Louis XV made a feeble attempt to save the situation by withdrawing the decree of expulsion from the jurisdiction of parliament, but Mme. de Pompadour and Choiseul so effectively worked on his fears that he ignominiously rescinded his order. The Pope had meantime delivered an allocution in a consistory on September 3, 1762; and had sent a letter to Cardinal Choiseul, the brother of the minister, on September 8 of the same year, in both of which he declared that "by a solemn decree, he had quashed and nullified the proceedings of the various parliaments against the Jesuits." He enjoined upon the cardinal "to use all his episcopal power against the impious act which was directed against the Church and against religion." He wrote to other bishops in the same tone of indignation and anger. It was not, however, until the November of 1764 that Choiseul succeeded in extorting the royal signature which made the decree irrevocable. Of course, Mme. de Pompadour was to the fore in securing this shameful surrender of the royal prerogative. The poor king cuts a sorry figure in signing the document. After making some feeble scrawls on the paper, he complained that the preamble was too long and that it would have sufficed to state that "the Jesuits had produced a great tumult in his kingdom." He added he did not think the word "punish" should be used; it was too strong; "he never cordially liked the Jesuits, yet they had the glory of being hated by all heretics.... I send them out of my kingdom against my will; at least, I don't want people to think that I agree with everything the parliament said or did against them." He ended by saying: "If you do not make these changes, I will not sign, but I must stop talking. I would say too much and I do not want anyone in France to discuss it." One could hardly say of Louis that "he was every inch a king."
The desire to close the mouths of every one of his subjects on a matter that concerned them all as intelligent beings and as citizens was carried out with extreme rigor. Thus, when two secular priests had the temerity to condemn the decree, they were promptly hanged. The audacity of the ministers and parliament went still further; and on December 3 the Duke de Praslin sent a note to Aubeterre, the French ambassador at Rome to advise him that "under the circumstances, it would be very futile and still more dangerous for the Pope to take any measures either directly or indirectly in contravention of the wishes and intention of his majesty; and hence His Holiness must, out of zeal for religion and out of regard for the Jesuits, observe the same silence which His Majesty had ordered to be observed in his states." The Pope replied to the insult by the Bull "Apostolicum," which was a splendid proclamation of the absolute innocence of the proscribed Order. It aroused the fury of the Governments of France, Portugal, Naples and other countries. In France it was burned in the streets of several cities by the public executioner. In Portugal, any one who circulated it or had it in his possession was adjudged guilty of high treason; but on the other hand, from the bishops of the entire Catholic world came enthusiastic letters of approval and praise for the fearless Pope who dared to stand forth as the enemy of tyranny and injustice.
Böhmer-Monod, in their "Jésuites," are of the opinion that the Pope was "injudicious, and that out of the hundreds of Catholic bishops, only twenty-three assured him of their approbation." De Ravignan, who is better informed, tells us that "almost the whole episcopacy of the world were a unit in this manifestation of loyalty to the supreme Pastor." Before the event, two hundred bishops had sent their appeals to the Pope, in favor of the Society; and the Pope himself says in the Bull: "Ex omni regione sub cœlo est una vox omnium episcoporum" (From every region under the canopy of heaven, there is but one voice from the episcopal body). After the Bull appeared, other bishops hastened to send him their adhesions and felicitations. Even in France itself, in spite of the terrorism exercised by parliament, the assembly of the clergy of 1765, by a unanimous vote, protested against the condemnation of the Jesuits, extolled "the integrity of their morals, the austerity of their lives, the greatness of their labors and science"; and declared that their expulsion left a frightful void in the ministry, in education, and in the sublime and laborious work of the missions. Not only that, but they wanted it put on record that "the clergy would never cease to pray for the re-establishment of the Order and would lay that plea at the feet of the king."
The exiles lingered for a while in various parts of France; for some of the divisional parliaments were not at one with Paris in their opposition to the Society. Indeed, in many of them, the proscription was voted only by a small majority. Thus at Rennes, there was a majority of three; at Toulouse two; at Perpignan one; at Bordeaux five; at Aix two; while Besançon, Alsace, Flanders and Artois and Lorraine pronounced in their favor and proclaimed "the sons of St. Ignatius as the most faithful subjects of the King of France and the surest guarantees of the morality of the people." On the other hand, Brittany, the country of Chalotais, author of the "Extraits," was especially rancorous in its hate. Thus, it voted to deprive of all civil and municipal functions those parents who would send their children abroad to Jesuit schools; and the children on their return home were to be punished in a similar fashion. The Fathers lingered for a few years here and there in their native country employed in various occupations; but in 1767 a decree was issued expelling them all from the territory of France.
