FOOTNOTES:[2]See Ribadeneira'sHistoria Ecclesiastica del Scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra(1588), L. ii. ch. xxii.
[2]See Ribadeneira'sHistoria Ecclesiastica del Scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra(1588), L. ii. ch. xxii.
[2]See Ribadeneira'sHistoria Ecclesiastica del Scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra(1588), L. ii. ch. xxii.
CHAPTER III
EARLY STORMS
Forthe events of the next ten years, which will be narrated in this chapter, we still rely almost entirely on Jesuit writers. The statement may sound like an insinuation of dishonesty, but it is merely a reminder that our authorities are panegyrists rather than historians. Their purpose was wholly different from that of the modern historian, and their selection and treatment of documents correspondingly differed. It would be ingenuous to imagine that they loaded the scales of good and evil, success and failure, with impartial hand. Here and there, however, some scandal was so widely known in their day, and so eagerly pressed by their opponents, that it were wiser to put a bold gloss upon it than to ignore it, and thus we of the later date can just discern the human form under the thick veil of panegyric. It becomes more and more apparent after the death of Ignatius. Father Sacchini, who takes up the pen laid down by Orlandini, is just as loyal to his order, but it becomes more frequently necessary to excuse and explain, and at times he candidly censures. The Society is shaken by "very fierce storms," and one of these breaks upon it in his earliest pages.
The Constitutions provided that at the death of a General there should be a Vicar-General appointed, and he should proceed to summon the leading fathers of every province for the election. Now, Ignatius hadappointed a Vicar to assist him in his last years, and it was generally felt that this Father Natalis would be Vicar-General and control the election. Natalis was in Spain, however, and Lainez, although very ill, was in Rome. We remember Lainez as the learned and masterful Castilian who had once provoked Ignatius to use very plain speech. There were only five fathers at Rome, including Lainez, who were entitled to vote for the Vicar-General, and Lainez helped to simplify the issue by casting a blank vote, like Ignatius, or "leaving the matter to God." He was appointed, and he fixed the more important election for November. For this he had to summon the Provincials, Assistants, and two Prefects from each of the twelve provinces of the Society. One imagines a large and varied body, but in point of fact there were only about twenty voters; those in Brazil and the Indies could not be expected, while the "province of Ethiopia" (or Abyssinia) existed only on paper. It happened, moreover, that as the Pope was at war with Spain, the Spanish fathers could not come, and Lainez dare not proceed without them. They were of opinion that Natalis ought to have been recognised as Vicar-General.
Thus the election had to be postponed for two years, and Lainez continued, on the strength of four votes, to act as General. The remarkable events of those two years are of great importance in studying the character of the early Society. Two very serious conflicts arose, one between the Jesuits themselves, and one with the Pope, and it is in such conflicts that the real character appears. Crétineau-Joly suppresses the one altogether and grossly mis-states the other; he is not only less candid, but far less truthful, even than the original Jesuit authorities. If we wish to form a just estimate of the early Jesuits, not merely to admire the manyvirtues they possessed, we must consider these conflicts with care, as they are recorded by Sacchini in the "Historia Societatis."
Lainez at once presented himself, as temporary head of the Society, to the Pope, and prepared for a struggle. Ranke's fine picture of Caraffa, who had now become PaulIV., will be remembered. A dark and stormy Neapolitan, an ardent Italian patriot, he would, as he sat over his fiery southern wine, express the fiercest disdain of the Spaniards, and trust to see them swept out of the Italian peninsula. He had disliked Ignatius and, Sacchini says, spoken slightingly of him after his death. On the other hand, he was a deeply religious man and sincere reformer, and he recognised that there was precious stuff, from the Church's point of view, in this new Society. Should he fuse it with the Theatines, or merely clip its outrageous privileges, and bring it nearer the common level of the religious orders? He was known to hesitate between the two policies, and Lainez was determined to resist both, implacably, and teach the papacy the real value of the famous fourth vow. And Lainez was a cold, resolute, clear-headed man of forty-five: Caraffa a nervous and impetuous old man of eighty. The conflict was postponed, however, until the Society had a properly constituted authority. Paul was content to warn Lainez that the Jesuits must be careful of their ways, and to remind him that what a Pope had given a Pope might take away.
A few months later the domestic conflict opened. The spirited Bobadilla protested that Diego Lainez had usurped authority over the Society; the proper thing to do in these unforeseen circumstances was to divide the leadership between the five survivors of the ten original Jesuits. Rodriguez, who still smarted underhis humiliation, Sacchini says, was persuaded to take this view; Cogordan a "stiff-necked" brother whom Lainez had ventured to correct, joined them; and even the meek and gentle Brouet was drawn into the revolt. For many months the austere silence of the Roman house was enlivened with the singular quarrel. The rebels wrote lengthy indictments of Lainez and secretly circulated them among the brethren; and somehow, says the historian, copies of theirlibellialways reached the hands of Lainez, while he himself wrote nothing. Then Cogordan told two cardinals, who were to tell the Pope, that Lainez proposed to hold the election in Spain, so that they might pass their Constitutions without the Pope's interference. The idea was certainly entertained, and we can easily believe that Lainez favoured it. Paul angrily ordered that no Jesuit was to quit Rome, and closed his door against Lainez. A union of this powerful and casuistic body with the King of Spain was one of the last things Paul wished to see; and he looked forward to the passing of their Constitutions as his opportunity to clip their wings. At last Lainez severed Rodriguez and Brouet from the rebels, and Bobadilla made a direct application to the Pope for his share in the administration of the Society. To the scandal or the entertainment of Rome, Cardinal Carpi was appointed to arbitrate on the domestic quarrels of the children of St. Ignatius. His decision—that Lainez should remain Vicar-General, but consult the older fathers—did not put an end to the unseemly quarrelling, and Lainez in turn appealed to the Pope, secured the appointment of another cardinal, and silenced the rebels. We can imagine the feelings of PaulIV.When a cardinal told him that Lainez had charged Bobadilla with an honourable mission at Foligno, and had sentenced the wicked Cogordan tosayonePater and Ave, he crossed himself: as a Neapolitan does when the spirit of evil is about. He was astonished at the obstinacy of the rebels, says Sacchini; but there are those who fancy that what really impressed him was the astuteness of Lainez. He was to have more painful experience of it anon.
While the leaders quarrelled for the mantle of the master at Rome, there was grave trouble in the provinces. In that year (1557) JohnIII.died in Portugal, many valuable workers were lost, and the judgment of the University of Paris and the scalding indictments of Melchior Cano were translated into every tongue in Europe. There was no possibility under PaulIV. of countering these things by conversation at the Vatican. It was imperative to hold the election as soon as possible and return to the field. The end of the war came in 1558, and by May the twenty voters were assembled in the Roman house. They were to elect a general and endorse the Constitutions, now completed by Lainez.
