FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[15]E.L. Taunton,History of the Jesuits in England(1901): an admirable critical study of Parsons and of the quarrels of the Jesuits with the secular clergy, though not quite a balanced and comprehensive history. R. Simpson'sEdmund Campion(1867) is a very fine biography of that high-minded Jesuit; and T. Law has written a learned and exactHistorical Sketch of the Conflicts between the Jesuits and Secular Priests(1889). More sympathetic and detailed accounts of the religious work of the English Jesuits are given in Dr. Jessopp'sOne Generation of a Norfolk House(1879), and Father Morris'sLife of Father Gerard(1881). A complete and impartial history of the Jesuits in England, telling with equal candour their heroism and their defects, is desirable. The writings of recent Jesuits are not "history," but very Jesuitical polemic.[16]They were published in theEnglish Historical Review, July 1888.[17]So the chief Jesuit manual now in use, Lehmkuhl'sTheologia Moralis, i. 330; from which I was taught casuistry.

[15]E.L. Taunton,History of the Jesuits in England(1901): an admirable critical study of Parsons and of the quarrels of the Jesuits with the secular clergy, though not quite a balanced and comprehensive history. R. Simpson'sEdmund Campion(1867) is a very fine biography of that high-minded Jesuit; and T. Law has written a learned and exactHistorical Sketch of the Conflicts between the Jesuits and Secular Priests(1889). More sympathetic and detailed accounts of the religious work of the English Jesuits are given in Dr. Jessopp'sOne Generation of a Norfolk House(1879), and Father Morris'sLife of Father Gerard(1881). A complete and impartial history of the Jesuits in England, telling with equal candour their heroism and their defects, is desirable. The writings of recent Jesuits are not "history," but very Jesuitical polemic.

[16]They were published in theEnglish Historical Review, July 1888.

[17]So the chief Jesuit manual now in use, Lehmkuhl'sTheologia Moralis, i. 330; from which I was taught casuistry.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST CENTURY OF JESUITISM

Asthe long reign of General Acquaviva was followed by the almost equally long reign of General Vitelleschi, it will be convenient once more to take his tenure of office as a stage in the history of the Society, and consider the action of the fathers in their various provinces. The death of Vitelleschi, in 1645, will then complete the first century from the establishment of the Society, and we may pause to deduce from the enormous mass of detail a few general truths in regard to Jesuit character. From that point onward I propose to follow the fortunes of the Society continuously in each province down to the year of its suppression in the eighteenth century.

The election of Father Mutio Vitelleschi did not pass without incident. The Spanish electors determined to make an effort to recover the supreme office from the Italians, and their tactics were not edifying. When they reached Rome, at an early date, they learned that Vitelleschi was the favoured candidate, and they proceeded to describe him to the various voters, as they arrived, in most uncomplimentary language. He seems to have been a mild and inoffensive old man, of little ability and no distinction, a Roman by birth. There is, doubtless, a good deal of exaggeration in the rancorous charge of the Spaniards, that he was worldly and ambitious and had hitherto been chiefly occupied with the cultivation of wealthy ladies. Whenthese statements did not seem to affect his prospect of election, the Spanish fathers appealed to the Spanish and French ambassadors; and, when the ambassadors declined to assist them, they sought the Pope and confided to him the vices of Father Vitelleschi. PaulV.genially dismissed them with an assurance that, if he were such as they described him, he could have no hope of securing the votes of forty of the shrewdest and most religious members of the Society. In point of fact, he received thirty-nine votes, and he wisely dissuaded the Congregation from inflicting on the Spaniards the punishment which his admirers demanded. I may add that it now took more than a hundred decrees of the Congregation to regulate the disorderly life of the Society; though we shall still find it singularly unaffected by this mass of stern legislation.

The long generalship of Mutio Vitelleschi (1615-1645) is, says Crétineau-Joly, "a monotonous stretch of felicity." When, however, we turn to the official Jesuit historian, Cordara, who continues theHistoria Sociatatis, we find that the year which immediately followed the election was marked by serious disturbances or scandals at Castellone, Genoa, Artois, Paris, Lyons, Freiburg, and Worms, and in Sicily, Béarn, Castile, Poland, and Hesse-Cassel. We shall further see that the monotony of the thirty years is relieved by a scandalous bankruptcy of the fathers at Seville, a temporary expulsion from Malta, Bohemia, and Hungary, a combined attack upon the Society by the leading universities of Europe, the publication of theSecret Instructions, the complete extinction of the great Japanese mission and the new mission in Abyssinia, and a quite normal succession of scandals and tribulations in France and Catholic Germany. The serious historian cannot therefore dismiss the generalship ofVitelleschi with a short assurance that it was a period of virtue, heroism, and prosperity. We must, as before, carefully consider the life of the Society in each of its provinces.

