FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[29]Thistalyis described by the other missionaries as a gross image representing a Hindu divinity equivalent to the Latin Priapus. It was certainly mythological, and was suspended on a cord of very clear mythological import. The Jesuits first declared that it was a "civil custom," and then said that a "direction of intention" on the part of the convert made it harmless. When Rome brought pressure to bear on them, they invented atalywith the cross on one side and the emblem of Pillear on the other.[30]It is difficult to estimate the value of the Paraguay reductions. Robertson, in hisLetters on Paraguay, calculates that the average Indian earned at least a hundred dollars yearly, and that his food, hut, and clothing did not cost fifty. He estimates the total value of a hundred thousand such workers and the property as about £5,641,200.[31]In the English translation of Hoensbroech'sFourteen Years a Jesuitthe figure is wrongly given as 30,000.

[29]Thistalyis described by the other missionaries as a gross image representing a Hindu divinity equivalent to the Latin Priapus. It was certainly mythological, and was suspended on a cord of very clear mythological import. The Jesuits first declared that it was a "civil custom," and then said that a "direction of intention" on the part of the convert made it harmless. When Rome brought pressure to bear on them, they invented atalywith the cross on one side and the emblem of Pillear on the other.

[30]It is difficult to estimate the value of the Paraguay reductions. Robertson, in hisLetters on Paraguay, calculates that the average Indian earned at least a hundred dollars yearly, and that his food, hut, and clothing did not cost fifty. He estimates the total value of a hundred thousand such workers and the property as about £5,641,200.

[31]In the English translation of Hoensbroech'sFourteen Years a Jesuitthe figure is wrongly given as 30,000.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE GERMANIC LANDS

Whenwe come to record the culmination of the earlier history of the Jesuits in a solemn and reasoned condemnation of the Society by the Papacy, we shall note a singular circumstance of the reception of the news in Europe. The Catholic monarchs of France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples applaud the act, and there is little serious demur to it among the millions of southern Catholics under their control. The Catholic Emperor assents very willingly to the destruction of the Society, and the Jesuits and their friends cannot succeed in inspiring any wide revolt in Austria and the neighbouring principalities. But the Protestant King of Prussia and the Greek Catholic Empress of Russia open the doors of their dominions to the fugitives from Roman lands, and protest that the Jesuits have been ill-used. For two hundred years the Jesuits have strained every nerve, and every canon of controversial decency, in an attack on heresy and schism, yet they secretly ask Frederick of Prussia to declare himself the "protector of the Society," and they shelter from Catholic hostility in the court of Catherine of Russia!

On this singular circumstance much explanatory light will be thrown at the proper moment, but I anticipate the fact itself because it suggests a general point of view. Clearly, the behaviour of the Jesuits differed in Catholic and in Protestant countries, and we have seen from thestart that Jesuit conduct in German Protestant lands often contrasted very favourably with Jesuit conduct in Catholic countries. They do indeed betray their unedifying jealousy of all other workers in the papal army, they seek opportunities for intrigue and for acquiring wealth, but the presence of large bodies of Protestant observers has its effect on their moral and cultural standard. They adapt themselves to the environment as we have found them do in China or India. However, the group of countries which we are compelled to associate in this chapter are very varied in creed, and we will glance at the outstanding Jesuit experiences in each down to the time of the suppression of the Society.

Commencing with Scandinavia, we have first to consider the romantic episode of the conversion of Queen Christina. The daughter of Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the throne in her sixth year, in 1632, and was carefully trained for the task of ruling. Her native disposition, no less than the masculine work which lay before her, made her resent every tendency toward the softness of her sex, and she became a hard rider, an assiduous student of art and letters, a companion of great scholars, and a resolute spinster. For many years the Swedes were proud of their Amazon Queen, as she loved to represent herself, and even admired her command of southern culture and tongues (Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). She slept only five or six hours, discussed philosophy with scholars like Descartes (who was a month or two in Sweden) at five in the morning, conversed with the ambassadors in their own tongues, and might then hunt for ten hours in her amazon costume. Altogether a romantic person, and the Jesuits approached her.

We remember Professor Nicolai and Ambassador Possevin and other Jesuits who had tried to convertSweden. The new missionary, Father Macedo of Portugal, was disguised as the secretary of the Portuguese ambassador, Pereira. It may be that Macedo went merely to act as confessor to Pereira, but he soon took an independent line. He found the way to the Queen's study, impressed her with his learning, and confided to her that he was a disguised Jesuit. Christina, in turn, confided that she had doubts about Lutheranism, and would discuss with learned fathers of the Society. Macedo discovered that the climate was too rigorous for him, and, as the ambassador refused to give him leave of absence, fled to Rome; and two very learned Jesuits, also in disguise, sailed in a very roundabout way for Stockholm. Christina was soon converted by the two "merchants," and, after some rather shady manœuvres to secure her art-collections and her revenues, she fled in the disguise of a man to Brussels, where a brilliant gathering of Catholics welcomed her into the Church (1655).

As Christina had little to do with the Jesuits after her conversion, and the Swedes promptly closed the gates against further Catholic invasions, we might leave the story, but it is of some interest to consider whether the "conversion" was genuine. There is good reason to believe that Christina was tired of the bleak north, and decided to secure her revenue, change her creed, and spend the rest of her years in the sunny and artistic south. The Jesuits were to be the guarantors of her orthodoxy to the Pope, on whom she must rely if the angry Swedes cut off supplies (as eventually happened). She had no deep religious feeling. When a Belgian Jesuit remarked that they might yet see her among the saints, she answered that she would prefer to be put among the sages; and it is said—though with less authority—that when she was told that there was to be a comedy onthe day of her public reception into the Church at Innspruck, she observed that it was very proper "after this morning's farce." She is, at all events, described by some who knew her as "almost libertine in speaking of religion and morals," and the amorous attentions of Roman cardinals did not improve her piety. After a few years' enjoyment of her liberty, her passionate nature brought serious difficulties upon her, and her life proved a lamentable failure and waste of ability.

In the kingdom of Poland the Jesuits found the most congenial home that they ever discovered apart from the southern Latin countries to which most of them belonged. Nor is this the only or the most serious parallel; Poland, like Portugal, Spain, and France (after 1700), decayed rapidly after the Jesuits attained the height of their power in the country. Catholic writers in the latter part of the seventeenth century used to contrast the prosperity of the States which had adhered to the Vatican with the failure or stagnation of States which accepted the Reformation. France, Spain, Portugal, and Austria were the great world-Powers, and, under Sobieski, Poland promised to attain an important position. England, on the other hand, was still a small empire; Holland was falling from its momentary greatness; Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were regarded as half-barbaric; the Swiss cantons were a small pastoral folk; the German Protestant States were exhausted and distracted. The argument has recoiled on the Romanist with terrible force. The Catholic States have increasingly decayed, or defied the authority of the Pope; the Protestant States are the great world-Powers. The Protestant colonies in America have become a great civilisation; the Catholic colonies rise to prestige only in proportion as (like Argentina) they abandon their creed.