An interesting manifestation of affection by the pupils of St. Omers for their persecuted masters occurred when the parliament of Paris issued its order of expulsion in 1767. St. Omers was founded by Father Persons in 1592 or 1593. It was not for ecclesiastics as were the colleges of Douai, Rome and Valladolid, but to give English boys an education which they could not get in their own country. It was twenty-four miles from Calais and in territory which at that time belonged to the King of Spain. Shortly after its transfer from Eu in Normandy where an attempt had been made to start it, there were one hundred boys on its register and, thirty years later, the number had doubled. For years it was a favorite school for English Catholics and it rejoices in having had twenty of its students die for the Faith. It continued its work for a century and a half. When the expulsion of the Jesuits left the college without teachers it was handed over to the secular clergy, but when they arrived there were no boys. They had all decamped for Bruges in Belgium, and there the classes continued until the general suppression of the Society in 1773. Even after that, the English ex-Jesuits kept the college going until 1794, when the French Revolution put an end to it. By that time, however, one of the former students, Mr. Thomas Weld, had established the Fathers on his property at Stonyhurst in England, so that St. Omers and Stonyhurst are mother and daughter.
The buildings and land at St. Omers were handed over by the French government to the English secular priests, who were at Douai. Alban Butler, the author of the "Lives of the Saints," was its president from 1766 to 1773. At present a military hospital occupies the site.
In Louisiana, which still owed allegiance to France, the dismissal of the Fathers was particularly disgraceful. For no sooner had the news of Choiseul's exploit in the mother-country arrived than the superior council of Louisiana set to work. "This insignificant body of provincial officers" as Shea calls them (I, 587), "issued a decree declaring the Society to be dangerous to the royal authority, to the rights of bishops, to the public peace of society" and pronounced their vows to be null and void. These judges in matters ecclesiastical, it should be noted, were all laymen. They ordered all the property to be seized and sold at auction, though personal books and clothes were exempted. The name and habit of the Society were forbidden; the vestments and plate of the chapel at New Orleans were given by the authorities to the Capuchins; but all the Jesuit churches in Louisiana and Illinois were ordered to be levelled to the ground. Every Jesuit was to embark on the first ship that set sail for France; and arriving there, he was to report to Choiseul. Each one was given about $420 — to pay for his passage and six month's subsistence.
There was a deviation in some cases about going to France, for Father Carette was sent to San Domingo; and Father Le Roy made his way to Mexico. A difficulty arose about Father Beaudoin, who was a Canadian. Why should he be sent to France where he had no friends? Besides, his health was shattered by his privations on the missions, and he was at that time seventy-two years old. He was to go to France, however, but just as he was about to be dragged to the ship a wealthy friend interceded for him and gave him a home. Another Father in Alabama did not hear of the order for several months; and when at last he made his appearance in New Orleans, he was arrested like a criminal and packed off to France.
On September 22, a courier reached Fort Chartres, which was on English territory; and in spite of the danger of embroiling the government, Father Watron who was then sixty-seven years old was expelled, and with him his two fellow missionaries. The official from Louisiana gave the vestments to negro wenches and the altar-plate and candelabra were soon found in houses of ill-fame. The chapel was then sold on condition that the purchaser should demolish it. At Vincennes, the same outrages were perpetrated and Father Duvernay, who had been for six months confined to his bed, was carried off with the others to New Orleans and despatched to France. Two only were allowed to remain, owing to the entreaties and protests of friends. One of the exiles was Father Viel, who was a Louisianian by birth. The most conspicuous personage enforcing this expulsion was a certain Lafrenière, but he soon met his punishment. In 1766 Louis XV made a gift of the entire province to his cousin of Spain, and when Count Alexander O'Reilly was sent out with three thousand soldiers to quell the disturbance that ensued, Lafrenière and three associates were taken into the back yard of the barracks and shot to death. Others were sent in chains to Havana.
Thus the Suppression of the Society in France was not carried out with the same brutality as in Portugal. There were no prisons, or chains, or deportation, and they had not the glory of suffering martyrdom. They were merely stripped of all they had and told to go where they wished. Whether they lived or died was a matter of unconcern to the government. It was merely a difference of methods; but both were equally effective. The Portuguese Jesuits were scourged; their French brethren were sneered at. Perhaps the latter was harder to bear.