There was friction at first because Lainez issued to the fathers certain orders which aimed at preventing canvassing, but in July they proceeded to the election. To their dismay Cardinal Pacheco entered the room, on the election day, and said that the Pope had sent him to preside. He genially assured them, however, that he would not interfere, and they cast their votes. Lainez was elected by thirteen votes out of twenty. They then held a number of sittings on the Constitutions, and prepared for a struggle with the Pope. This struggle is not without some humour when we reflect that the Society of Jesus was, so to say, the Pope's private regiment, the one order that made a special vow of obedience to him, the most exaggerated champion in Christendom of his authority. It was the firstoccasion on which the Vatican was to realise that it might count on the abject obedience of the Jesuits as long as the Jesuits dictated its decrees. Lainez and his colleagues were determined by every means in their power to thwart the will of PaulIV.and suffer no interference with their own will. They quietly endorsed their Constitutions, and prepared to go to their provinces. It is impossible to find what precise order the Pope had given them to alter their Constitutions, but he had certainly done so in some form, and his anger broke out stormily. He sent a cardinal to say that they must reconsider the question of chanting in choir, as other religious bodies did, and of appointing a general only for a term of three years.
The Jesuits were "surprised," but obedient. They "reconsidered" the points, and drew up a report to the effect that they were unanimously opposed to change. Lainez and Salmeron were directed to wait on the Pope and present this report, and some brave language—such language as a Pope rarely heard, and must have been amazed to hear from a Jesuit, if it were really spoken—is put into the mouth of Lainez at the audience by Sacchini. The historian admits, however, that they did not present the report. Paul sternly told them that they were "contumacious," indeed not far removed from heresy (which was true), and he cut short their defence with a peremptory command to do as they were bidden. With an eye on the gray hairs of the octogenarian Pope they retired to mend their rules and order the chanting of the office. It now appeared that of their hundred establishments only two were "houses," and they contented themselves with ordering that vespers should be chanted in these houses—until PaulIV. died. They had secretly asked the opinion of a learned cardinal on the value of the Pope's command.Cardinal Puteo was not merely an expert on such matters; he was Dean of the Rota, and in a position to dissolve the Pope's order, as he eventually did. He told them that it was a "simple command," and that, as the decree of his predecessor, excusing them from choir, was not expressly abrogated, it would come into force again at the death of PaulIV.With this assurance they meekly submitted to the Pope, and scattered to their respective missions.
I have narrated this curious story at some length, relying entirely on the Jesuit Sacchini, because it is of extreme significance for one who would judge the character and history of the Society. Catholic historians, who suppress it entirely or give a very misleading version of it, are clearly of opinion that the mere record of the facts will disturb their readers, while anti-Catholic writers enlarge on it with pleasure. Those who desire to have an intelligent and just estimate of the Jesuits can neither ignore nor misinterpret such facts. That Lainez was personally ambitious, that his eagerness for power had not entirely the unselfish character of such ambition as we may recognise in Ignatius, can hardly be doubted. But Brouet and Salmeron shared and supported his conduct, and in those two, at least, one is disposed to see the first spirit of the Regiment of Jesus in its original purity. The clue to the seeming inconsistency or hypocrisy of such men defying or evading the Pope's commands I have already indicated. The Society of Jesus had consecrated diplomacy to the service of God. If a Pope would strip their order of those distinctions and privileges which, in their conviction, peculiarly fitted it to carry on the holy war, he was not acting as the Vicar of Christ, and his commands must be evaded. It did not occur to them that this was, in the end, the Protestant principle of private judgment, against which theythundered the doctrine of papal authority. They were the children of Ignatius, who had always felt thathisprivate judgment was the judgment of God. So Jesuitism moved slowly toward its inevitable goal.
One other incident at Rome may be recorded before we distribute the events of the next seven years in their national departments. A little more than a year after the election, on 18th August 1559, PaulIV.died. How the Romans, stung by the misery they had suffered during his war with Spain and the brutalities of his Inquisition, burst into the streets with wild rejoicing, and attacked the palace of the Inquisitors, and how the new Pope surrendered the criminal nephews of his predecessor, including a cardinal of the Church, to the scaffold, must be read in general history. The fact that the Jesuits were called to sustain Cardinal Caraffa in his last hours is of no significance. It is more pertinent to tell that Lainez returned to the learned Cardinal Puteo, and the odious command of PaulIV. was declared to have died with him.
It is said that Lainez himself was proposed for the papacy after the death of PaulIV.The conclave of cardinals on such an occasion is, as is known, as isolated as a jury-room, but a cardinal might summon his confessor, and it is not only stated by Sacchini, but confirmed by Cardinal Otho years afterwards, that Lainez was called in by Otho and told that his name would be proposed. We have no just ground to doubt this statement, but we have very good reason to refuse to regard it as a serious proposal. The papal election of 1559 lasted three months, and was marked by a bitter struggle of France, Spain, and Italy. It engrossed the attention of Europe, yet not a single Roman ambassador or prelate of the time mentions the name of Lainez. Even thewords used by Cardinal Otho years afterwards are known to us only in a Jesuit version.
Cardinal Medici, who now became PiusIV., proved to be one of the most generous patrons of the Society. Although he was a Pope of the cultured and liberal type, and would have little personal inclination to favour them, he seems to have concluded that the Jesuits were the most formidable champions of his authority, and he gave them many privileges. It was he who, in 1561, gave them permission to build within the sphere of other orders, and to grant academic degrees in their colleges, and he directed his local representatives everywhere to protect and aid them. With such an auxiliary the vigorous and gifted general was enabled to conduct the affairs of his Society with a success which will appear as we review its life in the various provinces. Only one further personal detail need be added in regard to Lainez. Although the orders of Caraffa had been declared void, he professed a scruple when he had held the generalship for three years, and proposed to resign. In view of his behaviour at the election one is not disposed to look for sincerity in this scruple, nor does the issue suggest it. His confessor told him that he must consult his councillors (or assistants). They resisted his proposal, but he still affected qualms, and sent a circular letter to all the professed fathers, in which he purported to place before them, for their guidance, all the pros and cons of his design. The letter is, however, a transparent plea for power. The electors unanimously insisted that he should retain office, and he returned to his task with firmer authority.
The British Isles still remained a dark and almost inaccessible territory on the Jesuit map, but Englishmen, flying from the penal laws of Elizabeth, began to enter the Society on the continent, and one or two secretmissions were sent out. Thomas King was sent from Louvain to England, but he died in the following year (1565), and is merely stated to have made a few converts. Another refugee in Belgium, an Irishman named David Woulfe, had been sent in 1560 to his native land with the position of Nuncio. He was so effectively disguised that in France he was arrested as a Lutheran. His early reports represent him as an austere spectator of the general corruption of the Irish clergy, monks, and people. He speaks of giving absolution, in one year, to a thousand penitents who had contracted "incestuous marriages," and describes the people coming to his retreat in their shirts and bare feet. Father Woulfe seems to have caught the taint, however, as he was some years later ignominiously expelled from the Society. William Good, a Somersetshire man, and "Edmund the Irishman," joined him in 1564, distributing to the peasantry the dispensations and indulgences which England proscribed, to the grave inconvenience of the papal treasury.
The mission to Scotland was not less adventurous. It was the year 1562, when Mary Queen of Scots had returned from France, full of sad foreboding, to the land of John Knox. Nicholas Gouda was sent from Louvain, in the secret character of Nuncio, to console and assist her, and two Scottish students, Hay and Crichton, accompanied him. They were dressed as gentlemen of quality, who would see the world. Unfortunately, Crichton betrayed the secret to an acquaintance at Leith, and the fiery cross passed from pulpit to pulpit in the city of Edinburgh. Gouda sent Crichton back to Louvain and went on himself to Edinburgh. After many fruitless attempts to see Mary, he was at last admitted one night, by a postern gate, to the presence of the beautiful and distracted young queen, but therewas nothing to be done. He asked that the bishops might be assembled somewhere to meet him, and it appeared that there was only one bishop, on one of the islands, who would venture to receive him, if he were well disguised. It seems that the least remarkable dress to don on visiting his lordship was that of a money-lender, and Father Nicholas, so habited, traversed wild and stern Caledonia. The rumour of his presence got about, and the Covenanters kept watch at Edinburgh for his return. A French merchant coming in from Aberdeen was sorely beaten by them before he could prove his identity. But two of the faithful met Gouda outside Edinburgh, and they sailed, with a small band of Scottish aspirants, for Belgium.