The record of the Society in Italy is an uninteresting chronicle of small scandals and unobtrusive work. The former class may be briefly illustrated by the adventures of the Neapolitan Jesuit, Father Onufrio de Vermi, in the year 1623. The historian tells us that the honours awarded him by his illustrious penitent the Count d'Elda so inflated his spirit that he rebelled against his authorities. Passing over to Spain, he contrived to secure a bishopric from the queen, and was expelled from the Society on the charge of ambition. It is needless to quote such trifles as these from the chronicles. The outstanding event at Rome under the rule of Vitelleschi was the canonisation of Ignatius and Xavier in 1622. Their place in the distinguished gallery it would be invidious to question, but the curious student of such matters would find it interesting to trace the appearance of the miracles which were needed to secure canonisation for them. In the case of Xavier, whose life was spent in the Far East, it would be easy to adduce evidence of miracles, and difficult to examine it. The miracles of Ignatius are more interesting. When Ribadeneira, who knew him, first wrote his life, he seemed not to have heard of any miracles; when, however, forty years later, the question of canonisation was mooted, Father Ribadeneira corrected his defect by publishing a shorter life which shone with miracles. As time went on, the monarchs of Europe—wherever the Jesuits had influence—began to press the Pope to canonise Ignatius and Xavier, and in 1622 the Jesuits obtained that supreme assurance of the sanctity of their founders. It need hardly be said that they illuminatedEurope with their festivities, and made considerable profit by the honour, which they represented as unsought by themselves.

The island of Malta was the scene of one of the storms which broke upon the Society in this half-century. The fathers had established a college at Lavaletta in 1592, and prospered there until 1632, when a sudden and mysterious tempest swept them, for a time, out of the island. The Jesuit version of the adventure is that the Grand Master Lascaris had attempted to curb the well-known licence of the knights and had, at their protest, thrown the responsibility of the reform on the Jesuits. When the carnival arrived, and the knights were hampered in their amusements, some of them took the revenge of masquerading as Jesuits in the gay throng; and when the Master imprisoned them, at the entreaty of the Jesuits, they forced the doors of the jail and compelled Lascaris to exile the Jesuits. This story is not implausable, but we are equally bound to notice the different version put forward by their opponents. They say that the Jesuits had incurred general contempt by hiding great stores of food in their house during a famine (as we have seen them do in Paris) and by their indulgence in vice. One is disposed to think that the former charge cannot be entirely devoid of foundation. It is singular that, when the French king, at the request of the French Jesuits, forced the knights to readmit the fathers, the two leading Jesuits were not suffered to return to the island.

The most serious event of the half-century was, however, the bankruptcy of one of the Jesuit houses at Seville, and in this case we have serious independent evidence. The condition of the Spanish province evidently remained unchanged in spite of "visitations"from Rome and decrees of the Congregation. Their generous patron PhilipIII., whose dominion they had so materially helped to enlarge, died in 1621, but his successor PhilipIV. was even more generous to them. They prospered, and continued to deteriorate. We may not be disposed to admit implicitly all the sordid stories about them which we find in theTeatro Jesuitico, one of the fiercest anti-Jesuit works of the period,[18]but we have independent evidence of such episodes as the murder of a Spanish Jesuit by an injured husband. Instead, however, of wasting time on these isolated disorders, it will be enough to examine the story of the famous bankruptcy.

One of the seven residences which the fathers had at Seville failed in 1644, and acknowledged a debt of two and a quarter million francs. The Jesuit system, it may be recalled, was to place the administration of the house in the hands of a "Lay Coadjutor" (or lay-brother, who had not made a vow of poverty), and their defence in this singular case is that Brother Villar, who held this charge at Seville, borrowed large sums of money and invested them in shipping and other concerns, without the knowledge of the fathers. His speculations proved disastrous, and the fathers found themselves bankrupt. Crétineau-Joly genially closes the episode with an assurance that the fathers found the money and expelled the offending brother from the fraternity.

That the brother was expelled is quite certain, but I can find no trace that the Jesuits, in spite of their great collective wealth in Spain, ever paid more than apartial dividend, and the whole of the circumstances merit consideration. That we should be asked to believe that a community of Spanish Jesuits, the keenest business-men in the whole Society, suffered a lay brother to conduct vast operations, and to borrow large sums from their own followers in Seville, without their having the least knowledge how he conducted their affairs, is little short of impertinence. We have, however, positive knowledge that the Jesuit version is most untruthful. Not only does Bishop Palafox, one of their most conscientious adversaries, give a different version in his second letter to Pope InnocentX., but a paper written by one of the creditors and submitted to the King of Spain (who favoured the Jesuits) has survived, and must command our confidence. From this memoir or petition, which is reproduced in theAnnales de la Société des soi-disans Jésuites(iii. 976), I propose to take the facts of the scandal.

From communities of nuns and the pious laity of the town, both rich and poor, Villar had borrowed sums amounting in all to 450,000 ducats, and invested them in unwise speculations. Villar protested throughout that he had acted under the directions of the fathers, and it would be quite impossible for him to borrow so extensively among their admirers without their knowing it; even if we could suppose that, contrary to all custom, they left their affairs blindly in the hands of a lay-brother. In 1644 the fathers summoned their creditors, declared themselves bankrupt, and proposed a settlement. Some of the creditors endeavoured to secure a payment in full by representing that the Jesuits would suffer severely in credit if they did not draw on the immense resources of their Society to discharge the debt. "The loss of our credit does not trouble me," said the rector; "as the proverb says, theraven cannot be blacker than its wings." The creditors, however, refused to yield, and a receiver was appointed. The petition to the king affirms that this official found among their papers certain letters which plainly showed that they had directed Villar, and secret instructions for the dishonest diversion of legacies they had received on condition of paying out certain monies.

