With all their refinement, however, the French were more radical and more malignant than the Portuguese. Pombal had no other idea beyond that of a state Church such as he had seen in England, forming a part of the government machinery, and when his effort to bring that about by marrying the Protestant Duke of Cumberland to the Infanta of Portugal was thwarted by the Jesuits, he simply treated them as he did his other political enemies; he put them in jail or the grave. In France, the scheme was more comprehensive. With men like Voltaire and his associates in the literary world, and Choiseul and others of his set controlling the politics of the country, the plan was not merely to do away with the Church, but with all revealed religion. As the Jesuits were conspicuous adversaries of the scheme, it was natural that they should be disposed of first.
Such is the opinion of St. Liguori, who says: "The whole thing is a plot of the Jansenists and unbelievers to strike the Pope and the Church." The Protestant historian Maximilian Schoell is of like mind (Cours d'histoire, xliv.): "The Church had to be isolated; and to be isolated, it had to be deprived of the help of that sacred phalanx which had avowed itself to the defence of the Pontifical throne.... Such was the real cause of the hatred meted out to that Society." Dutilleul, in his "Histoire des corporations religieuses en France" (p. 279) expresses himself as follows: "The Jesuit is a missionary, a traveller, a mystic, a man of learning, an elegant civilizer of savages, a confessor of queens, a professor, a legislator, a financier, and, if need be, a warrior. His was not a narrow and personal ambition, as people erroneously suppose and assert. He was something more. He was a reactionist, a Catholic and a Roman revolutionist. Far from being attached, as is supposed, to his own interests, the Society has been in the most daring efforts of its indefatigable ambition only the protagonists of the spiritual authority of Rome."
Indeed, we have it from Voltaire himself, who wrote to Helvetius in 1761: "Once we have destroyed the Jesuits, we shall have easy work with the Pope." Rorbacher (Histoire de l'église, tom. XXVII, p. 28) holds the same view, "They are attacking the Society only to strike with greater certainty at the Church and the State." But the real, the ultimate purpose of Voltaire was expressed by his famous phrase Ecrasons l'infâme — "Let us crush the detestable thing," the detestable thing meaning God or Christ, and such has ever been the aim of his disciples. That it still persists was proclaimed officially from the French tribune by Viviani, "Our war is not against the Church, nor against Christianity, but against God." This open and defiant profession of atheism, however, would not have been possible in 1761. Hence, to conceal their purpose, they allied themselves with the most pretentious professors of the religion of the time; the only ones, according to themselves, who knew the Church's dogma and observed her moral law; the orthodox and austere Jansenists, who probably flattered themselves they were tricking les impies, whereas, d'Alembert wrote to one of his friends "Let the Pandours destroy the Jesuits; then we shall destroy the Pandours."
The programme was to compel the parliament to terrorize the king, which was very easy, because of the gross licentiousness of Louis XV. He was simply a tool in the hands of his mistresses, and Guizot in his "Histoire de France" has a picture in which Madame du Barry stands over the king and points to the picture of Charles I of England, who was beheaded for resisting parliament.
The Jansenist section of the coalition began the fight by the time-worn accusation of the "lax morality" of the Jesuits — a method of assault that was by no means acceptable to Voltaire who as early as 1746 had written to his friend d'Alembert, as follows: "What did I see during the seven years that I lived in the Jesuit's College? The most laborious and frugal manner of life; every hour of which was spent in the care of us boys and in the exercises of their austere profession. For that I call to witness thousands of men who were brought up as I was. Hence, it is that I can never help being astounded at their being accused of teaching lax morality. They have had like other religious in the dark ages casuists who have treated the pro and con of questions that are evident today or have been relegated to oblivion. But, ma foi are we going to judge their morality by the satire of the Lettres Provinciales. It is assuredly by Father Bourdaloue and Father Cheminais and their other preachers and by their missionaries that we should measure them. Put in parallel columns the sermons of Bourdaloue and the Lettres Provinciales, and you'll find in the latter the art of raillery pressed into service to make indifferent things appear criminal and to clothe insults in elegant language; but you will learn from Bourdaloue how to be severe to yourself and indulgent to others. I ask then, which is true morality and which of the two books is more useful to mankind? I make bold to say that there is nothing more contradictory; nothing more iniquitous; nothing more shameful in human nature than to accuse of lax morality, the men who lead the austerest kind of life in Europe, and who go to face death at the ends of Asia and America."
