When the Society was expelled from France in 1762, Delpuits became a secular priest and was offered a canonry by de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris. He gave retreats to the clergy and laity and especially to young collegians. During the Revolution, he was put in prison and then exiled, but he returned to France after the storm. There he met young Father Barat, who had just been released from prison and was anxious to join the Jesuits in Russia. Delpuits advised him to remain in France where men of his stamp were sorely needed and hence Barat did not enter the Society until 1814.
In 1801, following out the old Jesuit traditions, Delpuits organized a sodality, beginning with four young students of law and medicine. Others soon joined them, among them Laennec who subsequently became one of the glories of the medical profession as the inventor of auscultation. Then came two abbés and two brothers of the house of Montmorency. The future mathematician, Augustin Cauchy, and also Simon Bruté de Rémur who, at a later date, was to be one of the first bishops of the United States; Forbin-Janson, so eminent in the Church of France, was a sodalist, as were the three McCarthys, one of whom, Nicholas, became a Jesuit, and was regarded as the Chrysostom of France. The list is a long one. When Delpuits died in 1812, his sodalists erected a modest memorial above him, and inserted the S. J. after his name. That was two years prior to the re-establishment. A Sulpician then took up the work, but in 1814, he turned it over to Father de Clorivière who, in turn, entrusted it to Father Ronsin. Its good works multiplied in all directions, and branches were established throughout France. By the time Montlosier began his attacks, the register showed 1,373 names, though Montlosier assured the public that they were no less than 48,000. Among them were a great number of priests and even bishops, notably, Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston and subsequently, Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux. The last meeting of the sodality was held on July 18, 1830. Paris was then in the Revolution and the sodality was suppressed, but rose again to life later on.
While this attack on the sodalists was going on, the Jesuits of course were assailed on all sides. The fight grew fiercer every day until the "Journal des Débats" was able to say: "The name Jesuit is on every tongue, but it is there to be cursed; it is repeated in every newspaper of the land with fear and alarm; it is carried throughout the whole of France on the wings of the terror that it inspires." As many as one hundred books, big and little, were counted in the Bibliothèque Nationale, all of which had been published in the year 1826 alone. They were the works not only of anonymous and money-making scribes, but of men like Thiers and the poet Béranger who did not think such literature beneath them. Casimir Périer appeared in the tribune against the Society, and the ominous name of Pasquier, whose bearer was possibly a descendant of the famous anti-Jesuit of the time of Henry IV, is found on the list of the orators. Lamennais got into the fray, not precisely in defense of the Jesuits, but to proclaim his ultra anti-Gallicanism; thus bringing that element into the war. Added to this was the old Jansenist spirit, which had not yet been purged out of France; indeed, Bournichon discovers traces of it in some of the Fathers of the Faith who had joined the Society.
Finally came the Revolution of 1830, during which the novitiate of Montrouge was sacked and pillaged. Other houses of France shared the same fate. On July 29 a mob of four or five hundred men attacked St. Acheul, some of the assailants shouting for the king, others for the emperor, others again for the Republic, but all uniting in: "Down with the priests! Death to the Jesuits!" Father de Ravignan attempted to talk to the mob, but his voice was drowned in the crashing of falling timbers. The bell was rung to call for help, but that only maddened the assailants the more. De Ravignan persisted in appealing to them, but was struck in the face by a stone and badly wounded. Then some one in the crowd shouted for drink, and wine was brought out. It calmed the rioters for a while, but while they were busy emptying bottles and breaking barrels, a troop of cavalry from Amiens swept down on them and they fled. The troopers however, came too late to save the house. It was a wreck and some of the Fathers were sent to different parts of the world — Italy, Switzerland, America or the foreign missions. But when there were no more popular outbreaks, many returned from abroad and gave their services to the French bishops, with the result that there never had been a period for a long time which had so many pulpit orators and missionaries as the reign of Louis-Philippe.
Pius VIII died on November 30, 1830, and it was a signal for an uprising in Italy. Thanks to Cardinal Bernetti, the Vicar of Rome, peace was maintained in the City itself, but elsewhere in the Papal States, the anti-Jesuit cry was raised. The colleges were closed and all the houses were searched, on the pretext of looking for concealed weapons. Meantime calumnious reports were industriously circulated against the reputations of the Fathers.
