferocious and cruel, in the maintenance of their respective systems, though they scarcely equalled the fury and the horrors demonstrated by the deists, atheists, and democratical despots, who
preceded the settled tyranny, which has been just overthrown by the united force of Europe. The Jesuits were, indeed, the great preachers of the Christian religion, such as it had been received for ages; but they are no more answerable for the opinions on regicide, murder, and other horrid doctrines of former distracted times, than are the Washingtons and Franklins for the atrocities of the Robespierres and Marats in our own days of political insanity.
It will perhaps be thought necessary, that I should give something more than the illustrious names I have cited; I shall therefore proceed to prove, that I have not pressed them into the cause of the Jesuits, but enrolled them on their voluntary appearance. I shall omit those, whom I have already incidentally quoted, and arrange the others in the order in which I have mentioned them.
CATHERINE II, OF RUSSIA.
Catherine, when at Mohiloff, found, that the people of that part of her dominions professed the catholic religion, and that they were very much attached to the order of Jesuits. She appointed a catholic archbishop of Mohiloff, and gave him a Jesuit as a coadjutor. She permitted, at the same time, the establishment of a seminary of Jesuits, the direction of which was confided to father Gabriel Denkiewitz, appointed vicar-general of his order. In the year 1783, she sent the archbishop of Mohiloff's coadjutor, whose name was Benelawski, to Rome, as minister from the court of Russia, who carried a letter from her to Pius VI, demanding the re-establishment of the society of Jesuits, which, though at the time disavowed at Petersburgh, through deference to the Greek Christians, was actually written with her own hand. The following passages are extracted from the letter: "I know, that your holiness is under considerable
embarrassments. Your dignity cannot harmonize with politics, so long as politics are at variance with religion. The motives, which have induced me to grant protection to the Jesuits, are founded in reason and justice, as well as on the hope of their becoming useful to my states. This assemblage of peaceable and inoffensive men shall live in my empire, because, of all catholic societies, they are the best qualified to instruct my subjects, and to inspire them with sentiments of humanity and the genuine principles of the Christian religion. I am resolved to support these priests against every power whatever; and, in so doing, I only perform my duty, as I am their sovereign, and look upon them as faithful, useful, and innocent subjects. I am so much the more desirous of seeing four of them invested with the power of confirming at Moscow and Petersburgh, as the two catholic churches of those cities are confided to their care[[48]]." The pope made the circumstance
known to the French and Spanish ambassadors, who consulted their respective courts, neither of which, however, chose openly to interfere. It was an embarrassing situation for Pius VI; the suppression of the order was too recent; he wished neither to treat the memory of Clement XIV with disrespect, nor to embroil himself with France or Spain; and, in complying with the request of Catherine, he acted with circumspection and without parade. In considering this event, an obvious remark presents itself: for upwards of thirty years past, the society of the Jesuits have been established in Russia, yet we hear nothing of that empire being disturbed either with religious or civil broils, fomented by them; though I should not be surprised, if, on reflection, the death of Paul were to be imputed, by the modern conspirators, to their machinations. On the contrary, the internal tranquillity of that country was never more apparent, and the improvement of the mind has made rapid strides. The placing of the Jesuits in her dominions is a proof of the
sagacity of Catherine, and I doubt whether Russia was ever more indebted to any sovereign than for this step, which was at once magnanimous, wise, and popular.