It has, therefore, been quite natural for writers on the Jesuits to emphasise the fact that the countries in which they obtained the greatest control have been the most conspicuous Powers to decay, and the imagination instinctively recalls the picture of some giant of a tropical forest gradually embraced and killed by a parasitic growth. This picture should not be admitted too easily. Art, for instance, has often prospered most luxuriantly when a civilisation was beginning to decay, yet it was assuredly not a parasitic growth accelerating the decay. It is possible that the Jesuits flourishedbecausethe nation was decaying, not that the nation decayed because they prospered. The problem requires careful analysis and exact proof. We have seen, however, in the case of Spain and Portugal that, in point of fact, the prosperity of the Society was both economically and politically injurious to those States—that the Jesuits really diverted into their own organisation the wealth and power which should have contributed to the well-being of the State—and we shall find the same situation in Poland and Austria.

In Poland, as in Austria, a Jesuit of the time would have contended that the Society justified its wealth and power by its educational work. We saw how the Society overran the country and, by intrigue and violence, captured the function of higher education during the reign of Batori. From that date Poland decayed, with a partial revival under Sobieski. In the long and disastrous reign of Sigismund (1590-1632) the decay was continuous, and the power of the Jesuits sustained. One point is clear; there was a grave lack of virile and unselfish patriotism, and Jesuit teachers were certainly not the men to inspire it. The aim of Jesuit education was to promote the interests of the Church rather than the State, and to their influence most particularly weredue the religious quarrels and the coercion of Protestant minorities which distracted the kingdom, brought on it the hostility of Protestant neighbours, and fostered selfish intrigue for power. The reign of Wladislas (1632-48) had the same features, and they were more marked than ever when a Jesuit, the late King's brother, John Casimir, ascended the throne. There was now hardly a wealthy house, a school, or a camp that did not contain its Jesuit. The cause of religion was intensely promoted, but the cause of the country fell lower and lower, and its disastrous and distracted condition compelled the Jesuit monarch to abdicate after four years.

The activity of the Jesuits is very well seen in the election of the next king. The Poles were too democratic to admit the hereditary principle; they elected their monarch, and each election was now the occasion for a gathering of candidates from various parts of Europe and a mass of bribery and intrigue. Reusch has published in hisBeiträge(p. 231) a private letter of a Jesuit, Father Bodler, which shows the Jesuits over half of Europe intriguing to secure at the election of 1669 a man who will suit their interests. Father Bodler, confessor to one of the candidates, the Duke of Neuburg, writes of the secret campaign to Father Veihelin of Munich. An English member of the Society has been confidentially entrusted by the duke with the task of deciphering a difficult private letter. As this letter (from Prince Auersperg) caustically observes that the Jesuits divide their forces at an election, so that some of them are sure to be on the winning side (as we have seen so often), it is at once communicated by the English Jesuit to his German colleagues and even translated into Latin for the general. The general, it seems, has to be kept informed of all these manœuvres—while he edifies Europe with decrees against indulgence in politics orcommerce—and Father Bodler feels that he will be blamed "if the matter turns out less favourably for the Society." Such documents as this, generally discovered in Jesuit houses after the suppression of the Society, differ very materially from the published writings of the Jesuits.

On this occasion neither the Duke of Lorraine nor the Duke of Neuburg, for whom the Jesuits were working in apparent contradiction to each other but with secret understanding, was elected. The Pole, Michael Wisniowiecki, ascended the throne, and the Polish Jesuits held their power amid the decaying nation. He was followed by the great Sobieski, under whom the Society had more political influence than ever. Whether in camp or court Sobieski was surrounded by Jesuits, and some of the most important and disastrous points of his policy were inspired by them. It was his confessor, Father Vota, who prompted him to reject France's offer of alliance and accept that of Austria; and we know the shameful ingratitude of Austria when Sobieski saved Vienna in 1683, and how greedily it took its share of Poland when the country became weak enough to be dismembered. The Poles tired of Sobieski's costly glory and despotic rule and mischievous orthodoxy, and his later years were embittered by a feeling of failure.

Frederick Augustus of Saxony succeeded Sobieski. He had qualified for the throne by corrupting half the Diet and abjuring the Protestant faith, and, although he was naturally of a tolerant disposition, he was compelled to allow the Jesuits and other clergy to continue to weaken the country by religious persecution. Father Vota was entrusted with the charge of his accommodating conscience, and concluded that the opportunity was excellent for transplanting Catholic intolerance intoSaxony, to which Frederick Augustus was for a time forced to retire. The apologist for the Jesuits relates that it was Frederick Augustus himself who desired to coerce the Protestants, and that Vota prudently restrained him. That would be a remarkable situation—a loose and unprincipled monarch, who had embraced the Catholic faith only as the price of a crown, restrained by the confessor of Sobieski from persecuting his Protestant subjects—but we know that, in point of fact, it was the Saxon ministers who had to restrain the Jesuit. AugustusIII., an orthodox voluptuary and worthless monarch, followed upon the throne of Poland; the Jesuits continued to prosper and the country to decay. We shall see how, when its helpless frame is torn by its covetous neighbours, the Jesuits are still in full possession of their wealth and power, and are the first to bow to and win the favour of the Russian invader. There is, however, one incident of Polish life in the eighteenth century on which it is necessary to dwell more fully. We have an ample account of this repulsive event[32]and it throws an unpleasant light on the activity of the Jesuits in Poland.

In the summer of 1724 a Protestant of Thorn refused to lift his hat when a Catholic procession passed, and he was assaulted by a pupil of the Jesuit college. The Protestant authorities arrested the Catholic for assault, and a riot occurred, in the course of which the Jesuit college was stormed and destroyed. The royal authority was now invoked, and the Mayor, Vice-Mayor, and nine other citizens of Thorn were arraigned before the High Court at Warsaw for failing to prevent the destruction of the college. A Jesuit was permitted, in the presence of the judges, to deliver a violently inflammatory sermon on the outrage, and the unfortunate men were condemnedto death. A singular clause was added to the sentence: it must not be carried out until a Jesuit and six members of the Polish nobility swore to the guilt of the accused. We know from their own words that the judges trusted in this way to save the accused from the vengeance of the Jesuits. They persuaded the Papal Nuncio to press the Jesuit superior not to send one of his subjects to take the oath, and, when a Jesuit appeared nevertheless at the appointed time, to swear away the lives of the innocent men, they pointed out that a priest could not canonically take any action which would lead to an execution. The Jesuits placidly replied that they had sent a "lay coadjutor," instead of a priest, to take the oath. It is true that, once they had sealed the fate of the men, they entered a plea for mercy, but we are familiar with this hypocritical phrase in the annals of the Inquisition. They tried moreover, at a later date, to lessen the guilt of their conduct by mendaciously stating that the Nuncio's letter arrived too late for consideration: an audacious untruth, since we have the Jesuits' reply to the Nuncio, and we know that the judges reminded them of the Nuncio's intervention before the oath was taken.

To the end of this miserable business their conduct was repulsive. The municipality of Thorn was, of course, condemned to compensate the Society for the destruction of the college, and they secured a preposterous award of 36,400 florins. The citizens warmly protested against this scandalous and onerous award, and it was eventually, in spite of the protests of the Jesuits, reduced to 22,000 florins. The Jesuits, we are assured whenever they plead bankruptcy, are too spiritual to be good men of business, but their attitude in regard to the loss of their property at Thorn was not weakened by spirituality. They demanded (and, no doubt, needed) 8000 florins incash. The municipal authorities had not so large a sum to pay them, and it was advanced by a merchant on the security of the plate of the executed Mayor of the town. For the remainder of the debt the Jesuits took the municipal estates of Lonzyn and Wengorzyn. They retained these profitable estates for six years, and only yielded them when the civic authorities paid them the full capital of the debt with 6 per cent. interest for the intervening years.

