Your Reverence's most humble servant
Lawrence Kaulen,
Captive of Jesus Christ."
Pombal was determined now to make a master-stroke to discredit the Portuguese Jesuits. He would disgrace and put to death as a criminal their most distinguished representative, Father Malagrida, now over seventy years of age, who had already passed two years in the dungeons of Jonquiera. Malagrida was regarded by the people as a saint. He had labored for many years in the missions of Brazil and was marvelously successful in the work of converting the savages. Unfortunately he had been recalled to Portugal in 1749 by the queen mother to prepare her for the end of her earthly career. As Malagrida knew how Carvalho's brother was acting in Brazil, he was evidently a dangerous man to have so near the Court. Hence when the earthquake occurred and the holy old missionary dared to tell the people that possibly it was a punishment of God for the sins of the people, Carvalho banished him to Setubal and kept him there for two years. When the supposed plot against the king's life occurred, Malagrida was sent to prison as being concerned in it, though he had never been in Lisbon since his banishment. He was condemned to death with the other supposed conspirators; but his character as a priest, and his acknowledged sanctity made the king forbid the execution of the sentence. Pombal, however, found a way out of the difficulty. A book was produced which was said to have been written by Malagrida during his imprisonment. It was crammed with utterances that only a madman could have written: In any case it could not have been produced by the occupant of a dark cell, where there was no ink and no paper. When it was presented to the Inquisition whose death sentences the king himself could not revoke, the judges refused to consider the case at all; whereupon they were promptly removed by Pombal who made his own brother chief inquisitor; and from him and two other tools, promptly drew a condemnation of Malagrida for heresy, schism, blasphemy and gross immorality.
The sentence of death was passed on September 20, 1761, and on the same day the venerable priest was brought to hear the formal proclamation of it in the hall of supplication. There he was told that he was degraded from his priestly functions, and was condemned to be led through the public streets of the city, with a rope around his neck, to the square called do Rocco, where he was to be strangled by the executioner, and after he was dead, his body was to be burned to ashes, so that no memory of him or his sepulchre might remain. He heard the sentence without emotion and quietly protested his innocence. On the very next day, September 21, the execution took place. Platforms were erected around the square. Cavalry and infantry were massed here and there in large bodies; each soldier had eight rounds of ammunition. Pombal presided. The nobility, the members of the courts, and officers of the State were compelled to be present, and great throngs of people crowded the square and filled the abutting avenues and streets.
When everything was ready, a gruesome procession started from the prison. Malagrida appeared with the carocha, or high cap of the criminal, on his head, and a gag in his mouth. With him were fifty-two others who had been condemned for various crimes; but only he was to die. They were called from their cells merely to accentuate his disgrace. Having arrived at the place of execution, the sentence was again read to him; and when he was relieved of the gag, he calmly protested his innocence and gave himself up to the executioners, uttering the words of Our Lord on the Cross: "Father, into Thy hands, I commend my spirit." He was quickly strangled; then fire was set to his lifeless body and the ashes were scattered to the winds. He was seventy-two years of age, and had spent forty-one of them working for the salvation of his fellowmen.
All this happened in Portugal which once gloried in having the great Francis Xavier represent it before the world; which exulted in a son like de Britto, the splendid apostle of the Brahmans, who waived aside a mitre in Europe but bent his neck with delight to receive the stroke of an Oriental scimitar. The same Portugal which inscribed on its roll of honor the forty Jesuits who suffered death while on their way to evangelize Portugal's possessions in Brazil, now made a holiday to witness the hideous torture of the venerable and saintly Malagrida. The Jesuits of Portugal had done much for their country. They had borne an honorable part in the struggle that threw off the Spanish yoke: the magnificent Vieira was a greater emancipator of the native races than was Las Casas; and he and his brethren had won more territories for Portugal than da Gama and Cabral had ever discovered. But all that was forgotten, and they were driven out of their country, or kept chained in fetid dungeons till they died or were burned at the stake in the market-place, in the presence of the king and the people. No wonder that Portugal has descended to the place she now occupies among the nations.
[CHAPTER XV]
CHOISEUL
The French Method — Purpose of the Enemy — Preliminary Accusations — Voltaire's testimony — La Vallette — La Chalotais — Seizure of Property — Auto da fé of the Works of Lessius, Suárez, Valentia, etc. — Appeal of the French Episcopacy — Christophe de Beaumont — Demand for a French Vicar — "Sint ut sunt aut non sint" — Protest of Clement XIII — Action of Father La Croix and the Jesuits of Paris — Louis XV signs the Act of Suppression — Occupations of dispersed Jesuits — Undisturbed in Canada — Expelled from Louisiana — Choiseul's Colonization of Guiana.
The result of Pombal's work in Portugal was applauded by his friends in France, but his methods were condemned. "He was a butcher with an axe." Their own procedure was to be along different lines. They would first poison the public mind, would enjoy the pleasure of seeing the heretical Jansenist condemning the Jesuit for heterodoxy, and the professional debauchee assailing his morality, and then they would put the Society to death by process of law for the good of the commonwealth and of the Church. There would be no imprisonments, no burnings at the stake, no exiles, but simply an authorized confiscation of property which would leave the Jesuits without a home, replenish the public purse and ensure the peace of the nation. It was much easier and more refined. Meantime, the Portuguese exhibition was a valuable object lesson to their followers, who saw a king lately honored with the title of His Most Faithful Majesty putting to death the most ardent champions of the Faith. Later on, The Christian King, The Catholic King, and The Apostolic Emperor would unite to show that "Faith" and "Christianity" and "Apostolicity" were only names.