The secession of the Fathers of France and England was quickly imitated by the communities in other parts of Europe. Meanwhile Paccanari's conduct became a public scandal. A canonical process was instituted against him in 1808, and he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment. But when the French took possession of the city in 1809 and opened the prison doors, Paccanari disappeared from view, and no one ever knew what became of him.
While the work of the Fathers of the Faith was progressing in France and elsewhere, the saintly Pignatelli, who had been Angel Guardian of the Spanish Jesuits when they were expelled from their native land, was accomplishing much for the general establishment of the Society. After landing in Italy where the Jesuits were as yet unmolested, he had betaken himself, with the advice of the provincial to Ferrara, and there housed the exiles as best he could. He also established a novitiate in connection with the college which had been handed over to him; but all this was swept away when the Brief of Clement XIV suppressed the entire Society in 1773. Of course, the first thought of Pignatelli after this disaster was to join his brethren in Russia, and with that in view he wrote to Pope Pius VI, who had succeeded Clement XIV, asking him if the Jesuits whom Catherine II had sheltered, really belonged to the Society. The reply delighted him beyond measure, for it told him that he might go to Russia with a safe conscience and put on the habit of the Society. The Jesuits there really belonged to the Society for the Brief of Suppression had never reached that country. The Pontiff also added that he would restore the Society as soon as possible; and if he were not able to do so he would recommend it to his successor.
Pignatelli's joy knew no bounds, and he immediately prepared for his journey to the North, but the Providence of God kept him in Italy, for the Duke of Parma, though a son of Charles III of Spain, had resolved to recall the Jesuits to his Duchy, and for that purpose had written to Catherine II of Russia to ask for three members of the Society to organize the houses. The empress was only too glad to accede to his wish; on February, 1794, three Jesuits arrived in Parma and began their work at Calorno, just when Pius VI was passing through that city on his way to the prisons of France. The opportunity was taken advantage of to ask the august captive for authorization to open a novitiate and he most willingly granted the request. Panizzoni, who was then provincial of Italy, appointed Pignatelli as superior and master of novices. Unfortunately the Duke of Parma died, and the Duchy was taken over by France; however, the Jesuits were not molested for a year and a half, and during this time Pignatelli, who was exercising the office of provincial, succeeded in having the Society restored in Naples and Sicily. This was in 1804. But when Napoleon laid his hands on the whole of the peninsula an order was formulated for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Fortunately its execution was not rigorously enforced and colleges were established in Rome, Tivoli, Sardinia and Orvieto.
Meantime matters were progressing favorably in Russia, so much so that in 1803 Father Angiolini was sent as imperial ambassador to the Pope to solicit alms for the missions. When he appeared in Rome dressed as a Jesuit, he found himself the sensation of the hour. The Sovereign Pontiff received him with effusive affection and granted all that he asked. He remained there as procurator of the Society, and in the following year, was able to communicate to Father Gruber the pleasing news that, at the request of King Ferdinand, the Society had been re-established in the Two Sicilies. Father Pignatelli was made provincial, and as many as 170 of those who had survived after Tanucci had driven them out thirty-seven years previously came from the various places that had sheltered them during the Suppression to resume their former way of life. Several of them who had been made bishops asked the Pope for permission to return but all were refused except two, Avogado of Verona and Bencassa of Carpi.
The whole kingdom welcomed back the exiles with enthusiasm. The King came in person to open the Church which he had persistently refused to enter ever since the expulsion; at the first Mass he and the entire royal family received Holy Communion. He also gave the Fathers their former college, and endowed it with an annual income of forty thousand ducats. This example encouraged others; colleges were founded everywhere, and the number of applicants was so great that the conditions for admission to the Society had to be made as rigorous as possible. Unfortunately this happy condition of affairs did not last long, for in March 1806, Joseph Bonaparte replaced Ferdinand IV on the throne of Naples, and the Jesuits again took the road of exile. The Pope offered them a refuge in Rome, and when they protested that such a course would draw on him the wrath of Napoleon, he replied that they were suffering for the Church, and that he must receive them just as Clement XIII had done when they were exiled from Naples.
While these events were occurring in Italy and France, an opportunity was presented to the Jesuits of Russia to revive their old missions in China. Unfortunately it was frustrated. The story as told in the "Woodstock Letters" (IV, 113) is a veritable Odyssey, and is particularly interesting to Americans, for the reason that the principal personage concerned in what proved to be a very heroic enterprise became subsequently the President of Georgetown College: John Anthony Grassi.
Grassi was a native of Bergamo, and in 1799 entered the novitiate established by Father Pignatelli at Calorno. He thus received a genuine Jesuit training and escaped the influence of the establishments which Paccanari was inaugurating in Italy just at that time. From Calorno he was sent to Russia, and was made Rector of the College of Nobles which was dependent upon the establishment at Polotsk. Meanwhile, he was preparing himself for the missions of Astrakhan, and was already deep in the study of Armenian when the Chinese matter was brought to the attention of Father Gruber by a letter from a member of the old Society, who had contrived to remain in China ever since the Suppression. He was Louis Poirot. It appears that his ability as a musician had charmed the emperor, and thus enabled him to continue his evangelical work in the Celestial Empire.
Hearing of the establishment in Russia, he bethought himself of having the Jesuits resume their old place in China, evidently unaware that the Brief of 1801 expressly declared that the Society had been established "only within the limits of the Russian Empire." But not knowing this he availed himself of the return of a Lazarist missionary and wrote two letters; one to the Pope and another to the Father General in which he said: "I am eighty years of age and there is only one thing I care to live for. It is to see the Jesuits return to China." His letter to the General ends with a request to be permitted to renew his vows, "so as to die a true son of the Society of Jesus." Between the time he wrote this letter and its arrival in Europe, the limitation of the approval of the Society to Russia had been withdrawn, and Father Gruber immediately set about granting the venerable and faithful old man's request. Happily a solemn legation was just then to leave St. Petersburg for China, and the ambassador, Golowkin, was urged to take some Jesuits in his suite. The offer was gladly accepted, but it was decided that it should be better for the priests to go by the usual sea route than to accompany the embassy overland.
Father Grassi was considered to be the most available man in the circumstances, and he was told merely that he was to go to a distant post, and that his companions were to be Father Korsack, a native of Russia and a German lay-brother named Surmer, who happened to be a sculptor. On January 14, 1805, they left Polotsk, and travelling day and night, arrived at St. Petersburg on January 19. Only then were they informed that their destination was Pekin. On February 2 they started on sleds for Sweden. At the end of three days, they were all sick and exhausted, but kept bravely on till they reached the frontier where they found shelter in a little inn. Fortunately a physician happened to be there and he helped them over their ailments, so that in ten days they were able to resume their journey. They then started for Abo, the capital of Finland and from there crossed the frozen sea at top speed, till they reached the Island of Aland. On March 20 they traversed the Gulf of Bothnia in a mail packet, and landed safely on the shore of Sweden. On March 22 they were in Stockholm, but the Abbé Morrette, the superior of the Swedish mission to whom they were to present themselves was dead. An Italian gentleman, happily named Fortuna, who was Russian Consul at that place, took care of them and presented them to Alopeus, the Russian minister.
Alopeus dissuaded them from going to England as they had been directed, and suggested Copenhagen as the proper place to embark. Arrived there, they were informed that there was a ship out in the harbor, waiting to sail for Canton, but that the captain refused to take any passengers; whereupon they determined to follow their original instructions, and after a stormy voyage arrived at Gravesend on May 22. From there they went to London where they met Father Kohlmann.