The next step of the Jesuits was to secure the appointment of a judge who would favour themselves. Though there was grave distress among the poorer creditors, this official declared that three-fourths of the Jesuit assets were sacred funds, and that little remained for division. The creditors appealed to the Royal Council, the judge was dismissed for corrupt procedure, and the whole of the property was declared to be "lay" for the purpose of the case. Indeed, the higher court declared that the action of the Jesuits was "infamous," and would, on the part of a private individual, merit a capital sentence. Yet in 1647 we find this petitioner still appealing for a discharge of the debt, and complaining that the Jesuits are trying to induce the more pious of their creditors to agree to a composition.

The significance of this ugly episode does not consist in its illustration of the conduct of a single community of Jesuits. As such it would not be entitled to lengthy consideration in serious history. The more unpleasant feature is that it involves the whole of the Jesuits of Castile, and, in spite of the fact that—the petitioner says—they owed a collective debt of two million ducats, they formed one of the most numerous and wealthy provinces of the Society and dwelt in most imposing establishments. They clearly trusted that their colleagues would evade the discharge of a legitimate debt, and they incurred a storm of anger and disdain. The Roman house itself had taken vast sumsfrom Spain, yet it permitted the local Jesuits to resist their obligations for several years, relying on a purely legal and worldly view of the local responsibility.

The Jesuits of Portugal, which was still under the dominion of Spain, exhibit the same prosperity and worldly temper, and their behaviour in connection with the revolution of 1640 was sinuous and unattractive. In 1635, when the agitation began for the restoration of the Portuguese throne, they punished some of their number who sided with the revolutionaries. As time went on, however, and the movement gathered strength, they wavered and temporised in the most amusing fashion; and so shrewdly did they follow the national movement that the successful completion of the revolution in 1640 found them entirely on the side of the Portuguese people.

When we survey the thirty years' life of the Society in France under the rule of Vitelleschi, we get much the same impression of poor character, or character warped by casuistry. Under so Catholic a monarch as LouisXIII.and so powerful a statesman as Richelieu we do not expect to find any of the large political intrigue in which they had indulged in earlier years. We find no grave scandal, no exalted virtue, no religious heroism. Their life is a chronicle of assiduous teaching and ministration, punctuated by unworthy manœuvres here and there to obtain power or repress rivals, and never rising above mediocrity. A few words on their relations to the court and Richelieu, to the bishops and universities, and to new reformers like Cardinal de Bérulle and St. Vincent de Paul, will suffice for our purpose.

The petty intrigues and successive dismissals of the Jesuit confessors to the court are not of sufficient consequence for us to linger over them. In 1624Richelieu became first minister of France and put an end to their political pretensions. In that year they had again incurred the anger of the university. Henri de Bourbon, illegitimate son of HenryIV., had been appointed bishop of Metz. He had been educated by the Jesuits, and was induced to make his "act of theology" in their college, instead of at the Sorbonne, as was customary, and the whole court had been attracted to and entertained in the college. Richelieu had, however, no idea of espousing the quarrel of the university; he would quickly enough come into conflict with the Jesuits, as he was determined to reverse at the first opportunity the pro-Spanish policy of Marie de Medici and her clerical advisers. His first act was to drive the Pope's troops out of the Valtelline and defy Spain, and the Jesuits contented themselves with contributing anonymously to the shower of violent ultramontane pamphlets which now fell on the minister. Two of them especially, written (it seems) by Father Keller, the Jesuit confessor of Maximilian of Bavaria, and entitledMysteria PoliticaandAdmonitio ad Regem Christianissimum, gave him great annoyance. They were condemned and burned, together with Father Santarelli'sDe Hæresi(1626), but Richelieu was almost exhausted by the violence of the first storm his policy brought upon him, and he did not take the extreme measure against the Jesuits which he was said to contemplate. It is clear that they realised his power and resolved to be discreet. After a fruitless appeal to the young king against him, they signed a series of propositions drawn up by the Sorbonne, and resigned themselves to the patriotic policy of the great minister.

The position of the Jesuits during the next two decades was one of great prosperity but acute dissatisfaction, on account of their political impotence. Theyhad (in 1627) 13,195 pupils in their schools in the Paris province alone, and more than that number in the remaining French provinces. Their opponents were, however, numerous and active, and Richelieu was not unwilling to see this check on their ambition. We find Father Suffren, the king's confessor, complaining in 1626 of the number and violence of their enemies, and adding: "Few of our friends have the courage openly to undertake to defend us." What we shall see presently of their relations to the bishops and universities will throw some light on this. There can be little doubt that Richelieu despised the Jesuits, but preferred to have them under his eye, engaged in the teaching of the young, rather than as open opponents. He punished them ruthlessly when they interfered in politics. He had Father Monod, confessor to Christiane of Savoy, imprisoned for his political intrigues, and when Father Caussin, who was appointed confessor to Louis in 1637, was discovered by Richelieu's spies to be making a secret and insidious attempt to turn the king against Richelieu, he was promptly exiled. Louis had shown Caussin a list, supplied by Richelieu, of Jesuit theologians, who approved the policy of the minister. "Ah, sire," said the Jesuit, piqued at this astute move, "they had a church to build."

