"To gain the support of the Catholics against the anarchical elements which were everywhere revealing themselves," says the Cambridge History (XI, 34) "Guizot had tolerated the unauthorized Congregations. This had the immediate consequence of concentrating popular attention upon those religious passions whose existence the populace, if left to itself, might have forgotten. Even the colleagues of Guizot, such as Villemain and the editors of the "Journal des Débats," the leading ministerial organ, began by declaring that they saw everywhere the finger of the Jesuits. In each party, men's minds were so divided on the subject of the Jesuits or rather that of educational liberty which was so closely linked with it, that nothing of immediate gravity to the Government would for the moment arise." Liberals, or rather Republicans, such as Quinet and Michelet, in their lectures at the Collège de France took up the alarm and spread it broadcast.
Bournichon in his "Histoire d'un Siècle," (II, 492) calls attention to the fact that this attack was apparently against the Jesuits, but in reality against the Church. The "Revue Indépendante" did not hesitate to make the avowal that "Jesuitism is only a formula which has the merit of uniting all the popular hatred for what is odious and retrograde in a degenerate religion." Cousin started the hue and cry, in this instance, and Thureau-Dangin in his "Histoire de la monarchie de Juillet" (p. 503-10) says that "Quinet and Michelet transformed their courses into bitter and spiteful diatribes against the Jesuits. Both were hired for the work, and did not speak from conviction." "Quinet," says Bournichon (II, 494) "was quite indifferent to religious matters and had passed for a harmless thinker and dreamer up to that moment. As for Michelet, he had obtained his position in the Ecole Normale from Mgr. Frayssinous, yet he forgot his benefactor, and maintained that not only the Jesuits but Christianity was an obstacle to human progress; paganism or even fetichism was preferable, and Christ had to be dethroned."
Guizot removed Villemain from the office of Minister of public instruction and reprimanded Michelet and Quinet. Then Thiers seized the occasion to denounce Guizot for favoring the religious congregations and succeeded in defeating the minister's measure for educational freedom. It was at this stage that Guizot sent his envoy Rossi to Rome to induce Pope Gregory XVI to recall the Jesuits so as to extricate the French government from its difficulty. The Pope refused, as we have seen, and Father Roothaan merely gave orders to the members of the Society in France to make themselves less conspicuous.
In 1847 Gioberti published his "Gesuita Moderno" which unfortunately had the effect of creating in the minds of the Italian clergy a deep prejudice against the Society. Gioberti was a priest and a professor of theology. He first taught Rosminianism, and then opposed it. Under the pen-name of "Demofilo" or the "People's Friend" he wrote articles for Mazzini in the "Giovane Italia," and was the author of "Del Buono" and "Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani." His first attack on the Society appeared in 1845 in the "Prolegomeni al Primato;" "Il Gesuita Moderno," a large sized pamphlet full of vulgar invective, appeared in 1847. It was followed in 1848 by the "Apologia del Gesuita Moderno." He was answered by Father Curci. Deserting Mazzini, Gioberti espoused the cause of King Charles Albert, and founded a society to propagate the idea of a federated Italy with the King of Piedmont at its head. His last book, "Rinnovamento civile d'Italia" showed him to be the enemy of the temporal power of the papacy. His philosophy is a mixture of pantheistic ontology, rationalism, platonism and traditionalism. Though a revolutionist, he denied the sovereignty of the people. His complete works fill thirty-five volumes.
Of course the Society felt the shock of the Italian Revolution of 1848. Gioberti's writing had excited all Italy and as a consequence the Jesuit houses were abandoned. At Naples, the exiles were hooted as they took ship for Malta; they were mobbed in Venice and Piedmont. The General Father Roothaan left Rome on April 28 in company with a priest and a lay-brother, and as he stood on the deck at Genoa, he heard the cry from the shore, "You have Jesuits aboard; throw them overboard." There was nothing surprising in all this, however, for Rossi, the Pope's prime minister, was stabbed to death while mounting the steps of the Cancelleria. On the following day, the Pope himself was besieged in the Quirinal; Palma, a Papal prelate, was shot while standing at a window; and finally on November 24, Pope Pius fled in disguise to Gaeta.
In Austria, the Jesuits were expelled in the month of April. The community of Innsbruck, which is in the Tyrol, held together for some time, but finally drifted off to France or America or Australia or elsewhere. The emperor signed the decree on May 7, 1848. It applied also to Galicia, Switzerland, and Silesia, and the Jesuit houses all disappeared in those parts.
What happened to the Jesuits in France in the meantime? Nothing whatever. They had obeyed the General in 1845, and had simply kept their activities out of sight. They did not wait for the Revolution, and hence although the "Journal des Débats," announced officially, on October 18, 1845, that "at the present moment there are no more Jesuits in France," there were a great many. Indeed, the catalogues of 1846 and 1847 were issued as usual, not in print, however, but in lithograph, and as if they felt perfectly free in 1848, the catalogue of that year appeared in printed form. Meantime de Ravignan was giving conferences in Notre-Dame, and preaching all over the country. The only change the Fathers made was to transport two of their establishments beyond the frontiers. Thus a college was organized at Brugelette in Belgium and a novitiate at Issenheim. The scholasticate of Laval continued as usual. What was done in the province of Paris was identical with that of Lyons. For a year or so the catalogues were lithographed but after that they appeared in the usual form.
For two years Father Roothaan journeyed from place to place through France, Belgium, Holland, England, and Ireland, and in 1850 returned to Rome. The storm had spent itself, and the ruins it had caused were rapidly repaired, at least in France, where the Falloux Law, which was passed in 1850, permitted freedom of education, and the Fathers hastened to avail themselves of the opportunity to establish colleges throughout the country.
Elsewhere, however, other conditions prevailed. In 1851 there was a dispersion in Spain; in 1859 the provinces of Venice and Turin were disrupted and the members were distributed through the fifteen other provinces of the Society. In 1860 the arrival of Garibaldi had already made an end of the Jesuits in Naples and Sicily. The wreckage was considerable, and from a complaint presented to King Victor Emmanuel by Father Beckx, it appears that the Society had lost three establishments in Lombardy; in Modena, six; in Sardinia, eleven; in Naples, nineteen, and in Sicily, fifteen. Fifteen hundred Jesuits had been expelled from their houses, as if they had been criminals, and were thrown into public jails, abused and ill-treated. They were forbidden to accept shelter even from their most devoted friends, and the old and the infirm had to suffer like the rest. Nor were these outrages perpetrated by excited mobs, but by the authorities then established in Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Modena and elsewhere. "This appeal for justice and reparation for at least some of the harm done," said Father Beckx, "is placed, as it were, on the tomb of your ancestor Charles Emmanuel, who laid aside his royal dignity and entered the Society of Jesus as a lay-brother. He surely would not have embraced that manner of life if it were iniquitous." But it is not on record that Victor Emmanuel showed his appreciation of his predecessor's virtue by healing any of the wounds of the Society, whose garb Charles Emmanuel had worn.
The Jesuits of Venice had resumed work in their province, when in 1866 war was declared between Prussia and Austria. Sadowa shattered the Austrian forces, and though the Italians had been badly beaten at Custozzio, Venice was handed over to them by the treaty that ended the war. That meant of course another expulsion. Most of the exiles went to the Tyrol and Dalmatia. Then followed the dispersion of all the provinces of Italy except that of Rome.