The situation of the Jesuits in Holland was, we saw, in many respects similar to their situation in England, but the fact that several provinces remained Roman Catholic gave them an advantage and kept the country open to them. Utrecht, for instance, had only joined the other provinces on condition that full liberty was given to Catholics and Jesuits. From these Catholic districts the fathers advanced with great zeal upon the neighbouring Protestant population. In spite of Jesuit hatred of the Dutch, whom they represent throughout the seventeenth century as the arch-enemy, they were treated with indulgence until their own actions brought punishment on them. We saw that there was at least evidence enough to convince the Dutch that the Jesuits had been implicated in two attempts to assassinate their rulers, and when, in 1638, a Catholic plot to admit the Spaniards was discovered, another storm against the Jesuits arose. Their apologist admits that there was a plot, and that they were aware of it; but he finds no evidence that they were parties to the plot. The evidence on which the Dutch relied was supplied by a soldier, and is not in itself very impressive; but several of the fathers were tortured and executed. The feeling seems to have been that any plot to introduce the Spaniards would very probably be of Jesuit origin, and the evidence was sufficient in thecircumstances. Few will seriously feel that there was a miscarriage of justice.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which sent numbers of persecuted Huguenots to England and Holland, greatly embittered the Dutch and led to a fresh outburst against the Jesuits. They had at that time forty-five residences and seventy-four priests in Holland, but their prosperous mission was almost destroyed by the wave of anger which rolled over the country. Severe disabilities were laid on them, the Protestant crowds threatened their property, and it was rumoured that the States-General was about to banish them. It is interesting to-day to compare the eloquent pleas for toleration which they laid before the Dutch with the private letters in which they apprised their French colleagues thattheirintolerance had brought the affliction on them.

The storm passed without very serious consequences, but it was not long before the conduct of the Jesuits again endangered their mission. We have already seen that from the time when the Vatican appointed a bishop to control the missionary priests in Holland the Jesuits conducted an extremely selfish crusade against him. They maintained this opposition throughout the period with which we are dealing. Neercassel, the Archbishop of Utrecht and Vicar Apostolic, complained to Rome of their behaviour in 1669, and they retorted with the familiar charge of Jansenism. Neercassel was summoned to Rome, but InnocentXI.was on the papal throne and the Jesuits lost. They did not relax their opposition, and when Peter Codde succeeded Neercassel in 1686 (the Jesuits having failed, after strenuous efforts, to get a friend of the Society appointed), the feud became more and more unedifying. In 1702 they induced the Vatican to depose him and substitute a morecongenial prelate named Cock. Codde had been friendly with Arnauld, who had taken refuge in the Netherlands, and an unscrupulous use of their influence at Rome under ClementXI.secured his deposition. They could not, however, induce the papal authorities to detain Codde, who belonged to a good Dutch family, in the prisons of the Inquisition, and, when he returned to his country, the Government took up his case against the Jesuits.

The situation they had brought about in the Church in Holland was deplorable. The chapters of Utrecht and Haarlem refused to recognise Cock as archbishop, and the faithful were in a state of confusion. For years the Jesuits had jeered at the divisions amongst the Protestants. These divisions were at least based on considerations of belief, and the Protestants could heavily retort that their clergy, of any one denomination, had never been rent into bitterly hostile factions on a mere question of corporate interest. Codde resumed his ministry, and the Jesuits, aided by the friendly Nuncio at Brussels, supported Cock against him. In similar circumstances Queen Elizabeth had assisted the English secular clergy against the Jesuits, and the Dutch Government decided to do the same. Cock was expelled, and four of the leading Jesuits were summoned before the States-General (1705) and ordered to use their influence at Rome for the rehabitation of Codde or else leave the country. The Dutch smiled when the Jesuits protested that their slender influence would not sway the Vatican, and, when a negative answer came from Rome, they were proscribed. They evaded the sentence, but in 1708 they were expelled from the whole of Holland except the privileged Province of Utrecht. When the resentment of the Dutch cooled, however, they crept back into thecountry and ministered stealthily to their followers. Even after so drastic an experience they continued to lessen the merit of their strenuous and dangerous labours by persistent hostility to, and abuse of, the rival clergy.

In Belgium, which was now predominantly Catholic and had only passed from the control of Catholic Spain to that of Catholic Austria, the Jesuits prospered down to the time of the suppression of the Society. The last remnants of Protestantism had been crushed under the heel of the Spanish soldiers or driven to Holland, and the province was an excellent field for tranquil work. The only notable episode is that, in their eagerness to rise above the other clergy, the Jesuits pressed Rome to apply to Belgium the famous test of belief which had been devised for the "Jansenists" of France. Arnauld had many admirers in Belgium, and the University of Louvain, especially, strongly resented the prospect of being forced to say that there were in the obscure work of Bishop Jansen five propositions which were not there. The Archbishop of Malines and the Nuncio were won by the Jesuits, but InnocentXII.hesitated to extend that miserable struggle to the peaceful Belgian Church. The Nuncio deliberately withheld the Pope's brief until the Jesuits made another attempt to win their demand, but in 1694 the Pope insisted that only priests who were found to hold the five propositions in question should be molested. As usual, the Jesuits failed to find any one who held the famous propositions and the matter was abandoned.

The story of the Jesuits in the States which now form the German Empire and in Austria has not yet been systematically written, and the material is a large and undigested mass of laudatory episodes and drasticcharges.[33]In Austria, or the Holy Roman Empire, as it was then called, we might follow the fortunes of the Society with some continuity, but it would add little, in regard to Jesuit character, to what we have gathered from the records of France, Spain, and Portugal. The central and most important fact is the continued influence of the Jesuit confessors at the court. Amongst the interesting manuscripts which were seized at the time of the suppression of the Society was a document, dating from the time of General Acquaviva, giving royal confessors secret instructions as to their duty;[34]openly, of course, the Jesuit rule was to refuse such offices as far as possible, and to confine themselves to purely spiritual matters if the office was accepted. These instructions make the confessor a spy not only on the monarch, but upon his ministers and civic officials, and direct that he shall obtain information even about the private lives of his principal subjects. We know from other confiscated manuscripts which have been published (especially by Döllinger and Reusch) that this information was regularly sent to Rome, and that at every important juncture the confessor, who used to ask the monarch for time to consult God and his conscience, sent a secret messenger to Rome (or consulted other Jesuits) and acted on the policy of the Society.