In a word, the Jesuits were politically powerless under Richelieu, and gave him little serious anxiety. It seems rather that he induced many of them, however insincerely, to support him in his policy—a policy which was angrily repudiated by Rome and the Catholic powers. In 1638 he threatened to cast off the yoke of the papacy, and, by making some of the gravest concessions demanded by the Reformers, unite the Huguenots and Catholics of France in an independent Gallican Church. If we may believe a story given inBayle'sDictionary(article "Amyrant"), which was written shortly afterwards, he actually used the Jesuit Amyrant to negotiate with a leading Huguenot divine, and promise to surrender such Catholic doctrines as purgatory and the invocation of the saints.[19]Two years later we find a Jesuit enlisted in the regiment of pamphleteers who defended Richelieu's singular policy. It is perhaps, in view of their constant policy toward the Reformation, one of the most curious instances of their power of adaptation to circumstances.

I have said that Richelieu despised the Jesuits, and his correspondence with Father (later Cardinal) de Bérulle suggests this. De Bérulle, a man of exalted character and piety, was the founder of the Oratorian priests, and a valued friend of the minister. We have a letter that he wrote to Richelieu in 1623, which contains, in the mild and charitable language of a saint, a very painful indictment of the French Jesuits. Their jealousy of the new congregation and determination to prevent its growth led to some extremely unworthy conduct. In town after town, as de Bérulle describes in detail, the Oratorians removed the prejudice against the Jesuits, and even surrendered property to them, and the Jesuits then repaid their benefactors with slander and intrigue. At Dieppe the governor refused to allow the Jesuits to found a college, but gladly admitted the Oratorians. A Jesuit then asked the hospitality of the Oratorians, and used the opportunity to intrigue against them, in favour of the Society, among the citizens. A letter in which he informed his colleagues of his hope of winning the college from the Oratorians was intercepted and sent to de Bérulle. At Paris the King offered the Oratorians a hotel, but the Jesuits intervened and prevented the gift. Theytold "strange and atrocious calumnies" of de Bérulle at the court, and at Bordeaux they proposed to indite him for heresy. The intrigue covers the whole of France during more than ten years, and betrays a very general lack of moral sensitiveness among the French Jesuits. In a similar, though less vigorous, way they attempted to hinder the growth of the new congregation of priests founded by St. Vincent de Paul.[20]

A more general view of the conduct of the French Jesuits from 1615 to 1645 does little to alter this unfavourable impression. Even in the pages of their French apologist their record of service is singularly mediocre; they taught tens of thousands of pupils and preached to hundreds of congregations, is all that one can say. On the other hand, when we turn to the numerous facts which the French apologist has discreetly omitted, we find them making unedifying efforts to extend their work and influence. In 1620 the Jesuits of Poitiers defy the bishop, who lays an interdict on their church; the bishop has decreed that his people must attend their parish churches once in three weeks at least, and the Jesuits reply from the pulpit that it is enough if the people attendtheirchurch. At Angoulême, in 1622, they secure, through Father Coton and by a secret contract with the mayor, the monopoly of teaching and the control of the university. They continue for four years to defy the bishop and stir the people against him, although they are condemned by Cardinal de Sourdis and their contract is declared void by the Parlement, until the bishop is compelled to excommunicate them. In 1623 they have similar trouble, due to their determination to found pettyuniversities at Toulouse, Pontoise, and Tournon, and all the universities of France combine in what the French apologist calls a "ferocious war" against them. A few years later they obtain from the King letters permitting them to found a house at Troyes, "at the request of the inhabitants." The inhabitants were so little minded to invite them, and so angry at the fraud, that they kept them out of Troyes, in spite of all their efforts, for a hundred years. Their record in France is full of such details. Toward the end of the period it begins to tell of the famous struggle with the Jansenists; but we will consider this story in full in a later chapter.

An incident that occurred in the province of Lorraine, which was annexed by Richelieu in 1633, deserves special consideration. The impetuous and sensuous young Duke, CharlesIV., chose the Jesuit Cheminot as his confessor in 1637, and a week later, although his first wife still lived, he married the Princess Béatrix de Cusance. Instead of retiring from the court, which was at once assailed from all parts of France for the bigamy, Cheminot wrote a casuistic memoir to prove that the marriage was valid, and clung to the duke for six years. The misconduct of an individual Jesuit is, as I have said, not matter for serious history, and, if it were true that Cheminot defied his own superiors, there would be no occasion to dwell on it. But the correspondence published by Crétineau-Joly shows plainly that the Jesuit authorities acquiesced in Cheminot's position for many years. We find Charles writing to General Vitelleschi in 1639, in friendly terms, to complain that some of the other Jesuits are hostile to his accommodating confessor. Three years later we find Charles declaring to Cheminot that he will not grant him permission to retire, as his General"presses" him to do; as if a Jesuit needed such permission. It was only in 1643, when the scandal was known to all Europe, that the Roman authorities excommunicated Cheminot. They had waited five years in the hope that they would not be compelled to sacrifice a place in a ducal court.