The romances about the immense wealth of the Society best appealed to the public imagination, especially as the news of an impending financial disaster was in the air. One instance of this style of propaganda may suffice. The others all resemble it. A Spaniard, it was said, had arrived at Brest with, 2,000,000 livres in his wallet and was promptly killed by the Jesuits. Soon the 2,000,000 had grown to 8,000,000. Then there was a distinguished conversion; that of a Jesuit named Chamillard who had turned Gallican and Jansenist on his death-bed; and although Chamillard a few days afterwards appeared in the flesh and protested that he was neither dead nor a Gallican nor a Jansenist, his testimony was set aside. It had appeared in print and that was enough. Such absurdities of course could do no serious harm, but at last, a splendid fact presented itself which could not be disproved; especially as a vast number of people, in France and elsewhere, were financial sufferers in consequence of it. It was the bankruptcy of Father de la Valette. In the public mind it proved everything that had ever been written about the Order. Briefly it is as follows:
At the very beginning of the Seven Years War, the British fleet had destroyed 300 French ships, captured 10,000 sailors and confiscated 300,000,000 livres worth of merchandise. Among the sufferers was Father La Valette, the superior of Martinique, who was engaged in cultivating extensive plantations on the island, and selling the products in Europe, for the support of the missions. Very unwisely he borrowed extensively after the first disaster, going deeper and deeper into debt, until at last he was unable to meet his obligations which by this time had run up to the alarming sum of 2,000,000 livres, or about $400,000. Suit was therefore brought by some of the creditors, but instead of submitting the case to a commission established long before by Louis XIV for adjusting the affairs of the missions, they laid it before the usual parliamentary tribunal in spite of the fact of its inveterate and well-known hatred of the Society. Guizot says that they did it with a certain pride, so convinced were they of the justice of their plea. Hundreds of others had suffered like themselves at the hands of the enemy in the Seven Years War, and they had no desire to avail themselves of any special legislation in their behalf. They underrated the honesty of the judges.
A verdict was, of course, rendered against them, and the whole Society was made responsible for the debt, though by the law of the land there was no solidarity between the various houses of religious orders. Nevertheless, they set to work to cancel their indebtedness. They had made satisfactory arrangements with their principal creditors, and although Martinique, where much of the property was located, had been seized by the English; yet one-third of their liabilities had been paid off when the government took alarm. If this continued, the public treasury would reap no profit from the transaction. Hence, an order was issued to seize every Jesuit establishment in France. A stop was put to the reimbursement of private individuals and the government seized all that was left. But although the Society was not to blame it incurred the hatred of all those who were thus deprived of their money. That, indeed, was the purpose of the government seizure.
Long before the crash, the superiors had done all in their power to stop La Valette, but in those days Martinique was far from Rome. Although attempt after attempt was made to reach him, it was all in vain. One messenger was crippled when embarking at Marseilles; another died at sea; another was captured by pirates, until in 1762 Father de la Marche arrived on the island. After a thorough investigation de la Marche declared (1) that La Valette had given himself up to trading in defiance of canon law and of the special laws of the Society; (2) that he had concealed his proceedings from the higher superiors of the Society and even from the Fathers of Martinique; (3) that his acts had been denounced by his superiors, not only as soon as they were made known, but as soon as they were suspected. The visitor then asked the General of the Society (1) to suspend La Valette from all administration both spiritual and temporal: and (2) to recall him immediately to Europe.
La Valette's submission was appended to the verdict of the visitor; in it, he acknowledges the justice of the sentence, although as soon as he knew what harm he was doing he had stopped. He attests under oath that not one of his superiors had given him any authorization or counsel or approval; and no one had shared in or connived at his enterprises. He takes God to witness that he did not make his avowals under compulsion or threat, or out of complaisance, or for any inducement held out to him, but absolutely of his own accord, and for truth's sake; and in order to dispel and refute, as far as in him lay, the calumnies against the Society consequent upon his acts. The document bore the date of April 25, 1762. He was expelled from the Society and passed the rest of his life in England. He never retracted or modified any of the statements he had made in Martinique.