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Title: A Candid History of the Jesuits
Author: Joseph McCabe
Release Date: January 22, 2018 [EBook #56414]
Language: English
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A CANDID HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
A CANDID HISTORY
OF
THE JESUITS
BY
JOSEPH McCABE
AUTHOR OF
"THE DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME" ETC.
LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1913
PREFACE
It is the historic custom of the Church of Rome to enlist in its
service monastic or quasi-monastic bodies in addition to the ordinary
clergy. In its hour of greatest need, at the very outbreak of the
Reformation, the Society of Jesus was formed as one of these auxiliary
regiments, and in the war which the Church of Rome has waged since
that date the Jesuits have rendered the most spirited and conspicuous
service. Yet the procedure of this Society has differed in many
important respects from that of the other regiments of the Church, and
a vast and unceasing controversy has gathered about it. It is probable
that a thousand times, or several thousand times, more books and
pamphlets and articles have been written about the Jesuits than about
even the oldest and most powerful or learned of the monastic bodies.
Not a work of history can be opened, in any language, but it will
contain more references to the Jesuits than to all the other religious
orders collectively. But opinions differ as much to-day as they did a
hundred or two hundred years ago about the character of the Jesuits,
and the warmest eulogies are chilled by the most bitter and withering
indictments.
What is a Jesuit? The question is asked still in every civilised
land, and the answer is a confusing mass of contradictions. The most
learned historians read the facts of their career so differently,
that one comes to a verdict expressing deep and criminal guilt, and
another acquits them with honour. Since the foundation of the Society
these drastically opposed views of its action have been taken, and
the praise and homage of admirers have been balanced by the intense
hatred of an equal number of Catholic opponents. It would seem that
some impenetrable veil lies over the history and present life of the
Society, yet on both sides its judges refuse to recognise obscurity.
Catholic monarchs and peoples have, time after time, driven the Jesuits
ignominiously over their frontiers; Popes have sternly condemned them.
But they are as active, and nearly as numerous, in the twentieth
century as in the last days of the old political world.
No marshalling of historical facts will change the feeling of the
pronounced admirers and opponents of the Jesuits, and it would be idle
to suppose that, because the present writer is neither Roman Catholic
nor Protestant, he will be awarded the virtue of impartiality. There
seems, however, some need for an historical study of the Jesuits which
will aim at impartiality and candour. On one side we have large and
important works like Crétineau-Joly's _Histoire religieuse, politique,
et littéraire de la Compagnie de Jésus_, and a number of smaller
works, written by Catholics of England or America, from the material,
and in the spirit, of the French historian's work. Such works as
these cannot for a moment be regarded as serious history. They are
panegyrics or apologies: pleasant reading for the man or woman who
wishes to admire, but mere untruth to the man or woman who wishes to
know. Indeed, the work of M. Crétineau-Joly, written in conjunction
with the Jesuits, which is at times recommended as the classical
authority on the Society, has worse defects than the genial omission
of unedifying episodes. He makes the most inflated general statements
on the scantiest of material, is seriously and frequently inaccurate,
makes a very generous use of the "mental reserve" which his friends
advocate, and sometimes embodies notoriously forged documents without
even intimating that they are questioned.
Such works naturally provoke an antagonistic class of volumes, in
which the unflattering truths only are presented and a false picture
is produced to the prejudice of the Jesuits. An entirely neutral
volume on the Jesuits does not exist, and probably never will exist.
The historian who surveys the whole of the facts of their remarkable
and romantic career cannot remain neutral. Nor is it merely a question
of whether the writer is a Roman Catholic or no. The work of M.
Crétineau-Joly was followed in France by one written by a zealous
priest, the Abbé Guettée, which tore its predecessor to shreds, and
represented the Society of Jesus as fitly condemned by Pope and kings.
It will be found, at least, that the present work contains an
impartial account both of the virtue and heroism that are found in
the chronicles of the Jesuits, and the scandals and misdeeds that may
justly be attributed to them. It is no less based on the original
Jesuit documents, as far as they have been published, and the work of
Crétineau-Joly, than on the antagonistic literature, as the reader
will perceive. Whether or no it seems to some an indictment, it is
a patient endeavour to give all the facts, within the compass of the
volume, and enable the reader to form a balanced judgment on the
Society. It is an attempt to _understand_ the Jesuits: to understand
the enthusiasm and fiery attachment of one half of the Catholic world
no less than the disdain or detestation of the other, to employ the
white and the black, not blended into a monotonous grey but in their
respective places and shades, so as to afford a truthful picture of
the dramatic fortunes of the Society during nearly four centuries, and
some insight into the character of the men who won for it such ardent
devotion and such intense hostility.
J.M.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Origin of the Society 1
II. The First Jesuits 27
III. Early Storms 55
IV. General Francis Borgia 80
V. Progress and Decay under Acquaviva 106
VI. The Early Jesuits in England 142
VII. The First Century of Jesuitism 167
VIII. Under the Stuarts 195
IX. The Struggle with the Jansenists 220
X. The Expulsion from Portugal and Spain 253
XI. The Foreign Missions 279
XII. In the Germanic Lands 311
XIII. The Suppression of the Society 334
XIV. The Restoration 364
XV. The New Jesuits 390
XVI. The Last Phase 424
Index 445
A CANDID HISTORY OF THE
JESUITS
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY
In the early summer of the year 1521, some months after Martin Luther
had burned the Pope's bull at Wittenberg and lit the fire of the
Reformation, a young Basque soldier lay abed in his father's castle
at the foot of the Pyrenees, contemplating the wreck of his ambition.
Iñigo of Loyola was the youngest son in a large family of ancient
lineage and little wealth. He had lost his mother at an early date, and
had been placed by a wealthy aunt at court, where he learned to love
the flash of swords, the smile of princes, the softness of silk and of
women's eyes, and all the hard deeds and rich rewards of the knight's
career. From the court he had gone to the camp, and had set himself
sternly to the task of cutting an honourable path back to court.
Fearless in war, skilful in sport and in martial exercises, refined
in person, cheerful in temper, and ardent in love, the young noble
had seen before him a long avenue of knightly adventure and gracious
recompense. He was, in 1521, in his thirtieth year of age, or near
it--his birth-year is variously given as 1491 or 1493; a clean-built,
sinewy little man, with dark lustrous eyes flashing in his olive-tinted
face, and thick black hair crowning his lofty forehead. And a French
ball at the siege of Pampeluna had, at one stroke, broken his leg and
shattered his ambition.
It took some time to realise the ruin of his ambition. The chivalrous
conquerors at Pampeluna had treated their brave opponent with
distinction, and had, after dressing his wounds, sent him to the Loyola
castle in the Basque provinces, where his elder brother had brought the
surgeons to make him fit for the field once more. The bone, they found,
had been badly set; it must be broken again and re-set. He bore their
operations without a moan, and then lay for weeks in pain and fever.
He still trusted to return to the camp and win the favour of a certain
great lady--probably the daughter of the Dowager-Queen of Naples--whose
memory he secretly cherished. Indeed, on the feast of the Apostles
Peter and Paul, he spoke of it with confidence; he told his brother
that the elder apostle had entered the dark chamber and healed him on
the eve of the festival. Unhappily he found, when the fever had gone,
that the second setting of his leg had been so ill done that a piece
of bone projected below the knee, and the right leg was shorter than
the left. Again he summoned the mediæval surgeons and their appalling
armoury, and they sawed off the protruding piece of bone and stretched
his leg on a rack they used for such purposes; and not a cry or curse
came from the tense lips. But the right leg still refused to meet its
fellow, and shades gathered about Iñigo's glorious prospect of life. A
young man who limps can hardly hope to reach a place of honour in the
camp, or the gardens of the palace, or the hearts of women. Talleyrand,
later, would set out on his career with a limp; and Talleyrand would
become a diplomatist.
Iñigo lay in the stout square castle of rugged stone, which is now
reverently enclosed, like a jewel, in a vast home of the Jesuits. It
then stood alone in a beautiful valley, just at the foot of the last
southern slopes of the Pyrenees, about a mile from the little town
of Azpeitia. The mind of the young Basque heaved with confused and
feverish dreams as he lay there, in the summer heat, beside the wreck
of his ambition. He called for books of knight-errantry, to while
away the dreary days, but there were none in the Loyola castle, and
someone--a pious sister, perhaps--brought him a _Life of Christ_ and a
_Flowers of the Saints_. For lack of anything better he read them: at
first fingering the leaves with the nearest approach to disdain that a
Christian soldier dare admit, then starting with interest, at length
flushing with enthusiasm. What was this but another form of chivalry?
Nay, when you reflected, it was the only chivalry worth so fierce a
devotion as his. Here was a way of winning a fair lady, the Queen of
Heaven, whose glances were worth more than the caresses of all the
dames in Castile: here was a monarch to serve, whose court outshone
the courts of France and Spain as the sun outshines the stars: here
were adventures that called for a higher spirit than the bravado of the
soldier.
The young Basque began to look upon a new world from the narrow windows
of the old castle. Down the valley was Azpeitia, and even there one
could find monsters and evil knights to slay in the cause of Mary.
Southward were the broad provinces of Spain, full of half-converted
Moors and Jews and ever-flourishing vices. Across the hills and the
seas were other kingdoms, calling just as loudly for a new champion of
God and Mary. One field, far away at the edge of the world, summoned
him with peremptory voice; after all the Crusades the sites in the Holy
Land were still trodden by the feet of blaspheming Turks. The blood
began to course once more in the veins of the soldier.
During the winter that followed his friends noticed that he was
making a wonderful chronicle of the lives of Christ and His saints.
He was skilled in all courtly accomplishments--they did not include
learning--and could write, and illuminate very prettily, sonnets to
the secret lady of his inner shrine. Now he used his art to make a
pious chronicle, with the words and deeds of Christ in vermilion and
gold, the life of Mary in blue, and the stories of the saints in the
less royal colours of the rainbow, and his dark pale face was lit by a
strange light. There were times when this new light flickered or faded,
and the fleshly queen of his heart seemed to place white arms about
him, and the sunny earth fought with the faint vision of a far-off
heaven. Then he prayed, and scourged himself, and vowed that he would
be the knight of Christ and Mary; and--so he told his followers long
afterwards--the heavy stone castle shook and rumbled with the angry
passing of the demon. He told them also that he had at the time a
notion of burying himself in the Carthusian monastery at Seville, and
sent one to inquire concerning its way of life; but such a design is so
little in accord with his knight-errant mood that we cannot think he
seriously entertained it.
By the spring the struggle had ended and Ignatius--he exchanged his
worldly name for that of a saint-model--set out in quest of spiritual
adventure. The "sudden revolution," as Crétineau-Joly calls his
conversion, had occupied about nine months. Indeed, friends and foes
of the Jesuits have conspired to obscure the development of his
feelings: the friends in order that they may recognise a miracle in
the conversion, the foes in order that they may make it out to have
been no conversion at all, but a transfer of selfish ambition from the
camp to the Church. Whatever be the truth about Iñigo's earlier morals,
he had certainly received a careful religious education in boyhood,
and he would just as certainly not learn scepticism at the court set
up by Ferdinand and Isabella. His belief that he had a vision of St.
Peter, a few weeks after receiving his wound and before he read the
pious books, shows that he had kept a vivid religious faith in the
camp. Some looseness of conduct would not be inconsistent with this,
especially in Spain, but the darker descriptions of his adolescent ways
which some writers give are not justified. "He was prone to quarrels
and amatory folly," is all that the most candid of his biographers
says. Let us grant the hot Basque blood a quick sense of honour and a
few love-affairs. On the whole, Iñigo seems to have been an officer of
the stricter sort, and a thorough Catholic. Hence we can understand
that, as earth grows dark and cheerless for him, and the casual reading
brings before him in vivid colouring the vision of faith, his fervent
imagination is gradually won, and he sincerely devotes his arms to the
service of Christ and Mary.
Piously deceiving his brother as to his destination, he set out on a
mule in the month of March. He would go to the shrine of Our Lady at
Montserrat, to ask a blessing on his enterprise, and then cross the
sea to convert the Mohammedans in Palestine. His temper is seen in an
adventure by the way. He fell in with one of the Moors who had put on a
thin mantle of Christian profession in order that they might be allowed
to remain in Spain, and talked to him of Our Lady of Montserrat. Being
far from the town and the ears of Inquisitors, the Moor spoke lightly
of the Mother of Christ, and, when the convert showed heat, fled at
a gallop. Ignatius wondered, with his hand on his sword, whether or
no his new ideal demanded that he should follow and slay the man. He
left the point to God, or to his mule, and was taken on the road to
Montserrat.
At last he came to the steep mountain, with saw-like peaks, which rises
out of the plain some twenty miles to the north-west of Barcelona, with
the famous shrine of the Virgin on its flank. In the little town of
Iguelada, at the foot of the mountain, he bought the rough outfit of a
pilgrim--a tunic of sackcloth, a rope-girdle, a pair of rough sandals,
a staff, and a gourd--and made his way up the wild slopes, among the
sober cypresses, to the Benedictine monastery which guarded the shrine.
For three days he knelt at the feet of one of the holiest of the monks,
telling, with many tears, the story of his worldly life. Then he went
again to the town, took aside a poor-clad beggar, as Francis of Assisi
had done in his chronicle, and exchanged garments with him, putting the
sackcloth tunic over his rags. It was the eve of the great festival of
Mary, the Annunciation (March 25th), and he spent the night kneeling
before the altar, as he had read of good knights doing before they
took the field. In the morning he hung his sword in the shrine and set
forth. From that moment we shall do well to forget that Ignatius had
been a soldier, and seek some other clue to his conduct.
The next step in his journey toward Rome is described at great length
in lives of the saint, yet it is not wholly intelligible. Instead of
going to Barcelona, where one took ship, he went to Manresa, and his
pilgrimage was postponed for nearly a year. He did not take the high
road to Barcelona, says his biographer, lest he should meet the people
coming to the shrine: a theory which would not only require another
theory to explain it, but which gives no explanation of the year's
delay. Others think that he heard there was plague in the port; though
the plague would not last a year, and one may question if Ignatius
would flee it. The truth seems to be that the idea of spending his
life in the East was already yielding in his mind to another design:
the plan of forming a Society was dimly breaking on him. He had studied
the monastic life in the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat, and had
brought away with him a book, written by one of their abbots, over
which he would brood to some purpose. He had a vague feeling that the
appointed field of adventure might be Europe.
However that may be, he took a road that led away from Barcelona, and
as he limped and suffered, for he had discarded the mule and would
make his pilgrimage afoot, he asked where he could find a hospital (in
those days a mixture of hostel and hospital). He was taken to Manresa,
a picturesque little town in one of the valleys of the district, where
he lodged in the hospital for a few days, and then, instead of going to
Barcelona, found an apartment and became a local celebrity. The beggar
to whom he had given his clothes had, naturally, been arrested, and
Ignatius was forced to tell his strange story, in order to clear the
man and himself. The story grew as it passed from mouth to mouth, and
it was presently understood that the dirty, barefoot, ill-clad beggar,
who asked a little coarse bread at the doors, and retired to pray
and scourge himself, was one of the richest grandees of the eastern
provinces. Children followed "Father Sackcloth" about the streets; men
sneered at his uncut nails and his long, wild black locks and thin
face; women wept, and asked his prayers.
After a few months he found a cavern outside the town, at the foot
of the hills, and entered upon the period of endless prayer and wild
austerity in which he wrote his book, the _Spiritual Exercises_. He
scourged himself, until the blood came, three times a day: he ate so
little, and lived so intense a life, that he was sometimes found
unconscious on the floor of the cave, and had to be removed and nursed;
his deep black eyes seemed to gleam from the face of a corpse. Thus he
lived for six months, and wrote his famous book. I need not analyse
that passionate guide to the spiritual life, or consider the legend of
its miraculous origin. We know from Benedictine writers that Ignatius
had received at Montserrat a copy of the _Exercitatorium_ of their
abbot Cisneros, and anyone familiar with Catholic life will know that
similar series of "meditations" are, and always have been, very common.
There is an original plan in Ignatius's book, and the period during
which the mind must successively brood over sin and hell, virtue and
heaven, Christ and the devil, is boldly extended to four weeks. These
are technicalities;[1] the deeply original thing in the work is its
intensity, and for the source of this we need only regard those six
months of fierce inner life in the cave near Manresa.
In later years Ignatius claimed that the general design of his Society,
and even the chief features of its constitution, were revealed to
him in that cavern. "I saw it thus at Manresa," he used to say when
he was asked why such or such a feature was included. In this he is
clearly wrong. His Society was, in essence and details, a regiment
enlisted to fight Protestantism, and Ignatius certainly knew nothing
of Protestantism as a formidable menace to the Pope's rule in 1522;
one may doubt if he was yet aware of the existence of Luther. We may
conclude again that he had in mind a vague alternative to his mission
to the Mohammedans. Those who are disposed to believe that the Society
of Jesus was in any definite sense projected by him at Manresa will
find it hard to explain why for five years afterwards he still insisted
that his mission was to the Turks.
In January 1523 he set out for Barcelona, trimming his nails, combing
and clipping his hair, and exchanging his sack for clothes of coarse
grey stuff. He did not wish to attract too much attention, he said. He
was detained a few weeks at Barcelona, and begged his bread, and served
the poor and the sick, in the way which was to become characteristic of
the early Jesuits. On Palm Sunday he entered Rome, lost in a crowd of
other pilgrims and beggars, and from there he walked on foot to Venice,
whence he sailed in July. Within six months he was back in Venice. The
Franciscan monks who controlled the Christian colony at Jerusalem had
sent him home very quickly, fearing that his indiscreet fervour would
lead to trouble with the Turks. The whole expedition was Quixotic, if
it was really meant to be more than a pilgrimage, as Ignatius knew not
a word of any language but Basque and Castilian. He returned to Venice
in a thin ragged coat, his legs showing flagrantly through his tattered
trousers, and in this guise he crossed on foot to Genoa, in hard wintry
weather. By the end of February he was again in Barcelona.
For several years yet Ignatius will continue to speak of the conversion
of the Turks as his chief mission, but his actions suggest that the
alternative in his mind was growing larger. The year's experience had
taught him that the knight of the Lord needed education, and he sat
among the boys at Barcelona learning the Latin grammar and startling
them by rising into literal ecstasies over the conjugation of the verb
"to love." He now dressed in neat plain clothes, but begged his bread
on the way to school and took every occasion to preach the gospel.
Once, when he had converted a loose community of nuns, the fast young
men of Barcelona, who were angry at this interference with their
pleasures, sent their servants to waylay him. They nearly killed him
with their staves. Many jeered at him as a hypocrite or a fanatic: many
revered him, and a few youths became his first disciples. With three of
these he went, after two years' study in Barcelona, to the University
of Alcalà, and began his higher studies. But he was so eager to make an
end of this intellectual preparation, and so busy with saving souls and
gaining proselytes, that he tried to take simultaneously the successive
parts of the stately mediæval curriculum, and learned very little.
His first attempt to found a Society also ended in disastrous failure.
Opinion in Alcalà was divided about "the sackcloth men." Some
picturesque figures were known in the religious life of Spain, but no
one had yet seen such a thing as this little band of youths, led by a
pale and worn man of thirty-two, who went barefoot from house to house,
begging their bread, and passed from the schools in the evening to
the hospitals or the homes of the poor, or stood boldly in the public
squares and told sinners to repent. It was an outrage on the dignity
of ecclesiastical life, and so they were denounced to the Inquisition,
and two learned priests were sent from Seville to examine them. Mystics
were hardly less obnoxious to the Inquisition than secret Jews and
Moors, and then there was this new device of Satan which was said to
be spreading in Germany. Ignatius and his grey-coated young preachers
were arrested and brought before the terrible tribunal. Their doctrine
was found to be sound, but they were forbidden to wear a uniform dress
and were ordered to put shoes on their feet. They dyed their coats
different colours, and returned to their work; as Jesuits have often
done since.
Four months afterwards, the officers of the Inquisition fell on them
again and put them in prison. Among the women who sought the spiritual
guidance of Ignatius were some ladies of wealth, who wished to follow
his example. It is said that he did not consent, and they set out,
against his will, to beg their bread and tend the sick. This was too
much for respectable folk in Alcalà, and Ignatius was closely examined
to see whether he was not a secret Jew, since Christians did not do
these things. The inquiry ended in the companions being ordered to
dress as other students did, and to forbear preaching for four years.
It is important to notice how from the first Ignatius, relying on his
inner visions, will not bend to any authority if he can help it. He
and his youths walked to Salamanca, and resumed their ways, but the
eye of the Inquisition was on them, and they were imprisoned again.
The authorities now fastened on them a restriction which may puzzle a
layman: they were forbidden to attempt to distinguish between mortal
and venial sin until their theological studies were completed. It
meant, in practice, that they must not disturb the gay sinners of Spain
with threats of hell, and for the time it entirely destroyed the design
of Ignatius. His disciples fell away, and Ignatius fled to a land where
there were no Inquisitors. He crossed the Pyrenees and went the whole
length of France on foot.
The seven years which he spent at Paris were of the greatest importance
in the life of Ignatius. Of his studies little need be said. He now
took the university courses in proper succession, and won his degree
in 1534. But these studies were only a means to an end, and he never
became a scholar. He discarded books, wrote a very poor Latin, and took
long to master Italian. For secular knowledge he had a pious disdain.
His followers were to be learned just in so far as it was needed to
capture and retain the control of youth and promote the authority of
the Pope. The chief interest of the long stay in Paris is that he there
founded his Society, and the manner of its foundation is of great
importance.
He had not been long at the University before his strange ways set
up the usual conflict of opinion. Was he a hypocrite, or a fool, or
a saint? From the youths who took the more complimentary view of his
ways he picked out a few to form the little band of disciples he was
always eager to have, and put them through the Spiritual Exercises.
They came out of this fiery ordeal in heroic temper, sold their little
possessions, and began to beg their bread; to the extreme indignation
of their friends in the Spanish colony. In order to save time for
study, Ignatius used to go to the Low Countries in the holidays and
beg funds for his "poor students" among the Spanish merchants. One
year--the year before Henry VIII. set up the Church of England--he went
to London, but we know only that the city was very generous to him. On
these alms Ignatius and his disciples maintained their life of prayer,
austerity, and philanthropy, living in one of the colleges among the
other students and angling prudently for souls. The irritation against
Ignatius among the Spaniards became so great that the Rector was
persuaded to inflict on him a public flogging, the last disgrace of an
unpopular student. He was not flogged, however; nor is there anything
really miraculous, as some think, in the Rector's change of mind.
Ignatius feared the effect on his disciples and had a private talk with
the Rector before the appointed hour. He had a marvellous power of
persuasion and penetration.
These earlier followers seem in time to have fallen away, or never
been admitted to his secret designs, and it was not until 1530 that he
began to gather about him the men whose names have been inscribed in
the history of Europe. In 1530 Ignatius shared his room with a gentle
and deeply religious youth from Savoy, Peter Favre, a peasant's son who
had already won the doctor's cap and priestly orders, as pious as he
was clever. He had made a vow of chastity in his thirteenth year, and
was now, in his twenty-fifth year, as eager to keep a clean conscience
as to advance in learning. He acted as philosophical coach to Ignatius.
From Aristotle and Aquinas they passed, in their nightly talk, to other
matters, and Favre presently made the Exercises.
Francis Xavier, a Navarrese youth of high birth, was a friend of Favre,
and, like him, a brilliant student and keen hungerer for knowledge.
He was a young man of great refinement, and his large soft blue eyes
looked with disdain on the eccentricities of Ignatius; he was not a
little vain of his learning, his handsome person, and his skill in
running. Who but Ignatius could have seen the Francis Xavier of a later
day, wearing out his life in the conversion of savages, in this elegant
and self-conscious scholar? Francis Thompson speaks with admiration
of the "holy wiles" by which Ignatius secured this gifted and elusive
pupil. He laid hold of him by his vanity. Xavier taught philosophy and
was ambitious to have his lecture-room full. Ignatius sat at his feet,
brought others to the lectures, and gave them generous praise. After
a time Xavier made the Exercises, and, in a secret conversation with
Ignatius, was won to the plan of devoting his life to the conversion of
the Mohammedans--or to some other religious campaign.
One by one the early Jesuits were captured by the skilful fisher of
men. To the first two were soon added Diego Lainez, a Castilian youth
of great ability and quiet strength of character, a future General of
the Society; Alfonso Salmeron, a fiery and eloquent youth from Toledo,
then in his twentieth year, who would become one of the most learned
opponents of the Protestants; Nicholas Alfonso, from Valladolid,
commonly known, from his native village, as Bobadilla, a fearless and
impetuous fighter; and Simon Rodriguez, a handsome Spanish youth of
noble birth, who would prove an admirable courtier when kings were to
be won. Many others whom Ignatius sought refused to accept his stern
ideal, and many were kept in the outer courts of his temple, as it
were, and not admitted to share his secret design. The features of the
coming Society were singularly foreshadowed. Only these six out of all
the friends and companions of Ignatius knew anything of the great plan
which filled his mind, and not one of the six knew which of the others
were admitted, like himself, to the inner counsels of the master. Each
was initiated in the strictest confidence, and forbidden to speak of it
to his most intimate friend. It was wholly unlike the foundation of any
other religious body.
At last, in July 1534, the six youths were permitted to know each
other as comrades in arms. It was time to discuss what form their
crusade should take, and Ignatius proposed that, after a week or
two of increased austerity and prayer, they should make the vow
of self-dedication and decide upon their future. There is the
characteristic impress of Ignatius on every feature of the enterprise.
The ceremony was not to be in one of the churches of Paris, but
away across the meadows in the quiet little chapel of St. Denis on
Montmartre; in fact, in the crypt underneath the chapel. And on August
15th they went out from the city gates in the early morning for what
proved to be the historic foundation of the Society of Jesus. Paris was
still, at that time, a comparatively narrow strip of town on either
bank of the Seine centring upon the island which bore the cathedral and
the palace. A mile or two of meadows and vineyards lay between it and
the green hill of Montmartre, on the slope of which was the old chapel
of St. Denis. Underneath the choir was a small vault-like chapel, and
in this, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, the little band
of fervent southerners gathered to hear Peter Favre, the only priest
amongst them, say the Mass of the Virgin. At its close they knelt in
turns before the altar, and each vowed that he would live in poverty
and chastity, and either go out to convert the Turks or go wherever
the Pope should direct. No rumbling of angry devils was heard on this
occasion: the life of Paris flowed on its sparkling way; yet there was
born in that dim vault on that August morning one of the most singular
and formidable forces in the religious life of Europe.
The Society of Jesus was thus formed, though the seven men did not
know it, or adopt any corporate name. They broke their fast and spent
the day on the slope of the hill, elated with the joy of brotherhood
and the promise of mighty enterprise, talking of the adventurous
future. What should be the next step? Again we find the stamp of the
peculiar genius of Ignatius on their decision: the features which would
degenerate into what is called Jesuitry in the hearts and minds of
less sincerely religious men. They were to return to their studies,
their philanthropy, and their secrecy, for two years, and they would
meet at Venice at the beginning of 1537. Ignatius never hurried. He
lived as if he intended to quit the world very speedily; he acted as
if he were assured of long life. He was founding a body whose supreme
and distinctive aim should be to serve the Pope, yet he concealed his
work from the Pope's representatives as carefully as if he were really
forming an auxiliary troop for Martin Luther. Let it be carefully
noted, too, that they vowed either to go to Palestine _or_ to serve
the Pope in some other way appointed by him. It seems clear that, if
Ignatius had not already abandoned the idea of a mission to the Turks,
he held it lightly. In Paris he had learned that the spirit of the
Reformation was spreading over Europe as fire spreads over a parched
prairie. Men talked much of Luther and Calvin, little of Mohammed.
They returned to their colleges and their hospitals for two years,
and were known to their companions only as monks who were too ascetic
to enter a monastery. Ignatius practised fearful austerities, and his
followers fasted and scourged themselves. Xavier looked back with such
contrition on his former fame as a runner that he tied cords round
his legs until they bit into the flesh and caused a dangerous malady.
Probably the long delay was proposed by Ignatius in the hope that he
might add to the number of his followers, but he found no more at Paris
worthy or willing to be initiated; though three--Le Jay, Paschase
Brouet, and Codure--were added after his departure. He had gone to
Spain in the spring of 1535. Those of the youths who had property to
sacrifice had talked of going to Spain to arrange their affairs, but
Ignatius took the work on himself. His health was poor, he said, and
he would try his native air; he was also eager to keep them from their
native air and disapproving families. In March he walked afoot from
Paris to Loyola, begging his bread by the way.
The report of his life had reached the quiet valley at the foot of
the Pyrenees, and he found his brother and many admirers waiting in
the last stage of his journey. He remained three months in Azpeitia,
and, as no one could now interfere with his fiery preaching, he urged
his townsmen to repent and startled the province. His sanctity was now
beyond question, because a woman had recovered the use of a withered
arm by washing his linen. Then he arranged the affairs of his disciples
and went to Venice. Here Hozes and the Eguia brothers were added to the
secret fraternity, and a year was spent in tending the sick and other
work of edification. The year 1537 broke at last, and in its first week
the six disciples, worn and ragged from the long journey, joined their
master. Walking in demure pairs, a staff in one hand and a chaplet in
the other, begging their bread and exhorting all they met to virtue
and repentance, the six learned students of the Paris University had
covered afoot, in the depth of winter, the hundreds of miles that lay
between Paris and Venice; flying before the advances of bold women,
beaming under the abuse of the new heretics, facing the Alps more
bravely than a Hannibal or a Napoleon. Strong efforts had been made to
keep them at Paris. Why abandon their precious work at the University
for an unknown world? They had a secret vow, they said; though they
probably had little more idea than Ignatius of going to Palestine. None
of them learned Arabic or Turkish, or studied the Koran: what they did
learn was the Catholic doctrine assailed by the followers of Luther.
For a month or two the strange missionaries mystified and edified
Venice. It was known that some of them were nobles, and all brilliant
scholars, yet they performed the most repulsive offices for the sick,
and at times put their mouths to festering wounds. Cardinal Caraffa,
a stern Neapolitan reformer, asked Ignatius to join the new Theatine
order which he had just founded, and Ignatius replied that they had
vowed to go to Palestine. They would remember their refusal when
Caraffa became Pope. At last, in the middle of Lent, Ignatius sent his
followers to Rome to ask the Pope's blessing on their mission. He would
not go himself, as he feared the enmity of Caraffa and of the Spanish
envoy Ortiz, who had opposed them at Paris. There was, in fact, little
danger of Ignatius going without the Pope's blessing, as a new war with
the Turk had broken out, and it would not be unjust to conclude that
the real object of Ignatius was to bring his little troop to the notice
of Paul III. Ortiz himself procured them an audience, and they received
the papal blessing to accompany them to Palestine--if they could get
there, the Pope lightly said. It is singular that Ignatius, after
waiting so long, should choose a time for their departure when the seas
were closed against them.
They were ordained priests at Venice, and then they scattered over
Northern Italy, to allow a year's grace to the Palestinian mission
and let other cities see their ways. Bologna, Ferrara, Siena, and
Padua--all university towns--now witnessed the strange labours of the
nameless knights of Christ. The years were not far distant when men
would start with suspicion at the coming of a "Jesuit" and wonder
what dark intrigue brought him amongst them, but in those early days
they seemed the plainest and most guileless of ministers. Two soberly
dressed, barefooted youths, their pale faces warmed by the smile which
the master bade them wear under the eyes of men, would enter the gate
one evening, covered with the dust of long roads, and mount some stone
in the busy street or square; and, when men and women gathered round
to see the tricks of these foreign jugglers or tumblers, they would be
startled to hear such fiery preaching as had not been heard in Italy
since the fresh spring-time of the followers of Francis and Dominic.
Then the preachers would beg a crust of bread and a cup of water, and
ask for the hospital, where they might serve the sick. They had no
name, the inquirer learned, and belonged to no monastic body; they
were simple knights-errant in the cause of Christ and the poor. The
one feature by which they might, to some close observer, have given an
inkling of the future was that they hung about the universities and
impressed youths with their learning; or that, while they served the
poor, they were pleased to direct the consciences of noble and wealthy
women. Yet who would suppose that within twenty years these men would
be intriguing for the control of the universities and shaping the
counsels of kings?
Ignatius, Favre, and Lainez went to Vicenza, and found a lodging in a
ruined monastery near the town. From this they went out daily to beg,
and tend the sick, and startle townsfolk and villagers with explosive
exhortations, in broken Italian, to lay aside their sins. Again the
Inquisition summoned them, and dismissed them. At last, when it was
clear that the road to the East was indefinitely closed, Ignatius
called his followers from their several towns, and a council was held
in the old convent. The events of these early days are known to us
only from Jesuit writers of the next generation, and, discarding only
the miracles with which they unnecessarily adorn the ways of their
founders, we may follow them with little reserve. These men were,
beyond question, in deadly earnest, though we shall see that some of
them sheltered little human frailties under their hair-shirts. But it
is quite plain that, however high and pure their aim was, they formed
and carried their plans with a diplomacy, almost an astuteness, of
which you will not find a trace in the founding of any other monastic
body. One monastic virtue is conspicuously absent from the aureole of
St. Ignatius--holy simplicity.
It was decided that Ignatius, Favre, and Lainez should go to Rome, and
the others should return to work in their university cities until they
were called to Rome. Before they parted, however, they gave themselves
a name, since people demanded one. We are, said Ignatius, the "Compañia
de Jesu," the "Company of Jesus"; although the prose of a later
generation has translated it the "Society of Jesus." Then Xavier and
Bobadilla went to Bologna, Rodriguez and Le Jay to Ferrara, Salmeron
and Brouet to Siena, Codure and Hozes to Padua, to tend the sick, and
instruct the children, and angle for recruits; and Ignatius and his
companions went on foot, in the depth of winter, to Rome.
Paul III. occupied the papal throne in the year 1537, and looked with
troubled eyes to the lands beyond the Alps, where the Reformation was
now in full blast. He was by temperament a Pope of the Renaissance,
a man of genial culture and artistic feeling, a man who owed his
elevation to his sister's intimacy with a predecessor, and who
might, if the age had not turned so sour, have carried even into the
papal apartments the graceful vices of his youth. But there was now
no mistaking the roll of the distant thunder; Rome was sobered and
disposed to put its house in order. Paul, knowing that the appalling
corruption of the Vatican, the clergy, and the monks must cease, or
else the Vatican and clergy and monks would cease, had appointed a
commission of the sterner cardinals to examine Luther's indictment of
his Church, and one of the clearest points of agreement was that the
unquestioned degradation of the monks throughout Christendom must be
severely punished. The general feeling was that most, if not all, of
the monastic orders should be suppressed. It was therefore a peculiarly
inopportune time to propose the establishment of a new order. Was
Ignatius more holy than Benedict, or Bruno, or Francis, or Dominic? And
had not every order that had yet been founded fallen into evil ways
within fifty years?
Ignatius was not more holy than Dominic and Francis, but he was
shrewder and more alert to the circumstances. He did not propose to
rush into the presence of Paul III. He and his companions settled at
the Spanish hospital, and began to tend the sick and instruct the
children. They began also to have influential admirers. "Let us,"
Ignatius had said, as they entered Rome, "avoid all relations with
women, except those of the highest rank." In later years he said
of their early work at Rome: "We sought in this way to gain men of
learning and of position to our side--or, to speak more correctly, to
God's side." This identification of "our" side and God's is the clue
to early Jesuitism. Men who were convinced of it might be intensely
earnest and unworldly, yet act as if they were ambitious. In fact,
they were ambitious to win the wealthy and powerful--Ignatius says it
repeatedly--"for the greater glory of God." And the work went forward
with great speed. They received a poor little house in a vineyard at
the foot of the Pincian Hill, and went out daily to minister and to
edify. One of their first friends was Codacio, a wealthy and important
official of the papal court. The better disposition of Ortiz, the
Spanish envoy, was also encouraged. Ignatius put him through the
Exercises in the old Monte Cassino Abbey, and, when the strain nearly
drove him mad, entertained him by performing some of the old Basque
dances: a subject for a painter, if ever there was. After a time the
Pope received Ignatius very affably, encouraged him to preach, and
found academic chairs for Favre and Lainez. Within a month or two
Ignatius had made so much progress that Roman gossip marked him as an
intriguer for the red hat, which he was not wealthy enough to buy.
Within four months, or at Easter 1538, Ignatius summoned the whole of
his followers to Rome. The poor little house in a vineyard was now
too small, and Codacio gave them a large house in the Piazza Margana.
From this they went out daily to beg and teach and preach, and to
visit "ladies of the highest rank." These eleven eloquent and learned
preachers, these nobles who begged their bread and washed verminous
invalids, soon divided the Roman world into ardent admirers and ardent
critics. An Augustinian friar, in particular, opened fire on them from
his pulpit. Ignatius was "a wolf in sheep's clothing," he insisted; let
people inquire at Alcalà, and Salamanca, and Paris, and Venice, and see
whether he was not wanted by the Inquisition here and there. Friends
at the Vatican were reminded that this sort of thing interfered with
their good work, and the Pope was induced to inquire into the charges;
but even the Pope's acquittal of them did not silence their critics,
and for a time they bore much poverty and anxiety. Half of Rome, if
not half of Catholicism, hated the Jesuits from their first year; and
it would be absurd to think that this was due to their fervour in
denouncing sin. It was due in a very large measure to the diplomatic
character of the work of Ignatius, which we perceive so clearly even in
the discreet narratives of the early Jesuit historians.
The infant Society was delivered from its perils by returning from
the cultivation of the rich and powerful to the service of the weak
and powerless. We shall constantly find the fortunes of the early
Jesuits vacillating according as they practise one or other of these
incongruous activities, and we can quite understand that their critics
came to see an element of calculation even in their philanthropy. By
their brave ministration to the poor they win the favour of the rich:
by the favour of the rich they rise to political and educational work,
and the poor are almost forgotten until some epidemic of criticism
threatens their very existence. It is quite useless to deny that there
was calculation in their humbler ministration when we find Ignatius
admitting it from the outset; yet it would be equally untrue to deny
that they served the poor with a sincere and often heroic humanity, and
that the favour and power they trusted to obtain by doing so were not
sought for their personal profit, but for the better discharge of what
they conceived to be a high mission.
So it was in the winter which closed the year 1538, in which their
project ran some risk of being buried under the stones of their
critics. The terrible cold of that winter led to a famine in Rome,
and the followers of Ignatius spent day and night in relieving the
sufferers and begging alms for them. Their house in the Piazza
Margana was converted into a hospital, and no less than four hundred
destitute men found a home in it. The sympathy of the pious slowly
returned to them. "So happy a diversion had to be put to account," says
Crétineau-Joly, and Ignatius began to draw up the rules of his Society
for presentation to the Pope. Night by night the eleven priests sat
in council to determine the broad features of their association: to
say, especially, if they would add a vow of obedience to their vows of
poverty and chastity and thus become a monastic body. In April they
decided that they would have a Superior and vow obedience to him; in
May they resolved to adopt that masterpiece of the "holy wiles" of
Ignatius, the most distinctive and most serviceable feature of the
Society--the vow to put themselves at the direct disposal of the Pope.
Naturally there was, and is, no religious body in the Catholic Church
whose members would not leap with alacrity to obey any order of the
Pope, and think it an honour to be selected for such a distinction;
indeed, we shall see that no other religious ever ventured to defy or
evade the commands of Popes as Jesuits have done. But we must observe
how happily this parade of obedience fitted the circumstances. The
Pope had entered upon a war against half of Christendom. Heresy was,
like an appalling tide, invading even his southern dominions, and it
was inevitable that he should be attracted by the proposal to put at
his service a body of men of high culture and heroic purpose, who
would be ready, at a word, to fly to a threatened point, to penetrate
in disguise into the lands of the heretics, to whisper in the ears
and fathom the counsels of kings, or to bear the gospel to the new
countries beyond the seas.
This was the beginning of the famous Jesuit Constitutions, which
were not completed and printed until 1558. A short summary of their
proposals was handed by Ignatius, in September, to Cardinal Contarini,
who would present it to the Pope. It was read and approved by one of
the Pope's monk-advisers, and Contarini then read it himself to Paul
III. "The finger of God is here," the Pope is reported to have said,
and he appointed three cardinals to examine the document with care.
Unfortunately for Ignatius, one of the three, Cardinal Guiddiccioni,
was so disgusted with the state of the monastic orders that he would
not even read the document. It seemed to him preposterous to add to
their number at a time when their corruption was ruining the Church.
In that sense he and his colleagues reported to the Pope, and Ignatius
betook himself, by prayer and good works, to a strenuous assault upon
the heavens, that some miracle might open the eyes of the cardinal.
And about a year later, the Jesuit historians say, the hostility of
Guiddiccioni was miraculously removed. He read the document, and was
enchanted with it; and on 27th September 1540 the bull "Regimini
militantis Ecclesiae" placed the Society of Jesus at the service of the
Counter-Reformation.
It need hardly be added that the "miracle" is susceptible of a natural
explanation. There is a curt statement in Orlandini, one of the first
historians of the Society, that during the year 1540 letters came to
Rome from all the towns where the followers of Ignatius had already
worked, telling the marvellous results of their preaching. Ignatius had
done much more than pray. Many a time in the course of the next few
chapters we shall find a shower of testimonial-letters falling upon a
town where there is opposition to the admittance of the Jesuits, and
they were not "unsolicited testimonials." Contarini, too, would not
lightly resign himself to defeat by his brother-cardinal. Codacio,
Ortiz, and many another, would help the work, under the discreet
guidance of Ignatius. Long before the Society was authorised, the Pope
was induced to employ the Jesuits for important missions. He had chosen
Rodriguez and Xavier, at the pressing request of the King of Portugal,
to carry the gospel to the Indies; he had sent Lainez and Favre,
at the prayer of a distinguished cardinal, to fight the growth of
Protestantism in Parma. Other members of the little group had gone to
discharge special missions, and glowing reports of their success came
to Rome. The Pope was won, and, when the Pope willed, it would hardly
need a miracle to induce Cardinal Guiddiccioni to read a document
which it was his office to read. Indeed, the statement that he refused
for twelve months to read a paper which the Pope enjoined him to read
is incredible; it was a good pretext for a change of mind, and for a
miracle. The Society of Jesus was founded on diplomacy.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: A good study of the controversy as to the indebtedness of
Ignatius to the Benedictines, and even the Mohammedans, from the point
of view of an outsider, will be found in H. Müller's _Les origines de
la Compagnie de Jésus_ (1898).]
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST JESUITS
From this account of the influences which shaped the character of the
Society of Jesus before and during its birth we may derive our first
clue to the singular history of the Jesuits. They might not implausibly
make a proud boast of the fact that they have always borne the intense
hostility of heretics and unbelievers, but the very reason they assign
for this--their effective service to the Church--prevents them from
explaining why they have, from their foundation, incurred an almost
equal enmity on the part of a very large proportion of the monks,
priests, and laymen of their own Church. "Jealousy," they whisper;
but since no other body in the Church, however learned or active, has
experienced this peculiar critical concentration of its neighbours, we
are bound to seek a deeper explanation. There are distinctive features
of the Jesuit Society which irritate alike the pious and the impious,
the Catholic and the non-Catholic.
We begin to perceive these features at the very birth of the Society.
Its founder has the temper of a monk, but the times will not permit
the establishment of a monastic order of the old type; a new regiment
of soldiers of the Church must engage in active foreign service, not
degenerate into fatness in domestic barracks. The success of Ignatius
was due to the fact that he had other qualities than those of the monk,
and he met the new conditions with remarkable shrewdness. It seems
to me a mistake to conceive him as a soldier above all things. He was
pre-eminently a diplomatist. He infused into the Society the energy
and fearlessness of the soldier, but he also equipped it with the
weapons of the diplomatist, or, one might say, of the secret-service
man. He was a most sincerely and unselfishly religious man, but he
used, and taught others to use, devices which the profoundly religious
man commonly disdains. The Jesuits were Jesuits from the start. It is
a truism, a fulfilment of the known command of Ignatius, that they
sought the favour of the rich and powerful; it is a fact lying on the
very surface of their history, as written by themselves, that they
accommodated their ideals to circumstances as no other religious order
had ever done in the first decades of its life; it is the boast of
their admirers that they used "holy wiles" in the attainment of their
ends. This stamp was impressed on them by inheritance from their sire
and the pressure of their surroundings. These things were consecrated
by the undoubted sincerity of the early Jesuit ideal; they wanted
power only for the service of Christ and the salvation of men. What
happened later was that the inner fire, the glow of which sanctified
these worldly manoeuvres in the mind of the first Jesuits, grew dim and
languid, and the traditional policy was developed until even crime and
vice and hypocrisy were held to be lawful if they contributed to the
power of the Jesuits.
An examination of the rules and the activity of the early Jesuits will
make this clear. The Constitutions of the Society were not completed
by Ignatius until several years after the establishment, and they were
afterwards modified and augmented by Lainez, a less religious man than
Ignatius, but it will be useful to consider at once their distinctive
and most important features. In the main they follow the usual lines
of monastic regulations, and many points which are ascribed to the
soldier Ignatius and usually held to be distinctive of his Society are
ancient doctrines of the monastic world; such are, the duties of blind
obedience, of detachment from family and country, and of surrendering
one's personality. The famous maxim, that a Jesuit must have no more
will than a corpse, is familiar in every monastic body, and is even
found in the rules of Mohammedan brotherhoods. Some writers have
conjectured that Ignatius borrowed much from the Moorish fraternities,
but it is difficult to see how he could have any knowledge of them, and
the parallels are not important. In any case, the story of the Society
will very quickly show us that this grim theory of blind obedience and
self-suppression was not carried out in practice; even the earliest
Jesuits were by no means will-less corpses and men who sacrificed their
affections and individuality.
Omitting points of small technical interest, I should say that the
most significant features of the Jesuit Constitutions are: the
establishment of a large body of priests (Spiritual Coadjutors) between
the novices and the professed members, the extraordinary provisions
by which a superior gets an intimate knowledge of his subjects, the
stress on the duty of teaching, the distinction between a "house" and
a "college," the deliberate recommendation to prefer youths of wealthy
or distinguished families (_cæteris paribus_) to poor youths, the
despotic power and lifelong appointment of the General, the fallacious
and imposing vow of direct obedience to the Pope, and the absence of
"choir." These primitive and fundamental features of the Society,
taken in conjunction with the special privileges which the Society
gradually wheedled from the Popes, go far toward explaining its great
material success and its moral deterioration. Some of these points need
no explanation, or have already been explained, and a few words will
suffice to show the effect of the others.
First as to the Spiritual Coadjutors. One who aspires to enter the
Society passes two years of trial as a "novice," then takes "simple"
(or dissolvable) vows and becomes a "scholastic" (student). In the
other monastic bodies, which now have simple vows, the aspirant takes
his "solemn" (or indissoluble) vows three years afterwards, before he
becomes a priest. The peculiarity of the Jesuits is that they defer the
taking of the "solemn" vows for a considerable number of years, and
they thus have a large body of priests who are not rigidly bound to the
Society and cannot hold important office in it. This gives the General,
who has a despotic power of dismissing these Spiritual Coadjutors, a
very lengthy period for learning the intimate character of men before
they are admitted to the secrets of the Society.
Then there is the remarkable scheme of spying, tale-bearing, and
registering by which this knowledge of men is secured. The aspirant
must make a general confession of his life to the superior, or some
priest appointed by him, when he enters the Society. He is from that
day closely observed and subjected to extraordinary tests, and a
strict obligation is laid on each to tell the faults and most private
remarks of his neighbour. The local superiors then send periodical full
reports on each man to the headquarters at Rome, where there must be
a bureau not unlike the criminal intelligence department of a great
police-centre: except that the good and the mediocre are as fully
registered as the suspects.
The important place assigned to teaching in the programme of the
Society also leads to serious modifications of the monastic ideal.
Every order has some device or other by which it escapes the practical
inconveniences of its vow of poverty, but the Jesuits have gone beyond
all others. They have drawn a casuistic distinction between a "college"
and a "house of the professed," and have declared that the ownership of
the former is not inconsistent with their vow of poverty. The result is
that they may heap up indefinite wealth in the shape of colleges and
their revenues, yet boast of their vow of poverty. The various devices
of the monastic bodies to, at the same time, retain and disclaim the
ownership of their property are many and curious. This is the one
instance of a monastic body boldly saying that its vow is consistent
with the ownership of great wealth. Hence the mercantile spirit which
will at once spread in the Society.
The deliberate counsel to prefer rich or noble youths to poor, when
their other qualifications are equal, is a further obvious source of
material strength and moral weakness; we shall soon find them making
wealth, or social standing, or talent, the first qualification. The
exemption from "choir" (or chanting the psalms in choir for several
hours a day) falls in the same category. When we add to these elements
of their Constitutions the extraordinary privileges they secured from
the Popes in the course of a decade or two, we have the preliminary
clues to the story of the rise and fall of the Society. They were
allowed to grant degrees in their colleges (and so ruin and displace
universities); they were declared exempt from the jurisdiction of the
local authorities, spiritual or secular; they might encroach on the
sphere of any existing monastery; and they received many other powers
which enabled them to pose as unique representatives of the Papacy.
The tendency which we thus detect in the legislation of the Society is
equally visible in much of the personal conduct of its founder, and
soon shows its dangers in the lives of his less fervent followers. We
have seen how the sanction of the Society was secured, and we must
note that Ignatius was not more ingenuous in obtaining control of it.
The conventional account of his appointment to the office of General
is edifying. About Easter 1541 he summoned to Rome, for the purpose of
electing a General, the nine fathers who had taken the solemn vows.
Four were unable to come, but they sent, or had left at Rome, written
votes, and Ignatius was unanimously elected. He protested, however,
that he was unworthy to hold the office, and compelled them to hold
a second ballot. At this ballot he received two-thirds of the votes,
three being cast for Favre. He then consulted his confessor, and was
told to accept the office; and for several days afterwards he washed
the dishes and discharged the humblest offices.
Orlandini naively confesses, however, that at the election Ignatius
gave a blank vote, and we can hardly suppose that he was so far lost
in contemplation as to be unaware that a blank vote was a vote for
himself. Further, the result of the second ballot plainly suggests
that, if Ignatius had again refused to accept the office, Favre would
have been appointed. It is difficult to doubt that he intended from
the first to hold the office of General, and indeed it would have been
ludicrous for them to appoint any other. But Ignatius knew his young
followers, and he seems to have acted in this way in order that they
might place the authority in his hands in the most emphatic manner.
They are described in the chronicles as little less than angelic, but
we shall presently find that some of them were very human, especially
in the matter of obedience, and that at the death of Ignatius they
quarrel like petty princes for the succession. Ignatius was piously
diplomatic. He would use his power unreservedly in the cause of Christ
and the Pope, but it is important to note how from the start the
founder of the Society employs casuistry or diplomacy in _getting_
power.
During the next fifteen years Ignatius remained at Rome, making only
three short and relatively unimportant missions into Italy. They
had moved from the house in the Piazza Margana to the foot of the
Capitoline Hill, where the famous church of the Gesù now is. The old
church of Sta Maria della Strada had been given to them, and Codacio
(who had joined the Society and given his wealth to it) had built
a house beside it for them. When Sta Maria proved too small, they
proposed to build a larger church, and nearly secured the services
of Michael Angelo; but the actual Gesù was begun in 1568 by Cardinal
Alexander Farnese.
From their house beside the old church the keen eyes of the General
followed the travels of his subjects to the ends of the earth and kept
watch on Rome. He was now approaching his fiftieth year: a bald, worn
man, with piercing black eyes in his sallow face, concealing an immense
energy and power of intrigue under his humble appearance. Under his eye
the novices were trained, and it was characteristic that he used to
protest, when others urged him to expel an unruly brother, that--to put
it in modern phrase--he liked a little "devil" in his novices. One of
the first was young Ribadeneira, a cardinal's page, a noble by birth.
He had come to their house one day when he was playing truant, and had
been caught by the romance of the life. He was only fourteen years old,
yet Ignatius received him and bore his fits of temper and rebellion
until he became a useful and obedient member. Between the fiery Spanish
boy and the aged and simple Codacio, the former papal official, there
was every shade of character to be studied and humoured. The younger
novices--they went down to the age of eleven--were encouraged to
laugh and play, and come to the General's room to have fruit peeled
for them; perhaps on the very day on which he was stirring the Pope
to set up an Inquisition on the Spanish model at Rome or in Portugal.
He loved the flowers of their garden, and tender ladies had no more
sympathetic confidant. Great austerities, of the Manresa type, he
rigorously forbade. The Jesuit was to be neat, clean, cheerful, strong,
industrious, guarded in speech--and obedient. When it was necessary to
strike, he struck at once. One night, when the prefect of the house
came to make his report, it appeared that one of the novices (a young
nobleman) had ridiculed the excessive zeal of another. Brother Zapata
was at once summoned from bed and put out of doors.
His personal life was simple, to the eye. A Bible, a breviary, and an
_Imitation of Christ_ were the only books in his poor chamber, which is
still shown to the visitor; and of these the breviary was not used, as
he wept so much in reading the office that he endangered his sight, and
the Pope excused him from reading it. He spent the first four hours of
his early day in meditation and the saying of Mass, then worked until
noon, when all dined together, in silence, and afterwards spent an
hour in conversation under his observant eye. Then he returned to his
desk, or took his stick and his sombrero, and limped to the hospital,
or to the houses of the very poor or the rich, or to the chambers of
cardinals or papal officials. Many a jeer and curse followed him as
he walked, in neat black cloak, with downcast eyes and grave smile,
courteous to every beggar or noble who addressed him. Rome was rich
with monuments of his philanthropy--schools, orphanages, rescue-homes,
etc.; but the fierce hostility never died, and at times it rose to the
pitch of a gale. After his round of visits he limped back, grave and
humble, to the house for the silent evening meal. When the novices were
abed, the prefect came to give him a minute account of the day's life
in the house, and, when the prefect was abed, the large eyes still
flashed in the worn, olive-tinted face. He slept only four hours a
night.
But all these pages of the written biography of Ignatius are of less
interest than the unwritten. To understand his real life during those
fifteen years of twenty-hour workdays you have to study the adventures
of his colleagues far away: to mark how the hostility of bishops
and doctors and princes is disarmed by a papal privilege or a papal
recommendation, how the Protestant plague cannot break out anywhere
but a Jesuit appears, how the most nicely fitted man is sent for each
special mission, how the man disappears when there is, rightly or
wrongly, a cry of scandal, how the long white arms of Ignatius Loyola
seem to stretch over the planet from Sta Maria della Strada, near the
Pope's palace. This vast and obscure activity of the General will be
best gathered from a short survey of the fortunes of the Jesuits during
his reign.
The first mission of interest to us, though not quite the first in
point of time, was the sending of two Jesuits to the British Isles. It
seemed that England was lost, and all that could be done was to resist
Henry's attempt to stamp out the old faith in Ireland and persuade
James V. to follow his profitable example in Scotland. The mission was
perilous, for, on the word of these Jesuits of the time, nearly every
chief in Ireland had gone over to Protestantism, and in Scotland the
nobles and officials were looking with moist lips at the fat revenues
of the monasteries. The Archbishop of Armagh, who had fled to Rome,
asked the Pope to send two Jesuits to his country, and Codure and
Salmeron were appointed. Codure died, however, during the negotiations,
and Paschase Brouet was named in his place. As usual, Ignatius chose
his men with shrewdness. Brouet, the "angel of the Society," was the
counterpart of Salmeron's vigour and learning. They were granted the
privileges of Nuncii by the Pope, though Ignatius directed them to
mention these privileges only when the success of the mission required.
In fact, he gave them a written paper of instructions as to their
personal behaviour when, on 10th September 1541, they left for Paris
and Edinburgh. They were to travel as poor Jesuits--but the wealthy
young noble Zapata was permitted to accompany and care for them.
What the precise aim of this mission was we do not know, but it
was from every point of view a complete failure. It is, of course,
represented as a success, and its purpose is said to have been merely
to hearten the suffering Irish people in their resistance and convey
to them indulgences and absolutions. But from the circumstances of
the time and the duration of the mission we may be sure that the two
Jesuits learned very little English, and less or no Gaelic, so that
the idea seems absurd. In Scotland, certainly, their mission was
political. They saw James at Stirling Castle, and easily got from him
an assurance that he would resist the allurements of Henry VIII. What
they trusted to do in Ireland we are not informed, and it seems most
reasonable to suppose that they were to see the chiefs and stiffen them
in their opposition to England. This they wholly failed to do, for the
leading men would have nothing to do with them. The customary Catholic
version of the enterprise is that they happily accomplished their
mission, traversed "the whole of Ireland" (as even Francis Thompson
says), consoling and absolving, and went home to report success. One
fears that this account may be typical of these early Jesuit reports
of missions. To learn Gaelic and traverse the whole of Ireland, or any
large part of it, in thirty-four days (Orlandini), in the sixteenth
century, and in circumstances which compelled them to travel with the
greatest prudence, would assuredly be a miracle, especially when we are
told that for some time even the common folk shrank from them, and it
is hinted that the scattered Irish priests were unfriendly.
Apparently they travelled a little in disguise, or hid in the
farms here and there, for a few weeks, granting indulgences and
dispensations, probably through some Gaelic interpreter, until the
English officials heard of their presence and put a price on their
heads. The Jesuit narrative credits them with the bold idea of going to
London and bearding the wicked Henry in his palace. Their behaviour was
singularly prudent for men with such exalted ideas. Leaving Ireland,
possibly at the entreaty of the Irish, as soon as the search for them
grew hot, they returned to Scotland, and finding that country also
aflame, they went on at once to Paris. There they received orders to
return to Scotland and discharge a secret mission similar to that
they had had in Ireland. They "hesitated and informed the Pope of the
state of things in Scotland," says the Jesuit historian; in fact, they
remained in Paris until the Pope allowed them to return to Rome. If any
be disposed to criticise their conduct, he may be reminded that Brouet
and Salmeron had spent several weeks in Ireland at the risk of their
lives. However, it is plain that we have to look closely into these
early Jesuit accounts of missions which covered the infant Society with
glory. A prudent examination of them discovers features which have been
carefully eliminated from later Jesuit, or pro-Jesuit, works on the
subject.
As Henry VIII. died in 1547, and Edward VI. in 1553, it may seem
singular that Ignatius did not, when the Catholic Mary acceded to the
throne, at once dispatch a band of his priests to help in restoring the
old faith. Neither Orlandini nor his discreet follower, Crétineau-Joly,
throws any light on the mystery, but a few important hints may be
gathered from the more candid early Jesuit historian Polanco, a close
associate of Ignatius, and the full solution is indicated in Burnet's
_History of the Reformation_ (ii. 526, in the Oxford edition). This
rare discovery of an independent document suggests that the early story
might read somewhat differently in many particulars if we were not
forced to rely almost entirely on Jesuit authorities.
From the brief statements scattered over the various volumes of
Polanco's _Historia Societatis_ it appears that from 1553 until his
death Ignatius made the most strenuous efforts to secure admission into
England. Cardinal Pole, it seems, asked the prayers of Ignatius for
his success when he was summoned to England, and, when Ignatius died
and Lainez again approached Pole, the cardinal pointedly replied that
the only way in which the Jesuits could aid him was by their prayers.
In the meantime (1554) Ignatius pressed Father Araoz, who was in great
favour at the Spanish court, to urge Philip, and induce ladies of the
court to urge him, to take Jesuits to England. In 1556 he sent Father
Ribadeneira, a courtly priest, to join Philip in Belgium and press the
request, but the reply was always that Pole was opposed to admitting
the Jesuits. Polanco makes it quite clear that Pole resisted all the
efforts of Ignatius from 1554 to 1556.
Burnet supplies the solution of the mystery. A friend of his discovered
a manuscript at Venice, from which it appears that Ignatius had
overreached himself and aroused the hostility of the cardinal. He
had written to Pole that, as Queen Mary was restoring such monastic
property as had fallen to the throne, it would be advisable to
entrust this to the Jesuits, since the monks were in such bad odour
in England; and he added that the Jesuits would soon find a way to
make other possessors of monastic property disgorge. Pole refused
their co-operation and left the Jesuits angry and disappointed. The
historian cannot regard an anonymous manuscript as in itself deserving
of credence, but the statement very plausibly illumines the situation.
I may add that in 1558 Father Ribadeneira was actually smuggled
into England in the suite of Count Gomez de Figueroa, who had gone
to console the ailing Queen.[2] The count was a warm patron of the
Jesuits, but Queen Mary died soon after his arrival, and the last hope
of the Jesuits was extinguished.