In this sense the Jesuits controlled the policy of Austria to a great extent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Father Lamormaini, confessor to FerdinandII., inspired the decree for the restoration of church-property in 1629, as we saw, and afterwards secured the best portion of it for the Jesuits; to whomnothing could be "restored," as they had not owned any of the property. In the following year Lamormaini practically decided the dismissal of Wallenstein. There was no question of importance on which the Emperor did not consult him, and the published documents show that there were times when the Jesuit, acting on instructions from Rome, advised a policy which would profit France rather than Austria; in 1635, for instance, he endeavoured (in vain) to induce the Emperor to cede Alsace to France. We have a large number of the Emperor's letters to Lamormaini, and they show that the Jesuit was practically first minister, in secular as well as spiritual matters. Other Jesuits were attached to the princes and nobles, and the natural result was a great increase of the power and wealth of the Society. Once more the suppression of the order and confiscation of its documents have provided a confirmation of the suspicions of historians. J. Friedrich (Beiträge) has published some of the confiscated documents, including a statement drawn up in 1729 by the Procurator of the Province of Upper Germany, Father Bissel. From this it appears that the German Province of the Society advanced (at a high rate of interest) 262,208 guldens to the Catholic Power for the purposes of the Thirty Years' War, and the Jesuit college at Liège 200,000 guldens. The Jesuit treasurer appends the remark that these loans must be kept strictly secret, as a disclosure "might bring ruin on our establishments."

The death of FerdinandII.in 1637 made no difference in the position of the Jesuits. FerdinandIII.had been carefully trained by them, and he was ever ready to endanger the welfare of his Empire and disturb the peace of his subjects by furthering the designs of the Jesuits in the Protestant Provinces, as we shall see presently. LeopoldI., who succeeded in 1657, was aneven more fervent pupil of the Jesuits, and had been destined for the priesthood. We may say, in a word, that the Jesuits retained their wealth and power until, to their great anger and disappointment, the Emperor JosephII.light-heartedly joined the other Catholic monarchs in the campaign for the suppression of the Society, and even Maria Theresa refused to plead for them with the Papacy. At that time their property alone was worth more than £2,000,000, but the Government discovered that they had anticipated the dissolution by investing large sums abroad. It is therefore impossible to estimate their real wealth, but when we add to the income from their vast estates the salaries of royal and noble confessors, the fees of masses and spiritual exercises, the emoluments of university and other teachers, and the very generous and constant inflow of gifts and legacies, we realise that the Austrian Jesuits cannot have been much less wealthy than those of France and Spain.

It may be suggested that we should regard this wealth with indulgence, in spite of the Jesuit vow of poverty, because of the immense educational services which the Society rendered to the Empire. Their school-system has, however, been heavily criticised by Austrian writers, and even in the height of their power it was boldly and successfully assailed by Austrian statesmen. A memorial addressed to the Empress Maria Theresa in 1757 insisted that all the universities had deteriorated since they had been captured by the Jesuits. Two years later (September 1759) the Empress compelled them to surrender to other teachers the chairs of logic, ethics, metaphysics, and history, and several chairs of theology, which they held at the Vienna University. The historian of the university, Kink, fully confirms this statement that it deteriorated under thecontrol of the Jesuits. Indeed, the learned Oratorian priest Father Theiner, the Prefect of the Vatican Archives, shows in hisHistoire du Pontificat de ClémentXIV.that in other ways the Jesuits had done grave harm to culture in Catholic Germany. Their selfish determination to monopolise teaching and letters had destroyed the intellectual life of the non-Jesuit clergy, and there were few to succeed them when the Society was abolished. We shall see later that when Frederick the Great annexed Silesia, where the German Jesuits controlled education, he disdainfully advised them to send to France for some abler teachers.

It is also necessary to observe that a large number of scandals occurred among the Austrian and German Jesuits, especially the teachers. The subject is unpleasant, but pro-Jesuit writers are so insistent on the cleanness of their record that it cannot be entirely overlooked. A former director of the Bavarian State Archives, Dr. Karl Heinrich von Lang, examined the Jesuit documents under his care at Munich, and found, in the letters of the Provincial of the Upper German Province to the General, an alarming number of charges of unnatural or other vice. There was clearly an extraordinary amount of sexual corruption in the province in the period he reviews (1650-1723), and, if we find this to be the case where it happens that the secret documents of the Society have come into our hands, we must regard with grave suspicion the claims of Jesuit writers in regard to provinces of which we have not similar information.[35]

Dr. von Lang has also written a sketch of the history of the Jesuits in Bavaria (Geschichte der Jesuiten in Baiern, 1819), and we have a picture of degenerationand prosperity as in so many other countries. We saw, in an early chapter, the unattractive story of their settlement in Bavaria and coercion of the Protestants. Before and during the Thirty Years' War they were the most ardent instigators of Maximilian, and, when the terror of the Swedes had passed away, they entered upon a period of great prosperity in the impoverished country. When Maximilian died, however, in 1651, some attempt was made to check their progress by the statesmen who knew how deeply they were responsible for the desolation of Bavaria. Members of a rival religious order, the Theatines, were patronised by the Duchess Maria, and the Jesuits conducted an unedifying campaign against the Theatines, who made a spirited resistance. Each body accused the other of forging miracles in honour of its saints. Von Lang estimates that a little after the middle of the seventeenth century the 585 members of the Bavarian branch of the Society enjoyed a permanent income of 185,950 florins. To this, however, we must add fees, salaries, gifts, and legacies. Dr. von Lang shows that between 1620 and 1700 large donations amounting to 800,000 florins were made to the Society, often at the suggestion of its members.

The later wealth of the Jesuits in Bavaria cannot be estimated as the larger contributions to their funds were only stated in strictly secret documents which have never seen the light. We know that the Society prospered more than ever in the eighteenth century. In 1727 there were 875 Jesuits in Bavaria and the Tyrol, and the papers confiscated at the suppression proved that their wealth was enormous. Their college at Ingolstadt alone owned hundreds of farms, or a series of estates worth about 3,000,000 florins. A dozen other colleges were also richly endowed with landed property. As the eighteenth century wore on, however, thehostility to the Jesuits increased. Protestants were never without some serious ground for complaint of Jesuit controversy, and in Bavaria we find them accusing the Jesuits (quite justly) of recommending the sons of Protestant parents tostealthe "bad books" of their fathers and bring them to the college. Catholics, on the other hand, complained that the Jesuits rendered no material service in proportion to their great wealth, and, as the successive messages of suppression came from Portugal, France, and Spain, their opponents became bolder. The Jesuits so little expected to be disturbed that in 1770 they created a separate Bavarian province, with more than 500 members. Three years later they were secularised and dispersed on account of the suppression of the Society.

In Protestant Saxony the Jesuits had a different task. We have already seen how they instigated Frederick Augustus, after he had purchased the Polish crown by a change of faith, to adopt the principle of religious intolerance in Saxony. The heir to the throne was, however, a Protestant, and was under the control of Protestants, and the Jesuits had to ensure that the dynasty should be Catholic. This was not in the interest of Saxony, which, as a Protestant State, might have taken a leading position in Germany, whereas, in becoming Catholic, it would be overshadowed by Austria and Bavaria. The king put Jesuits about the person of the prince, and he was, when his conversion proved difficult, sent to travel in Italy in the company of two Jesuits. He was a mere boy of sixteen. His father was, however, assured that he might not only appropriate a large amount of the ecclesiastical property taken by the Protestants at the Reformation, but papal troops would be put at his disposal in case of need to silence the protests of his Protestant subjects. InNovember 1712 the boy was "converted." Father Salerno, the most active of the Jesuits engaged in this important business, was then sent to Vienna to arrange a marriage with an Austrian Archduchess, and, as all children of the marriage were to be Catholic, the succession was secured. As the present condition of Saxony shows, however, the Jesuits did not in this case succeed in imposing their creed by royal authority. Father Salerno was rewarded with—in Jesuit language, "forced" to accept, against his inclination—a cardinal's hat. He was the thirteenth Jesuit whose modesty had been violated by the papacy in this way since 1593, to say nothing of nuncii, bishops, and other prelates.