In Italy the story is one of much progress and bitter hostility. By 1561 there were two hundred and sixty Jesuits (in the broadest sense of the word) in Rome, of whom a hundred and ninety were students in the Roman college. They were prospering in the sunshine of the Pope's favour. Elsewhere in Italy, however, they received hard blows. No less than four serious storms broke on the Society in various parts of Italy in the year 1561.
First it was reported from the Valtellina that the fathers had been expelled, and forbidden the whole territory of the Grisons, on the ground that they had shown an undue eagerness in securing an old man's money. Next there was trouble in Montepulciano. The good fathers had, Sacchini says, induced so large a proportion of the women of Montepulciano to lead proper lives that the men were infuriated. They bribed a loose woman to attempt to seduce one of the Jesuits, and they engaged a man to dress as a Jesuit and let himself be seen coming from a disorderly house. The Montepulciano version of the matter is, of course, thatone Jesuit accosted a woman and another was seen leaving an unbecoming house. To make matters worse, a woman accused the Jesuit rector, Father Gambar, of intimacy with her sister. It was an act of jealousy, as the two sisters had competed for the rector's smiles; it is, however, admitted that Father Gambar had been "indiscreet" in his letters to the lady, which were made public. The civic authorities took the darker view, and requested the removal of Gambar. When Lainez refused, the townsfolk threatened to talk to the rector themselves, and he fled. Lainez held that he was innocent, but expelled him from the Society for running away without permission. He sent some of the older Jesuits to restore order in Montepulciano, but it was no use. The citizens withdrew the pension they had hitherto given the Jesuits, for teaching, and refused to give them alms or house. Lainez fought, with his ablest men and subsidies from Rome, for a year or two, but he was beaten and forced to dissolve the college.
Then Venice reported difficulties. The new Archbishop, Trevisani, detested the Jesuits, and assured his friends that thechiappini("humbugs," to translate it politely) would not remain long in Venice under his rule. Incidents multiplied, and in 1561 the Senate fell to discussing the fathers and did not spare them. The gist of the charge was that they were foreigners meddling with the affairs of Venice; they confessed all the noble ladies of Venice, called on them in their homes, and through them learned the official secrets. The debate ended with words, though the Doge summoned Father Palmio and warned him to be prudent; and the men of Venice, quoting Montepulciano, used a little domestic authority to keep their wives away from Jesuit confessionals.
From Naples, in the same year, came news ofhostility and obloquy. Salmeron had been recalled from Naples to Rome, and offensive observers began to form theories of the recall. When the legend had grown to its full proportions, it ran that Father Salmeron had extorted four thousand pounds from a dying woman, before he would absolve her, and had, when the Pope heard and asked an explanation, fled to Geneva and turned Protestant. The boys sang ballads in the street about Father Salmeron and his four thousand pounds, and the college had troubled experiences. Why Salmeron was not sent down to refute the legend, and whether there really was some little difficulty about a sum of money, we cannot say. But the incident shows that Catholic Naples was largely hostile to the Jesuits. The Pope had to intervene and use the authority of the Viceroy.
A few years later a more serious storm broke out in the north. In all these cases of charges against the early Jesuits it is extremely difficult to ascertain the truth; the case is always stated for us by the defence. It happens that in the case of the trouble at Milan in 1563 we have one independent document, and I state the facts a little more fully. It matters little whether the various Jesuits were guilty or not in these local disturbances, and most people will conclude, roughly, that they were probably not all immaculate and impeccable. But it is worth while ascertaining if all this violent hostility to the Jesuits, among Catholic peoples, is really founded on disappointed vice or idle calumny, and we may take the Milan affair as a type.
The famous Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, Carolo Borromeo, was a nephew of the Pope. He received his position in 1560, at the early age of twenty-two, and was soon under the influence of the Jesuits. It was reported to the Pope that Charles was giving large sumsof money to the Jesuits, and seemed to have an idea of joining the Society. Then the young archbishop's Jesuit confessor, Father Ribera, was accused of unnatural vice with a page in the establishment of Donna Virginia, Charles's sister-in-law. Sacchini says that Charles investigated the charge and found it false, and that a bishop who insisted on it (and accused other Jesuits besides Ribera) was brought before Cardinal Savelli at Rome, produced his witnesses—a number of discharged or former students at the Jesuit college—and was himself punished for libel. It is added that Charles continued to entrust his seminary to the Jesuits, and would not have done so if they were guilty. Ribera, it is acknowledged, was sent to the Indies by Lainez, but only because the Pope disliked his influence on Charles.
The Jesuit case is, as usual, plausible, but does not satisfy a close inquirer. To send a distinguished and fashionable Jesuit to the Indies because he is making his penitent more pious than the Pope likes, especially at a time when he is charged with vice, is hardly the kind of action we should expect in so prudent a man as Lainez. It was a very drastic measure to put five thousand miles between Ribera and his saintly penitent. As to Cardinal Savelli's inquiry, we can quite believe that the Pope would be willing to draw a veil over a scandal, which might ruin the Society in Italy, once Lainez had sent the chief culprit on the foreign missions; Cardinal Savelli was, moreover, the patron and protector of the Jesuits, and he seems to have dismissed the witnesses unheard on the ground that they were expelled or seceding students of the Society. We can further understand that Charles might remain friendly with the Jesuits if he believed that one man only was guilty, and that man was punished; but weshall see in the next chapter that the relations of Charles and the Jesuitsweredisturbed, and that in 1578 they made an extraordinarily insolent attack on the cardinal in his own city.
But the chief point is that an almost contemporary writer, Caspar Schoppe, maintains on the highest authority that the Jesuit schools at Milan were deeply tainted with vice. Schoppe is an ardent anti-Jesuit, and must be read with discretion when his authority is remote. In this case he calls God to witness that Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, the nephew and successor of Charles, said in his (Schoppe's) presence that he had himself found the Jesuit college at Braida so corrupt that he would not suffer any Jesuit to come near him, would not allow any student of his seminary to approach a Jesuit teacher, and would, if he had the power, forbid any Jesuit to teach.[3]Crétineau-Joly replies that Schoppe is evidently lying, since the known date of his birth makes it impossible that he should ever have conversed withCharlesBorromeo. This confusion of Frederic and Charles is originally due to Quesnel, who makes that mistake in quoting Schoppe, but it is very singular that the French apologist for the Jesuits should not know that Schoppe spoke ofFredericBorromeo, not Charles, as is pointed out in later editions of Quesnel. It is still more singular that Crétineau-Joly assures his readers (who are not likely to make an arduous search for Schoppe's ancient work) that the statement is made "sous forme dubitative," when he must know that it is the most solemn and emphatic statement in Schoppe's book. The impartial student must conclude that there is grave evidence against the Milan Jesuits, and that hostility to the Jesuits had attimes a more respectable ground than they are willing to admit.