We cannot examine with equal freedom all the chronicles of early Jesuit
activity, and must be content to cull from the pages of the _Historia
Societatis Jesu_, the first section of which is written by Father
Orlandini, such facts as may enable us to form a balanced judgment
of the Society under Ignatius. Italy was, naturally, the first and
chief theatre of their labours, and in the course of a few years they
spread from the turbulent cities of Sicily to the foot of the Alps.
I have already described the work of Ignatius at Rome, and need add
only that, as Orlandini tells us, he was one of the most urgent in
pressing the reluctant Pope to "reform" the Roman Inquisition, or to
equip it with the dread powers of the Spanish tribunal. At the very
time when he was devising pleas for toleration in Protestant and
pagan lands, he was urging that in Italy and Portugal there should be
set up the most inhuman instrument of intolerance that civilisation
has ever known. The psychology of his attitude is simple; he was
convinced that he was asking tolerance for truth and intolerance for
untruth. The liberal-minded Romans were not persuaded of the justice
of his distinction, and the opposition to the Society increased. The
hostility, which at times went the length of breaking Jesuit windows,
is ascribed by his biographers chiefly to his zeal for the conversion
of prostitutes. He founded a large home for these women, and would
often follow them to their haunts in the _piazze_ and lead them himself
to St. Martha's House. On the whole, his great philanthropic services
and personal austerity secured respect for his Society at Rome, and it
prospered there until his later years.
In the south of Italy the Society met little opposition in the early
years. Bobadilla had done some good work in troubled Calabria before
the Society was founded, and within the next ten years colleges were
opened at Messina (1548), Palermo (1549), and Naples (1551). The poet
Tasso was one of the first students of the Naples college. It was in
the north that the more arduous work had to be done. The seeds of the
Reformation were wafted over the Alps and found a fertile soil in the
cities of the Renaissance. Hardly anywhere else were monks and clergy
so corrupt and ignorant, and nowhere was there so much familiarity
with the immorality of the Vatican system. Rome itself lived on this
corruption and regarded it with indulgence, but in the university
towns of the north educated men, and even women, who almost remembered
the lives of Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., Julius II., and
Leo X., were but provoked to smile when they were exhorted to cling to
the "Vicar of Christ."
To tear these prosperous seedlings of heresy out of the soil of
northern Italy was the congenial task of the early Jesuits, and Lainez,
Brouet, and Salmeron, with some of the new recruits, went from city
to city, challenging the Protestants to debate, strengthening the
Catholics to resist, and founding colleges for the sound education
of youth. Their procedure, and the resentment it constantly excited,
may be illustrated by their experience at Venice. Lainez was sent by
the Pope to Venice in 1542, at the request of the Doge. An honourable
apartment awaited him in the Doge's Palace, but he humbly declined
and went to live among the sick at the squalid hospital, varying his
learned campaign against the Lutherans with the lowliest services
to the poor and ailing. Many were edified, especially one Andrea
Lippomani, an elderly and wealthy noble. Presently there came an
instruction from Ignatius that Lainez must accept the hospitality
offered him by Lippomani; and a little later the noble's heirs were
infuriated to learn that he had assigned a rich benefice of his at
Padua to the Jesuits. They appealed to the Venetian Council, and lost,
for Lainez and Salmeron were ordered by the General to defend the
donation. So the first college of the Society was founded, at Padua,
and Lippomani afterwards enabled them to found one at Venice. Whatever
view one takes of it, this was the normal procedure: tend the sick and
beg your bread until "men of wealth and position" open their purses,
then throw all your energy into the founding of colleges and the
securing of novices. It was unquestionably a most effective method of
serving the Church; it also had an aspect which attracted critics.
In the Catholic atmosphere of Spain and Portugal the Society might be
expected to grow luxuriantly, as it eventually did, but its fortunes
in the Peninsula are rather due to the General's policy of securing
influential patrons than to any popular welcome. As early as 1540
Ignatius had sent his nephew Araoz into Spain, and one reads--between
the lines--that he had little success. At last a college was founded
at Alcalà, to the anger of many of the University professors. One
professor maintained his opposition so long and so violently that
Father Villanueva, the Jesuit rector, fraternally informed him that
the Inquisition proposed to put him a few questions, and the professor
sullenly withdrew. Then a learned ex-rector of the university itself
was won by Ignatius, during a visit to Rome, and was sent back, a
Jesuit, to found a college at Salamanca. It was, as usual, founded in
poverty; the fathers had not even a crucifix to put over their altar,
and one of their number had to draw the figure on a sheet of paper.
From the general laws of these phenomena one might deduce that the
story brought a shower of crucifixes. However, the favour of the King
of Portugal and the influence of Rome smoothed their paths, and little
colonies were soon planted at Valladolid, Toledo, Saragossa, and other
towns.
It was in Spain that the Society encountered the most virulent of its
early Catholic antagonists, Melchior Cano. He was a very learned and
sober Dominican monk, and a professor at the university: an enemy
of mysticism and eccentricity. He knew of the early penances and
"visions" of Ignatius, and had seen him at work in Rome. When the pale,
black-robed, mysterious youths walked demurely into learned Salamanca
and set up a college for the instruction of youth, the monk erupted.
They were hybrids--neither the flesh of the secular clergy nor the
fish of the regular clergy: they were leeches, fastening on wealthy
saints and sinners; and so on. Miguel de Torres, the rector, called
upon the irate friar, and told him of the great privileges the Pope
had bestowed on the Society and the high missions he had entrusted to
its members. This inflamed him still more, and he flung at them Paul's
fiery warnings against the hypocrites who would come after him. He
exaggerated heavily, especially in regard to the personal character
of the Jesuits, but he saw very clearly those dangerous features and
practices of the early Society which I have indicated. The struggle
came to a diplomatic close. Melchior Cano was appointed Bishop of the
Canaries, and the Jesuits invite us to admire the way in which Ignatius
returned good for evil. It may be added that Cano afterwards recognised
the ruse, laid down his mitre, and returned to plague his benefactors.
In the midst of this conflict the Jesuits made a most important
convert, and their future in Spain was assured. Francis Borgia, Duke of
Gandia, one of the leading nobles of the kingdom, met and was enchanted
by Favre in 1544, when the King of Portugal brought that gentle and
persuasive Jesuit on a visit to the Spanish court. He was conducted
through the Exercises by Favre, one of the most lovable and sincere of
the early fathers. When Favre died two years afterwards, prematurely
worn by his labours, Borgia wrote to ask Ignatius to admit him to the
order. Observe the procedure once more. He was secretly initiated, not
even the Pope knowing his name: which enabled him to remain in the eyes
of men the Duke of Gandia, and shower his wealth and his patronage on
the Society. It really matters little what lofty purposes are alleged
for such sinuous procedure; it was a new policy in the history of
religious founders. When, a few years later, the Pope offered a
cardinal's hat to the Duke of Gandia, and the King of Spain insisted
that he should accept it, the truth had to come out. Ignatius had
sternly enjoined that no dignity should ever be accepted by any member
of his Society, yet, to avoid giving offence to the king, he said that
he left the decision to Borgia.
Under Borgia's patronage the net of the Society spread over Spain, many
blessing and some cursing. At Saragossa, where they had built a chapel,
the Augustinian friars complained that it encroached on their sphere.
To prevent unedifying conduct on the part of rival friars, the Church
had decreed that no order should establish itself within five hundred
feet of a house belonging to a different order. When the Jesuits
who had broken this law, refused to yield, they were excommunicated
by the Vicar-General, and a pleasant procession was arranged by the
townsfolk, in which effigies of damned Jesuits were propelled toward
their destination by little devils. The Augustinians were popular. But
the long arm of Ignatius was extended once more, and the Papal Nuncio
intervened in favour of the Jesuits. Before many years the Jesuits won
from the Pope a declaration that the law did not apply to them, and
they might build where they pleased. They prospered, and were hated.
An incident of the same significance occurred at Alcalà. The college
obtained many pupils, though little wealth, and the Jesuit fathers
began to be very active. In 1551 they were surprised to hear that the
Archbishop of Toledo had suspended the whole of them from priestly
functions for daring to hear confessions without his authorisation.
The Jesuits produced their privileges, and persuaded the Governor of
Toledo, and even the Royal Council, to explain to the prelate that the
Pope had exempted them from the jurisdiction of bishops. He refused to
recognise such extraordinary privileges, and maintained the suspension.
Ignatius then laid the matter before the Pope, and the Archbishop was
directed from Rome to withdraw his opposition.
When we turn to Portugal we find an interesting illustration of the
early effect of great prosperity on the Society. On the throne at the
time was John III. from whose reign all historians date the downfall of
what had become one of the most brilliant and wealthy Powers in Europe.
Blind to the gross administrative corruption in his kingdom, and to the
decay of the stirring patriotism which had borne the Portuguese flag
over the globe, John was concerned only about the religious needs of
his country and his new colonies. He had invited Xavier and Rodriguez
in 1540, intending to send them to the Indies, but he was so charmed
with them that he wished to keep them in Portugal. Ignatius allowed
Rodriguez to remain, and Xavier set out on his historic mission to the
far east. In this Ignatius showed his usual discernment: Rodriguez
proved as supple and graceful a courtier as Xavier proved a fiery
missionary. John then wished to entrust the tutorship of his son to
Rodriguez, and Ignatius consented. His own followers were puzzled at
times to know which _were_ the dignities that they were forbidden to
accept. When John asked for a Jesuit confessor, Rodriguez refused, but
Ignatius overruled him. The next step was to set up the Inquisition,
through the mediation of Ignatius, and Orlandini admits that when, in
1555, the king wished to make Father Merin, his confessor, head of the
Inquisition, Ignatius seriously considered the proposal. He did not
refuse, as is sometimes said; the negotiations broke down.
In this genial atmosphere the Society flourished. Its chief college was
at Coimbra, the great university centre, where the Jesuits rapidly ran
their course. At first they shocked staid Catholics with the excesses
of their zeal. A youth in the college confessed to temptations of the
flesh, and was ordered to walk the streets at mid-day without a hat
or a cloak, holding a skull in his hand. Another student went forth
almost naked in a cold wind, begging from door to door; and, finding a
crowd of folk dancing and singing in a church, he mounted the pulpit
to admonish them, and was dragged out and severely chastised. At
nights Father Simon would send out a procession of youths to cry in
the ears of indignant sinners or quiet wine-bibbers some such doggerel
as: "Hell, hell, hell, for those in grave sin"; or long processions
of children with masks and lanterns paraded the streets and squares.
We gather that the boys of Coimbra had a pleasant time during these
exhibitions. But the college flourished; there were in a few years
a hundred and fifty pupils in it, and it supplied large numbers of
missionaries.
In 1546 Favre visited Coimbra, and reported to Ignatius that prosperity
had flushed the veins of his brothers. Nicolini and other anti-Jesuit
writers speak of the college as having become a place of "debauch,"
but this is not stated in the chronicles. Frivolity and good-living
are the only vices charged, whatever we may suspect. The students
stooped to writing sonnets, and the King's money provided plenty of
good cheer. Ignatius felt that Father Simon had lost his fervour at
the court, deposed him from office--he was Provincial (or head of the
province)--and ordered him to go either to Brazil or Aragon. The piety
of Rodriguez had evidently deteriorated, and he made a struggle to
hold his place. He was a handsome and comfortable man, much liked for
his liberality. He went to Coimbra, where Ignatius had appointed a new
rector, and the liberals tried to induce the court to protect them.
The King was alarmed, however, and Father Simon had to submit, and the
college to mend its ways. Numbers of students left or were expelled,
and for the rest, when the new rector piously walked the streets of
Coimbra, laying the bloody lash on his own bare shoulders, they fell to
tears and went out in a body scourging themselves under the eyes of the
townsfolk. The story ends in Orlandini with Simon Rodriguez submitting
in holy joy and kissing the rebuking letters of his General. But when
we turn to Sacchini, the Jesuit writes of the next section of the
"Historia Societatis Jesu," who does not always carefully notice what
his predecessor has said, we learn that Rodriguez smarted for years
under the humiliation, and awaited an opportunity to undo it. However,
the province returned to piety, and before the death of Ignatius we
find the Jesuits capturing, after a long siege, the famous University
of Coimbra.
In France the Society wholly failed under Ignatius. He placed students,
supported by wealthy patrons, at the University of Paris, and sent
fathers after a time to gather their neophytes under one roof. Then the
outbreak of war with Spain drove most of them abroad, and even when the
war was over the colony made slow progress, amid poverty and hostility.
In 1549 Ignatius won the favour of Cardinal Guise de Lorraine and,
through him, of the French court. The King issued letters authorising
the Jesuits to live and teach at Paris, and Brouet was sent to
conciliate the Parisians. Then began a long and famous struggle between
the Parlement and University of Paris and the court and Jesuits.
Parlement bluntly refused to register the King's letters, and they
were of no effect until this powerful legal body had accepted them.
Henry ordered his Privy Council to examine the Jesuit Constitutions and
approve them; Parlement retorted by inviting the Archbishop, who was
very hostile, and the theological faculty of the university to advise
it, and the issue was a violent condemnation of the Jesuits in the vein
of Melchior Cano. It was said that they admitted all sorts of aspirants
to their ranks, and that the extraordinary privileges they professed
to have were insulting to the spiritual and temporal authorities and
opposed to the interests of the other orders and the university.
In the main, it was undoubtedly the privileges of the Jesuits which
made the greater part of Paris and of France hostile to them. Bishops
were not to look at them, civic authorities were not to tax them,
universities were to be opposed by free classes, and were to respect
degrees granted by Jesuits to any whom they thought fit. The hostility
was quite natural, and it was fed by indiscretions on the part of the
Jesuits. They received a nephew of the Archbishop, against the uncle's
will, and they first turned the brain (with their Exercises) of, and
then put out of doors, a very learned ornament of the university
named Postel. The Archbishop bade them leave Paris, and they remained
helpless outside the city, at St. Germain aux Prés, until after the
death of Ignatius. He pressed the case at Rome, and doctors of the
Sorbonne went there to exchange arguments with Jesuit doctors, but
nothing was done until years afterwards.
During the war the Spanish Jesuits had gone from Paris to Louvain and
began to teach there. Here again the university scorned and opposed
them, and for many years (until they secured the interest of the
Archduchess) they made no progress. Ribadeneira, who was in charge,
used to break down and retire from the room to weep. In Germany they
had a different and more spirited struggle, but they seem to have had
little influence in the various conferences and diets at which attempts
were still made to reconcile the parties. Favre was at the Diet of
Worms in 1540, then at the Ratisbon Conference, where Bobadilla and
Le Jay succeeded him. They were restricted to an effort to reform the
Catholics themselves, and found it difficult. The letters of these
early Jesuits make it quite impossible for any historian to question
the appalling corruption of priests, monks, and people in every part
of Europe at the time of the Reformation. From Worms Favre wrote to
Ignatius that there were not three priests in the city who were not
stained by concubinage or crime. At Ratisbon the Catholics threatened
to throw Le Jay into the river. "What does it matter to me whether I
enter heaven by water or land?" he said. They knew very little German,
generally preaching in Latin, and had slight influence for some years.
In time, as they learned German, and confined themselves to the
Catholic provinces, their work was more successful. They fastened
especially on Cologne, and assailed the Archbishop, a very worldly
prelate of the old type, who was annoyed to find these Jesuit wasps
buzzing about him, and their house was closed for a time by the
authorities. But they had the favour of the Emperor, and the Archbishop
was deposed. In 1545 the Council of Trent opened, and Lainez and
Salmeron appeared there as the Pope's theologians, together with
Peter Canisius (an able German student whom Favre had attracted to
the Society) as theologian of the new Archbishop of Cologne. It need
only be said of the earlier sittings of the famous Council (in 1545
and 1551) that the Jesuits had little influence, and this they used to
oppose any concession to the Protestants and magnify the authority of
the Pope. This will be plainer in connection with the later sittings.
The work in Germany was afterwards thwarted by the zeal of the fiery
Bobadilla. It had at last come to war with the Protestants, to the
satisfaction of the Jesuits, and Bobadilla marched with the troops and
was severely wounded at Mühlberg. In 1548, however, Charles published
his _Interim_, or provisional concession of certain Protestant claims
(such as the marriage of the clergy) until the Council of the Church
should decide the points at issue. It may be recalled that the general
Council of Trent was first intended as a common meeting of Protestant
and Catholic divines, and the hope of reconciliation was not yet
dead. Reconciliation, however, could mean only concession, and the
Jesuits were resolutely against concession. Whatever influence they
had in Germany, apart from their effort to reform the morality of the
Catholics, was reactionary and mischievous in the highest degree.
Bobadilla overflowed with wrath at the _Interim_, and denounced it
fiercely by pen and tongue. Charles angrily ordered him to leave the
Empire, and he returned to Rome; and it is recorded that Ignatius so
warmly resented his "indiscretion" that he refused at first to admit
him to the house. Thus did the saint vindicate the majesty of kings,
says M. Crétineau-Joly. The outbreak did unquestionably hamper the
progress of the Jesuits for a time, but before the death of Ignatius
they were firmly established in Vienna, Prague, Cologne, and a few
other cities. At Vienna the court demanded that Canisius should accept
the office of archbishop, and Ignatius compromised by allowing him to
administer the see and refuse its revenue. In the same year a Jesuit
was made "Patriarch of Abyssinia." It was just seven years since
Ignatius had induced the Pope to decree that no Jesuit should ever
accept an ecclesiastical dignity.
Of the foreign missions it is impossible to speak here at any length.
In 1540 Francis Xavier had come for his leader's blessing as he started
for the Indies. His cassock was worn and patched, and Ignatius took off
his own flannel vest and put it on the young priest before dismissing
him with the usual: "Go and set the world on fire." It was a different
Xavier from the one he had seen, a vain and brilliant teacher, at the
University of Paris, and it is well known how he did set the world on
fire. He was a handsome, blue-eyed man of thirty-six, and no Portuguese
sailor ever fronted the unknown with more courage and heroism than
Xavier displayed in his famous travels from India to Japan. After a
year's work at Goa, where his first need was to convert the Christians
and the Portuguese priests, he went on to Malabar, to the Moluccas,
to Malacca, and on to Japan, ending his life, in 1552, in an attempt
to reach China. What the result of his mission was it is difficult
to estimate soberly. The Jesuit chronicler forgets the confusion of
tongues, and makes Xavier leap from land to land, preaching to and
converting thousands everywhere, as if they all spoke Portuguese. In
Japan he clearly failed, although the Portuguese merchants were greatly
anxious for success, and the Japanese, of their own high character
and out of respect for the great king (of Portugal), his friend, were
extremely polite.
The other foreign missions of the early Jesuits were less irradiated
with miracle, or with heroism. Lainez went in the wake of the Spanish
troops to Tunis, said mass there, and left no trace behind. Nuñez,
the "Patriarch of Abyssinia," went out with two others to take over
his diocese, but found a "Patriarch" there already, who made a lively
opposition, and the Jesuits had to retire to Goa. Four Jesuits were
sent to the Congo. Two died at once, and the other two became so
interested in commerce that the king was alarmed. Ignatius recalled
and replaced them, but the king expelled the newcomers. In Brazil they
made more progress, penetrating the forests and winning the favour of
the natives by their medical and other material aid. They tried to save
the intended dinners of the cannibals, and, when they failed, sprinkled
the poor men with holy water; but the cannibals found that it made
them less succulent and forbade the practice. They did useful work in
Brazil, and laid the foundation of a great mission.
Such were the labours of the first Jesuits during the generalship
of Ignatius, and it remains only to close the career of their able
leader. The varied story of success and failure, the showers of glowing
testimonials and bitter diatribes, the heroism of some and the frailty
of others, kept him alternately elated or depressed to the end. He
must have seen that the first fervour could not be maintained, and
that opposition became more serious as the Society grew. It had now
nearly a thousand members scattered over the world, and a hundred
houses and colleges. The figures are misleading, however, as there
were only thirty-five professed fathers and only two professed houses;
many of the so-called colleges had no pupils and were little more than
names. Ignatius had twice attempted to resign his office in the last
few years; and there was much to distress him. He had hardly composed
the trouble in Portugal, in 1552, when Lainez gave him anxiety.
Lainez, who was made Provincial of Italy when Brouet was sent to Paris,
complained that the general was robbing his colleges of their best
teachers for the sake of Rome. Ignatius dictated to his secretary an
angry letter. "He bids me tell you," says the scribe, "to attend to
your own charge ... and you need not give him advice about this until
he asks it."
In the next year (1553) he had a grave quarrel with Cardinal Caraffa.
The Jesuits of Sicily had admitted a youth against his parents'
wishes, and Caraffa, to whom the mother appealed, ordered Ignatius to
give up the youth. He appealed to the Pope, and got Caraffa's verdict
cancelled. When, two years afterwards, Caraffa became Pope Paul IV.,
Ignatius remembered his momentary triumph with concern, and there
were grave faces in the Jesuit house. Paul III. had died in 1549. His
successor Julius III. had been, as the previous record shows, very
generous to the Jesuits, though funds had fallen very low in Rome,
owing to the Reformation, and Ignatius had great work to keep alive
the German college he had founded. Julius died in 1555, and it is said
by the Jesuit writers that five cardinals voted for Ignatius himself
at the next conclave. Marcellus, the next Pope, lived less than a
month, and then Caraffa occupied the see. To Caraffa the Spaniards were
"barbarians," and the Jesuits were Spaniards. But he postponed the
struggle which he was to have with the Society, and received Ignatius
courteously.
Work, austerity, and anxiety had at length seriously impaired the
strong frame of Ignatius, and he began to prepare for the end. It is
marvellous how he lived to see his sixty-fifth year, and continued
to control the mighty struggle of his Society against its various
enemies. With the opening of 1556, however, he retired to a great
extent from the labours of his office, and spent his days chiefly
in prayer. He died in the early morning of 31st July 1556, and the
struggle for the succession began.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: See Ribadeneira's _Historia Ecclesiastica del Scisma del
Reyno de Inglaterra_ (1588), L. ii. ch. xxii.]
CHAPTER III
EARLY STORMS
For the events of the next ten years, which will be narrated in this
chapter, we still rely almost entirely on Jesuit writers. The statement
may sound like an insinuation of dishonesty, but it is merely a
reminder that our authorities are panegyrists rather than historians.
Their purpose was wholly different from that of the modern historian,
and their selection and treatment of documents correspondingly
differed. It would be ingenuous to imagine that they loaded the scales
of good and evil, success and failure, with impartial hand. Here and
there, however, some scandal was so widely known in their day, and so
eagerly pressed by their opponents, that it were wiser to put a bold
gloss upon it than to ignore it, and thus we of the later date can just
discern the human form under the thick veil of panegyric. It becomes
more and more apparent after the death of Ignatius. Father Sacchini,
who takes up the pen laid down by Orlandini, is just as loyal to his
order, but it becomes more frequently necessary to excuse and explain,
and at times he candidly censures. The Society is shaken by "very
fierce storms," and one of these breaks upon it in his earliest pages.
The Constitutions provided that at the death of a General there should
be a Vicar-General appointed, and he should proceed to summon the
leading fathers of every province for the election. Now, Ignatius had
appointed a Vicar to assist him in his last years, and it was generally
felt that this Father Natalis would be Vicar-General and control the
election. Natalis was in Spain, however, and Lainez, although very ill,
was in Rome. We remember Lainez as the learned and masterful Castilian
who had once provoked Ignatius to use very plain speech. There were
only five fathers at Rome, including Lainez, who were entitled to vote
for the Vicar-General, and Lainez helped to simplify the issue by
casting a blank vote, like Ignatius, or "leaving the matter to God." He
was appointed, and he fixed the more important election for November.
For this he had to summon the Provincials, Assistants, and two Prefects
from each of the twelve provinces of the Society. One imagines a large
and varied body, but in point of fact there were only about twenty
voters; those in Brazil and the Indies could not be expected, while
the "province of Ethiopia" (or Abyssinia) existed only on paper. It
happened, moreover, that as the Pope was at war with Spain, the Spanish
fathers could not come, and Lainez dare not proceed without them.
They were of opinion that Natalis ought to have been recognised as
Vicar-General.
Thus the election had to be postponed for two years, and Lainez
continued, on the strength of four votes, to act as General. The
remarkable events of those two years are of great importance in
studying the character of the early Society. Two very serious conflicts
arose, one between the Jesuits themselves, and one with the Pope, and
it is in such conflicts that the real character appears. Crétineau-Joly
suppresses the one altogether and grossly mis-states the other; he is
not only less candid, but far less truthful, even than the original
Jesuit authorities. If we wish to form a just estimate of the early
Jesuits, not merely to admire the many virtues they possessed, we must
consider these conflicts with care, as they are recorded by Sacchini in
the "Historia Societatis."
Lainez at once presented himself, as temporary head of the Society,
to the Pope, and prepared for a struggle. Ranke's fine picture of
Caraffa, who had now become Paul IV., will be remembered. A dark and
stormy Neapolitan, an ardent Italian patriot, he would, as he sat
over his fiery southern wine, express the fiercest disdain of the
Spaniards, and trust to see them swept out of the Italian peninsula.
He had disliked Ignatius and, Sacchini says, spoken slightingly of
him after his death. On the other hand, he was a deeply religious
man and sincere reformer, and he recognised that there was precious
stuff, from the Church's point of view, in this new Society. Should he
fuse it with the Theatines, or merely clip its outrageous privileges,
and bring it nearer the common level of the religious orders? He was
known to hesitate between the two policies, and Lainez was determined
to resist both, implacably, and teach the papacy the real value of
the famous fourth vow. And Lainez was a cold, resolute, clear-headed
man of forty-five: Caraffa a nervous and impetuous old man of eighty.
The conflict was postponed, however, until the Society had a properly
constituted authority. Paul was content to warn Lainez that the Jesuits
must be careful of their ways, and to remind him that what a Pope had
given a Pope might take away.
A few months later the domestic conflict opened. The spirited Bobadilla
protested that Diego Lainez had usurped authority over the Society;
the proper thing to do in these unforeseen circumstances was to divide
the leadership between the five survivors of the ten original Jesuits.
Rodriguez, who still smarted under his humiliation, Sacchini says, was
persuaded to take this view; Cogordan a "stiff-necked" brother whom
Lainez had ventured to correct, joined them; and even the meek and
gentle Brouet was drawn into the revolt. For many months the austere
silence of the Roman house was enlivened with the singular quarrel.
The rebels wrote lengthy indictments of Lainez and secretly circulated
them among the brethren; and somehow, says the historian, copies of
their _libelli_ always reached the hands of Lainez, while he himself
wrote nothing. Then Cogordan told two cardinals, who were to tell the
Pope, that Lainez proposed to hold the election in Spain, so that they
might pass their Constitutions without the Pope's interference. The
idea was certainly entertained, and we can easily believe that Lainez
favoured it. Paul angrily ordered that no Jesuit was to quit Rome, and
closed his door against Lainez. A union of this powerful and casuistic
body with the King of Spain was one of the last things Paul wished to
see; and he looked forward to the passing of their Constitutions as
his opportunity to clip their wings. At last Lainez severed Rodriguez
and Brouet from the rebels, and Bobadilla made a direct application to
the Pope for his share in the administration of the Society. To the
scandal or the entertainment of Rome, Cardinal Carpi was appointed to
arbitrate on the domestic quarrels of the children of St. Ignatius.
His decision--that Lainez should remain Vicar-General, but consult the
older fathers--did not put an end to the unseemly quarrelling, and
Lainez in turn appealed to the Pope, secured the appointment of another
cardinal, and silenced the rebels. We can imagine the feelings of Paul
IV. When a cardinal told him that Lainez had charged Bobadilla with an
honourable mission at Foligno, and had sentenced the wicked Cogordan
to say _one_ Pater and Ave, he crossed himself: as a Neapolitan does
when the spirit of evil is about. He was astonished at the obstinacy
of the rebels, says Sacchini; but there are those who fancy that what
really impressed him was the astuteness of Lainez. He was to have more
painful experience of it anon.
While the leaders quarrelled for the mantle of the master at Rome,
there was grave trouble in the provinces. In that year (1557) John III.
died in Portugal, many valuable workers were lost, and the judgment of
the University of Paris and the scalding indictments of Melchior Cano
were translated into every tongue in Europe. There was no possibility
under Paul IV. of countering these things by conversation at the
Vatican. It was imperative to hold the election as soon as possible and
return to the field. The end of the war came in 1558, and by May the
twenty voters were assembled in the Roman house. They were to elect a
general and endorse the Constitutions, now completed by Lainez.
There was friction at first because Lainez issued to the fathers
certain orders which aimed at preventing canvassing, but in July they
proceeded to the election. To their dismay Cardinal Pacheco entered
the room, on the election day, and said that the Pope had sent him
to preside. He genially assured them, however, that he would not
interfere, and they cast their votes. Lainez was elected by thirteen
votes out of twenty. They then held a number of sittings on the
Constitutions, and prepared for a struggle with the Pope. This struggle
is not without some humour when we reflect that the Society of Jesus
was, so to say, the Pope's private regiment, the one order that made
a special vow of obedience to him, the most exaggerated champion in
Christendom of his authority. It was the first occasion on which the
Vatican was to realise that it might count on the abject obedience of
the Jesuits as long as the Jesuits dictated its decrees. Lainez and
his colleagues were determined by every means in their power to thwart
the will of Paul IV. and suffer no interference with their own will.
They quietly endorsed their Constitutions, and prepared to go to their
provinces. It is impossible to find what precise order the Pope had
given them to alter their Constitutions, but he had certainly done so
in some form, and his anger broke out stormily. He sent a cardinal to
say that they must reconsider the question of chanting in choir, as
other religious bodies did, and of appointing a general only for a term
of three years.
The Jesuits were "surprised," but obedient. They "reconsidered" the
points, and drew up a report to the effect that they were unanimously
opposed to change. Lainez and Salmeron were directed to wait on the
Pope and present this report, and some brave language--such language
as a Pope rarely heard, and must have been amazed to hear from a
Jesuit, if it were really spoken--is put into the mouth of Lainez at
the audience by Sacchini. The historian admits, however, that they
did not present the report. Paul sternly told them that they were
"contumacious," indeed not far removed from heresy (which was true),
and he cut short their defence with a peremptory command to do as
they were bidden. With an eye on the gray hairs of the octogenarian
Pope they retired to mend their rules and order the chanting of the
office. It now appeared that of their hundred establishments only
two were "houses," and they contented themselves with ordering that
vespers should be chanted in these houses--until Paul IV. died. They
had secretly asked the opinion of a learned cardinal on the value of
the Pope's command. Cardinal Puteo was not merely an expert on such
matters; he was Dean of the Rota, and in a position to dissolve the
Pope's order, as he eventually did. He told them that it was a "simple
command," and that, as the decree of his predecessor, excusing them
from choir, was not expressly abrogated, it would come into force again
at the death of Paul IV. With this assurance they meekly submitted to
the Pope, and scattered to their respective missions.
I have narrated this curious story at some length, relying entirely
on the Jesuit Sacchini, because it is of extreme significance for one
who would judge the character and history of the Society. Catholic
historians, who suppress it entirely or give a very misleading version
of it, are clearly of opinion that the mere record of the facts will
disturb their readers, while anti-Catholic writers enlarge on it with
pleasure. Those who desire to have an intelligent and just estimate
of the Jesuits can neither ignore nor misinterpret such facts. That
Lainez was personally ambitious, that his eagerness for power had not
entirely the unselfish character of such ambition as we may recognise
in Ignatius, can hardly be doubted. But Brouet and Salmeron shared and
supported his conduct, and in those two, at least, one is disposed to
see the first spirit of the Regiment of Jesus in its original purity.
The clue to the seeming inconsistency or hypocrisy of such men defying
or evading the Pope's commands I have already indicated. The Society of
Jesus had consecrated diplomacy to the service of God. If a Pope would
strip their order of those distinctions and privileges which, in their
conviction, peculiarly fitted it to carry on the holy war, he was not
acting as the Vicar of Christ, and his commands must be evaded. It did
not occur to them that this was, in the end, the Protestant principle
of private judgment, against which they thundered the doctrine of
papal authority. They were the children of Ignatius, who had always
felt that _his_ private judgment was the judgment of God. So Jesuitism
moved slowly toward its inevitable goal.
One other incident at Rome may be recorded before we distribute the
events of the next seven years in their national departments. A little
more than a year after the election, on 18th August 1559, Paul IV.
died. How the Romans, stung by the misery they had suffered during
his war with Spain and the brutalities of his Inquisition, burst
into the streets with wild rejoicing, and attacked the palace of the
Inquisitors, and how the new Pope surrendered the criminal nephews of
his predecessor, including a cardinal of the Church, to the scaffold,
must be read in general history. The fact that the Jesuits were called
to sustain Cardinal Caraffa in his last hours is of no significance. It
is more pertinent to tell that Lainez returned to the learned Cardinal
Puteo, and the odious command of Paul IV. was declared to have died
with him.
It is said that Lainez himself was proposed for the papacy after the
death of Paul IV. The conclave of cardinals on such an occasion is,
as is known, as isolated as a jury-room, but a cardinal might summon
his confessor, and it is not only stated by Sacchini, but confirmed by
Cardinal Otho years afterwards, that Lainez was called in by Otho and
told that his name would be proposed. We have no just ground to doubt
this statement, but we have very good reason to refuse to regard it as
a serious proposal. The papal election of 1559 lasted three months,
and was marked by a bitter struggle of France, Spain, and Italy. It
engrossed the attention of Europe, yet not a single Roman ambassador
or prelate of the time mentions the name of Lainez. Even the words
used by Cardinal Otho years afterwards are known to us only in a Jesuit
version.
Cardinal Medici, who now became Pius IV., proved to be one of the
most generous patrons of the Society. Although he was a Pope of the
cultured and liberal type, and would have little personal inclination
to favour them, he seems to have concluded that the Jesuits were the
most formidable champions of his authority, and he gave them many
privileges. It was he who, in 1561, gave them permission to build
within the sphere of other orders, and to grant academic degrees in
their colleges, and he directed his local representatives everywhere
to protect and aid them. With such an auxiliary the vigorous and
gifted general was enabled to conduct the affairs of his Society with
a success which will appear as we review its life in the various
provinces. Only one further personal detail need be added in regard
to Lainez. Although the orders of Caraffa had been declared void, he
professed a scruple when he had held the generalship for three years,
and proposed to resign. In view of his behaviour at the election one is
not disposed to look for sincerity in this scruple, nor does the issue
suggest it. His confessor told him that he must consult his councillors
(or assistants). They resisted his proposal, but he still affected
qualms, and sent a circular letter to all the professed fathers, in
which he purported to place before them, for their guidance, all the
pros and cons of his design. The letter is, however, a transparent plea
for power. The electors unanimously insisted that he should retain
office, and he returned to his task with firmer authority.
The British Isles still remained a dark and almost inaccessible
territory on the Jesuit map, but Englishmen, flying from the penal laws
of Elizabeth, began to enter the Society on the continent, and one or
two secret missions were sent out. Thomas King was sent from Louvain
to England, but he died in the following year (1565), and is merely
stated to have made a few converts. Another refugee in Belgium, an
Irishman named David Woulfe, had been sent in 1560 to his native land
with the position of Nuncio. He was so effectively disguised that in
France he was arrested as a Lutheran. His early reports represent him
as an austere spectator of the general corruption of the Irish clergy,
monks, and people. He speaks of giving absolution, in one year, to
a thousand penitents who had contracted "incestuous marriages," and
describes the people coming to his retreat in their shirts and bare
feet. Father Woulfe seems to have caught the taint, however, as he was
some years later ignominiously expelled from the Society. William Good,
a Somersetshire man, and "Edmund the Irishman," joined him in 1564,
distributing to the peasantry the dispensations and indulgences which
England proscribed, to the grave inconvenience of the papal treasury.
The mission to Scotland was not less adventurous. It was the year
1562, when Mary Queen of Scots had returned from France, full of sad
foreboding, to the land of John Knox. Nicholas Gouda was sent from
Louvain, in the secret character of Nuncio, to console and assist
her, and two Scottish students, Hay and Crichton, accompanied him.
They were dressed as gentlemen of quality, who would see the world.
Unfortunately, Crichton betrayed the secret to an acquaintance at
Leith, and the fiery cross passed from pulpit to pulpit in the city of
Edinburgh. Gouda sent Crichton back to Louvain and went on himself to
Edinburgh. After many fruitless attempts to see Mary, he was at last
admitted one night, by a postern gate, to the presence of the beautiful
and distracted young queen, but there was nothing to be done. He
asked that the bishops might be assembled somewhere to meet him, and
it appeared that there was only one bishop, on one of the islands, who
would venture to receive him, if he were well disguised. It seems that
the least remarkable dress to don on visiting his lordship was that
of a money-lender, and Father Nicholas, so habited, traversed wild
and stern Caledonia. The rumour of his presence got about, and the
Covenanters kept watch at Edinburgh for his return. A French merchant
coming in from Aberdeen was sorely beaten by them before he could prove
his identity. But two of the faithful met Gouda outside Edinburgh, and
they sailed, with a small band of Scottish aspirants, for Belgium.
In Italy the story is one of much progress and bitter hostility. By
1561 there were two hundred and sixty Jesuits (in the broadest sense
of the word) in Rome, of whom a hundred and ninety were students in
the Roman college. They were prospering in the sunshine of the Pope's
favour. Elsewhere in Italy, however, they received hard blows. No less
than four serious storms broke on the Society in various parts of Italy
in the year 1561.
First it was reported from the Valtellina that the fathers had been
expelled, and forbidden the whole territory of the Grisons, on the
ground that they had shown an undue eagerness in securing an old man's
money. Next there was trouble in Montepulciano. The good fathers
had, Sacchini says, induced so large a proportion of the women of
Montepulciano to lead proper lives that the men were infuriated. They
bribed a loose woman to attempt to seduce one of the Jesuits, and they
engaged a man to dress as a Jesuit and let himself be seen coming from
a disorderly house. The Montepulciano version of the matter is, of
course, that one Jesuit accosted a woman and another was seen leaving
an unbecoming house. To make matters worse, a woman accused the Jesuit
rector, Father Gambar, of intimacy with her sister. It was an act of
jealousy, as the two sisters had competed for the rector's smiles; it
is, however, admitted that Father Gambar had been "indiscreet" in his
letters to the lady, which were made public. The civic authorities
took the darker view, and requested the removal of Gambar. When Lainez
refused, the townsfolk threatened to talk to the rector themselves,
and he fled. Lainez held that he was innocent, but expelled him from
the Society for running away without permission. He sent some of the
older Jesuits to restore order in Montepulciano, but it was no use. The
citizens withdrew the pension they had hitherto given the Jesuits, for
teaching, and refused to give them alms or house. Lainez fought, with
his ablest men and subsidies from Rome, for a year or two, but he was
beaten and forced to dissolve the college.
Then Venice reported difficulties. The new Archbishop, Trevisani,
detested the Jesuits, and assured his friends that the _chiappini_
("humbugs," to translate it politely) would not remain long in Venice
under his rule. Incidents multiplied, and in 1561 the Senate fell to
discussing the fathers and did not spare them. The gist of the charge
was that they were foreigners meddling with the affairs of Venice;
they confessed all the noble ladies of Venice, called on them in their
homes, and through them learned the official secrets. The debate ended
with words, though the Doge summoned Father Palmio and warned him to be
prudent; and the men of Venice, quoting Montepulciano, used a little
domestic authority to keep their wives away from Jesuit confessionals.
From Naples, in the same year, came news of hostility and obloquy.
Salmeron had been recalled from Naples to Rome, and offensive observers
began to form theories of the recall. When the legend had grown to
its full proportions, it ran that Father Salmeron had extorted four
thousand pounds from a dying woman, before he would absolve her, and
had, when the Pope heard and asked an explanation, fled to Geneva and
turned Protestant. The boys sang ballads in the street about Father
Salmeron and his four thousand pounds, and the college had troubled
experiences. Why Salmeron was not sent down to refute the legend, and
whether there really was some little difficulty about a sum of money,
we cannot say. But the incident shows that Catholic Naples was largely
hostile to the Jesuits. The Pope had to intervene and use the authority
of the Viceroy.
A few years later a more serious storm broke out in the north. In
all these cases of charges against the early Jesuits it is extremely
difficult to ascertain the truth; the case is always stated for us by
the defence. It happens that in the case of the trouble at Milan in
1563 we have one independent document, and I state the facts a little
more fully. It matters little whether the various Jesuits were guilty
or not in these local disturbances, and most people will conclude,
roughly, that they were probably not all immaculate and impeccable. But
it is worth while ascertaining if all this violent hostility to the
Jesuits, among Catholic peoples, is really founded on disappointed vice
or idle calumny, and we may take the Milan affair as a type.
The famous Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan, Carolo Borromeo, was a nephew
of the Pope. He received his position in 1560, at the early age of
twenty-two, and was soon under the influence of the Jesuits. It was
reported to the Pope that Charles was giving large sums of money to
the Jesuits, and seemed to have an idea of joining the Society. Then
the young archbishop's Jesuit confessor, Father Ribera, was accused
of unnatural vice with a page in the establishment of Donna Virginia,
Charles's sister-in-law. Sacchini says that Charles investigated the
charge and found it false, and that a bishop who insisted on it (and
accused other Jesuits besides Ribera) was brought before Cardinal
Savelli at Rome, produced his witnesses--a number of discharged or
former students at the Jesuit college--and was himself punished for
libel. It is added that Charles continued to entrust his seminary to
the Jesuits, and would not have done so if they were guilty. Ribera, it
is acknowledged, was sent to the Indies by Lainez, but only because the
Pope disliked his influence on Charles.
The Jesuit case is, as usual, plausible, but does not satisfy a close
inquirer. To send a distinguished and fashionable Jesuit to the Indies
because he is making his penitent more pious than the Pope likes,
especially at a time when he is charged with vice, is hardly the kind
of action we should expect in so prudent a man as Lainez. It was a
very drastic measure to put five thousand miles between Ribera and
his saintly penitent. As to Cardinal Savelli's inquiry, we can quite
believe that the Pope would be willing to draw a veil over a scandal,
which might ruin the Society in Italy, once Lainez had sent the chief
culprit on the foreign missions; Cardinal Savelli was, moreover, the
patron and protector of the Jesuits, and he seems to have dismissed the
witnesses unheard on the ground that they were expelled or seceding
students of the Society. We can further understand that Charles might
remain friendly with the Jesuits if he believed that one man only
was guilty, and that man was punished; but we shall see in the next
chapter that the relations of Charles and the Jesuits _were_ disturbed,
and that in 1578 they made an extraordinarily insolent attack on the
cardinal in his own city.
But the chief point is that an almost contemporary writer, Caspar
Schoppe, maintains on the highest authority that the Jesuit schools at
Milan were deeply tainted with vice. Schoppe is an ardent anti-Jesuit,
and must be read with discretion when his authority is remote. In
this case he calls God to witness that Cardinal Frederic Borromeo,
the nephew and successor of Charles, said in his (Schoppe's) presence
that he had himself found the Jesuit college at Braida so corrupt that
he would not suffer any Jesuit to come near him, would not allow any
student of his seminary to approach a Jesuit teacher, and would, if he
had the power, forbid any Jesuit to teach.[3] Crétineau-Joly replies
that Schoppe is evidently lying, since the known date of his birth
makes it impossible that he should ever have conversed with _Charles_
Borromeo. This confusion of Frederic and Charles is originally due
to Quesnel, who makes that mistake in quoting Schoppe, but it is
very singular that the French apologist for the Jesuits should not
know that Schoppe spoke of _Frederic_ Borromeo, not Charles, as is
pointed out in later editions of Quesnel. It is still more singular
that Crétineau-Joly assures his readers (who are not likely to make an
arduous search for Schoppe's ancient work) that the statement is made
"sous forme dubitative," when he must know that it is the most solemn
and emphatic statement in Schoppe's book. The impartial student must
conclude that there is grave evidence against the Milan Jesuits, and
that hostility to the Jesuits had at times a more respectable ground
than they are willing to admit.
The Pope did not stint his patronage of the Society on account of
these accusations. When the Cardinal-Protector of the Society died in
1564, Pius IV. undertook that office himself, as if to intimidate its
critics; though the critics were not in the least intimidated. Shortly
afterwards he appointed a commission of cardinals and prelates to
consider the establishment of a seminary at Rome, and they recommended
that the Jesuits should have charge of it. The proposal inflamed the
Roman critics of the Society, and Montepulciano and Milan and all the
other scandals were fiercely discussed. The Pope held firm, however,
and the struggle had not ended when Lainez died.
In Spain and Portugal the Society continued to make material progress
and, in the same proportion, morally to deteriorate. Favoured by the
genial clime of the Peninsula, the Society ran quickly through its
normal course of development and bore precocious fruit. The college at
Coimbra had, as we have seen, needed purification even under Ignatius.
It now prospered again, and maintained about a hundred and fifty
novices and priests. But the most notable feature of the Portuguese
province was the early interference of the Jesuits in politics. The
primitive design of avoiding politics and forbidding Jesuits to
frequent the courts of princes had first been set aside by Ignatius
himself, and was quite inconsistent with the general idea of obtaining
the favour of the rich and powerful. In Portugal the court was now
dominated by Jesuits; Father Miguel de Torres was confessor of the
Queen-Regent Catherine, Father Gonzales da Camara confessor of the
young King Sebastian, and Father Leo Henriquez confessor of Cardinal
Dom Henry, the King's grand-uncle. It may be read in any history
of Portugal how the Cardinal began, at the instigation and with the
assistance of the Jesuits, to intrigue for the Regency, and in 1562
forced Catherine to abdicate. In a letter, dated 8th June 1571, which
Catherine afterwards wrote to General Borgia, we are plainly informed
of the intrigues of the confessors. "Everyone knows," says the Queen,
"that the evils which afflict this kingdom are caused by some of your
fathers, who are so misguided as to advise the King, my grandson,
to displace me and expel me from my State." She had dismissed her
confessor Torres, who advised her to submit to the intrigues of her
brother and Father Gonzales, but after a five years' struggle she was
forced to retire from Spain. Father Gonzales then became the most
powerful man in Portugal, and made his brother Prime Minister, until,
as we shall see, Sebastian became old enough to put an end to their
intrigues.
In Spain the Society was less prosperous. The historic struggle at
Alcalà had ended in the capture of the university by the Jesuits,
but at Seville, Valladolid, and other towns there was persistent
opposition, and at Grenada a dangerous agitation arose because a Jesuit
confessor compelled a penitent to name her accomplice in vice. Borgia
himself had many enemies at court, and the opposition to him culminated
at length in an attack which compelled him to fly to Portugal. Two
works of piety which he had written in earlier years were denounced
to the Inquisition and condemned. It is said by the Jesuits that the
suspected passages in his books were interpolated by the man who
published them, and the point is of little interest. Borgia did not
remain to face the questions of the Inquisitors, and the King became so
angry with him that, when he was invited by Lainez to the metropolitan
house at Rome, the Spanish fathers warned Lainez that if any dignity
were conferred on Borgia it would be deeply resented at the court.
This trouble had hardly ended in the disgrace and flight of Borgia when
a very grave domestic quarrel arose in the Castilian province. Lainez
had sent Father Natalis from Rome to inspect the province, and the
Castilian Provincial, Father Araoz (nephew of Ignatius), discovered
that Natalis had secret instructions to destroy his position at court.
Araoz, the oldest Jesuit in Spain, and a favourite at court, had won a
position of comfort and power which was certainly not consistent with
the personal ideal of the Society. When, however, they endeavoured
to dislodge him, he took a drastic revenge on the Roman authorities.
Natalis was collecting and sending to Rome a good deal of money, when
an instruction was suddenly issued from the court pointing out that
it was against the laws of the kingdom to send money abroad or send
men to study in other countries. This order was openly attributed by
the Jesuits to the influence of Father Araoz. An angry quarrel ensued,
and one of the friends of Araoz produced the secret instructions
which Lainez had given to Natalis and some father had stolen. We need
not enlarge on this quarrel. It is more interesting to note that the
Jesuits urged that their action in sending money to Rome did not come
under the royal order since the Church has no frontiers. For some
years the affairs of the Society in Spain remained in a very troubled
condition, in spite of their great prosperity.
In France we naturally find the sternest struggle of the decade, as
the large Protestant population was supported by the majority of the
Catholics in opposition to the Jesuits. The early effort to woo Paris
by austerity of life and humble care of the sick had wholly failed.
The Archbishop, the university, and the lawyers of the Parlement
had observed that these humble ministers had the most formidable
privileges in their reserved baggage, and they had put the Jesuits out
of the gates. They remained in the meadows of St. Germain for five or
six years, and then, in 1560, Lainez ordered a fresh campaign. His
representative at Paris was the astute intriguer, Father Cogordan, who
had given Lainez painful proof of his ability at Rome. France was on
the eve of a terrible struggle of Catholics and Huguenots, and Cogordan
had little difficulty in persuading the Queen that the Jesuits were the
appointed force for checking Protestantism. The Parlement was ordered
to register the letters of Henry II., authorising the Jesuits. The
courageous lawyers refused once more, and the whole of the faculties of
the university joined in an emphatic condemnation of the Jesuits and
their privileges.
The next move of the Jesuits is noteworthy. Cogordan was instructed
to reply that the Jesuits would sacrifice, in France, any privileges
which were opposed to the laws of the country or the rights of the
French Church. Their opponents were quite aware that the sacrifice
was insincere and temporary, but the manoeuvre greatly weakened the
position of the Archbishop. As a last resource he stipulated that they
should also abandon the name "Society of Jesus," which many Catholics
considered offensively arrogant, and again Cogordan assented. The
Parlement, however, still refused to register the royal letters, and
threw the decision upon a Council which was to be held at Poissy, where
Catholics and Huguenots were to meet in a dialectical tourney.
Francis II. had died at the close of 1560, and Catherine de Medici,
the virtual ruler, was entirely won to the Jesuit view. But the
Huguenots, led by the Prince de Condé and Admiral de Coligny, were so
powerful that sober Catholic opinion favoured concession to them in
the interest of peace: a policy which the Jesuits ruthlessly opposed
wherever the Catholics were still in the majority. The Colloquy at
Poissy was, therefore, doubly interesting to the Jesuits, and Lainez
went in person, in the train of the Pope's legate, Cardinal d'Este, to
secure their aims; he was to obtain the recognition of the Society and
to prevent the reconciliation of Catholics and Huguenots. Unhappily he
succeeded in both designs. The Colloquy opened in July, when a small
group of the abler Huguenot divines confronted six cardinals and forty
bishops and archbishops, under the eyes of the King and Queen. When,
after a few sittings, it was seen that concessions must be made to the
heretics, Lainez delivered a fiery and eloquent discourse against this
proposed sacrilege. Catherine de Medici trembled, and would attend no
more sittings. The Colloquy ended in a futile wrangle of Lainez and the
Huguenots, and France, thanks very largely to Lainez, went on her way
toward St. Bartholomew.
The sincerity of Lainez in this fanatical gospel of intolerance
cannot be doubted, but it is in piquant contrast to the second part
of his mission, in which he equally succeeded. He brought with him
testimonials to the work done by his Society in a hundred places,
confirmed the promise that they would lay aside their privileges and
their very name (until it was safe to resume them), and thus secured
the right of entry into Paris for this nameless body of priests.
This was done, of course, by quiet activity among the prelates,
without any public discussion. Lainez remained several months in
France, strengthening the new foundation and--at the very time when
he was urging Condé, in a friendly correspondence, to induce the
Protestants to join in the Council of Trent--using the whole of his
great influence over the Queen and court to prevent any concession of
churches or other normal rights to the Huguenots. As a result of his
success, the Jesuits moved into Paris and took possession of the hotel
which the Bishop of Clermont had bequeathed them some years before. We
can hardly suppose that they were following the advice of the sagacious
Lainez when they inscribed over the door the words "College of the
Society of the Name of Jesus." This flippant evasion of their promise
to abandon their name did not tend to conciliate Parisians. When they
succeeded in a short time, with their free classes and ablest teachers,
in drawing some hundreds of youths from the university, they became
bolder and announced that the "Clermont College" was incorporated
with the university. The rector, Marchand, indignantly challenged
their claim, and they produced letters of incorporation which they had
secretly obtained from his predecessor two years before. They could
not insist on the validity of this irregular diploma, and the close of
the generalship of Lainez saw them once more in a position of grave
insecurity and unpopularity.
A somewhat similar struggle was taking place in Belgium. The university
and civic authorities at Louvain resisted them, and their college
remained so poor that we find its rector complaining to Rome of the
burden of supporting Father Ribadeneira, who, as we have previously
seen, had been sent to further Jesuit interests at the court of Philip
in Belgium. Even when Margaret of Austria, whom they easily secured,
bade the States of Brabant admit the Jesuits, they refused, and they
yielded only to the direct intervention of Philip in 1564.
On the other hand, the able and devoted Jesuit Canisius was laying
the foundation of his Society very firmly in the Catholic provinces
of Germany. Canisius is the greatest figure in the second decade of
the Society's life, and seems to have been a more deeply religious
and conscientious man than Lainez. He maintained to the end the more
austere standard of life, travelling afoot from city to city, from
Rhineland to Poland and Austria, and inaugurating everywhere the
effective system of education which Ranke has declared superior to that
of the Reformers. The University of Dillingen was entrusted to the
Jesuits, the frontiers of the Society were extended to Poland in 1554,
and the laity were identified with its interests in the Catholic cities
by being drafted into the numerous sodalities or confraternities which
the Jesuits controlled. The historian can dwell with more sympathy
on their generally enlightened struggle with Protestantism and with
Catholic corruption in Germany, where heresy provided them with a
bracing atmosphere and a healthy incentive to work. Even here, however,
we find them at times stooping to tactics which we cannot admire, and
the next chapter will introduce them to us in some singular adventures.
Their conduct in Bavaria, especially, does not invite close scrutiny.
Albert V. was heavily burdened with debt, and it is something more than
a coincidence that, the moment he admitted the Jesuits, the Vatican
made him a large grant out of ecclesiastical funds; it is even clearer
that the Jesuits were chiefly responsible for the persecution of
Protestants which followed their settlement in Bavaria.
Lainez had made a tour of these provinces after establishing his
Society in France. From Paris he had passed to Belgium, where the
Duchess of Parma was ruling in the name of her brother. Margaret had
heard Lainez preach at Rome, and he easily secured her interest for his
struggling brethren in Flanders. He then went on to Trent, where, in
1562, the Council resumed its sittings. There was no longer the least
hope of persuading the Reformers to attend, and it now remained for the
Church to decide what modifications it would adopt in order to meet the
Protestant indictment. The northern monarchs, confronted with the task
of reconciling large Catholic and Protestant populations, were disposed
to make concessions, and their clergy were at least eager to check the
arrogant claims and moderate the extravagance of the papal court. This
policy was opposed by Italy, Spain, and the Papacy, and the Jesuits
were the most violent partisans of the ultramontane attitude. It would,
perhaps, be an error to ascribe to Lainez a preponderant rôle in the
unhappy councils that were adopted at Trent, but whatever influence his
learning and eloquence gave him was used for the purpose of magnifying
the papal authority. Even the wealth and luxury of the Roman court,
which had been so largely responsible for the schism, found in him an
eloquent defender. He was able to return to Rome with an assurance that
the Catholic States made no concession, while the northern prelates had
to retire to their seats with grave foreboding of bloody struggle.
Of the Jesuit missions beyond the seas during this decade little need
be said. In India alone some material progress was made, and it was
largely due to tactics which promised no permanent result. Writers
like Crétineau-Joly deliberately omit the most significant details in
regard to these early missions, and give a most misleading impression
that tens of thousands of natives were gathered into the fold by the
spiritual teaching; and exalted labours of the missionaries. The early
Jesuits themselves are more candid. They tell, for instance, how in
1559 they made a descent, with an accompanying troop of soldiers, on
an island whose inhabitants had long resisted baptism. The natives were
held up by the troops, and their leaders were put in irons and told
that they were to be deported. In the circumstances they professed
themselves eager to be baptized, and the sacred rite and a good dinner
were at once bestowed on five hundred "converts." The Portuguese
authority was the chief agency on which the missionaries relied. The
most tempting privileges were granted to converts; the administrative
offices which the Hindoo clergy had exercised for ages were transferred
to the Jesuits; and in 1557 even the tribunal of the Inquisition was
set up by them in India.
In other lands the missionary record was singularly barren during the
decade. In Brazil the fathers still wandered in the forests, slowly
winning the confidence and allegiance of the natives by medical and
other humane services. Abyssinia was once more invaded, and some of the
fathers entered the Congo, but both missions were destroyed after a few
years. In Egypt an attempt was made to induce the Copts to recognise
the authority of the Pope. Rich presents were made to the Patriarch,
and the Papacy was flattered for a time by reports of success; but
the adventure ended in the painful and ignominious flight of the
missionaries from the country. The Japanese missions also were almost
destroyed in the course of the decade, and two ingenious attempts to
enter China proved unsuccessful. In 1556 Father Melchior Nuñez was
permitted to reach Canton, but his very diplomatic account of his
object did not convince the mandarins and he was politely expelled. In
1563 a further attempt was made. The mandarins were informed that an
embassy had arrived from Europe with valuable presents for the Emperor.
The cautious mandarins asked to see its credentials, and, when they
were told that these had been accidentally destroyed on the voyage,
they again amiably conducted their visitors to the frontier. There were
three Jesuits, in disguise, among the "envoys," and it is clear that
the whole expedition was a fraudulent attempt of the merchants and
missionaries from Goa to break the reserve of the Chinese.
Such were the fortunes of the Society of Jesus during the decade which
closed with the death of Lainez in 1565. The hundred establishments
which Ignatius had bequeathed to him in 1556 had now increased to a
hundred and fifty; the thousand subjects had become three thousand.
From Portugal to Poland the Jesuits were the most ardent soldiers in
the war against the advancing heretics, and there was hardly a Catholic
court in Europe that did not welcome the children of Ignatius and bow
in secret to their advice. Yet a keen observer like Lainez must have
perceived that this prosperity was less solid than it appeared, and his
last years were saddened by announcements of hostility and defeat. In
France and Belgium the gain was wholly disproportionate to the exacting
struggle they had maintained; in Portugal the material success and
political action were lowering the ideal of the Society; in Spain the
Catholic monarch, the Inquisition, and the higher clergy were hostile;
and England kept its doors sternly closed against the Jesuits. The
future was still uncertain, and another Caraffa might at any time
accede to the papal chair. With a last glance at the ex-Duke of Gandia,
as if to intimate that Borgia was the fittest to take up the burden
he laid down, the second General of the Society, able, energetic, and
high-minded to the last, sank wearily to his rest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: _Relatio ad Reges_, by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar
Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.]
CHAPTER IV
GENERAL FRANCIS BORGIA
The election which followed the death of Lainez was not marred
by any of the painful incidents which we frequently find on such
occasions in the Jesuit chronicles. When the leading fathers of the
Society reached Rome in the early summer, to compare their stories
of warfare in every clime of Europe and consult about the future
of their great organisation, there was one amongst them who had
so natural a pre-eminence that his election was assured. This was
Francis Borgia, ex-Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia. There
were in the distinguished gathering many of far greater ability
and service--indeed, there was probably none of less ability than
Borgia--but his high birth, his friendship with half the kings of
Europe, his venerable person and austere life marked him clearly for
the supreme command. Philip of Spain had outgrown his hostility, and,
at the death of Lainez, Borgia was appointed Vicar-General. So plain
was the intention of the electors that he sincerely begged them not to
impose on him so heavy a responsibility. They disregarded his protest,
and on 2nd July he became General of the Society.
He was then a feeble and venerable man of sixty-five, worn with
austerity, profoundly sincere and religious. In his person he
singularly illustrated the change that had come over Catholicism. The
name of Borgia at once suggests the groves of pleasure or the chambers
of crime out of which the Papacy had been startled by the voice of
Luther: his father had been a son of Pope Alexander VI., his mother
an illegitimate daughter of the Archbishop of Saragossa, who in turn
had been a natural son of Ferdinand V. But with his hair-shirts, his
bloody scourges, and his long fasts, Francis belonged to the new age,
and seemed to have taken on himself the expiation of the scarlet sins
of the Borgias. He had been Viceroy of Catalonia from 1539 to 1543, and
had then suffered for some years a mild and obscure disgrace. During
this enforced retirement to his duchy he had met, and fallen under
the charm of, Peter Favre, and he was, as we saw, secretly admitted
to the Society. Although he had been driven from Spain only a few
years before, the Pope had restored his prestige, and his election was
acclaimed throughout the Society and the Church.
