In 1685 the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was issued. It cancelled all the privileges granted to the Huguenots by Henry IV, and Protestants were given the choice either of renouncing their creed or leaving the country. The result was disastrous industrially, as France was thus deprived of a great number of skilled workmen and well-to-do merchants; in addition fictitious conversions were encouraged. As usual, the Jesuits were blamed for this measure by the Calvinists and Jansenists, and in retaliation the states general of Holland imposed the most outrageous taxes on the forty-five establishments which the Society possessed in that little country, hoping thereby to compass their ruin. But the sturdy Netherlanders drew up a formal protest and demanded from the government an explanation of why men of any religious views, even foreigners, should find protection in Holland while native Dutchmen were so unfairly treated. The claim was allowed, but the antagonism of the government, inspired as it was by William of Orange, who recognized that hostility to the Order was a good recommendation to his English subjects, was not laid aside. It was vigorous twenty years later.
The Vicar-Apostolic of Holland, who was titular Archbishop of Sebaste, had long been scandalizing the faithful by his heretical teachings. He was finally removed by the Holy See; but against this act the government of the states general protested, and ordered the Jesuits to write to Rome and ask for the rehabilitation of the vicar. The plea was that by doing so, they would restore peace to the country which was alleged to have been very much disturbed by the Papal document. The refusal to do so, they were warned, would be regarded as evidence of hostility to the government. De Bruyn, the superior, wrote to the Pope in effect, but instead of asking for the vicar's rehabilitation, he thanked the Holy Father for removing him. The consequence was that on June 20, 1705, three months after they had been told to write, the forty-five Jesuit houses in Holland were closed, and the seventy-four Fathers took the road of exile, branded as disturbers of the public peace.
It was during the Generalate of Father de Noyelle, that Innocent XI is said to have determined to suppress the Society by closing the novitiates. This is admitted, even by Pollen, and is flourished in the face of the Jesuits by their enemies as a mark of the disfavor in which they are held by that illustrious Pontiff. The assertion is based on a Roman document, the condemnatory clause of which runs as follows: "The Father General and the whole Society should be forbidden in the future to receive any novices, or to admit anyone to simple or solemn vows, under pain of nullity or other punishment, according to the wish of His Holiness, until they effectually submit and prove that they have submitted to the decree issued with regard to the aforesaid missions." Crétineau-Joly or his editor points out in a note that this is not a papal document at all. The Pope would never address himself as "His Holiness," nor tell himself what he should do. It was simply an utterance of the Propaganda, in which body the Society did not lack enemies. It was dated 1684, and in the very next year its application was restricted by the Propaganda itself to the provinces of Italy. It was never approved by the Holy See, and when it was presented to Innocent XI under still another form, namely to prevent the reception of novices in Eastern Asia, he flatly rejected it.
Louis XIV had lost the Netherlands to Spain and in a fit of childish petulance he insisted that the Jesuit province there on account of being half Walloon should be annexed to the French assistancy. When this demand was disregarded he ordered the French Jesuits who were in Rome to return to France, as he proposed to make the French part of the Society independent of the General. He was finally placated by a promise that men who had been superiors in France proper, should be chosen to fill similar positions in the Walloon district. It was a very silly performance.
Tirso González, a Spaniard, was chosen as the successor of de Noyelle in 1687. He had taught theology at Salamanca for ten years, and had been a missionary for eleven. He is famous for his antagonism to the doctrine known as Probabilism, as he advocated Probabiliorism. Probabilism is that system of morals according to which, in every doubt that concerns merely the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an action, it is permissible to follow a solidly probable opinion, in favor of liberty, even though the opposing view is more probable. This freedom to act, however, does not hold when the validity of the sacraments, the attainment of an obligatory end, or the established rights of another are concerned. González maintained with considerable bitterness that, even apart from the three exceptions, it was permitted to follow only the more probable opinion — a doctrine which is now almost universally rejected.