Their fortunes in Belgium and Holland also were less romantic than they had been in earlier years. The settlement of Belgium as a Catholic province enabled them to spread over it with easy prosperity, and obtain a very large share in the education of the young. The Flemish fathers made a singular contribution to the literature of the Society, which has given its more sober admirers much embarrassment. In the year 1636, which they chose to regard as the centenary of the Society, they published a work, theImago Primi Sæculi, in which they gave, by pen and pencil, a marvellous account of the first hundred years of the Society's life. Its progress and virtues were put on the highest scale of miraculous heroism; the Jesuits were represented as a troop of angels transferred to the planet earth in the crisis of its religious development. As, however, the modern apologist for the Jesuits represents the work as a "touching fiction" and "pious dithyramb," we need not give it serious attention. Undoubtedly it was imposed on Belgium and other countries at the time as veracious history.

M. Crétineau-Joly is not so candid when he turns to Holland. He marks how, in spite of the heretical atmosphere, the Jesuits have planted colonies at Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Leyden, Harlem, Delft, Rotterdam, Gouda, Hoorn, Alkmaer, Harlingen, Groningen, Bolsward, Zutphen, Nimegues, and Vianen; how they mingle with the Spanish troops and board their vesselsin the war; how they press on to Denmark, and are seen everywhere as the fearless "standard-bearers of the Church." It was, perhaps, natural that he should be indisposed to mar this picture with an account of the relations of the Jesuits to the secular clergy; but, since our purpose is to attain a just and complete view of the Jesuit character, we are compelled to consider it. During forty years they maintained a struggle similar to that they had conducted in England in the days of Elizabeth.

The secular clergy of Holland pressed for the appointment of a bishop, and the Jesuits used all their resources to prevent such an appointment, since it threatened their ascendancy. When a priest named Sasbold was named for the office, they made a scandalous attack on his character; and when, in 1602, he was appointed Archbishop of Utrecht, they had his name changed to Archbishop of Philippi. Until his death in 1614 they conducted an unceasing intrigue against Sasbold, and they first endeavoured to prevent the appointment of a successor, and then transferred their rancorous hostility to him. They had been banished from Holland in 1612, but they again secured toleration, and by 1628 there were seventy Jesuits in the country. The struggle against the archbishop continued all through the period, in spite of several papal injunctions that they were to obey him; but it is unnecessary to enter into all the details. We need not question the bravery of the Jesuits as standard-bearers of the Church, but it is impossible to admire their efforts to prevent the employment of other standard-bearers. Their work was, in point of fact, less effective than that of the secular clergy, because the Dutch Protestants hated and distrusted them. They were found in 1638 to be implicated in apolitical plot to introduce the Spaniards, and two of them were tortured and executed.

Since the period we are considering coincides with the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), we naturally find that the record of the Jesuits in Germany is full of life and adventure. Their share in bringing about that disastrous and paralysing struggle cannot be measured by the historian. Now that the world realises the baneful effect of that war and of the Catholic policy of intolerance which led to it, in retarding the development of European civilisation, the Jesuit authorities are not likely ever to publish such documents in their archives as would reveal their activity. We must be guided by two chief considerations. In the first place, the general historian can trace the movements which led to the outbreak of war without any reference to the Jesuits, and is therefore not disposed to think that their intrigues were an essential element in the incitement of it; on the other hand, however, the Jesuits were the most earnest and insistent advocates of the harsh Catholic policy which occasioned the war, and they had considerable influence over the Catholic leaders. FerdinandII., Maximilian of Bavaria, and Wallenstein had been trained in Jesuit schools; Tilly had actually entered the Society, but withdrawn before he had taken the vows. Jesuits swarmed in the Catholic camp, especially about the tent of Tilly, fired the soldiers to their work, and advanced in the rear of the army to occupy whatever towns fell to their arms.

The war began, it will be remembered, in Bohemia, and here the Jesuits were very clearly interested. When the Protestants cast off the yoke of the Emperor in 1618, they swept the Jesuits from their country and burned some of their colleges. We can very well imagine the plaints of the Jesuits at the courts ofFerdinand and Maximilian, and are not surprised to learn that eighteen Jesuits accompanied Tilly's troops when they came to subdue Bohemia. It was the beginning of the war. Similarly, when Bethlen Gabor took Hungary in 1622, one of his first measures was to expel the Jesuits; and the victorious Swedes had expelled them from Livonia in the preceding year. It is, however, unnecessary here to follow them through the long course of the Thirty Years' War. They retreated and advanced with the soldiers of the Catholic League, died of plague in the camp or fell under the sabres of the heretics, and maintained the struggle to the end with all the energy which non-combatants could exert. There were even occasions, as at the siege of Prague, when they took arms and fought desperately in the van of the Catholic troops. The alliance of France with the Protestants was a bitter disappointment to them, and they were among the few in Europe who profoundly deplored the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which at last gave a just liberty to Protestantism in Germany. The war, as conceived by them, was a costly and lamentable failure.