We may, perhaps, see a reflection of his religious spirit, as well as
an indication that grave abuses had crept into the Society, in the long
series of decrees which the Congregation proceeded to pass. No Jesuit
was henceforward to live at a royal court--at least, "not for more than
two or three months": Jesuit communities were not to own and manage
large farms, and sell their produce in the public markets; lawsuits on
behalf of legacies were to be avoided; salaries for teaching were to be
abandoned when a teacher joined the Society. These and other commands
give us an authoritative assurance that there was much disorder. Even
in the Congregation the liberals or casuists were represented. When, in
the discussion of the impropriety of going to law to secure legacies,
one of the sterner brethren quoted the Sermon on the Mount, another
plausibly argued that it was wrong to yield to worldlings funds which
might be used in the service of God. The Puritans won, and their
decrees went forth; but the farms were not abandoned, as we shall see,
nor the lawyers impoverished.
In view of the despotic power which a General had, it may seem strange
that the electors should venture to entrust the office to a man of such
mediocre ability as Borgia. We must remember that the General had a
council of four able assistants, and it could safely be trusted that
the humility of Borgia would leave the power in their hands. Nor was
it long before their statesmanship was put to a severe test. Their
princely benefactor, Pius IV., died before the end of 1565, and a
Dominican monk, Pius V., occupied the chair. He was a personal friend
of Borgia, but he belonged to a rival order, and Rome was greatly
agitated by the hope that he would strip the Society of its excessive
privileges. To the relief and delight of the Jesuits, Pius V. took the
earliest opportunity to show his friendliness. As he drove in solemn
procession past their church, he summoned the General to his carriage,
and talked affectionately with him for a quarter of an hour under the
eyes of his officers. When he went on to nominate Jesuits for certain
important offices, it seemed that they had found another protector.
In 1567, however, they were dismayed to receive an amiable, but firm,
suggestion from Pius to chant in choir, as other religious bodies did,
and abandon the "simple" or temporary vows which enabled them to keep
priests in the Society for years without being solemnly pledged to
it.[4] A commission of cardinals was at the time engaged in discussing
the reform of the monastic world, and the Jesuits submitted to it a
lengthy and skilful memoir in defence of their institutions. Ought
not a regiment of light horse, ready to fly at a moment's notice to
any part of the Pope's dominions, to have special characters? Would
those hundreds of men who had joined the Society in its actual form
not have ground to complain if it were made more onerous? Would the
benefactors who had built their homes and chapels be indifferent to
the changes? Nay, what would the heretics say when the decisions of
a whole series of Popes, to say nothing of the revelations made to
Ignatius, were ruled improper? These ingenious considerations were then
orally impressed on the Pope by Borgia and Polanco, and they flattered
themselves that they had once more evaded the commands which it was
their chief business to see respected by the rest of Christendom. The
Pope had agreed to postpone the question of choir until his new edition
of the Breviary was published, and he did not seem to insist on the
reform of the vows. A few months later, however, they heard that the
Pope was about to decree that in future no member of a religious body
should be admitted to the priesthood until he had taken his final vows.
The details of the struggle need not be repeated here, but we must
assuredly see a significance in these repeated conflicts with the
Pope. In the whole history of the monastic orders of the Catholic
Church there is no example of persistent opposition to, or determined
evasion of, the commands of the Pope to compare for a moment with this
behaviour of the men who took a special vow to obey him. Moreover,
the Jesuit writers of the time frankly confess that they resisted the
Pope's wish in their own interest. If the solemn vows were to be taken
in a youth's early twenties, they would have to examine much more
closely the characters of aspirants to the Society, and their numbers
would shrink. It was one of the most constant charges against them
in every country, that in the admission of novices they sacrificed
spiritual quality to quantity or social distinction; and certainly the
number of priests who abandoned, or were expelled from, the Society was
large. Pius V. knew this, and, to their great mortification, insisted
on the reform of their system. They sullenly abandoned one of the most
characteristic of their institutions--until Pius V. should go the way
of his predecessors. There was much rejoicing in Rome, and it was
rumoured that this was only the beginning of reform; but Pius hastened
to reassure Borgia and his colleagues.
In 1571, Borgia was requested by the Pope to undertake an important
mission. The steady advance of the Turks upon a divided Christendom
alarmed the Pope, and he wished to unite the Catholic monarchs for the
purpose of defence. His nephew, Cardinal Alessandrini, was to visit
the courts of Spain, Portugal, and France, and Borgia was invited
to accompany him. He was now advanced in years and tormented with
gout, but he accepted the mission, and we may make our survey of the
provinces of the Society by following his travels.
Spain endeavoured by an honourable reception to atone for the disgrace
it had formerly put upon him. The King promised his aid against the
Turk: the Inquisition permitted the publication of Borgia's books: the
Jesuits everywhere took courage at sight of their venerable leader and
the honour paid him. The Spanish province had continued, since the
death of Lainez, to have a very chequered record. The father of the
province, Araoz, had resisted every effort of the Roman authorities to
dislodge him from his comfortable nest at the court, and his conduct
had alienated many from the Society. On the other hand, the devoted
exertions of the Jesuits during the epidemics of 1565, 1568, and
1571, had won back much of the early respect for them, and many new
missions had been established. Most of the countries of Europe were
repeatedly ravaged by pestilence during that decade, and the Jesuits
distinguished themselves everywhere by the bravery with which they
exposed, and frequently lost, their lives in the service of the sick.
Yet there was a persistent feeling in Spain that they were over-eager
to secure legacies, and nearly every year witnessed a violent outbreak
of hostility to them.
A typical instance is found in the Jesuit chronicles in the earlier
part of the year of Borgia's visit. The Jesuits of Alcalà had received
into their ranks a youth named Francesco d'España, the son of a wealthy
and distinguished lady of Madrid, who strongly opposed his entrance
into the Society. He had the disposal of a large fortune, of which he
was heir. The mother appealed to the Royal Council, at the head of
which was Cardinal Spinosa, and the Jesuits were ordered to restore
the youth. In the meantime, they had secretly sent the youth to their
house at Madrid,--to be prepared to give evidence, Crétineau-Joly
audaciously says,--and when the Vicar of the Archbishop of Toledo
came to their house at Alcalà to enforce the order, they would tell
him only that d'España was not there. A very lively dispute followed.
The angry prelate roundly abused the Jesuits, who flourished their
privileges in his face; and some zealous brother rang the bell of the
college to summon the students to the defence of their rector. When
at length the Vicar threatened to have the Jesuit Provincial dragged
to prison, and the students drew their knives to protect him, the
rector promised to produce d'España within twenty-four hours. He was
summoned, and his mother tried to persuade him to return, or at least
to leave his fortune to his family instead of leaving it to the
Jesuits. He refused, until the Provincial, foreseeing a great outburst
of indignation, advised him to relinquish his fortune. The feeling
engendered by such incidents was not removed by the visit of Borgia. In
the following year, 1572, the civic authorities of Madrid appealed to
the Royal Council to close the Jesuit school, on the ground that the
lessons were merely "bait" for young men of wealthy families.
In Portugal, Borgia found the remarkable spectacle of one of
his subjects virtually ruling the kingdom. Portugal had fallen
lamentably from its earlier greatness. The vast frame of its Empire
was undiminished, but the spirit necessary to sustain it had died,
and it was doomed to decay. No serious historian questions that the
Jesuits had, at least by setting up the Inquisition and pursuing the
Jews and Moors, greatly accelerated its fall, and under the rule of
Father Gonzales da Camara and his brother, in the name of the young
King, the temporal interests of Portugal steadily declined. A stern
French critic of the Jesuits, Pasquier, says that he was told by the
Marquis de Pisani, the French ambassador at the Spanish court, that
the Jesuits were bent on obtaining control of the kingdom of Portugal.
Their apologists invite us to be amused at this incredible fiction of
the anti-Jesuit, yet it is hardly more than a strong expression of the
historical facts. Pasquier expressly says that the Jesuits meant to
rule, not without a king, but through a king of their own choice, and
they had done this for ten years when Borgia came to visit them. They
had, as we saw, helped to replace Catherine by Cardinal Henry, and they
had in 1568 displaced the Cardinal by declaring Sebastian of age (in
his sixteenth year).
That they promoted the interests of the Society in Portugal and its
colonies need hardly be said, but there is ample evidence that they had
a larger influence. The King's mother wished him to marry the daughter
of the Emperor Maximilian, but papal policy preferred a marriage with
the sister of the French King; and we have a letter from Borgia to
Gonzales, as confessor of Sebastian, enjoining him to promote the
French marriage. Even Borgia could overlook the decrees of his Society
at times, or convert temporal matters into spiritual. We may, however,
regard it as a strained and fanciful conjecture of certain critics that
the Portuguese fathers tried to deter Sebastian from marriage, and
pressed him to undertake his fatal mission to Africa, in order that the
crown might fall into their hands. But this belongs to a later date.
Father Gonzales was still the virtual head of the State when Borgia
visited Portugal, and the Society flourished there and in the Indies.
Although Borgia had lately received an angry protest from Catherine
against the interference of the fathers in political matters, he left
Gonzales at the court.
Alessandrini and Borgia next went to France; and when we reflect
that the historic massacre of the Huguenots occurred a few months
afterwards, we feel that it is important to study the visit and the
position of the Jesuits with some care. Let us first see how the
Society had fared in its ceaseless struggle with its opponents at Paris.
In 1565 a fresh attack had been made on the Jesuit college, and a
fruitless appeal against it was made to the Royal Senate. The Jesuits
then arraigned the University, which refused to recognise their
college, before the Parliament, and a fresh opportunity was offered
to the Parisian lawyers to draw up their scathing indictments of the
Society. In the meantime, Father Possevin, rector of the college
they had recently opened at Lyons, was sent to see the young King
and Catherine de Medici at Bayonne, and induce them to throw their
power and command into the legal scale. The conference at Bayonne,
at which Possevin assisted in some measure, is of grave importance in
the history of Europe. On the pretext of making Charles acquainted
with his kingdom, Catherine was bringing him into the neighbourhood of
other Catholic princes and conferring with them. At Bayonne she met the
wife of Philip of Spain, and in the Queen's suite was the grim Duke of
Alva. We can only conjecture what was discussed at this conference, but
no one doubts that the chief subject was the growth of Protestantism
in Catholic lands. Protestant historians frequently suggest that the
St. Bartholomew massacre was actually projected at Bayonne, but we
are hardly justified in thinking that there was anything more than a
general discussion of the brutal policy which was afterwards adopted
by Alva in the Netherlands and Catherine in France. In any case, it is
most unlikely that Possevin had any share in these secret counsels.
He was a new man, hardly known to the court in 1565. He discussed the
affairs of his Society with the Spanish Queen, and revealed to her
the smuggling of Protestant books into her country; and he returned
to Paris with letters, commending the suit of the Paris college, from
Catherine, Charles, and the Cardinal de Bourbon.
When the President of the Parlement found these weighty and irregular
documents thrown into the scale, he temporised. The suit was suspended;
the Jesuits were provisionally allowed to teach. In the following
year, however, the University appealed to the Constable of France,
complaining that the professors were unable to keep discipline, as
a pupil went to the Jesuits the moment he was reprimanded. Then two
singular discoveries were made by the Jesuits, and they had the effect
of disarming many of their patriotic opponents. In 1567, Father Oliver
Manares, the Provincial, informed the court and the civic authorities
of Paris that the Huguenots had concerted a plot to sack and burn the
city; he had learned it from a Polish noble, who was visiting Paris and
had been warned to leave in time.[5] Paris flew to arms and scared the
supposed plotters; it was also grateful to Father Manares, and incensed
against the Huguenots. In the same year, Father Auger was fortunate
enough to discover a similar plot at Lyons. There is evidence of a
conspiracy at Lyons, but the historian must regard the "discovery"
of Manares with grave suspicion. The effect of the discoveries was
that the grateful King at once ordered that all opposition to the
Jesuits must cease, and all legacies to the Society must be valid in
law; and that the Catholics were soon ranged against the Huguenots in
open field. The ablest of the Jesuits, Auger and Possevin, ardently
stimulated the Catholics, accompanied the troops, and were even seen in
the thick of the battles.
A peace was arranged in 1570, to the disappointment of the Jesuits;
and the country still enjoyed this precarious peace when Alessandrini
and Borgia reached the court, at Blois, in the first month of 1572. In
regard to the discussions which took place we know only that France
declared itself unable to join in the crusade against the Turk, and
Charles's sister, Mary of Valois, was promised to Henri de Béarn
instead of to Sebastian of Spain, as the Pope wished. Alessandrini and
Borgia went back to Rome, to announce their failure to the dying Pope.
And on 24th August of that year took place the horrible massacre which
lays an eternal stain on the memory of Catherine de Medici. We have,
fortunately, neither to linger over the revolting details of that
outrage, nor to enter the larger controversy as to the responsibility
for it.[6] The general feeling of historians is that the massacre was
deliberately planned by Catherine; and, since the Jesuits had influence
with Catherine, we have to consider whether they may have been
implicated in the barbaric slaughter.
Since General Borgia conferred with her at Blois some months before
the massacre, it has been thought by many that he was initiated. A
careful consideration of the character of Borgia disposes one to acquit
him confidently of this suspicion; it seems incredible that he should
approve, or that Catherine should expect him to approve, so inhuman a
measure. It is a common mistake to suppose that there was a fixed type
of Jesuit, and that almost any member of the Society may be regarded
as a man who would sanction criminal means for the attainment of a
good end. Our narrative has already shown us that Jesuits differed
considerably in character, and that individual features were not, as is
sometimes thought, obliterated by the impression of a corporate stamp.
Borgia was cruel only to himself, and he does not seem to have been
much of a casuist.
The real question is how far such men as Auger, Possevin, and Manares
were responsible for that general mood and temper of Catherine which
culminated in the Bartholomew massacre. It does not seem probable that
any of them were actually initiated to the plot. They were not the
keepers of the royal conscience in France at that time, and were not
at all constantly consulted by Catherine. But since the days when, at
and after the colloquy at Poissy, Lainez had sternly forbidden her
to grant an elementary freedom of worship to the Huguenots, they had
impelled her toward that harsh and intolerant policy which at length
took this criminal form in her diseased mind. Their intellectual
campaign against the Huguenots was a failure. They made few converts
from it, and they urged coercion to prevent it from spreading. Then,
when the Huguenots stirred under this unjust treatment, they were
very zealous in warning the court of "plots." It seems to me a grave
circumstance that in 1567, Father Manares "discovered" on the part of
the Huguenots of Paris a design not unlike that which the Catholics
afterwards perpetrated against them; it is probable that this was the
germ of Catherine's bloody enterprise. Whether she ever discussed her
plan with any of the leading Jesuits we have no evidence whatever
to determine. At a later date, when their house is raided and their
preachers are bolder, we shall find the Jesuits of Paris expressly
advocating crime in the interest of religion. At this stage we can
only say that they pressed a policy of violence and injustice, and
Catherine's crime, in which they acquiesced, was an extreme deduction
from it.
Simultaneously with the trouble in France, Alva was engaged in
"pacifying" the Netherlands. Here the Jesuits had miscalculated the
strength of the Catholics, and, in encouraging the policy of violent
repression, led to their own undoing. Only the favour of princes
had secured some shelter for them in Belgium, and their houses now
disappeared in the flames of the civil war. Their college at Douai had
been interdicted by the university authorities in 1567, but relieved by
papal authority. As the Spaniards proceeded, however, in the drastic
and bloody policy which the Jesuits were known to favour, the crowds
stormed their residences, and by 1570 they were almost driven from
the country. They returned in the wake of Alva, but there was bitter
hostility to them, and they were generally accused of rebuilding their
house at Antwerp out of the loot of Flemish towns. Father Sacchini
is moved to lament the perversity of men who could entertain such a
suspicion, though, as their sardonic critic Steinmetz observes, "it
would have been better to supply the place of this moral maxim by
stating whence the funds were obtained for building or beautifying the
house at Antwerp."
When we pass to Germany we naturally find that the Jesuits are apostles
of toleration, charity, and calm intellectual discussion of differences
of creed in the north, fanatical intolerantists in the south, and
advocates of every conceivable compromise between the two extremes in
the intervening or mixed States. Canisius still maintained his great
work and his austere standard. Appointed Legate of the Pope in 1565 he
traversed the whole of Germany on foot, and strengthened the loyalty
of the Catholic rulers to the Council of Trent. In the following year
we find him, at the Diet of Augsburg, helping to unite Protestants and
Catholics against the Turk. Many new colleges were founded by him,
including three in Poland, before the death of Borgia. On the other
hand, grave reports had to be sent to Rome from the more Catholic and
prosperous centres. The University of Dillingen, which the Jesuits
controlled, was found in 1567 to be permeated with heresy, and a
rigorous scrutiny ended in some of the Jesuits (including an English
refugee, Edward Thorn) going over to the Protestants. In 1570 the
Jesuit rector of Prague College became a Protestant and married. In
Bavaria the cry was raised that they mutilated boys in their colleges.
A most extraordinary trial resulted in their acquittal, but there
was a deep and widespread prejudice against them. In the same year,
1565, they were fiercely assailed in Austria. Their college at Vienna
was raided by an angry mob; and the nobles, who had been convoked by
Maximilian, refused to give their aid in the campaign against the Turk
unless the Emperor expelled the Jesuits.
In Italy the chronicles of the Society tell of slow advance chequered
by fits of hostility. By the year 1567 the Roman college had more than
a thousand pupils, but the provinces were beginning to murmur at the
burden of supporting this establishment, and the next congregation
would restrict its growth. In Genoa, Siena, and other cities, the
fathers struggled with poverty; in one place a college had to abandon
the struggle and die. In most parts, however, the Society flourished
and adapted its work to the circumstances. At Palermo we hear, in 1567,
of a weird pageant, known as "The Triumph of Death," arranged by the
Jesuits. Sack-clothed men bearing candles, a huge figure of Christ in
a coffin, and two hundred flagellants, stimulated to their ghastly
exercise by a troop of choristers dressed as hermits, went before a car
containing a monstrous skeleton, higher than the roofs of the houses,
with a mighty scythe in its hand. In the north the appeal was to
princes. Borromeo still favoured the Society at Milan, while at Ferrara
and Florence the Jesuits directed the consciences of princesses. The
daughters of the Emperor who had married the Duke of Ferrara and
Francis de Medici insisted on retaining their Jesuit confessors;
and, when Borgia would refuse permission, the confessors themselves
pleaded that the fair ladies could not possibly be abandoned to strange
influences. Borgia reluctantly consented. He saw, and regretted, that
one of the sternest rules of the Society was being sacrificed to
expediency, but his counsellors seemed to have overruled him. Ignatius
had sanctioned the first royal confessor: now there were four.
From his survey of the provinces, in which he saw much to distress his
austere feelings, Borgia returned, exhausted, to Rome. He died a few
weeks afterwards (1st October 1572), and Polanco, one of the ablest
administrators at the Roman centre, was appointed Vicar-General. He
fixed the election for April, and in the early spring the most famous
officers of the army began to come in from their remote battlefields.
Auger was occupied in so congenial a task in France that he would not
come to Rome; he was with the Catholic troops besieging the Huguenots
in La Rochelle. But there was an impressive gathering of the veterans
of the Society. Salmeron and Bobadilla were still there to tell the
story of their humble beginning on the flanks of Montmartre thirty
years before; Ribadeneira, Miguel de Torres, Canisius, Possevin,
Manares, Leo Henriquez, Miron, Polanco, and other fathers, before whom
kings would bow, came in from the frontiers to the eternal city, as the
commanders of legions had done before them. And of this brilliant group
one of the lowest in ability and distinction, Father Everard Mercurian,
was chosen to be General.
The new Pope, Gregory XIII., had intervened. "How many Spanish Generals
have you had?" he asked, when the older Jesuits came to greet him.
All three had been Spaniards. "How many votes have the Spaniards
amongst you?" he then asked. Quite enough to elect a Spaniard once
more, as they were bent on doing; and the man on whom they had fixed
their thoughts was the gifted and energetic Polanco. But Polanco
was descended from converted Jews, a class disliked by high-born
Spaniards, and Kings Philip and Sebastian had written to ask the Pope
to prevent him from being elected. The fathers respectfully protested
that the Pope, who was Protector of their Society, ought not to coerce
their decisions. "Are there no able men amongst you except Spaniards?"
he went on; and he suggested Everard Mercurian. Gregory knew that the
blind obedience of the Jesuits to the Pope was not of the kind which
hastens to carry out the slightest wish of the ruler, and on the
morning of the election he sent a cardinal to tell them that they must
not elect a Spaniard. They still expostulated; but Gregory insisted,
and Mercurian, a mild and mediocre old man, was made General. Being a
Belgian, he was at least a subject of Spain; and he was sixty-eight
years old.
Then the conscript fathers assembled, day after day, to discuss the
mass of secret reports from every centre, and pass those instructive
decrees--forty-eight were issued on this occasion--which tell us so
plainly the decay of the original spirit. Ignatius had taught them to
seek power and wealth for God: it had proved a dangerous lesson. The
Congregation dispersed in June, and Mercurian entered upon his seven
years' generalship. The real control was openly entrusted to Father
Palmio, the Italian assistant, until Father Manares ousted him, and
secured the chief place and the hope of succession. There was, at this,
some unedifying language; we shall see presently that Manares, at
least, undoubtedly sought the generalship. But the various provinces
were now under the command of such able men that the progress of
the Society was not retarded. Let us glance at the more significant
happenings in the provinces, and then sum up the work of the Society in
its first four decades.
In the case of Spain we need note only that the Pope's interference
in the election was bitterly resented, and a feeling spread among the
fathers which we shall find breaking into the most singular expression
under the rule of Acquaviva. In spite of the stern design of Ignatius
and the emphatic rule of the Society that the Jesuit was to benumb
every patriotic fibre in his heart, and know himself only as a citizen
of the city of God, the Spaniards cherished their national pride in
an alarming degree. Under the ambitious and masterful Philip II., who
dreamed of world-empire and was willing to include the Jesuits in his
diplomatic corps, they prospered and were the most important body in
the Society. They were annoyed that the generalship passed out of their
hands, and they began to meditate secession from the Roman authorities.
When the papal Nuncio died at Madrid in 1577 a memoir written in this
sense was found amongst his papers. We shall see later how the feeling
developed, and how the war with Rome brought into notice the degenerate
character of the Spanish province.
Italian affairs in that decade are chiefly remarkable for a violent
quarrel with St. Charles Borromeo at Milan. He had continued for
some years to patronise and employ them. Father Adorno remained his
confessor; and in 1572 he gave them the Abbey of Braida for a college,
and in 1573 entrusted to them the College of Nobles at Milan. They
were already in charge of the seminary of the diocese, and the trouble
seems to have begun with the transfer of this institution to the
Oblates (a religious body founded by Charles) in 1577. Crétineau-Joly
explains that the Jesuits were now controlling so many institutions in
Milan that they were overworked, and they begged to be relieved of the
seminary. He appeals to Giussano, the saint's biographer; but Giussano
merely says that Charles "gave the seminary to the Oblates, with the
consent of the Jesuits," which is a polite way of saying that they were
dismissed. We shall see, in fact, that Charles was convinced that the
Jesuits were in a lax and degenerate condition.
In the following year, 1578, the cardinal quarrelled with the Governor
of Milan, and the Jesuits divided in allegiance. Adorno and a few
others were faithful to Charles, but a courtly and fashionable Jesuit
preacher, who was appointed to preach the Lent, attacked and ridiculed
the cardinal-archbishop from one of the chief pulpits of his own
city, before a crowded audience of wealthy Milanese. This preacher,
Mazzarino, uncle of the famous minister, was the confessor and friend
of the governor. Charles protested against the unseemly attack, but the
Jesuit provincial appointed Mazzarino again to preach the Lent in 1579,
and he attacked Charles more virulently than ever. All the less austere
ladies of Milan, for whom he made smooth the paths of rectitude,
flocked to his chapel, and listened with pleasure to his ridicule of
the ascetic prescriptions of their saintly archbishop. Charles drew the
attention of the Provincial to the fact that Mazzarino was preaching
moral principles of scandalous laxity, and his attacks on the chief
clerical authority were very injurious. The Provincial would not
chide Mazzarino, and Charles appealed to the General. The only reply
of the General was, at the request of a certain countess, to direct
Mazzarino to preach all the year round. Charles threatened to suspend
the preacher, and he was defied from the pulpit; he threatened to bring
his principles to the notice of the Inquisition, and the Jesuits sent a
courier to Rome to defend their preacher. Then Charles instructed his
Roman agent, Spetiano, to lay the case before the papal court, and
Mazzarino was recalled by his General and suspended from preaching for
two years by an ecclesiastical tribunal.
This quarrel is of interest for two reasons. In the first place, it
illustrates the value of Crétineau-Joly's history of the Jesuits.
The French writer ignores the attack in 1577, and says that, as soon
as Mazzarino began to misbehave, "the Milan fathers hastened to
disapprove of the imprudent orator," and the General recalled him. It
is, of course, true that Charles's confessor, Adorno, "disapproved"
of his brother Jesuit, but the Mazzarino faction retorted that he
was jealous, because Mazzarino had larger audiences for his sermons;
and Crétineau-Joly suppresses the fact that the Provincial, and for
a time the General, defiantly supported Mazzarino. We know this from
Borromeo's letters to his agent.[7] The further interest of the
quarrel, which is entirely suppressed by the French historian, is that
in these letters Charles passes very severe strictures on the Jesuits
as a body. Instead of finding fault with one man only, Mazzarino, he
found fault with all except one, his confessor, to whom he remained
attached. "I confess," he writes to Spetiano, "that for some time I
have felt the Society to be in grave danger of decadence unless a
prompt remedy be applied." The Jesuits, he explains, admit clever
youths without regard to their character, and they grant extravagant
liberties to their literary colleagues. They are inflated by the favour
of the nobility and the crowds of wealthy women who flock to lax
moralists like Mazzarino. We may also recall here the grave statement
of Charles's nephew and successor, Archbishop Frederic Borromeo, who
was educated by the Jesuits: a statement repeated, in the most solemn
terms, by a writer to whom he made it.
I have enlarged on this quarrel because we have here the rare advantage
of an impartial and unimpeachable witness, and we see how serious a
ground there is at times, when independent evidence can be found,
for reading Jesuit and pro-Jesuit writers with caution. We must not,
however, pass to the opposite extreme and conclude that the Italian
Jesuits generally were the favourites of ladies who appreciated
indulgence in their confessors and preachers. This is the only serious
scandal of the Italian province under Mercurian.
In France, as in Spain, the story is one of preparation for the
stirring events of the next chapter. The hostile Archbishop of Paris
died, and Pierre de Gondi, who succeeded him, was an Italian of the
Medici suite, and favourable to the Jesuits. Charles IX. gave place to
Henry II., and the new king chose Auger for his confessor, and gave
the Jesuits everything they cared to ask. There was now no question
of suppressing their name and privileges in France. A third powerful
patron was the Cardinal de Bourbon, who obtained for them a "house
of the professed" at Paris, and tried to force the university to
incorporate their college. The Parlement and University still made
every effort to check their triumphant advance, but they now began to
send pupils of their own to graduate in the university and weaken its
opposition. Their college in Lorraine was erected into a university,
and royal pupils sat at their feet. When the famous Catholic League was
formed they flung themselves into its work with great ardour, and we
shall see the terrible issue in the next chapter.
Two incidents in the permanent quarrel with the Paris University should
be noticed. One of the Jesuits, Maldonat, shocked the professors of
the Sorbonne by teaching that the immaculate conception of Mary was a
matter of free opinion,[8] and Rome upheld the Jesuit. More interesting
is a memoir which the doctors of the Sorbonne submitted to the papal
court when, in 1575, Cardinal de Bourbon was trying to secure the
incorporation of the Jesuit college. Amongst heavy charges of avarice
and of seizing the property of other religious bodies, we find the
quaint accusation that the Jesuits taught that souls were delivered
from purgatory after ten years of suffering. The point seems academic
to the layman, and very consoling to the faithful. What it really
meant, in practice, was that the Jesuits claimed that they might, after
ten years, divert to other purposes the large funds bequeathed to them
to say masses for the dead.
In Belgium the record was still one of trouble and vicissitude. They
had, when Alva had "pacified" the province, opened a number of houses,
which the townsfolk (as at Antwerp and Liège) threatened to burn.
Then, when Don John, Philip's half-brother, was defeated in 1578,
the Jesuits refused to take the oath imposed by the States and were
expelled from Antwerp and other centres. They began to recover to some
extent under the Duke of Parma, but had to witness the secession of
the northern provinces and the formation of a new Protestant power,
Holland, which was destined to give them trouble. At Louvain they
maintained a struggle with the university similar to that at Paris.
They at last tripped up the celebrated Michel de Bay (Baius), rector of
the university, and sent their brilliant young theologian, Bellarmine,
who was then only thirty years old, to enter into a prolonged duel with
him. When, at last, they induced Rome to take a serious view of the
errors of Baius, and Father Toledo was sent by the Pope to secure his
submission, they began to rise from the lowly position in which the
university had kept them.
The Catholics of Austria and Southern Germany continued to oppose and
intimidate them in spite of the devoted exertions of Canisius. They
were fiercely assailed at Gratz, Prague, Innsprück, and Vienna. The
Emperor Maximilian was even induced to forbid their Vienna college
to grant degrees or compete in lectures with the university, though
the Jesuits soon got the restriction removed. It appears that they
announced lectures on the same subjects and at the same hours as those
of the university, and, as always, charged no fees. This was one of
the chief grievances of the universities, especially as the Jesuits
palpably trusted to obtain control of the universities themselves.
Another grievance, which we have noticed in the Parisian indictment,
is that they somehow acquired the property of older religious orders.
One of many instances of this occurs in the present period. They opened
a college at Freiburg, and were invited to work in the Swiss cantons.
For the beginning of their mission the Pope assigned them the revenues
of the abbey of Marsens, and Canisius soon had a centre for attacking
Calvinism in Switzerland. The Polish colleges continued to flourish, as
we shall presently realise, under King Stephen Bathori.
The most interesting adventure under the rule of Mercurian is the
attempt to penetrate Sweden. The principles of the Reformation had
been cordially received in Sweden, and it seemed to King John III.
that peace could be secured only by some kind of compromise between
the old faith and the new. John was, however, married to the sister
of the Queen of Poland, and the Jesuits, who were sternly forbidden
to enter the kingdom, saw in this a means of outwitting the vigilant
Protestants. The combination of women and Jesuits was the supreme
agency in checking the progress of the Reformation in Europe.
In 1574 an envoy came to Stockholm to convey the compliments of Anne of
Poland to her sister Catherine. One could not close the gates against
an envoy, though it was known that the fine clothes of the ambassador
were a thin disguise of the Polish Jesuit Father Warsevicz, and the
secret instructions of the envoy were to correct the liberalism of John
and offer him an alliance with Spain. John knew theology and wrangled
with the envoy for a week in the palace. The mission was fruitless,
and in 1576 John was persuaded to countenance an even more romantic
adventure. A young Norwegian presented himself to the Protestant clergy
of Stockholm, and said that, having spent some years at southern
universities, he would like a place as professor in the new college
they were forming. He begged that they would recommend him to the
king, and they did, so that he secured the appointment. It was the
Jesuit Father Nicolai, who had, as John knew, been sent from Rome with
instructions to perpetrate this amazing fraud. Nicolai must certainly
have lied to the Protestant authorities about his beliefs, in order to
obtain a place as teacher of theology in a Protestant college. When we
reflect that he acted on instructions from Rome, and that no Jesuit or
pro-Jesuit writer seems to see anything reprehensible in his conduct,
we feel that Jesuit diplomacy had already reached a stage which it
would be impolite to characterise in plain English.
Nicolai seems to have held his chair of Lutheran theology for a
considerable time. There were those who scented heresy in his lectures,
but they were promptly expelled, and Nicolai even became rector
of the college. One would give much to have to-day a copy of the
Lutheran-Jesuit's lectures. The masterful Possevin was next dispatched,
in the quality of Legate, with the Irish Jesuit, William Good, for
companion. He was to prevent a union of Sweden and Holland, and to
correct the king's errors. Possevin went first to Prague, where he
induced the widow of Maximilian to name him her ambassador to Sweden,
and then, dressed for the part, with a sword dangling at his side, he
boldly entered Stockholm, where Professor Nicolai was still teaching
Lutheran theology in his subtle way. The counter-Reformation had
different methods from those of Luther. John was willing to return
to the faith and enter the Spanish alliance, if Rome would grant
the marriage of priests, the mass in Swedish, and other claims of
the Reformers. Possevin hastened to Rome, leaving his sword by the
way, and stormily pressed the commission of cardinals to grant these
concessions. It is (apart from certain remarkable indulgences later
on the foreign missions) the only occasion on which a Jesuit pleaded
for compromise, but Possevin was ambitious. Failing to obtain the
concessions, Possevin hurried to the Duke of Bavaria, the Emperor, and
the King of Poland, in order that he might at least be able to offer to
John the material alliances he had promised him, if he would break with
England and Holland. But he had little to offer, and the Protestants
were now alarmed; and Possevin, Good, Warsevicz, and Professor Nicolai
were politely ushered from the country.
Of the foreign missions which will enrage us more fully when the
Jesuits are firmly established, a few words must suffice. In India the
use of the civil power to support their preaching continued to augment
the number, and restrain the quality, of the converts. The Japanese
mission made slow progress, and was extinguished in some of the large
towns. The gates of China were politely opened to admit a Portuguese
legation (containing disguised Jesuits), but, after an interview at
Canton, politely closed again by the wary mandarins. The settlement in
Brazil was deeply injured by the diseases which European Christians
brought to South America, terrifying the natives; and a serious loss
was sustained in 1570, when a ship conveying forty Jesuits to Brazil
was captured by "Huguenot pirates." They were all slain. Florida,
Mexico, and Peru were visited for the first time in this decade, and
a few fathers laid the foundations of new missions. On the whole,
the missionary record under Borgia and Mercurian does not fulfil the
earlier promise.
Mercurian died in the summer of 1580, just forty years after the
establishment of the Society. Assuredly a remarkable advance had been
made in those four decades. The ten Jesuits had become a formidable
army of 5000 _socii_ (including novices and lay-brothers), fighting
heresy in the boudoirs of queens and the market-places of Germany,
educating hundreds of thousands of youths, all over Europe, in a
fanatical zeal for the papacy, extending its influence through the
laity by means of sodalities and confraternities, pouring out a vast
literature, from the blistering pamphlet to the ponderous folio volume,
relating to the great religious controversy, wearing the garb of the
beggar or the silk of the noble as occasion needed, speaking a hundred
tongues, and sending scores of men yearly to lands whence they would
never return and where fever or the axe awaited them. They were the
backbone of the counter-Reformation, formidable alike by the simple
and austere devotion of some, the brilliance and learning of others,
and the unscrupulousness of yet others in the service of the Church.
And every man, and every movement of every man, was registered in
that central bureau at Rome, where four sagacious heads directed the
strategy and tactics of this planet-scattered regiment.
Our survey of the growth and evolutions of this spiritual army warns
us to avoid generalisations. It is not true that from the start the
Jesuits were avaricious, ambitious, and unscrupulous: it is not true
that they maintained their spirit untainted for half a century, and
then degenerated. No epithet will apply to them as a body, except that
they differed, corporately, from all other religious bodies in the
diplomatic nature of their action. Every variety of man was found in
their ranks: the austere flagellant and the genial courtier, the man
who served the poor because they were poor, and the man who served them
in order to edify the rich; the man who flung himself with a smile into
the arms of death, and the man who loved disguises and the adventurous
evasion of death, the saint and the sinner, the peasant, the noble,
and the scholar. No uniform stamp effaced their individual characters.
The weak or sensual or casuistic degenerated in the first decade:
the strong maintained their idealism to the last. But that original
tendency to consecrate worldly devices to a high end, to regard the
effectiveness rather than the intrinsic propriety of means, to seek
wealth and power because they procured speedier success, was running
its inevitable course, and from the recommendation of lying in the
cause of Christ we shall soon see some of them go on to the condonation
of vice and the counsel of crime.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: I have previously explained the distinction between simple
and solemn vows, and the advantage which the Jesuits had in confining
the latter to a chosen few of their body. See p. 30. These "simple"
vows are now admitted in other orders, but they were for centuries
peculiar to the Jesuits, and were very distasteful to the older orders.]
[Footnote 5: It will appear later that Manares was a man of robust
conscience, and later incurred the censure of his brethren for improper
conduct.]
[Footnote 6: I may draw attention to a curious illustration of the
difficulty of reaching a verdict on the St. Bartholomew massacre. In
the same volume of the _Cambridge Modern History_ we are told (p. 20)
that "Gregory XIII. is said to have expressed dismay," and (p. 285)
that he heard the news with "triumphant acclamation." There is surely
no serious doubt that the second statement is correct.]
[Footnote 7: See a selection in the _Annales de la Société des
soi-disans Jésuites_ (1764), vol. i. pp. 132-159.]
[Footnote 8: It did not become a dogma of the Church until 1854.]
CHAPTER V
PROGRESS AND DECAY UNDER ACQUAVIVA
The older of the fathers who obeyed the summons to a new election, and
converged upon the Eternal City, must have wondered whether it would
pass without a fresh exhibition of the very human passions which the
occasion so frequently revealed amongst them. Father Oliver Manares
had been appointed Vicar-General, and had announced the election for
the spring of 1581. We remember Manares as the fortunate discoverer
of Huguenot plots at Paris, and then as successfully ousting Father
Palmio from the position of chief assistant to Mercurian. He had made
his way to the steps of the throne, and the more religious brethren
were now startled to find him shamelessly canvassing for votes, in
spite of the stern prohibition in their Constitutions. Four of the
older fathers were at once appointed to investigate the charge against
him. Bobadilla, impetuous and masterful still in his old age, was one
of the four, but he expressed his resentment of the charge against
his friend so strongly before the inquiry opened that they had, with
great difficulty, to remove him from the commission; and, when the
commissioners found Manares guilty, he made very sore trouble in
the house. In the end Manares was persuaded to forego his right of
nomination, and Father Acquaviva was elected.
Claude Acquaviva was one of the youngest of the electors. Though
strenuous work had already begun to whiten his dark southern hair,
he was only thirty-seven years old; but he was distinguished for his
high birth, his great ability, his integrity, and a happy combination
of resolution and cold equanimity that recalled Lainez. He was a son
of the Neapolitan Duke of Atri, and was destined to rule the Society
during thirty-four years of that dangerous period when its desire for
wealth and power, in the service of God, led it into the dark ways of
political intrigue and the accumulation of earthly treasure. We shall
now find the seeds of decay spreading over larger areas and germinating
rapidly. We shall witness a singular eruption of the worldly spirit in
the Spanish peninsula, and the development of the political Jesuit as
he is known in the history of England, which I reserve for a special
chapter, and of France.
The first few years of the generalship of Acquaviva were peaceful. A
friendly Pope, Gregory XIII., occupied the Roman see, and the Society
increased in numbers and prestige. The Gesù, the famous metropolitan
church of the Jesuits, was opened by the Pope in 1583; the Gregorian
calendar was very largely framed by one of their members, the learned
Clavius of Bavaria. But Gregory died in 1585, and Acquaviva prepared
for a struggle with the papacy. The stern, despotic Sixtus V. had now
received the tiara, and all Rome expected him to clip the wings of the
soaring Society. Acquaviva thought it would be prudent to disarm the
Pope and disavow the thirst for power. He offered to resign control
of the Roman seminary. Sixtus refused the offer, and awaited his
opportunity; and in the following year, 1586, the flash and roar of the
gathering clouds in Spain led him to intervene.
The Spanish fathers had, as I said, looked upon the generalship almost
as an hereditary right, and had resented the election of Mercurian and
Acquaviva. But this feeling is so wholly opposed to the religious
ideal of the Society that we at once suspect a serious decay of the
character of the Spanish Jesuits, and we find some remarkable evidence
of it. The official history of the Society in Spain does not attempt
to conceal that under Borgia and Mercurian there had been widespread
decadence,[9] and I have shown how this was due to material prosperity
and the lack of serious work and heretical neighbours. We have,
however, a more singular and ample account of this decadence. One of
the most brilliant of the Spanish Jesuits, Mariana, the famous advocate
of regicide, was moved to discredit the Roman authorities by showing
the corruption into which they had allowed his own province to fall,
and his _Tratado del Govierno de la Compañia de Jesus_ gives us a
very candid picture of the Spanish houses. The work was, naturally,
not published by Mariana. Like so many documents in the Society, it
was intended for private circulation in manuscript, but it was found
amongst his papers by a bishop whom the king appointed to examine them,
and the only ground for the claim of certain Jesuits that it is partly
spurious is that they dislike its revelations. The decrees of the
Society itself confirm the substance of its charges, and the temper and
spirit of the book are quite in keeping with its Jesuit authorship.
It complains, chiefly, of the low state of culture and the great
comfort of life among the Spanish fathers. Of the 540 Jesuits in
Spain 230 are lay-brothers: a circumstance that must be borne in mind
when we read that there are so many thousand members of the Society.
The lay-brother is merely a servant of the priests, and the enormous
proportion of these lay-brothers in Spain means that the fathers own
large farms and vineyards, sell the produce in the markets (as we learn
from the decrees of the Society), and live cheerfully on the income.
Mariana does not speak openly of vice--a sufficient proof that the book
was not written, even in part, by an anti-Jesuit--but he says that the
"enjoyments" of his colleagues are "excessive and scandalous." They
further add materially to their incomes by managing the affairs of
their penitents; in Valladolid alone there are twelve of these steward
chaplains. They dress in expensive cloth, travel in carriages or on
mules, and overrun their ample incomes. The whole province is loaded
with debt, yet at Mariana's own house at Toledo the expenditure per
head is about £50 a year: a very comfortable sum for the time and
place, for a community pledged to poverty. Discipline is thwarted by
favouritism and flattery, and the constant spying and reporting cause
bitter quarrels in the houses.
This grave account of the Spanish province--sober and convincing, yet
grave in contrast with the primitive life and the high profession--is
written solely for the purpose of showing that a distant authority
cannot maintain discipline, and the Spanish Jesuits must have local
autonomy and less despotic rulers--home-rule and democracy, in a word.
This is the note of the remarkable struggle which now opens between
the Spaniards and the Italians. Acquaviva wanted to maintain the stern
Ignatian ideal of destroying nationality, and to keep Jesuits as much
as possible away from their native countries; but he made the mistake
of removing old and long-settled fathers and substituting for them
young men who shared his own ideas, and, in spite of his ideal, he
favoured the Italians.
In 1586 one of the chief Spanish malcontents, Father Hernandez, applied
to Acquaviva for permission to quit the Society. When Acquaviva
refused, Hernandez gave notice to the Inquisition that the General
would not let him leave the Society lest he should betray a certain
secret which the Jesuits were hiding from the Inquisitors. We have
seen how little the Inquisitors and leading prelates of Spain loved
the Jesuits. They at once forced Hernandez to tell the secret. One of
the Jesuits, it seems, had seduced a lady-penitent--a crime from which
only the Inquisition could absolve--yet the Provincial Marcenius had
absolved him and transferred him to another town. A great sensation was
caused when the Inquisitors at once put the Provincial, the Rector of
Salamanca, and two other Jesuits, in their prison, and demanded copies
of the Constitutions, Privileges, and other documents of the Society.
To the delight of Spain and the dismay of Acquaviva, they were going to
make a general inquiry into the character and life of this semi-secret
Society.
Acquaviva adroitly suggested to the Pope that this was one of those
occasions, which he loved, of asserting his supreme authority, and set
Sixtus and the Spaniards at loggerheads. The Pope instructed his Nuncio
at Madrid to intervene, and Acquaviva sent a Jesuit to win Philip II.
Philip, however, was quite willing to see the Society reformed, and
the Inquisitors went on to arrest other Jesuits and demand further
documents. The insurgent Spaniards were now openly demanding that they
should have a local commissary, independent of Acquaviva, and the
General was, as quickly as possible, removing fathers from Spain and
filling their places with foreigners. The Inquisition decreed that no
Jesuit was to leave Spain. Nothing so fiercely awakened the energy
of Sixtus V. as a quarrel with local prelates, and he now angrily
threatened to depose the cardinal at the head of the Inquisition if
the whole case were not at once remitted to him. So the Jesuits were
released and the documents sent to Rome, in 1588. We, of course, hear
no more of the wicked confessor from that time, but Acquaviva had not
counted on this scrutiny of the documents of the Society by the keen
eye of Sixtus V., and he dreaded the outcome. "Company of Jesus!"
Sixtus used to mutter, as he meditatively stroked his long white beard;
"Who are these men whom we must not name without bowing our heads?"[10]
He at once issued two preliminary decrees. The first forbade the
Jesuits to receive illegitimate sons; their own rule forbade this, and
the decree only confirms the charge that the Jesuits looked mainly to
wealth or ability in admitting novices. The second decree reserved to
the general or to a provincial congregation the right to admit novices.
Acquaviva opposed this, and it was modified--and would die at the death
of Sixtus V.
Meanwhile the struggle was renewed in Spain. One of the French
Jesuits whom Acquaviva had put in place of a rebel proved worse
than his predecessor. He asked the opinion of the Inquisition on a
letter written by Ignatius himself on obedience, and it was promptly
condemned. Acquaviva again had the case transferred and re-tried at
Rome, and, although Sixtus spoke some plain unofficial language about
the letter, the Roman Inquisition absolved it, and the audacious
Father Vincent ended in a papal prison for going on to question the
Pope's authority. At the same time an imprudent step on the part of
the Society's critics united the Spanish Jesuits with their General
and put an end for a time to the struggle. The King appointed a bishop
to inquire into the state of all the religious orders in Spain and
deal with their irregularities. Neither the local Jesuits nor the
General wanted a "royal visitator" peeping into their wine-cellars,
and Acquaviva again appealed to the Pope: not forgetting to remind
Sixtus, who supremely abhorred clerical "bastards," that this Bishop of
Carthagena fell into that category. At the same time he sent to Madrid
the English Jesuit, Father Parsons, who was then, as we shall see,
helping Philip to annex England to the Spanish crown. He was allowed to
choose his own "visitator," and the Spanish fathers were sufficiently
absorbed in this new infliction for the next year or two.
Sixtus had meantime brooded over the singular mass of Jesuit documents
submitted to him, and in 1590 he intimated that he was going to make
a drastic and comprehensive reform. The name of the Society must be
changed; the date of taking the vows and the classification of the
members of the Society must be altered; the regulations in regard to
"fraternal correction" (the euphemism in the Jesuit rules for spying
and tale-bearing) and obedience must be modified; and the directions
which virtually compelled novices to leave their property to the
Society, while nominally advising them to leave it to the poor, must
be abolished. Acquaviva entered upon this desperate struggle--there
never was the slightest question of Jesuits yielding to Popes on any
point--with that cold and dogged resolution which alone could thwart
the fiery energy of Sixtus V. At first he tried long and respectful
argument with the Pope, and induced the Emperor, the King of Poland,
and the Duke of Bavaria to pray that there should be no alteration
in the character of the Society. Sixtus smiled grimly, and ordered
Cardinal Caraffa to proceed with the revision of their Constitutions.
They then fastened on the cardinal, and Sixtus was infuriated to find
that Caraffa made no progress. He knew that they were hoping to see
him die before he could formulate his reforms, and he entrusted the
work to four theologians, whose sentiments he knew. They drew up a
formidable indictment of the Constitutions, but it had to pass the
Sacred College--and Acquaviva took care that it did not pass.
We need not enter into all the details of this fourth attempt in half
a century to evade the most positive and sincere commands of the Pope.
It was a race with death, and the most determined and unscrupulous
efforts were made by the Jesuits to prevent the Pope from reaching his
goal before death overtook him. Sixtus had to punish one Jesuit for
making a very pointed eulogy of Cardinal Cajetan, his rival and enemy,
and to arrest another for regretting in public that they had not a
Gregory on the throne in such troubled times. The dying despot fiercely
concentrated his sinking energy on his last task. When Bellarmine's new
book _De Summi Pontificis Potestate_ appeared, he put it on the Index,
although he liked Bellarmine, and the book really magnified the papal
power so much that it was afterwards condemned as seditious at Paris.
As the cardinals still thwarted him, he sent a stern personal order to
Acquaviva to change the name of his Society. He was not far from death,
but the General was told that there could be no more shiftiness; he
might, however, ask for the change instead of having it imposed on him.
He signed the petition and the Pope drew up his decree. He died before
he could publish it.
There is no serious ground for the faint rumour that the Jesuits
poisoned Sixtus V. His death was foreseen by everybody, and the Jesuits
knew from experience that his decree would die with him. But Roman
gossip found the coincidence too romantic to let it pass. Acquaviva
had ordered a _novena_ (nine days of prayer) to be said for Sixtus in
the Jesuit houses when his illness was announced. The bell was ringing
for Vespers on the ninth day when the aged Pope passed away; and for
many a year afterwards it was a grim, half-serious joke of the Romans
to wonder, when they heard the Jesuit Vesper-bell, whether it rang out
the life of another Pope.
After the two-week rule of Urban VII., Gregory XIV. came to the throne
and restored the tranquillity of Acquaviva and his colleagues. The
title of their Society was solemnly confirmed, and the subsidies of
their colleges were again granted. But Gregory had a brief reign,
his successor passed even more quickly from the papal throne, and at
the beginning of 1592 Clement VIII. succeeded to the tiara. It was
generally believed that Clement disliked Acquaviva, and the rebels
in Spain returned to the attack upon him. Spain and Portugal, which
were still united under the Spanish crown, were equally united in the
opposition to the Roman authorities. During the years of friction with
Sixtus V. the Spanish fathers Acosta and Carillo and the Portuguese
fathers Goelho and Carvalho had maintained and led the agitation
against Acquaviva, and it was known that they had the support of
abler men like Mariana and the sympathy of the most distinguished and
powerful Jesuit at Rome, Toledo, who was made a cardinal by Clement.
Acquaviva had not relaxed in his measures against this powerful
coalition. He won at least the silence of Toledo; he flattered and
tried to disarm Acosta, who was too great a favourite of Philip to
be punished; he expelled some of the less influential leaders from
the Society, and brought others to Rome. Now, at the last moment, the
accession of Clement seemed to have wrested the victory from his
hands, and the Spaniards took courage.
Acosta rejected the General's blandishments and persuaded Philip to
send him to Rome with a request that the new Pope would summon a
General Congregation of the Society and remove Acquaviva from Rome
during its sittings. There was at the time a quarrel between the Dukes
of Parma and Mantua, and Clement gracefully deputed Acquaviva to go
to the north and reconcile them. He dare not refuse the insidious
appointment, but he left behind him a trusted secretary, and it was
not long before he learned that Clement was about to summon a General
Congregation, to which Acquaviva was strongly opposed. He reported
that his mission was futile and hopeless; Clement, still gracefully,
advised him to be patient, and the strong man had to remain inactive
in the north while the Spaniards carried their point. He returned
to find Acosta at Rome and a General Congregation--"for the purpose
of strengthening the Society and reducing certain provinces to
tranquillity"--announced for November. In other words, it was to be
a trial of strength between Acosta and Acquaviva, between Spain and
Italy, and each party prepared strenuously for the tug of war; while
Rome frivolously applauded the rival children of Ignatius and the Pope
smilingly blessed the arena.
Just at that time Toledo received the red hat, and the Spaniards
begged the Pope to name "a cardinal" (Toledo) to preside at the
Congregation. He refused; but Acquaviva was defeated in turn when he
tried to expel Acosta from the professed house and have him excluded
from the forthcoming Congregation. Not only Rome, but the Jesuits
scattered over Europe, now joined in the feverish struggle. Memorials
praying for the reform of the Society and the restriction of the
General's power began to reach the Pope from provincial Jesuits;
counter-memorials followed from the partisans of Acquaviva. In fine,
Acquaviva triumphed, with certain concessions. The privileges of the
Society which offended the Spanish Inquisition were to be abandoned in
the Peninsula; and Acquaviva was to change his Assistants, and hold a
Congregation, every six years (a command which, of course, "died with
the Pope"). There was the customary review of the state of the Society
and passing of admirable decrees, and the fathers returned to their
provinces. Acquaviva then made a final and drastic clearance of the
rebels, and many were expelled. They were still powerful enough to
induce the Pope to nominate Acquaviva archbishop of his native city,
but he eluded even this plot. They then persuaded the Pope that it was
expedient for Acquaviva to visit Spain and see the province with his
own eyes. The General clearly believed, and it is probable enough,
that something like incarceration awaited him in Spain, and he made a
desperate struggle to evade the Pope's order. He was saved by the death
of the Pope, in 1605, and for several years afterwards we still find
him struggling with the rebellious Spaniards.
This remarkable conflict, within the Society and with the Pope, which
I take chiefly from the Jesuit Jouvency, the continuer of the official
"Historia Societatis," well illustrates how dim the apostolic fire had
become in one of the largest provinces of the Society; how its flame
was choked and corrupted by material prosperity. When we turn to France
and to England we have an equally valuable illustration of the way in
which the command to seek power, for the glory of God, evolves what
is known as the political Jesuit. There is no intrinsic reason that
I can see why a priest should not seek political influence on behalf
of religious interests. Assuredly in the sixteenth century there was
no clean division of the religious and political spheres. But the
complaint against the Jesuits is that their authorities ostentatiously
forbid political action, yet permit and encourage their subjects
secretly to pursue it, and even in ways that are unworthy of religious
ideals; that, in short, the Jesuit approaches the field under the white
flag of political neutrality, employs weapons which are condemned in
civilised warfare, and then denies that he interfered. In reviewing
forty years of their life in France we have an excellent opportunity of
examining this charge.
When we last turned away from France, the Catholic League was just
beginning to arouse passion in the country and the Jesuits were taking
an active part in its work. The historical situation may be recalled
in a few words. The children of that abominable type of feminine
politician, Catherine de Medici, were perishing ingloriously. Henry
III. still feebly occupied the throne, but it was a question how long
he would, under the guidance of his Jesuit confessor Auger, continue to
entertain Paris with his alternating fits of debauch and melodramatic
penitence; and the legitimate heir to the throne was Henry of Navarre,
a Protestant. The Catholics were naturally alarmed and formed the
League to "protect their interests"; its specific aim was, as every man
in France knew, to secure the throne for the Catholic Henry of Guise.
Here was a situation entirely to the taste of the more ardent and
adventurous of the Jesuits, and (apart from the inevitable few who
favoured Philip of Spain) they marched valiantly under the banners of
the League, and fluttered about the Catholic courts of Europe in the
interest of Guise. The Provincial, Claude Matthieu, earned the name
of the "Courier of the League" from his many journeys in support of
it. Father Henri Sammier traversed Italy and Spain, and penetrated
Germany and England, to further its aim. He had a large wardrobe of
disguises, which he wore with the grace of an actor, and he is said by
the contemporary lawyer Pasquier to have been as familiar with dice and
cards as with his breviary. Edmund Hay, the Scottish Jesuit and tender
champion of Mary Stuart, lent his fervent aid to the cause. Father
Auger, however, was not an ardent Leaguer, and he made an effort to
silence his younger colleagues. He had persuaded Henry III. to join the
League, lest the League should not be inclined to wait for the young
king's natural death, but he rightly distrusted Guise. It must not be
supposed that he cherished a more austere standard of Jesuit duty than
the others, since his royal penitent was notorious for his licentious
conduct, his morbid love of jewels and of feminine clothes, and the
utter degradation of his real gifts. The fact is that he saw political
rivals in Matthieu and Sammier, with their zeal for Guise, and Parsons
and others, with their attachment to Philip of Spain. He complained to
Acquaviva, and the General, feeling that such political work should not
be done openly but through laymen controlled by the Jesuits, supported
him. After a prolonged struggle Acquaviva deposed Matthieu and
removed him to Italy, transferred the gifted Sammier and his wardrobe
to Belgium, and then turned on Auger himself. After another severe
struggle he dislodged Auger from the court. Jesuits are sometimes very
lively "corpses" when their superiors wish to move them.
This, however, was in the main a personal quarrel. Odon Pigenat, the
new Provincial, and a score of other fathers were ardent Leaguers. The
Jesuit house at Paris was still used for the secret meetings of the
League, and the "Committee of Catholic Safety" was inspired by Pigenat.
The French apologist does not question their enthusiastic share in the
League's work, and no one questions that the aim of the League was to
prevent the accession of the legitimate heir to the throne. Indeed, at
the next dramatic turn of French affairs all this was made plain to
everybody.
In 1588 Guise was invited to Paris and acclaimed there with such wild
rejoicing that Henry III. fled to Blois, and shortly afterwards Guise
and his cardinal-brother were invited to Blois and foully murdered
there by Henry. The League now shook its banners in the breeze, and
Henry was execrated from a hundred pulpits. When he went on to defy the
Pope and form an alliance with Henry of Navarre, who advanced rapidly
on Paris, Catholic feeling rose to a fanatical pitch, and Henry III.
in turn was assassinated by the Dominican monk Jacques Clément. The
Jesuits were assuredly not the only preachers to applaud this murder,
but they were amongst the first to perceive, and the loudest to
declare, that if a king may be dispatched by private hand for a crime,
he may certainly be removed when he meditates the far graver misdeed
of plunging a nation into heresy. Father Commolet, the superior of
the Jesuit house at Paris and a distinguished preacher, called from
his pulpit for "a second Ehud" to remove Henry of Navarre. Father
Mariana, who shortly afterwards wrote his famous _De Rege_, hailed the
assassin as "the eternal glory of France" and spoke of this "memorable
spectacle, calculated to teach princes that godless enterprises do not
go unpunished."
It has been said on behalf of the Jesuits that even their old enemy
the Sorbonne joined in the general rejoicing over the assassination
of Henry III., but those who make the point forget or ignore that
for several years past the Jesuits had been sending pupils to the
university in order gradually to permeate its faculties. It was no
longer the distinct anti-Jesuit body which we have met in earlier
years. Nor is there any need to discuss the abstract question whether
the Jesuits taught tyrannicide. Crétineau-Joly himself quotes fourteen
Jesuit theologians of the time who permitted the assassination of
kings, to say nothing of more or less obscure writers, and we may be
sure that the politicians of the Society were not more scrupulous than
their theologians on the point. The well-known work of Mariana to which
I have referred, _De Rege et Regis Institutione_ (1599), was authorised
for publication by the Jesuit authorities, and it was not until the
assassination of Henry IV. in 1610 that Acquaviva, anxious to save
the French Jesuits from expulsion, forbade his subjects to teach the
dangerous doctrine. Even then he wrote at first to the French Jesuits
alone, and it was only when the cry of indignation was echoed in other
countries that he made the order general. In fine, his general order
was so ambiguous that even a less supple politician than a Jesuit could
find his way through it. It condemned the doctrine that "any person,
on any pretext whatever, may kill kings and princes"; which leaves it
open to the casuist to conclude that _certain_ persons may do it for
_certain_ reasons.[11]
Henry of Navarre invested Paris, and it is not questioned that the
Jesuits were amongst the most ardent advocates of resistance to him.
In the later trial before Parlement, which we shall consider, they
admitted that the crown-jewels were deposited in their house during the
siege, and that the chiefs of the League met there. A curious incident
of the siege is worth quoting. Food became painfully scarce, and
half-famished citizens struggled over the possession of cats and rats,
but the inmates of the religious houses remained sleek and comfortable.
The civic authorities ordered an inspection of their houses, and
it is admitted by their apologist that the Jesuits tried to obtain
exemption from this search. When the authorities insisted, a rich
store of food was found in their house. Their fervour in the popular
cause, however, was enough to outweigh this unpleasant discovery, and
they continued to thunder against the heretic. The Duke of Mayenne
was now the Catholic candidate for the throne, though a considerable
number of the Jesuits now looked to Philip of Spain. He was to be, as
in England, the "protector of the faith"--until it was safe for him to
annex the country to his swollen dominions. Sixtus V., however, by no
means shared this Jesuit and Spanish ideal of making Philip the head
of a vast world-power, and he began to negotiate with Henry, whose
forces were gaining ground. Then Sixtus died, and the accession of a
pro-Spanish Pope gave fresh energy to the League. But Paris was weary
of the siege, and, when Henry prudently announced that he was about
to make a serious study of the evidences for the Catholic faith, the
opposition collapsed. The Jesuits were amongst the last in Paris to
fan the dying embers of the League, and when at length, in March 1594,
Henry entered Paris and received the crown, they (with the Capuchins
and Carthusians) refused to submit until the Pope had absolved him.