In the Spanish Revolution of 1820, twenty-five Jesuits were murdered. In 1833 civil war broke out between the partisans and opponents of Isabella and, for no reason whatever, two Jesuits were arrested and thrown into prison. One of them died after three months' incarceration. Meanwhile threats were made in Madrid to murder all the religious in the city. The Jesuits were to be the special victims for they were accused of having started the cholera, poisoned the wells, etc. July 17, 1834, was the day fixed for the deed, and crowds gathered around the Imperial College to see what might happen.
The pupils were at dinner. A police officer entered and dismissed them and then the mob invaded the house. Inside the building, three Jesuits were killed; a priest, a scholastic and a lay-brother. The priest had his skull crushed in, his teeth knocked out and his body horribly mangled. The scholastic was beaten with clubs; pierced through the body with swords, and when he fell in his blood, his head was cloven with an axe. Four of the community disguised themselves and attempted to escape but were caught and murdered in the street. Three more were killed on the roof; and two lay-brothers who were captured somewhere else were likewise butchered. The rest of the community had succeeded in reaching the chapel, and were on their knees before the altar, when an officer forced his way through the crowd and called for his brother who was one of the scholastics, to go with him to a place of safety. The young Jesuit refused the offer, whereupon the soldier replied: "Very well I shall take care of all of you." He kept his word and fifty-four Jesuits followed him out of the chapel and were conducted to a place of safety. The house, however, was gutted; unspeakable horrors were committed in the chapel; everything that could not be carried off was broken, and in the meantime a line of soldiers stood outside, not only looking on, but even taking sides with the rioters.
Evidently the times had passed when it was necessary to go out among the savages to die for the Faith. The savages had come to Madrid. Nor was this a conventional anti-Jesuit uprising; for on that hideous 17th of July, 1834, seventy-three members of other religious communities were murdered in the dead of night in the capital of Catholic Spain. Nevertheless Father General Roothaan wrote to his Jesuit sons: "I am not worried about our fourteen who have so gloriously died, for 'blessed are those who die in the Lord.' What causes me most anguish is the danger of those who remain; most of them still young, who are scattered abroad, in surroundings where their vocation and virtue will be exposed to many dangers." Nothing was done to the murderers, and before another year had elapsed, a decree was issued expelling the Jesuits from the whole of Spain; but as Don Carlos was just then in the field asserting his claim to the throne, a large number of the exiles from other parts of Spain, were able to remain at Loyola in the Pyrenees until 1840.
The Portuguese had waited for fifteen years after Pius VII had re-established the Society before consenting to re-admit the Jesuits. Don Miguel issued a decree to that effect on July 10, 1829, and the Countess Oliviera, a niece of Pombal, was the first to welcome them back and to place her boys in their college. The Fathers were given their former residence in Lisbon and, shortly afterwards, the Bishop of Evora established them in their old college in that city. In 1832 they were presented with their own college at Coimbra, and on their way thither they laid in the tomb the still unburied remains of their arch-enemy, Pombal, which had remained in the morgue ever since March 5, 1782, — a space of half a century. It seemed almost like a dream. Indeed it was little else, for Dom Miguel, who was then on the throne, was deposed by his rival, Dom Pedro, soon after, and on July 20, 1833 the Jesuits of Lisbon were again expelled. The decree was superfluous, for in the early Spring, their house had been sacked, and on that occasion the inmates would have been killed had not a young Englishman, a former student of Stonyhurst, appeared on the scene. The four that were there he took on his yacht to England, the others had already departed for Genoa.
Hatred for the Society, however, had nothing to do with it. The whole affair was purely political. Had the Fathers accepted Dom Pedro's invitation to go out among the people and persuade them to abandon the cause of the deposed king, they would have been allowed to remain. They were expelled for not being traitors to their lawful sovereign. The Fathers of Coimbra contrived to remain another year, but on May 26, 1834, they were seized by a squad of soldiers and marched off to Lisbon. Fortunately the French ambassador, Baron de Mortier, interceded for them, otherwise they would have ended their days in the dungeons of San Sebastian, to which they had already been sentenced. They were released on June 28, 1834, and sent by ship to Italy and from there, along with the dispersed Spaniards were sent by Father Roothaan to France and South America.