Leonard Neale, like Carroll, was an American. He was born near Port Tobacco in Maryland in 1746, and with many other young Marylanders, was sent to the Jesuit College of St. Omers in France. After the Suppression he went to England, where he was engaged in parochial work for four years. From there he was sent to Demerara in British Guiana and continued at work in that trying country from 1779 to 1783. His health finally gave way, and he returned to Maryland and joined his Jesuit brethren. He distinguished himself in the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, and remained in that city, for six years as the vicar of Bishop Carroll. In 1797 another epidemic of fever occurred and he was stricken but recovered. In 1798 he was sent to Georgetown College as president, and in 1800 while still president he was consecrated coadjutor of Archbishop Carroll. He continued his scholastic work until 1806, succeeding to the See of Baltimore in 1815. He was then seventy years old and in feeble health. He died at Georgetown on June 18, 1817. Bishop Maréchal who had been suggested to the Pope by Bishop Cheverus of Boston, had already been named for the See.
Bishop Maréchal was a Sulpician. He had left France at the outbreak of the French Revolution and after spending some years in America as a professor both at Georgetown and Baltimore, returned to his native country, but was back again in Maryland after a few years. Neale wanted him to be Bishop of Philadelphia, but the offer was declined, and he was made coadjutor of Baltimore with the right of succession. He was consecrated on December 14, 1817, and occupied the see until 1826. Unfortunately, the whole period from 1820 was marked by misunderstandings with the Society. In spite of this controversy, which was unnecessarily acrimonious at times, Archbishop Maréchal was anxious to have the Jesuit visitor Father Peter Kenny appointed Bishop of Philadelphia. (cf. Hughes, op. cit., Documents, for details of the controversies.)
[CHAPTER XXIV]
THE FIRST CONGREGATION
Expulsion from Russia — Petrucci, Vicar — Attempt to wreck the Society — Saved by Consalvi and Rozaven.
The superiors-general who presided over the Society in Russia were Stanislaus Czerniewicz (1782-85), Gabriel Lenkiewicz (1785-98), Francis Kareu, (1799-1802), Gabriel Gruber, (1802-05), and Thaddeus Brzozowski, (1805-20). The first two were only vicars, as was Father Kareu when first elected, but by the Brief "Catholicæ Fidei" he was raised to the rank of General on March 7, 1801. His two successors bore the same title. Father Brzozowski lived six years after the Restoration. But those years must have been a time of great suffering for him. Over the rapidly expanding Society, whose activities were already extending to the ends of the earth, he had been chosen to preside but he was virtually a prisoner in Russia. It soon became evident that such an arrangement was intolerable and not only was there an exasperating surveillance of every member of the Order by the government, but even when Brzozowski himself asked permission to go to Rome to thank the Holy Father in person for the favor he had conferred on the Society by the Bull of Re-establishment, he was flatly refused. Hence it was resolved that when he died, a General had to be elected who would reside in Rome, no matter what might be the consequences in Russia.
The difficulty, however, solved itself. Though officially the head of the Orthodox Church, Alexander cared little for its doctrines, its practises or its traditions, and he set about establishing a union of all the sects on the basis of what he considered to be the fundamental truths of religion. He is even credited with the ambition of aiming at a universal spiritual dominion which would eclipse Napoleon's dream of world-wide empire built upon material power. Whether this was the outcome of his meditations, — for after his fashion, he was a religious man, — or was suggested to him by the Baroness Julia de Krudner, who was creating a sensation at that time, as a revivalist, cannot be ascertained. There is no doubt, however, that he fell under her sway.
Mme. de Krudner had given up pleasures and wealth to bring back the world to what she called the principles of the primitive Church. She travelled through Germany and Switzerland with about forty of her admirers, who kept incessantly crying out: "We call only the elect to follow us." She established soup-kitchens wherever she went, and her converts knelt before her, as this slim diet which they regarded as a gift from heaven was doled out to them. Naturally this attraction worked first on the poor, but the baroness soon reached the upper grades of society. Her opportunity presented itself at Vienna, where the allied sovereigns were in session to determine the political complexion of the world, after they had disposed of Napoleon. They did her the honor of attending some of her meetings, and Alexander who showed himself greatly interested, became the special object of her attention. She styled him: "The White Angel of God," while Napoleon was set down as "The Dark Angel of Hell."
Such a serious writer as Cantù is of the opinion that it was the baroness who drew up the scheme of the Holy Alliance, in which the four monarchs agreed to love one another as brothers; to govern their respective states as different branches of the great family of nations, and to have Jesus Christ, the Omnipotent Word, as their Sovereign Lord. But immediately after making this pious pact they began to distribute among themselves the spoils of war. Prussia took Saxony; Russia, Poland; Austria, Northern Italy; and England, Malta, Heligoland and the Cape. Thus was virtue rewarded.