But they very soon parted company with the less nimble-witted Capuchins
and the cloistered Carthusians, and the next page of their story in
France is not without humour. Henry's politic scrutiny of the Catholic
creed had, of course, led to his "conversion," but the Pope had a
sufficient decency of feeling to distrust so opportune and profitable
a change of creed, and he coldly rebuffed the genial monarch. When
Henry sent the Duke de Nevers to Rome to plead his cause with the Pope,
Clement ordered the Jesuit Possevin to intercept him in Italy and say
that the Pope refused to see him. We remember Possevin as the ingenious
and accommodating Legate to the Swedes, and we shall see other proofs
of his diplomatic ability. With an audacity which must almost be
without parallel in the chronicle of papal diplomacy he did the exact
opposite of what the Pope had commanded; he encouraged de Nevers to
see the Pope, and then fled before the stormy anger of Clement and the
Spaniards. It was the first service rendered to Henry by a Jesuit,
and was quickly followed by other useful services. They had perceived
the strength of Henry and reversed their policy. The Jesuit-Cardinal
Toledo, although a Spaniard, intervened in Henry's favour, and the head
of the Jesuit house at Paris, Commolet--the preacher who had urged the
assassination of Henry--came to Rome to say that he and his colleagues
were now convinced of the King's sincerity and begged the Pope to yield.
This change of front was opportune. Although the hostility of the
university to the Jesuits had been enfeebled by the penetration of
Jesuit pupils into the theological faculty, it still, as a body,
hated the Society, and its leaders felt that they might take some
advantage of the stubborn resistance to Henry. In April the university
begged the Parlement to expel the Jesuits from the kingdom. Another
great debate, in which the anti-Jesuit lawyers of Paris battered the
Society and flung at it all the charges that could be found in Europe,
entertained the sympathetic citizens. Arnauld, who was now in the
field, estimated the total yearly income of the Jesuits at more than
two million _livres_; he said that in France alone they had, in a few
years, secured an income of two hundred thousand _livres_ a year, and
he eloquently denounced their interference in politics. The Jesuits
made the remarkable defence that they had only mingled in the League in
order to moderate its ardour, that they had no unpatriotic attachment
to Spain, and that they would scrupulously avoid politics for the
future. Henry permitted them to remain. A short time before (August
1593) Barrière had attempted to assassinate him, and, as Barrière had
had a Jesuit confessor, it was suggested that the Jesuits had inspired
him. Henry said that, on the contrary, it was the Jesuits who had
warned him of the plot. A fuller knowledge of this warning would be
extremely interesting, but we have no evidence of it beyond Henry's
blunt declaration at a later date. The Jesuits were to remain, to
avoid politics, and, as Henry had previously decreed, to destroy all
literature concerning the League and the past turbulence.
On 27th December of that year, 1594, Jean Chastel attempted to
assassinate Henry, and a furious storm burst upon the Jesuits. Two
undisputed facts stand out clearly from the prolonged controversy that
followed this attempt; Chastel had been educated at the Jesuit college
before going to the university (he was nineteen years old), and he
had conferred with his former professor, Father Guéret, a few days
before the attempt. This is by no means satisfactory evidence of the
complicity of the Jesuits, but another piece of evidence, of a very
inflammatory nature, was put before the court. The authorities had
raided the Jesuit college and found in the rector's room a quantity
of the League literature which Henry had rigorously commanded to be
destroyed. In particular, there were papers in the writing of the
rector, Father Guignard, which cast the most violent abuse on Henry
and demanded his death. They had been written five years before, but
the retention of them was considered a very serious sign of the hidden
feeling of the Jesuits. We may admit that the court still went beyond
the evidence in condemning the Jesuits. Guignard was executed, Guéret
tortured, and all members of the Society were ordered to quit France
within three days. On 8th January thirty-seven Jesuits set out sadly
for Lorraine, and from the proceeds of their confiscated property a
large stone pyramid, bearing the sentence against the "pernicious
sect," was erected at Paris.
This sudden fall from their proud position was the price of political
action, but Henry was not in a position, and indeed not of a character,
to sustain the sentence, and the Jesuits at once began to struggle for
recall. Within ten years the hated pyramid was demolished, and the
Jesuits had regained their prestige. They had never entirely quitted
France. Some put off their cassocks and became, in appearance, "lay"
teachers of the young; some were sheltered by the local Parlements.
The formal reconciliation of Henry with the Papacy followed, and the
Pope urged him to recall the Jesuits. He pleaded again when he had
negotiated for Henry a peace with Philip of Spain, but the Parlement
stoutly maintained its decree, and Henry advised them to wait. Then
the Pope obliged Henry by annulling his marriage, and the watchful
Acquaviva stood again in the shadow of the papal throne. Father Maggio
was sent, in the suite of the Archbishop of Arles, to win the King.
They knew Henry, and shrewdly chose an envoy who could adopt the broad
wit which Henry loved as easily as Possevin or Parsons could wear a
sword, or Ricci a pigtail. "Sire," said Maggio to the bluff King, when
the affair dragged, "you are slower than women, for they bear their
fruit only nine months." "Quite true, Father Maggio," said Henry, "but
kings are not delivered as easily as women." It was the way to win
Henry IV., and he was won, but public feeling was still too hostile to
the Jesuits. In 1603 their opportunity came. The Huguenots had been so
imprudent as to abuse the Pope, and the Jesuits must be restored for
the Pope's consolation; also, there was a new queen, Marie de Medici,
and an amiable Father Coton winning influence over her. And at the
beginning of 1604 the Parlement sullenly registered the decree for the
readmission of the Jesuits, and the fathers all swore a sonorous oath
of loyalty to the King "without mental reservation," as the decree ran;
no other body of men ever needed to be insulted with such a clause.
The remaining years, down to the assassination of Henry in 1610, mark
the rapid recovery of the Society. Father Coton was royal preacher and
confessor, and obtained such influence that, when the King was deaf
to their prayers or protests, men said that Henry "had cotton in his
ears"; and the fusillade of pamphlets and counter-pamphlets--witty,
fierce, and gross on both sides--again enlivened Paris. They raised
more houses than they had ever had before, and got admission into
Protestant Béarn and the Canadian mission. There was hardly a more
generous benefactor to the Society in Europe than Henry, though we may
take the word of Richelieu that he distrusted them, as a body, and
acted from policy. At length Henry betrayed the real shallowness of
their influence on him, and began to prepare for war with Spain; and on
14th May 1610 he fell by the hand of a Catholic fanatic.
The question whether the Jesuits were implicated in the crime of
Ravaillac is one of the hundred almost insoluble problems of their
history. On this occasion, indeed, it is exceptionally difficult
to reach a confident verdict, because an entirely pro-Spanish
and pro-Jesuit régime was set up by the death of Henry, and
inconvenient testimony could easily be suppressed. It seems to me
that a consideration of great importance is generally overlooked in
the discussion of these problems. When the evidence is scanty or
obscure, we give the Jesuits "the benefit of the doubt," as if we were
arraigning them for something they regarded as a crime. This is a false
attitude, of which they take full advantage. Crétineau-Joly quotes a
dozen distinguished theologians of the time who taught that it was just
and proper to remove a monarch whose rule was gravely injurious, and
hardly a single eminent theologian who taught the contrary. We have
merely to suppose that the Jesuit fathers were divided in anything like
the same proportion, and we see at once that there must have been--and
we know that there were--numbers of Jesuits in every province who would
regard the assassination of a king who threatened the faith in his
country as a quite moral and meritorious deed. Mariana's claim that
Jacques Clément, the murderer of Henry III., was "the eternal glory of
France" was echoed by thousands of his colleagues. It seems to me very
material to bear this in mind in all these cases of assassination. The
attitude of their apologists is singular: they admit that the Jesuits
as a body regarded the assassination of kings who menaced the faith as
a just and proper action, yet are remarkably eager to prove that the
Jesuits never acted on their belief. On Jesuit principles the murder of
Henry IV. was not a crime.
We must, on the other hand, say that the evidence of Jesuit complicity
with Ravaillac is unsatisfactory, in spite of Michelet's spirited
reliance on it. A certain Mme d'Escoman asserted that she overheard the
Duke d'Épernon telling the plot to Henry's former lover, the Marquise
de Verneuil, and that she revealed it to the Jesuit superior in good
time to warn Henry; a soldier named Dujardin then told that he had seen
Ravaillac in the service of Épernon at Naples, and that the Jesuits
of that city had urged him (Dujardin) to enter the plot. Both these
witnesses were of low moral character, and had a prospect of gaining
by their revelations; we must therefore refrain from basing a verdict
on their evidence. A recent French student of the subject[12] has
concluded that Épernon and others were really plotting to take the life
of Henry, but that Ravaillac committed the crime on his own initiative,
and that the Jesuits were not in either plot, though it may be true
that Mme d'Escoman warned them of Épernon's plot. This ingenious, but
not wholly convincing, suggestion explains how Ravaillac could, with
his dying breath and under threat of damnation, swear that he had no
accomplices, but it really leaves open the question of the guilt of
the Jesuits. The witnesses are of too low a character for us to decide
whether they tell the truth or no. It is suspicious that Father Coton
visited Ravaillac in jail and warned him "not to bring trouble on
good people" by his statements, as we know on the high authority of
d'Estoile.
These witnesses only came forward with their stories at a later date,
but Paris had already turned with fierce indignation upon the Society.
Although the doctrine of tyrannicide may have been taught before the
Society was established, it was chiefly through the more explicit and
general teaching of the Jesuits that it became a popular conviction
among the general body of the faithful and began to inflame the brains
of fanatics. Mariana's book was burned by order of the Parlement, in
spite of the effort of the Jesuits to save it; they did succeed in
getting a reference to the Jesuit character of the author suppressed
in the indictment, and in preventing the works of Bellarmine, Becanus,
and others of their theologians from being condemned. They had the
zealous protection of Marie de Medici, and the hostility to them had
to expend itself in a shower of witty and virulent pamphlets. Father
Coton, especially, was violently assailed. The indulgence with which
he had regarded the notorious amours of his royal penitent was said
to be quite natural in a man who had tender relations of his own. The
Jesuits continued to advance in spite of this hostility. Father de
Suffren guided the conscience of Mary herself; Father Coton and Father
Marguestana directed her son (Louis XIII.) and her daughter in the ways
of virtue and political ignorance. There we may leave the Jesuits of
France until Richelieu comes to disturb their mischievous pro-Spanish
policy.
When we pass to the Netherlands we have again to consider a grave
accusation of complicity in a design to assassinate. The Netherlands
were now formally divided into Catholic Belgium and Protestant Holland,
and the Dutch were eager to prevent the hated Jesuits from entering
the country. A few succeeded in crossing the frontier and ministering,
in disguise, to the remaining Catholics. The kind of activity they
pursued will be understood when we have followed the similar labours
of the Jesuits in England. In 1598, however, a Belgian was arrested at
Leyden for a design on the life of Maurice of Nassau, and there is the
customary controversy in regard to the complicity of the Jesuits.
Peter Panne was a cooper of Ypres, a restless and, apparently, a
rather disreputable character. His method of seeking the life of
the Dutch prince was singularly futile, and he made a lengthy and
circumstantial "confession," in which he accused the Jesuits of Douai
of egging him to commit the murder. The assassin of William of Orange
in 1568 had accused a Jesuit confessor, and it was natural that the
Dutch should again expect to hear of Jesuit complicity. His story was
therefore implicitly believed in Holland, and wherever the Jesuits
were detested; and the laws against them were made more stringent. In
the following year, however, Father Coster undertook the defence of
his colleagues, and their apologists maintain that he has completely
demolished the charge.[13] To the impartial student the case is one of
mere affirmation and denial, without very safe ground for judgment.
Coster relies upon a number of reports issued by small legal and
civic authorities in Belgium, who, at the request of the Jesuits,
examined many witnesses, including Panne's wife and others named by
him. These witnesses flatly denied the story told by Panne of his and
their movements, and the unofficial judges then drew up statements to
the effect that the Jesuits were innocent. At first sight it would
seem that we ought at once to prefer the testimony of these numerous
witnesses to that of Panne; but when we reflect on the Jesuit doctrine
of mental reservation, we must admit that the word of these witnesses,
provided by the Jesuits, is not to be taken at its superficial value.
According to the Jesuit theologians, witnesses might give absolutely
false answers, and confirm them by the most sacred oaths, to judges
or others, if they felt that the inquirer had no right to learn the
truth from them. In the case of Panne's wife, for instance, the Jesuit
would most certainly decide that she would be justified in denying,
on oath, that she had ever spoken to her husband about the projected
murder, even if it were true that, as Panne said, she urged him to do
it. In the next chapter we shall find the English Father Gerard acting
on this well-known Jesuit principle. We cannot, therefore, attach any
importance to these denials. And when Father Coster goes on to prove,
or assert, that Panne was a doubtful Catholic and an unscrupulous
fellow, he seems to overreach himself. Why should such a man seek to
do the work of a Catholic fanatic at the risk of his life? Clearly,
only because some one offered him payment. Either the gravest legal
tribunal in Holland paid him to lie, or else his story gives the only
plausible explanation of his conduct. It is more natural to suppose
that the Jesuits acted on their known principles of regicide and mental
reservation than that the Dutch acted in the most flagrant violation of
their principles; and the mere fact of an indifferent Catholic risking
his life to kill an heretical prince suggests this view.
In Belgium the Jesuits recovered all the ground they had lost in the
religious wars, and at length secured an unassailable legal existence.
At this period we are at every step observing the collusion of the
Jesuits with Philip II. of Spain, and we have still to see how they
helped him in his effort to annex England. He was not ungrateful,
and he definitely overrode the prejudice of the Flemings and legally
established the Jesuits in Belgium (1584). They at once became so
bold that we find the Governor of Luxemburg levying taxes on the
citizens for the erection of Jesuit houses: a project which caused
such an outbreak of anger that they had to retreat from the province.
The University of Louvain continued to disdain and assail them, but
their great victory in securing the condemnation of the Chancellor of
the University, Michel de Bay, had given them much prestige. Baius
endeavoured to recover by denouncing to Rome their theologian Lessius;
but his attempt failed, and the Jesuits renewed their effort to capture
or displace the university.[14]
The record of the Germanic provinces is chiefly remarkable for the
extension into Poland and an attempt to penetrate Russia. The Jesuits
had entered Poland under Stephen Bathori, and made such progress in
twenty years that men spoke bitterly of their "fortified palaces," and
saw with regret that nearly the whole education of the nobility was
in their hands. In one college (Pultusk) they boasted that they had
four hundred youths of noble birth. In 1581 the Poles were bringing to
a victorious close their long war with Russia, and the Tsar appealed
for the mediation of the Pope. It was an auspicious opportunity for
re-opening the question of the union of the Latin and Greek Churches,
and the adventurous Father Possevin (the former Legate to Sweden) was
sent as Legate. He learned on the way from Bathori that the Poles would
drive a hard bargain, and felt that this strengthened his position
with regard to Russia. He was received with great honour in Russia,
and the Tsar gave many privileges to Catholics, but the war concluded
at length without a word of union. It is clear that he then used his
influence to induce the Russians to yield, so that his Society might
at least have the gratitude of the Poles. He remained for a long time
at Moscow, but made no progress, and the Pope recalled him to crush
heresy in Transylvania. He was afterwards mediator between Germany and
Poland. Possevin had considerable diplomatic ability, though he was
apt to love melodramatic situations, like so many of the political
Jesuits. Acquaviva at last resented his flagrant political activity,
and compelled him to settle as a teacher at Padua.
Stephen Bathori was succeeded in 1586 by a pupil of the Jesuits,
Sigismund III., and their power became greater than ever, and provoked
a strong reaction. Their conduct in Transylvania, where most of the
nobles were still Protestant, caused them to be expelled from that
province by the Diet, and many nobles of the Polish Diet endeavoured to
have them expelled from the whole kingdom. They were bitterly accused
of intriguing to get possession of the property of Protestants, and
even of rival religious orders. At Dantzic they were compelled to
return the property of a community of nuns. The nobles chiefly resented
their interference in politics and control of education, and penned
some fiery indictments of what they called their "machinations." An
edict of the Diet for the year 1607 is not flattering to them.
In the same period they overran the Catholic cantons of Switzerland,
Bohemia, Baden, and most of the south-German States. Throughout the
whole Germanic world their procedure was of much the same character.
A few worthy and powerful men like Canisius would secure the opening
of the doors to the Society, and a host of less religious fathers
would then intrigue for funds to build colleges and educate the young,
and organise the Catholic laity in enthusiastic confraternities
or sodalities. Partly by these methods, but very largely by their
great skill in securing the ear of princes, they not only greatly
strengthened the surviving Catholic populations, but they undoubtedly
regained much territory from the Reformers. They opposed a positive and
unvarying creed to the conflicting doctrines of the Protestants, and
the religious life they themselves exhibited had none of the grossness
which had done so much to provoke the Reformation. Here and there,
however, they clearly resorted to unworthy means to secure property
or influence, and were heatedly assailed. A very curious series of
outbreaks against them occurred in 1584. They boasted of the share
their Father Clavius had had in the reform of the calendar; but, when
it came to the time of Carnival and Lent, and later of Christmas, the
distracted citizens were sometimes defrauded of their traditional
pleasures by the alteration of the calendar, and took their revenge on
the windows of the Jesuits.
The only notable experience of the Society in Italy was the expulsion
of the fathers from Venice. A feeling of irritation against them had
lingered in the Republic since their inauspicious entry under Ignatius,
and of late years the French and Spanish strictures on them had found
very ominous echoes in Venice. In the early years of the seventeenth
century this feeling was inflamed by the attitude of the Jesuits
in siding with the Pope against the civic authorities. The secular
authorities had been so indignant at the discovery of certain brutal
crimes committed by some of the clergy that, in spite of ecclesiastical
privileges, they proceeded against the criminals. The quarrel with Rome
which followed ended in the Pope placing Venice under an interdict,
and the great body of the clergy of Venice patriotically ignored the
interdict and continued to minister to the citizens. The Jesuits were
in a painful dilemma. They made a futile attempt to evade it by closing
their public churches, but keeping their houses open, and the Council
banished them from the city. A crowd of citizens assembled on the banks
of the canal when the gondolas, bearing the condemned fathers, left
the city, and they do not attempt to represent it as a crowd weeping
for their departure. "Ande in mal' hora" was the scornful reply made
to one of their number who appealed to the people. Their very valuable
property was confiscated, and they would not re-enter Venice for half a
century.
We might admire the Jesuits at least for their courageous adherence
to their own principles in these experiences of the year 1606, and
we cannot regard it as other than natural that they should attempt
to drag the rest of the clergy into sharing their attitude. But the
indictment of them which the Venetian Senate made after their departure
goes further than this. They were accused of grave intrigue in the
quarrel between Rome and the Republic, and it was said that they abused
their position as confessors to the noble ladies of Venice to learn
the secrets of the Senate and frustrate its aims. Venice, it will be
remembered, took a particular pride in the secrecy of its political
life, and it especially distrusted so notoriously pro-Spanish a body
as the Jesuits. These charges we cannot, of course, control, but they
are consonant with the ordinary action of the Society. It was decreed
that they be banished for ever; that if ever the question of recalling
them were raised, this indictment must be read again in the Council
of Ten, and that any citizen who held communication with the Jesuits
should be sent to the galleys. The question of recalling them was, of
course, raised at once. Henry IV. was induced to plead their cause at
Venice, while Spain used all its power to prevent a reconciliation of
the Papacy and the Republic except on condition that the Society be
restored. So convinced were the Venetians of the anti-patriotic action
of the Jesuits that they peremptorily refused to yield, and Acquaviva
had to resign himself to defeat.
At Rome a more prolonged and more academic quarrel had nourished the
feeling against the Society. The subject-matter of this controversy
is of interest only to theologians, and the whole struggle must be
dismissed in a few words. In brief, a Jesuit theologian of Portugal,
named Molina, had in 1588 published a work (_Liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ
donis concordia_), in which he had made novel efforts to illumine the
mystery of the consistency of human freedom with the action of grace,
and the way in which God may have a foreknowledge of events which
may or may not take place. When Crétineau-Joly observes that Molina
"talked as if he had been admitted to the counsels of the Most High,"
we can understand the indignation of rival theologians of the time.
A Dominican theologian, named Bañez, had a different theory of these
abstruse matters, and there was soon a fierce quarrel between the
two orders. When the Spanish Inquisition refused to condemn Molina,
the Dominicans carried the quarrel to Rome, where it enlivened and
heated the chambers of the Vatican and the religious houses for more
than twenty years. A commission appointed by the Pope condemned the
teaching of Molina as "a dangerous novelty," the Jesuits induced the
Pope to suspend sentence, and even profane ambassadors were drawn
into the sacred arena. Spain threw its influence against Molina:
France, naturally, supported him. It was not until 1607 that Paul V.
judiciously decided that either opinion might be held with a safe
conscience; and when it proved profoundly unsatisfactory to both
parties to find that their rivals were permitted to live, the Pope
had, in 1611, to impose silence on the disputants. The struggle still
lingers in the remote and innocuous volumes of dogmatic theology which
the rival orders occasionally publish.
In fine, we must glance at the progress of the foreign missions under
Acquaviva. The Japanese mission now reached its highest prosperity
and entered upon the days of persecution. In 1565 there were ten
Jesuit missionaries in Japan, but thirteen more were added to these
in 1577, and the work proceeded rapidly. The fathers took no money
from the converts, building their churches on funds they received from
Europe; in fact, we find them, as elsewhere, adopting very novel and
somewhat dubious devices to extend their work and enlarge the figures
of conversions which it was important to send to Europe. They received
into the Society a wealthy Portuguese merchant named Almeida, and then
directed him to remain in his warehouses and ply his lucrative trade
in Japan, until a few years before his death, in the interest of the
Society. The detail is recorded without a blush by their official
historians. The chief strength of their Japanese mission lay in the
Portuguese commerce with Japan. This commerce was profitable to the
country, and its rulers saw little harm in purchasing it by allowing
the Portuguese to preach their strange gospel to the natives.
Yet no one can read the records of the Japanese mission without
realising that the success of this early Christian mission was
singularly sincere and solid, and presents a most remarkable and
inexplicable contrast to the experience of our own time. By the year
1580 the Jesuits announced that they had made 100,000 converts; by
the year 1593 they represent this number as doubled. We may assume
that a large number of very imperfectly converted Japanese help to
round these generous figures, but the extraordinary number of native
Christians whom we shall presently find ready to endure suffering and
death for their faith must convince every candid student that the
early missionaries had sincerely converted an astonishing proportion
of the nation. The success is the more strange when we reflect that
the Jesuits were not men of what is usually understood to be an
"apostolic" character. Not only had they members of their Society
making money as merchants, but they induced Philip of Spain to send
out his subsidy to them in the form of fifty large bales of silk every
year, and they secured the sale of these to their highest advantage.
Even less edifying is the fact that in 1585 they induced the Pope to
decree that no other priests than Jesuits should be allowed to enter
Japan.
Two years later the clouds began, as if in punishment, to overcast
their prosperity. Taicosama had usurped the chief throne of Japan in
1583, and, as the Catholic generals in the army had made no defence
of their legitimate monarch, he continued for some years to favour
the Church. The displacement of the native faith, however, led him to
reflect that it might entail political displacements, and he is said
to have seized the opportunity, when certain Christian girls refused
the honour of being added to the lengthy list of his concubines, to
suppress the mission. The Jesuits were to leave his kingdom within
twenty days, or die; and he burned nearly a third of their 240 chapels.
The Provincial Valignani returned from Italy to find his mission on
the brink of destruction. He had taken a few noble Japanese youths
to Europe, and was bringing them back to tell their fellows of the
grandeur of Rome and Spain. As a Jesuit he was forbidden to enter the
kingdom. With remarkable ease he transformed himself into an ambassador
of the Viceroy of India, and was borne in a superb litter to the
presence of Taicosama, on whom he showered presents and compliments.
The Jesuits were allowed to remain in the country, though still
forbidden to practise their religion, and the hundred priests had for
some time to be content with stealthy and nocturnal ministration to
their converts.
At length Taicosama turned upon them with fury, and the great
persecution began. Kaempfer says that the Jesuits excited the anger of
the nobles by an insolent refusal to pay them the customary respect;
but a more substantial grievance came to the ears of the monarch. In
1596 a Japanese was examining a map of the earth on which the vast
possessions of Spain were shown. He asked a Spanish pilot how his
master had obtained this enormous territory, and the man imprudently
replied that Philip first sent missionaries into a country to prepare
it for subjection, then armies. The remark was reported to the Emperor,
and he fell upon the missionaries with a just charge that they had
violated his prohibition of the practice of the Christian cult. A
number of Jesuits and Franciscans were crucified, and thousands--the
Jesuits say 20,000--of the native Christians testified to the sincerity
of their belief by embracing martyrdom. The death of Taicosama in the
following year, 1598, put a stop to the persecution, and it is claimed
that 70,000 converts were made in the next two or three years. The
Protestant Dutch traders were, however, now displacing the Portuguese
and Spanish, and repeating to the Japanese those dark opinions of the
political intrigues of the Jesuits which were current in their own
land. Once more the decree of extermination went forth, and by the year
of the death of Acquaviva the mission was nearly extinct. Its second
recovery and final destruction will occupy us later.
The rule of Acquaviva was also memorable for the beginning of the
Chinese mission. The repeated failures to gain admission drove the
Jesuits to fresh expedients, and a few of their more learned members
applied themselves to a thorough study of Chinese culture and religion.
The first and most distinguished of these was Father Ricci, whom we
find living in Chao Hing, and astonishing the local mandarins with his
learning, in 1583. We are not accurately informed how Ricci obtained
admission, but we have seen, and shall see, that a Jesuit was prepared
to make any profession whatever in order to enter a forbidden land. He
seems to have concealed his religion, and posed as a lay scholar, until
he was sufficiently advanced in the confidence of a few to entrust his
ideas to them. He dressed as a Chinese scholar, and had (after 1587)
two disguised lay-brothers in his house, which was transferred to Chao
Chu. The mob, discovering his aims, attacked the house; but Ricci's
able command of Western learning and appliances had greatly impressed
Chinese scholars, and he made steady, if slow, progress. In the year
1600 he was invited to visit the Emperor at Peking, and shrewdly took
with him a collection of telescopes, clocks, and other wonders of the
West. He was allowed to live at Peking and enjoy the favour of the
Emperor, and other priests quietly entered China and helped to found
the mission. At one time its promise was nearly destroyed by a quarrel
of the rival missionaries,--Jesuit, Franciscan, and secular,--but Ricci
tactfully averted the persecution which their mutual charges brought on
them. He died in 1610, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral at
Peking. Numerically, there were as yet few converts. Ricci was not the
kind of man to rush into the street with a crucifix and proclaim that
the deities of China were false gods. It is only at a later date that
we shall find a large and important mission in China.
The rest of the missionary field reported almost uniform progress under
the vigorous rule of Acquaviva. Canada was opened by the French troops,
and several Jesuits began to work among the Indians. Mexico proved,
they reported, an easy ground; they claimed that half the population
was Christian by 1608. The Brazilian mission now had a hundred and
fifty priests extending its flourishing work, and the first excursions
were made into Paraguay (1586) and Chili (1593). In 1604, fifty-six
fathers were sent into Peru. In the East, the Hindu mission continued
to spread on the lines we have already described, and Abyssinia at last
consented to admit the Jesuits. It will be convenient to defer until
the next chapter a closer consideration of these missions.
This survey of the fortunes of the Society under the thirty-five years'
rule of Acquaviva is a sufficient testimony to the ability of that
gifted leader. When he died, on 31st January 1615, the 5000 members of
the Society who had greeted his election had become 13,000, and 550
Jesuit establishments were scattered over the globe, from Peking to
the slopes of the Andes. In view of the methods of the Society--the
direct and at times indelicate seeking of money and the favour of the
powerful--this growth cannot be regarded as singular. The Society had
adopted new and very effective devices to increase their influence
and membership; it is not as if other religious bodies had used the
same means, and been less successful. And it is now clear that the
distinctive general principles of the Society were rapidly assuming a
complexion which the impatient feeling of its critics has expressed in
the maxim that "the end justifies the means." This will be even more
apparent when we consider, in more detail, the activity of the Jesuits
in England.
I have as yet made no mention of the "Regulation of Studies" (_Ratio
Studiorum_), which some regard as one of Acquaviva's most significant
services to the Society. I am unable to see this significance in the
treatise which (with later modifications) Acquaviva presented for
the acceptance of the General Congregation in 1599. It is rather a
disciplinary measure than an educational code, and no improvement
of Jesuit culture followed its promulgation. It attempted to impose
a uniform course of two years in rhetoric and humanities (with
fragmentary or expurgated editions of the classics), three years in
philosophy (including mathematics), and four years in theology, on
all the students of the Society. It also imposed the use of Latin in
conversation except during the hour of recreation and on holidays. This
scheme never was, and is not now, rigidly followed, and where it is
followed the gain is disciplinary rather than cultural. We shall see
better, when we come to examine Jesuit scholarship, the grave defects
of the Jesuit education from a general pedagogical point of view. Its
aim was narrow and specific,--the production of sound theologians,--and
it would be a mistake to judge it at all from the wider educational
point of view, were it not for the light and superficial praise it
sometimes receives.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: See Father Astrain's _Historia de la Compañia de Jesus en
España_, vol. ii. chap. iii., chap. v. and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 10: It was, and still is in Catholic countries, a custom to
incline the head at the mention of the name Jesus.]
[Footnote 11: See Count Hoensbroech's _Fourteen Years a Jesuit_ (1911),
ii. 334.]
[Footnote 12: Jules Loiseleur, _Ravaillac et ses complices_, 1873.]
[Footnote 13: I have consulted the Latin translation, by another
Jesuit, of Coster's work, _Sica tragica Comiti Mauritio a Jesuitis ...
intentata_ (1599).]
[Footnote 14: When I studied at Louvain University in 1893, I found the
struggle just as it had been three hundred years before. The Jesuits
still sought in vain to capture the university, and were detested as
cordially as ever.]
CHAPTER VI
THE EARLY JESUITS IN ENGLAND
The first attempts of the Jesuits to carry their war against
Protestantism into the British Isles have been noticed, at their
various dates, in previous chapters. We remember the brave and futile
journey of Brouet and Salmeron in 1541; the labours of David Woulfe, of
unhappy memory, in Ireland in 1560; the fruitless adventures of Gouda
among the Scottish Calvinists in 1562; and the obscure apostolate of
Father King in England in 1564. Three years after the last date, Father
Edmund Hay had made an equally unprofitable expedition to Scotland. He
and Thomas Darbyshire, a nephew of Bishop Bonner, had been directed to
accompany a Nuncio on a fresh attempt to advise and confirm Queen Mary.
The Nuncio had prudently remained in Paris, and sent Father Hay, an
adventurous young Scot who loved disguises and the inspiring chances
of politics, to explore the kingdom. He spent two months in hiding at
Edinburgh in the early part of 1567, and returned to say that there
was no hope of success. At last, in 1580, a very able and remarkable
English Jesuit, Father Robert Parsons, opened that stirring chapter of
Jesuit history which closes with the Gunpowder Plot.
Since the beginning of the Reformation in England a number of Catholic
students had gone abroad, and many of them had entered the Jesuit
novitiate in Belgium, Germany, and Italy. Father More has preserved
in his _Historia missionis Anglicanæ_ (1660) the names of about thirty
Englishmen who figure in the chronicles of one or other province down
to the year 1580. Of these the most important were Robert Parsons and
Edmund Campion, who opened the mission of 1580. Parson, a Somersetshire
man of the yeoman class, had been a fellow of Balliol, where he had
attracted some attention by his ability, his religious vacillations,
and his disagreeable temper. He was compelled to resign and go abroad
in 1573. Some (Camden and others) say that he was expelled for
dishonest conduct, others that he was a martyr to religious conviction;
but Father Taunton concludes, in his excellent study of Parsons, that
he left "on account of perpetual disagreements with his fellows."[15]
At Louvain he met Father William Good, who induced him to go through
the exercises, and he entered the Society at Rome in 1575. He was
ordained priest, and made English confessor at St. Peter's in 1578.
Edmund Campion, who was the son of a London bookseller and a brilliant
Fellow of St. John's (Oxford), had meantime joined the Society and was
at Prague. He had known Parsons at Oxford, and they corresponded when
they both became Jesuits.
The peculiar circumstances which led to their mission, and had a most
important bearing on its history, must next be told. A wealthy English
priest, Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Allen, had founded a college at Douai
for supplying England with clergy to support the old faith. It was
transferred to Rheims in 1578; and, as the free lodging and education
which it offered to young refugees soon caused it to be overcrowded, a
second college was opened at Rome and generously supported by the Pope.
The Jesuit fathers lectured at this college. The rector, Dr. Clenock,
was an injudicious Welshman, and the national prejudices of the English
and Welsh students, who were a very turbulent lot, led to prolonged
and most violent quarrels, which ended in the whole body of the young
apostles marching out of the college. They demanded that the management
of the college should be given to the Jesuits, and it is quite clear
that the Jesuits encouraged their revolt. After a few months they
found that the Jesuits also were unsuitable masters, and the trouble
broke out afresh. It was then that Robert Parsons began his famous
diplomatic career. He suggested that the Jesuits should co-operate
with the secular priests on the English mission. General Mercurian
and his counsellors demurred at first; there was no bishop in England
to control the clergy, and they foresaw quarrels. The difficulty was
removed by making the aged Bishop of St. Asaph ordinary for the whole
of England, and inducing him to join the mission; and in April 1580,
Parsons and Campion (who was summoned from Prague) set out on foot,
with nine secular priests and a Jesuit lay-brother, Ralph Emerson, for
Rheims.
It is disputed at what precise stage Parsons began to be a politician,
but he was little known to the Papacy in 1580, and was certainly not
admitted to its secret counsels. He learned at Rheims, however, that
a mission of by no means a pacific character had at the same time been
sent to Ireland, and we know that a third mission, also of a political
nature, was sent to Scotland, to prepare the way for a French invasion.
The English authorities would naturally conclude that the mission to
England was a part of this political conspiracy against Elizabeth. They
had spies all over Europe, and long before the apostles reached Rheims
a pen-portrait of each of them was being studied and distributed to the
pursuivants at Westminster. There had as yet been little enforcement
of the penal laws, in spite of the Pope's unhappy interference with
the loyalty of English Catholics. It was well known that mass was said
in more than one house in London, and that many a quiet manor-house
sheltered nuns and priests, but there was little disposition to
persecute on account of belief, and as yet little inclination of the
Catholics to active disloyalty. To admit Jesuits was a different
matter. What did even the Catholics of France and Spain say of them?
And when this coming of the Jesuits coincided with a political activity
of Guise and the Papacy against the English throne, it was inevitable
that the authorities should decide to be vigilant and stringent. The
missionaries were not deterred; they left their aged bishop behind,
and made their way, in separate parties, to the coast. At St. Omer's
Parsons and Campion learned that their names and descriptions were
known in London, and officers were on the watch for them, but the
spirit of romance and devotion urged them on, and they planned their
campaign.
It is an amusing and characteristic picture which Parsons draws of his
journey to London. He was a big, burly man of thirty-four, and wore the
uniform of an officer returning from the wars in the Low Countries.
The befeathered hat and gold-laced coat and military swagger fitted him
so nicely that the officers not only passed him, but got a horse for
"the captain" and promised to pay every attention to his friend the
jewel-merchant (Campion), who was to follow him in a few days. By the
end of June they were together in the house that had been taken for
them in Chancery Lane. At Rome, Parsons had met an enthusiastic and
wealthy young Englishman named George Gilbert, and, instead of making a
Jesuit of him, had sent him on in advance to prepare the way for them.
He had boldly taken rooms for them under the nose of the chief official
charged to arrest them--who was probably searching for them in the
warrens by the river or the villages beyond the gates--and had formed
a secret association of Catholics throughout the country to help them
in their travels. The news soon spread through the Catholic world that
two Jesuits were in England, and the secular priests, whom they met and
endeavoured to conciliate, urged them to return to the Continent. It
is difficult to look back and not see that they would best have served
the cause of Catholicism in England by quitting it at once; the few
thousand converts they made, or waverers whom they strengthened, were a
small service in comparison with the fierce hostility they brought on
the faithful, the political conspiracies in which they involved them,
and the bitter dissensions they caused amongst the clergy. But for the
coming of the Jesuits and the plots of foreign Catholics, Catholicism
might have lived on in England as a considerable sect, overlooked by
the authorities, until the Pope's blunder was forgotten and the penal
spirit abandoned.
Yet we must respect the two Jesuits--to omit the humbler services of
Emerson--for refusing to save their lives by an immediate flight,
and no historian, whatever his religious views, can read that first
chapter of their story in England without sympathy and admiration. Each
was provided by Gilbert with two horses and two suits and a servant,
and they bade farewell to each other and set out to make their way,
separately, through the legions of spies and officers. When they
entered a county, the secret members of the association would send
warning to the scattered Catholics along the route, and it would be
given out that an acquaintance was expected. Toward evening the Jesuit,
in some strange disguise, would ride into the courtyard and receive,
under the eyes of the servants, the common civilities which one owed to
a passing acquaintance; but when the inner chamber was reached, and the
door closed, master and mistress would fall on their knees and kiss the
hand of the traveller, and the broad-brimmed hat would be removed to
disclose the face of the priest invoking a blessing on the persecuted
faithful. Then Catholic neighbours might come, and confessions be
heard, and the evening would be spent in sober discussion of the awful
catastrophe that had befallen their Church. In the early morning a
chalice and an altar-stone and vestments would be found among the
luggage of the supposed soldier or merchant, and the little group
would gather in a guarded chamber for mass. Possibly in the midst of
the ceremony the sentinel would whisper that the pursuivants were
upon them, and some stolid Catholic servant would hold the men at the
door until priests and vestments were safely lodged in the pit which
had been dug beneath the floor or the secret chamber cut out of the
solid wall. When mass was over, the disguised Jesuit would, as a rule,
give a last blessing and take to the road again, dining at inns where
he might see on the wall a description of himself and an intimation
that the Government wanted to hang, draw, and quarter him. Parsons
carried his bluff so far as to tear down one of these bills, and ask
the landlord what he meant by confronting an honest traveller with
reminders of that villainous Jesuit.
The two met again at Uxbridge in October, when Elizabeth had issued
a third proclamation against them, and the search was being pressed
vigorously. Campion returned to the provinces, and Parsons decided to
remain in or near London. He had a bold design of setting up a press
and stealthily issuing Catholic books, but it is reasonable to believe
that he was now becoming convinced that only a large political action
could save the faith in England. He saw much of the Spanish ambassador,
Mendoza, even living in the embassy as a servant for a time; and from
his conversations with Mendoza we may confidently date that idea of
a Spanish invasion of England which was to dominate the remainder of
his unfortunate life and cause incalculable mischief. Not only the
general rule of his Society, but a most explicit command laid on him
by Mercurian when he left Rome, forbade him to meddle with politics,
yet he gradually became wholly absorbed in a political and treacherous
project, and we may safely date its birth about this time.
Somewhere out of London--at East Ham, Simpson conjectures--he set up
his press, and infuriated the Council by disseminating books which
their advisers pronounced to have been printed in England. Hundreds of
arrests were made, the rack was busy at the Tower, and the laws were
made more drastic; yet the "howling wolf" (Parsons) and the "wandering
vagrant" (Campion), as they were described in a debate in Parliament,
continued to evade the zealous officers. Two other Jesuits, Cottam and
Bosgrave, who attempted to join them, were arrested at once and put in
the Tower; while the Irish Jesuit, O'Donnell, was hanged, drawn, and
quartered at Cork.
In the early part of 1581 Fathers Holt and Heywood penetrated the
Protestant defences and joined Parsons. He sent Holt on to Scotland,
to further the political scheme he now cherished, and later had Father
Crichton sent on direct to Edinburgh from Rouen. A genial page of Mr.
Andrew Lang's _History of Scotland_ (ii. 282) tells how these Jesuits
"let the pigs run through the job" in Scotland. The romance of hiding
in Holyrood and assisting the great enterprise of the invasion of
England seems to have exalted them, and they gave Mary, whom they would
rescue, a very poor opinion of their qualities as diplomatists. They
made airy promises of armies, to be provided by some foreign power,
until at last even Mendoza begged them to confine themselves to the
saving of souls and leave State affairs to statesmen. Father Hay,
another Scottish Jesuit who joined them, advocated the assassination of
the leading Protestant nobles. These Jesuits returned in the course of
time to the Continent; Father Ogilvie, in 1615, was the only Catholic
who was executed on the ground of religion in Scotland after a formal
trial.
To return to England, Parsons found in the early spring of 1581 that
his lodging in East Ham was suspected, and he moved the press to Dame
Stonor's park near Henley, where Campion came to control the printing
of his _Ten Reasons_: a Latin work, not hampered by modesty, which
greatly stirred the Protestant divines of the time. Gilbert, who was
now under surveillance and had lost most of his property in the cause,
was sent to Rome to report that 20,000 Catholics had been added to the
list of the faithful in a year--a quite incredible number, as only
50,000 recusants were known to the Council in the whole of England.
On 11th July the two comrades parted, for the last time; Campion
was caught at Lyford in Berkshire about a week afterwards. He had
imprudently returned to a house at which he had ministered, and the
officers closed round it. For a day and a night Campion lay hidden in
the "priest's hole," but the officers at last discovered him, and sent
him to London, conspicuously labelled "Campion the seditious Jesuit."
We will not linger over the racking, the thrusting of spikes between
his fingers and nails, and the other horrible devices by which the
Council sought to extract a betrayal of others; though we might remind
those who, like Crétineau-Joly, speak of these things as the hideous
inventions of Protestant hatred, that these appalling instruments were,
on the contrary, already stained with Protestant blood. Campion's great
courage wavered under the long and terrible strain, and he supplied a
few names of Catholic houses, to the great scandal of the faithful at
the time; but he expiated his momentary weakness, on 1st December, by
meeting with great bravery the ghastly death of a "traitor" at Tyburn.
One of the two secular priests who were condemned to die with him,
Father Briant, was admitted by him to the Society the night before
the execution, and died a Jesuit. Father Cottam was executed in the
following May (1582).
Parsons left Henley, where his press was discovered a month later,
and went into Sussex. The secular clergy were now so eager to get the
Jesuits out of England that some of them threatened to betray him, and
he went to France in March. Probably the feeling that he could promote
his political scheme more effectively on the Continent had more to do
with his flight than the fear of death or the pressure of the secular
clergy. He remained at Rouen, smuggling English books from there into
England and doing all that he could to press the Scottish enterprise.
It was from Rouen that he sent Crichton into Scotland, and he was in
constant correspondence with Mendoza and the Duke of Guise, who would
help in the enterprise. Crichton presently returned to tell of the
large and imprudent offers of help he had made to Lennox in Scotland,
and they decided to make an effort to get armies for the rescue of Mary
Stuart. Crichton was sent to Rome, and Parsons went to Madrid.
The chief interest of the work of the English Jesuits remains with the
indefatigable Parsons on the Continent during the next five years,
and a few words will suffice to tell the story of his colleagues in
England. Besides two secular priests, Metham and Pound, who were
admitted to the Society in prison, and Emerson, who was in prison (and
remained there for twenty years), Heywood was now the only Jesuit in
England; Holt had been captured in Scotland, and sent back to the
Continent. Heywood caused a great deal of irritation by his masterful
ways, and the secular priests indignantly describe him as driving in
a luxurious coach, like a baron, and living so comfortably that he
contracted gout. He was recalled to the Continent, but was captured
and kept in the Clink until 1585, when he was banished. His place
as Vice-Prefect of the mission--Parsons was Prefect--was taken by
Father Weston, a new arrival, whose powers in expelling demons were
so singular and spectacular that he used to take possessed persons
about with him in his stealthy visits to the Catholic gentry, and give
most amazing displays--until it was discovered that the "mediums" were
frauds. It had paid them, apparently, to swallow nauseous drugs and
allow themselves to be mauled by Father Weston. He was captured and
lodged in Wisbeach Castle in 1587, but Fathers Garnet and Southwell had
then arrived, as we shall see presently. We must follow the feverish
political activity of Parsons, which culminates in the sending of the
Armada.
From Paris Parsons had made a swift journey, on horseback, to Madrid,
where he greatly impressed Philip II. By this time, at least, Parsons
deliberately advocated the transfer of the English crown to Philip,
and was therefore a traitor to his country and to the rules of his
Society. He obtained from Philip a large sum of money for James of
Scotland, a pension for the seminary at Rheims, and a promise that
Spanish influence would support his claim of a red hat for Allen: he
was anxious to remove Allen from the colleges he had founded, so that
the Jesuits could control the supply of priests to England. A severe
illness kept him for some months in Spain, but he was back at Paris in
May 1583. During the summer he was in close correspondence with Guise
and d'Alencon, who were now advocating and plotting the assassination
of Elizabeth as the simplest solution of the situation. In August
Parsons went to Rome, to excuse his activity, which scandalised the
Parisian Jesuits, and to induce the Pope to subsidise the Scottish
expedition and remove Allen to a loftier sphere. He returned in the
autumn, having secured a bishopric for Allen and another pension for
the college at Rheims. In spite of the protests of the French Jesuits
he continued to pursue his plots. The French dukes withdrew from the
enterprise, and the Spanish King was now quite willing to move, if the
Pope would be generous with funds. Gregory died in the spring of 1585,
and Parsons and Allen went to Rome to win the new Pope, Sixtus V.
There is at this date, and during the next few years, no room for doubt
about the aim of Parsons. We have it repeatedly in his own words that
he worked to seat Philip on the throne of England, and he shrewdly
advised Philip to conceal his intention, from the English Catholics,
Scotland, France, and the Papacy, until his expedition was successful.
The death of Mary Stuart did not disturb him, and he gradually
discarded the idea of attacking through Scotland. Philip was to make
a direct attack, and the English Catholics were to be instructed to
look to Philip, not as a future king, but as restorer of the faith.
All the world knows the result. The great Armada (with several Jesuits
on board) sank to the bottom of the Channel, and Parsons had the
mortification of learning that even Catholics had loyally taken arms
to repel the Spaniard. There ended the second phase of his remarkable
career, and we may return to England.
In July 1586 Henry Garnet and R. Southwell landed on the Norfolk
coast, as Dr. Jessopp so finely tells, and resumed the work which I
have previously described. Garnet was, if somewhat less boisterous
and masterful, the new Parsons; Southwell, a retiring and amiable
man, the new Campion. As Weston was arrested in 1587, Garnet became
Vice-Prefect. In the following year John Gerard and Edward Oldcorne
joined them, and the story of adventurous ministration went on. On one
occasion the four Jesuits were nearly caught in a batch, saying mass
in a Catholic house; and in 1594 Garnet was caught and imprisoned for
three years. He escaped from the Tower, with outside assistance, in
1597, and returned to work. Southwell was betrayed by a Catholic lady
in 1592, and, after three years in the Tower, was executed at Tyburn
in 1595. In the same year Henry Walpole was arrested on arrival, and
executed at York. Father Greenway was the only other Jesuit to enter
the country before 1600, and we must leave these fathers pursuing their
adventurous work and consider the growing quarrel of the Jesuits and
the secular clergy.
That long and interesting story must be told very briefly here.
Wisbeach Castle had been chosen as a prison for captured priests, and
when Weston arrived there in 1587, he very plainly tried to assume a
leadership. As his various suggestions were rejected, he made a party
among the priest-prisoners, got himself appointed director of it, and
initiated a bitter and prolonged feud which spread far beyond the walls
of Wisbeach. To the secular priests' charges of arrogance and ambition,
the Jesuit writers retort that even in jail the English priests were so
prone to drunkenness, gambling, and immorality that Father Weston was
forced to live apart with the more virtuous. A profane historian must
not attempt to judge between them. It is enough that, especially in the
years 1595-1597, reports of violent quarrels reached Rome; and these
coincided with complaints from Belgium of the behaviour of Father Holt
(who had been sent as agent of Philip II. to Brussels and was denounced
to the authorities for his violent political partisanship), and another
rebellion of the students of the Roman college. Not only did these
complain of their Jesuit masters, but they occasionally fell into the
hands of the papal police in wine-shops and other improper places, and
were found to be a very poor and undisciplined body of youths. Mr. Law
insists that the Jesuits kept the English priests at a low level of
culture in order to control or overshadow them the more easily.
Parsons was now recalled from Spain and political intrigue to deal with
this new menace. He had spent several years in Spain, founding new
English colleges (at Valladolid, Seville, and Madrid) under his own
control and working out his learned theory that the crown of England
belonged of strict right to Spain. He failed to induce Philip to send
a second Armada, and now devoted himself to proving that the Infanta
was the heir to the crown of England. That is the idea of the book,
_A Conference on the Succession_, which he published, anonymously, in
1594: a year after the fifth General Congregation of his Society had
once more sternly decreed that no Jesuit must meddle with politics.
In 1597 he reached Rome and quickly pacified the students of the
college. Some of them, it seems, thought that he ought to be made a
cardinal for his great services, and he hastened, with tearful eyes, to
ask the Pope to spare him that dignity; and we will trust that he was
relieved when the Pope coldly observed that he had not had the least
idea of imposing it on him. They then turned to the great question of
Wisbeach, and the settlement of it doubly interests us; partly because
a Jesuit supremacy in Wisbeach might be a good precedent for the time
when a Catholic monarch succeeded Elizabeth, and partly because it
throws a very singular light on Jesuit procedure.
The Jesuits submitted that the clerical prisoners in England desired
some kind of canonical leader. Clement VIII., who had, like his great
predecessor Sixtus V., had some alarming experience of the state of the
Jesuits (as we shall see later), required proof of this. They brought
before him certain English priests, friendly to themselves, who assured
the Pope that there was no discord in their ranks in England; the
largeness of their "mental reservation" may be judged from the fact
that a later inquiry showed that 343 out of the 400 priests in England
were against the Jesuit proposal. The Pope was deceived, and he yielded
to Parsons's suggestion to make George Blackwell, a former student
under the Jesuits, "Archpriest" of the English clergy. Blackwell went
to England to exercise this newly invented authority, and Parsons
returned to his plots. He had then several secretaries to conduct his
enormous correspondence, and he was so sure of a Catholic succession
to the throne that he marked out various houses in London for use as
Jesuit colleges.
After a time there came to Rome some of the English clergy, saying
that they had received the Archpriest with amazement, and begging the
Pope to withdraw him. The Pope was not in Rome, and Parsons took care
that they should not reach him. He induced the papal authorities to
arrest them, as rebels, and lodge them in the college controlled by
the Jesuits; and when they persisted in appealing to a Roman tribunal,
he secured the dismissal of the appeal. Later, a fresh batch of
appellants came to Rome, and Parsons knew that their evidence would
be very damning. Not only had the Jesuits, who controlled the moneys
gathered for the support of the imprisoned priests, attempted to use
this power to subdue them, but when the Pope had ordered that no more
pamphlets should be written on the subject, Blackwell had refrained
from publishing the decree until Parsons had time to issue one; and
this one mendaciously purported to have been written by some "priests
united in due subordination to the Archpriest." The secular priests
had appealed to Elizabeth, and she had actually heard and set four of
them at liberty, in order that they might plead their cause at Rome.
They now had the support of the French embassy, and, in spite of all
the libels which Parsons circulated concerning them and the English
clergy generally, they won a partial victory. Blackwell was to remain
Archpriest, but he was not to consult the Jesuits.
From this domestic but instructive feud we return to the action of the
Jesuits in England. Under ten different names Garnet had continued,
amid a hundred adventures, to elude his pursuers, and his colleagues
were only a little less active. We cannot, however, do more here
than attempt to trace their share in the political scheming which
culminated in the Gunpowder Plot. The Jesuits in England carried out
the suggestion of Parsons that, instead of putting their faith in the
eventual accession and conversion of James of Scotland, they should
teach the Catholics to look to Philip. In December 1601 we find Garnet
meeting Catesby, Tresham, and Winter in the house of Anne Vaux at
Enfield Chase, and discussing the question of a mission to Spain. The
issue of it was that Winter and Father Greenway went to Madrid, and
obtained a large sum of money from Philip III. It was intended for the
relief of the poor Catholics, Garnet afterwards said: in which case we
do not very well understand why he "misliked" the expedition, as he
says.
Elizabeth died on 24th March 1603, and James Stuart peacefully acceded
to the throne. We need not stop to consider the shifts by which Parsons
now sought the favour of James; he had, he boldly and untruthfully
said, abandoned the idea of a Spanish succession at the death of Philip
II. in 1598. James was not to be deceived, and, in his negotiations
with Rome, made a point of having the Jesuits excluded. The conflicting
counsels in regard to the Catholics ended, as is known, in a decision
to tolerate lay Catholics, but not priests, and the bitter agitation
began which led up to the famous plot. Catesby and Winter conceived
the horrible idea of blowing up the Parliament House when the King,
the Royal Family, and the Lords and Commons were assembled in it for
the opening of Parliament. Guy Fawkes, Thomas Percy, and J. Wright
were admitted to the secret, and in March 1604 they met and swore to
accomplish the plot. In an adjoining room a priest said mass for them,
and Fawkes and Winter afterwards said that this priest was Father
Gerard; Gerard, however, denied this, and the point is not important,
since it is not at all probable that Gerard was ever admitted to the
secret, and no priest knew of the plot until long afterwards. Gerard's
idea was that toleration could be bought, but he failed even to find
the money. For more than a year and a half the conspirators brooded
over their ghastly scheme, and made preparations for carrying it out;
and on 5th November 1605 Fawkes was arrested in the cellar beneath the
House beside a mass of powder.
It is agreed that no Jesuit inspired this plot; the point we have to
determine is whether the Jesuits were aware of the plot and acquiesced
in it by their silence. The whole subject has been fully and repeatedly
discussed, and I propose to rely almost entirely on the "Declarations"
which Father Garnet addressed to the authorities during his trial
and imprisonment.[16] The living Jesuit, Father Gerard, may express
an ingenuous doubt whether there ever was a Gunpowder Plot at all;
his predecessor of the seventeenth century, who ought to know, was
concerned only to extricate himself, by a series of confessions,
evasions, and untruths to which no parallel can be found in the history
of martyrs, from the very grave moral and legal charge of having known
that this horrible slaughter was contemplated and made no effort to
disclose or prevent it.
Garnet confesses that on 9th June 1605 Catesby came to his lodging,
at a costermonger's house in Thames Street, and, "finding me alone,"
asked if, "in case it were lawful to kill a person or persons, it were
necessary to regard the innocents who were present." The Jesuit replied
that the killing of innocent people in a lawful attack upon others
was not immoral; he pointed out that soldiers had often, in besieging
a town, to slay the civilian with the soldier. He professes in his
declaration that he had no idea that Catesby had in mind an actual
plot to be carried out in England. He had written to Parsons a few
weeks before that many of the Catholic laymen were "offended with the
Jesuits" on the ground that they "hindered forcible enterprises"; and
he would have us believe that when one of these laymen, whose character
he knew well, finding him alone, puts to him a singularly abstract
question of this nature, it does not even occur to him that he has
a "forcible enterprise" in mind. When Catesby was leaving, however,
he assured Garnet that he would under no circumstances betray that
he had consulted the Jesuit. Even then the innocent Jesuit failed to
understand, and it was only on reflection, he says, that he thought it
possible that Catesby was plotting. He therefore felt it to be his duty
to "admonish" Catesby, the next time he met him, that he "must first
look to the lawfulness of the act itself, and then he must not have
so little regard of innocence that he spare not friends and necessary
persons for a Commonwealth, and told him what charge we had of all
quietness, and to procure the like in others."
Even if we suppose that this "admonition" was really given to Catesby
as he describes it--one hesitates, because Garnet's conduct throughout
is a classical example of casuistic perversion of truth--we can
readily believe that Catesby took it very lightly, as Garnet says.
Even if we could bring ourselves to admit that Garnet at the secret
interview saw only an innocent and abstract moral issue, such as might
be discussed in an open drawing-room, in Catesby's question, and
therefore unwittingly sanctioned a bloody massacre, it is certain that
he perceived on reflection that some such massacre was contemplated;
yet he can only warn him to have regard for "friends and necessary
persons," and feebly remind him of their duty of "quietness." Indeed in
July, he confesses, he received "a very earnest letter" from General
Acquaviva, who said, on behalf of the Pope, that they were vaguely
conscious that something was contemplated by the English Catholics, and
that the Pope and Acquaviva himself rigorously forbade any recourse to
violence, as it would do more harm than good. He showed this letter to
Catesby, because, he says, "I doubted he had some device in his head."
Catesby admitted that he had, and offered to tell it to him. He refused
to hear it, and merely stipulated that a layman should be sent to the
Continent to learn if it were true that the Pope would not disapprove:
a mission which, as Garnet knew, had no issue.
This last interview with Catesby occurred in the latter half of July,
more than two months before the proposed opening of Parliament (3rd
October). By that time, therefore, Garnet was quite aware, without
the least reference to the seal of confession, that the Catholic
laity contemplated some deed which directly aimed at taking life on
so large a scale that the innocent would suffer with the guilty, and
it would need very little reflection to foresee that this deed was
directed at the court or the Parliament, or both. Further, in order
not to be obliged formally to condemn it, he refused, contrary to his
plainest duty, to learn the details of it. The clue to his frame of
mind seems to be given in his letter to Parsons in May. The laymen
were "offended with the Jesuits" because they would not consent to
"forcible enterprises"; he would therefore not interfere with their
plot. He could, without violation of any sacramental confidence,
because Catesby's admission to Father Greenway comes later, have
prevented the plot from going any further, but he allowed this vague
horror to proceed, and defied the emphatic command of the Pope and
his General, in order that the Jesuits might not lose favour with the
leading Catholic laymen. It is probable that he also trusted that the
outrage would be justified by the result. Whatever his motives, his
conduct was shifty, cowardly, and treacherous, and he fitly died the
death of a traitor. He admits later in his "Declaration" that he "might
have hindered all" by speaking to Catesby. He claims that he pressed
the Roman authorities, through Parsons, to send a stronger condemnation
of plots; but we have a letter of his to Parsons, dated 4th September,
in which he assures Rome that the English Catholics are now quiet and
submissive.
It is therefore unnecessary to decide whether he afterwards learned all
the details of the plot under the seal of confession, and whether it
was morally impossible for him to disclose such a communication. The
guilt of Henry Garnet is clear enough, however we decide the further
issue. Yet it is of interest, and the further development may be
briefly recounted.
A few days after he had seen Catesby, in the latter half of July,
Father Greenway came to consult him. He was troubled about a "devise"
that Catesby had submitted to him, and he proposed to submit it to his
superior "by way of confession." Garnet then learned the details of the
plot; he had forbidden Catesby to tell him, but was willing to learn
them without Catesby's knowledge. He pronounced the plot "horrible,"
and said that Greenway must return to Catesby and condemn it. The Pope,
he said, would send him to the galleys if such a plot came off. He
urged Greenway to dissuade Catesby, and adds: "so we parted, yet with
this compact, that if ever I should be called in question for being
accessory unto such a horrible action, either by the Pope, or by my
superiors beyond, or by the State here, I would have liberty to utter
all that passed in this conference." He expected to see Catesby in
October--he could undoubtedly have seen him before then--and says: "I
assuredly had [if they met] entered into the matter with Mr. Catesby,
and perhaps might have hindered all." He undoubtedly could have
"hindered all" at any moment by an explicit declaration that the plot
was a mortal sin, and by a threat of the Pope's penalties.
An attempt has been made to relieve Garnet of the heavy responsibility
which this declaration lays on him by pleading that the Church binds a
priest, under the gravest moral obligation, not to communicate anything
learned "by way of confession." In the first place, Garnet does not say
that Greenway learned the plot in confession. He says that he asked
Greenway this, and he does not give his reply. It is, in fact, quite
certain from Garnet's own words and conduct, that the communication was
not made under the seal of confession at all. If it were, Garnet had no
power whatever to speak to Catesby about it, as he says he intended
to do: Greenway had no power whatever to permit Garnet to "utter all
that passed in this conference" if he were brought to task: and Garnet
committed a mortal sin and cowardly sacrilege in eventually revealing
that he had heard of the plot from Greenway. There are obscure points
about the theological doctrine of the "seal," but these things are not
obscure or disputed. Catesby told Greenway in ordinary confidence, as
he offered to tell Garnet. Even if it had been otherwise, Garnet's
plain duty was to see that his colleague approached Catesby and made it
a matter of conscience to abstain from such a design.
