Avril's account of his journey has been shockingly "done out of French" by a translator who prudently withheld his name. It was "published in London, at Maidenhead, over against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Its date is 1693. From it we learn that Father Avril started from Marseilles and made for Civita Vecchia, after paying his respects in Rome to Father General de Noyelle, he went to Leghorn, where he took ship on a vessel that was convoyed by a man-of-war called the "Thundering Jupiter." Passing by Capraia, Elba, Sardinia, and nearly wrecked off the "Coast of Candy," his ship dropped anchor in the Lerneca roadstead after three days' voyage, but without the "Thundering Jupiter." It was still at sea. He touched at Cyprus and Alexandretta, then proceeded to Aleppo, crossing the plain of Antioch in a caravan. He was fleeced by an Armenian who professed to be a friend of the Jesuits, then he crossed the Tigris or Tiger, and arrived at Erzerum in time for an earthquake. Continuing his journey through the intervening territory to what he calls the "Caspian Lake", he finally reached Moscow, after being almost burned to death on the Volga, when his ship took fire. At Moscow he was welcomed by the German Jesuits who had a house there, for Prince Gallichin (Galitzin) was then prime minister. He was soon bidden to depart, and crossed a part of Muscovy, Lithuania and White Russia, reaching Warsaw on March 12, 1686. It was eighteen months since he had left Leghorn. He made effort after effort to get back to Muscovy, but in vain. Ambassadors and princes and even Louis XIV found the Czar obdurate, and so, after two years of unsuccessful endeavor, Avril arrived at Constantinople, after being imprisoned by the Turks on his way thither. Finally, he reached Marseilles, having proved, at least, that the road through Russia would have to be abandoned; hence, it was determined to make those overland journeys in the future through the territory of the Shah of Persia.
[CHAPTER IX]
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS
Aquaviva and the Spanish Opposition — Vitelleschi — The "Monita Secreta"; Morlin — Roding — "Historia Jesuitici Ordinis" — "Jesuiticum Jejunium" — "Speculum Jesuiticum" — Pasquier — Mariana — "Mysteries of the Jesuits" — "The Jesuit Cabinet" — "Jesuit Wolves" — "Teatro Jesuítico" — "Morale Pratique des Jésuites" — "Conjuratio Sulphurea" — "Lettres Provinciales" — "Causeries du Lundi" and Bourdaloue — Prohibition of publication by Louis XIV — Pastoral of the Bishops of Sens — Santarelli — Escobar — Anti-Coton — "Les Descouvertes" — Norbert.
Father Claudius Aquaviva died on January 31, 1615, after a generalship of thirty-four years. To him are to be ascribed not only all of the great enterprises inaugurated since 1580, but, to a very considerable extent, the spirit by which the Society has been actuated up to the present time and which, it is to be hoped, it will always retain. The marvellous skill and the serene equanimity with which he guided the Society through the perils which it encountered from kings and princes, from heretics and heathens, from great ecclesiastical tribunals and powerful religious organizations, and most of all from the machinations of disloyal members of the Institute, entitle him to the enthusiastic love and admiration of every Jesuit and the unchallenged right to the title which he bears of the "Saviour of the Society." Far from being rigid and severe, as he is sometimes accused of being, he was amazingly meek and magnanimously merciful. The story about forty professed fathers having been dismissed in consequence of their connection with the sedition of Vásquez is a myth. The entire number of plotters on this occasion did not exceed twenty-eight, and only a few of those were expelled. In any case, whatever penalty was meted out to them was the act of the congregation and not of Aquaviva. Indeed, Aquaviva's methods are in violent contrast with those of Francis Xavier, who gave the power of expulsion to even local Superiors, and we almost regret that Xavier had not to deal with his fellow-countrymen at this juncture. It must also be borne in mind that the great exodus from the Society which occurred in Portugal antedated Aquaviva's time, and was due to the mistaken methods of government by Simon, Rodriguez.
The congregation convened after his death met on November 5, 1615, and the majority of its members must have been astounded to find the Spanish claim to the generalship still advocated. Mutio Vitelleschi an Italian, however, was most in evidence at that time; he was forty-five years old, and had been already rector of the English College, provincial both of Naples and Rome, and later assistant for Italy. As in all of those positions of trust he had displayed a marvellous combination of sweetness and strength which had endeared him to his subjects, the possibility of his election, at this juncture, afforded a well-grounded hope of a glorious future for the Society. Nevertheless some of the Spanish delegates determined to defeat him, and with that in view they addressed themselves to the ambassadors of France and Spain, to enlist their aid; but the shrewd politicians took the measure of the plotters, and, while piously commending them for their religious zeal and patriotism, politely refused their co-operation. That should have sufficed as a rebuke, but prompted by their unwise zeal they approached the Pope himself and assured him that Vitelleschi was altogether unfit for the position. The Pontiff listened to them graciously and bade them be of good heart, for, if Vitelleschi were half what they said he was, there could be no possibility of his election. The balloting took place on November 15, and Mutio was chosen by thirty-nine out of seventy-five votes. The margin was not a large one, and shows how nearly the conspirators had succeeded. To-day an appeal to laymen in such a matter would entail immediate expulsion.
Vitelleschi's vocation to the Society was a marked one. When only a boy of eleven, he was dreaming of being associated with it, and before he had finished his studies he bound himself by a vow to ask for admittance, and, if accepted, to distribute his inheritance to the poor. But as the Vitelleschi formed an important section of the Roman nobility, such aspirations did not fit in with the father's ambition for his son, and the boy was bidden to dismiss all thought of it. He was a gentle and docile lad, but he possessed also a decided strength of character, and like the Little Flower of Jesus in our own times, he betook himself to the Pope to lay the matter before him. The father finally yielded, and on August 15, 1583, young Mutio, after going to Communion with his mother at the Gesù, hurried off to lay his request before Father Aquaviva. His great desire was to go to England, which was just then waging its bloody war against the Faith, but, as with Aquaviva himself, his ignorance of the English language deprived him of the crown of martyrdom.
Crétineau-Joly is of the opinion that the generalate of Vitelleschi was monotone de bonheur. Whether that be so or not, it certainly had its share in the monotony of calumny which has been meted out to the Society from its birth. Thus, the beginning of Vitelleschi's term of office coincided with the publication of the famous "Monita secreta" which, with the exception of the "Lettres provinciales" is perhaps the cleverest piece of literary work ever levelled against the Society. The compliment is not a very great one, for nearly all the other books obtained their vogue by being extravagant distortions of the truth. But good or bad they never failed to appear.
The first in order was the diatribe of Morlin in 1568. This was a little before Vitelleschi's time. It was directed against the schools, and denounces the professors for having intercourse with the devil, practising sorcery, initiating their pupils in the black art, anointing them with some mysterious and diabolical compound which gave the masters control of their scholars after long years of separation. "God's gospel," they said, "was powerless before those creatures of the devil whom hell had vomited forth to poison the whole German empire and especially to do away with the Evangelicals who were the especial object of Jesuitical hatred." The immediate expulsion of the "sorcerers" was demanded, and even their burning at the stake, for "they not only deal in witchcraft themselves, but teach it to others, and impart to their pupils the methods of getting rid of their foes by poisons, incantations and the like." It was asserted that "those who send their boys to be educated by them are throwing their offspring into the jaws of wolves; or like the Hebrews of old immolating them to Moloch."