During the Generalate of Oliva, González had written a book on the subject, which was twice turned down by all the censors; whereupon, he appealed to Pope Innocent XI in 1680 asking him to forbid the teaching of Probabilism. The Pope did not go so far, but he permitted it to be attacked. Of course, González strictly speaking had a right to appeal to the Sovereign Pontiff, but it was a most unusual performance for a Jesuit, especially as the doctrine in question was only a matter of opinion, with all the great authorities of the Society against him. It must have been with dismay that his brethren heard of his election as General by the thirteenth general congregation. It appears certain, says Brucker in his history of the Society (p. 529), that on the eve of the election the Pope expressed his opinion that González was the most available candidate. That evidently determined the suffrage, though González seems to have had no experience as an administrator.
One of the first things the general did was to start a campaign against the doctrines of Gallicanism, as formulated in the famous Assembly of 1682, which every one thought was already dead and buried. His friend, Pope Innocent XI, died in August, 1689, and his successor Alexander VIII ordered González to call in all the copies that had been printed. In 1691 González began to print his book which Oliva had formerly forbidden. It was run through the press in Germany without the knowledge of his assistants; copies appeared in 1694, and threw the Society into an uproar, especially as González's appeared on the title page as "Former Professor of Salamanca and actual General of the Society of Jesus." Nevertheless, at the general congregation which met in 1697 Father González was treated with the profoundest consideration. Not a word was uttered about his doctrine and assistants who were most acceptable to him were elected. Although a few more probabiliorists subsequently appeared, the Society, nevertheless, remained true to the teaching of Suárez, Lugo, Laymann, and their school.
A quarrel then arose between Don Pedro II of Portugal and Cardinal Conti, the papal nuncio, about the revenues of certain estates. The question was referred to González, who decided in favor of the Pope, whereupon Pedro's successor, John V, closed all the Jesuit novitiates in Portugal and banished some of the Fathers from the country. González died before this affair was settled. He passed away on October 27, 1705, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He had been a Jesuit for sixty-three years, and during nineteen years occupied the post of General.
Father Michael Angelo Tamburini was the fourteenth General; his tenure of office extended from January 30, 1706, till his death on February 28, 1730. He was a native of Modena, and had filled several important offices with credit, before he was chosen to undertake the great responsibility of governing the entire Order, at the age of fifty-eight. The troubles in France were increasing. For although the implacable leaders of the Jansenist party, Arnauld and Nicole, had disappeared from the scene — Arnauld dying at Malines, a bitter old man of eighty-three, and Nicole soon following him to the grave — yet the antagonism created by them against the Society still persisted and was being reinforced by the atheists, who now began to dominate France.
Quesnel, who succeeded Arnauld and Nicole, wrote a book entitled "Moral Reflections on the New Testament", the style of which quite captivated de Noailles, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, and without adverting to its Jansenism he gave it his hearty approval. Later however, when he became Archbishop of Paris, he condemned another Jansenist publication whose doctrine was identical with the one he had previously recommended; whereupon an anonymous pamphlet calling attention to the contradiction was published; in it the cardinal was made to appear in the very unpleasant attitude of stultifying himself in the eyes of the learned. He accused the Jesuits of the pamphlet, whereas, it was the work of their enemies, and was written precisely to turn him against the Society. The situation became worse when other members of the hierarchy began to comment on his approval of the Jansenistic publication, and he was exasperated to such an extent that he suspended every Jesuit in the diocese. The Jansenists were naturally jubilant over their success, and began to look forward hopefully to the approaching death of Louis XIV, who had never wavered in his defense of the Society. His successor, the dissolute Philip of Orléans, could be reckoned on as their aid, they imagined, but they were disappointed. He began by refusing their petition to revoke the university rights of the Jesuits and although he dissolved all the sodalities in the army, he lodged a number of Jansenists in jail for an alleged conspiracy against the government, a measure which they, of course, attributed to the machinations of the Society.