It is, in the next place, even clearer that the communication made by
Greenway to Garnet did not come under the seal of confession. Garnet
plainly intimates that there was no confession at all, and merely hints
that it might be regarded as forming part of some future confession.
The teaching of moral theologians is clear that a consultation for the
sake of direction does not, unless it be intended as "a preparation
for confession," come under the seal.[17] Greenway was not a penitent
at all, and even a sinner cannot put a confessor under the seal
when he chooses; he must confess his sins. In any case, the above
considerations apply here also. Garnet would have no right whatever to
approach Catesby if he learned the plot in confession; Greenway had no
right whatever to name Catesby in a confession; Garnet would have no
right to say, in confession, whether he would or would not listen to
this "penitent"; and Garnet would most decidedly have no right to claim
permission to break the seal if his neck were endangered. To introduce
"the seal of confession" is to make Garnet's conduct worse than ever.
It is plain that Garnet and Greenway feared to offend the laity by
thwarting them, and it is probable that they thought the slaughter
might help their cause. They locked the secret in their hearts, and
nervously went about their work. In August Garnet went to the north,
and in December, when the conspirators were slain and Greenway and
Gerard had fled to the Continent, he sought refuge at Hinlip Castle,
near Worcester, with Father Oldcorne. They were betrayed by a Catholic
and discovered, after a full week's search of the castle. An astute
jailer then tricked Garnet into a conversation with his colleague, and
learned that there was one man who could connect him with the plot.
In the presence of the rack he then declared that he was permitted
to speak in such an emergency, and he related the "conference"
with Greenway. He remained shifty and mendacious to the end, using
the doctrine of mental reservation with an appalling flippancy.
When charged with writing a letter to Greenway, he swore "on his
priesthood," and without reservation, that he had not written it; and
the Council then showed him the letter, which they had intercepted. He
was justly, if barbarously, executed on 3rd May, on the ground of the
general knowledge he had of the plot from Catesby himself. Equivocal
to the end, he declared to the authorities that he had sinned against
God and the king in not revealing the plot; while to the Catholic Anne
Vaux he pleaded that "it was not his part to disclose it." He did not
represent it as matter heard in confession.
As the innocent and estimable Oldcorne had been executed on 7th April,
the Jesuit mission was over for a time, and the hopes of Catholicism
blasted. Crétineau-Joly gives an inaccurate list of seven Jesuits who
"perished" under Elizabeth, and airily adds "a hundred others." The
truth is that from 1580 to 1606 there had only been a score of Jesuits
in England, even including the secular priests who were permitted to
take the vows in prison in order that their martyrdoms might illumine
the chronicle of the Society; that only seven of these, including
the seculars I have mentioned, were put to death; and that of the
five regularly admitted Jesuits who were put to death, two obtained a
remission of punishment by giving information. Yet their story is, on
the whole, a story of heroism thwarted by political intrigue.
Two other Jesuits, Hunt and Worthington, had arrived before the plot,
and in 1607 others began again to penetrate the defences of the
country. The houses of wealthy Catholics were no longer available as
they had been, and the life of the missionary was harder than ever; but
the colleges on the Continent continued to send their ardent apostles
into the field, and by 1615, when Acquaviva died, there are said to
have been sixty-eight Jesuits in England. The prestige of Parsons had
fallen low, but he remained, intriguing, on the Continent. For some
years students had been passing from the Jesuits to the Benedictines,
and in 1602, in spite of the opposition of Parsons, the Benedictines
obtained from the Pope the right to work in England. Clement VIII. had
received so many complaints that he threatened to expel Parsons from
Rome, and Parsons, at a hint given him by Acquaviva, went to Naples
for the advantage of his health, and remained there until the death
of Clement. He returned with the accession of Paul V. in 1605, and
continued to fight the secular clergy in regard to the archpriest. The
extraordinary course of deception and intrigue which he maintained
until his death in 1610 must be read in the spirited narrative of
Father Taunton. His death closes the chief interest of the English
mission under Acquaviva, and we will return to the struggling apostles
at a later stage.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 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's _Edmund Campion_ (1867) is a
very fine biography of that high-minded Jesuit; and T. Law has written
a learned and exact _Historical 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's _One Generation of a Norfolk House_ (1879), and Father
Morris's _Life 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.]
[Footnote 16: They were published in the _English Historical Review_,
July 1888.]
[Footnote 17: So the chief Jesuit manual now in use, Lehmkuhl's
_Theologia Moralis_, i. 330; from which I was taught casuistry.]
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST CENTURY OF JESUITISM
As the 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. When these 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. Paul V. 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
the _Historia 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 the _Secret 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 of Vitelleschi 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 illuminated Europe
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 Philip III.,
whose dominion they had so materially helped to enlarge, died in 1621,
but his successor Philip IV. 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
the _Teatro 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 a partial 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 Innocent X., 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 the _Annales 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, the raven 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 sums from 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 Louis XIII. 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 manoeuvres 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 1624 Richelieu 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
Henry IV., 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 entitled
_Mysteria Politica_ and _Admonitio ad Regem Christianissimum_, gave him
great annoyance. They were condemned and burned, together with Father
Santarelli's _De 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. They had (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 in Bayle's _Dictionary_ (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. They told "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 attend _their_ church. 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 petty universities 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, Charles IV., 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, the _Imago 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 vessels in 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 a political 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. Ferdinand II., 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 of Ferdinand 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 Louis XIII. 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 to it. 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 famous _Secret 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
the _Mercure 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 at Louvain, 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, Ferdinand II. ordered the Protestants
of his dominions to restore ecclesiastical property; and we learn
from the decree of Pope Urban VIII. 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 Jesuits brought 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 criticism upon 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 of
the 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 the _saniassi_, 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 of these 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 Dominicans and 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 Xogun II. 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 it
exceedingly 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 Philip III. 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 two Jesuit 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 the English 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: This rare and curious work, which was often condemned
and burned in subsequent years, was published in 1654, and affords
a particularly unpleasant picture of the Spanish Jesuits. It was
attributed to a distinguished Dominican monk. He denied the authorship,
but many believe that the denial was merely a matter of policy.]
[Footnote 19: See the author's _Iron Cardinal_ (1909), p. 341.]
[Footnote 20: Crétineau-Joly suppresses the whole of these facts, and
describes Père de Bérulle as "intimately united with the Jesuits"! De
Bérulle's letter to Richelieu is published in the _Annales_, ii. 738.]
[Footnote 21: Many of the documents are collected in the _Annales de
la Société des soi-disans Jésuites_. The most familiar procedure of
the Jesuits was to accuse the monks of corruption and rely on their
influence at court to prevent too close an inquiry. The French Conseil
d'État forced them, as late as 4th August 1654, to restore three abbeys
to their lawful owners.]
CHAPTER VIII
UNDER THE STUARTS
With the exception of the English mission, which I have reserved for
continuous treatment in this chapter, we have now surveyed the whole
life of the Society of Jesus during the first century of its history.
The most important conclusion that one can draw from this extensive and
varied body of experiences is that every attempt to impose a uniform
character on the early Jesuits must fail. The uniformity in virtue and
heroism which is ascribed to the Society in the florid pages of the
_Imago Primi Sæculi_ is as far removed from the truth as the uniformly
dark features which are imposed on the Jesuits by some writers of
the opposing school. The candid historian must follow the example of
Macaulay, and give contrasted pictures of the light and the darkness,
the heroic devotion and the demoralising casuistry, which one equally
discovers in that first century of Jesuit history; and his effort to
do justice will miscarry, as that of Macaulay did, because Catholic
writers will ingenuously detach the earlier and more flattering half of
his verdict and represent it as his full conclusion.
This extreme variety of types is in itself an indication that the
discipline of the Society had failed. Ignatius had laid stress on two
rules: the novices were to be chosen with a care which the older orders
had ceased to maintain, and the men were to be controlled by a system
of surveillance and abject submission to authority which should have
secured a large measure of uniformity. We have seen that these rules
were very largely disregarded. The complaint is constant and well
founded that the Jesuits looked less to character and devotion than to
ability and social position in examining the candidates for admission.
It is, perhaps, singular that this did not at least give the Society
a more imposing intellectual status. Crétineau-Joly has industriously
collected the names of the chief writers and scholars who adorned the
annals of the Society during the first two centuries. One need only
say that, apart from theologians, there are very few names in the list
that will be found in any impartial calendar of those who contributed
to the development of modern culture. This vast society of leisured
and comfortable bachelors offers us a singularly meagre statement of
results. Its prominent names are generally the names of politicians
and pamphleteers. This comparative poverty, apart from theology, is
not surprising when we reflect that the purpose of the Society was to
combat heresy; it is merely necessary to note the fact because the
contrary is so frequently stated. In proportion to their numbers, their
resources, and their exceptional opportunities (through their schools)
of attracting eligible youths, the Jesuits are not, and never were, a
learned body.
This general mediocrity of intellect is accompanied by a general
mediocrity of character. Just as their vaunted system of education is
singularly unsuccessful in developing higher ability, so their equally
lauded spiritual exercises leave the great body at a very common
level of character. When we have justly admired the apostles who here
and there exhibit heroic self-sacrifice on the foreign missions, the
communities which here and there brave the horrors and dangers of a
plague-stricken town, the few whose integrity of life wins the respect
of people unattached to the Society, we find ourselves confronting
a general body of men of no moral or spiritual distinction. During
generation after generation the largest provinces of the Society
persist in comfortable idleness, and the efforts of superiors to assert
the despotic power they are supposed to possess are met with resentment
and intrigue, and are nearly always foiled. The theoretical corpse-like
passivity of the Jesuit is a sheer mockery of the facts of their
history.
They stand out from the other religious congregations of the Roman
world only in the attainment of greater power and wealth, and the
means by which they attain them. Here alone is there a distinctive
strand in the story of the Jesuits, perceptible from the foundation
of the Society. Unquestionably they did far more for their Church
in the first century after the Reformation than any other religious
body; and they did this specifically by seeking wealth and power. They
strained every nerve to secure the ear of popes, princes, and wealthy
people. That was the plain direction of their founder. But we may be
confident that Ignatius would not have sanctioned the fraud, hypocrisy,
slander, intrigue, and approval of violence which this eagerness for
power brought into the Society. In India and China, in England and
Sweden, they assumed a right to lie in the service of God; and in the
same high cause they counselled or connived at murder, slandered their
fellow-priests, violated their sacred obligations, fostered wars,
and accommodated the Christian ethic to the passions of wealthy or
influential sinners. It was never necessary for a Jesuit theologian
to declare that "the end justifies the means."[22] If the phrase is
regarded, not as a citation from a written book of rules, but as an
interpretation of the conduct of the Jesuits, it expresses the most
distinctive feature of the character of the Society during its first
hundred years.
We have now to see how this characteristic will be maintained during a
second century, and will at length bring a terrible catastrophe upon
the Society. For half a century the Jesuits will continue to enjoy and
augment their wealth and power, but the hatred which they have provoked
in the minds of their co-religionists gathers thicker and darker about
their splendid prosperity and at length extinguishes it. They die
by the hand of Catholics, suffering the just penalty of their grave
abuse of power. It will now be more convenient to follow their history
continuously in each province, and we may begin with England.
We left the Jesuits struggling in disguise and penury in England at
the death of General Acquaviva (1615). After the wave of anger which
the Gunpowder Plot had raised had partly subsided, dozens of Jesuits
stole bravely into their native land and ministered stealthily to the
persecuted Catholics. There were sixty-eight of them in England in
1615; by 1619 the number had increased to nearly two hundred, and the
Roman officials raised the mission to the status of a vice-province;
in 1623, when there were 284 members, they were formed into a Province
of the Society, with Father Blount as Provincial. The indisposition of
James I. to persecute emboldened them to act with greater vigour. The
fantastic picture of their activity in Crétineau-Joly is, of course,
wholly inaccurate. We read of a Father Arrowsmith "issuing from his
retreat" to challenge and defeat the Bishop of Chester in a debate, and
expose himself to the prelate's vindictiveness. It was not in 1628, but
some years before, that Edmund Arrowsmith argued with the Bishop of
Chester; he was then not a Jesuit at all, and he did not issue from any
retreat to challenge the prelate or suffer any vindictive punishment.
He was arrested as a priest, happened to find the bishop eating meat on
a Friday and argued the point in passing, and was released.[23]
The truth is that from 1607 to 1618 there were only sixteen persons
executed on the ground of religion in England, and none of them was a
Jesuit. The prisons, indeed, contained several hundred priests, and
several thousand Catholic laymen, but James was disinclined to take
extreme measures, and the priests had much liberty even in jail. Father
Percy, a Durham man, converted 150 men and women of rank, including the
Countess of Buckingham, mother of the famous minister, during his three
years in the New Prison on the Thames. James himself condescended to
debate with him, and Father Percy ended a long and adventurous career
in bed. In 1622, in fact, when James began to negotiate with Spain for
a Catholic princess for his son, four thousand Catholics were released
from jail, and the execution of the penal laws was greatly relaxed.
Catholics generally looked forward with eagerness to the marriage,
but the Jesuits opposed it at the Vatican. It is suggested that they
dreaded the coming of a bishop in the train of the princess, but it
is not improbable that they preferred an alliance with France. When
the Spanish negotiations failed--and they would have failed without
any assistance from the Jesuits--the laws were enforced once more with
some rigour. Still it was only accident or imprudence that brought
punishment on the Jesuits. In 1623 one of them, Father Drury, was
preaching on a Sunday afternoon to some two or three hundred Catholics
in the house of the French Ambassador at Blackfriars, when the floor
gave way, and the preacher and a hundred others were killed. The common
folk of London made ghastly merriment over "the doleful even-song."
Five years later several Jesuits were caught in a house belonging to
the Earl of Shrewsbury at Clerkenwell. We find that they had there a
regular novitiate and the residence of their Provincial. An imposing
ceremony was to take place, and the large intake of provisions aroused
the suspicion of the priest-hunters. Only one Jesuit was executed. In
1622 forty of the fathers had attended a provincial congregation of
their Society in London, and they had decided to found colleges in
Wales and Staffordshire.
There is, however, another aspect of the activity of the Jesuits in
England which the French historian discreetly ignores. We saw in an
earlier chapter how Father Parsons had intrigued to get control of
the continental colleges and to prevent the sending of a bishop to
England. His successors continued to exasperate the secular clergy by
pursuing this selfish policy. Of the twenty-seven French and Flemish
seminaries which supplied the large body of priests in England, the
Jesuits controlled five, besides their colleges in Spain, and they
made every effort to obtain an ascendency over the priests. When the
Archpriest died in 1621, the secular clergy again appealed to the Pope
for a bishop, and the Jesuits again opposed the appeal. When, after a
long struggle, the Pope inclined to make the appointment, the Jesuits
induced Tobie Matthews (a Catholic son of the Archbishop of York) to
have James informed. The King sent word to the Pope, through Spain,
that he would not suffer the appointment, but he was later convinced
that he had been misled and the secular priests obtained a "Bishop of
Chalcedon." He died in the following year, and his successor seems
to have been imprudent, as the Benedictine monks joined the Jesuits
against him. The inner history of this domestic squabble is told us by
Panzani, who was the Vatican agent in England a few years afterwards.
He tells us that the Jesuits made an improper charge to the King
against the Bishop, and he was driven to the Continent.
Since one of the chief problems of Jesuit history is to account for
the bitter hostility to them of priests who were no less devoted than
they in the service of Catholicism, it is necessary to notice this
unpleasant wrangling and intrigue in the very heart of an heretical
land. I may, however, refer to Father Taunton's _History of the Jesuits
in England_ for a longer account of this domestic struggle and return
to the larger historical question.
The early years of the reign of Charles I. were not marred by any
enforcement of the more drastic penal laws. The fining of lay
Catholics--of whom about eleven thousand were known--still provided the
King with a handsome addition to the privy purse, and indeed it was
necessary to disarm the sullen suspicion with which the more zealous
Protestants watched the foreign queen and her spiritual court. No
serious effort was made, however, to enforce the laws against the
Jesuits, and they increased in numbers and resources. In 1628 they
opened a second novitiate in London. In 1634 one of the secular clergy
estimated that there were 360 Jesuits in England, and that they had 550
students in their colleges. This is evidently an exaggeration, as the
_Annual Letters_ report a total of 335 members of the Province in the
year 1645, and disclose the interesting fact that they had a collective
income of 17,405 _scudi_ (about £35,000 in the value of modern money).
It is stated by their clerical opponents that part of their income was
derived from commerce. A certain soap was genially known in London as
"the papist soap," and it is said that the Jesuits had, through their
lay friends, shares in the factory which produced it. They were in a
strong and comfortable position, and, had they been disposed to lay
aside their corporate selfishness and co-operate generously with the
other clergy, the story of religion in England might have entered upon
a singular development.
In the reign of Charles what we now know as the "High Church" held a
strong position, under Archbishop Laud, in the Church of England, and
there were indications of a disposition to return to the allegiance
of Rome. The head of the English Benedictine monks, Dom Jones, was
sent by the Vatican in 1634 to examine and direct the situation, and
he and his successor, Panzani, did much to reconcile the secular and
the regular clergy. The Jesuits, however, would not be reconciled, and
Panzani's reports to the Vatican are full of bitter charges against
them. In the Catholic England which they foresaw they were determined
to have a dominant position. It was said that they induced wealthy
and influential penitents to make a special vow of obedience to
themselves, and they were even charged by the clergy with impeding the
general restoration of Catholicism lest the new authorities should
expel them from the kingdom. They retorted with a bitter attack on the
papal agent. Virulent pamphlets were discharged from camp to camp, and
the Jesuits represented Panzani as a secret agent of Richelieu, seeking
to unite England and France in opposition to Spain. In spite of this
intestine discord the Church of Rome continued to make progress until
the shadow of the Civil War fell upon the land and the success of the
Puritans once more stifled the hopes of the Catholics.
The relation of the Jesuits to the Puritans has never been fully
elucidated--perhaps can never be fully elucidated--but there is
sufficient evidence that they again proved their remarkable power of
adaptation to varying circumstances. We will not suppose that they
themselves offered the rebels the use of their theological doctrine
of the right to depose and execute kings, or put into their hands
Father Parsons's convenient _Book of the Succession_, part of which
was published by the Parliament. But there is evidence that, under
the Commonwealth, they were in indirect relations with Cromwell, and
used their international connections to provide him with information
about France. In Ireland they opposed the papal Nuncio, Pinuccini
(as he bitterly complains), and were on good terms with Cromwell. A
piquant picture is offered us of the Irish Jesuit, Father Netterville,
dining and playing chess with the great leader of the Puritans. These
manoeuvres are lightly covered by their apologists with the pretext
that Jesuits knew no politics.
There is, however, another side to the story of the Jesuits during the
Civil War and under the Commonwealth. While Father Taunton seems to
see nothing but their intrigues with Cromwell, their French apologist
sees nothing but a long series of bloody executions at the hands of the
Puritans. Certainly, whatever the personal inclination of Cromwell was,
and whatever use he may have made of the Jesuits, they suffered heavily
in the Puritan reaction. Father Netterville himself, as well as Father
Boyton, Father Corbie, and other Irish Jesuits, were executed. Father
Holland had been executed in 1642, Father Corbie suffered the horrible
death of a traitor at Tyburn in 1644, and Father Morse followed him
in 1645. Morse was permitted to spend the night before his execution
in prayer with the Portuguese ambassador, and representatives of the
French, Spanish, and German ambassadors, and the French and Portuguese
ambassadors accompanied him devoutly to the scaffold. Father Harrison
was executed at Lancaster in 1650, and several other Jesuits perished
in consequence of their rigorous treatment in prison. It will be
noticed that these executions took place in the early fury of the
Puritans, and it must be remembered that the Catholic laity were, in
proportion to their numbers, the most generous and ardent supporters of
the King. It is a fact that the executions cease when Cromwell becomes
Protector (1653), and it is not impossible that, as we are told, he
used the Jesuits to give a secret assurance to the Vatican in regard to
religious persecution.
The less savage penal laws were, however, severely enforced, as one
would expect in that Puritan atmosphere, and the records of the Jesuits
become meagre and uninteresting. We know that in Ireland they were
reduced to eighteen fathers, who, living in the marshes or on the bleak
hillsides, ministered in great danger and privation to the oppressed
people. In England they were confined to an obscure and discreet
attempt to hold together the persecuted Catholics. The domestic quarrel
was silenced by the fresh catastrophe that had fallen on them.
In 1660 Charles II. entered upon his reign, and Catholics came out
into the sunlight once more. It is fairly established that during the
first twelve years of his reign Charles was disposed to see the country
return to its old faith. His personal inclination to Catholicism was so
little profound that he could lightly abandon it the moment political
events made it expedient to do so, but he was not insensible to the
great advantage which was enjoyed by the Catholic autocrats of France
and Spain. He therefore lent an indulgent ear when, at the beginning of
his reign, the Catholics petitioned for relief. The body of the nation
was still strenuously Protestant, and the cry was raised that at least
the Jesuits must be exempted from any measure of toleration. Many of
the Catholics pressed the Jesuits to sacrifice their province to the
general good of the Church, but we can hardly be surprised to learn
that they emphatically refused, and a long wrangle ensued. When it was
urged that their teaching that the Pope could depose kings unfitted
them to remain in the country, they promptly repudiated that doctrine.
They remained and prospered. After a few years, in fact, they were
brought into friendly relations with Charles in a singular and secret
way.
Their constitutions as well as stringent papal decrees forbade them
to receive men of irregular birth into the Society, but we have often
found them doing this, when the sin of the parent was redeemed by
the distinction of his position, and we can imagine their joy when
one of the illegitimate children of Charles II. presented himself at
their Roman novitiate in 1668. James de la Cloche, as the youth called
himself, was known by them to be in reality James Stuart, and it was
not unknown that Charles was attached to him and thought his accession
to the throne a not impossible dream. Genial letters passed, in secret,
between the English monarch and the General of the Jesuits; money was
sent to General Oliva from London, and after a time the young Jesuit
was stealthily conveyed to London and permitted to enjoy the embrace of
his father.
It is not surprising that the Society prospered. In 1669 there were 266
members of the English province. In the same year their Provincial,
Father Emmanuel Lobb, converted the Duke of York to the Roman faith,
and, although the secret was carefully guarded from Protestants for
a time, the news gave great joy and hope to the Catholics. A little
later Charles himself told some of the leading Catholic nobles that
he wished to embrace their creed, and would openly declare it if he
could be assured of defence against Protestant anger. In the following
year a secret treaty was signed at Dover with Louis XIV. Charles was
to declare his adoption of the Roman faith, and Louis was, in case
of need, to supply French troops for the subjection of the English
Protestants and, in any case, to provide large sums of money for the
unscrupulous King of England. Whether Charles and the Catholic nobles
really believed that Louis XIV. would consider the conversion of
England a sufficient reward of his generosity, it would be difficult to
say. The design was treasonable for all concerned.
The Jesuits were now at the summit of a wave of hope. The King was a
secret Catholic, and was married to a Catholic, Catherine of Braganza,
who was under their control. The marriage seemed to be sterile, but
the Duke of York, the next heir to the throne, was more devoted to
them than any other prince in Europe. The alliance with France was
controlled by them, as Louis XIV. was at that time entirely docile
to his famous Jesuit confessor. To the increasing horror of the
Protestants, Jesuit fathers now began to appear confidently in public.
Two of them ministered to the Queen; two guarded the conscience of
the Duke of York. At the same time war was declared with Holland,
and Charles issued his Declaration of Indulgence. It seemed that at
last the clouds were being swept from the heavens, and, whatever the
political development was, the Jesuits were on the way to attain power
over the throne. With English laws (or royal declarations) and French
troops they would soon make an end of Protestantism in England, and,
with the combined forces of England and France, return to the attack on
the northern Protestants.
Then there occurred the "Popish Plot," or the imaginary plot of Titus
Oates, and a furious storm whistled about their ears. Charles had soon
realised the futility of the French alliance, made peace with the
Dutch, and appeased his Protestant subjects by revoking the Declaration
of Indulgence. On the whole, it paid him better to remain a Protestant.
The natural and proper attitude for the Catholics was now to await
in silence the accession of the Duke of York, as Catherine remained
childless, but the Protestants were already looking to William of
Orange and not obscurely hinting that the Catholic Duke of York was
unfit to ascend the throne. Dutch agents distributed money among nobles
and parliamentarians; French and Catholic agents distributed _louis
d'or_ in the interest of York and Catholicism. Whatever we may say of
the Dutch, a secret and treasonable correspondence was maintained by
the Catholics with France. This correspondence was maintained on the
English side by a zealous secretary of the Duke of York, named Coleman,
a pupil and friend of the Jesuits. We shall see that Coleman was
afterwards arrested, and his papers seized, so that there is no dispute
about the fact that from 1675 to 1678 Coleman was in treasonable
correspondence with the French. French money and, in emergency, French
troops were to be employed for the destruction of the Established
Church. The letters were generally in cipher, and at times the secret
message was written in lemon-juice (which would become legible if held
before the fire) between the lines.
We are now asked to believe that this plot originated in the exalted
imagination of Coleman, and that the Jesuits were not privy to his
correspondence with Versailles. Jesuits in London were on such a
footing at St. James's Palace that they were allowed to hold their
secret meetings in its chambers, and on the French side the whole
correspondence was conducted by the famous Jesuit confessor of Louis
XIV., Père la Chaise; and the apologists would have us believe that
this correspondence, of such profound import to the future of the
Jesuit body in England, was carried on for several years without their
knowledge and connivance. We should have to believe, in fact, that even
the Duke of York was ignorant of it, since he concealed nothing from
the Jesuits, and that Père la Chaise did not give the least inkling
of it to his colleagues. One would need an extraordinary measure of
credulity to imagine the Jesuits frequenting St. James's Palace week
after week for years and being entirely ignorant that their friend
Coleman was receiving important messages all the time from their French
colleague.
Hence Mr. Pollock concludes, in his recent and able study of the
"Popish Plot,"[24] that we may adopt, or adapt, the familiar verdict of
Dryden on the plot:--
"Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies." It is now
universally admitted that Titus Oates and his chief witnesses were
little more than reckless liars, playing upon the inflamed Protestant
feeling of the time, but it would be generally admitted that _a_ plot,
such as I have described, was really afoot. Since, however, Mr. Pollock
also concludes that the Jesuits probably instigated and procured the
murder of the London magistrate, it is necessary to reopen the question.
Titus Oates, a little full-bodied man with large purple face and a
complete lack of moral feeling, had joined the Catholic Church and
been admitted by the Jesuits to their college at Valladolid. He was
expelled, but it seems likely that he had gleaned some information
about their hopes and designs in England, and, when he returned to
London, he entered into communication with a fanatical anti-Papist
named Dr. Tonge, though he continued to move amongst the Catholics.
It says little for the discrimination of the Jesuits that they then
admitted the man to the college at St. Omer's, from which he was once
more expelled. Tonge and he then brewed the Popish Plot, and had the
King informed that the Jesuits sought his life. Charles smiled, and,
in September, the conspirators went before a well-known magistrate,
Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey--a Protestant, but a personal friend of
Coleman and well disposed toward the Catholics--and laid information
of a ghastly project of the Catholics to destroy the Protestants of
London. The situation--a Catholic heir to the throne awaiting the
death of a Protestant king, with a Dutch pretender gaining ground
in London--seemed so ripe for a plot that London was seized with
a dramatic terror, and the Privy Council was compelled to listen
seriously to a story which was palpably false in many details and
ridiculous in others. Father Whitbread, the Jesuit Provincial, and
two of his colleagues were arrested; and, when the letters of Coleman
were seized and found to have references to "the mighty work on our
hands," the story seemed to be confirmed. Then Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey
was found dead in a ditch at the foot of Primrose Hill, and the city
was shaken with frenzy. For months the trained bands were kept under
arms at nights, and citizens slept nervously with arms beside them,
ready to spring up at a cry that the firing of houses and massacre of
Protestants had begun.
In that period of rage and panic the character of the witnesses who
came forward to claim the offered reward was not examined, their
inconsistencies were ignored, and several men of low character became
passing rich by swearing away the lives of others. Three men, who were
probably innocent, were hanged for murdering Godfrey in Somerset House
(then the Queen's Palace), and three Jesuits--Father Le Fevre (the
Queen's confessor), Father Walsh, and Father Pritchard--were accused
of having hired the assassins. In the end seven Jesuit priests and a
lay-brother were executed, a large number of Jesuits, secular priests,
and laymen were imprisoned, and a reign of terror fell upon the
Catholic population. It seemed as if the great dream of the conversion
of England was once more ruthlessly dissipated.
The witness Bedloe, who accused the Jesuits, was so mean a character,
and so well rewarded for making a charge which people wanted, that
we must ignore his evidence. If we attach any importance to the
declarations of the Catholic witness Prance, as Sir J. Fitzjames
Stephen and others have done, it would seem that Bedloe had really
learned something about the murder, and it may or may not be true that
the Jesuits were involved in it. We certainly cannot admit this on the
evidence of Bedloe. On the other hand, few, except Roman Catholics,
who read the evidence will doubt that Godfrey had been murdered and
his body had been conveyed to the spot where it was found. There was
hardly any trace of blood at the spot, and Godfrey's sword had been
driven through his body in a way which precludes the idea of suicide.
It was still clearer that he had not been murdered for the purpose of
robbery. The circumstances point to a political assassination, and, as
there is ample evidence that Godfrey expected an attack on his life, it
is natural to suppose that he was removed lest he should betray some
secret of which he had become possessed.
The hypothesis of Mr. Pollock is that Coleman had told Godfrey of
the meeting of the Jesuits in St. James's Palace. Oates had declared
that the Jesuits met to concert their plot, at the White Horse Tavern
in the Strand, on the 24th April 1678. James II. admitted some years
afterwards that the Jesuits met on that date, but at St. James's
Palace, and the Jesuit Father Warner has left it on record that they
did hold their Provincial Congregation on that date in St. James's
Palace. If it were known at that time that forty Jesuits had held
a secret council in the Duke's Palace the consequences might have
been very serious, and there is therefore some plausibility in the
statement of a later witness, Dugdale, that the Protestant magistrate
was removed because he learned this fact from Coleman. We know
that Godfrey secretly consulted Coleman after he had received the
depositions of Oates and Tonge; we have good reason to believe that he
laid those depositions before Coleman; and it is not improbable that
Coleman refuted the testimony of Oates by disclosing that the Jesuit
meeting took place in James's Palace, not in the White Horse. It would
assuredly be a grave matter for the Jesuits if this were known, and it
would almost be enough to prevent the succession of James II.
This must remain a mere hypothesis. I may recall that, according to
the teaching of many Jesuit theologians, the assassination of a man
in order to prevent grave harm to the Church was not a crime, but a
laudable act. But many others, besides the Jesuits, would be interested
in taking drastic measures to ensure the position of the Duke of
York, nor is it more than a conjecture that Godfrey learned of the
meeting. It is possible that this meeting was by no means an innocent
"congregation" of Jesuits to discuss their affairs; and it is just as
possible that the real cause of the murder has never yet occurred to
us. It remains one of the numerous unsolved problems in the story of
the Jesuits.
The remaining years of the reign of Charles II. were years of suffering
for the Jesuits. They continued to enter the country in disguise
and minister to the fiercely persecuted Catholics. We learn that in
1682 the Province counted 295 members, and that in 1685 they had no
less than 102 priests working in England. In those harsh times they
endured the worst rigours of an apostolic life. Whether or no they were
innocent of murder, many Catholics felt that their presence in England
was inflammatory and their conduct indiscreet, and familiar houses were
closed against them. Several of them died from the privations which
they had to suffer. But an ardent and steady hope fired them to meet
their perils and sufferings, and in the first week of February 1685 the
news rang through the stricken and scattered ranks that Charles was
dead and a devoted Catholic about to ascend the throne of England.
The historian who realises that this was to be the last chance which
the fates would offer to the Catholic Church of obtaining power and
majority in England reads the story of those three years of triumph
and ineptitude with strange reflections. Never was a great opportunity
more tragically wasted. The overwhelming majority of the nation,
the officials, and the Parliament were not merely Protestant, but
feverishly vigilant and intensely suspicious of the Jesuits. It was a
time for infinite patience and restrained diplomacy, and, so far as
we can ascertain, the Vatican itself, and Cardinal Howard who advised
the Papacy at Rome, fully realised the need. But the Jesuits were in
command, and they gave the most flagrant exhibition in their annals
of the unwisdom and mischief of their distinctive methods. Although a
Protestant prince grimly smiled on their blunders in Holland, and his
agents in England eagerly magnified every indiscretion, they proceeded
with the most imprudent defiance of Protestant feeling. Within two
years they were spreading schools and churches over London, talking of
the speedy capture of the universities and the magistracy, and placing
one of their own number among the Privy Councillors. And in less than
four years James II. was flying ignominiously for France, with the
Jesuits in his train.
This romantic episode has inspired one of the finest chapters of
Macaulay's _History of England_, and, whatever blame be laid on the
shoulders of Sunderland, there is no question but that the Jesuits
were very largely responsible for the unhappy counsels of James II.
One of his first acts was to lodge Father Edward Petre in the princely
chambers of St. James's Palace, and put the Chapel Royal under his
charge; and in a short time he made Petre Clerk of the Closet. The
prisons were opened, the recusants now emerged boldly from their
secluded homes, and the Jesuits summoned their continental colleagues
to come and share the work of harvesting. New chapels were opened in
London; and in more than one case, when other priests proposed to
open chapels, royal influence cut short their design and secured the
buildings for the Jesuits. Free "undenominational" schools were opened,
and hundreds of Protestant, as well as Catholic, boys were attracted to
these insidious nurseries of the faith by the unwonted absence of fees.
In all this we may see only undue haste and indiscretion, but the
policy developed rapidly. When Parliament refused to carry out the
wishes of the monarch and his advisers, he proceeded by "dispensing
power," and tampered with the judges in order to have his power
ratified. Four Catholics were introduced into the Privy Council, and
the nobles and officials gradually realised that baptism was the
first qualification for higher office. When the Bishop of London
refused to suspend a priest for attacking Romanism, an ecclesiastical
commission was created to suspend the bishop and stifle the voices of
the Protestant clergy. On his own authority James suspended the penal
measures, issued a Declaration of Indulgence, interfered with the
rights of Protestants in Ireland, solemnly received a papal Nuncio at
Windsor, and sent the Earl of Castlemaine as ambassador to the Papacy.
The civil and military offices were rapidly transferred to Catholics,
and before the end of 1686 Oxford and Cambridge began to feel the
illegal pressure of the royal authority in favour of the Catholic creed.
As these things coincided with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
and persecution of the Protestants in France (from which James, like
his brother, received royal alms) the Protestants saw before them
a prospect of violence and persecution. Yet James multiplied his
indiscreet and, in many cases, illegal acts with blind fanaticism.
When the inevitable catastrophe came, the Jesuits deplored the
injudiciousness of their patron and cast all the blame on Sunderland.
While, however, Sunderland remained a Protestant until a few months
before the fall of James, the monarch was throughout the three years
surrounded by Jesuits and abjectly devoted to them. A letter written
by the Jesuits of Liège to the Jesuits of Freiburg, and intercepted by
the Dutch, informs us of the influence they had on James II.[25] He
is a devoted son of the Society; he is determined to convert England
by its means; he refuses to allow any Jesuit to kiss his hand. And
the public action corresponds to the secret letter. Father Warner,
the Provincial of the Society, is the King's confessor; Father Petre,
a vain and pompous mediocrity, is so much esteemed by him that he
besieges the Vatican with a demand of a red hat for Petre. Already
courtiers pleasantly address the conceited Jesuit as "Your Eminence."
But Innocent XI. is stern and will not countenance the blunders of the
English monarch. Castlemaine vainly seeks to impress the Pope with his
ambassadorial splendour, and is forced to return with a curt reminder
that Jesuits cannot receive dignities. So James makes the Jesuit a
Privy Councillor, and Father Petre takes the Oath of Allegiance (with
its supposed heresy) and sits in clerical garb in the supreme council
of the land. His Roman superiors have not a word to say, either when
Petre acquiesces in the demand for a red hat or when he becomes a Privy
Councillor. M. Crétineau-Joly is shocked; Father Taunton opines that
the whole policy is directed by the Jesuit authorities at Rome.
In later years, when the Jesuits and courtiers gathered about the
fallen monarch in his pleasant exile, the entire blame for the folly
was naturally laid upon the wicked Earl of Sunderland, and historians
have, perhaps, paid unnecessarily serious attention to this charge.
We need not stay to analyse the possible motives of Sunderland,
who assuredly had no sincere wish to see England return to its old
creed. Like Louis XIV., Pedro I., and Charles II., who then ruled in
France, Portugal, and Spain, James II. was surrounded by a junta of
Jesuits, and he was even more docile than his fellow-monarchs to their
suggestions. Those who find it possible may believe that these Jesuits
were so reluctant to interfere in politics that they silently permitted
an unscrupulous minister to blast the prospects of their Society and
Church. We have, on the contrary, sufficient documentary evidence that
they applauded, if they did not inspire, every rash step taken by the
King, and we recognise their familiar maxims in his whole policy. They
were, no doubt, well acquainted with the political principles advocated
by their colleague, Adam Contzen, a Jesuit professor at Munich. In a
work which he published in 1620 (_Politicorum libri decem_), Father
Contzen, incidentally, proposed some effective devices by which a
Catholic monarch might lead his heretical country back to the faith.
After very properly condemning "the impious doctrine of Machiavelli,"
Father Contzen enumerates a number of measures that should be taken,
and he expressly mentions England as a field of experiment. Violence is
recommended as an obvious course; the leaders of the heretics must be
expelled, and they must be forbidden to hold either public or private
meetings. But the distinctive suggestions of the learned Jesuit are,
that the prince must cover his initial efforts with a profession of
toleration, he must first choose for attack those heresiarchs who are
unpopular, he must ingeniously set the rival sects to rend each other
and "take care that they often dispute together," he must enact that no
marriage shall take place unless it be preceded by a profession of the
true faith, and he must transfer all the offices and dignities of the
State to Catholics.
On these principles, or maxims, James II. was proceeding in his zealous
attempt to destroy the Church of England in five years. All the Lord
Lieutenants and most of the judges were already Catholic, the Jesuits
boasted, and in a short time all the magistrates in England would be
Catholic. Trinity College, Dublin, was already promised to the Jesuits,
and Oxford was not showing a very stern resistance to their advance.
Soon all education and civil and military government would be in
Catholic hands. The Queen had as yet given no heir to the throne, it
was true, but they had ground to believe that, if he died childless,
James would leave the English crown at the disposal of Louis XIV.
Then James, besides sending Judge Jeffreys to deal with insurgents in
the provinces, made a bolder attack upon the Church. He ordered the
bishops to direct the clergy to read from their pulpits his declaration
of liberty of conscience. It is well known how seven of the bishops
refused, were committed to the Tower, and acquitted by the jury, to
the frenzied delight of the city. Just at this time the Queen was
delivered of a son, and the announcement was greeted with derision.
Another trick of the Jesuits, people said; but, genuine or not
genuine, the child meant a continuance of the tyranny of the Catholic
minority, and the Prince of Orange was invited to come and seize the
crown. He set sail in four months; and before Christmas, William
entered London, and James and his Jesuits were in exile. Six of them
shared his luxurious retreat at St. Germains, and discussed with him
the naughtiness of Sunderland and the appalling wreck of their hasty
enterprise.
The English Province of the Society continued to exist, and had a large
number of members, until the suppression. Although the penal laws were
again enforced, and it was decreed that any Jesuit who was found in
the kingdom after 25th March 1700 would be imprisoned for life, the
fathers still exhibited the courage and devotion which do so much to
redeem their errors. In 1701 there were 340 members of the Province,
though most of these were in Belgium or with the Catholic colonists
in Maryland. In 1708 we find 158 members of the Society in England,
generally living in the houses of the Catholic nobility and gentry.
Their work was now almost confined to a ministration to the depressed
Catholics. They reported only 3000 conversions to the faith between
1700 and 1708, and many of these were soldiers quartered in Belgium.
In 1711 they had 12,000 Catholics under their spiritual charge. But
even in this restricted sphere they maintained the struggle against the
secular clergy, and published many pamphlets against them. "Jansenism"
was the latest heresy they had discovered, and they denounced the
secular clergy to Rome as tainted with it. At last, as the eighteenth
century wore on, they realised that all these old conflicts were
yielding to a mighty struggle. The Society is fighting for its life
against Catholic opponents. In 1759 it is suppressed, with great
ignominy, in Portugal; in 1762 it is suppressed in France; in 1767 even
Spain ruthlessly expels the body to which it had given birth.
The English Jesuits had already begun to suffer from this terrible
campaign. When Louis XV. ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits from his
kingdom, the Paris Parlement saw to the closing of their college at St.
Omer. A long procession of waggons, containing the teachers and pupils,
trailed drearily across the country, and deposited them, in great
misery and dejection, at Bruges. There, ten years later, they suffer
the supreme punishment of suppression by the Papacy, and the Privy
Council of Brussels carries out the sentence with the harshness which
in every country teaches them how deeply they are hated. The 90 members
of the English Province who are found in Belgium, and the 184 fathers
who are at work in England, sadly divest themselves of the familiar
costume and face the bleak future. This is the tragic culmination of
two centuries of heroic struggle and sacrifice; it is the price of the
blunders and crimes of their politicians and the casuistic excesses of
their theologians.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 22: It may be well to state that no theologian ever said, in
so many words: "The end justifies the means." The nearest approach is,
perhaps, the saying of the Jesuit Busenbaum--
"To him to whom the end is lawful, the means also is lawful."]
[Footnote 23: He joined the Society afterwards, in 1624, and was
arrested (on a Catholic denunciation) and executed in 1628. This
section of the French historian's work is particularly inaccurate and
fantastic. See Father Foley's _Records_, ii. p. 32, for Arrowsmith.]
[Footnote 24: J. Pollock, _The Popish Plot_, 1903. For a desperate
defence of the Catholic position, in opposition to Mr. Pollock, see A.
Marks, _Who Killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?_ 1905.]
[Footnote 25: As the letter is inconvenient, Crétineau-Joly suggests
that it was forged. But it is admitted by the Jesuit Father Foley,
without demur, in his _Records_.]
CHAPTER IX
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE JANSENISTS
The story of the Jesuits in France from the middle of the seventeenth
to the middle of the eighteenth century is rich in material for the
interpretation of their character. We find every conceivable type of
Jesuit rising to prominence at some period in the long chronicle.
While a Father François Régis or a Julien Manvir sustains the finest
traditions of the Society by a splendid expenditure of a noble
character in the service of the squalid peasantry, his colleagues
smile indulgently upon the perfumed vices of nobles and princes,
enter into the most unscrupulous intrigues for the destruction of
their theological opponents, and encourage Louis XIV. in the belief
that he may do penance for his sins on the backs of the Jansenists
and Protestants. While, during a whole generation, they direct the
fingers of the Pope in virtue of their supreme and peculiar zeal for
his authority, they, in the next generation, secure the praise of
the Parlement and the gratitude of the court by a most extraordinary
intrigue against the Papacy. In the new-built palace of Versailles
they obtain a paramount influence over the greatest autocrat of modern
history; they fill the Gallican Church with prelates who will obey
their commands; they crush Protestantism in France; and they seem to
have almost attained the great ideal of their Society--the control of
the courts which control the earth. And within another generation
their varied enemies unite and drive them ignominiously from the
country.
This singular history centres, for the greater part of the time, on
the struggle between the Jansenists and the Jesuits, the origin of
which may be briefly recalled. I have in earlier chapters referred to
the theological victory of the Jesuits over Michel de Bay at Louvain,
and to the fierce and protracted struggle they had with the Dominican
theologians in Spain and Italy. It may be remembered that this furious
struggle as to the real relations of divine grace and the human will
had to be suppressed by the Papacy, and all further controversy on
the subject was forbidden. When therefore, in the thirties of the
seventeenth century, the Jesuits heard that a certain brilliant and
virtuous _abbé_ at Paris and a learned theologian of Belgium were
plotting to introduce a new work on the subject, they watched them with
care.
Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, or the _abbé_ de St. Cyran, was an
energetic Basque who had finished his theological studies at Louvain
University. There he had become intimate with a Belgian student named
Jansen, who had views, opposed to those of the Jesuits, on the action
of grace. St. Cyran, returning to France, became a secret apostle
of these views, and hinted that a learned defence of them was being
written. It happened that at that time a Puritan movement was arising
within the French Church, as a protest against the extreme laxity
of the age; and, as the Jesuits were regarded by the Puritans as
encouraging this laxity by their remarkable works on casuistry (as we
shall see later), there was a predisposition to accept anti-Jesuit
views. Further, there was already a tradition of hostility to the
Jesuits among the Puritans. The chief centre of the ascetic movement
was the famous abbey of Port Royal, and the abbess of Port Royal,
Angélique Arnauld, was a daughter of the great lawyer who had more than
once formulated the grievances of the Parlement against the Society.
Several members of his large and brilliant family were drawn into the
movement.
Angélique Arnauld had been committed to the abbey at a very early age
by her parents; and, although it shared the general laxity of convents
at that time, she chafed for years against her fate. The abbey was in
a wild, marshy, unhealthy valley, about eighteen miles from Paris. In
the course of time Angélique was converted, and she became abbess of
the convent, and devoted all her energy and talent to the purification
of its life. It became a famous garden of conventual virtues, and, when
the unhealthiness of the valley compelled the nuns to transfer their
establishment to Paris in 1626, every pietist in the city was attracted
to the abbey of Port Royal de Paris. St. Cyran fell into correspondence
with Angélique, defended a book of hers which the Jesuits denounced,
and in 1633 became the spiritual director of the community. The convent
now had pretensions to be a school of fine taste in letters as well
as of virtue, and numbers of the more sincerely religious writers and
ladies of Paris looked to it as a kind of club. The Jesuits regarded
this independent school of virtue and theology with some apprehension,
and, when Jansen died in 1638, and whispers of a posthumous publication
of his great work were intercepted, St. Cyran was imprisoned in
Vincennes by order of Richelieu. We need not press the suspicion that
the cardinal was instigated by the Jesuits. Jansen had satirically
assailed the policy of Richelieu in a political work, and the cardinal
may have thought it advisable to seize the papers of St. Cyran in order
to find some clue to the mysterious work of Jansen which his admirers
were secretly promising to the world. St. Cyran also had declined to
oblige the cardinal, and he assailed doctrines which Richelieu had
espoused in his early theological works. It is, however, to be noted
that, when St. Cyran was released, at the death of Richelieu (1642),
and his papers restored, it was found that the Jesuits had appropriated
some of his letters.
St. Cyran continued to direct the movement from Vincennes, and it
entered upon a singular and momentous development. Angélique inspired
her nephew, the brilliant young lawyer Le Maistre, her brother Antoine,
and other able and serious young men, with her sentiments, and they
determined to live a communal and ascetic life. In 1637 they took
possession of the deserted buildings of Port Royal aux Champs, and
were soon known to all Paris as the virtuous "Solitaries" of the bleak
and remote valley. The joy of the good clergy and the amusement of
the frivolous were equalled by the exasperation of the Jesuits. The
Solitaries passed stern censure on the leniency of Jesuit confessors;
and their spirit spread like a ferment through the city, and had
the singular effect of inducing penitents to abandon their Jesuit
confessors because they had been converted to virtue. At the same
time the rumour spread that Jansen's great work was about to see the
light. He had died in 1638, leaving his manuscript in the charge of
his friends at Louvain. The local Jesuits watched their movements
with the assiduity of detectives, and discovered that the work was in
the press. It is acknowledged that they bribed the printers, who were
sworn to secrecy, to give them sheets of the book, and they complained
to the Nuncio that the Louvain professors were about to issue a work
on the forbidden topic of grace and free will. Intrigue was met by
counter-intrigue,--a piquant situation in view of the sacred theme of
the book,--and it was published in 1640, and immediately afterwards
published also at Paris.
This small, innocent, and academic treatise, the _Augustinus_ of
Jansen, was destined to set Europe aflame for decades. The historic
controversy of St. Augustine and the Welsh priest Pelagius, which it
recalled, was far surpassed by this modern effort to conciliate the
freedom of the human will with the compelling power of grace. Pulpits
and schools rang with mutual anathemas; pamphlets of ponderous learning
and biting irony mingled with the latest _chronique scandaleuse_ on
the book-stalls. But the Jesuit was never content with that free arena
of controversy in which he claimed to excel. Rome must condemn his
opponents, and the familiar intrigues were set afoot at Rome. The
Inquisition denounced the book on the ground that the subject was
prohibited. That did not suffice for the Jesuits, nor did it check the
flow of argument and invective; and on 6th March 1642, Urban VIII.
solemnly condemned the book. The Jansenists had now, however, friends
among the prelates, and the bull was not published in France with
the customary solemnity. The controversy still raged sullenly, only
restrained by Richelieu's spies; and when he died and St. Cyran was
released (in the same year), it broke out again into flagrant publicity.
Meantime, a new champion had entered the field, and the attack on
the Jesuits assumed a more personal form. Anne de Rohan, Princess of
Guémenée and mistress of Archbishop Paul de Gondi (later Cardinal de
Retz), fell under the influence of Arnauld d'Andilly and St. Cyran, and
their oratory and her advancing years persuaded her that the hour had
come to turn to virtue. She had had a Jesuit confessor, like so many
of the noble dames and bejewelled prelates who did not deign even to
conceal their amours, and he was naturally piqued to find that, as the
princess advanced in virtue, she discarded him in favour of St. Cyran.
There is no doubt whatever of Anne de Rohan's sincerity, and it is
little short of infamous for Crétineau-Joly to say that she "placed her
elegant coquetries under the safeguard of the aged Arnauld d'Andilly,"
and that she was at the same time "the guest of Port Royal and the
mistress of Paul de Gondi." The discarded Jesuit submitted to her a
manuscript attack on the more rigorous principles she had embraced;
Anne de Rohan showed this indignantly to St. Cyran; and the brilliant
young brother of Angélique Arnauld was requested to reply. His book _De
la fréquente Communion_ (1641) led to a controversy as acrid and noisy
as that over the _Augustinus_.
Arnauld had foreseen the attack; he had submitted the manuscript to
theologians, and, when it was denounced by the angry Jesuits, he was
able to secure the support of four archbishops, twelve bishops, and a
number of doctors of divinity. This alliance of a powerful minority
of the higher French clergy with the Jansenists was destined to give
the Jesuits serious trouble. One cannot quite endorse the statement
that all the virtuous men in the French episcopacy were opposed to
the Jesuits, and all the vicious prelates in favour of them. But it
was an age so flagrantly immoral that the greater part of the higher
clergy had their mistresses, their hounds and hawks, and their boxes
at the opera, while on the fringe of the Church were crowds of _abbés_
(often not priests) who led very dissolute lives. The Jesuits had for
some time, in virtue of their influence at court, had a voice in the
appointment of prelates--we shall find them entirely controlling it in
a few years--and there is no doubt that they nominated men of little
character who were willing to support them; just as they accepted
for the English mission priests of little culture or character,
because they could be the more easily dominated. On the other hand,
the Jansenists represented, above all things, a rigorous standard of
Christian character. The name which the Jesuits have fastened on them
implies that they were wedded to certain academic, if not heretical,
theories of Bishop Jansen. This is untrue. They were mostly laymen,
indifferent to speculative theology, pleading only that the Christian
faith demanded a stricter standard of conduct than French Christians
generally exhibited. The correct name for them is the Puritans.
Hence it is largely, not entirely, true that the best of the prelates
were opposed to the Jesuits. It is now known that even Bossuet, who
sternly opposed the Jesuits, had his secret amours, and there were, on
the other hand, men of ascetic life, if not very clear intelligence
(like Vincent de Paul), on the side of the Jesuits. However, the open
declaration of so large and powerful a body of the clergy exasperated
the Jesuits, and the war of sermons and pamphlets reached a stage
of incandescence. Father Nouet denounced Arnauld as "fantastic,
melancholic, lunatic, blind, malicious, furious," and showered upon
him such concrete epithets as serpent, scorpion, wolf, and monster.
Arnauld had ventured to say that sinful ladies must keep away from the
Holy Sacrament. But Father Nouet went on to assail the sixteen prelates
who had approved Arnauld's book, and this led to his undoing. To their
great mortification the Jesuit superiors were forced to disavow and
reprimand their preacher, and the Jansenists triumphed. The Jesuits
retorted, however, by intrigue at the court, and induced Mazarin and
the Queen-Regent to order Arnauld to go and defend his book at Rome.
This was a violation of the rights of the Gallican Church, and the
university, the Parlement, and the clergy protested so violently that
the project had to be abandoned.
St. Cyran had died in the meantime (in 1643) and Arnauld was leader
of the growing and powerful body of Puritans. As the next move of the
Jesuits at court would be to secure a _lettre de cachet_, and lodge
him in the Bastille or Vincennes, he returned to the provinces and
the struggle was transferred to Rome. The prelates who had approved
Arnauld's book appealed to the Pope in its favour, and a learned
theologian was sent to Rome to defeat the manoeuvres of the Jesuits. As
a result, after two years of violent discussion, the book was declared
free of heresy. The Jesuits, who had declared that thirty propositions
in the book were unsound, now concentrated upon an innocent parenthetic
phrase in the preface. Arnauld had referred to Peter and Paul as "two
chiefs who were really one," and it was claimed that this was an
attack on the papacy. After another year of wrangling and intrigue the
innocuous sentence was condemned, and the Jesuits proclaimed throughout
Europe that they had triumphed.
The next step was to enforce in France the bull of Urban VIII.
condemning the _Augustinus_ of Jansen. The Sorbonne (the theological
school of the university) received a papal brief directing them to
accept the bull, and, in spite of court-pressure, the theologians
justly replied that they were not concerned with the opinions of a
Belgian theologian. Again the pulpits of Paris--the artillery of the
spiritual army--opened fire, and the pamphleteers were busy. Then the
syndic of the Sorbonne, Cornet, a friend of the Jesuits, submitted
seven propositions to the judgment of that body. He named no author,
and expressly (and mendaciously) stated that they did not refer to
Jansen, but it was well known that the sentences were supposed to
have been extracted from the work of Jansen, and an intense struggle
followed. The cause was won, as usual, by intrigue. There was some
dispute at the time how far the monastic theologians could vote at the
Sorbonne, but they were brought up in force, against the view of the
lawyers, and five propositions were condemned and reported to Rome.
It was now openly stated that the five propositions were taken from
Jansen's book.
The Papacy still hesitated, in view of the disputable nature of the
Sorbonne vote, and intimated that the French prelates should be induced
to ask for a condemnation. According to M. Crétineau-Joly, the reply
was prompt and spontaneous. "The General Assembly of the clergy opens
at Paris, and eighty-eight bishops denounce the five propositions to
Pope Innocent"; the Jesuits, he says, stood aside and let the prelates
speak. But the French historian must have been aware that the question
was not submitted to the General Assembly at all. The signatures were
obtained privately, and the whole procedure was so insidious that we
are not sure to-day whether seventy, or eighty, or ninety bishops
demanded a condemnation. It is necessary to note these details, if we
are to understand the Catholic sentiment which later swept the Jesuits
out of France. About eighty bishops apparently were induced privately
to request the Pope to condemn the propositions; other prelates wrote
to beg the Pope to abstain. However, the Vatican was now officially
invited to pronounce, and the war of theologians was resumed at Rome.
In the meantime the Jesuits of Paris sustained a painful check in
their attack on the Jansenists. One of their number, Father Brisacier,
published a pamphlet, _Le Jansenisme confondu_ (1651), in which, not
only were the familiar invectives showered upon the Solitaries, but
the moral character of the nuns of Port Royal was attacked. These
were the nuns whom a hostile archbishop afterwards declared to be "as
pure as angels and as proud as devils." The purity of their lives
was notorious, and intense indignation was felt. The Archbishop
of Paris formally condemned the pamphlet as "containing many lies
and impostures," and Father Brisacier was removed--promoted to the
rectorship of the college at Rouen--by his superiors. No Jesuit, of
course, wrote without authorisation, and the many abominable pamphlets
they issued at this time against the Puritans implicate the whole
Parisian Province.
We need not follow the course of the trial at Rome. After a two
years' struggle Innocent X. issued his famous bull in which the five
propositions were declared to be heretical, and to be contained in the
work of Jansen. The Jesuits emitted a pyrotechnic discharge of oratory
and pamphlets--one broadside of the time represented Bishop Jansen as a
devil flying to the Protestants--but they had overreached themselves.
No Jansenist (not even Jansen) had ever taught the five propositions,
and there was not a man in France who wished to defend them. But the
Jesuits had insisted on the pronouncement that the propositions were
contained in Jansen, and this gave rise to a formidable controversy in
which the prelates were at liberty to join. It may seem to the modern
reader an appalling waste of energy and perversion of character that
so powerful a body should spend their resources for twenty years in a
war on such abstruse propositions, but from this point the struggle
becomes frankly ridiculous. For nearly eighty years we shall find
the Jesuits straining every device of craft and learning to ensure
that every man in France shall agree that the Pope (who had never
read Jansen's book) was right in declaring the five propositions to
be contained in the _Augustinus_; and the controversy they sustain
will draw on themselves the appalling scourge of Pascal's _Provincial
Letters_ and on the papacy the defiant declaration of the Gallican
Church. We are compelled to recognise a lamentable corporate ambition
and perversion of character in their conduct.
The Puritans coolly replied that they were not interested in the five
propositions which the Pope had condemned, but that, as a matter of
plain truth, they must protest against the ascription of these views
to Bishop Jansen. So the war proceeded. It was at this time, in 1654,
that the Jesuits made a ludicrous attempt to discredit their opponents
by revealing the famous "Plot of Bourg Fontaine": a plot as rich in
imagination and crude in fictitious detail as the Titus Oates plot.
They had discovered, they gravely reported, that St. Cyran, Arnauld,
and four other Jansenists had, twenty-three years before, met secretly
in an obscure village to concert a plot for the destruction of
Christianity in France. Arnauld was nine years old at the time given as
the year of the conspiracy. Arnauld, from his solitude, issued a letter
against the Jesuits, and (again packing the jury with monk-voters)
they got it condemned by the Sorbonne. When we find the King writing
to press the Sorbonne, we may clearly recognise the hand of the
court-Jesuits. They triumphed, but their triumph now drew on them the
heaviest and most enduring punishment they have ever suffered.
In 1648 the nuns had been compelled to return from Paris to their
inhospitable valley, and the Solitaries had retreated from the abbey
to a manor-house on the hill overlooking the valley. There, without
any special costume or vows, a number of the most brilliant young men
of Paris led a life of great austerity and devotion. Some lived in
Paris, and spent an occasional period at Les Granges, and amongst these
was a young man, with thin, pale face and large brilliant eyes under
his lofty forehead, named Blaise Pascal. He had already won European
fame as a mathematician. When Arnauld, somewhat jaded, produced a weak
reply to his opponents, his friends suggested that Pascal should be
asked to undertake the attack. Arnauld agreed, and on 23rd January
1656, appeared the first _Letter to a Provincial_. It was a subtle and
irresistible satire of the theological shibboleths of the Jesuits. In
order to enable the conflicting schools of monastic theology to agree
in condemning the Jansenists, certain terms (such as "proximate grace"
and "sufficient grace") had been introduced as vague common measures of
orthodoxy, and Pascal expended his immortal wit on the weakness. It is
admitted by all that the earlier _Provincial Letters_ are masterpieces
of satire. The letter was received with delight in Paris, and a week
later, while the debate continued at the Sorbonne, a second letter was
issued. The third appeared ten days later, after the censure of Arnauld.
It is quite needless here to discuss the literary qualities of Pascal's
letters, but in the fourth letter Pascal began his direct and fearful
indictment of the Jesuits. The next six letters contain the exposure of
Jesuitical moral teaching which is the most serious point in his work,
and the remaining letters--from the tenth to the eighteenth, which are
addressed to the Jesuits--are mainly concerned with substantiating his
indictment. Although one may trust that the majority of readers are
familiar with Pascal's famous work, a short analysis of the six letters
(the fifth to the tenth) must be premised.