I have said that they fiercely resented the attitude of Richelieu; yet, it is curious to note, they took a singular advantage of it in their own interest. One of the articles of the treaty which Richelieu made with the northern heretics provided that after their victories they should respect Jesuit settlements. Crétineau-Joly reproduces a letter in which LouisXIII. reminds his Protestant allies of this provision. The French apologist would have us believe that the agreement was distasteful to the Jesuits themselves,—on this point he quotes no documents,—but we should find it hard to conceive Richelieu making so exacting a demand of the Protestants if the Jesuits were even indifferent toit. It accords only too well with their sinuous and accommodating policy.

Their work of education proceeded in the provinces which were not ravaged by the troops; but even here they met much hostility and had some disastrous experiences. It was during this period, in 1612, that the famousSecret Counsels("Monita Privata") came to light and drew a large amount of odium upon them. It is the general belief that this book was written by a Polish priest and ex-Jesuit, Jerome Zahorowski, whose bishop proceeded against him on that ground. Since, however, manuscript copies of the work were afterwards discovered in the Jesuit colleges at Prague, Paris, Roermond, Munich, and Paderborn, their critics submit that it was a secret code of instructions issued by the Roman authorities to their professed members, and that Zahorowski merely published what the Society had already circulated in private. This question must still remain open. The occurrence of so many manuscript copies in Jesuit colleges is singular, but it is impossible to prove that any of these were earlier than the printed edition of 1612.

If we regard the contents of the work, we find that it is, in almost every paragraph, a summary of principles and tactics on which the Jesuits actually proceeded in their pursuit of wealth and power; but there is a callousness, at times a cynicism, in this deliberate codification which makes one hesitate to think that it was written by high Jesuit officials. It seems to me that Zahorowski at least recast such instructions as were genuine, and intended to write a satire on Jesuit procedure. It is incredible that the Roman authorities should enjoin the fathers always to settle in wealthy towns, "because the aim of our Society is to imitate Christ, our Saviour, who dwelt mainly at Jerusalem,"and it is difficult to believe that they expressly laid it down that "everybody must be brought into a condition of dependence on us," and that wealthy widows must "be allowed to have secret recreation with those who please them." Nearly a fourth of the book is occupied with instructions on the way to conciliate wealthy widows: notoriously, one of the chief sections of Jesuit practice. Much of the remainder is devoted to the conciliation of princes, and the drastic procedure to be taken against apostates. There are few lines which do not describe the well-known procedure of the Jesuits; but, in its actual form, at least, the work seems to be a deliberate and just satire.

A second incident which brought much odium on the Jesuits in the period occurred at Cracow. Here, as at so many places, the University, conscious that the Jesuits wished to win the control of higher education, kept a jealous eye on their school. In 1622 the fathers endeavoured to evade the restrictions placed on them by including in their celebration of the canonisation of St. Ignatius a public discussion of certain theses. The university professors and students prevented them from doing so, and a long and angry quarrel followed. In 1626 a decree of the States-General of Poland (reproduced in theMercure Jésuite, ii. 312) closed the Jesuit school, and the University sent a formal report to Louvain and other universities, begging them to unite against the intrigues of the Jesuits. This letter, dated 29th July 1627, contains very grave charges against the Society, and considerably strengthened the opposition to them in the university towns of Europe. It complains that the Jesuits sent their pupils in arms against the university students, and, when a riot occurred, induced the King to send troops against the students. As grave trouble occurred about the same time atLouvain, Douai, Liège, Salamanca, and other universities, there was a general concentration of the professors throughout Europe in hostility to the Society. However much we may suspect partiality or exaggeration in their severe charges, it is clear that the Jesuits made unscrupulous efforts to capture the universities.

And this feeling against them was strongly reinforced by their efforts to secure the property of other monastic bodies. We saw how Ignatius himself had set an example by endeavouring to get the estates of the Benedictines in England, and how constantly this charge is made against the Society. In 1629, FerdinandII.ordered the Protestants of his dominions to restore ecclesiastical property; and we learn from the decree of Pope UrbanVIII.that the Jesuits were "the chief authors of the imperial edict." The Benedictines, Cistercians, and Premonstratensians at once began to claim their property, and were not a little agitated when the "chief authors" of the edict succeeded in getting from the Pope an order that they were to share in the division. The Emperor's confessor was, of course, a Jesuit (Lamormaini), and it is admitted by their apologist that they secured the "best part" of the restored property. To cover their lack of moral or legal title to this property, the Jesuits freely reproached the older orders with corruption and decadence, and a war of pamphlets was maintained for many years. From these publications we learn some remarkable stories of Jesuit procedure.