The Pope did not stint his patronage of the Society on account of these accusations. When the Cardinal-Protector of the Society died in 1564, PiusIV.undertook that office himself, as if to intimidate its critics; though the critics were not in the least intimidated. Shortly afterwards he appointed a commission of cardinals and prelates to consider the establishment of a seminary at Rome, and they recommended that the Jesuits should have charge of it. The proposal inflamed the Roman critics of the Society, and Montepulciano and Milan and all the other scandals were fiercely discussed. The Pope held firm, however, and the struggle had not ended when Lainez died.
In Spain and Portugal the Society continued to make material progress and, in the same proportion, morally to deteriorate. Favoured by the genial clime of the Peninsula, the Society ran quickly through its normal course of development and bore precocious fruit. The college at Coimbra had, as we have seen, needed purification even under Ignatius. It now prospered again, and maintained about a hundred and fifty novices and priests. But the most notable feature of the Portuguese province was the early interference of the Jesuits in politics. The primitive design of avoiding politics and forbidding Jesuits to frequent the courts of princes had first been set aside by Ignatius himself, and was quite inconsistent with the general idea of obtaining the favour of the rich and powerful. In Portugal the court was now dominated by Jesuits; Father Miguel de Torres was confessor of the Queen-Regent Catherine, Father Gonzales da Camara confessor of the young King Sebastian, and Father Leo Henriquez confessor of Cardinal Dom Henry, the King's grand-uncle. It maybe read in any history of Portugal how the Cardinal began, at the instigation and with the assistance of the Jesuits, to intrigue for the Regency, and in 1562 forced Catherine to abdicate. In a letter, dated 8th June 1571, which Catherine afterwards wrote to General Borgia, we are plainly informed of the intrigues of the confessors. "Everyone knows," says the Queen, "that the evils which afflict this kingdom are caused by some of your fathers, who are so misguided as to advise the King, my grandson, to displace me and expel me from my State." She had dismissed her confessor Torres, who advised her to submit to the intrigues of her brother and Father Gonzales, but after a five years' struggle she was forced to retire from Spain. Father Gonzales then became the most powerful man in Portugal, and made his brother Prime Minister, until, as we shall see, Sebastian became old enough to put an end to their intrigues.
In Spain the Society was less prosperous. The historic struggle at Alcalà had ended in the capture of the university by the Jesuits, but at Seville, Valladolid, and other towns there was persistent opposition, and at Grenada a dangerous agitation arose because a Jesuit confessor compelled a penitent to name her accomplice in vice. Borgia himself had many enemies at court, and the opposition to him culminated at length in an attack which compelled him to fly to Portugal. Two works of piety which he had written in earlier years were denounced to the Inquisition and condemned. It is said by the Jesuits that the suspected passages in his books were interpolated by the man who published them, and the point is of little interest. Borgia did not remain to face the questions of the Inquisitors, and the King became so angry with him that, when he was invited by Lainez to the metropolitan house at Rome, the Spanish fatherswarned Lainez that if any dignity were conferred on Borgia it would be deeply resented at the court.
This trouble had hardly ended in the disgrace and flight of Borgia when a very grave domestic quarrel arose in the Castilian province. Lainez had sent Father Natalis from Rome to inspect the province, and the Castilian Provincial, Father Araoz (nephew of Ignatius), discovered that Natalis had secret instructions to destroy his position at court. Araoz, the oldest Jesuit in Spain, and a favourite at court, had won a position of comfort and power which was certainly not consistent with the personal ideal of the Society. When, however, they endeavoured to dislodge him, he took a drastic revenge on the Roman authorities. Natalis was collecting and sending to Rome a good deal of money, when an instruction was suddenly issued from the court pointing out that it was against the laws of the kingdom to send money abroad or send men to study in other countries. This order was openly attributed by the Jesuits to the influence of Father Araoz. An angry quarrel ensued, and one of the friends of Araoz produced the secret instructions which Lainez had given to Natalis and some father had stolen. We need not enlarge on this quarrel. It is more interesting to note that the Jesuits urged that their action in sending money to Rome did not come under the royal order since the Church has no frontiers. For some years the affairs of the Society in Spain remained in a very troubled condition, in spite of their great prosperity.
In France we naturally find the sternest struggle of the decade, as the large Protestant population was supported by the majority of the Catholics in opposition to the Jesuits. The early effort to woo Paris by austerity of life and humble care of the sick had wholly failed. The Archbishop, the university, and the lawyers of the Parlement had observed that thesehumble ministers had the most formidable privileges in their reserved baggage, and they had put the Jesuits out of the gates. They remained in the meadows of St. Germain for five or six years, and then, in 1560, Lainez ordered a fresh campaign. His representative at Paris was the astute intriguer, Father Cogordan, who had given Lainez painful proof of his ability at Rome. France was on the eve of a terrible struggle of Catholics and Huguenots, and Cogordan had little difficulty in persuading the Queen that the Jesuits were the appointed force for checking Protestantism. The Parlement was ordered to register the letters of HenryII., authorising the Jesuits. The courageous lawyers refused once more, and the whole of the faculties of the university joined in an emphatic condemnation of the Jesuits and their privileges.
The next move of the Jesuits is noteworthy. Cogordan was instructed to reply that the Jesuits would sacrifice, in France, any privileges which were opposed to the laws of the country or the rights of the French Church. Their opponents were quite aware that the sacrifice was insincere and temporary, but the manœuvre greatly weakened the position of the Archbishop. As a last resource he stipulated that they should also abandon the name "Society of Jesus," which many Catholics considered offensively arrogant, and again Cogordan assented. The Parlement, however, still refused to register the royal letters, and threw the decision upon a Council which was to be held at Poissy, where Catholics and Huguenots were to meet in a dialectical tourney.
FrancisII.had died at the close of 1560, and Catherine de Medici, the virtual ruler, was entirely won to the Jesuit view. But the Huguenots, led by the Prince de Condé and Admiral de Coligny, were so powerful that sober Catholic opinion favoured concessionto them in the interest of peace: a policy which the Jesuits ruthlessly opposed wherever the Catholics were still in the majority. The Colloquy at Poissy was, therefore, doubly interesting to the Jesuits, and Lainez went in person, in the train of the Pope's legate, Cardinal d'Este, to secure their aims; he was to obtain the recognition of the Society and to prevent the reconciliation of Catholics and Huguenots. Unhappily he succeeded in both designs. The Colloquy opened in July, when a small group of the abler Huguenot divines confronted six cardinals and forty bishops and archbishops, under the eyes of the King and Queen. When, after a few sittings, it was seen that concessions must be made to the heretics, Lainez delivered a fiery and eloquent discourse against this proposed sacrilege. Catherine de Medici trembled, and would attend no more sittings. The Colloquy ended in a futile wrangle of Lainez and the Huguenots, and France, thanks very largely to Lainez, went on her way toward St. Bartholomew.