The chief quarrel between the Solitaries and the Jesuits was, as I
said, a question of moral, not speculative, theology. They accused
the Jesuits of accommodating the principles of Christian morality to
an immoral generation. St. Cyran and Arnauld had already quoted many
passages of Jesuit works in proof of this, and Pascal and his friends
now searched the whole field of Jesuit casuistry for further proofs. In
the fifth letter, for instance, Pascal shows how the Jesuits attenuate
the obligation of fasting. A man may, on a fast-day, drink any quantity
of wine, hippocras, or honey and water. If a man cannot sleep without
supper, he is not bound to fast; in a sense that is a just decision,
but Father Escobar goes on to say that he need not meet his obligation
by deferring to the evening the "collation" which is permitted on
fast-days, as no man is bound to alter the order of his meals. Again, a
man who has exhausted himself by vice is not bound to fast; and Pascal
might have added that the Jesuits excused a wife from fasting if her
husband thought it interfered with her attractiveness (Tamburini), a
husband if it weakened his sexual faculty (Filliutius), and a maiden
if it lessened the charms on which she relied to secure a husband
(Tamburini).
After this satirical essay on fasting made easy, Pascal passes, in the
sixth letter, to the obligation of almsgiving and cognate matters.
Wealthy Christians were bound by the letter of the Gospel to give to
the poor out of their superfluous goods, and Pascal quoted the great
Jesuit theologian Vasquez learnedly proving that "you will scarcely
find such a thing as superfluous goods among seculars, even in the
case of kings." That was a comfortable doctrine for the rich, but the
Jesuits had a word for the poor. Could a valet who considered himself
underpaid help himself to his masters goods to the extent of the
deficiency? Yes, said Father Bauny. And since Jesuit confessors had
many curious cases submitted to them by valets at that time, their
theologians worked out the servant's position with great nicety. If it
were very inconvenient to change his master, the valet might even hold
the ladder by which his master climbed to an illicit adventure; though
in this extreme case, the master must scold much before the valet is
justified.
The seventh letter shows how the Jesuits accommodated the fifth
commandment to an age of brawling and duelling. It is quite lawful to
fight a duel if a man would otherwise incur dishonour (Escobar); it is
lawful to pray to God to kill a menacing enemy (Hurtado); it is lawful
to kill a culumniator and his false witnesses (Molina); it is lawful
to pursue and kill a man who has dealt you a blow--provided you have
merely a technical regard for your honour, and do not feel vindictive
(Escobar); it is lawful to kill a contumelious man, if that is the only
way to arrest the injury (Lessius); it is lawful, if necessary, to kill
an intending thief even if he attempt to take only a single gold coin
(Molina); and--a very significant doctrine--it is lawful for a monk to
kill a man who defames his monastery or his order, if there is no other
way to arrest the defamation (Amico). These were fine doctrines for the
age of Louis XIV.
The eighth letter quotes distinguished theologians who permit a judge
to accept secret and illegal presents, provided they are given out
of gratitude, or merely to encourage him in giving honest verdicts
(Molina); and others who teach that, while usury (which then meant
any interest in money) is forbidden, the lender of money may exact a
certain additional sum in the name of gratitude (Escobar, etc.); that
a bankrupt may keep back sufficient property to enable himself and his
family to live "decently" (Escobar); that money earned by crime or vice
has not to be restored (Lessius, etc.); and that "a prostitute, virgin,
married woman, or nun" is strictly entitled to the money promised her
for vice (Filliutius). The ninth letter shows how gluttony is condoned,
and scourges the familiar casuistic doctrine of mental reservation. In
the tenth letter we learn that a frail woman may receive into her house
her partner in sin if she "cannot decently refuse."
The apologist for the Jesuits attempts to enfeeble this terrible
indictment by saying that the devout Chateaubriand called Pascal's
work "an immortal lie." The French historian does not add, though he
doubtless knew, that Chateaubriand withdrew this expression in more
mature years, saying: "I am now forced to acknowledge that he [Pascal]
has not exaggerated in the least." Voltaire also is quoted, expressing
indignation that Pascal should accuse the Jesuits of setting out to
corrupt morals. Voltaire, living under the shadow of the Bastille in
early years, had his moments of insincerity; in this case it is enough
to say that, in the fifth letter, Pascal expressly says that he does
not accuse the Jesuits of setting out to corrupt morals. The only
serious criticism one finds among the innumerable replies to Pascal is
that his quotations are not always accurate. One must remember that
they are not given as verbal quotations, and that Pascal had to rely
on the aid of his colleagues. That he deliberately misquoted any
theologian can only be suggested by those who are entirely ignorant
of his character. It is, however, quite true that qualifying phrases
have at times been improperly omitted, a few phrases have been wrongly
translated, and the condensing of long passages into short sentences
has in a few instances the effect of an injustice. These cases are
relatively few and unimportant. The indictment of Jesuit casuistry, as
I have summarised it, is perfectly sound, and later research has merely
extended the long list of unedifying passages.[26]
Ste. Beuve observed that, owing to Pascal's indictment, the Jesuits
"lost the helm of the world." They have assuredly never entirely
recovered from the "terrible blow" (as their historian calls it) which
Blaise Pascal dealt them. It is not historically true that they were
"crushed" and silent under the reiterated lashes. In the course of
his letters Pascal refers to their numerous replies, their fierce
invectives, their threats of physical persecution. Unfortunately,
one of their fathers made matters worse by penning a bold defence of
the casuists. His book was condemned by the Sorbonne and the Roman
Inquisition, and had to be disavowed. Large numbers of the clergy and
monks joined with the Jansenists in denouncing their doctrines, and
in the end--if we may anticipate a little, in order to finish this
episode--they were officially condemned by the French Church. For a
time Louis XIV. prevented their opponents from submitting the matter
to the General Assembly of the Clergy, but, when Mme de Montespan
succeeded Mlle de la Vallière in his affections, Bossuet and the
Archbishop of Paris used her influence to secure the king's consent,
and in 1700 their doctrines (and those of other lax theologians) were
severely condemned. The only mitigation which the Jesuits could secure
was that their theologians were not named.
Meantime, the war of the five propositions dragged its interminable
length. The Port Royal nuns, the Solitaries, and many of the clergy
and laity refused to sign what they regarded as a plain untruth--the
statement that the five propositions were found in Jansen's work--and
the Jesuits relentlessly persecuted them. Under court-pressure the
Assembly of the Clergy decreed that all teachers and religious were to
submit to the Pope's bull, and a kind of inquisition was established
for the first time in France. A formulary was devised, and a royal
decree enacted that it must be signed. The "grand Turc très Chrétien"
was at that time easily led by his confessor and other Jesuits in
religious matters, and his light-hearted court, under the presidency
of Mlle de la Vallière, was not at all unwilling to see the dour
Jansenists beaten by their indulgent confessors. The nuns of Port Royal
made an heroic stand against the official untruth. Angélique Arnauld
was now dead, but her sister Agnes induced the nuns to resist alike the
honeyed persuasion of Bossuet and the angry menaces of the Archbishop
of Paris. In 1664 the archbishop returned with the more formidable
argument of a band of two hundred archers, and the nuns were scattered
over France. The Solitaries also were scattered, though a few of the
more distinguished of them found shelter in the hotel of the Duchess
de Longueville. So importunate were the Jesuits that the Pope had to
remind them that his duty was to keep the Puritans in the Church, not
drive them out of it.
Four bishops still favoured the Puritans, and for several years the
futile wrangle went on between the French court, the Vatican, and the
rebels. One of the four was the Archbishop of Sens, a prelate of the
finer type and a stern critic of the Jesuits. In 1653 the Jesuits
went to such extremes in their attack on him that he placed all the
Jesuits in his archdiocese under an interdict for contumacy, and the
sentence was so just that they did not succeed in getting it removed
until the death of the prelate in 1675. The Bishop of Pamiers imposed
the same heavy punishment on the Jesuits of his diocese. Both king
and clergy were now wearying of the endless war, and the accession
of a new Pope, Clement IX., in 1667 seemed to the moderate clergy an
occasion for compromise. The Archbishop of Sens, the Princess de Conti,
the Duchess de Longueville, and other distinguished intermediaries
persuaded the papacy to exclude the Jesuits from the negotiations, and
Arnauld promised to submit if that were done. The correspondence was,
therefore, conducted with great secrecy, and at the beginning of 1669
Louis XIV. struck and issued a gold medal in commemoration of "peace"
and "restored concord." The Jesuits were so angry at the wording, since
it did not express the extinction of a heresy, that, when the medal
became scarce, they denied that it had been issued with the knowledge
of the King.
The nuns were now permitted gradually to return to their valley, and
the Solitaries renewed the attack upon the morality of the Jesuits.
On this side the Jesuits could securely rely upon the sympathy of
Louis XIV., and the second brilliant criticism which the Jansenists
published, the _Practical Morality of the Jesuits_, was condemned by
Parlement, at the intervention of the royal procurator, to be publicly
burned. Jesuit succeeded Jesuit in the care of the King's conscience,
in spite of his notorious and continuous immorality during nearly
twenty years. Their French apologist ventures to tell us that they
"declared war on the King's heart," and quotes Bayle as saying, in
regard to the _liaison_ with Mlle de la Vallière, that "Father Annat
teased the prince daily about it and gave him no rest." It is one of
the most flagrant pieces of "Jesuitry" in M. Crétineau-Joly's work.
Bayle (in a note to the article _Annat_) merely quotes these words
from a pamphleteer whom he describes as utterly unworthy of credence;
and I may add that the purpose of the pamphleteer is merely to prove
that the later confessor, Père la Chaise, was worse than Père Annat.
The truth is that Annat remained in his charge during the whole of the
eight years when Louis clung to Mlle de la Vallière, and, when the
brilliant and unscrupulous Marquise de Montespan succeeded in securing
the position of royal mistress in 1670, and Père Annat retired on the
ground of age, his colleague Père Ferrier took his place. For four
years he remained in charge of the King's remarkable conscience, and it
is not irrelevant to observe that he was rewarded with a power that no
royal confessor had hitherto had in France. He and his colleagues now
had the sole right to nominate bishops, and the character of the French
episcopacy in the later years of Louis XIV. is largely attributable to
them. Ferrier died in 1674, and the famous Père la Chaise, a man of
moderate ability but courtly manners, was appointed royal confessor. He
remained at his post during the remaining five years of the _liaison_
with Mme de Montespan, and it was Mme de Maintenon (and advance in
years), rather than his confessor, who led the royal sinner into the
paths of virtue.
The eventual refusal of the sacraments does not atone for this
prolonged adhesion to Louis XIV., even if we ignore other circumstances
which detract from the merit of this tardy act of sternness. The
Jesuits compromised with the vice, in order that they might share the
power, of the greatest monarch of the age. In the last chapter we
saw how they made use, or trusted to make use, of their influence at
the French court in the conquest of England; for the moment we find
them attaining a position of great power in France by their indulgent
behaviour; and in later chapters we shall find them deriving advantage
from their privileged position for the promotion of their influence in
Spain and Italy. They looked to Louis XIV., as they had once looked to
Philip III. of Spain, as the rising sun of the monarchical world, and
they suppressed their scruples in their determination to use his power
for the furtherance of the aims of their Society. This is singularly
illustrated, in a very different way, by their conduct in the next
phase of French ecclesiastical affairs.
There was in most parts of France an old custom which gave the King the
right to promote to benefices as long as the episcopal see was vacant.
This profitable "Regale," as it was called, had never been recognised
in the southern provinces, but in 1673 Louis XIV. decreed that in
future all dioceses (except a few with special privileges) would have
to recognise the royal right. The King's own words indicate that the
Jesuits had inspired this improper invasion of the spiritual world, and
the fact was not disguised that it was chiefly aimed against Bishop
Pavillon of Aleth and Bishop Caulet of Pamiers, who had withstood
the court and the Jesuits in regard to the papal bull against the
Jansenists. The bishops appealed to Rome, and in 1676 a man ascended
the throne of Peter who was in no mood to bow to earthly monarchs or
permit Jesuit intrigue. Innocent XI. sternly insisted on the rights of
the Church and condemned the action of Louis. The Parlement and the
French hierarchy generally sided with the King, and the papal briefs
remained unpublished. The Jesuits of the southern dioceses affected
to regard the briefs as spurious, and they maintained the campaign of
intrigue and calumny which they had conducted for some time against the
Bishop of Pamiers. Pavilion had died in the course of the struggle.
Pope Innocent then devised a plan by which he expected to defeat the
insincere manoeuvres of the Jesuits. He handed his briefs to the
General of the Society and bade him communicate them to the French
Jesuits, through their Provincials. To their great embarrassment the
Jesuits of Paris and Toulouse now found themselves in the dilemma of
having to disobey the commands either of the Pope or the King, but they
extricated themselves with their usual adroitness.
The Parlements of Paris and Toulouse were secretly informed that
the Jesuit fathers had received copies of the papal briefs and were
instructed to publish them. The secrets of the Society were not
so easily penetrated as to avert the suspicion that the Jesuits
had themselves given this information, and the proceedings of the
Parlements show that they did so. Even their resolute apologist here
confesses that "perhaps" the Jesuits had this information conveyed to
the lawyers in defiance of the Pope's stern command. The scene that
followed is one of the most remarkable in the history of the Society.
The Parlement of Paris, which we have found for more than a century
in bitter opposition to the Society, now (1681) publicly lauded the
patriotism of the Jesuits in frustrating this attempt "to surprise
their wisdom and corrupt their fidelity." The men of the fourth
vow, the men who professed to be the incorruptible champions of the
Papacy, now cast their Ultramontanism to the winds, and gave material
assistance to the Gallicans at a time when a very grave conflict with
the Vatican was in progress. It was, once more, the price of the
favour of Louis XIV. Innocent replied by excommunicating Louis, and he
entrusted the brief to the charge of a French Jesuit who was then in
Rome. It was, of course, never published. The Jesuit authorities at
Paris kept it in their hands until the wrath of the Pope had cooled and
he recognised the impolicy of enforcing it.
From every point of view the conduct of the Jesuits in this crisis is
unattractive. They discovered that in such conflicts it is the duty
of the Society to be neutral, and they retained the favour of the
contestants by making such compromises as the successive phases of
the struggle imposed on them. The clergy of the French Church met in
Assembly in 1681, and, under the leadership of Bossuet, formulated the
famous four articles which define the rights of the Gallican Church and
limit the pretensions of the Vatican. All professors and religious in
France were directed to sign these articles; but the Jesuits, through
their junta at court, obtained exemption, and were able to report to
the Vatican that they alone had not accepted this defiant "Declaration
of the Gallican Clergy": half a century later, however, when France
is more dangerous to them than the Papacy, we shall find them setting
aside their scruples and signing the articles. Even at the time,
the Papacy was not appeased by their sinuous conduct. Innocent XI.
threatened to destroy the Society, and remained bitterly opposed to it
until his death in 1689.
By this time Louis XIV. had entered on his later phase of decaying
power and sincere interest in religious matters. Mme de Maintenon had
consolidated her influence over him by a secret marriage in 1684, and
given a religious direction to his thoughts. One terrible consequence
of this tardy and ill-balanced zeal was, as history tells, the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and a horrible oppression
of the Protestants. It would be a mistake to cast the whole blame of
this lamentable cruelty and its evil effects for the country upon the
Jesuits. The higher French clergy generally still entertained the
persecuting spirit, and had for years pressed for violent measures
against the sectarians, who refused to yield to their arguments. Père
la Chaise was only one of many narrow-minded priests who impelled Louis
XIV. to crown a series of unjust measures against the Protestants with
this cruel and impolitic act. It was, however, the consummation of the
violent policy which the Jesuits had urged from the beginning, and one
may justly doubt whether Louis XIV. would, even in his last phase, have
adopted such a measure if the court-Jesuits had not pressed for it.
In the sobered court the Jesuits continued for some time to enjoy a
great influence, though it was increasingly checked by Mme de Maintenon
and the prelates she favoured. In 1688, Louis determined to make the
French Jesuits independent of the Roman authorities; but they contrived
to dissuade him. They continued to fight the Regalists and the
Jansenists with the poisoned weapons of calumny, abuse, and intrigue.
The most unedifying scenes were witnessed in the southern dioceses,
and Jansenist leaders, like Arnauld, were pursued even beyond the
frontiers. One illustration of this prolonged and misguided campaign
must suffice. In the year 1690 the theologians of Douai received a
number of letters bearing the signature of Arnauld; and, in what they
understood to be a private correspondence with the Jansenist leader,
they committed themselves to phrases which no other occasion would have
extracted from them. This correspondence was then published by the
Jesuits, and the professors of the Douai University were expelled and
replaced by members of the Society. The fraud, however, proved one more
detail in the long account which France would presently settle with the
Jesuits. Arnauld, who was living in the Netherlands, at once denounced
the letters as forgeries, and held up the Jesuits to public contempt as
the direct or indirect authors.
The nuns of Port Royal were the next victims of their relentless
campaign. A more friendly Pope, Clement XI., succeeded Innocent, and
in 1705 he was induced to issue a fresh bull (_Vineam Domini_) for the
suppression of Jansenism. It was pressed for the acceptance of the nuns
by the Archbishop of Paris; but it seemed to them still to consecrate
the familiar untruth, and they declared that they would subscribe to it
only with a qualifying clause. We have no documentary proof that the
Jesuits inspired the events which followed this reserve, but the blame
was openly cast upon them at the time, and the circumstances suggest
it. The King--still under the guidance of Père la Chaise--wrote to
the Vatican for permission to destroy the community, and in the early
spring of 1708 the nuns were definitely scattered. Père la Chaise died
at the beginning of the following year, and Père Letellier, a grim and
resolute supporter of the ambitions of the Society, succeeded to the
office. Under his influence the last insurgent movements of the brave
nuns were rigorously suppressed, and in January 1710 their ancient and
beloved abbey, the strictest centre of conventual virtue in France, was
rased to the ground.
Letellier, a sombre, indefatigable man, whose flashing eyes scorned the
comfort of the court--he was a peasant's son--and sought nothing in
this world but the ascendancy of the Society of Jesus, now found the
influence of the Jesuits threatened by that of Louis's wife and her
favourite prelate Noailles, Archbishop of Paris. In 1711 a letter was
intercepted which revealed the intrigues of Letellier and the Jesuits,
and Noailles angrily suspended all the members of the Society in his
diocese. The chief Jansenist writer was now Quesnel, who had just
published his _Moral Reflections_. The Jesuits detected much heresy
in the innocent work, and at once used their influence to secure a
condemnation. The Archbishop had, however, expressed admiration of it,
and the task of the Jesuits was more than usually difficult. At length,
in July 1711, a letter was intercepted from which it was clear that
Letellier was intriguing against the Archbishop, and there was much
indignation among the new party at court. Noailles not only suspended
the fathers, but condemned about a score of their writers and preachers
for lax principles. The intrigue continued, however, and in the autumn
of 1713, Clement XI. condemned Quesnel's book in the bull _Unigenitus_.
Saint Simon, who was in the French court at the time and on good
terms with the Jesuits, tells us that the bull was due to Letellier
and two other Jesuits "as fine and false as he," and that in the bull
"everything was brilliant except truth." Saint Simon was no theologian.
We may accept his word that the securing of the bull was "a dark
business"; and we know that, in its later stages, it was pressed at
Rome with irregular and improper haste. It is, however, true that many
of Quesnel's phrases were questionable, though they did little more
than repeat and enforce the words of the gospel: "Without me ye can do
nothing" (_John_ vi. 66). But the words of Scripture were condemned as
well as the words of Quesnel, and the Jesuits were able to congratulate
each other that "Jouvency was avenged."[27]
The bull _Unigenitus_ was, says a French bishop of the time, as badly
received at Paris as it would have been at Geneva, and the Jesuits
prepared for the last phase of their long struggle with the Puritans.
Saint Simon has left us a singular and unpleasant picture of Father
Letellier discussing with him their devices for enforcing acceptance
of the bull. The passion displayed by the royal confessor amazed the
duke, and he was not less disgusted at the ruses by which Letellier
proposed to crush his opponents. The Archbishop now condemned Quesnel,
but rejected the bull, and fourteen bishops followed his example. Once
more there was a violent controversy, and a letter of Letellier's was
intercepted from which Noailles learned that the royal confessor was
pressing Louis to send him to Rome, to be degraded by the Papacy. The
ecclesiastical world seethed with passion, while France slowly fell
from the proud position to which its great generals had raised it.
In the midst of this conflict, Louis XIV. died (1715); and for a time
it seemed as if the reign of the Jesuits was ended. The grim Letellier
was exiled from Paris, and Noailles replaced the Jesuits in the control
of ecclesiastical affairs. Their enemies gathered about the Regent
and pressed him to destroy the power of the Society. Philip of Orleans
was, however, not the kind of man to sacrifice liberal casuists to the
Puritans, and graceful preachers to stern parlementarians. A man of
brilliant parts and frivolous tendencies--he had been educated in vice
by the Abbé Dubois--he saw no more than a temporary political expedient
in checking the Jesuits for the satisfaction of his supporters. He soon
relapsed into ways of indolence and vice; and the Jesuits, gaining the
ear of his unscrupulous favourites, crept back to power. Dubois desired
a high ecclesiastical dignity, and the course of events very strongly
confirms the suspicion that the Jesuits put at his disposal their
influence in Rome. He induced Philip to compel Parlement to register
the bull _Unigenitus_; and he shortly afterwards became, in spite of
his notorious character, Archbishop of Cambrai and Cardinal of the
Church. Other unworthy clerics were similarly promoted, and the power
of Cardinal Noailles was checked. Dubois, in 1722, secured the office
of confessor to the young King for a Jesuit. Noailles, who had opposed
the appointment, refused canonical powers to the confessor, and a fresh
intrigue ran on until Noailles died and a pro-Jesuit Archbishop was
elected.
The Jesuits now returned to power, though not to their full power, at
the court, and the remnant of the Jansenists was pitilessly persecuted.
For nearly twenty years the opponents of the Jesuits attempted to
evade the enforcement of the papal decisions, and it is said that more
than a hundred priests were banished and a large number imprisoned.
One of the bishops was deposed and degraded for resistance, and a
fierce struggle shook the peaceful atmosphere of the innumerable
monasteries. Fifty monks of one province of the Cistercian order
were, in 1723, excommunicated and imprisoned by the authorities. The
papal condemnation included propositions which were obviously sound
and others which were no more than quotations of Scripture, so hastily
had the vindictive sentence been promulgated. The Jesuits triumphed,
however, and the reign of Louis XV. saw them fully reinstated at
Versailles.
France was no longer the world-power she had been in the golden age
of Louis XIV., and her selfish and dissipated monarch was blindly
leading her toward revolution. The Jesuits, as before, clung to the
prestige of the position of royal confessor, in spite of the flagrant
immorality of the King, but the forces which would presently dislodge
them were insensibly gathering power. The Puritans were silenced,
rather than annihilated, and the Parlement, imputing to the Society
much of the blame of its exile in 1753, revived its bitter hostility.
The first stroke fell on them in that year. Father Pérusseau, the
King's confessor, died, and a successful intrigue put in his place a
priest who was not a Jesuit. Both Pérusseau and his successor refused
absolution to a King whose libertinism was so cynically exhibited. In
view of the persistent attack on their laxity during a hundred years,
it would have been difficult for a Jesuit to do less. When, however,
the Jesuits lost the principal position, there seemed for a moment
some chance of their returning to favour in an indirect way. Mme de
Pompadour also desired absolution, in order to find a convenient place
in the Queen's suite; and, making a profession of penitence, she put
herself under the spiritual guidance of the Jesuit Father Sacy. For
a time he affected to believe in her sincerity; but the laughter of
Paris disconcerted him, and the stern refusal of the Pope to interfere
forced him to retire. From that time Mme de Pompadour and her courtiers
were opposed to the Jesuits.
A few years later, in 1757, the attempt of Damiens to assassinate
Louis led to another outcry against the Society. It is the general and
probable verdict that the Jesuits had no share in the outrage, though
the fact that Damiens had a Jesuit confessor, and had previously been
in the service of the Jesuits, still seems to many writers to justify
a grave suspicion. The evidence is inconclusive, but the outrage led
to a fresh discussion of the regicidal doctrines of the Society, and
the secrecy and sinuousness of its procedure. By that time, as we
shall see, the Marquis de Pombal was meditating the destruction of
the Jesuits in Portugal, and was in correspondence with their enemies
in France. These enemies were now reinforced by the brilliant and
powerful body of deistic and atheistic writers who were known as "the
philosophers," and a formidable mine was being prepared under the feet
of the arrogant and unsuspecting Jesuits.
The spark that fired this mine was a particularly disreputable action
on the part of the Society. In 1753 the Superior-General of the
Jesuits in the Antilles, Father Lavalette, was summoned to Paris to
answer the charge of having engaged in commerce on a large scale.
Lavalette was one of those men of commercial instinct whom the Society
did not scruple to use in augmenting its wealth as long as they were
successful. Although he had, in the name of the Society, vast estates
in the West Indies and thousands of negro slaves (bought by himself,
in disguise, in the public slave-market), and it was known that he
had agents in Paris for the sale of his sugar and coffee, he came to
Paris with a number of sworn testimonies from local French officers to
the effect that the Jesuits had not engaged in "foreign commerce,"
and was acquitted. He returned to conduct his flourishing business
on a larger scale than ever. He had spacious warehouses, and made a
profit of about 280,000 francs a year; and he now--though acquitted
on the understanding that he was not to engage in commerce--borrowed
large sums of money, and increased the profit by a shrewd, and
somewhat sharp, deal on the money-market. He overreached himself in
these practices, and, as other disasters simultaneously overtook his
business, some of his French creditors pressed for their money.
The French Jesuits were divided in opinion on the issue. The shrewder
fathers at Marseilles were disposed to borrow money and meet the
obligations, but the Parisian authorities believed that they were still
strong enough to win a conflict, and they insisted that Lavalette must
plead bankruptcy. It was the last and most fatal of the long series of
blunders they had perpetrated; to say nothing of the moral aspect of
their procedure. The law was set in motion; in March 1761 the lawyers
of the Paris Parlement were set the task of judging their traditional
enemy, and the long trial, amidst intense excitement, ended in the
Jesuits, as a collective body, being condemned to pay the whole of
Lavalette's debts--about five million francs. In order to determine
the responsibility, the lawyers had compelled the Jesuits to produce
their Constitutions and other documents which they were eager to keep
from the laity, and this exposure led to a broader and more determined
attack on the Society. Their action in refusing to meet the obligations
of the West Indian business, by which they had profited so much, was,
and always will be, regarded as morally dishonourable. It is pleaded
on their behalf that the Jesuits are a "simple-minded" and spiritual
body of men, with no inclination or aptitude for commerce, and that
Lavalette had concealed his operations--as they compelled him to
state--from his superiors. Such statements merely increase the cynicism
of their procedure. We have found them repeatedly engaging in commerce,
and we know that the Jesuit system made it absolutely impossible for
an inferior, even if he wished to do so, to conceal large commercial
operations from his superiors. The Jesuit documents made this plain to
the whole of Paris, and their adversaries advanced to the last attack.
The Parlement declared that the Jesuit Constitutions were unfit for a
body of French priests, and demanded that they should be altered; it
forbade the Society to form congregations among the laity, to teach the
young, or to receive novices. The Jesuits at court induced the King to
summon a meeting of the higher clergy and elicit a counter-declaration
in favour of the Society; but a fearful storm was now raging in
their ears. In their extreme apprehension they disavowed the most
characteristic Jesuit principles. They proclaimed that they accepted
the four articles of the Gallican Declaration of 1682, and that they
would be loyal to the Gallican Church even if their General commanded
them to do something contrary to its principles. They were fighting for
life; but men in France knew from their previous history in the country
that such declarations as this were merely diplomatic, and were set
aside the moment they returned to power.
The struggle continued through the winter, and in the spring (1762) the
King annulled the measures taken against them, but bade them modify
their Constitutions. They were in future to have a Vicar-General in
France, independent of the Roman General, and to be subject to the
bishops. Louis had secretly consulted the Roman authorities, and urged
them that this compromise was absolutely necessary to save the French
Province; and, although General Ricci bitterly replied: "Sint ut sunt,
aut non sint" ("Let them be as they are, or not be at all"), the
proposal was openly made in France. But Parlement refused to register
the King's decree, and went on to close eighty-four Jesuit colleges.
All through the spring and summer the fusillade of pamphlets and the
fiery debates of Parlements were sustained, the Jesuits straining every
resource to avert the blow, and on 6th August 1762 the Paris Parlement
decreed that the Society must cease to exist in France. The Jesuits
were expelled from their residences, and a small pension was allotted
them out of the confiscated property. Their entire property in France
was valued at nearly 60,000,000 francs, and they had, as it proved,
forfeited this rather than pay the just debts of Lavalette. At the same
time the Paris Parlement condemned one hundred and sixty-four works
written by Jesuits between 1600 and 1762.
Louis XV. signed the decree of suppression in December 1764, and
from school and palace, from humble residences among the poor and
the mansions of princes, the Jesuits sadly made their way toward the
frontiers of the land in which they had so long enjoyed and abused a
remarkable power. In vain was the Pope induced to protest against the
action of Louis XV. Some of the chief provincial Parlements condemned
the Pope's bull to be burned in the public square, and the Parlement
of Paris disdainfully rejected it. The vast majority of the nation
applauded the suppression; and, once their power was gone, the Jesuits
were overwhelmed by the flood of hatred that now rose freely against
them. It was useless to plead that a few sceptical lawyers or statesmen
had wrought their ruin. In a few localities they were still protected
by the Provincial authorities; but the country at large, by the mouths
of its officials and the great body of its clergy, rejoiced in their
fall. They sought at first to parry the blow with customary manoeuvres.
Large numbers of them laid aside their dress and name, and remained
to intrigue against their opponents; and in 1767 the Paris Parlement
decreed that they must all leave the country. Except for a few who
still remained as private teachers of the young, having ostensibly
quitted the Society, and a few who were sheltered in ultramontane
localities, the Jesuits were now ignominiously expelled from the land
of St. Louis. And few will read the long story of their work in France
and not acknowledge that it was a just conclusion of their intrigues,
shiftiness, selfishness, thirst for power, unscrupulous persecution of
rivals or opponents, and condescension to vice and crime.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 26: I have consulted Molinier's admirable edition of the
_Letters_ (1891). The editor gives the original Latin passages from the
Jesuit theologians, and it is after comparison of these with Pascal's
quotations or paraphrases that I reach the conclusion given in the
text. It is necessary to add that some of these doctrines were not
confined to the Jesuits. The point is that the Jesuits, as a body,
were characteristically lax. Probabilism, for instance (the pernicious
doctrine that a man may commit an action which is probably lawful,
though more probably sinful) was not invented by the Jesuits, but
they made it a basic element of their casuistry. They taught that a
man was free to follow one single lax theologian, if he were a "grave
authority," against the adverse opinion of all the others.]
[Footnote 27: I have in earlier chapters quoted Father Jouvency's
volume of the _Historia Societatis_. This volume, recalling and
praising the action of the French Jesuits in the time of Henry III.
and Henry IV., was published in 1713, and gave such offence that the
Parlement suppressed it.]
CHAPTER X
THE EXPULSION FROM PORTUGAL AND SPAIN
In the Iberian Peninsula we have the same romantic story of the Jesuits
being cast down from a splendid prosperity and expelled with every
token of ignominy from countries in which they had almost attained
a spiritual dictatorship. Here again, moreover, our chronicle will
deal almost exclusively with the actions of a junta of court-Jesuits
who bring the calamity upon their Society. It would not be unnatural
to suspect that in this there is some partiality; that I ignore the
saintly or learned or philanthropic achievements of the majority and
bring into prominence only the court-intrigues and abuses of power of
a few. But a glance at the works of apologetic writers will show that
the candid historian has no alternative. Considering the number and
resources of the Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
their record is singularly barren of great and good deeds. A few
examples of shining devotion, which we will notice as we proceed, and a
few small scandals, which we will generally ignore, do little to vary
the undistinguished monotony of the general life. The majority of the
Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits merely continue the work of teaching,
preaching, and writing works of theology, in comfortable and unascetic
homes, which we have previously described. Our story, like the general
history of Spain and Portugal at the time, is mainly concerned with
courtiers and politicians.
We begin with Portugal, where the first destructive blow fell on the
Society. A Portuguese Jesuit, Father Franco, has left us an admiring
chronicle of the doings of his colleagues down to the end of the
first quarter of the eighteenth century. His work (_Synopsis Annalium
Societatis Jesu in Lusitania_, 1726) entirely confirms the feeling
that the life of the vast majority of the Portuguese Jesuits is not
material for history; it is little more than a record of the deaths of
undistinguished (but always very saintly) Jesuits, with a few discreet
references to those events at court which are of real interest. It is
true that Father Franco appends a list of thousands of Jesuits who have
gone to spend or lose their lives in Brazil or India, but we shall see
that in the period with which we are dealing these missionary fields
provided much comfort and little danger. The heroic age was over;
it was the age when royal confessors enabled their brethren to sun
themselves indolently in the warmth of royal favour.
The close of the reign of John IV. in 1656 saw the power and wealth
of the Jesuits greater than they had ever been before. We saw that
at the revolution of 1640, when Portugal won its independence from
Spain, the Jesuits had so nicely distributed their forces that some
were sure to be on the winning side; and John IV. was not the man to
inquire too closely into their conduct. His court soon filled with
Jesuits. Father Nuñez, a man of great piety and austerity, who had an
excellent moral influence on the noble dames of the court, guarded the
consciences of Queen Luisa and her children. Father Fernandez, a very
different type of Jesuit, was confessor to the King, and had great
political influence. He was a member of the State-Council and Bishop
of Japan, and he bore his dignities with a consciousness which greatly
irritated the nobles. When his humbler colleague, Nuñez, died, he
became confessor to the Queen also, and attained a great ascendancy
over the King. When the Viceroy of India, remarking that Jesuits were
forbidden to engage in commerce, took from the Jesuits in that country
property worth twenty thousand crowns a year, which they had acquired
by commerce, Fernandez induced the King to overrule him and order the
restoration of the property. In addition, John IV. gave large annual
sums to the foreign missions, and a comfortable sum as "viaticum"
to each priest who left Portugal for the missions; and he made them
presents of palaces, and showered other benefits on them.
When John died, and Luisa became Regent for her young son, the angry
nobles made a vigorous effort to dislodge the Jesuits. John's elder
son, who had had a Jesuit tutor, had refused to marry, and had wished
to join the Society. Men recalled the earlier King Sebastian, and said
that the Jesuits were attempting to seize the crown. The Jesuit-tutor
was even accused of betraying the military secrets of the country; and
one of his colleagues, Father Vieira, was so badly compromised by a
letter of his which was intercepted that John had been compelled to
make a foreign ambassador of him; another Jesuit was the diplomatic
representative of Portugal at Rome. The nobles resented this situation;
but Fernandez was in too strong a position, and the rule of the Jesuits
continued under the Regency. Fernandez died, however, in 1660, and it
is a second Jesuit of that name (as is sometimes forgotten) who took a
leading part in the extraordinary events of the year 1668.
The elder prince, Theodose, had died prematurely, and Alphonso
succeeded to the throne. Whether there was some incurably morbid strain
in the youth, or whether the Jesuit tuition had made him incapable
of serious political life, we cannot say; but, as he grew to manhood,
Alphonso VI. entered upon ways of violence and licence which recall the
youth of Nero. His court was filled with the wild companions of his
orgies, and he paraded his vices on the streets and in the taverns of
his capital. He exchanged his Jesuit confessor for a Benedictine monk,
snatched the reins from the hands of his mother, and threatened to
drag the country very speedily into the abyss which awaited it. Sober
nobles and statesmen looked on with alarm, and it was inevitable that
a conspiracy to dethrone him should shortly arise. But the details of
the revolution, in which the Jesuits were very active, reflect little
honour on its actors.
Alphonso had married Marie Isabelle de Savoie-Nemours, whose Jesuit
confessor, Father de Ville, listened sympathetically to the story of
the outrages she endured. Father de Ville and his colleagues were not
less sympathetic when Marie Isabelle transferred her affection to the
King's handsome young brother, Dom Pedro, and they entered into a plot
to replace Alphonso by Pedro. The chief plotter seems to have been
Father Vieira, whom the French historian regards as the glory of the
Portuguese Province at that time. Vieira was not without ability, but
he was a turbulent and meddlesome politician, and so eccentric in his
religious ideas that he fell into the prison of the Inquisition. The
Jesuits secretly engaged the nobles in a plan to dethrone and divorce
Alphonso and replace him by his brother. Divorce is, of course, unknown
to the Catholic Church, but it has never failed to discover a flaw in
a marriage which it was expedient to undo, and, with something very
like levity or cynicism, the Jesuits and the Queen determined to accuse
the King of impotence and get the marriage annulled: a king who was
notorious for his amours and had had a child by one of his mistresses.
Pedro was then informed of the Queen's amiable disposition and the
support of the nobles, and the conspiracy began.
The King was recalled from his licentious pleasures by an announcement
that the Queen had retired to a convent and demanded the restitution
of her dowry. He flew to the convent, but found his brother there with
an armed force to protect the Queen, and, after a fruitless struggle,
he was compelled to abdicate and to testify to the virginity of the
Queen. We have the word of the English ambassador that Father de Ville
and his colleagues were the chief authors of this audacious plot, or
"comedy," as the Jesuit apologist calls it. The marriage was dissolved
in March (1668), and it was arranged that a deputation of the Cortes
should wait upon Marie Isabelle, and entreat her to marry Pedro, as
Portugal was too poor to return her dowry. The marriage was celebrated
a few weeks later, Alphonso was sent into a comfortable exile, and the
Jesuits returned to power at the court. Sincerely as we may applaud the
purification of the sordid palace and the relief of the young Queen, we
must recognise that the procedure betrays a considerable lack of moral
delicacy.
The gratitude of Pedro to his Jesuit confessor, Fernandez, and his
colleagues could not be other than princely. He even made Fernandez a
deputy of the Cortes (where he needed supporters), and we gather from
the stern letter (given in Franco) in which General Oliva denounced
this action to the authorities of the Portuguese Province that
Fernandez was very reluctant to resign the honour. Under threat of
punishment he yielded, but he maintained an absolute authority over
King Pedro and placed his Society in a stronger position than ever. In
the Jesuit documents of the time we find constant reference to "the
Fathers of the Palace" and the immense benefits they procure for their
colleagues. Through the King they secured a modification of the Spanish
Inquisition--which had lately imprisoned one of their ablest men--and
in many of the colonies they obtained a monopoly of the trade with the
natives and acquired a wealth similar to that of the Spanish fathers in
Paraguay. Pedro's second wife was no less generous to the Society than
Luisa had been, and the ex-Queen of England, who returned to Portugal
in 1693, joined in the enrichment of the Jesuits. When Pedro died in
1706, his son John V. continued to patronise the Society and enfeeble
the kingdom. There were now more than a dozen Jesuits at the Portuguese
court, and for many years it was hardly possible to approach the King
without their permission.
During the long reign of the incompetent and superstitious John V.
Portugal sank rapidly into the decline that awaited her. Not only did
Jesuits undertake commerce in the colonies and absorb vast sums of
money in donations and annuities, but the Church at large is calculated
to have received about five hundred million francs, wrung mainly from
the decaying colonies, from the priest-ridden monarch. The Jesuits
are by no means wholly responsible for the scandalous expenditure
and economic folly of John V., or for the revival of the burning of
heretics and the erection of palatial monasteries. In his later years
the King transferred his favour to Oratorian and Franciscan priests,
and it seemed as if the long reign of the Jesuits was seriously
threatened. But this appalling clerical parasitism and disregard of
national economy, which were fast sapping the strength of Portugal,
were only the culmination of the sentiments which the Jesuits had
cultivated in the Portuguese court for a century.
The King died in 1750, and the Jesuits returned to power under his son
Joseph. Father Moreira was the King's confessor, and Father Oliveira
the tutor of his children; Father Costa was the spiritual guide of his
brother Pedro, Father Campo of his uncle Antonio, and Father Aranjues
of his uncle Emmanuel. The junta was completely restored, and the
government was again virtually in the hands of the Jesuits. There had,
however, now come into the political life of Portugal a man who was
destined to shake the European power of the Jesuits and, within the
short space of ten years, to drive them from the Empire in poverty and
disgrace.
Sebastian Joseph de Carvalho, Count of Oeyras and Marquis of Pombal,
had been a member of one of the Jesuit Congregations for laymen and
had obtained office, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
with their cordial agreement. There is nothing either mysterious or
discreditable in his hostility to the Jesuits. Even if it be true that
he at times fought them with their own improper weapons, the ground of
the conflict is plain. He perceived, as every non-Catholic historian
perceives to-day, that their rule was as mischievous to the State as
it was profitable to their own Society, and, as Foreign Minister and
lay man of business, he recognised that their commercial activity in
the colonies was injurious to the laity and inconsistent with their
professions. To say that he was influenced by the works of the French
philosophers is absurd--he had no sympathy with their ideas--nor is
it less unjust to say that he wished to protestantise the Portuguese
Church. It was precisely as a Catholic and a patriot that he set out to
reform the swollen and degenerate Church and invigorate the national
economy. We need not imagine vices in Pombal when the defects of the
Jesuits are so flagrant.
The strong man was fortunate in having a weak, timid, and indolent
monarch, and hardly less fortunate in the fact that the King had a
stronger and more attractive brother on whose associates suspicion
could easily be cast. It is difficult to-day to ascertain what truth
there is in the charge that Dom Pedro aspired to the throne and had
the secret support of the Jesuits. King Joseph was not indisposed
to believe such a charge, and events soon occurred which gave it
plausibility. In 1752 the Portuguese proposed to cede Sacramento to
Spain in return for a part of Paraguay in which the Jesuits had seven
of their profitable "reductions," and, when the troops went to enforce
the change of frontiers, the pupils of the Jesuits made a sanguinary
resistance. It is possible to quote letters in which the Jesuits
advised submission, but a _secret_ letter from one of the leading
Spanish Jesuits to the American fathers was intercepted and was found
to advise resistance. Further troops were sent, the Jesuits and their
pupils were expelled, and Pombal drew up and circulated a memoir on the
action of the Jesuits and the virtual slavery which they maintained in
the reductions. Their monopoly of trade with the natives was abrogated,
and Pombal was interested in a company which sought to secure the
trade. The Jesuits fiercely attacked this change, and two members of
the Society were exiled.
For a time the campaign of Pombal was then arrested by the appalling
earthquake which devastated Lisbon in the year 1755. The timid and
superstitious King was undecided as to the nature of the omen. At
first, when it was found that Pombal's house had been spared while
seven Jesuit houses had been wrecked, he was disposed to see in the
catastrophe a punishment of the sins of the Jesuits; but those artful
casuists easily persuaded the country that the only new event in the
life of Portugal to account for this outpour of divine wrath was the
persecution of the Society, and their zeal in succouring the homeless
earned for them a great deal of sympathy. The exiled Jesuits were
recalled, and they seemed to recover all the ground they had lost in
the preceding ten years.
With a maladroitness which we recognise so often in the annals of the
Society, the Jesuits then went on to attack Pombal, and their churches
rang with denunciation of the great reformer. With all his faults
Joseph I. had wisdom enough to choose between the Jesuits and his
able minister. Pombal had effected more real reform in Portugal than
Jesuit politicians had done in their two centuries of influence; he had
abolished _autos da fe_, curbed the power of the Inquisition, clipped
the parasitic growth of monks, set bounds to the pretensions of the
nobles, and made great reforms in every branch of the administration.
He was a hard and ruthless man, sharing, to some extent, the Jesuit
feeling that the end justified the means, but he was a sincere and
enlightened patriot. He retained his influence over the King and took
the next step in his campaign against the Society.
It was not until 1756 that the resistance of the natives in the
Jesuit reductions was finally overcome, and the proofs (which we will
see later) of secret Jesuit provocation deeply impressed the King.
There was at that time on the papal throne a Pope who had repeatedly
condemned the Jesuits. We shall see later that their behaviour on the
Chinese and Indian missions was, in a different way, as irregular as
their behaviour in South America, and Benedict XIV. severely condemned
them. His chief minister, Cardinal Passionei, was also opposed to the
Jesuits. King Joseph now submitted to the Vatican an account of the
conduct of the Jesuits in South America and asked that they should be
reformed. Meantime, in the autumn of 1757, Pombal persuaded the King
that the Jesuits were fomenting disorder in Portugal itself, and an
order was signed for the expulsion of all Jesuit confessors from the
court. In the night of 19th-20th September the servants and soldiers
entered the palace, and Fathers Moreira, Costa, and Oliviera awoke to
find themselves sentenced to removal from their comfortable offices.
Pombal then ordered that no Jesuit should be allowed to approach the
court, sent a very forcible justification of the King's conduct to the
other European courts, and pressed the demand for reform at Rome.
On 1st April 1758 the Pope signed the decree for an inquiry into the
behaviour of the Jesuits, and Cardinal Saldanha was sent to South
America to conduct the inquiry. The proceedings at Rome had been kept
secret from the Jesuits until the decree was signed, and Pombal's
agents had secured the appointment of a cardinal who was no friend
of the Society. But both the Pope and the General died in the spring
of that year, and, when Cardinal Saldanha justly reported that the
Jesuits of South America had been wrongly engaged in commerce, the new
General, Ricci, appealed to the new Pope, Clement XIII., who was known
to be favourable to the Society. Clement appointed a commission of
inquiry which, being composed of friends of the Society and making no
investigation on the spot, declared the Jesuits innocent.
The declaration was absurd and insincere, as we shall appreciate
when we come to examine the conduct of the Jesuits on the missions,
and Pombal saw that he must deal with the fathers in Portugal. In
June (1758) the cardinal-patriarch had laid an interdict on all the
Jesuits in the diocese of Lisbon, and public opinion seemed to be
prepared for a drastic step. An event that occurred in the night of
3rd-4th September of that year gave Pombal his opportunity. As the
King returned from the house of his mistress, the Marchioness Tavora,
several shots were fired at him, and a large number of members of
the Tavora family were arrested and put to the torture. One of the
prisoners, the Duke d'Aveiro, said, under torture, that the Jesuits
were privy to the conspiracy, and eight of the leading fathers were
arrested and tortured. The duke afterwards retracted, and it must be
said that, beyond this worthless declaration, there is no positive
evidence to connect the Jesuits with the outrage, though they had
been in close correspondence with the Tavoras. They were, however,
not punished on that ground with the other prisoners. Only one of the
Jesuits was executed, but for heresy, not treason; the others were kept
in prison, while all the Tavoras were executed.
Instead of attempting to proceed against the Jesuits on such
discreditable evidence Pombal took the more effective ground that
their moral principles, especially in regard to assassination, were
the ultimate source of such outrages, and a very fierce controversy
ensued. It seemed to become gradually plain to all that the long
conflict of the Jesuits and their opponents was about to enter on
its last stage. There were bishops who supported Pombal, and bishops
who appealed to the Pope to check his progress. What Pombal mostly
feared was the stirring of the ignorant and superstitious masses, and
he proceeded with great caution. Before his project was realised in
Portugal, the Jesuits of the colonies were on their way, under guard,
to the mother-country, and, when they arrived, the Jesuit houses were
surrounded by soldiers, the more active fathers were transferred to
prison, and the rest were prevented from communicating with the laity.
By the month of April 1759 about 1500 Jesuits were in jail or under
guard. The King then informed the Pope that he was about to expel the
fathers from his dominions. When Clement protested, stronger evidence
of their intrigues was produced, and it is the general feeling of
impartial contemporaries (like the English historian Coxe) and later
authorities that some of these documents were forged. Clement still
refused to sanction the expulsion, and a ruthless and indefensible
step was taken by Pombal. On the feast of St. Ignatius (31st July) six
Jesuits were condemned to be broken on the wheel, as if some value were
now attributed to the evidence of a tortured witness.
This unjust sentence was not carried out, probably from a fear that
the Pope would seriously question the jurisdiction of the civic
authorities, but the plight of the Jesuits was lamentable. It was in
Portugal that they had first attained power and wealth, and they had
enjoyed an almost uninterrupted dominion for two centuries; now they
lay on straw in the common jails, or tremblingly discussed the dark
future in their overcrowded residences. On the first day of September
the sentence of expulsion was enforced. The younger Jesuits were
offered a dispensation from their vows by Cardinal Saldanha, but few
accepted it, and the majority of them were put on ship and conveyed to
the Pope's dominions. Pombal was cruel and unjust to the end in the
realisation of his design; it is possible that he feared their later
activity on foreign soil. There may be some exaggeration in the stories
of their hardships, and indeed such a sentence could not be carried
out without hardship, but one cannot defend his action in keeping 221
of the Jesuits in the jails of Portugal. One of them, Father Malagrida,
an old man of seventy-two, seems to have been a little deranged by his
imprisonment, and certain works which he wrote in prison were submitted
to the Inquisition. He was condemned to be burned alive by the very
tribunal which the Jesuits had been instrumental in establishing in
Portugal. Of the 200 Jesuits, 88 died in jail, and the rest lingered in
their humiliating captivity until the death of Joseph I. and dismissal
of Pombal in 1777. By that time their Society had ceased to exist.
Such was the tragic issue of Jesuit history in the land which they had
been accustomed to regard as the safest and most generous country in
which they had taken root. However severely we may censure the detailed
procedure of the Marquis de Pombal, his action was in substance just
and patriotic. Portugal, which, in the sixteenth century, had promised
to become one of the greatest powers in the world, had sunk to a
humiliating depth, and its decay had proceeded apace with the power
of political Jesuits. They were incapable of a patriotic conception
of the task of governing, and they took advantage of and encouraged
the economic folly of living on overburdened colonies. If they were
unwilling to discharge the proper duties of priests and refrain from
intrigue for political power, they must depart.
We have already seen how this bold stroke echoed in France and
encouraged the enemies of the Society. We must now turn to Spain and
see how "the most Catholic majesties" of that country came to follow
the terrible example of Pombal. The general outline of the story
is somewhat similar to that of the story of Portugal. A series of
weak and incompetent rulers occupy the throne; they are dominated
(generally) by a group of court-Jesuits, who teach them that the main
duty of a king is to be chaste, zealous for the faith, and generous
to the Church; the broad empire of Spain is repeatedly shorn, as its
increasing weakness is exposed; and at length a strong man realises the
evil of Jesuit domination and induces the King to send the fathers back
to the Pope's dominions from which they came. In one respect the story
is even more unpleasant than that which we have just concluded. Chaste
as the Spanish monarchs generally are in this period, they are so weak
and purblind that the court is filled with the most sordid intrigues
for power, and the Jesuits are deeply involved in these intrigues.
We left the Society in Spain enjoying a splendid prosperity in the
early years of the reign of Philip IV. Readers of Major Hume's
brilliant _Court of Philip IV._ (1907) will not need to be reminded
that this was "the gayest and wickedest court since the days of
Heliogabalus," and that Madrid was in a repellent condition of vice
and decadence. The King's confessor was not a Jesuit, but a worthless
Dominican, and there were spirited struggles between the rival orders.
However, the Jesuits still guided the consciences of most of the nobles
and wealthy people, and were generously patronised by the King. They
prospered richly in the decaying kingdom, were indifferent to the
periodical national disasters, and claim only that they produced such
brilliant casuists as Escobar. At the end of this long and dreary reign
the chronicle of the Society becomes more interesting.
An infant of four years, Charles II., inherited the throne, and
this gave the Jesuits an opportunity under the Regency of Maria
Anna, daughter of Ferdinand III. Queen Anna had brought with her
from her German home a very learned Jesuit, Father Nidhard, who
was her confessor. It was quite natural that this father should
attain predominant power at the death of the King, and we may regard
it as a piece of particularly frivolous Castilian gossip that the
sixty-year-old priest had a more tender relation to the Queen than
that of political adviser. We may further grant that Nidhard's power
was used unselfishly, and he was true to the ascetic ideal of his
Society. But he was flagrantly false to other and more important rules
of the Society in occupying the position he did, and he added a heavy
contribution to the accumulating hatred of the Society. He was not
only royal confessor, but a Councillor of State--in fact, the first
minister--and Grand Inquisitor. He had pleaded his rule when the Queen
pressed these dignities on him. She obtained a "dispensation" from
the Pope, and Nidhard then posed as a Jesuit Ximenes and ruled Spain.
The papal document gives him no moral justification. Had he and his
superiors willed, he could at once have been transferred to Germany.
They acquiesced in his political position on account of the power it
gave them.
The Spanish nobles chafed under the rule of a priest and a woman and
were irritated to see the decay of the nation continue. In 1668 they
lost much of the Low Countries in the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the
independence of Portugal was recognised. Don Juan, a natural son of
the late King, seized the opportunity and attacked the Jesuits. They
appointed the prince governor of the Low Countries, and he refused to
go. They forbade him to approach the capital, and he boldly advanced
to Madrid and demanded the dismissal of Nidhard. The troops and people
supported him, and, shedding bitter tears, the Queen was obliged to
"permit Nidhard to retire from office." The crowd threatened to end
his career at once, but he escaped to Rome, where he became Spanish
ambassador, and afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Edessa. He had
greatly strengthened the hostility to the Jesuits in Spain.
The long and disastrous reign of Philip was followed by the long
and disastrous reign of his weak-minded son, and Spain decayed with
frightful rapidity. Piety flourished--on one occasion fifty heretics
were put to death for the entertainment of the young Queen--and the
misshapen King set an admirable example of chastity. Few were sensible
of the greater obligation of arresting the decay of the land, and the
Jesuits were content to float on the sluggish stream. It is probable
that their wealth reached its highest point during the reign of Charles
II.--"one of the most disastrous reigns on record," a distinguished
historian calls it. But there would be little interest in chronicling
the princely gifts and legacies they received and the handsome houses
they erected. Charles died of old age in his fortieth year (1700), and
was persuaded to leave the throne to the Duke of Anjou and thus ensure
the protection of Louis XIV. for the unfortunate country. From this
point the story of the Spanish Jesuits assumes a livelier complexion.
Philip V., a youth of seventeen, was entrusted by Louis XIV. to the
care of the French Jesuit Daubenton. Father Letellier was at that
time the spiritual guide of the grand monarch, and he had recommended
his friend and colleague Daubenton for the important post of ruling
the Spanish King's conscience. Daubenton was a stout little man who
concealed an immense aptitude and eagerness for intrigue under an
air of severe detachment from worldly affairs. On the other hand,
a brilliant Frenchwoman, the Princess Orsini, was sent to sustain
the interests of France in the Queen's circle, and she succeeded in
obtaining so strong an influence that we find her at times writing,
without much exaggeration, of "my administration." She was _camerara
mayor_ to the young Maria Luisa--a mere girl--and her great power drew
on her the hatred of the Spaniards and of some of the French. By the
year 1703 the court was seething with intrigue. The memoirs of the Duke
de Saint Simon, the work of the contemporary English historian Coxe,
and the letters which passed between the Spanish and French courts
indicate that Daubenton was the most active and insidious agent in the
cabal against the Princess Orsini. A very sordid intrigue ran through
the whole of the year 1703, and it ended in the recall of the princess
to France. The Queen was, however, so angry that the plot was exposed
to Louis XIV.--it is authoritatively narrated in the correspondence
of Louis and Philip--and Daubenton was dismissed from the court in
disgrace and the Princess Orsini permitted to return.
Another French Jesuit, Father Robinet, succeeded Daubenton, and the
fate of his predecessor did not intimidate him from taking an interest
in politics, though he at first made the same pretence of aloofness
from secular matters. The next ten years, however, passed without
notable incident, and the Spanish Jesuits continued to accumulate
wealth. Saint Simon tells us that on one occasion a ship from South
America discharged at the quays of Cadiz several boxes addressed
to "The Procurator-General of the Society of Jesus." The contents
were said to be chocolate, but the weight was extraordinary and the
officials decided to open one of the boxes. It was, apparently, full
of bars of chocolate, but the weight of each was so mysterious that
they were more closely examined. They were bars of solid gold,
thickly coated with chocolate. This incident probably gave support to
the rumour in Spain that the Jesuits had hidden gold mines in their
carefully guarded reductions, but we may more probably recognise the
direction taken by the great profit on the reductions and the reason
for the determined efforts of the Jesuit authorities to support their
fathers in this uncanonical industry.
Queen Luisa died in the year 1714, and it was believed at the court,
and is not improbable, that Princess Orsini aspired to succeed her. She
was then more than sixty years old, but she still had great charm and
ability and seemed to be making a tender impression on the chaste and
pious and weak-minded young King. Robinet put an end to her ambition
with a bold retort. When Philip asked him one day what the latest news
was from Paris, he said that it was rumoured that the King was about
to marry Mme Orsini. Philip angrily denied it, and the princess very
shortly passed out of the political life of Spain. There were, however,
many others interested in the exile of Princess Orsini, and the share
of Father Robinet must not be exaggerated. Spain had continued to
decay. At the peace of 1713 her empire was shorn of Sicily, Milan,
Naples, Sardinia, the Netherlands, Gibraltar, and Minorca. Philip
consulted his Jesuit advisers several times a day, but neither they
nor his other counsellors could do more than intrigue for power in the
shrinking kingdom. The Abbé (later Cardinal) Alberoni was now rising to
power, and was associated with Robinet in the ruin of Princess Orsini.
Alberoni persuaded Philip that Elizabeth Farnese was just the quiet
and modest young princess he desired for his second wife, and Philip
yielded. But Elizabeth, a haughty and passionate maiden, was instructed
beforehand in her duty, and at their first meeting she brutally
dismissed the princess. Then Alberoni and Robinet quarrelled about the
appointment of a new Archbishop of Toledo. Robinet secured the dignity
for a friend of the Society (1715), and he in turn incurred the anger
of the Queen and Alberoni and was exiled to Germany.
Before he left, Robinet persuaded Philip to recall Daubenton to his
side, and from that moment the court intrigue turned against Alberoni.
In this Daubenton played a subordinate, but important, part. The
English and French courts, as well as many of the Spaniards, were
eager for the dismissal of the Italian favourite, and Daubenton, who
confessed Philip twice a day and had other consultations with him, was
employed by them to poison the King against his minister. Philip was
persuaded that the great plans of Alberoni contained a danger to the
country and he dismissed him. In this case the Jesuit confessor allowed
himself to become the tool of the enemies of Spain and intrigued
against its ablest statesman.
In the year 1724 Philip handed the crown to his son Louis, and retired
to consecrate his useless life to religious devotions. There is no
serious evidence that the Jesuits pressed Philip to resign, though they
certainly tried to dissuade him from resuming the crown, and they had
taken part in marrying Louis to the daughter of the Duke of Orleans.
However that may be, Louis died a few months later and Philip returned
to the throne.
Daubenton had died in 1723, and his place had been taken by the Jesuit
Bermudez, who sustained the tradition of intrigue. The successor of
Alberoni was a Spaniard from the Low Countries, Ripperdá, who was
obnoxious to the Jesuits on many grounds. In Holland he had consulted
his ambition by turning Protestant, and on his return to Spain, where
he found favour with the King, he promptly recovered his belief in
the older creed. The Queen's confessor, a Jesuit who rejoiced in the
title and robes of Archbishop of Amida, intrigued against this singular
adventurer and overthrew him. Here again the Jesuit merely used his
opportunities to voice the resentment of many others, nor do historians
regard the downfall of Ripperdá with any sympathy, but the intrigues
of the spiritual guides of the court were now so flagrant and so much
discussed in Europe that Philip was angry. When, shortly afterwards,
Father Bermudez offended the Queen by stealthily communicating to the
King letters from France, to be concealed from her, and was found to
be intriguing like his predecessors, he was dismissed from office.
It was related in the court that Bermudez offered to swear on the
crucifix that he was innocent, and that Philip answered: "I have too
much respect for the image of Christ to suffer you to perjure yourself
thus." Bermudez was dismissed, and an Irish Jesuit, Father Clarke,
was made royal confessor for the remainder of the melancholy reign of
Philip V.
The accession of his son, Ferdinand VI., in 1746 brought little relief
to the country and no change in the power of the Jesuits. Ferdinand,
a weak and virtuous monarch, of the type which proved so congenial to
the Jesuits, was devoted to the Society. His confessor, Father Rabago,
was his chief adviser, and courtiers gathered thickly about the Jesuit
in the hope of winning his influence. His position and power, and the
feebleness of the monarch, made him bolder, and a few years later he
ventured upon an action which was to have disastrous consequences for
his Society. In spite of all the efforts of the Jesuits Spain agreed to
cede a part of Paraguay containing seven of the Jesuit reductions to
Portugal, in exchange for Sacramento, I have already mentioned this
incident in speaking of Portugal, and will narrate in a later chapter
what happened in Paraguay. Briefly, an army of 15,000 Indians from the
reductions--not merely the seven reductions in question, which would
not afford more than a few hundred soldiers, but evidently the full
force of the Jesuit troops drafted from the whole of their scattered
reductions--drew up in the path of the Spanish and Portuguese troops,
and it was only after many battles, and at the end of three years, that
the agreement between the two governments could be carried out.