At Voltigerode in Saxony some Bernardine nuns had, in 1631, obtained one of the restored houses. The Jesuit fathers persuaded them that the building was unsafe, and, when the nuns retired, claimed it as "abandoned property." The nuns returned, however, and a very lively scene was witnessed. The Jesuitsbrought the police, and the nuns, who clung valiantly to the seats of the chapel, were physically dragged out of the building. The Cistercian monks afterwards took up the case and secured the expulsion of the Jesuits. At Prague the Jesuits coveted a handsome Cistercian abbey, and persuaded the Emperor that only a half-dozen degenerate monks occupied the vast establishment. An imperial commissary was sent, and found that there were sixty-one monks and thirteen novices in the abbey. The angry Jesuits, who accompanied the commissary, protested that the abbot had put the monastic dress on his farm-labourers; but the Cistercians held their ground and obtained the protection of the Emperor. The Vicar-General of the Order of Cluny reported a large number of these fraudulent attempts of the Jesuits to obtain the property of his monks; and we have civic and ecclesiastical documents relating to great numbers of similar cases in France, Germany, and Switzerland in the early part of the seventeenth century.[21]

When we turn to the missionary field of the Society during this period, we find a remarkable activity which would in itself merit a volume. The casuistic methods of the Jesuits are applied in a singular way to overcome the obstacles to their success, and devices are adopted from which the modern missionary, of any denomination, would shrink with astonishment. The simple fervour of a Xavier had, as we saw, early given way to more calculating methods and political intrigue, but the extent to which this diplomatic procedure was carried in the seventeenth century brought a storm of criticismupon the Jesuits. Here we have only to notice the beginning of the more unusual tactics, and we will in a later chapter consider the missions in the height of their prosperity and irregularity.

An amusing instance of this readiness to adopt questionable, and even downright dishonest, practices in the service of religion is furnished by the mission to the Hindoos. It appears that after all the hundred years of activity in India, with a free and not very delicate use of the Portuguese authority, the results were regarded as meagre and unsatisfactory. Hitherto we have heard nothing but most optimistic accounts of the work of the missionaries in India; but when the hour comes, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for justifying a new and strange policy, the Jesuits tell us that the effect of the older policy had been slight, and that the high-caste Hindoos smiled with disdain on the crowds of ignorant natives who had, on one pretext or other, accepted baptism. In 1605 the Jesuit Robert de Nobili, an Italian of noble birth and a nephew of Bellarmine, joined the Indian mission and initiated the new policy.

Isolating himself from his colleagues before he became known in India, he made a very close study of the customs and sacred writings of the higher caste Hindoos, learned Tamil and Sanscrit, and after a few years appeared before the people of India as a member of the penitential (or highest) caste of the Saniassi. He lived apart, in a turf hut, and abstained rigorously from flesh and fish. His head was shaved, save for a single tuft of hair, and he had the yellow mark of the caste on his forehead. Dressed in a flame-coloured robe and tiger-skin, with the peculiar wooden sandals of the caste on his feet, he posed in all things as one of the devout Saniassi, and attracted the veneration ofthe natives. The Brahmans naturally suspected this mysterious addition to their brotherhood, and came to interrogate him. He took oath that he was of high caste,—a quite innocent thing, the Jesuit apologists say, since he was a noble by birth,—and produced a document certifying that he was the Tatuva Podagar Swami whom he pretended to be. This document was itself a gross imposture, and we may be further quite sure that the Brahmans would not pass him, as they did, until he had made very plain professions of belief in the Vedas and the Hindoo gods, and practised the idolatrous rites of his adopted caste.

For a time he lived apart, and was content to edify by the austerity of his life. Then, like his forerunner, the Swedish Jesuit Nicolai, he began to attract a few impressible Brahmans, and cautiously to initiate them to the Christian faith. Other missionaries were now aware of this action, and he was summoned to appear before the archbishop at Goa. From Goa he was, in 1618, sent to justify his conduct before the Inquisition at Rome; and many of his own brethren, including his learned uncle, were scandalised at his flame-coloured robe and painted brow. He maintained that there was no superstition whatever in the practices of thesaniassi, and he actually obtained permission from the Pope to return and continue his work on the understanding that the peculiarities of his dress and the rites of his caste had no more than a civic and sanitary significance! Other members of the Society now followed his example, and the imposture continued throughout the seventeenth century. At his death in 1656 it was claimed that Robert had made 100,000 high-caste converts, and that one of his colleagues had made 30,000. In a more precise document, however, we read, at a later date, that one of the most insidious ofthese Jesuit saniassis baptized nine Brahmans in eight months, and that this was more than his colleagues had done in ten years. The whole questionable episode was little more than an indulgence in the romantic adventure to which his diplomatic principles always disposed the Jesuit. He instinctively loved disguise and palliated deceit. The work in India continued on the old lines. Thousands of children were stealthily baptized, to swell the lists published in Europe; the favour and wealth of the Portuguese were assiduously used; and, as we gather from the letters sent to Europe, a great deal of trickery was employed in order to make the ignorant natives believe that the Jesuits could work miracles and control devils. Coloured lights were cunningly placed at times so as to shine on their statues and altars and create a belief in miracles.

Missionaries from India penetrated Ceylon and Thibet, but they were expelled after a few years. The Chinese mission continued to prosper, and by 1620 claimed to have made a hundred thousand converts. One of the missionaries, Adam Schall, an expert in mathematics and mechanics, was employed by the Emperor to correct the Chinese calendar, make guns for his army, and construct fortifications. He received in return permission for his colleagues to preach throughout the Empire, and hundreds of churches were built. Presently, however, the rival Dominican missionaries reported to Rome that the Jesuits owed their success to a scandalous compromise with the native religion. There is no doubt that the Christianity they set before the Chinese was a very different creed from that which Xavier had intended to bring. They did not obtrude the crucifix on the notice of their converts, and they looked leniently on the worship of ancestors and the veneration for Kung-fu-tse. When the Dominicansand Franciscans insisted on the drastic purity of the faith, and characterised the pagan moralist with all the vigour of mediæval intolerance, the Jesuits persuaded the Chinese to expel them, and a spirited struggle, which will engage us at a later stage, took place in regard to their "Chinese rites."