The sincerity of Lainez in this fanatical gospel of intolerance cannot be doubted, but it is in piquant contrast to the second part of his mission, in which he equally succeeded. He brought with him testimonials to the work done by his Society in a hundred places, confirmed the promise that they would lay aside their privileges and their very name (until it was safe to resume them), and thus secured the right of entry into Paris for this nameless body of priests. This was done, of course, by quiet activity among the prelates, without any public discussion. Lainez remained several months in France, strengthening the new foundation and—at the very time when he was urging Condé, in a friendly correspondence, to induce the Protestants to join in the Council of Trent—using the whole of his greatinfluence over the Queen and court to prevent any concession of churches or other normal rights to the Huguenots. As a result of his success, the Jesuits moved into Paris and took possession of the hotel which the Bishop of Clermont had bequeathed them some years before. We can hardly suppose that they were following the advice of the sagacious Lainez when they inscribed over the door the words "College of the Society of the Name of Jesus." This flippant evasion of their promise to abandon their name did not tend to conciliate Parisians. When they succeeded in a short time, with their free classes and ablest teachers, in drawing some hundreds of youths from the university, they became bolder and announced that the "Clermont College" was incorporated with the university. The rector, Marchand, indignantly challenged their claim, and they produced letters of incorporation which they had secretly obtained from his predecessor two years before. They could not insist on the validity of this irregular diploma, and the close of the generalship of Lainez saw them once more in a position of grave insecurity and unpopularity.
A somewhat similar struggle was taking place in Belgium. The university and civic authorities at Louvain resisted them, and their college remained so poor that we find its rector complaining to Rome of the burden of supporting Father Ribadeneira, who, as we have previously seen, had been sent to further Jesuit interests at the court of Philip in Belgium. Even when Margaret of Austria, whom they easily secured, bade the States of Brabant admit the Jesuits, they refused, and they yielded only to the direct intervention of Philip in 1564.
On the other hand, the able and devoted Jesuit Canisius was laying the foundation of his Society veryfirmly in the Catholic provinces of Germany. Canisius is the greatest figure in the second decade of the Society's life, and seems to have been a more deeply religious and conscientious man than Lainez. He maintained to the end the more austere standard of life, travelling afoot from city to city, from Rhineland to Poland and Austria, and inaugurating everywhere the effective system of education which Ranke has declared superior to that of the Reformers. The University of Dillingen was entrusted to the Jesuits, the frontiers of the Society were extended to Poland in 1554, and the laity were identified with its interests in the Catholic cities by being drafted into the numerous sodalities or confraternities which the Jesuits controlled. The historian can dwell with more sympathy on their generally enlightened struggle with Protestantism and with Catholic corruption in Germany, where heresy provided them with a bracing atmosphere and a healthy incentive to work. Even here, however, we find them at times stooping to tactics which we cannot admire, and the next chapter will introduce them to us in some singular adventures. Their conduct in Bavaria, especially, does not invite close scrutiny. AlbertV.was heavily burdened with debt, and it is something more than a coincidence that, the moment he admitted the Jesuits, the Vatican made him a large grant out of ecclesiastical funds; it is even clearer that the Jesuits were chiefly responsible for the persecution of Protestants which followed their settlement in Bavaria.
Lainez had made a tour of these provinces after establishing his Society in France. From Paris he had passed to Belgium, where the Duchess of Parma was ruling in the name of her brother. Margaret had heard Lainez preach at Rome, and he easily secured her interest for his struggling brethren in Flanders. Hethen went on to Trent, where, in 1562, the Council resumed its sittings. There was no longer the least hope of persuading the Reformers to attend, and it now remained for the Church to decide what modifications it would adopt in order to meet the Protestant indictment. The northern monarchs, confronted with the task of reconciling large Catholic and Protestant populations, were disposed to make concessions, and their clergy were at least eager to check the arrogant claims and moderate the extravagance of the papal court. This policy was opposed by Italy, Spain, and the Papacy, and the Jesuits were the most violent partisans of the ultramontane attitude. It would, perhaps, be an error to ascribe to Lainez a preponderant rôle in the unhappy councils that were adopted at Trent, but whatever influence his learning and eloquence gave him was used for the purpose of magnifying the papal authority. Even the wealth and luxury of the Roman court, which had been so largely responsible for the schism, found in him an eloquent defender. He was able to return to Rome with an assurance that the Catholic States made no concession, while the northern prelates had to retire to their seats with grave foreboding of bloody struggle.
Of the Jesuit missions beyond the seas during this decade little need be said. In India alone some material progress was made, and it was largely due to tactics which promised no permanent result. Writers like Crétineau-Joly deliberately omit the most significant details in regard to these early missions, and give a most misleading impression that tens of thousands of natives were gathered into the fold by the spiritual teaching; and exalted labours of the missionaries. The early Jesuits themselves are more candid. They tell, for instance, how in 1559 they made a descent, with anaccompanying troop of soldiers, on an island whose inhabitants had long resisted baptism. The natives were held up by the troops, and their leaders were put in irons and told that they were to be deported. In the circumstances they professed themselves eager to be baptized, and the sacred rite and a good dinner were at once bestowed on five hundred "converts." The Portuguese authority was the chief agency on which the missionaries relied. The most tempting privileges were granted to converts; the administrative offices which the Hindoo clergy had exercised for ages were transferred to the Jesuits; and in 1557 even the tribunal of the Inquisition was set up by them in India.
In other lands the missionary record was singularly barren during the decade. In Brazil the fathers still wandered in the forests, slowly winning the confidence and allegiance of the natives by medical and other humane services. Abyssinia was once more invaded, and some of the fathers entered the Congo, but both missions were destroyed after a few years. In Egypt an attempt was made to induce the Copts to recognise the authority of the Pope. Rich presents were made to the Patriarch, and the Papacy was flattered for a time by reports of success; but the adventure ended in the painful and ignominious flight of the missionaries from the country. The Japanese missions also were almost destroyed in the course of the decade, and two ingenious attempts to enter China proved unsuccessful. In 1556 Father Melchior Nuñez was permitted to reach Canton, but his very diplomatic account of his object did not convince the mandarins and he was politely expelled. In 1563 a further attempt was made. The mandarins were informed that an embassy had arrived from Europe with valuable presents for the Emperor. The cautious mandarins asked to see its credentials,and, when they were told that these had been accidentally destroyed on the voyage, they again amiably conducted their visitors to the frontier. There were three Jesuits, in disguise, among the "envoys," and it is clear that the whole expedition was a fraudulent attempt of the merchants and missionaries from Goa to break the reserve of the Chinese.
Such were the fortunes of the Society of Jesus during the decade which closed with the death of Lainez in 1565. The hundred establishments which Ignatius had bequeathed to him in 1556 had now increased to a hundred and fifty; the thousand subjects had become three thousand. From Portugal to Poland the Jesuits were the most ardent soldiers in the war against the advancing heretics, and there was hardly a Catholic court in Europe that did not welcome the children of Ignatius and bow in secret to their advice. Yet a keen observer like Lainez must have perceived that this prosperity was less solid than it appeared, and his last years were saddened by announcements of hostility and defeat. In France and Belgium the gain was wholly disproportionate to the exacting struggle they had maintained; in Portugal the material success and political action were lowering the ideal of the Society; in Spain the Catholic monarch, the Inquisition, and the higher clergy were hostile; and England kept its doors sternly closed against the Jesuits. The future was still uncertain, and another Caraffa might at any time accede to the papal chair. With a last glance at the ex-Duke of Gandia, as if to intimate that Borgia was the fittest to take up the burden he laid down, the second General of the Society, able, energetic, and high-minded to the last, sank wearily to his rest.
FOOTNOTES:[3]Relatio ad Reges, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.
[3]Relatio ad Reges, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.
[3]Relatio ad Reges, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.