The Marquis de Pombal, who was then in power at Lisbon, at once claimed
that the Jesuits had inspired this treasonable resistance. It would
be difficult for any impartial person to imagine that this army had
been mobilised from the whole area of Jesuit influence and maintained
for so long a period against the will of the Jesuit fathers, who so
completely dominated the Indians and were accustomed to lead them to
battle. Ferdinand hesitated, but at last Pombal intercepted a secret
letter from Father Rabago to the Spanish fathers, in which he urged
them to resist. The English ambassador, Sir Benjamin Keene (quoted by
Coxe in his _Memoirs of the Kings of Spain_), tells us that this letter
and other proofs were put before Ferdinand, and the King expressed
great indignation with the Jesuits in his presence. Coxe himself, who
is often quoted by the Jesuits as an impartial authority, says that
the letter was "undoubtedly" genuine. Rabago was, he says, ignorant at
first of foreign affairs, and ruled by a junta of his colleagues in his
direction of the King, but he became ambitious and intrigued against
the power of the leading statesmen Carvajal and Enseñada. The letters
intercepted in 1754 opened the King's eyes, and when, in the following
year, the confessor was detected in his intrigues against Enseñada, he
was peremptorily dismissed from office.
Ferdinand continued to trust the other Jesuits and resist the pressure
of Pombal, but he died in 1759, and an abler ruler, Charles III.,
came to the throne. Charles was a devout Catholic and was devoted
to the Society. He was, like his predecessor, deaf to the warnings
and entreaties of Pombal, and the ruthless expulsion of the Jesuits
from Portugal (in 1759) only increased his benevolence toward them in
Spain. All their errors were forgotten, and Pombal's charges against
their conduct in the colonies were warmly rejected. Few could have
anticipated that, under such a ruler, in less than ten years from his
accession, the gorgeous structure of Jesuit prosperity in Spain would
be thrown to the ground and the fathers ignominiously expelled.
The first action of the Jesuits to modify the feeling of the King
toward them was their opposition to the canonisation of Bishop Palafox.
Charles keenly desired that the highest honours of the Church should be
paid to this saintly Spanish bishop of the previous century, but, as we
shall see later, Palafox had submitted to Pope Innocent X. a very grave
indictment of the conduct of the Jesuits and, if he had been canonised,
his letters "would have brought disgrace on the Society," as the Jesuit
historian Cordara says. Cordara admits that the means they adopted to
prevent canonisation were not approvable; they were, in fact, chiefly
bribery and an unscrupulous vilification of the bishop. The process
did not get beyond the stage of declaring the bishop "Venerable," and
Charles was displeased with the Jesuits.
In 1766 a less clear, but much more serious, grievance arose. An
attempt to shorten the long cloaks and broad-brimmed _sombreros_ of
the Spanish people, which favoured assassins, led in the spring of
1766 to a revolt at Madrid. Charles was a stern maintainer of royal
authority, and the outbreak greatly angered him. His chief minister
Aranda, a scholar and politician of the liberal school, who was in
sympathy with Choiseul and Pombal and opposed to the Jesuits, now
succeeded in persuading the King that the Jesuits had inspired the
revolt. According to the official "historian" of the Society, the only
ground for this was that the Jesuits had flung themselves bravely upon
the angry mob and disarmed it; which aroused an improper suspicion
of their power. The historian is careful not to relate that in the
autumn of the year a lawyer named Navarro was arrested for bringing
a false charge against certain monks (whom the Jesuits disliked) in
connection with the riot, and that, when the case turned against him,
he declared that the Jesuits had prompted him to do this in order to
avert suspicion from their own conduct. Charles was convinced that they
were the authors of the riot, and he was now prepared to listen to the
charges of Pombal and Choiseul.
It was then submitted to the King that the Jesuits were conspiring
to replace him on the throne by his brother Louis. One of our best
authorities, Coxe, declares that a forged letter in this sense,
purporting to come from General Ricci to the heads of the Spanish
Jesuits, was used amongst the evidence. However that may be, the King
was convinced, a searching inquiry was made into the condition and
activity of the Society, and the King entrusted to the willing hands
of Aranda the task of destroying it. Aranda realised that secrecy
was essential to success, and he and a few confidential colleagues
stealthily drew up the indictment of the Society. Such precautions
had to be taken to outwit the Jesuit spies that the minister would
take pen and ink in his pocket, in order that it should not be known
that the King was signing a document. By the beginning of 1767 it was
decided to banish the Jesuits from the Spanish dominions, and Aranda
set to work to arrange the expulsion without giving the Jesuits an
opportunity to provoke a rising in their favour. Sealed orders were
sent to the local officials all over the empire, and it was strictly
enjoined under pain of death that they were not to be opened until the
evening of 2nd April.[28]
By the end of March the Jesuits must have been aware that some grave
step against them was meditated, but the secret was well kept and
the plan carried out to the letter. Some time after midnight on 2nd
April the troops silently gathered round the six Jesuit colleges at
Madrid and all the other houses and residences of the Society. The
sentence was carried out simultaneously, with perfect order. The
astounded Jesuits awoke to find a soldier and official in every cell,
and they were ordered to dress and proceed to the refectory. There the
royal decree of banishment was read to the assembled community, and
they were promptly conducted by the troops, with such small personal
possessions as their breviaries and their tobacco, to the appointed
port. They were put in separate carriages, and carefully secluded from
each other and the people until they were aboard ship. It seems that
Aranda's precautions were excessive. The Jesuits complain rather of
the harshness of the soldiers than attempt to discover any sympathy
to which they might appeal. Sympathy and anger there were, of course,
as well as delirious rejoicing, when the fall of the Society became
known. But before the country had fully realised that the proud Society
had been doomed to exile by a Spanish king, the 6000 Jesuits of Spain
and its colonies were mournfully crossing the Mediterranean, in
overcrowded vessels, toward the coast of the papal states. A pension
was allotted to each out of their confiscated property, but they were
informed that the pensions of all would cease if one of their number
ventured to assail Spain and defend the Society; this was not an unjust
measure in view of the fact that no Jesuit could publish without
authority.
Another very painful experience awaited the fathers at the Italian
shore. Charles sent word to the Pope that he had found it necessary
to banish the Jesuits, and he was committing them to the Pope's "wise
and holy direction." The letter is not as disrespectful as this may
suggest, but Clement XIII. was so angry that he took an unpardonable
step. It will be remembered that Pombal had previously unloaded his
ships on the papal shores, and the suppression in France had driven
large numbers to Italy. We may assume that the aim of Pombal, Choiseul,
and Aranda was to dispose the Pope to receive their demand for the
abolition of the Society. Clement was so angry that he refused to
receive the wretched exiles. The case is not, as is sometimes said,
that he forgot to send, or refrained from sending, orders to receive
the Jesuits. When the first vessel, bearing 600 dejected priests, made
for the port of Civitá Vecchia, it was warned off by the roar of papal
cannon, and for some weeks the miserable men tossed on the waves of
the Mediterranean in sight of the inhospitable papal states. In the
end they were dispatched to Corsica, to enjoy their slender pensions.
Some apostatised, and some crept back in disguise to their native land,
and were hunted as traitors; but in six years their last hopes were
extinguished by the papal abolition of the Society.
The verdict of the historian on this romantic fall of the Society of
Jesus in the two countries which seemed especially adapted for its
operations must always be coloured by his creed. Protestant historians
have at times commented on the harsh execution of the sentence and the
character of some of the evidence on which it was obtained, but none
questions the justice of the expulsion. On the other hand, although
the Catholic Church was, to say the least, equally divided on the
matter at the time, no modern Catholic historian would admit the
justice of the sentence. I do not propose to consider this in detail
until we come to the abolition of the Society by the Pope. Indeed, we
cannot quite appreciate the whole case of the Spaniards and Portuguese
Catholics against the Jesuits until we have examined their conduct in
the colonies. When we have covered the whole ground we shall be in
a position to weigh the stern and lengthy indictment which Clement
XIV.--who is wilfully misrepresented by Catholic writers--passes on the
Society in pronouncing the solemn sentence of death. For the moment
I need only say that, apart from their great irregularities in the
colonies, the Jesuits were hated in Spain and Portugal on the ground
that, in spite of their high professions, they sought and accumulated
wealth, indulged in commerce, lent themselves to political intrigue,
wronged other spiritual bodies, were lax in moral principles, and
drained the resources of the decaying country without rendering it
any proportionate service. This record of their deeds must suffice to
enable the reader to say if the indictment and sentence were just.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 28: Coxe puts the expulsion on the morning of 1st April, and
the signing of the decree on 2nd April. This seems to be an error.]
CHAPTER XI
THE FOREIGN MISSIONS
Nowhere, perhaps, is the conflict of evidence so sharp in regard to the
Jesuits as when we turn to consider their activity outside of Europe.
On the one hand we have the _Edifying Letters_ which the missionaries
themselves sent to their Roman authorities for publication in Europe.
From these letters the apologetic writers construct a picture of the
most charming devotion and spiritual success; we are invited to see
thousands of Jesuits breaking every home-tie in order to carry the
gospel of Christ across seas infested with Dutch and English enemies,
to lands whence only one in a hundred will return, and where the tooth
of the serpent, the poison of the tropics, or the knife of the savage
awaits them; we are told how they advance unarmed into the forests,
and fierce tribes surrender to the feeble symbol of the crucifix, how
they charm the jealous monarchs of the east with their vast learning
and open to other missionaries doors which had been closed against them
for centuries, how from the rawest savage material they make ideal
republics such as Plato had despaired of making out of the enlightened
Athenians.
From the other side we learn that these _Edifying Letters_, which so
plainly announce their purpose, are "pious lies"; that they wilfully
exaggerate conversions and martyrdoms, and convey a wholly false
picture of Jesuit activity; that the Jesuits are engaged in a vast
commercial activity all over the globe, are utterly unscrupulous in
protecting their monopolies and in accumulating wealth, and make the
most scandalous concessions to paganism in order to obtain numbers
and influence. These things, moreover, are said by Catholic priests
and prelates, not by jealous merchants and free-thinking politicians.
Prelates of indisputable sanctity send to Europe the sternest and
gravest charges against the Jesuits, and declare that they have
been subjected by the Society to the most virulent and unprincipled
persecution. We have therefore to make our way here with extreme
prudence. Fortunately, many of the charges against the Jesuits receive
serious consideration at Rome, and from the evidence which is submitted
to, and generally endorsed by, the Roman tribunals, the historian is
at times enabled to reach a confident verdict. Let us begin our survey
with the action of the Jesuits in the far east.
At the beginning of the period we are considering Japan is closed
against the Christian missionaries, and all the blood that has been
shed on its soil proves sterile. We saw that the emperors had at
length determined to extirpate the new religion, and a final revolt
of the surviving Christians in 1638 led to the completing of the work
of destruction. One or two Jesuits afterwards penetrated the country,
in the disguise of merchants, but they were arrested or forced to
leave. The artful Japanese devised a test of faith which should have
defeated the zeal of the missionary; every European immigrant had to
spit or trample on the crucifix before landing. It is said by a serious
authority, one of the General Commandants of the French East India
Company (Martin, of Pondicherry), that the Jesuits found a casuistic
way out of this difficulty and insulted the crucifix; they were, they
said, merely regarding it as a piece of wood and metal. However that
may be, the last Jesuit--an apostate who repented--was executed there
in 1652, and the fathers of the "Japanese Province" were scattered over
the other eastern missions.
China had, in the meantime, become a most attractive field of labour.
It will be remembered that the Jesuit Ricci had at last found a way to
penetrate the Chinese defences; he had concealed his religion, dressed
as a Chinese scholar, and won great prestige as a mathematician and
astronomer. He had obtained great influence at the court, and other
Jesuits had followed his example. Their services to the court were
rewarded with permission to preach their doctrines in the provinces,
but this work was often checked by local persecution, and the Jesuits
directed their chief efforts to the court and the educated class.
The tradition started by Ricci was maintained and developed, and a
very strange group of missionaries gathered about the emperor. Chief
amongst them was Father Adam Schall, a very able mathematician and
intimate friend of the emperor. He could cast horoscopes, found cannon,
admire the works of Kung-fu-tse, and behave in every way as a Chinese
gentleman. He found a substantial agreement between educated Chinese
religion and Christianity--especially by keeping the crucifix out of
sight--and genially sanctioned the worship of "Heaven," the veneration
of Kung-fu-tse, and the cult of ancestors. The educated Chinaman is,
as we know to-day, an Agnostic, and he concluded that the Jesuit was
an almost equally liberal interpreter of popular superstitions. He
therefore welcomed these western gentlemen who could read the stars,
make fancy clocks, found cannon, direct armies, and paint pictures
better than the native scholar.
The Jesuits had previously helped the Chinese to repel the Tartars, but
a more formidable invasion occurred in 1636, and, to be quite safe,
they divided their forces. Schall joined the Tartars at Peking and read
in the stars that they would conquer; some of his colleagues remained
with the threatened dynasty, declared that the stars were in _their_
favour, and induced some members of the royal family to accept baptism.
The Tartars won, the opposing Jesuits were recalled, and Schall passed
into the confidence of the new emperor. He became a mandarin of the
first class and president of the tribunal of imperial mathematics. He
dressed in gorgeous silks, and his palanquin, borne by twelve servants,
was attended by a strong body-guard with the usual Chinese symbols;
also--if we believe the missionary Sala, as seems reasonable--his
beautiful palace contained two charming Chinese ladies and, in the
course of time, two children. But the emperor died ten years later, a
persecution was initiated, and Father Schall died lamentably in prison
in 1666. All the Jesuits--nineteen in number--were imprisoned, and
their 151 churches were closed or destroyed.
In 1669 the young Emperor Kang Hi, son of the Tartar conqueror,
attained his majority and released the Jesuits. Father Verbiest took
the place of Father Schall, and as his military services enabled the
emperor to quell an insurrection, he obtained permission to summon
fresh "mathematicians" from the west. France was now the great
expanding Power in Europe, and the new field, with its prospect of a
monopoly of commerce, was secured for Louis XIV. Six learned French
Jesuits arrived in 1688, and from that time until the end of the
century they grew in power and wealth. As artists, astrologers, or
mechanicians the priests made themselves indispensable at court, and
the lay-brothers brought western skill in medicine and surgery. One of
them received 200,000 francs' worth of gold for curing the emperor.
They also imported clocks, wine, and other western products, and,
from merely approving, they passed on to an active share in the great
Chinese industry of lending money at a profit, which was then sternly
condemned by their Church. The rival Catholic missionaries reported
that the three Jesuit houses at Peking made 80,000 francs a year by
usury; though the Jesuits protested that they did not charge more than
twenty-four per cent. Father Gerbillon was now head of the mathematical
tribunal and diplomatic agent on Russian affairs. Father Martini was
the military expert, and, as a mandarin of the first order, exhibited a
dragon on his fine silk robe.
There was one very serious thorn in the side of these prosperous
Jesuits. Dominican, Franciscan, and other missionaries had followed
them into the country, and were expressing the most cordial abhorrence
of their procedure. Their arrogance, their unpriestly occupations,
and their commerce and usury were bad enough, but they were not even
preaching the Gospel. They suppressed the doctrine of the Redemption,
did not anoint dying women (out of concession to Chinese delicacy),
and permitted their converts to join in the rites of the old Chinese
religion. The Dominicans and Franciscans disturbed their profitable
policy by thrusting the crucifix before the eyes of the amazed Chinese,
and there were fierce wrangles. The friars appealed to Rome, and in
1645 the Propaganda condemned the Jesuit concessions. The Jesuits
ignored the condemnation, on the ground that it was issued on false
information, and sent Mandarin Martini to Rome. Martini unblushingly
asserted that the rites they permitted were purely civil in character,
and he was able to return with an authorisation of their practices. But
the Dominicans sent a fresh envoy to Rome, and, in the meantime, the
terrible Jansenist Arnauld had learned the facts and was holding up the
Jesuits to the ridicule of Europe.
All the machinery of intrigue at Rome was now in motion, and in 1684
three bishops who belonged to the rival French Congregation of Foreign
Missions were sent out to make an investigation. When the Jesuits found
it impossible to persuade these commissioners that the early Chinese
had received a knowledge of the true God from the children of Noah,
that the cult of ancestors was equivalent to the services in honour
of the souls in purgatory, and so on, they used their court-influence
ruthlessly against them and the missionaries. In the course of time,
however, an adverse report reached Rome, and a serious inquiry opened.
The ten Jesuits at the Chinese court wrote to say that the emperor
himself endorsed their interpretation of the Chinese doctrines and
rites, but, although the new Pope, Clement XI., was favourable to
the Society, and Père la Chaise threw the influence of France into
the scale, the testimony of the other missionaries was too plain to
be ignored. An experienced missionary and able young prelate, Mgr.
(later Cardinal) de Tournon, was sent out in 1703 to examine the Jesuit
practices in India and China.
The adventurous voyage of Mgr. de Tournon, Patriarch of Antioch, would
fill an interesting volume. We shall see presently what the practices
of the Jesuits were in India, and will not be surprised that he
promptly condemned them. From that moment until he died heart-broken,
six years afterwards, in a Christian jail, he was thwarted and
tormented by the intrigues of the Jesuits. He reached Canton in the
spring of 1705, and was informed that the emperor refused to see
him. The position of the Jesuits at court was such that not even a
child could fail to recognise their direction in this decision, and
a great scandal was caused. It was twelve months before the legate
was permitted to pay the Pope's respects to the emperor, and, as he
politely insisted that the Jesuits were falsely representing the
Church, he was driven from the country and committed to the care of
the Portuguese authorities, who were controlled by the Jesuits. When
he reached Macao, this papal legate found that the Viceroy of India,
the Archbishop of Goa, and the Bishop of Macao forbade him to exercise
his powers in any country under the Portuguese flag. When he justly
replied by excommunicating the Bishop and Captain-General of Macao--and
the Pope recognised the integrity of his conduct by making him cardinal
in that year (1707)--the Portuguese authorities imprisoned him. He
died in prison three years afterwards, at the early age of forty-two.
The only priests in the east whom he had felt compelled to censure
were the Jesuits, and the letters of de Tournon himself and of the
priests of his suite (one of whom was imprisoned in a Jesuit house)
emphatically attribute all the outrages they suffered to the Jesuits,
who intercepted their correspondence in order to conceal the facts
from the Papacy. It is even stated by some of these priests that the
stubborn cardinal was eventually removed by poison.
Since we know that the Jesuits had paramount influence at Peking,
Macao, and Goa, and could easily have secured a proper treatment of the
Pope's representative, we are compelled to believe these witnesses.
Crétineau-Joly's statement, that "they did not dare to intervene
between the emperor and the legate," is little less than frivolous.
They directed the whole proceedings--as usual, through others. De
Tournon's assurance that, when a priest was tortured to give evidence
against him at Peking, there were two Jesuits listening behind a
curtain, is quite in harmony with their ways; about the same time in
Paraguay, when a bishop was violently assaulted by the armed pupils of
the Society, there were two Jesuits concealed in the trees directing
them. We shall see that every prelate, in any part of the world, who
sets out to expose the misdeeds of the Jesuits, experiences the same
outrages as did the unfortunate Cardinal de Tournon.
The Jesuits both of India and China ignored the commands of the Pope's
solemn representative, and clung to their lucrative missions. In 1706
they persuaded the emperor to forbid any missionary to attack Chinese
rites, and, as the fierce controversy continued and the banishment
of the more active prelates proved fruitless, they obtained an edict
expelling all missionaries who followed the instructions of the late
legate. The scandal was, however, now known throughout Christendom, and
on 25th September 1710 Clement XI. solemnly condemned their practices.
Again they quibbled, observing that some of their practices were not
specifically condemned, and a new papal bull (_Ex illa die_) was issued
on 19th March 1715, enacting that all missionaries must take oath to
abandon the forbidden practices. The emperor denounced the bull, and
imprisoned the prelate who communicated it to the Jesuits, and a third
representative was sent to China by the Vatican. In spite of certain
concessions (afterwards condemned by the Papacy), Mgr. Mezzabarba had
little more success than his predecessors, and the Jesuits continued to
maintain their compromises and tempt the Papacy with glowing promises
of success. There were, they said, nine members of the royal family
and hundreds of influential Chinamen ready to embrace Christianity as
they expounded it. Innocent XIII., now fully informed by Mezzabarba,
severely condemned them (1723), and we know from a private letter
of the Jesuit historian Cordara that he was preparing an "atrocious
decree" against the Society when he died in 1724.
As the immediate successors of Innocent XIII. were open to Jesuit
influence, they were enabled to maintain their position and practices
on the Asiatic missions until the middle of the eighteenth century.
In other words, these religious who were especially bound to obey the
Pope, defied the Papacy for nearly one hundred years (since the first
condemnation), and committed every outrage against its representatives.
In the meantime their great patron Kang Hi died (1722), and the
exasperated Chinese began to destroy the conflicting missions. There
were then, it is said, several hundred thousand Christians in China,
though the sequel will show that these were almost entirely of the
poorer classes, won by material services and ready to return to Taoism
at the slightest pressure. The new emperor proscribed Christianity, and
banished all the missionaries except the more learned of the Jesuits.
A letter written by one of these Jesuits gives an account of their
situation. As engineers, astronomers, and diplomatists they were still
sheltered and rewarded by the Chinese court--he adds that they remained
partly in the interest of French (and their own) commerce--but the
educated Chinese disdained their religion, and they were reduced to a
furtive ministration to the rapidly shrinking body of poor converts.
This situation lasted until 1743, when Benedict XIV. at last vindicated
the dignity of the Papacy and issued his famous bull _Ex quo
singulari_. A second and more drastic bull, sternly condemning their
contumacy, appeared in 1744, and they were now forced to submit without
reserve. From that time the Chinese mission melted away. As far as the
Jesuits were concerned, it had never had any religious solidity. A few
Jesuits who attempted to sustain the converts in the provinces were
put to death, and the court Jesuits were restricted to their hydraulic
engineering, surgery, philology, and astrology. They lingered for a
generation at Peking, the strangest figures in the whole clerical
universe, but the Chinese showed no sign of relenting, and they died,
one by one, in their singular employments. Their death closed the
stirring but sterile episode of the first attempt to Christianise China.
Before we turn to India, the next important centre of Christianity in
the far east, we must glance at their fortunes in subsidiary missions.
Their letters tell how they entered the Philippine Islands in 1665, and
had a miraculous success among the very lowly, but generally peaceful,
natives; one Jesuit is said to have baptized 50,000 of them (mostly
children, apparently) in four years, and founded eight churches and
three colleges. One priest to eight churches, and eight churches to
50,000 converts, give us the true measure of their success. They were
generally content to pour the baptismal water over the heads of all
who could be induced to accept it, by material benefits or a confused
belief in its magical properties, and send the inflated statistics to
Europe. In spite, however, of wars amongst the natives and occasional
persecution they built up a prosperous mission. Its story is tainted by
commercial activity and unprincipled behaviour towards the rest of the
clergy. We shall see later that they had vast estates in California and
Mexico, and from these they conducted a large and regular traffic, in
their own ships, with Manila. Archbishop Pardo, of Manila, condemned
this traffic, and ordered them to distribute the value of their
property among the poor. He suffered the customary fate of prelates who
interfered with the operations of the Society. Whether the governor of
the Philippines was bribed, or merely persuaded by the fathers, we need
not attempt to determine; but his officers seized the Archbishop during
the night and deported him to a neighbouring island. Thirty years
previously Pardo's predecessor, Archbishop Guerrero, had been treated
with the same outrages.
In Cochin China, Tong King, and Siam the story of the Jesuits is
much the same as in China, and need not be told in detail. A Father
de Rhodes, a missionary of the early and ardent type, penetrates
Cochin China in 1640, and in spite of resistance and persecution,
makes 40,000 "converts" and builds seventy "churches" in a few years.
Modern missionary experience in Asia enables us to test these absurd
claims. Father de Rhodes was caught and expelled, and the next
group of missionaries adopted the Chinese policy. They induced the
King to regard them as great mathematicians and skilful engineers,
and propagated a mild form of Christianity, as in China. This led
to a similar, but even more virulent, conflict with the non-Jesuit
missionaries. When the papal bull _Ex illa die_, condemning their
practices, arrived, they airily remarked that it came from Amsterdam,
not Rome, and ignored it. Very violent quarrels occurred with the
French non-Jesuit priests, whom they denounced as "Jansenists"; and
these priests accused them of the most sordid vice and outrage. We
shall see that the charge of loose living must be admitted; but whether
they poisoned hostile priests, and had refractory native women stripped
to the waist and flogged, are questions which must remain open. The
profane historian is naturally embarrassed when two groups of priests
flatly accuse each other of lying, and one group certainly _is_ lying.
At length the Vatican sent a bishop to investigate the situation in
Cochin China, and we are, perhaps, justified in following the report
of this impartial Papal Legate. He found great moral as well as
theological laxity among the Jesuits. One father, in high authority,
had had a concubine for twenty years, and took her with him when he
visited the sick; and there was much drunkenness and violence against
their opponents. The papal agents were bribed to support them, and
the pagan officials were easily induced to admire and sustain the
more genial ways of the Jesuits. The Legate officially forbade them
to practise usury, to sell worthless drugs at exorbitant prices to
the natives, to dress in gay purple and bind their flowing locks
with coloured ribands, and so on. His decree is a flash of light on
Jesuit practices among natives. One curious incident in his reports
is worth noting. A Franciscan monk, a feeble old man of sixty, had,
to please the Jesuits, established a church in face of that of the
French missionaries. The Legate ordered him to remove, and the monk
presently came to say that he was unable to remove as the Captain of
the Guardians of the Royal Dogs (a young Jesuit "mathematician") had
appointed him a Guardian and sent him several dogs, because the air of
his district was good for dogs. In a word, the Jesuits used their full
influence at court to thwart and persecute the Legate, and he died in
distress shortly afterwards.
Siam had received two Jesuits in 1630. They came as envoys of the
governor of the Philippines, and so charmed the King that they were
invited to stay. When Spanish vessels followed them, the Siamese were
indignant; but the quarrel was adjusted, and in 1685 six learned
"mathematicians" of the great King Louis XIV. came, with gorgeous
parade and an imposing military escort, to the Siamese court. The
Jesuits were now everywhere diplomatic agents for the expansion of
French commerce, if not French territory, and the work in Siam was
facilitated by a French adventurer, named Phaulcon, who had won the
King's confidence. The King asked for more "mathematicians," and
fourteen Jesuits eagerly responded. But with them (in 1687) came a
French squadron and several regiments, who proceeded to occupy and
fortify positions in Bangkok and Merguy. The King soon detected that
the learned mathematicians and the minister Phaulcon and the French
regiments had a close and secret understanding, and this remarkable
attempt to spread the gospel came to a premature close. Phaulcon lost
his head, and the mathematicians were banished.
We have seen in a previous chapter how the Jesuits had applied their
elastic principles to the conversion of India, the original and central
field of the Asiatic missions. After sending most imposing figures
of baptisms to Europe during a century, they announced, we saw, that
the work had been profoundly unsatisfactory, and some new plan of
reaching the educated Hindus must be adopted. So Father de Nobili had
dressed as a Hindu priest of the most sacred caste, had adopted all the
emblems and practices of the caste, and had behaved throughout life in
such a way that the other members of the Saniassi sect were unable to
discover that he was a Christian. Father Britto, Father Beschi, and
other Jesuits succeeded him in this fantastic rôle. Rome was solemnly
assured, as it was from China, that the rites and emblems of the
Saniassi (which are saturated with Hindu mythology) were "purely civil"
in their nature; local prelates (who were frequently ex-Jesuits) and
Vatican officials were bribed or persuaded to sanction this fiction;
and for more than a century the Jesuits permitted a number of members
of the Society to don the sacred clothes and practise the rites of the
Saniassi.
The melodramatic temper which the Jesuit spirit fostered in members of
the Society counted for a good deal in this singular development of
their missionary enterprise. Regarded from the point of view of the
purpose which they held to justify it, one must pronounce it a failure.
Very few high-caste Hindus were converted, and even these few only
accepted a quite emasculated version of Christianity, as a rule. Some
of the Jesuit-Saniassi did succeed in obtaining considerable prestige.
They rode about on fine horses, and were borne in palanquins while
natives cooled them with peacock-feather fans, and greatly impressed
the ignorant natives. One of them, Beschi, so captivated a local prince
that he became his first minister, and rode about with an escort of
thirty horsemen and a native band. These successes among the educated
Hindus were, however, only won by a concealment of the distinctive
elements of the Christian faith and an insinuation that the enlightened
priests at Rome itself (as distinct from the common missionaries) held
the same liberal view of the creed.
It was still mainly among the poorer classes and the pariahs, whose
poverty made them more susceptible to missionary influence, that
the converts were found. We may regard with suspicion the enormous
figures of conversions effected by them which individual Jesuits sent
to Europe,--one of the Apostolic Vicars for India bluntly describes
them as "lies,"--but hundreds of thousands of the natives were in
some measure gathered into the Christian fold. We are sometimes asked
to admire the levelling of caste-barriers which this inclusion in
a common fold would entail, but the Jesuits fully respected the
caste-barriers. Some of their number are entitled to high praise for
becoming pariahs among the pariahs,--dressing in their ragged clothes
and eating their vile food,--but the high-caste Jesuit would not glance
even at his pariah-colleague if he met him on the road. He would not
enter a pariah's hut; the dying pariah had to be carried out under
a tree to receive his ministration, and, if he were too ill to be
removed, he died without the sacraments. The pariahs were not allowed
in the church; they were herded in an enclosure by the side of it to
hear the Mass, and the sacraments were often administered to them
through a window.
These were not the only grievances which the other missionaries, who
could not report their tens of thousands of conversions, had against
the Jesuits. It was equally proved that they laid little stress on the
doctrine of redemption, as in China, and made very material concessions
to paganism. They omitted parts of the ceremony of baptism which the
Hindus disliked (the use of saliva and the breathing on the convert):
they did not give saint-names to the converts, and advised them not to
call themselves Christians, but (in a familiar Hindu phrase) "followers
of the true God": they married mere children, long before the time of
puberty, and they allowed the married girl to wear the _taly_ according
to the pagan custom:[29] they blessed and distributed the ashes of
cow-dung which the natives esteemed: they permitted their converts to
wear, and sometimes wore themselves, emblems of Vishnu. It seems that
in some places they placed no cross over the altar.
These extraordinary concessions--they are commonly known as
"the Malabar rites," as the Jesuits were chiefly established in
Malabar--were fiercely assailed by the other missionaries and reported
to Rome. In 1703, as we saw, Mgr. de Tournon was sent to inquire
into the quarrel, and he condemned the more flagrant of the Jesuit
practices. When the Legate passed on to China, the Jesuits and the
local prelates (either Jesuits or friends of the Jesuits) entirely
ignored his commands, and the feud continued. It must be borne in
mind that the Jesuits had now supreme influence at the Portuguese
as well as the French court, and officials naturally bowed to their
wealth and power. For a considerable time they had received from the
Kings of Portugal immense subsidies for their missionary work, and
their commerce and intentness on gifts and legacies had added to this
wealth. The manager of the French East India Company at Pondicherry
tells us that the Jesuits in India surpassed the English and Portuguese
merchants, and only fell short of the Dutch, in trading activity. In
his time there was a debt of 450,000 _livres_ on the books of his
company in the name of a Jesuit (Father Tachard). Their wealth was very
great, and they did not scruple to use it in the maintenance of their
position as well as in attracting converts.
But the Malabar rites, and Chinese rites, and Jesuit-Brahmans were
now, as we saw, a scourge in the hands of the Society's critics in
Europe, and the Papacy was forced to suppress them. As we have so often
realised, the Jesuit repute for broad sagacity and statesmanship,
as distinct from astuteness and capacity for intrigue, is without
foundation. The Roman Jesuit authorities could have destroyed the
system in a year, yet they sustained it for a hundred years, and,
with blind stubbornness, allowed an indelible stain to be fixed on
the Society, and were responsible for the sudden collapse of their
missions. When Benedict XIV. fearlessly and peremptorily condemned
them, there was a formidable reaction among their converts, and the
hundreds of congregations rapidly disappeared. Their apologist would
have us believe that they submitted in 1741 (the year before Benedict's
first bull), but that "distance and the difficulty of communication
retarded the arrival of their letters at Rome." Ignoring the foolish
remark about the difficulty of communication, we may observe that the
year 1741 was seventeen years after their official condemnation by the
Pope's representative; that Clement XII. had condemned them in 1734 and
1739, and they had ignored his decrees; and that, so far from having
submitted in 1741, Benedict XIV. found them contumacious to his bull
of 1742, and had to issue another in 1744. They submitted in 1745, and
the structure they had raised by two hundred years of devotion and
dissimulation rapidly decayed.
The missions in other parts of Asia had little success. Ceylon was
invaded by two fathers in 1616, but when these were executed in 1627
and 1628 the mission seems to have been abandoned. It is interesting to
find that they even entered the almost impregnable capital of Thibet.
Two of their more devoted and austere missionaries crossed the vale
of Cachmire and the bleak mountains on foot, and reached Lhasa. The
expedition had no result, and was not repeated. In nearer Asia also
the work was only moderately successful. Armed with diplomatic papers
from the French court, instead of the crucifix of which they sometimes
boast as their only weapon, they entered the dominion of the Turk, and
wrangled with Greeks, Nestorians, Armenians, and other Christians over
the infallibility of the Pope. They founded residences at Thessalonica,
Smyrna, Trebezon, Damascus, etc., and pushed on to the banks of the
Euphrates. In 1682, two Jesuits, magnificently equipped and loaded with
presents, approached the Shah of Persia as envoys of Louis XIV., and
received permission to preach the Christian gospel. Within a quarter of
a century they had, they said, baptized 200,000 of the natives. Then
the Persian ruler turned a hostile eye on the growing body, and it
melted more rapidly than it had grown. The age of Louis XIV. was over,
the French dream of expansion laid aside, and the flow of French money
interrupted.
A fresh attempt was made in 1677 to induce the Copts of Egypt to
recognise the authority of the Pope. The now familiar device was
adopted of impressing the monarch with a show of learning and art,
and trusting to sow the Christian seed insidiously in his dominions.
In twenty years of assiduous labour the scholar-missionaries added
much to the slender geographical and archæological lore of Europe, but
their secret religious mission failed. Abyssinia also still resisted
their efforts. They converted an Emperor, and he was slain in civil war
for endeavouring to force the new creed on his people; they secured
the favour of his successor, and a Jesuit at last obtained the real
dignity of Patriarch of Abyssinia. A threat of civil war moved the
Emperor to restrict them, and, when they were found to be inspiring
their converts with seditious sentiments, they were once more expelled
and--save for an occasional invasion in disguise--their work was wholly
destroyed. It may be added that some of the more heroic of the Jesuits
penetrated the Congo, and endeavoured to reach the blacks at Tetuan,
Angola, and the Guinea coast. Others followed the negro to America;
and the noble and self-sacrificing labours of a Father Peter Claver for
forty years (1615-1654) must be put in the scale against their general
demoralisation.
We turn now to the famous missions of South America, and must endeavour
to attain an impartial estimate of their work, especially among the
natives of Paraguay. I have previously described the model villages, or
"reductions," which form the central interest of the Jesuit missions
in America. From the beginning of the seventeenth century the fathers
decided that they would not co-operate with the Spaniards of the South
American towns. For this there was an admirable motive, and we saw that
the spirit which animated the early missionaries in that region was
excellent. They went out in couples or singly, unarmed, into the vast
forests and along the great rivers in search of converts. The natives
at first fled before them. A Spaniard was, to them, a man with superior
weapons who sought only to enslave the natives and make wealth by
their toil. It was at first for the purpose of removing this natural
prejudice that the Jesuits dissevered themselves from the colonists
and obtained from the King a declaration that the natives who had
been baptized should never be enslaved. Later they obtained for them
exemption from military or other service, and from any kind of local
taxation. These things at once angered the great body of the Spanish
colonists, and attracted the less savage natives to the missions. They
therefore next secured permission to colonise independently of the
laity, and, in 1610, founded the first reduction. They sent trained
natives back into the forests, with axes, knives, mirrors, and other
enticing presents, and the fathers themselves boldly penetrated
time after time, so that by 1630 they had about 100,000 natives in
their reductions. For some years their colonies were then devastated
by a hostile tribe; but the Jesuits obtained from the Spanish King
permission to arm their pupils, formed an army of several thousand
drilled and well-equipped troops, and more than recovered their ground.
In the course of time they came to have 300,000 natives in their
reductions.
No payment was made to the workers in these reductions. After labouring
to show that they were not very productive, the apologist for the
Jesuits is driven to plead that the fathers "did not think it proper
to give ideas of cupidity to Christians": an admirable sentiment, if
the Society had not itself appropriated the superfluous wealth of the
communities. Nor is it more convincing to be reminded of the natural
indolence of the natives. They were not indolent in the reductions.
Public and harsh penances were inflicted for laziness, and the hours of
work, sleep, play, and prayer were rigorously fixed. Rough huts, light
clothing, and sufficient cheap food were distributed weekly; festivals
were frequent, and were enlivened by the flute, the song, or the dance;
morality was so strictly controlled that the natives were watched even
during the night. It does not seem just to compare them with slaves, or
suggest that, as long as they behaved well, they were hardly treated.
That they were not nearly so civilised as the roseate letters of the
Jesuits describe will appear presently, but it was much that 300,000
natives were induced to lead regular and disciplined lives. It is
absurd to speak of "ideal republics" when the workers dwelt in wretched
huts, had no corporate property or power, worked all day for masters
who rendered no account to them or any other, and could, when they
were on the march, at once revert to savagery. But they were in a far
superior position to that of the enslaved, brutalised, wine-sodden
natives who fell into the hands of the lay colonists.
The antagonism to the reductions was in principle economic. The Spanish
traders felt that they were prevented from exploiting the natives,
a grievance with which we may or may not sympathise, and bitterly
reproached the Jesuits with indulging in commerce. When "Edifying
Letters" were published which described the Jesuits marching out once
more from their pleasant reductions, facing the untamed savages or the
beasts and serpents of new regions with the crucifix in their hands,
people scoffingly observed that new reductions would increase the
income of the Society. The Jesuits retorted that contact with Spaniards
would mean disease and vice among their pupils, and they would rather
manage the villages--they did not, of course, admit that they indulged
in commerce--than admit European laymen. That they made a large profit
out of 300,000 meagrely rewarded workers it is impossible to doubt, but
how are we to judge the sincerity of their statement that they retained
control solely from religious and moral motives?
Possibly the facts of their relations with the bishops of Paraguay
will enable us to decide, if their action on other foreign missions be
not regarded as sufficient. These facts are, of course, challenged by
Jesuit writers, but the authority is too serious for us to set them
aside on that account. Dom Bernardine de Cardenas, a Franciscan monk
who became Bishop of Paraguay, sent Friar Villalon to the Spanish court
and the Vatican to complain of the Jesuits. I state the facts as they
are given in Villalon's memorial to Philip of Spain; and those who
think that they are discredited because the Jesuits denied the more
flagrant charges and the Spanish court, ruled by Jesuits, rejected
them, are free to impute the mendacity to the bishop rather than to the
Jesuits.
The two predecessors of Cardenas had had much trouble with the
Jesuits, but for a year or two after his consecration he was on very
friendly terms with them. They did not from the first affect to regard
his consecration as invalid, as their apologist says; that idea
(afterwards refuted by the Papacy) occurred to them in the course of
the quarrel. In 1644, Cardenas announced that he was about to visit the
reductions, which formed part of his diocese, and the Jesuits offered
him 20,000 crowns to omit that part of his visitation. He refused,
and they discovered a scruple about the validity of his consecration.
As Cardenas insisted, they spread the report in the reductions that
Spanish priests were coming who would interfere with the women, raised
a troop of eight hundred Indians, and advanced toward the episcopal
town of Assumption. The governor, a brutal man, had previously
quarrelled with the bishop, and one would imagine that it hardly needed
a bribe of 30,000 crowns to secure his co-operation. It is at least
quite certain that, as he travelled, the bishop was seized by the
governor at the head of the Jesuit soldiers, brutally treated, and sent
into exile 200 miles away.
Cardenas made his way with great difficulty to La Plata, placed his
case before the higher tribunal of the Royal Audience, and was awarded
his see. Near the city he was, however, again arrested by the Jesuit
troops, and sent back to his wretched exile. In 1647 there was a
change of governor, and he returned, to the great joy of the town.
The Jesuits, however, intrigued with his clergy, allowed two of his
canons to set up a rival chapter in their residence, and turned the
new governor against him. He was besieged in his cathedral for fourteen
days; but a compromise was accepted, and, when the governor died two
years afterwards, the citizens nominated Cardenas himself governor, in
accordance with their legal right. The Jesuits then set up a rival for
the governorship, secured, by intrigue and bribery, his recognition by
the authorities at La Plata, and put 4000 of their armed Indians, under
Jesuit leaders, at his disposal. Leaving behind them a trail of outrage
which does not harmonise with the Jesuit description of their pupils,
these troops flung themselves upon the armed and angry citizens. In
the battle that followed 385 Indians and a Jesuit were slain, but the
citizens were overpowered.
Meantime the Jesuits made use of an extraordinary privilege which they
professed to have received from Pius V. and Gregory XIII. They said
that, in case of a dispute between themselves and the bishop, they had
the right to nominate a judge (or _conservator_), chosen by themselves,
to arbitrate. We have seen them use this privilege in the remote
Philippines, and shall meet it again. It was a gross and ludicrous
claim, as the Jesuits always took care to choose a judge who would
declare in their favour; indeed, Pope Innocent X. afterwards declared
(as we shall see) that they had no such right. They chose a friend,
a corrupt member of one of the laxer religious congregations, and he
excommunicated the bishop. The Jesuit troops then seized the prelate
and transported him some 200 leagues from the city. From his exile
he sent Father Villanon to Spain, and, though the friar was waylaid
and rifled by the Jesuit troops, he succeeded in reaching Madrid and
informing the King. It happened that the King had only a few years
before received authentic information of a similar outrage in Mexico,
and had sent a stern reprimand to the Jesuits, in spite of the group
of court-fathers. There seemed, however, no prospect of peace, and
Cardenas was transferred to another diocese.
From 1650 to 1750 the province of Paraguay enjoyed its prosperity with
little interruption. The troops, which were trained and equipped at the
various reductions, amounted in time to an army of 15,000 finely armed
men, with the fighting instincts of the savage and the best weapons
that Europe could supply, so that neither the unconverted tribes nor
the Spaniards could assail them. Heroic efforts were made, though with
very moderate success, to extend the area of the missions. The Society
never lacked men of the most intrepid and self-sacrificing character,
and numbers of them left their bones to bleach in the infested forests
or on the scorching plains. One must be lamentably prejudiced to refuse
to see the heroism of these brave apostles; but it would be an equal
evidence of prejudice to fail to recognise that, whether they realised
it or no, they were the apostles or pioneers of the vast and profitable
industrial system in which the Jesuits were improperly engaged. Time
after time royal or ecclesiastical inquisitors were sent--no voluntary
and serious inquisitor was ever admitted--to examine the reductions
and draw up a flattering report for the Spanish or the Roman court. I
have said that the reductions were admirable in comparison with the
miserable condition of the other natives who fell into the hands of
the Spaniards and Portuguese; but that the Jesuits were engaged in
commerce, that they exploited their natives for the benefit of the
Society, and that they were prepared to adopt the most unprincipled
measures to protect their monopoly, is an historical platitude.
In 1750, Ferdinand VI., as a reward for the military services which
their troops (always led by Jesuits) rendered so frequently to
his officers, exempted them from the little taxation--a fee to the
crown--to which they were subject, and an era of greater prosperity
than ever seemed to open. In that very year, however, as we saw, Spain
and Portugal came to an agreement which was fateful for the Society.
Portugal ceded Sacramento, a place of great strategical importance, to
Spain in exchange for a part of Paraguay which contained seven of the
reductions. The court-Jesuits tried in vain to defeat this arrangement,
and troops were sent to take over the territory ceded to Portugal.
They were confronted by a force of 15,000 troops, gathered from the
whole of the Jesuit reductions, and a bloody battle ensued. It was, in
fact, only after a prolonged struggle, and by bringing superior troops,
that the joint Spanish and Portuguese army conquered the insurrection.
From sheer cupidity the Jesuits had dealt a fatal blow at their own
prosperity.
Their apologist would have us believe that the fathers used all the
influence they possessed to restrain the natives and secure their
submission. On the face of it, such an assertion is a piece of mere
effrontery. The natives, especially the native troops, never moved
without Jesuit directions, and these troops were evidently drafted
by the controllers of the province from all the various reductions.
The correspondence of the Spanish and Portuguese commanders fully
inculpates the Jesuits; and, as we saw, the Portuguese authorities
intercepted letters in which Father Rabago directed the local Jesuits
to organise a resistance. Even the pious Spanish King was convinced
that they were responsible for the insurrection. They could combat King
or Pope when the fortune or power of the Society was threatened. And
for their reluctance to sacrifice seven out of their fifty reductions
their fate was sealed. Within ten years the order came from Spain
to remove all the Jesuits from their homes and ship them to Europe.
The government acted on this occasion with craft and secrecy, and
left no room for insurrection; the dejected missionaries arrived at
the mother-country only to learn that the Society was ignominiously
proscribed throughout the King's dominions, and that half of Catholic
Europe was clamouring for their annihilation.[30]
The Portuguese fathers in Brazil were less enterprising than their
Spanish colleagues. In the course of the sixteenth century they
spread along the banks of the Amazon and converted a large number of
the natives. When the Dutch took the town of Maragnon in 1641, and
threatened their work, the Jesuits were very active in inspiring the
successful rising against them, and they were rewarded by the King
with privileges for their protégées. In 1653, Father Vieira, whom
we have met in the chapter on Portugal, came out to Brazil, and the
work proceeded more rapidly. The apologetic writers ask us to admire
the noble conduct of this gifted father in abandoning the comfort of
the court for the steaming forests and rough natives of Brazil; but
we have seen that Father Vieira's countrymen had more to do with his
departure than any lofty sentiment he may have possessed. He applied
his impetuous temper and great ability to the work of the mission,
and it rapidly advanced in organisation and profitableness, until the
American-Portuguese in turn sent Vieira upon another stage of his
stormy career. The reductions or colonies of Brazil were not organised
and controlled as firmly as those of Paraguay. The luxuriance of the
soil dispensed the natives from assiduous labour, but the colonies
were not without profit, and, when the Jesuits obtained from the King
a declaration that all the natives in his American dominion must pass
under their control, the planters and merchants entered into bitter
hostility. Twice they expelled the Jesuits, and twice the priest-ridden
court secured their return. At last Pombal came to power in Portugal,
and, as we saw, the Jesuits were withdrawn and cast upon the shores of
the Papal States.
Instead of minutely examining the slender colonies which had meantime
been founded in Chile, Peru, and other parts of South America, we
will pass at once to the north and conclude with a short account of
the missions in Mexico, California, and Canada. Here the famous case
of Bishop Palafox at once claims our attention, and I feel justified
in relying implicitly on the two letters in which this saintly and
learned prelate stated his grievances to Pope Innocent X. When these
letters were published, ten years after they were written, the Jesuits
exclaimed that they were forged, and Crétineau-Joly very dishonestly
insinuates that there is ground to suspect this. Not only are these
letters expressly mentioned in a decree of the Congregation of Rites
(16th December 1660), and not only did Pope Innocent issue three briefs
against the Jesuits in virtue of them, but Arnauld showed, at the time
of the original controversy, that Palafox himself, foreseeing the
manoeuvres of the Jesuits, had left with the general of the Carmelite
monks a written attestation of his authorship of the second (and
more deadly) letter. We have, further, a reference to this letter,
prohibiting its circulation for peace' sake, in a decree of the
Spanish Inquisition of 5th February 1661. To doubt the genuineness of
the letters is frivolous, and the character of the writer is above
dispute. His virtues won for him the official title of "Venerable" from
the Vatican, and might have won a higher title but for the intrigues of
the Jesuits.
Palafox was Bishop of Angelopolis, and in that capacity he attempted
to make the Jesuits pay his see the just tithes on the property they
inherited. They replied with abuse, and he then inquired by what
authority they preached and heard confessions in his diocese. They
arrogantly boasted of their special privileges, and refused to show the
documents, as they had a further privilege excusing them from doing
so; a claim which the Pope afterwards declared to be false. Palafox
informed the faithful that they had no powers for the ministry. At this
the Jesuits produced another of their remarkable privileges--the power
to appoint judges of the difference--and paid 4000 crowns each to two
Dominican monks of Mexico city to come and arbitrate. The viceroy also
was bribed, and the two monks were led into Angelopolis with a great
parade of trumpeters and guards. A notice was soon posted at the street
corners to the effect that the Bishop of Angelopolis was deposed and
excommunicated for his improper conduct, and, in June 1647, Palafox
fled to the hills from the growing violence. On 31st July, the feast of
St. Ignatius, a carnival-procession, starting from the Jesuit house,
bore round the town the most ribald, and even obscene, caricatures of
the bishop's office. Numbers of his supporters were banished, and bands
of soldiers and Jesuit spies wandered about the hills in search of the
wretched hut where Palafox was hidden.
All these details are submitted to the Pope in the bishop's letters,
and, in order to make them intelligible, a remarkable account is
given of the worldly prosperity of the fathers. They hold, it seems,
the greater part of the wealth of Mexico. Two of their colleges own
300,000 sheep,[31] besides cattle and other property. They own six
large sugar-refineries, worth from half a million to a million crowns
each, and making an annual profit of 100,000 crowns each, while all
the other monks and clergy of Mexico together own only three small
refineries. They have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops
and butcheries, and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue
for legacies--a woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns--and they
refuse to pay the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to add to this
authoritative description that the Jesuit congregations at Rome were
still periodically forbidding the fathers to indulge in commerce, and
Jesuit writers still gravely maintain that the Society never engaged
in commerce. It should also be added that the missionaries were still
heavily subsidised by the King of Spain, that there were (the bishop
says) only five or six Jesuits to each of their establishments, and
that they conducted only ten colleges.
From his refuge Palafox had sent messengers both to Rome and Madrid,
and replies severely condemning the Jesuits were at once sent both
by the Pope and the King. Pope Innocent appointed a commission
of cardinals and bishops to examine the appeal of Palafox and
counter-appeal of the Roman Jesuits. They declared in favour of
the bishop on almost every point, and the Pope issued his first
brief in that sense (14th May 1648). On 25th June the King severely
condemned them for appointing a judge and defying the bishop. The
Jesuits affected to regard the papal brief as not binding because
it had not been endorsed by the Royal Council; a strange departure
from ultramontane principles. In a word, the King had to repeat his
warning, and the Pope had twice to repeat his orders, before they
abandoned their intrigues in Mexico, Madrid, and Rome. Palafox was,
however, invited to Spain--the King's letters treat him always with the
greatest respect--and it was concluded that, in the interest of peace,
he should remain in the motherland. Even in the grave the Jesuits
persecuted the saintly bishop, bitterly opposing his canonisation, but
his letters remain a terrible indictment of their behaviour on the
missions.
There were other Jesuit estates and villages in California (or the
eastern part of North America), from which a profitable trade was
conducted with Manila by means of a fine frigate belonging to the
Society. In the Antilles they boasted an official monopoly of the
"spiritual administration" of the French islands. It is true that
this gave them a new opportunity for commerce, and that they did
much political service for the French government in return for
the privilege; but it is proper to add that many of the fathers
distinguished themselves by self-sacrificing labour among the negro
slaves. Their mission in Maryland was destroyed by the growth of
Protestantism, and it remains only to say a word about their fortunes
in Canada.
The nomadic habits of the Indians and the ever-recurring warfare
prevented them from achieving a great success in Canada. In the
softer districts by the St. Lawrence and the lakes they succeeded in
establishing a few of their agricultural colonies, but their work
was arduous, dangerous, and not generally profitable, and even the
prestige of the French government, for which they acted as political
agents, did not enable them to convert a very large proportion of the
Indians. Moreover, much as we may admire the devotion and endurance
many of them displayed in seeking to win the fierce and roving
tribes, commercial eagerness taints their work indelibly. When they
first received permission to enter Canada from Henry IV., they were
long detained in France because they refused to come to an agreement
about trade with the lay colonists, and their first missionaries were
captured by the English in an endeavour to cross the seas without
this understanding. Eighty years later, when peace was made with the
formidable Iroquois, who had so often blighted their work, the Indian
spokesman insisted that they would not admit the Jesuits, as the
fathers sought only their beavers and their women. On the other hand,
no one questions the great political service they rendered to their
government in disposing the Indians to receive French authority and
embittering them against the English. Their story, until England took
Canada in 1759, and France itself disowned them a few years later, was
one of individual devotion overshadowed by a corporate occupation with
commerce and politics.
We have now surveyed the vast field of Jesuit missionary activity in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and can appreciate the effect
when, in a few years time, the voice of the Pope will summon them to
lay aside for ever their black robes and their proud name. It would be
hypocritical to say that we cannot sum up in few words the impressions
gathered from this survey. Let us recognise in the first place that
thousands of the fathers displayed heroic zeal in discharging the work
which the Society laid on them. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, and
Italians, often of noble birth and brilliant parts, faced the perils
of a mediæval voyage, wandered afoot over leagues of desolate mountain
or deadly forest, and laid down their lives courageously under the
plague or the sword. Yet there is another aspect which we perceive
just as clearly: another quality which we find in the silken courts of
China or Siam or Persia, the blaze of Indian or Brazilian villages,
on the plains of Paraguay or Mexico, and amid the snows of Canada. It
is everywhere, it is identical, and it is palpable. These men have
fallen from their ideals. In virtue of a vast and hypocritical system
of commerce they amass wealth and power, defend it with mean intrigue
and violent assault, blunt their moral sense in pursuit of more, relax
into sensuality and are lifted to arrogance. It is time that they have
a severe lesson.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 29: This _taly_ is 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 a _taly_ with the cross on one side and the
emblem of Pillear on the other.]
[Footnote 30: It is difficult to estimate the value of the Paraguay
reductions. Robertson, in his _Letters 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.]
[Footnote 31: In the English translation of Hoensbroech's _Fourteen
Years a Jesuit_ the figure is wrongly given as 30,000.]
CHAPTER XII
IN THE GERMANIC LANDS
When we 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 the
start 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 convert Sweden. 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 manoeuvres 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 on the 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 flourished _because_ the 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
were due 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 his _Beiträge_
(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
manoeuvres--while he edifies Europe with decrees against indulgence
in politics or commerce--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
into Saxony, 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.
Augustus III., 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 condemned to 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 in cash. 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 the
circumstances. 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 that _their_ intolerance 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 Innocent XI.
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 more congenial
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 Clement XI. 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 the country 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 Innocent XII.
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
drastic charges.[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 Ferdinand II., 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 whom nothing 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 Ferdinand II. in 1637 made no difference in the position
of the Jesuits. Ferdinand III. 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. Leopold I., who
succeeded in 1657, was an even 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 Joseph II. 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 the control of the Jesuits. Indeed, the
learned Oratorian priest Father Theiner, the Prefect of the Vatican
Archives, shows in his _Histoire du Pontificat de Clément XIV._ 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 degeneration and 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, the hostility 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 to _steal_ the "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. In November 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. Ferdinand
II. trusted especially to their educational influence, but Ferdinand
III. and Leopold supported the Jesuits in active persecution of the
heretics. Dr. Krones[36] has minutely studied from the manuscript
_Annual Letters_ of 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 manoeuvres 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. A more 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 they inherit 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 these princes 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:
[Footnote 32: Jacobi's _Das Thorner Blutgericht_, and other documents.]
[Footnote 33: The _Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher
zunge_, which the German Jesuits are publishing, has not advanced
beyond the first period.]
[Footnote 34: Published by the Benedictine monk Dudik in the _Archiv
für Oesterreichische Geschichte_, vol. liv. p. 234.]
[Footnote 35: See, especially, the sordid details in Dr. von Lang's
_Jacobi Morelli, S.J., amores_, 1815.]
[Footnote 36: _Archiv für oesterreichische Geschichte_, Bd. 79, pp.
277-354; and Bd. 80, pp. 356-458.]
[Footnote 37: _Mémoires des R.R.P.P. Jésuites du Collège de Colmar._]
CHAPTER XIII
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY
The blows 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 Louis
XV. an immoral and unscrupulous ruler, and had not liberalism pervaded
every stratum of higher French society? Was not Joseph I. 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 irremediable grievances
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 Clement XIV.; 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 Clement XIV. 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's _Letters_ had 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 added that 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 Innocent
XI., 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 the fierce 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. The dwindling 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, Clement XI. sternly condemned their practices, and the
Roman Jesuits could do no more than represent, inaccurately, that
their missionaries had submitted. The next Pope, Innocent XIII., 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.
Benedict XIV. 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, Benedict XIV. died in that year, and a
friendly Pope, Clement XIII., an Italian noble of conciliatory temper,
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 Clement
XIII. 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 began to 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, Louis XV. 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.
Charles III. 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. Charles III.
had passed from Naples to the throne of Spain, and he had left that
kingdom in the charge of a liberal minister, Tanucci, under the rule
of his son Ferdinand IV. 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, Clement
XIII. 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]
Clement XIII. 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 into _zelanti_
and _antizelanti_: 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 the _zelanti_ were forced sullenly to
quit their cells in the Vatican. Cardinal Rezzonico, a nephew of the
late Pope, was one of the leaders of the _zelanti_. 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, who sought 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 Joseph II., 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 Joseph II. stated. In September of the
same year the Nuncio at Vienna gave the same report. Joseph II. 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
Benedict XIV. 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 Clement XIV.
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 Bernis strongly 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
an elderly man--in his sixty-fifth year--of high character and great
ability. The Jesuit Cordara tells us that Ricci had urged Clement XIII.
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.
Clement XIV. 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 customary for 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 bull _In Coena Domini_ which 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 if the
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 Louis XV. 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 Louis
XV. that he intended to suppress the Society. A little later Charles
III. 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 the history 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 Joseph II., 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.
Then, in the month of December, Choiseul fell from power in France,
and the news fired a train of rejoicing throughout the Provinces of
the Society. D'Aiguillon, believed to be a friend of the Society, had
(with the aid of Mme. du Barry) displaced their great opponent, and the
policy of France would, no doubt, now be reversed. The Jesuits, and the
noble ladies who worked for them at Paris, affected at least to believe
that they would be recalled to France, and that the Pope would no
longer be exposed to the unanimous pressure of the Catholic Powers. But
in his first dispatch to Cardinal Bernis, D'Aiguillon maintained the
policy of his predecessor in regard to the Society. Spain also replaced
its ambassador with a more vigorous representative, Count Florida
Blanca, and the Pope was assailed more vehemently than ever. A piquant
picture is offered to us of the robust Spanish count bullying the aged
Pontiff, who plaintively bares his skin to show Florida Blanca the
eruption which proves that he is ill and cannot be pressed. Bernis's
letters are more reliable; the French ambassador candidly admires the
noble resistance of the Pope to the intriguers on both sides, and his
determination to have his inquiry justly and patiently completed before
he condemns the Society.
In the course of 1771 and 1772 the Jesuits were convicted of further
indiscretions which strengthened the case against them. In June 1771
the secretary of the Portuguese embassy was convicted of collusion
with the Jesuits, and banished from Rome; he had communicated to the
Jesuits the dispatches which were received from his government, even
letters to the Vatican, concerning the Society. In 1772 the cause
of the canonisation of Bishop Palafox was before the Congregation,
and, in spite of their extreme peril, the Jesuits made a violent
and unscrupulous opposition. The scurrilous pamphlets in which the
character of the saintly bishop was maligned, and the person of the
Spanish monarch represented as abandoned to the devils, were, of
course, anonymous; but the Jesuits alone had an interest, or thought
they had an interest, in preventing the canonisation of Palafox.
Charles III. redoubled his pressure on the Vatican, and in September
the Roman seminary was taken from them on the just ground of improper
administration. In the same month, Catherine the Great invaded Poland,
and Rome and the other Catholic countries learned with indignation that
the Jesuits had taken the lead in greeting and demanding submission
to the schismatical usurper. They were, as we shall see, currying
favour with Catherine and preparing a retreat from Catholic Europe.
