[545] The London edition of 1797–8 (4 vols.) was reprinted in five volumes at Hamburg, Augsburg and Braunschweig; and a new edition, revised and corrected by the author, was issued at Lyons in 1818. Barruel himself put forth an English translation at London in 1798; and this was reprinted at Hartford, Conn., New York, and Elizabeth-town, N. J., the following year. Continental allies of the ex-Jesuit must have been responsible for translations into Polish, Dutch and Portuguese, which enjoyed but one printing apiece, as well as for the three editions of the Spanish translation, and for two of the three Italian editions. During the anti-Masonic campaign of the swindler Leo Taxil (1887), the Italian translation was reprinted at Rome by the Tipografia de Propaganda Fide.
Abridgements and excerpts were also circulated in several languages, including English. In this connection the following titles may also be noted: Application of Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain, London, 1798; The Anti-Christian and Antisocial Conspiracy. An extract from the French of Barruel, to which is prefixed “Jachin and Boaz,” Lancaster, (U. S.), 1812.
Cf. Sommervogel, C., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, i, Bruxelles, 1890, coll. 938–941; also Wolfstieg, Bibliographie der Freimaurerischen Literatur, vol. i, pp. 324, 325.
[546] Augustin Barruel (1741–1820) was a French controversialist and publicist, whose zeal was aroused in the defence of traditional ecclesiastical institutions and doctrines, in opposition to rationalistic tendencies manifest in the eighteenth century. Barruel entered the Society of Jesus in 1756 and was later driven from France when that order was suppressed by the French government in 1773. Permitted the next year to terminate his exile, he gave himself to literary pursuits. As might be expected, the turbulent condition of public affairs in France drew him into the currents of political discussion. His loyalty to the interests of the church would brook no silence. The civil oath demanded of ecclesiastics and the promulgation of the civil constitution in the earlier period of the Revolution specially roused his spirit, and led to the publication of a number of pamphlets from his pen. His ecclesiastical loyalties and political antagonisms were such that when the full fury of the revolutionary storm broke, Barruel became an emigré and sought asylum in England. There he continued his literary employments, and published in 1794 his well-known Histoire du clergé de France, pendant la révolution française. In that same year he brought out an English translation at London. This work Barruel dedicated to the English people in grateful recognition of the hospitable treatment which they accorded the persecuted ecclesiastics of his own land. Later, and while still in England, he wrote his Memoirs of Jacobinism. The number of editions through which this work passed is in itself a gauge of its claim upon popular interest. After the fall of the Directory, and after he had given his pledge of fidelity to the new government, Barruel again was permitted to return to France. With a view to healing the schism in the French church which the Revolution had produced, he championed the cause of the government in a work entitled, Du Pape et ses droits religieux, 1803. As the Napoleonic regime drew towards its close, Barruel came to be regarded as an emigré priest, and suffered arrest at the hands of the government. In August, 1816, Barruel was allowed to make his profession in the Society of Jesus. Shortly before this he wrote to its General: “Je m’étais toujours regardé comme lié par mes voeux, sans cesser d’être vraiment Jésuite, ce qui heureusement a fait pour moi une douce illusion dans laquelle je remercie Dieu de m’avoir laissé vivre jusqu’ au moment où vous vous prêtez avec tant de bonté à la demande que j’ai faite pour ma profession.” (La Compagnie de Jésus en France, Histoire d’un siècle, 1814–1914, Par Joseph Burnichon, S.J., Tome 1er, Paris, 1914, pp. 74 et seq.) The last years of Barruel’s life were spent in retirement. A list of his writings may be found in Quérard’s La France Littéraire, Tome Premier, pp. 196, 197, and a more elaborate one, in Sommervogel, op. cit. i, coll. 930–945.
[547] Barruel, op. cit., pp. i, vi.
[548] Ibid., pp. xiii et seq.
[549] Barruel’s term was Sophistes.
[550] Barruel, op. cit., pp. xiv, xv.
[551] Ibid., p. 2.
[552] Ibid., p. 1.