CHAPTER IV
GENERAL FRANCIS BORGIA
Theelection which followed the death of Lainez was not marred by any of the painful incidents which we frequently find on such occasions in the Jesuit chronicles. When the leading fathers of the Society reached Rome in the early summer, to compare their stories of warfare in every clime of Europe and consult about the future of their great organisation, there was one amongst them who had so natural a pre-eminence that his election was assured. This was Francis Borgia, ex-Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia. There were in the distinguished gathering many of far greater ability and service—indeed, there was probably none of less ability than Borgia—but his high birth, his friendship with half the kings of Europe, his venerable person and austere life marked him clearly for the supreme command. Philip of Spain had outgrown his hostility, and, at the death of Lainez, Borgia was appointed Vicar-General. So plain was the intention of the electors that he sincerely begged them not to impose on him so heavy a responsibility. They disregarded his protest, and on 2nd July he became General of the Society.
He was then a feeble and venerable man of sixty-five, worn with austerity, profoundly sincere and religious. In his person he singularly illustrated the change that had come over Catholicism. The name of Borgia at once suggests the groves of pleasure or the chambers ofcrime out of which the Papacy had been startled by the voice of Luther: his father had been a son of Pope AlexanderVI., his mother an illegitimate daughter of the Archbishop of Saragossa, who in turn had been a natural son of FerdinandV.But with his hair-shirts, his bloody scourges, and his long fasts, Francis belonged to the new age, and seemed to have taken on himself the expiation of the scarlet sins of the Borgias. He had been Viceroy of Catalonia from 1539 to 1543, and had then suffered for some years a mild and obscure disgrace. During this enforced retirement to his duchy he had met, and fallen under the charm of, Peter Favre, and he was, as we saw, secretly admitted to the Society. Although he had been driven from Spain only a few years before, the Pope had restored his prestige, and his election was acclaimed throughout the Society and the Church.
We may, perhaps, see a reflection of his religious spirit, as well as an indication that grave abuses had crept into the Society, in the long series of decrees which the Congregation proceeded to pass. No Jesuit was henceforward to live at a royal court—at least, "not for more than two or three months": Jesuit communities were not to own and manage large farms, and sell their produce in the public markets; lawsuits on behalf of legacies were to be avoided; salaries for teaching were to be abandoned when a teacher joined the Society. These and other commands give us an authoritative assurance that there was much disorder. Even in the Congregation the liberals or casuists were represented. When, in the discussion of the impropriety of going to law to secure legacies, one of the sterner brethren quoted the Sermon on the Mount, another plausibly argued that it was wrong to yield to worldlings funds which might be used in the service of God. The Puritans won, and theirdecrees went forth; but the farms were not abandoned, as we shall see, nor the lawyers impoverished.
In view of the despotic power which a General had, it may seem strange that the electors should venture to entrust the office to a man of such mediocre ability as Borgia. We must remember that the General had a council of four able assistants, and it could safely be trusted that the humility of Borgia would leave the power in their hands. Nor was it long before their statesmanship was put to a severe test. Their princely benefactor, PiusIV., died before the end of 1565, and a Dominican monk, PiusV., occupied the chair. He was a personal friend of Borgia, but he belonged to a rival order, and Rome was greatly agitated by the hope that he would strip the Society of its excessive privileges. To the relief and delight of the Jesuits, PiusV.took the earliest opportunity to show his friendliness. As he drove in solemn procession past their church, he summoned the General to his carriage, and talked affectionately with him for a quarter of an hour under the eyes of his officers. When he went on to nominate Jesuits for certain important offices, it seemed that they had found another protector.
In 1567, however, they were dismayed to receive an amiable, but firm, suggestion from Pius to chant in choir, as other religious bodies did, and abandon the "simple" or temporary vows which enabled them to keep priests in the Society for years without being solemnly pledged to it.[4]A commission of cardinals was at the time engaged in discussing the reform of the monastic world, and the Jesuits submitted to it a lengthyand skilful memoir in defence of their institutions. Ought not a regiment of light horse, ready to fly at a moment's notice to any part of the Pope's dominions, to have special characters? Would those hundreds of men who had joined the Society in its actual form not have ground to complain if it were made more onerous? Would the benefactors who had built their homes and chapels be indifferent to the changes? Nay, what would the heretics say when the decisions of a whole series of Popes, to say nothing of the revelations made to Ignatius, were ruled improper? These ingenious considerations were then orally impressed on the Pope by Borgia and Polanco, and they flattered themselves that they had once more evaded the commands which it was their chief business to see respected by the rest of Christendom. The Pope had agreed to postpone the question of choir until his new edition of the Breviary was published, and he did not seem to insist on the reform of the vows. A few months later, however, they heard that the Pope was about to decree that in future no member of a religious body should be admitted to the priesthood until he had taken his final vows.
The details of the struggle need not be repeated here, but we must assuredly see a significance in these repeated conflicts with the Pope. In the whole history of the monastic orders of the Catholic Church there is no example of persistent opposition to, or determined evasion of, the commands of the Pope to compare for a moment with this behaviour of the men who took a special vow to obey him. Moreover, the Jesuit writers of the time frankly confess that they resisted the Pope's wish in their own interest. If the solemn vows were to be taken in a youth's early twenties, they would have to examine much more closely the characters of aspirants to the Society, and their numbers would shrink. It wasone of the most constant charges against them in every country, that in the admission of novices they sacrificed spiritual quality to quantity or social distinction; and certainly the number of priests who abandoned, or were expelled from, the Society was large. PiusV.knew this, and, to their great mortification, insisted on the reform of their system. They sullenly abandoned one of the most characteristic of their institutions—until PiusV.should go the way of his predecessors. There was much rejoicing in Rome, and it was rumoured that this was only the beginning of reform; but Pius hastened to reassure Borgia and his colleagues.
In 1571, Borgia was requested by the Pope to undertake an important mission. The steady advance of the Turks upon a divided Christendom alarmed the Pope, and he wished to unite the Catholic monarchs for the purpose of defence. His nephew, Cardinal Alessandrini, was to visit the courts of Spain, Portugal, and France, and Borgia was invited to accompany him. He was now advanced in years and tormented with gout, but he accepted the mission, and we may make our survey of the provinces of the Society by following his travels.
Spain endeavoured by an honourable reception to atone for the disgrace it had formerly put upon him. The King promised his aid against the Turk: the Inquisition permitted the publication of Borgia's books: the Jesuits everywhere took courage at sight of their venerable leader and the honour paid him. The Spanish province had continued, since the death of Lainez, to have a very chequered record. The father of the province, Araoz, had resisted every effort of the Roman authorities to dislodge him from his comfortable nest at the court, and his conduct had alienated many from the Society. On the other hand, the devoted exertions of the Jesuits during the epidemics of 1565, 1568, and 1571,had won back much of the early respect for them, and many new missions had been established. Most of the countries of Europe were repeatedly ravaged by pestilence during that decade, and the Jesuits distinguished themselves everywhere by the bravery with which they exposed, and frequently lost, their lives in the service of the sick. Yet there was a persistent feeling in Spain that they were over-eager to secure legacies, and nearly every year witnessed a violent outbreak of hostility to them.