The resistance of Hungary to Jesuit permeation was protracted and heroic. Protestantism made great progress in Hungary after the Reformation, and the emperors looked to the Jesuits to extirpate it in that part of the country which was under their control. FerdinandII. trusted especially to their educational influence, but FerdinandIII.and Leopold supported the Jesuits in active persecution of the heretics. Dr. Krones[36]has minutely studied from the manuscriptAnnual Lettersof the Society, the intrigues by which the Jesuits sought to regain power after the Peace of Westphalia. The population was half Protestant, and the emperors were unwilling to inflame the restless Hungarians by too open a use of imperial authority. The most assiduous and secret manœuvres were made by the Jesuits to influence the elections and secure a legal footing in the country. An abortive conspiracy in 1666 served their purpose better. In the general vindictiveness of the Austrian triumph the most drastic measures were taken against the Protestant clergy. Amore successful rising in 1675-1679 once more won toleration for the Protestants and checked the Jesuits, and they seem to have maintained this varying campaign of intrigue and coercion and failure until the abolition of the Society.

In the Catholic cantons of Switzerland we have, naturally, the same story as in the Catholic States: a control of education, a determination to cast into the shade the remainder of the Catholic clergy, and a scandalous and enervating material prosperity. Here again we have obtained a very interesting glimpse of the real condition of the Society by the publication of secret documents which were confiscated at the suppression. The chronicle of the Jesuit college at Colmar from 1698 to 1750 was fortunately discovered among their papers and published in 1872.[37]It is a most remarkable ledger or diary of business transactions, displaying on every page that keen instinct for commerce and high profit which the Jesuits are always so anxious to disavow. Vineyards and estates pass steadily into the possession of the college, indignant and disinherited relatives are fought in the law-courts or met by compromise, and the liveliest satisfaction is expressed when some good bargain has been made with the property or the vines have proved fertile. A Lutheran in 1727 has been, in the words of the secret Jesuit chronicler, "simple enough" to pay a substantial rent for a disused cellar belonging to the college; in the same year a pious lady's executors are not in a position to pay a legacy to the Jesuits in cash and they take saleable goods; in 1730 three fields of small value are let on terms which suggest that some simple Catholic tenant was duped. The whole story tells of keenness in securing legacies, astuteness in the profitable handling of the property theyinherit or buy, and a somewhat hypocritical readiness to appeal to public bodies for the free grants which they make to poor individuals or communities. The college of Colmar was a business concern of the sharpest character.

These fragmentary notices of the life of the Jesuits in the Germanic countries suffice to explain that growth of hostility which culminates in the destruction of the Society. There is a sharp contrast between the picture suggested by these secret Jesuit documents and the picture offered to us by writers like Crétineau-Joly and Father Duhr. Few, of course, would be so naïve as not to understand that the Jesuit writers carefully select from their "unpublished documents" the occasional letters which some really religious Jesuit writes to his fellows or his superiors. None but an entirely prejudiced opponent of the Jesuits would imagine that all the members of any province of the Society were lacking in moral delicacy and deep religious feeling. In every age and clime there were Jesuits of lofty purpose, great sincerity, and unselfish activity for what they regarded as the good of man. There were many such in the long calendar of the Germanic provinces. But the fortunate accident of the confiscation of their papers in many places enables us to obtain a fuller and truer knowledge of the body than we get from this one-sided admiration of its more religious members and its public professions. As a body the Society, in Germany as well as in France, Spain, Portugal, and on the missions, was deeply tainted with casuistry, covetousness, intrigue for wealth and for power, commercial activity, duplicity in political matters, and a lamentable attitude toward rival priests. They maintained their power, not so much by the affection of the people as by the hard-won favour of princes and prelates; and, the moment theseprinces became sensible of their defects, their seemingly unassailable prosperity fell with a crash, to the delight of half of Catholic Europe. It remains only for us to glance at their fortunes in Italy until the year when the Pope, whose select regiment they affected to be, ratified the action of kings and abolished the Society of Jesus "for ever."

FOOTNOTES:[32]Jacobi'sDas Thorner Blutgericht, and other documents.[33]TheGeschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher zunge, which the German Jesuits are publishing, has not advanced beyond the first period.[34]Published by the Benedictine monk Dudik in theArchiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, vol. liv. p. 234.[35]See, especially, the sordid details in Dr. von Lang'sJacobi Morelli, S.J., amores, 1815.[36]Archiv für œsterreichische Geschichte, Bd. 79, pp. 277-354; and Bd. 80, pp. 356-458.[37]Mémoires des R.R.P.P. Jésuites du Collège de Colmar.

[32]Jacobi'sDas Thorner Blutgericht, and other documents.

[33]TheGeschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher zunge, which the German Jesuits are publishing, has not advanced beyond the first period.

[34]Published by the Benedictine monk Dudik in theArchiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, vol. liv. p. 234.

[35]See, especially, the sordid details in Dr. von Lang'sJacobi Morelli, S.J., amores, 1815.

[36]Archiv für œsterreichische Geschichte, Bd. 79, pp. 277-354; and Bd. 80, pp. 356-458.

[37]Mémoires des R.R.P.P. Jésuites du Collège de Colmar.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY

Theblows which were inflicted on the Jesuits by the Catholic monarchs of Portugal, Spain, and France during the eighteenth century are historically insignificant in comparison with the suppression of the Society by the papacy. It is easy to suggest for the conduct of the rulers reasons which conceal the misdeeds of the Jesuits. Was not LouisXV.an immoral and unscrupulous ruler, and had not liberalism pervaded every stratum of higher French society? Was not JosephI.of Portugal an unprincipled voluptuary, an irresolute pupil of a minister who could stoop to forgery? Was not Charles of Spain deluded by a sceptical minister in collusion with Pombal and Choiseul? Did they not force the King of Naples to follow their example, and win the Austrian Emperor with the prospect of appropriating the vast wealth of the Society? So the excuses run; and it is added that these combined monarchs at length brought such pressure to bear upon a Pope, whose election they had secured, that, solely for the sake of peace, without blaming the Jesuits, he reluctantly penned the famous brief of abolition.

We have seen that this version of the destruction of the Society, as far as the Catholic monarchs are concerned, may have some ingenuity in the pages of an apologist, but could not without absurdity be put forward as history. Definite, grave, and irremediablegrievances were proved against the Jesuits in each country in which they were suppressed. We have now to see that the last part of the apologetic version is equally untrue. It is not true that the Powers secured the election of ClementXIV.; it is not true that he was pledged to destroy the Society; and it is not true that he destroyed it for the sake of peace, without pronouncing on the merit of the charges against it. We shall find rather that the action of ClementXIV.was the natural culmination of the attitude of the best Popes toward the Society, that it was represented by him as such, and that, in condemning the Society, he collected all the grave charges which were urged against it, and endorsed them with the papal authority.