The Japanese mission, on the other hand, was totally extinguished under the generalship of Vitelleschi. For a time after 1616 the new Emperor Xogun was indifferent to the labours of the Jesuits, who entered the country in disguise, and the converts were once more gathered into the Church. It is said that they numbered 400,000, and the record of the persecutions which followed shows that at least a large proportion of them were fervent and convinced Christians. In 1617, however, Xogun ordered all missionaries to leave the country, and a long and bloody persecution set in. The English and Dutch merchants had now supplanted the Portuguese, and they fed the animosity of the Emperor. Large numbers of the Jesuits and their followers were brutally tortured and executed; yet with signal heroism they continued to enter the land and lay down their lives for their work. But the fierce persecution was sustained by XogunII.and his son, and by the time of the death of Vitelleschi, Christianity was extinct in Japan.

The next most interesting field of missionary activity was South America, where the Jesuits came to set up the remarkable commonwealths of which their admirers still speak with unstinted admiration. We must defer until a later stage the full consideration of these communities, and can only tell here the story of their origin and early fortunes. The natives of Paraguay had been so brutally treated by the Spaniards that when, in 1586, the Jesuits entered the country, they found itexceedingly difficult to disarm their apprehensions. They scattered over the country, winning thousands of the natives by their kindly and humane aid, but usually leaving them, after baptism, to their original ways. The mission was better organised in 1602, and definite Christian settlements began to appear. As a natural result of their sympathy with the natives they soon quarrelled with the Spaniards. While the Spaniards expected the missionaries to make the natives more pliant and submissive to their authority, the Jesuits reported that the natives would have nothing to do with the European colonists, whom they denounced for their cruelty and rapacity. The Spaniards retorted that the Jesuits sought to keep the trade in native products and industries for their own profit, and a bitter controversy was provoked. In 1610 the Jesuits obtained from PhilipIII.permission to colonise, and founded the first of their "reductions," or industrial settlements.

For many years the work proved extremely difficult. The natives appreciated the protection of the Jesuits, who obtained a royal order that none of their converts could be enslaved, but were little attracted to their creed. At the least pressure they would return to the forests, and could only be recovered with great labour. More workers came from Europe, however,—by 1616 there were a hundred and fifty Jesuits in Paraguay,—and more settlements were founded. By the year 1632 there were twenty "reductions," each containing about a thousand families. Not only was the ground assiduously tilled, but Jesuit lay-brothers taught the arts and crafts of civilisation, and even formed an armed and trained militia for defence. The children were taught and decently clothed, and the evenings and days of rest were brightened by song and dance. The hours of prayer, work, and sleep were appointed by the twoJesuit fathers who controlled each reduction; idleness was severely punished and industry rewarded with presents of knives, or mirrors, or trinkets; the products of their industry were distributed each week; and a very close observation was kept on the morals of all the members.

We will consider these "ideal republics" more closely when we find them reorganised and more extended at a later date. For the moment it is enough to notice a curious inconsistency which appears even in apologetic accounts of them. To the Spaniards the Jesuits declared that the natives were so suspicious that no European could be allowed to visit the reductions, and the intercourse of the fathers with other Europeans had to be concealed; yet they refused to teach Spanish to the natives on the ground that intercourse with the Spaniards would corrupt their morals. Their critics naturally inferred that they kept the races apart so that their monopoly of the trade might not be disturbed, and drew unfriendly comparisons between the comfortable houses of the missionaries and the rough unfurnished huts of their converts. We will return to the point when the great controversy about the reductions begins after 1645. Before that date they had a series of disasters to face and were partially destroyed. The hostile tribe of the Mamelus descended on them and drove most of them out of Paraguay. Of a hundred thousand subjects in the province of Guayra the Jesuits only retained and transferred twelve thousand.

The remaining Jesuit missions of the period may be dismissed briefly. They extended their operations to New Granada, but were expelled by the Archbishop of Santa Fe, at the complaint of the Spanish merchants, for mingling commerce with their preaching of the Gospel. In Canada they made little progress until theEnglish abandoned that region in 1632, and even afterwards they found great difficulty in forming settlements among the Indians. Another attempt was made to enter Abyssinia, and this also ended in disaster. For services rendered by the Portuguese to the Emperor they were allowed to preach their faith and made many converts. A Jesuit at last became "Patriarch of Abyssinia," and he involved the Emperor in a sanguinary repression of the native Christian Church. On the accession of a new Emperor, however, they were denounced to him for a conspiracy to win the country for Portugal, and were expelled once more. Letters of theirs which were intercepted show that the charge was not groundless. In the same period, finally, they obtained, through France, permission to enter the Turkish Empire, and they began the work of organising the surviving Christians, and assailing the Nestorians, in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Armenia and Chaldæa.

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