A glance at the map will show us that these two fields of endeavor were at the extreme eastern and western ends of Russia's vast empire. The Riga district is on the Baltic or, more properly, on the Gulf of Riga. Below it, are the now famous cities of Köningsberg and Dantzic. Astrakhan is on the Caspian Sea into which the great River Volga empties. On both sides of this river, as in the city itself, the Jesuits had established their mission posts. But from both the Baltic and the Caspian they had to withdraw, when driven out of Russia by Alexander in 1820.
The present condition of these two sections of the now dismembered empire is most deplorable. Indeed, as early as 1864 Marshall (Christian Missions, I, 74) says of them: "Let us begin with the Provinces of the Baltic. The Letts who inhabit Courland and the southern half of Livonia, though long normally Christians and surrounded by Lutherans and Russo-Greeks, sacrifice to household spirits by setting out food for them in their gardens or houses or under old oak trees. Of the Esthonians, Kohl says: 'The old practices of heathenism have been preserved among them more completely than among any other Lutheran people. There are many spots where the peasants yet offer up sacrifices.' Let us now accompany Mr. Laurence Oliphant down the Volga to the Caspian Sea. Everywhere his experience is uniform. The Kalmuks whom he discovered are still Buddhists. Near the mouth of the Volga he visits a large and populous village in a state of utter heathenism and apparently destined to remain so. At Sarepta near Astrakhan, the Moravians had attempted to convert the neighboring heathen but the Greek clergy prevented them. One tribe is made up of followers of the Grand Lama; another of pagans; a third of Mahometans. In the city of Kazan, once the capital of a powerful nation, there are 20,000 Mahometans, and the immense Tatar population of the entire region reaching as far as Astrakhan has adopted a combination of Christianity, Islamism and Shamanism, or are as out and out pagans as they were before being annexed to the Russian Empire."
Among these degraded peoples the Jesuits were at work while they were directing their colleges at Polotsk, St. Petersburg and elsewhere until 1814.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE RALLYING
Fathers of the Sacred Heart — Fathers of the Faith — Fusion — Paccanari — The Rupture — Exodus to Russia — Varin in Paris — Clorivière — Carroll's doubts — Pignatelli — Poirot in China — Grassi's Odyssey.
While the Society was maintaining its corporate life in Russia several contributory sources began to flow towards it from various parts of Europe. The most notable was the association that was formed under the eyes and with the approval of the wise and virtuous Jacques-André Emery, the superior of the Seminary of Paris, who himself had been trained in the Jesuit college of Macon. Under his guidance and very much attached to him, was a little group of seminarians consisting of Charles and Maurice de Broglie, sons of the celebrated Marshal of that name, both of whom bore the title of Prince; François Eléonore de Tournély, who was the animating spirit of the little association, and, omitting others, Joseph Varin who succeeded de Tournély as the guide of the growing community.
When the Revolution broke out, Varin yielding to his martial instincts, left the seminary and became a soldier in the royalist army; but Charles de Broglie kept the group together and under the direction of Pey, a distinguished canon of Paris, they plunged into the study of the spiritual life and continued to dream of an association which might in one way or another take up the work of the suppressed Society of Jesus. In 1791 they were compelled to seek a refuge in Luxembourg. Two years later, they fled to Antwerp, and finally found themselves in the old Jesuit villa of Louvain, which is still standing near the château of the Duc d'Arenberg. There they were joined by de Broglie's brother, Xavier, and by Pierre Leblanc, both of whom had served for two years in the army of the Prince de Condé. Varin joined them in that year. He had been a soldier ever since the seminary had closed, and had given up all idea of ever resuming the soutane. But it happened that he was absent from his regiment when a battle occurred, and in disgust he had gone to Belgium to ask to be transferred to another corps. While there, he fell into the hands of his old seminary friends; in a few days his former fervor returned and he was accepted as the sixth member of what de Tournély had determined to call "The Society of the Sacred Heart."
On the very day of Varin's entrance, he and five associates started off on foot, with their bags on their backs, to beg their way to Bavaria. It took them five days to get as far as Augsburg, and there they remained, though their intention was to establish themselves at Munich. But the Bishop of Augsburg told them that if they wanted to learn what the Society of Jesus was, no better place could be found than the city in which they then found themselves, for the memory of many illustrious Jesuits was still fresh in the hearts of the people. The bishop who gave them this welcome hospitality was Clemens Wenzeslaus, who besides being a prelate was a prince of Saxony and Poland. Yielding to his advice, they took up their abode in Augsburg where they were soon joined by two distinguished men who were afterwards to be conspicuous in the reconstructed Society, Grivel, who was to be sent to Georgetown in America as master of novices, and the famous Rozaven, who was to save the Society from wreck in the first general congregation held after the Restoration, and who was subsequently to be the assistant General both of Fortis and Roothaan.