The general fortunes of the Society in Italy until the middle of the eighteenth century do not merit detailed examination. One undistinguished General succeeded another in the nominal autocracy of the supreme office, but the policy of the Society was, at least after the time of Acquaviva, dictated by the assistants and abler men at Rome. The Society of Jesus is an aristocracy, not an autocracy. The charge of despotism is not unjust, if we do not forget how frequently this despotism has been checked by rebellious "subjects," but it is the despotism of a few, whose decisions are published by the General. An incident that occurred toward the close of the seventeenth century will illustrate this.

By that time, as we saw, Pascal'sLettershad drawn the disdainful eyes of Europe to the teaching of Jesuit casuists. It makes little difference that the laxer of these moralists were but a few among the countless theologians of the Society, because nearly the whole of the Jesuits taught that, in case of a moral dilemma, a man might act on the opinion of a single casuist against the opinion of the remainder. It is true that they addedthat the one theologian must have a "grave authority," but, in view of the censorship and approval of the Society in each case, any Jesuit theologian would be regarded by admirers of the Society as a grave authority. This famous principle of Probabilism—the theory that one might follow a "probable" opinion in matters of moral guilt against "more probable" opinions—which had been adopted and almost appropriated by the Jesuits, gave great scandal, in view of the laxity of some of their prominent casuists, and at length a number of fathers assailed it and tried to remove the stigma from the Society.

The most notable of these reformers was Father Thyrsus Gonzalez de Santalla, an able professor at Salamanca University. About the year 1670 he composed a Latin treatise on "The right use of probable opinions," and sent it to Rome for examination and approval. The authorities refused to sanction publication, but in 1676 InnocentXI., who frowned on the laxity of the Jesuit casuists, heard of the rejected manuscript and sent for it. Through the Inquisition the Pope then (in 1680) urged Gonzalez to publish the book, and communicated to General Oliva a decree to the effect that no father was to be prevented from teaching Probabiliorism, and that, on the contrary, none was to be allowed to defend Probabilism. General Oliva drew up a circular embodying the Pope's commands, which he was ordered to convey to his subjects, respectfully submitted it to the cardinals of the Inquisition, and then—suppressed it. Oliva died in 1681, his successor, Father de Noyelle, died in 1686, and Gonzalez himself was sent to Rome to take part in the election of 1687. The Pope welcomed him and intimated that he ought to be raised to the generalship, to save the Society from the "abyss" into which it was plunging. In spite of thefierce opposition of the Probabilists, he was elected by a narrow majority, and in 1691 he sent to the press his Latin treatise.

The Assistants or Councillors of the General now asserted their power. They threatened their General that, if he did not withdraw the work, they would warn the heads of all the Provinces of the Society of the danger he would bring on them. Father Gonzalez offered to omit his name from the title-page and cut out a particularly obnoxious section of the work, but they sternly refused the compromise. He published, and they denounced their General to the Pope for issuing a theological work without papal authorisation. There was now so fierce a controversy in the Society that the Pope suspended the sale of the book, and remitted the affair to the triennial Congregation of Jesuit Procurators in 1693. A feverish intrigue and a number of heated pamphlets from experienced Jesuit pens prepared the way for the Congregation, and, when it assembled, it voted for the calling of an extraordinary General Congregation. Numbers of them were threatening to have Gonzalez deposed. The Pope, however, declared their vote invalid, and the book was published; but his "subjects"—whom so many regard as corpses in the hands of a despotic General—persecuted and assailed Gonzalez until his death.[38]

The interest of the Italian Jesuits is almost confined to Rome during this period. They were now so wealthy and powerful throughout Italy that they held in check the opposing elements, and we find few of those interesting episodes which saved their earlier career from monotony. In 1656 they secured permission to return to Venice, the last stronghold of their enemies. Thedwindling commerce of Venice was now gravely menaced by the Turks, and the Jesuits did not scruple to fan the zeal of the Turks. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Venice was hard pressed, and compelled to look for assistance. It is said that the Jesuits paid a handsome sum to the impoverished Republic; it is at least true, and is the same thing in principle, that the Pope promised assistance on condition that the doors were opened to the Jesuits. The dire oaths never to readmit them were reluctantly erased, and the fathers soon restored their old prosperity. Although wholesome jets of criticism were constantly directed against them, especially at Rome, they flourished throughout Italy much as they did in Spain and Portugal. Hardly a year elapsed without some dying noble bequeathing them a palace or a country house, or some small town being induced to invite them to found a college; and when plague or earthquake or famine desolated the land, and they recovered their heroic mood, a shower of blessings and benefactions fell upon them.

Only one serious calamity overtook them during the period we are surveying. Toward the close of the seventeenth century there was a violent quarrel between the King of the Two Sicilies and the Pope; always one of the most painful dilemmas for the Society. The King claimed a high spiritual authority, and the bishops, supported by the Papacy, placed an interdict on large areas of Sicily. The civil power retorted with a decree of banishment against the clergy who obeyed the Pope, and part of the Jesuits incurred the sentence. Later, when Victor Amadeo received the island and promised conciliatory conduct, the Jesuits reopened their churches; but they were directed from Rome to close them, and were again exiled. Spain then resumed control of Sicily, and reinstated them.

In the year 1705, Gonzalez died, and the learned Tamburini succeeded him. At that time the scandal of the Jesuit concessions in India and China was added, in the literature of their opponents, to the scandals of the American missions, and the Papacy was being forced to act. In 1710 and 1715, ClementXI.sternly condemned their practices, and the Roman Jesuits could do no more than represent, inaccurately, that their missionaries had submitted. The next Pope, InnocentXIII., found that this was untrue, and again severely condemned them; but he was followed by several complaisant Pontiffs, and the Society continued its irregular ways in all parts of the globe. Edifying utterances on the part of the Roman authorities were not wanting. Tamburini died in 1730, and at the Congregation which followed one of the decrees severely enacted that the fathers of the Society must, in every part of the world, avoid "even the appearance of commerce," and refrain from violence in attacking their opponents. No one knew better than these rulers of the Society the industrial and commercial system which was then followed everywhere by the fathers, and the devices by which they silenced their critics; yet no effort whatever was made to enforce the decree.

BenedictXIV.came to the papal throne in 1740, and put an end to the intrigues of the Society in the Roman courts for a time. His bulls of 1742 and 1744, sternly condemning their contumacious conduct in India and China, struck a heavy blow at two of their most profitable missions; but their American missions were veiled by the optimist assurances of France, Spain, and Portugal; and, when Lawrence Ricci became General of the Society in 1758, there was little ground for serious anxiety. Indeed, BenedictXIV.died in that year, and a friendly Pope, ClementXIII., an Italian noble of conciliatorytemper, received the tiara. By that time (according to a list published in 1750) the Society had 22,589 members, of whom 11,293 were priests. These were distributed in 669 colleges and 945 residences of less importance; it is singular, and characteristic of the Society, that there were only 24 "houses of the professed" to 22,000 members, and that one half these members were not priests.