A typical instance is found in the Jesuit chronicles in the earlier part of the year of Borgia's visit. The Jesuits of Alcalà had received into their ranks a youth named Francesco d'España, the son of a wealthy and distinguished lady of Madrid, who strongly opposed his entrance into the Society. He had the disposal of a large fortune, of which he was heir. The mother appealed to the Royal Council, at the head of which was Cardinal Spinosa, and the Jesuits were ordered to restore the youth. In the meantime, they had secretly sent the youth to their house at Madrid,—to be prepared to give evidence, Crétineau-Joly audaciously says,—and when the Vicar of the Archbishop of Toledo came to their house at Alcalà to enforce the order, they would tell him only that d'España was not there. A very lively dispute followed. The angry prelate roundly abused the Jesuits, who flourished their privileges in his face; and some zealous brother rang the bell of the college to summon the students to the defence of their rector. When at length the Vicar threatened to have the Jesuit Provincial dragged to prison, and the students drew their knives to protect him, the rector promised to produce d'España within twenty-four hours. He was summoned, and his mother tried to persuade him to return, or at least to leave his fortune to his family instead of leaving it to theJesuits. He refused, until the Provincial, foreseeing a great outburst of indignation, advised him to relinquish his fortune. The feeling engendered by such incidents was not removed by the visit of Borgia. In the following year, 1572, the civic authorities of Madrid appealed to the Royal Council to close the Jesuit school, on the ground that the lessons were merely "bait" for young men of wealthy families.
In Portugal, Borgia found the remarkable spectacle of one of his subjects virtually ruling the kingdom. Portugal had fallen lamentably from its earlier greatness. The vast frame of its Empire was undiminished, but the spirit necessary to sustain it had died, and it was doomed to decay. No serious historian questions that the Jesuits had, at least by setting up the Inquisition and pursuing the Jews and Moors, greatly accelerated its fall, and under the rule of Father Gonzales da Camara and his brother, in the name of the young King, the temporal interests of Portugal steadily declined. A stern French critic of the Jesuits, Pasquier, says that he was told by the Marquis de Pisani, the French ambassador at the Spanish court, that the Jesuits were bent on obtaining control of the kingdom of Portugal. Their apologists invite us to be amused at this incredible fiction of the anti-Jesuit, yet it is hardly more than a strong expression of the historical facts. Pasquier expressly says that the Jesuits meant to rule, not without a king, but through a king of their own choice, and they had done this for ten years when Borgia came to visit them. They had, as we saw, helped to replace Catherine by Cardinal Henry, and they had in 1568 displaced the Cardinal by declaring Sebastian of age (in his sixteenth year).
That they promoted the interests of the Society in Portugal and its colonies need hardly be said, but there is ample evidence that they had a larger influence. TheKing's mother wished him to marry the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, but papal policy preferred a marriage with the sister of the French King; and we have a letter from Borgia to Gonzales, as confessor of Sebastian, enjoining him to promote the French marriage. Even Borgia could overlook the decrees of his Society at times, or convert temporal matters into spiritual. We may, however, regard it as a strained and fanciful conjecture of certain critics that the Portuguese fathers tried to deter Sebastian from marriage, and pressed him to undertake his fatal mission to Africa, in order that the crown might fall into their hands. But this belongs to a later date. Father Gonzales was still the virtual head of the State when Borgia visited Portugal, and the Society flourished there and in the Indies. Although Borgia had lately received an angry protest from Catherine against the interference of the fathers in political matters, he left Gonzales at the court.
Alessandrini and Borgia next went to France; and when we reflect that the historic massacre of the Huguenots occurred a few months afterwards, we feel that it is important to study the visit and the position of the Jesuits with some care. Let us first see how the Society had fared in its ceaseless struggle with its opponents at Paris.
In 1565 a fresh attack had been made on the Jesuit college, and a fruitless appeal against it was made to the Royal Senate. The Jesuits then arraigned the University, which refused to recognise their college, before the Parliament, and a fresh opportunity was offered to the Parisian lawyers to draw up their scathing indictments of the Society. In the meantime, Father Possevin, rector of the college they had recently opened at Lyons, was sent to see the young King and Catherine de Medici at Bayonne, and induce them to throw their power andcommand into the legal scale. The conference at Bayonne, at which Possevin assisted in some measure, is of grave importance in the history of Europe. On the pretext of making Charles acquainted with his kingdom, Catherine was bringing him into the neighbourhood of other Catholic princes and conferring with them. At Bayonne she met the wife of Philip of Spain, and in the Queen's suite was the grim Duke of Alva. We can only conjecture what was discussed at this conference, but no one doubts that the chief subject was the growth of Protestantism in Catholic lands. Protestant historians frequently suggest that the St. Bartholomew massacre was actually projected at Bayonne, but we are hardly justified in thinking that there was anything more than a general discussion of the brutal policy which was afterwards adopted by Alva in the Netherlands and Catherine in France. In any case, it is most unlikely that Possevin had any share in these secret counsels. He was a new man, hardly known to the court in 1565. He discussed the affairs of his Society with the Spanish Queen, and revealed to her the smuggling of Protestant books into her country; and he returned to Paris with letters, commending the suit of the Paris college, from Catherine, Charles, and the Cardinal de Bourbon.
When the President of the Parlement found these weighty and irregular documents thrown into the scale, he temporised. The suit was suspended; the Jesuits were provisionally allowed to teach. In the following year, however, the University appealed to the Constable of France, complaining that the professors were unable to keep discipline, as a pupil went to the Jesuits the moment he was reprimanded. Then two singular discoveries were made by the Jesuits, and they had the effect of disarming many of their patriotic opponents. In 1567, Father Oliver Manares, the Provincial, informed the court and the civic authorities of Paris that the Huguenots had concerted a plot to sack and burn the city; he had learned it from a Polish noble, who was visiting Paris and had been warned to leave in time.[5]Paris flew to arms and scared the supposed plotters; it was also grateful to Father Manares, and incensed against the Huguenots. In the same year, Father Auger was fortunate enough to discover a similar plot at Lyons. There is evidence of a conspiracy at Lyons, but the historian must regard the "discovery" of Manares with grave suspicion. The effect of the discoveries was that the grateful King at once ordered that all opposition to the Jesuits must cease, and all legacies to the Society must be valid in law; and that the Catholics were soon ranged against the Huguenots in open field. The ablest of the Jesuits, Auger and Possevin, ardently stimulated the Catholics, accompanied the troops, and were even seen in the thick of the battles.
A peace was arranged in 1570, to the disappointment of the Jesuits; and the country still enjoyed this precarious peace when Alessandrini and Borgia reached the court, at Blois, in the first month of 1572. In regard to the discussions which took place we know only that France declared itself unable to join in the crusade against the Turk, and Charles's sister, Mary of Valois, was promised to Henri de Béarn instead of to Sebastian of Spain, as the Pope wished. Alessandrini and Borgia went back to Rome, to announce their failure to the dying Pope. And on 24th August of that year took place the horrible massacre which lays an eternal stain on the memory of Catherine de Medici. We have, fortunately, neither to linger over the revolting detailsof that outrage, nor to enter the larger controversy as to the responsibility for it.[6]The general feeling of historians is that the massacre was deliberately planned by Catherine; and, since the Jesuits had influence with Catherine, we have to consider whether they may have been implicated in the barbaric slaughter.