One cloud rested on the horizon when Lawrence Ricci became General; but even the most timid and despondent observer could not have ventured to suggest that he was destined to be the last successor of Ignatius. It had been proved to the satisfaction of the Spanish and Portuguese courts that the Jesuits had inspired the revolt in Paraguay, and Pombal had begun his campaign against the Society. The accession of ClementXIII.in July reassured the Jesuits, but in September of that year the news came of the attempt to assassinate the King of Portugal, and a few months later a number of the leading Portuguese Jesuits were in jail. From that moment the doom of the fathers was sealed in Portugal, and their efforts were chiefly directed to restricting the contagious area. Clement was encouraged to resist the Portuguese, and the Spanish court was induced to regard Pombal as a slanderer. In France, however, the famous Lavalette case had recently occurred, and a very ominous wave of indignation against the Jesuits was rising. Choiseul was now known to be leagued with Pombal in hostility to the Society.

Ricci, a Florentine noble by birth, a man of quiet and cultivated taste, was not an ideal ruler for such a period, but as the clouds gathered thicker he threw all his energy into the combat. Before the end of the year 1759 he had to make provision for the thousands of Portuguese Jesuits whom Pombal cynically flung upon the shores of Italy. In the following year the French courts beganto condemn the Society to pay the debts of Lavalette, and in 1761 the Parlement of Paris condemned the Society and began the work of repression. In the fiery controversy which now filled all the Catholic countries of Europe every questionable episode in the history of the Society, and probably much that had been added to the historical facts, was discussed and advertised. Myriads of pamphlets fed the sensations of the people, and for the first time since the early years of Ignatius the Jesuits cowered before the storm of obloquy. In 1764, LouisXV.signed the decree for the abolition of the Society in France, and by 1767 the Italian provinces were once more swamped with crowds of fugitives.

CharlesIII.of Spain had so far firmly resisted the arguments of Pombal, but in the spring of 1766 the Jesuits of Madrid had drawn on themselves the suspicion of having inspired a revolt against the royal authority, and it would be reported to Ricci that the monarch was sombre and inaccessible. As the year proceeded (and, as we now know, Aranda completed his case against the order), increasingly gloomy messages would come from the Spanish court, and in the early days of April 1767 the news came from the coast that 6000 Spanish Jesuits were tossing homeless on the waters. Taking the colonies into account, the Society had now been destroyed in by far the greater part of the Christian world, and a stupendous amount of its property had been confiscated. Moreover, it was now known that the French, Spanish, and Portuguese were pressing the Pope to abolish the Society; and, at least from the middle of 1767, the prospect of that terrible contingency was discussed throughout the clerical world at Rome.

Before the end of 1767 the work began on Italian soil. CharlesIII.had passed from Naples to the throne of Spain, and he had left that kingdom in the charge ofa liberal minister, Tanucci, under the rule of his son FerdinandIV.Little pressure was needed by the Neapolitans. On the 3rd of November 1767 the Jesuit houses were surrounded, the papers seized, and the fathers banished from Southern Italy. A few months later it was the turn of Parma, and in April the fathers were driven from Malta, as the Grand Master was a feudatory of the King of Naples. Whether the idea came from the Jesuits or no we cannot say, but the Pope concluded that, in the case of Parma, he might retaliate. He revived an old pontifical claim to the duchy, annulled the sentence against the Jesuits, and excommunicated those who had banished them. The allies promptly replied; France seized Avignon, and Naples occupied Benevento and Ponte Corvo, of the Papal States.

It was at this juncture that, on the 2nd of February 1769, ClementXIII.found relief in death, and the historic struggle over the succession to the papal throne began. On the result of that election the fate of the Society would depend, and Jesuits and anti-Jesuits hurried to the arena and used every means in their power to influence the issue. But the Jesuits and their friends have, not unnaturally, published as fact every faint echo of gossip in connection with the election, in order to weaken the significance of their suppression by the Pope elected; and it must be examined with great care.[39]

ClementXIII.died on 2nd February, and the Italian cardinals, especially those of the Papal States, tried to elect a new Pope before the distant and anti-Jesuit Powers could send their cardinals and assert their influence. They opened the conclave on 15th February, and nearly succeeded in electing Cardinal Chigi. It is natural to suspect, and is emphatically affirmed, that the Jesuits induced them to take this irregular step, and we know that General Ricci was at the time hastening feverishly from one prelate to another. We may be quite sure that the Jesuits used what influence they had to secure a premature election, but there is another element to be considered. The cardinals were, in the phrase of the hour, divided intozelantiandantizelanti: cardinals who resented the interference of lay Powers in the affairs of Rome, and cardinals who thought it politic to consult the wishes of the Catholic monarchs. Besides these two schools, however, there were many cardinals who did not adopt a decisive attitude, and were disposed to be guided by the course of events, or at least indisposed to meet the violent anger of France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples.

When, therefore, the Marquis d'Aubeterre, the French ambassador, and Mgr. Azpuru, the representative of Spain—the Portuguese ambassador did not arrive until a later date—protested in the names of their sovereigns, and demanded that the conclave should be postponed until the French and Spanish cardinals arrived, the majority of the cardinals were intimidated, and thezelantiwere forced sullenly to quit their cells in the Vatican. Cardinal Rezzonico, a nephew of the late Pope, was one of the leaders of thezelanti. In the course of March, Cardinal Luynes and Cardinal Bernis arrived from France. The former was a mere voter, but Bernis—a suave, conceited, ambitious prelate, whosought the place of French ambassador at Rome—had been flattered by the French authorities into the belief that the issue of the election and the fate of the Jesuits depended mainly on him, and he applied his small powers to the intrigue with great zeal. Before the end of April the Portuguese ambassador, Mendoza, and the two Spanish cardinals arrived, and Rome throbbed with discussion and intrigue. The anti-Jesuits had a nucleus of six Neapolitan, two Spanish, and two French cardinals, and the problem was to secure a majority for their cause among the forty voters.

It is sometimes said that they won the indifferent cardinals, partly by bribery and partly by intimidation; but Father Theiner denies both charges. We have, in fact, the private assurance of Bernis to his government, which seems to have contemplated bribery, that the cardinals of that particular conclave were all religious men and incorruptible. At the most, we may be disposed to admit that the fact that some of the cardinals had property in the Provinces seized by France and Naples inclined them to gratify the Powers. As to intimidation, it seems clear that the ambassadors urged upon individual voters the grave danger of opposing the wishes of the Catholic monarchs; but Father Theiner denies that such arguments were used in the conclave itself. One would imagine that they were superfluous. Every cardinal knew that the four Catholic kings sternly insisted on the relief of Parma and the suppression of the Society, and could not but reflect on the possible consequences of electing a pro-Jesuit Pope.

Crétineau-Joly represents that the Society and the cardinals in favour of it had the support of Maria Theresa, and that she sent Count Kaunitz to Rome to express his support. He maintains that it was only after the other Catholic monarchs had tempted JosephII., her son and Emperor, to covet the property of the Society, that she reluctantly yielded. This is so demonstrably false as to incur the suspicion of untruth. Cardinal Bernis wrote to his court on 28th March 1769, long before the conclave, that Maria Theresa refused to support the demand for the suppression of the Jesuits, but "could not oppose, and would even be glad to see it"; so the Emperor JosephII.stated. In September of the same year the Nuncio at Vienna gave the same report. JosephII.himself came to Rome in March (1769), and the Jesuits clearly learned his attitude. When he visited their famous church, the Gesù, General Ricci hastened to greet him, and was jocularly asked "when he was going to change his coat." Later, when they stood before the solid silver statue of Ignatius, and Ricci explained that it was due to gifts of friends of the Society, Joseph observed: "Say, rather, to the profits on your Indian missions." And the Jesuits would further learn that, when the Emperor visited the Vatican, he urged the cardinals to elect another BenedictXIV.On the other hand, the visit of Count Kaunitz was in the following year, long after the attitude of Maria Theresa was known. She never wavered in her position, as she expressed it to ClementXIV.after the suppression; she had no idea of opposing or disapproving what the Pope thought necessary. Austria was lost to the Jesuits. Only a few small and unimportant rulers could be induced to plead for them.