Since General Borgia conferred with her at Blois some months before the massacre, it has been thought by many that he was initiated. A careful consideration of the character of Borgia disposes one to acquit him confidently of this suspicion; it seems incredible that he should approve, or that Catherine should expect him to approve, so inhuman a measure. It is a common mistake to suppose that there was a fixed type of Jesuit, and that almost any member of the Society may be regarded as a man who would sanction criminal means for the attainment of a good end. Our narrative has already shown us that Jesuits differed considerably in character, and that individual features were not, as is sometimes thought, obliterated by the impression of a corporate stamp. Borgia was cruel only to himself, and he does not seem to have been much of a casuist.
The real question is how far such men as Auger, Possevin, and Manares were responsible for that general mood and temper of Catherine which culminated in the Bartholomew massacre. It does not seem probable that any of them were actually initiated to the plot. They were not the keepers of the royal conscience in France at that time, and were not at all constantly consulted by Catherine. But since the days when, at and afterthe colloquy at Poissy, Lainez had sternly forbidden her to grant an elementary freedom of worship to the Huguenots, they had impelled her toward that harsh and intolerant policy which at length took this criminal form in her diseased mind. Their intellectual campaign against the Huguenots was a failure. They made few converts from it, and they urged coercion to prevent it from spreading. Then, when the Huguenots stirred under this unjust treatment, they were very zealous in warning the court of "plots." It seems to me a grave circumstance that in 1567, Father Manares "discovered" on the part of the Huguenots of Paris a design not unlike that which the Catholics afterwards perpetrated against them; it is probable that this was the germ of Catherine's bloody enterprise. Whether she ever discussed her plan with any of the leading Jesuits we have no evidence whatever to determine. At a later date, when their house is raided and their preachers are bolder, we shall find the Jesuits of Paris expressly advocating crime in the interest of religion. At this stage we can only say that they pressed a policy of violence and injustice, and Catherine's crime, in which they acquiesced, was an extreme deduction from it.
Simultaneously with the trouble in France, Alva was engaged in "pacifying" the Netherlands. Here the Jesuits had miscalculated the strength of the Catholics, and, in encouraging the policy of violent repression, led to their own undoing. Only the favour of princes had secured some shelter for them in Belgium, and their houses now disappeared in the flames of the civil war. Their college at Douai had been interdicted by the university authorities in 1567, but relieved by papal authority. As the Spaniards proceeded, however, in the drastic and bloody policy which the Jesuits were known to favour, the crowds stormed their residences, and by1570 they were almost driven from the country. They returned in the wake of Alva, but there was bitter hostility to them, and they were generally accused of rebuilding their house at Antwerp out of the loot of Flemish towns. Father Sacchini is moved to lament the perversity of men who could entertain such a suspicion, though, as their sardonic critic Steinmetz observes, "it would have been better to supply the place of this moral maxim by stating whence the funds were obtained for building or beautifying the house at Antwerp."
When we pass to Germany we naturally find that the Jesuits are apostles of toleration, charity, and calm intellectual discussion of differences of creed in the north, fanatical intolerantists in the south, and advocates of every conceivable compromise between the two extremes in the intervening or mixed States. Canisius still maintained his great work and his austere standard. Appointed Legate of the Pope in 1565 he traversed the whole of Germany on foot, and strengthened the loyalty of the Catholic rulers to the Council of Trent. In the following year we find him, at the Diet of Augsburg, helping to unite Protestants and Catholics against the Turk. Many new colleges were founded by him, including three in Poland, before the death of Borgia. On the other hand, grave reports had to be sent to Rome from the more Catholic and prosperous centres. The University of Dillingen, which the Jesuits controlled, was found in 1567 to be permeated with heresy, and a rigorous scrutiny ended in some of the Jesuits (including an English refugee, Edward Thorn) going over to the Protestants. In 1570 the Jesuit rector of Prague College became a Protestant and married. In Bavaria the cry was raised that they mutilated boys in their colleges. A most extraordinary trial resulted in their acquittal,but there was a deep and widespread prejudice against them. In the same year, 1565, they were fiercely assailed in Austria. Their college at Vienna was raided by an angry mob; and the nobles, who had been convoked by Maximilian, refused to give their aid in the campaign against the Turk unless the Emperor expelled the Jesuits.
In Italy the chronicles of the Society tell of slow advance chequered by fits of hostility. By the year 1567 the Roman college had more than a thousand pupils, but the provinces were beginning to murmur at the burden of supporting this establishment, and the next congregation would restrict its growth. In Genoa, Siena, and other cities, the fathers struggled with poverty; in one place a college had to abandon the struggle and die. In most parts, however, the Society flourished and adapted its work to the circumstances. At Palermo we hear, in 1567, of a weird pageant, known as "The Triumph of Death," arranged by the Jesuits. Sack-clothed men bearing candles, a huge figure of Christ in a coffin, and two hundred flagellants, stimulated to their ghastly exercise by a troop of choristers dressed as hermits, went before a car containing a monstrous skeleton, higher than the roofs of the houses, with a mighty scythe in its hand. In the north the appeal was to princes. Borromeo still favoured the Society at Milan, while at Ferrara and Florence the Jesuits directed the consciences of princesses. The daughters of the Emperor who had married the Duke of Ferrara and Francis de Medici insisted on retaining their Jesuit confessors; and, when Borgia would refuse permission, the confessors themselves pleaded that the fair ladies could not possibly be abandoned to strange influences. Borgia reluctantly consented. He saw, and regretted, that one of thesternest rules of the Society was being sacrificed to expediency, but his counsellors seemed to have overruled him. Ignatius had sanctioned the first royal confessor: now there were four.
From his survey of the provinces, in which he saw much to distress his austere feelings, Borgia returned, exhausted, to Rome. He died a few weeks afterwards (1st October 1572), and Polanco, one of the ablest administrators at the Roman centre, was appointed Vicar-General. He fixed the election for April, and in the early spring the most famous officers of the army began to come in from their remote battlefields. Auger was occupied in so congenial a task in France that he would not come to Rome; he was with the Catholic troops besieging the Huguenots in La Rochelle. But there was an impressive gathering of the veterans of the Society. Salmeron and Bobadilla were still there to tell the story of their humble beginning on the flanks of Montmartre thirty years before; Ribadeneira, Miguel de Torres, Canisius, Possevin, Manares, Leo Henriquez, Miron, Polanco, and other fathers, before whom kings would bow, came in from the frontiers to the eternal city, as the commanders of legions had done before them. And of this brilliant group one of the lowest in ability and distinction, Father Everard Mercurian, was chosen to be General.
The new Pope, GregoryXIII., had intervened. "How many Spanish Generals have you had?" he asked, when the older Jesuits came to greet him. All three had been Spaniards. "How many votes have the Spaniards amongst you?" he then asked. Quite enough to elect a Spaniard once more, as they were bent on doing; and the man on whom they had fixed their thoughts was the gifted and energetic Polanco. But Polanco was descended from converted Jews, aclass disliked by high-born Spaniards, and Kings Philip and Sebastian had written to ask the Pope to prevent him from being elected. The fathers respectfully protested that the Pope, who was Protector of their Society, ought not to coerce their decisions. "Are there no able men amongst you except Spaniards?" he went on; and he suggested Everard Mercurian. Gregory knew that the blind obedience of the Jesuits to the Pope was not of the kind which hastens to carry out the slightest wish of the ruler, and on the morning of the election he sent a cardinal to tell them that they must not elect a Spaniard. They still expostulated; but Gregory insisted, and Mercurian, a mild and mediocre old man, was made General. Being a Belgian, he was at least a subject of Spain; and he was sixty-eight years old.