The more difficult problem of the opponents of the Jesuits was to discover a cardinal who might be trusted to destroy the Society, yet would have some chance of election. The Spanish ambassador proposed that a cardinal should be induced to engage himself to abolish the Society if he were elected. For a time the French ambassador favoured the idea, but Cardinal Bernisstrongly opposed it; and there is ample proof that it was abandoned before the end of April. There is, therefore, no serious ground whatever for the charge that Cardinal Ganganelli promised to destroy the Society if he were elected, as the French historian is compelled to admit. The only question is whether Ganganelli gave a written assurance to the Spaniards that in his opinion a Pope had the power to destroy the Society. General Ricci had issued a pamphlet in which he contended that the Pope had no power to abolish the Society, and it would assuredly not be a serious matter for a cardinal to express his opinion on that point. But it seems that Ganganelli made no statement to the Spaniards. Some jealousy had arisen between the representatives of Spain and France, and the Spaniards vaguely boasted to Bernis of having had some communication with Ganganelli. Bernis reported that they had some written assurance from him, but in later letters (ignored by the French historian) he retracts. On 19th July he wrote that he may have been mistaken: on 30th November he acknowledged that he was wholly mistaken, and there had been no "arrangement" between the Spaniards and Ganganelli. The results of the voting, which are given by Theiner, confirm this. The supposed arrangement or assurance would have to be dated 15th or 16th May, yet Ganganelli received just the same number of votes (10) on 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th May.

The truth is that no one knew what Ganganelli would do if he became Pope. Formerly a Franciscan monk, he was a man of sincere piety and unquestioned integrity. It is said that he was ambitious, and attempted to secure the votes of both parties by remarking to one group that it was dangerous to offend the Catholic monarchs, and to the other that it was impossible to sacrifice the Society. This is mere gossip. He was anelderly man—in his sixty-fifth year—of high character and great ability. The Jesuit Cordara tells us that Ricci had urged ClementXIII.to give him the purple, and he had always been on friendly terms with the Jesuits. There is not the least serious ground for charging him with acting improperly, and we know that, on 19th May, he was elected by a unanimous vote.

Both parties now assailed the Vatican, and engaged officials in its service to report to them the movements of their opponents and the moods of the Pope. It is difficult to conceive an elderly friar as having sought with deliberate ambition the position in which the new Pope would find himself. The ambassadors of the Powers at once renewed their demand for the abolition of the Society, while the Jesuits and their friends and spies maintained a sombre vigilance. Whichever way the Pope acted he would incur a fierce and dangerous resentment. ClementXIV.was not the man to sell his conscience for the restoration of Avignon, Benevento, and Ponte Corvo; but the retention of these places would not be the only, or the most serious, consequence of disappointing the Powers. On the other hand, he knew the history and principles of the Jesuits. It is said that he put his kitchen in the charge of a friar of the Franciscan order. Whether or no it is true that he feared poison, he would know that the Jesuits would not meekly submit to a sentence of death, and the last years of his life would be full of trouble.

To the representatives of the Powers the Pope replied that he would take no step, and would give no encouragement to either side, until he had made a thorough inquiry into the matter. The Jesuits, however, soon perceived, or imagined, that Clement favoured the Powers. Twice in the two months after the election, General Ricci presented himself at the Vatican, as it was customaryfor the heads of religious orders to do on the chief festivals of the order, and twice had he to depart without seeing the Pope. He increased his vigilance and activity, and the ambassadors had to adopt various ruses to conceal their intercourse with the Pope; Bernis had now become ambassador, and was eager to justify his appointment. In July the spirits of the Jesuits revived, and it was the turn of the courts to fret and fume. Clement had issued a brief giving certain sacerdotal powers for seven years to the Jesuit missionaries who were just starting for the foreign missions. The Jesuits printed the brief and triumphantly scattered copies over Europe; the ambassadors angrily protested that this was to flout the wishes of their monarchs. In point of fact, there was not the least reason to attach importance to the brief. It was merely the observance of a form that was customary at the departure of missionaries, and to have omitted it on this occasion would have been a very grave and premature indication of an intention to abolish the Society.

However, the impolitic rejoicing of the Jesuits compelled the Pope to make some concession to their opponents. It was customary to republish every year the bullIn Cœna Dominiwhich a friendly predecessor had issued in favour of the Society. Clement declined to sanction its republication in 1769, and another ripple of excitement ran over Europe. In some places the Jesuits printed and published the bull themselves, and added another indiscretion to the account against them. A third and more serious error was committed by them. The ambassadors pressed more eagerly, and, as Bernis reports to his court, the Pope replied with dignity that he must consult his honour and his conscience, and make a prolonged inquiry before deciding. Choiseul threatened that the ambassadors would be withdrawn ifthe Pope did not give them a written assurance within two months, and Clement again sternly refused. France offered to restore Avignon if he would give the assurance, and only excited his indignation. This is the Pope whom the Jesuits and their apologists represent as morally and intellectually perverse; yet they themselves betrayed, and betray, a considerable degree of unscrupulousness in the matter. Crétineau-Joly, ignoring its inconsistency with his whole narrative, quotes a letter in which Clement is supposed to tell LouisXV.that he will not abolish a Society that has had the blessing of nineteen of his predecessors. This letter was forged and published by the Jesuits who lingered in disguise in France, and the apologist must have been quite aware that the Pope himself indignantly disavowed it in a letter to the Nuncio at Paris; indeed, Crétineau-Joly at once goes on to show, from Choiseul's correspondence, that the French could make nothing of the Pope's attitude.

These Jesuit outrages, however, seem to have stimulated the Pope, and on 25th September (1769) he gave Bernis a written assurance for LouisXV.that he intended to suppress the Society. A little later CharlesIII.of Spain received the same secret assurance. Thirty-four of the bishops of Spain, led by their cardinals and the Archbishop of Seville, had written to demand the suppression, and prove that it was not merely liberal politicians who opposed the Society. In the following February the seminary at Frascati was taken from the Jesuits and put under the control of secular priests. The spring and summer passed without giving fresh hope to the Jesuits. They reported Clement gloomy and inaccessible, and it is not impossible that they learned that a search was now being made in the Vatican Archives, and a report being drawn up on thehistory of the Society since its establishment. From that time, in fact, Clement secretly gathered the historical material with which he was to frame his crushing indictment of the Society. In June, it is true, Count Kaunitz visited Rome; but, as we know the attitude of both Maria Theresa and JosephII., we must accept Theiner's statement that he urged the Pope to suppress the Society, rather than the French historian's light assertion that he pleaded for the Jesuits. The Society seemed to be doomed.

Back to Index Next