Rome had hardly ceased to discuss this remarkable news when an even
more remarkable incident was reported from Paris. Frederick the Great
cynically informed D'Alembert (in December) that General Ricci had sent
a secret representative to ask him to declare himself "Protector of the
Society of Jesus." A little later, again, Maria Theresa discovered that
her Jesuit confessor Campmüller had, as such confessors were secretly
bound to do, betrayed her confidence to the authorities of the Society
at Rome.
It is hardly probable that these incidents affected the main policy
of Clement XIV., whose summary of the historical irregularities of
the Society was being slowly compiled, but they enabled him to make a
beginning of open action against the Jesuits. Their administration of
other seminaries and colleges was questioned, and several (including
the Irish College at Rome) were taken from them. In February (1773) it
was announced that the bishops were to receive the powers of "apostolic
visitators," to inspect all the Jesuit residences in their dioceses,
and suppress them where they deemed it necessary. It is suggested that
Clement thought he had discovered a way of demolishing the Society
without issuing a formal decree of abolition, but it is more likely
that he was merely preparing the Catholic mind for a drastic measure.
He appointed only one of these "visitators," Cardinal Malvezzi,
Archbishop of Bologna, and the brief of suppression must have been
drafted before Malvezzi had concluded his work. In point of fact,
Malvezzi had reported to the Vatican that the Jesuits of Bologna were
already disposing of their property, and it was at once necessary
to prevent them from carrying out so irregular a scheme as this.
Malvezzi himself, in his letters to Clement, speaks of the measure as
a preliminary to carrying out the "long-prepared sentence" against the
Society. The Jesuits met the cardinal, who was notoriously hostile
to them, with great insolence, and only added to the feeling against
themselves.
As the spring of 1773 advanced the conflicting elements at Rome were
thrown into a state of intense excitement. The Pope was proceeding
with the greatest secrecy, but the secrecy itself plainly shrouded
a sentence of death. On 28th May the Pope went into retreat for a
fortnight, and thus escaped the importunities of both parties. In the
few weeks following the retreat he still gave no indication of his
intention, and on 27th June he again went into retreat,[40] and refused
to admit visitors.
The air of Rome was now tense with expectation, but the secrecy was
maintained with singular success. We now know that the famous brief
(_Dominus ac Redemptor Noster_) for the abolition of the Society was
signed by Clement on 21st July, and that the papal press printed
sufficient copies of it for transmission to each country without a
single breach of confidence. The representatives of the Powers were
privately informed in August that the work was done, but the Jesuits
could not obtain the least information. Clement XIV. accomplished
his task with consummate ability. The Jesuit legends which depict
him signing the fatal decree at a window of the palace by night,
swooning, lying unconscious during the night, and awakening only
to enter into a delirious fit of terror and remorse, are not worth
consideration. They are fables retailed years afterwards by Jesuit
writers (especially Bolgeni), and have not even the artistic merit of
consistency. Crétineau-Joly seems to give them weighty confirmation
by asserting that he had heard _his_ version from the lips of Gregory
XVI. But he singularly fails to tell us what was the precise story
he heard from the later Pope, and Father Theiner bluntly questions
if he knew sufficient Italian to understand Gregory (who never spoke
French on such occasions). In any case, this reproduction, at a remote
date, of pro-Jesuit gossip of which we find no trace at the time, is
historically worthless. According to all the contemporary witnesses
Clement was in excellent spirits after the suppression, and carried
out the difficult work with entire prudence, tranquillity, and good
feeling.
But the best defence of Clement and the decisive answer to his
detractors is the brief itself which he signed on 21st July, and at
the composition of which he had worked assiduously during his two
"retreats." It is an exceedingly able and convincing document. Jesuit
writers constantly say that Clement XIV. abolished the Society only on
the ground that the peace of Christendom demanded that step, and that
he passed no judgment on the Society itself. Even the recent American
_Catholic Encyclopædia_, which affects candour and accuracy, states,
in the article on Clement XIV. that "no blame is laid by the Pope on
the rules of the Order, or the present condition of its members, or
the orthodoxy of their teaching." This is a disingenuous and most
misleading description of the brief. Clement gives a masterly summary
of the irregularities which had been charged against the Society during
the two hundred years of its activity. While, however, he is frequently
content to speak of these past matters as "charges," he is careful to
add that, time after time, they were endorsed by his predecessors, who
were condemned to take drastic action against the Society; and, when
he comes to deal with the existing Society, which properly concerns
him, he plainly observes that it "can no longer produce the abundant
fruits and the considerable advantages for which it was created," and
he therefore abolishes it for ever.
It is impossible to insert here the whole text of the lengthy brief,
but an analysis and some extracts will suffice to show this. The brief
opens, after a few introductory remarks of a general nature, with a
long list of religious congregations which had been dissolved by the
papacy. These bodies had been suppressed for their deterioration or
irregularities, and the list is therefore a fitting introduction to the
main work of the brief. The Pope then tells that he has made a thorough
study of the foundation of the Society and the early papal documents
issued in regard to it. He adds: "The very tenor and terms of these
apostolic constitutions [the letters of his predecessors] teach us that
the Society, almost from the beginning, produced within it the germs of
discord and jealousy, and that these not only rent the Society itself,
but impelled its members to rise against the other religious orders,
the secular clergy, the academies, the universities, the colleges, the
public schools, and even against the monarchs who had received them
into their States." Here we have, in categorical form, an endorsement
of all the charges that were made against the Jesuits in the first
century of their existence.
On account of these disorders, he says, "a thousand complaints against
these religious were made," and the papacy was entreated to reform
them. He recalls the efforts of earlier Popes to reform the Society,
and adds that, as we have seen, they were defeated. "The most lively
controversy arises everywhere about the doctrine of this Order, which
many charged with being wholly opposed to sound faith and good morals.
The bosom of the Society is torn by internal and external dissensions;
amongst other things it is reproached with seeking worldly goods too
eagerly." Here again the categorical note of censure is found, and,
after telling the next efforts of Popes to reform the Society, he says:
"We have observed with the bitterest grief that these remedies, and
others applied afterwards, had neither efficacy nor strength enough
to put an end to the troubles, the charges, and the complaints formed
against the Society, and that our predecessors, Urban VII., Clement
IX. X. XI. and XII., Alexander VII. and VIII., Innocent X. XI. XII.
and XIII., and Benedict XIV. vainly endeavoured to restore to the
Church the desired tranquillity by means of various enactments,
either relating to secular affairs with which the Society ought not
to concern itself, on missions or elsewhere: or relating to grave
dissensions and quarrels harshly provoked by its members, not without
a risk of the loss of souls, and to the great scandal of the nations,
against the bishops, the religious orders, places consecrated to
piety, and all kinds of communities in Europe, Asia, and America:
or relating to the interpretation and practice of certain pagan
ceremonies tolerated and admitted in various places, apart from those
which are approved by the universal Church: or relating to the use
and interpretation of those maxims which the Holy See has justly
proscribed as scandalous and evidently injurious to good morals: or
relating to other matters of great importance and absolutely necessary
to preserve the purity and integrity of the dogmas of the Christian
religion."
It is absurd to regard this formidable indictment of a religious body
as a mere list of charges into the justice of which the Pope will not
inquire. It is a list of the charges proved to the satisfaction of
his predecessors, and embodied in the decrees of the Popes whom he
names; and the sternest critic of the Society could hardly frame a
weightier indictment in a few lines. The Pope adds that the measures
of his predecessors for the reform of the Society were fruitless, and
under Clement XIII. "the storms became worse than ever." The Catholic
monarchs, he says, have been compelled by "seditions" and "scandals"
to expel the Jesuits from their dominions and demand the abolition
of the Society. To this demand he has given conscientious attention,
and, "recognising that the Society of Jesus can no longer produce the
abundant fruits and the considerable advantages for which it was
created," he "suppresses and abolishes the Society for ever." The
brief closes with directions for the disposal of Jesuit property, and
a singularly lengthy and subtle development of his sentence to prevent
the casuistic genius of the Jesuits from evading it.
The brief is, therefore, much more than a declaration that the Jesuits
must be sacrificed in the interest of peace, and the hatred with which
they have pursued the memory of its author has solid ground. It is a
plain and learned demonstration that the step taken by Clement XIV. is
the just culmination of the history of the Society; it says nothing
of leaving open the question of the truth of the charges against the
Jesuits, and the deliberate addition of the solemn words "for ever"
to the sentence of dissolution shows clearly that it contemplates no
temporary situation. The only serious objection urged by the Jesuits
and their friends is that they were not summoned to answer the charges
against them. Clement might have replied that the charges had been
examined, and their defence heard, a dozen times in the history of
the papacy; but his chief reason for rejecting this futile idea of a
trial was probably that he knew well how the Jesuits intrigued on such
occasions. Like Sixtus V. he would certainly have passed away, leaving
the Church in the throes of the struggle, before a verdict was given.
This brief was, as I said, concealed from all but the five cardinals
who were to carry out the sentence until 17th August. On that day the
Catholic Powers were officially informed of the signing of the brief.
At nine o'clock that evening a band of officials and guards entered
the metropolitan house attached to the Gesù, and ordered Ricci to
summon all his subjects to the refectory. They knew--some of them had
witnessed the same scene in Spain and Portugal--that their hour had
come, but they must have been deeply pained at the wording of the
brief, which was read to them. Their proud Society added to that list
of degenerate congregations which the Vatican had been compelled to
abolish! They were forbidden to leave the house until secular costumes
were provided for them, and the notaries put the papal seal on their
documents. The same evening, or on the next day, the brief was read
in the other Italian houses, and, as the couriers sped to the north,
the disastrous tidings slowly spread gloom and despair throughout the
Jesuit world as far as Holland and Poland.
The grief of the Jesuits was not less intense than the rejoicing of
their opponents. A laughing crowd stormed the chancellory for copies
of the brief, but few copies had been printed, and its drastic clauses
only gradually became known. Then came the long and stirring period
when the news of the response of the Jesuits came in from every
quarter. The Roman Jesuits quietly left their homes, day by day, as
secular clothes were provided for them. The Pope provided, not only for
them, but for the Portuguese ex-Jesuits, as Portugal refused to fulfil
its promise, and had every effort made to find situations for them in
the service of the Vatican, the secular clergy, or the educational
world. Many merely changed their garments, and continued to be the
confessors of noble ladies or the tutors of their sons. Large numbers
of them lived in community, on their joint pensions, awaiting the
death of Clement XIV. and the restoration of the Society. The chief
trouble in Italy was that offensive anonymous pamphlets were printed
in vast quantities and circulated, and were in some instances traced
to the Jesuits; and that Ricci and his assistants, who remained in
the central house, were detected in a treacherous correspondence with
the insurgents in distant regions, and imprisoned in the fortress of
S. Angelo, where the unhappy Ricci died two years afterwards. Rome
was not indisposed to laugh at anti-Jesuits as well as Jesuits. No
doubt the gossips of the city told each other the fables which Jesuits
reproduced in later years, and their apologist gives as "history"--for
instance, that the diamonds which had adorned the statue of the Madonna
in the Gesù were publicly worn afterwards by the mistress of one of the
prelates charged with the execution of the sentence--but the pro-Jesuit
faction at Rome was completely silenced.
In the Italian provinces, where the Jesuits commanded the allegiance
of peasants and nobles who were unacquainted with their history, the
anonymous pamphlets circulated briskly, and some more overt attempts
were made to weaken the condemnation. For some time before the
suppression a holy nun of Viterbo had earned repute as an inspired
oracle, and her fame was great among the followers of the Jesuits.
After the suppression her inspiration became richer and more precise,
and the Vatican presently learned that thousands were cherishing her
predictions that the Pope was to die at once, the kings to perish
miserably, Frederick the Great to be converted, and the Society of
Jesus to be quickly restored. A second lady entered the field, with
predictions of a like nature. The Pope ordered that both should be
arrested and an inquiry held by the Bishop of Orvieto. In the rooms of
the ex-Jesuits he found an enormous mass of literature relating to the
prophetesses, and locks of their hair ("and other things which decency
forbids me to mention," says Father Theiner) for sale or distribution
as riches. A judicial inquiry was held, and two of the Jesuits were
condemned to imprisonment in S. Angelo as the chief agents in the fraud.
In Naples, Spain, and Portugal the news was received with great
rejoicing. In France, according to Crétineau-Joly, it was received
with indignation, and the Archbishop of Paris, speaking in the name of
"the Gallican Church," boldly rejected the Pope's brief, and addressed
a very remarkable letter to His Holiness. There were still bishops in
the French Church who owed their sees to the Jesuits, and Archbishop de
Beaumont had earned their gratitude by defending their casuists. But M.
Crétineau-Joly is here guilty of one of the gravest of the many grave
ruses in this part of his work. The supposed letter, in connection with
which he does not give a word of warning, is a flagrant Jesuit forgery.
It is dated 24th April 1774, yet it is well known that a few weeks
before that date the archbishop had suspended an ex-Jesuit preacher, M.
de la Vrillière, for presuming on his noble connections and fashionable
repute to make a few remarks, in a sermon, on the Pope's action. The
fact is that this forged letter, and one forged in the name of the
Archbishop of Arles, first saw the light in a Jesuit pamphlet eighteen
years afterwards. The French received the news with indifference or joy.
Austria also at once secularised its Jesuits. In spite of earlier
assurances the Pope had some misgiving about the attitude of Maria
Theresa, and with a copy of the brief he sent her a letter from his
own hand. She replied, as she had said for four years, that what the
Pope thought it proper to do was agreeable to her. Apart from Prussia
and Russia, which we will consider in the next chapter, it was chiefly
in small countries like the Swiss cantons, or on the foreign missions,
that the Jesuits tried to resist. At Lucerne the Jesuits induced the
senate to take the bold step of suspending the execution of the brief
and writing to the Vatican for explanations. They were disdainfully
ignored until they decided to carry out the sentence against the
Society. At Freiburg--this is told as a touching and creditable
incident by the Jesuits themselves--the superior gathered a vast
congregation in their chapel ("to say farewell"), made a most eloquent
discourse on the virtues and services of the Society, and implored
their followers to respect the Pope's orders. Naturally, the effect
was the reverse of pacifying the people, and it took some time to get
rid of the Jesuits in Freiburg. At Soleure and other towns there was
similar trouble. At Cologne the ex-Jesuit Fuller edited the _Gazette_,
and its columns erupted fiery attacks on the Pope, and reproduced all
the unfavourable gossip of Rome about him and his commissioners. They
were to appeal to a General Council against this infamous pontiff. It
was only in June of the following year, after the Nuncio had threatened
to lay an interdict on the town and the authority of the emperor
was invoked, that the Jesuits and their friends were silenced; and
then they merely changed their coats and continued, in their various
positions, to await better days. In Poland the bishops at once began
to execute the brief, but the Jesuits inspired the idea that it was
invalid on a technical ground, and the senate talked of sending an
ambassador to Rome. The struggle ended in the Polish Jesuits taking
shelter, as we shall see, under the authority of Catherine.
We do not, in a word, find that admirable and meek submission which
is claimed by pro-Jesuit writers, who seem to think that the cases of
vituperative pamphlets which were smuggled from country to country,
and the bold stand made by local authorities here and there, were
quite painful to the condemned fathers. We find, on the contrary, that
from General Ricci downward the Jesuits intrigue or rebel wherever
they have large local support and are not subject to a powerful
Catholic monarch. On the distant missions the sequel was worse than
in Europe. The removal of the Spanish and Portuguese fathers had
demolished most of the missionary provinces, and the condemnation of
their rites had greatly reduced the missions of the French and German
Jesuits. But a few of them still lingered at the court of the Chinese
Emperor or worked secretly in the provinces, and there were more in
Tong-King and India. They resisted the papal brief for three years,
at least in China. From every mission they held they were reported to
the propaganda for insurrection, and the letters which are sometimes
quoted to show how meekly they accepted the sentence were written by
exceptional individuals. A small minority of them were for submission.
Most of them made a hypocritical plea that the emperor (who no longer
recognised their existence as priests, it will be remembered) would not
suffer them to obey.
When, in 1776, they were forced to yield, they fell into three parties
and entered upon a long and scandalous quarrel about the division of
their property. As late as 1785 one of the ex-Jesuits dragged the
former superior of the Peking mission into the Chinese civil court and
exposed the quarrel. Bourgeois had the disposal of their property,
goods, shops, etc., which were valued at half a million francs, and he
rewarded the members of his own party with a thousand _taels_ each,
and left his opponents in great privation. In 1786 the propaganda
forced them to hand over their missions, which they still controlled,
in secular dress, to others, but they continued for several years to
quarrel with each other and with the other missionaries. The last
chapter of their Asiatic missions is little less than sordid, and it
is sheer deceit to conceal these facts and offer us only one or two
edifying letters written by the better fathers.
At the time of its abolition the Society numbered 22,589 members
(of whom 11,293 were priests), and owned 669 colleges and 869 other
residences (of which only 24 were "houses of the professed"). It is
needless to add any reflections on the suppression. The papal brief
is the supreme judgment on the Jesuits in the first phase of their
existence. However many devoted and austere members there were among
the twenty thousand, the Society was incurably corrupt. There was
no serious ground to think, after earlier experience, that reform
would succeed; they would not reform themselves--the decrees of their
Congregations were waste paper--and they resisted every papal effort to
reform them. The Society, as a body, was committed to the pursuit of
wealth and power, and in this pursuit it acted invariably as if the end
justified the means. The germs planted in it by Ignatius had ripened.
His followers had sought the wealthy and the powerful, had veiled their
actions in secrecy, and had trampled on their own rules and the rules
of the Church when the end required it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 38: See a full account in Döllinger and Reusch's _Geschichte
der Moralstreitigkeiten in der Römisch-Katholischen Kirche_ (1889), i.
120-273.]
[Footnote 39: Two works will give the reader ample material for forming
an idea on the subject. From the Jesuit side there is Crétineau-Joly's
work, _Clément XIV. et les Jésuites_ (1847), though the work is little
more than a reproduction of the fifth volume of the same writer's
_Histoire ... de la Compagnie de Jésus_, and is quite unprincipled
in many of its statements. The other work (_Histoire du pontificat
de Clément XIV._, 1852) is a reply to the preceding, written by the
learned and conscientious Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives,
Father Theiner. Both contain copious extracts from contemporary
documents, especially the correspondence of the ambassadors. The work
of St. Priest, _Histoire de la chute des Jesuites_, is interesting and
lively, but gossipy and unreliable.]
[Footnote 40: The retreat is a period, generally a fortnight, in
which priests and nuns devote themselves entirely to prayer and
contemplation. It is usual to do so annually; to go into retreat
twice in six weeks would be regarded as extraordinary and, in the
circumstances, very significant.]
CHAPTER XIV
THE RESTORATION
In the brief of suppression Clement XIV. had enumerated a series of
religious congregations which the papacy had abolished on account
of their decay. Most of these had faded from the memory even of
ecclesiastics. Their members had bowed to the papal command, and either
directed their steps to some other religious body or quietly enjoyed
the pensions allotted them out of their property. But there can have
been little expectation that the members of the Society of Jesus, who
were especially pledged to obey the Pope, would submit to the sentence
passed on them. They would, in some form, await the toll of the bells
over the remains of Clement XIV., and, if necessary, over the remains
of the Catholic monarchs. The form which their resistance actually
took, however, was more audacious than their keenest critic could
have anticipated. They persuaded two non-Catholic rulers to prevent
the publication of the brief in their dominions, persuaded themselves
that by this device they escaped the heavy spiritual penalties laid
on rebels by the brief, and flouted every command of the Pope and his
representatives to change at least their name and costume.
So much has been written on the conduct of Frederick the Great
and Catherine in patronising the Jesuits that we do not share the
astonishment of contemporaries. In his correspondence with the
free-thinker D'Alembert at Paris, Frederick lightly advances one
reason after another for his action. He scouted D'Alembert's warnings.
The Pope had "pared the claws" of the dangerous animals; he had "cut
off the tails of the foxes," and they could not again carry torches
into the cornfields of the Philistines. On the other hand, they were
excellent teachers, and it was immaterial to Frederick what orders the
Pope gave about their costume and domestic arrangements. Pressed more
seriously, he pleaded that when he annexed Silesia he had solemnly
pledged himself to respect the religious _status quo_, and he was
bound in honour to leave the Jesuits there, since they were part of
the situation he had sworn to respect. Even this ostensibly serious
argument was too ridiculous to satisfy his friends. A Protestant ruler
swearing to respect the Catholic arrangements naturally supposes that
he is to do so only as long as the head of the Church desires. The
truth is that, in the first place, the Jesuits provided his State
with a comparatively good scheme of education without cost to his
treasury; and, since they could have taught just as effectively whether
or no they continued to call themselves Jesuits, it is further clear
that Frederick deliberately protected and encouraged their rebellion
in order to secure a larger service from them than merely teaching
arithmetic. They were, as they had so often done for Catholic monarchs
in outlying dominions, to teach loyalty to Prussia and disarm rebels.
Add the fact that the Inquisition had put his writings on the Index,
and the Vatican had obstinately refused to recognise his royal title,
so that he was not indisposed to annoy Rome, and we have a sufficient
explanation of his conduct.
Until the year 1740 Prussia had remained almost entirely Protestant,
so that it now almost makes its first appearance in the chronicle
of the Jesuits. A small Catholic community existed here and there,
but there was little proselytism, and there was not even a Catholic
bishop. In 1742 Frederick won Silesia from Austria, and thus included
in his dominions a large and disaffected Catholic population. As
D'Alembert reminded Frederick, the Jesuits had done all in their
power to hinder his occupation of Silesia, and they long continued to
foster the Catholic wish to return to Austria. They were, he said in
his _Testament Politique_ (1751), "the most dangerous of all monks,"
and "fanatically attached to Austria." But they were a mighty power
in Silesia. The Breslau University and nearly all the schools were
under their control, and a large proportion of the population, having
passed through their schools or enjoyed their ministration, were
vehemently attached to them. Frederick decided that they must remain,
and be watched carefully. In 1746 he examined their system of education
and advised them to send for a number of French Jesuits, who would
raise their standard. We can quite believe that their schools needed
improvement, but Frederick had another advantage in view. A leaven of
French Jesuits would help to counteract the Austrian bias.
Silesia was still in this condition when, in the year 1772, the Jesuits
found themselves fighting for the life of their Society. Frederick had
privately written that it "ought to be rooted out of the whole world,"
and ten years before he had seriously considered a proposal to expel
the Jesuits from his dominions. It now, apparently, occurred to him
that he had a splendid opportunity of conciliating Catholic Silesia
and destroying the pro-Austrian sentiment. Joseph II. had abandoned
the Jesuits to their enemies; Frederick of Prussia would espouse their
cause, and not allow his subjects to be robbed of their ministers.
We saw that the Jesuit General was well informed as to his attitude,
and asked him to pose openly as protector of the Society. He probably
answered that, while a Protestant dare not interfere in the discussions
at Rome, he would keep the doors of Prussia open to them. When the
brief of suppression appeared, he forbade the bishops to publish
it in Silesia, and he offered General Ricci and his colleagues the
hospitality of his dominions.
From that moment Frederick smiled at the anger of Rome and of the
Catholic nations. The cynical humour of his attitude does not concern
us, but the behaviour of the Jesuits themselves is a grave chapter
in their history. At first, with their wonted casuistry, they
declared that the brief was not binding, as it had not been addressed
personally. When this supposed canonical irregularity was ridiculed,
they, as I have said, pleaded that Frederick conscientiously believed
himself bound to maintain the _status quo_, that he therefore refused
to allow them to change their name, and that the interest of religion
forbade them to ignore the commands of a powerful secular monarch. They
were warned by their own colleagues in Italy that this hypocritically
veiled rebellion was of itself a strong justification of Clement's
indictment of the Society; they were reminded by the papal Nuncio
at Warsaw that they had in fact incurred the penalties specified in
the brief. Of all these warnings they took not the least notice, and
the Catholic world had the singular spectacle of a band of priests
who were understood to be the Pope's body-guard sheltering from his
anathemas behind the shield of a free-thinker. Indeed, they went
further, and, cynically ignoring their plea that they must obey their
monarch, they sought to use Prussia for maintaining or restoring the
full organisation of the Society. The Prussian representative at
London helped them to communicate with the ex-Jesuits of England, and
they proposed that a Congregation should be held at Breslau and a
Vicar-General of the Society elected, as Ricci was still in S. Angelo.
The English ex-Jesuits were, however, too scattered and helpless to
join with them.
The Nuncio had reported to Clement that it would be unsafe to take
drastic action, as Frederick would be inspired to retaliate. It was
therefore directed that the bishops should refuse to ordain their
growing members or give the usual spiritual powers, and the Jesuits
felt that a serious situation would arise. With their Catholic flocks
they had little difficulty. Clement XIV. was represented as a corrupt
pontiff who had purchased the tiara by a simoniacal promise to destroy
the Society, and who now wandered, almost insane, about the galleries
of the Vatican moaning and crying: "I did it under compulsion." But
they could not live long without the co-operation of the bishops,
and an envoy was sent to Rome, in the name of Frederick, to arrange
a compromise. They were to change their name and dress, modify their
domestic arrangements as little as could be helped, and continue in
their houses and colleges.
At this juncture, on 22nd September 1774, Clement XIV. died. He was
in his seventieth year and had a chronic ailment (piles). The strain
of the last four years and an acute disappointment in regard to the
return of Avignon, Benevento, and Ponte Corvo had deeply affected his
health. In April, moreover, he had been caught in a shower of rain,
and, although he seemed to recover in the early summer, his condition
became grave in July. By the end of August the succession to the papal
throne was openly discussed. He sank slowly and continuously during the
month of September, and died on the 22nd. It does not seem necessary
to examine minutely the rumour that he was poisoned. His illness cannot
be regarded as other than natural, and the repulsive details about
the corpse which are given in St. Priest seem to be an echo of Roman
gossip. If we decline to accept popular stories concerning Clement's
mental condition--his administration is to the end marked by great
sobriety and prudence--we must also decline to consider these rumours
of poison. The two physicians declared that the death and the condition
of the corpse were, in a sultry September, natural. It would hardly
require much extension of Jesuit principles to sanction the poisoning
of Clement XIV.; historically, however, we have not very serious ground
to charge them with the crime.
On 15th February 1775 Pius VI. ascended the papal throne. The power
and attitude of the Catholic monarchs was still such that there could
be little chance of restoring the Society, and it seemed safe to admit
a pope who was well disposed toward the ex-Jesuits. It was to Pius
VI. that the Prussian envoy made his proposals, and they were gladly
admitted. Directions were issued that the bishops of Silesia might
grant powers to former members of "the extinct Society," and they
entered upon a new phase of their rebellion. Instead of welcoming
this regularisation of their position, they complained that Frederick
had "gone over to their enemies" (the bishops), as he really had. In
the course of the year 1776 the Silesian Jesuits were practically
secularised. They were forced to abandon their costume, depose their
superiors, and hand over their property to the State in exchange for a
salary. They still lived in communities and enjoyed a certain immunity
from episcopal control, but they were now "Priests of the Royal
Scholastic Institute."
Frederick invited other ex-Jesuits to join his Institute, and a
salary of 700 florins a year was assigned to each. In this condition
the hundred ex-Jesuits continued to control education in Silesia, and
quarrel with the secular clergy, until Frederick died in 1786. When the
bishops objected to the fathers living in community, Frederick genially
replied that at Rome one hundred and twenty of these ex-Jesuits
were living in community, and he might be permitted to imitate the
indulgence of the Pope. He remained to the end proud of his economical
system of education and his triumph over the Papacy. His successor
modified the Institute in some respects, but the changes were slight
until the year 1800, when it was converted into the "Royal Prussian
Catholic School Direction" and lay teachers were admitted to it. That
was the end of one of the most famous and curious rebellions against
the Papacy.
Some of the discontented ex-Jesuits passed in 1800 from Silesia to
Russia, and we must now retrace our steps to consider the equally
remarkable rebellion of the Jesuits in that country. Catherine II. had,
like Frederick, sound political reason to patronise the Jesuits. In
August 1772 Prussia, Russia, and Austria took the fragments of Poland
which they had long coveted, and Catherine entered Polish Livonia and
Lithuania with her troops. The ancient kingdom had decayed, as we
saw, in proportion to the prosperity of the Jesuits, and it suffered
the dismemberment with the impotent anger of an aged man. When the
schismatical Catherine came to claim their allegiance, the Catholic
clergy generally stood aloof in patriotic sullenness until the Jesuits
took the lead. The admirable excuse is made for them that they were
indifferent to politics and terrestrial arrangements of government, and
recognised only a duty to obey the sovereign who actually held power.
In point of fact, they knew that Poland had not the faintest hope of
evading its hard destiny, and they hastened to greet the new ruler.
Catherine's searching eye at once realised the situation. These two
hundred Polish Jesuits had an immense influence over her million and
a half new subjects, and their advances must be met generously. Peter
the Great had excluded Jesuits from Russia for ever; Catherine at
once decreed that this prohibition was repealed as far as her Polish
dominion was concerned, and she expressed a flattering admiration of
their colleges. Her feeling was, obviously, that they would prove
excellent teachers of loyalty to the Poles, but within a few months the
Society was abolished by Clement and a new situation arose. Playing one
of those little comedies which adorn their annals, the Polish Jesuits
addressed to their new sovereign a most respectful entreaty that she
would permit them to obey the command of the Pope. There is no doubt
that this letter, which is reproduced with admiration in complimentary
histories of the Jesuits, is genuine; it is, however, not explained
how the Jesuits would lessen their usefulness to Catherine by changing
their name and costume, and why they needed this imperial permission to
make a change which did not concern her.
Catherine and the Jesuits had enough in common to understand each
other. They wished her to forbid them to obey the Pope, and they would
prove grateful. Catherine at once refused to allow them to change their
names and their coats, and they reported to Rome that the secular
power forbade them to comply with the brief, and, in the interest of
religion, they must obey her. The situation was so scandalous, since
the Papal Nuncio insisted on the dissolution of the province, that some
of the more scrupulous of the fathers were abandoning their houses
and seeking secularisation. To meet these secessions a letter from
Clement to the Bishop of Warmie (an ex-Jesuit) was published, and in
this letter Clement was represented as approving the existence of the
Society in Russia. Although this letter is reproduced seriously by the
French historian of the Society, it is a flagrant forgery. Clement and
his Nuncio protested to the end against the position of the Polish
Jesuits, and the course of the story will show that they themselves
took no serious notice of this supposed authorisation. It is not the
only untruth we shall have to trace to them.
When Pius VI. was elected, they at once applied to him for counsel in
their difficult situation, but the representatives of France and Spain
were closely watching the new Pope, and he did not venture or deign to
reply. Their uncanonical position was now causing the Jesuits the same
concern about the future as it had given their colleagues in Prussia,
and Catherine made a direct application to Rome for a remedy of their
inconvenience. The Pope thought that he might escape the importunities
of the ambassadors by conferring on the Bishop of Mohilow full power
to deal with the fathers. This friendly prelate had, no doubt, been
suggested by them, as he at once granted them the desired permission
to establish a house for novices. To complete the comedy, the Pope,
through his Secretary of State, protested that he had not contemplated
this step when the representatives of France and Spain complained. The
Jesuits paid no heed to his diplomatic protest, opened the novitiate,
and entertained Catherine herself at their new foundation.
The powers of the Bishop of Mohilow had now served their purpose, and
the Jesuits asked Catherine to curtail them and permit them to elect
a General as their constitutions directed. Catherine (in 1782) issued
a ukase in accordance with their wish, but the bishop was alienated
by their duplicity, and he appealed to the Senate and secured an
order that the Jesuits were to obey him. Strong in the favour of the
Empress and of Prince Potemkin, the Jesuits ignored the decree of the
Senate, and went on to elect a Vicar-General and Assistants. In order
to obtain papal indulgence of this conduct they induced Catherine to
send the ex-Jesuit Bishop Benislawski to Rome. Pius VI. dare not issue
a written authorisation of their position--another proof that the
letter of Clement was a forgery--but Benislawski reported that the Pope
had said emphatically to him: "I approve the Society in White Russia.
I approve it." Again the French historian reproduces this statement
unreservedly as fact. But the mendacious bishop was so indiscreet as
to make his statement before he left Rome and have it published at
Florence, and the Pope indignantly denied it. The bishop was ordered to
leave Rome, and, as Theiner shows, Pius VI. issued two briefs denying
that he had approved the Society (29th January and 20th February). M.
Crétineau-Joly seems to prefer to think that it was the Pope who lied.
To the remote wilds of Lithuania the Roman quarrel had little chance
of penetrating, and Bishop Benislawski presently returned with the
happy assurance that the Pope approved their position; the monarchs
prevented him from issuing a brief, but he sent this oral message to
justify the fathers in their consciences. The lie was propagated among
the ex-Jesuits of Europe, and many of them abandoned their pensions or
positions and made their way to Russia. It seems that there were other
features of the Society retained besides the art of mental reservation.
Crétineau-Joly generously observes that after 1785 the Russian fathers
"construct cloth-factories, a printing press, and all that is necessary
for such exploitations": a complete business-system, in other words.
It is remarkable that even in these circumstances, when they were
pressing for a restoration of their Society, the Jesuits would not
abandon their improper practices.
The death of Catherine in 1796 did not affect the position of the
fathers. She had entrusted the education of her son to Father Gruber,
one of the ablest members of the Society in Russia, and when Paul came
to the throne he declared that he would maintain the patronage which
his mother had given to the Society. It is true that Paul gave them
some concern from the beginning. The Vatican had now so far reconciled
itself to the anomalous situation as to take advantage itself of the
influence of the Jesuits and send a Nuncio to St. Petersburg. The
Russian laws strictly forbade proselytism, as it is important to
realise. Paul, like Catherine, tolerated the Jesuits only on condition
that they ministered to their co-religionists, educated youth, and
made no effort to disturb the faith of members of the Greek Church.
Under these conditions he regarded them as a useful aid in carrying
out the national reforms which had been initiated by Peter the Great.
But Paul was tempted to interfere in the spiritual government of
his Catholic subjects, and, when the Nuncio politely protested, the
autocrat bade him leave Russia. Gruber tactfully mediated between the
two, and the Nuncio was allowed to return. One is almost tempted to
think that Gruber, an exceedingly astute Jesuit, arranged the quarrel
for the purpose of mediating, as we find him afterwards speaking of the
"debt" of the Holy See to him and his colleagues, and a very remarkable
understanding between the _zelanti_ cardinals and the irregular Jesuits
can be traced at this time.
Pius VI. died in 1799, refusing with his last breath to disturb
the Church in Europe by sanctioning the Jesuits, even in Russia.
After his death the Venetian senator Rezzonico was sent by the
ultramontane party to St. Petersburg to ask the protection of Paul
for the forthcoming conclave; and the only meaning we can attach to
this embassy is that the schismatical Tsar was to counteract the
intimidation of the Catholic monarchs and enable the cardinals to
elect a pope who would restore the Society. By this time the French
Revolution had run its tragic course, and the ex-Jesuits were loudly
proclaiming everywhere that it was the natural development of the
forces which had demanded the suppression of the Society; that, if
these wild and devastating forces were not to wreck civilisation in
Europe, they must be recalled to put a check on them. There was a
growing disposition to listen to their plausible sermon, or at least
to perceive that if the Jesuits were restored on condition that they
checked the new spirit, they might prove a powerful auxiliary to the
legitimate monarchs. The Bourbons had been swept from France; Charles
III. had gone the way of his fathers and D'Aranda was powerless; Naples
was beginning to desire a fence of Jesuits to protect itself from the
northern pestilence.
The Tsar was greatly flattered by the proposal that he should assert
his power in the metropolis of Christendom, but it is difficult to
find that he had any material influence. Portugal and Austria alone
still resisted the design of restoring the Society, and Austria was
fully occupied in meeting the troops of Napoleon. Hence the cardinals
had little difficulty in securing the election of Chiaramonti, who, as
Bishop of Tivoli, had openly expressed his reluctance to carry out the
brief of suppression. Pius VII. was now a feeble and retiring old man,
a former member of the Benedictine Order: a strange figure to place
upon a throne which was presently to be exposed to such violent storms.
But Napoleon was not yet Emperor, and the Papacy was still a quiet
and puzzled spectator of the extraordinary developments in Europe.
Within six months of his election Pius VII. received from the Tsar a
pressing request for the approval of the Society, and on 7th March 1801
he solemnly recognised its existence in Russia. We shall see presently
that the Russian fathers had already, with the connivance of Pius VI.,
sent a colony into Parma, at the request of the duke, and that various
groups of thinly disguised Jesuits had appeared in different parts of
Europe. The Jesuits had now a substantial hope of recovering their
power.
We have already seen that the Jesuits were not in the least chastened
by their severe punishment, and the position of Gruber at the Russian
court is an interesting illustration of this. He had much the same
relation to Paul I. as La Chaise to Louis XIV. or Lamormaini to the
Emperor. Matters of pure Russian politics were submitted to him, and
he was hated and flattered by the Russian courtiers. Indeed, about
1800 we find him engaged in just such an intrigue as the older Jesuits
loved. Napoleon wished to detach the Tsar from his English alliance,
and was rapidly developing the idea of his middle career--the proposal
to divide Europe between the thrones of France and of Russia. He wrote
confidentially to Gruber, artfully suggesting that a co-operation with
his plan would be to the advantage of the Society, and Gruber, who
could see the future of Napoleon, entered zealously into his part. One
wonders whether the history of Europe might not have run differently if
Napoleon had followed up this idea, and restored the Society of Jesus
as the chief element of his "spiritual gendarmery." On the other hand,
Paul instructed his representatives in the Near East to obtain access
for the Jesuits, and the first step was taken in the restoration of the
foreign missions.
Paul died in the spring of 1801, and the warier Alexander came to the
throne. He quietly assured the fulsome Jesuits that he approved and
would maintain the Russian patronage of the Society, but it is clear
that he kept a more critical eye on their conduct than his predecessors
had done. And the fathers now embarked on enterprises which it was
certainly expedient to watch. Paul had assigned to the Jesuits the
Roman Catholic church at St. Petersburg, and to this church was
attached the privilege of opening a school. In the course of 1801 and
1802 some of the ablest fathers were sent there from the chief centre
at Polotzk, and a school for the sons of the nobles was opened and
obtained large numbers of pupils, Russian and Catholic. There also
appeared at St. Petersburg, as Sardinian envoy, the famous French
writer, Joseph de Maistre, who was at that time in his first fervent
admiration of the Society which he knew so little. Whether or no the
Jesuits had secured this appointment, he proved a valuable auxiliary.
There was as yet, under the able leadership of Gruber, no cause for
dissatisfaction. In the new provinces which Alexander was developing
the Jesuits worked devotedly and usefully among the colonists; the
great Tsar had no more zealous and effective apostles of loyalty. In
the schools, also, their teaching was irreproachable. Provision was
made even for the training of the youths in the doctrines of the Greek
Church.
The work of the restoration of the Society proceeded smoothly. In
October 1801 the older fathers had met in Congregation and elected
Gruber General of the Society. From this month we may plausibly date
the restoration of the Society, since its former members were free, and
were invited, to come from all parts of Europe and place themselves
under the authority of Gruber. In the summer of 1803 Gruber sent a
father to Rome, "to watch the interests" of the Society. Being a
member of an authorised body, he retained his costume, flaunted it in
the eyes of the astonished Romans, and visited the Vatican in it. Men
felt that the ghost would soon be followed by a resurrection. In the
following summer Gruber received from the Pope a genial notification
that Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies desired to have a number of fathers
for the education of youth in his kingdom, and Pius was willing to
oblige him. On 6th August 1804 the Society was restored in the Two
Sicilies. In the meantime other Societies which were more or less
secretly Jesuit, and various communities of ex-Jesuits in different
parts of Europe, were returning to the obedience of the General, but we
will dismiss the Russian episode before dealing with these.
In the year 1805 Gruber lost his life in a fire, and the Russian
Society fell under a less astute leader. Father Bzrozowski was elected
General, and for a few years he was content with a quiet development of
the policy of his predecessor. In 1811, however, he requested the Tsar
to raise their chief college at Polotzk to the rank of a university,
and allow it to control all the schools maintained by the Society. This
would remove them from the control of the Minister of Cults, and make
them an integral part of the system of education under the Minister
of Public Instruction; it would also emancipate their schools from
the control of the St. Petersburg or the Vilna University. Alexander
seemed to be impressed by their specious argument that a healthy
rivalry would raise the standard of education, and their promise that
_their_ education would be both cheaper and sounder (less liberal
and cosmopolitan) than the purely Russian. But the proposal raised
the first great storm against the Jesuits in Russia. For some time
there had been a growing resentment against them. Russian nobles and
officials and priests angrily recalled the power which a Jesuit priest
had had at the court, and lamented the growth of Roman Catholicism.
The Jesuits retorted that they had not received a single one of their
pupils into the Roman Church; it will appear that they had discreetly
sent to other priests the pupils in whose minds they had sown the seeds
of conversion.
Then Joseph de Maistre took up his eloquent pen in their behalf and
the battle was won. In 1812 the Polotzk college was raised to the rank
of a university, and began to educate the sons of noble or wealthy
Russians. In the course of time there were as many as two hundred noble
youths, of the Greek faith, sitting on its benches, and, as usual, the
interest of the fathers in their pupils led to a respectful concern
about their mothers and sisters. It was noticed that many were received
into the Roman Church: though never by Jesuits. European politics had
for some years distracted the attention of the Tsar, but the critics
of the Society had in 1812 received a powerful reinforcement in the
shape of agents of the English Bible Society. Alexander was at war with
Napoleon and in close alliance with England, and the Bible Society took
advantage of the political situation to enter St. Petersburg. They
brought a rich supply of information about the Jesuits and stimulated
the vigilance of the Russians. The mysterious growth of secessions to
Rome since the opening of the Jesuit college for nobles in the capital
led to fiery discussions.
At last, in 1814, the young Prince Galitzin, nephew of the Minister
of Instruction of that name, joined the Church of Rome. He was in
his sixteenth year, and had been attending the Jesuit classes for
two years. His uncle, a stern critic of the Jesuits, now entered
upon a violent campaign against the Society, and the city rang with
denunciation of their secret machinations. It was discovered that the
real number of conversions to Rome had been concealed, as the converts
had been instructed to practise their new religion only in secret.
There was an intense agitation, and the Jesuits thought it prudent to
close their schools to all but the sons of Roman Catholics. It was
too late. Priests and professors maintained the stormy agitation and
nervously endeavoured to unveil the secret Catholics.
In the midst of this agitation Alexander returned from France, after
the final defeat of Napoleon, and both parties appealed to him.
His answer was a _ukase_, issued in December, sternly ordering the
Jesuits to close their schools and quit St. Petersburg. In cold and
measured language he recalled that they had been admitted on the strict
understanding that they were not to proselytise, and he denounced their
"breach of confidence." They were expelled for ever from St. Petersburg
and Moscow, and in the Catholic Provinces they were to return to the
subject condition they had had up to the year 1800. On the night of
20th-21st December the police entered their colleges and read the
Tsar's order. On the following day they were compelled to abandon the
noble ladies of St. Petersburg, and, in the depth of winter, set out on
the long sledge-ride to Polotzk. Alexander kindly provided them with
furs and directed that they should be treated with consideration, but
he was convinced of their guilt. In a later letter, indeed, the General
admits that some of the fathers had been making converts among the
ladies of the capital; and the Jesuit maxims in regard to truthfulness
are such that we may question whether this was done without his
knowledge, as he says, and may be pardoned if we entirely ignore the
assurance of the Jesuits that they had nothing to do with the numerous
conversions of their pupils. Not only the general law of Russia, but
a special imperial decree of the year 1803 forbade proselytism, and
this decree had been forced on the attention of the Jesuits. "For the
greater glory of God" they had once more trampled upon a strict and
honourable human engagement.
Bzrozowski died five years afterwards, and they appealed for permission
to elect another General. By this time, as we shall see, the Society
had been restored, and the Italians were impatiently awaiting the death
of the Russian General, but Alexander spared them the evil of a schism
in the Society. It was reported to him that the Jesuits continued
to break their engagement. Prince Galitzin drew up a long memoir in
which he showed that they had been busy proselytising, sometimes
with violence, since 1801; the local authorities had had to restrain
them in some of the outlying provinces. They had, he alleged, told
their converts in the capital to continue externally to observe the
Greek religion, as the Pope had given permission for them to do so.
They had continued to proselytise among their pupils and among the
soldiers in Lithuania and in the other provinces, and they managed
their estates so unskilfully or so unjustly that swarms of their
peasants wandered as mendicants over the roads of Russia. We cannot
control these statements. The memoir was printed and published by the
imperial authorities, and the Jesuits were ordered to evacuate Russian
territory. From their estates and princely colleges in Lithuania and
Livonia, as well as from the poor colonies in the Caucusus and Siberia,
where many of them had worked in the finer spirit of the Society, they
sadly turned their faces toward the west from which they had been
driven.
The third element in the restoration of the Society takes us back to
the year 1794, when a few young priests, refugees from revolutionary
France, attempt in Belgium to set up a purified Jesuitism under another
name. The most prominent was the Abbé Count de Broglie (son of the
famous marshal). He and a few others discussed a plan of covertly
embodying the principles of Ignatius in a new society, and consulted
some of the ex-Jesuits. Father Pey, of Louvain, became their director,
and in February 1794 they took possession of a country house given them
by a Louvain banker and entitled themselves the "Congregation of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus." Two nobles from the "emigrant" regiment joined
them, but the six recluses were presently swept out of Belgium by the
army of the French Republic, and they made their way on foot--the
Society was to be restored on its purest models--to Augsburg. A few
more were added to their number, and simple vows were taken. Ex-Jesuits
watched them with interest, and they sought to be admitted to the
Russian Society. Then they were minded to go to Rome, as Ignatius and
his companions had done, and offer their services to the Pope, but the
French blocked the way and soon forced them to fly to Vienna.
They were now seventeen in number, and they induced a score of refugee
bishops to appeal to the Pope for his approval of the Congregation.
Meantime they founded a novitiate at Prague and a house at Hagenbrunn,
near Vienna. The whole structure of the late Society of Jesus was
copied, and the studies were re-established. At last, in 1798, the
Vienna Nuncio brought them to the notice of the Pope. They had not
forgotten the counsel of Ignatius to cultivate wealthy ladies, and the
Emperor's sister, the Archduchess Marianne, was an ardent supporter.
Pius VI. was, however, as we saw, not bold enough to restore the
Society, or the times were not yet ripe. He expressed a warm interest
in the community and suggested that they should enter into relations
with a similar body, the "Society of the Faith," which had been founded
in Italy.
The ex-Jesuit Caravita at Rome had amongst his followers an
enterprising young man named Paccanari, the ambitious son of a Tyrolese
tailor. Paccanari was the leader of a group of young men who, under
the inspiration of Caravita, went out to visit the sick and instruct
the ignorant, as the early Jesuits had done. They presently formed a
"Society of the Faith of Jesus," and, to make their meaning plainer,
adopted the costume and constitutions of the ex-Jesuits. The Roman
authorities demanded a slight change in their costume, but otherwise
connived at their growth. It was 1798: Louis and Charles III. were
dead, and the aristocratic world was sighing for a Jesuit bridle on
revolution. At the end of that year they opened a novitiate at Spoleto,
took the three vows, and added a fourth vow to obey the Pope. The Pope
needed a special regiment just as much as he had done in the days of
Luther. The new pestilence from the north had descended upon Italy,
and Pius VI. was in exile at Florence. Paccanari visited him, with
the connivance of the Pope's ex-Jesuit secretary, and told him of the
"Fathers of the Faith" who had enlisted in his special service. Pius
approved, and told Paccanari that a similar body already existed in
Austria.
In the early months of 1799 Paccanari set out for Vienna, to explore
the rival community and see if it could be brought under his authority.
His voyage through the Austrian dominions taught him how ripe the
time was for such an enterprise, as prelates and ex-Jesuits received
him with gladness. At Padua the Count San Bonifacio (an ex-Jesuit)
provided a house for ten of his companions; at Venice the higher
clergy caressed him. The only feature that restrained the enthusiasm
of the old Jesuits was that Paccanari hinted that the Society had
become corrupt and it was necessary to build again on the primitive
foundation. In their view Europe was again prepared for political
Jesuitry, and there was no need to go through the laborious preliminary
stages of nursing the sick and travelling afoot. At Vienna the new
Emperor, Francis II., received him graciously, and the Archduchess
Marianne contracted a lasting regard for him.
The energy and ability of Paccanari soon removed the hesitations of the
Sacred Heartists; they abandoned their name, fused with the Society of
the Faith, and repeated their vows to Paccanari as their superior. A
regular Province was now constituted, with Father Sineo as Provincial,
and Paccanari went on to visit Prague, where the Archduchess and the
novitiate were. Here the ambitious youth made the first mistake of his
singular career. Ignatius had strictly enjoined that the Jesuit order
should never have a feminine branch, as so many of the religious orders
had, but the Archduchess and other noble dames were so devoted to the
new enterprise that Paccanari permitted or persuaded them to take vows
and promise obedience to the General of the Society of the Faith. Many
of the ex-Jesuits now regarded him as an innovator and began to watch
his career with distrust. He found many wealthy patrons, however, and
little colonies were sent to England (to which I will refer later),
France, and Holland. There were in a few years several hundred members
of the new Society, and, as the Russian Jesuits had now been recognised
by Pius VII., Paccanari was urged to combine with them.
He refused, or procrastinated, and from that time the members of his
Society began to abandon their obedience to him and seek incorporation
in the genuine order. The Archduchess clung to Paccanari for many
years, and the prestige of her association won respect for him. At
Rome, where she and her companions had turned her palace into a
convent, she bought a house and church for her esteemed director, and
he set up a community of thirty fathers under the eyes of the papal
authorities. He was now at open war with the ex-Jesuits, who swarmed
at Rome, and, when they slighted his title of General, he retorted
that the brief approving the Society in Russia had been extorted from
Pius VII. He might now have accepted the idea of fusion, but the
Russian General, to secure his authority, insisted that he would only
admit the Paccanarists--as they were popularly called--singly, and
would not entertain the idea of a corporate union. Paccanari fought
resolutely for his fading authority. In 1803 the London Fathers of the
Faith deserted him and transferred their obedience to Gruber. In 1804
the more numerous French fathers renounced his authority and joined
the Russians; in the same year the Society was restored at Naples,
and many of the Paccanarists joined it. The Pope remained indulgent
to the falling "General," in consideration of his archiducal friend,
and his Society lingered in Italy, Austria, and, especially, Holland.
At last definite charges were formulated against Paccanari, probably
by the older Jesuits, and the would-be reformer was committed to the
papal prison for a luxury of manners that was inconsistent with his
professions. He was released by the French troops when they invaded
Rome, but his prestige had gone, and, flying to the hills from his
Jesuit persecutors, the second Ignatius perished ignobly at the
hands of brigands. The Society of Jesus was formally restored soon
afterwards, and the Paccanarists threw off their thin disguise and
joined it.
We have already seen the various steps by which the restoration of the
Society was prepared in Italy. In 1793, Ferdinand of Parma had boldly
invited the Russians to send him some Jesuits for the education of
youth in the Duchy, and Pius VI. had genially closed his eyes when they
set up five colleges and began to attract old members of the Society.
Then came the French campaign in Italy and a more bitter resentment
than ever of the new spirit which was invading Europe and shaking
the legitimate thrones. In 1804, when it was realised that Napoleon
had destroyed the pestilential Republic only to set up an even more
dangerous power, Ferdinand of Sicily applied to General Gruber for a
band of Jesuits to instil "sound" ideas into the minds of his subjects.
Then came Austerlitz, and a French army was set free to put Joseph
Bonaparte on the throne of the Two Sicilies. Once more the Jesuits had
to fly from Naples with their protecting King (and, especially, their
protecting Queen), but the presence of the English fleet confined the
French to the mainland and the Jesuits of Sicily were unassailable. In
a few years they attained enormous wealth and power, and it would not
be unjust to connect the long somnolence of that beautiful island with
the profound influence the Jesuits had on it in the first half of the
nineteenth century.
In 1809 it was the Pope's turn to quail before this terrible
incarnation of the new spirit. The Papal States were annexed, and Pius
VII. set out for four years of bitter exile. He returned in 1813, and
saw the allies closing round the falling monarch. In the spring of
the following year Napoleon abdicated, and the restored monarchs set
about the task of deleting the past twenty years from the history of
Europe, and stamping out the last sparks of the liberalism which was
understood to have led to the French Revolution. It was the moment
for restoring the Society of Jesus. The monarchs who had pressed for
its abolition were dead, the new generation had never realised its
power and irregularities, and the Jesuits themselves had for twenty
years confidently proclaimed that the terrors Europe had experienced
were the direct result of taking from them the education of the young
and the spiritual guidance of the adult. This fallacy was promptly
answered, and need not detain us. The Revolution was due to the
maintenance of mediæval injustices in a more enlightened age, and the
Jesuits, with all their power over kings, had never uttered a syllable
of condemnation of those old abuses. We shall see that they lent all
their recovered influence to the task of maintaining them even in the
nineteenth century.
The truth is that the restoration of the Jesuits was an act of the
Papacy for which there was no justification in Catholic opinion. In the
bull _Sollicitudo_, which contrasts so poorly with the reasoned and
virile brief of Clement XIV., Pius VII. ventured to say that he was
complying with "the unanimous demand of the Catholic world." This was,
as the Pope knew, wholly untrue. Spain alone, of the great Powers--if
we might still call her great--was interested in the restoration.
Austria and France had no wish to see the Jesuits restored, and would
not suffer them to return to power when the Pope willed it; Portugal
protested vehemently against the restoration. Pius VII. acted on his
own feeling and that of petty monarchs like the Kings of Sardinia
and Naples. He believed that the Jesuits would be the most effective
agency for rooting out what remained of liberalism and revolution. He
initiated that close alliance between the Society and reaction which
has been the disastrous blunder of the Jesuits for the last hundred
years. But it was the price of their restoration.
The bull was issued on 7th August 1714, and read in the Gesù the same
day. In presence of a distinguished gathering of ecclesiastics and
nobles, the Pope said mass and then had the bull read. Some fifty
members of the suppressed Society had been convoked for the occasion,
and we can imagine that it was a touching spectacle to see these
aged survivors of the mighty catastrophe--one was in his hundred and
twenty-seventh year--return in honour to their metropolitan house.
The Gesù and the house attached to it had been maintained in proper
condition. The solid silver statue and the more costly ornaments of
the church had been sold, to meet the demands of France on the papal
exchequer, and the library of the house had disappeared. But the
community of secular priests who had been in charge during the years of
suppression were mostly ex-Jesuits, and they had reverently maintained
the home until their scattered brothers could return. The novitiate
also was restored; the old fathers were summoned from their vicarages
and colleges and myriad professions; a Provincial and Vicar-General
were elected; and the Jesuits spread rapidly over the Papal States. The
cloud of Napoleon's return chilled their enthusiasm for a month or two,
but they presently heard of Waterloo and settled down to the task for
which they had been restored to life.
The response of the Catholic world was, as I said, a painful commentary
on the Pope's words. The flamboyant bull, permitting and urging
Catholic monarchs to re-establish the Society of Jesus, made its way
over Europe in the course of the next few weeks. Parma and Naples
already had their Jesuits. The Duke of Modena at once admitted the
Society, and Victor Emmanuel, whose brother had surrendered the crown
to him in order to enter the Society, naturally opened his kingdom
to them. Ferdinand VII. of Spain, the most brutal and unscrupulous of
the restored monarchs, abrogated the decree of expulsion, and warmly
welcomed the Jesuits to co-operate with him in the sanguinary work
which we will consider in the next chapter. John VI. of Portugal
refused to admit "the pernicious sect" into his kingdom. Louis XVIII.,
even when urged by Talleyrand, refused to sanction the presence of the
Jesuits in France. Austria refused to recognise them in its Empire,
which still included Venice. Bavaria excluded them. And it took
the Jesuits years of intrigue to penetrate the Catholic cantons of
Switzerland.
This was the reply of Catholic Europe to Pius VII. In spite of the
strident offer to combat liberalism which they made in tracing
the Revolution to their absence, they were still excluded from
three-fourths of the Catholic world. The indictment of them by Clement
XIV. had not been answered by Pius VII., nor had their conduct in
Russia and Prussia won esteem for them. They offered no serious
guarantee of better behaviour. How they overcame this resistance and,
in the course of a century, almost returned to their earlier number,
and whether adversity had purified their character, are the two
questions that remain for consideration.
CHAPTER XV
THE NEW JESUITS
For a few years after the restoration the Italian Jesuits were fully
occupied with the reorganisation of their body, the recovery of
their property, and the absorption of the lingering Paccanarists and
survivors of the older Society. It is clear that, had it not been for
the partial restoration in Parma and Naples, the Society would long
have remained feeble. How many still lived of the 22,589 followers of
Ignatius who had been expelled from their homes forty years before we
do not know, but there was by no means a rush to the colours when the
regiment was reformed. It was difficult also to recover their property.
In spite of the generosity of the rulers of Piedmont, Naples, and the
Papal States the work proceeded slowly. It is in the year 1820 that we
catch a first interesting glimpse of the reconstituted body.
At the beginning of that year General Bzrozowski died at Polotzk, a few
months before the Jesuits were expelled from Russia, and the Italians
hastened to hold an election. Before he died the General had appointed
Father Petrucci Vicar-General, and this official came to Rome and,
in conjunction with his fellow-Italians, fixed the election for 4th
September. We are not, of course, permitted to know the whole truth in
regard to this election, but such facts as we know clearly show that
the Italians were determined to regain control of the Society. There
seems, however, to have been a deeper quarrel. Some of the younger men
and the ex-Paccanarists wished to reform the constitutions, and they
had the support of Cardinal della Ganga, the Pope's Vicar (and later
Leo XII.); the older men opposed reform. But what the precise position
of Petrucci was it is impossible to decide. Crétineau-Joly, who alone
has had access to the archives and has used his privilege in such a way
as to make the quarrel unintelligible, offers the ridiculous suggestion
that Petrucci and the cardinal wished to destroy the Society.
However that may be, Petrucci tried to have the election held before
the Poles arrived, but there was a spirited Breton member of the
Russian Province, Father Rozaven, in Rome at the time, and he appealed
to the cardinal. Petrucci then wrote to the Poles to say that they must
postpone their voyage to Rome, but Rozaven exposed the trick to them
and they reached Rome early in September. There must have been a most
unedifying turmoil in the Jesuit house, as, instead of an election on
4th September, we find Cardinal della Ganga intervening on the 6th
to say that a commission, with him and Cardinal Galeffi at its head,
had been appointed by the Pope to adjudicate on their quarrels. A
week later the commission found that Petrucci was to have the powers
of a general, but the two cardinals were to preside at the election.
The account given us by the French historian is bewildering in its
confusion, and is evidently intended to screen an angry conflict of
personal and national ambitions and of reformers and anti-reformers.
The party opposed to Petrucci (and, presumably, to reform) now appealed
to Cardinal Consalvi and denounced their Vicar-General. Consalvi
had little interest in the Jesuits, but, as they knew, he was not
disinclined to thwart della Ganga. He secured the calling of the
Congregation in October. It seems to have been the most lively and
impassioned election that the old house had ever witnessed. Petrucci
ruled that the voters from England and France and part of Italy had
no canonical right to vote; the Congregation overruled him, and, when
he protested, deposed him and excluded him and his chief supporter,
Pietroboni, from the Congregation. Della Ganga appealed to the Pope,
Consalvi defeated his appeal, and on 18th October Father Fortis was
elected. The triumphant section then held a trial of the conduct of the
minority. Petrucci and Pietroboni were pardoned on account of their
age, but a number of younger men were expelled from the Society.
It must be admitted that this Congregation shows a decided continuity
of the irregular features of the Society. Fortis, Rozaven, Petrucci,
and the leaders of the conflicting parties were old members; Fortis,
at least, an elderly Italian in his eighth decade of life, had
belonged to the suppressed Society, and the conduct of him and his
followers suggests that forty years of life without the restraint of
discipline had not tended to improve their character. In the pacified
Europe of 1820 they saw an easy field for the triumph of their order,
and the Italians were ambitious to control it. The struggle against
the proposal to reform the Society is equally unattractive; and the
facility with which both parties appealed to rival cardinals, when
the Jesuit tradition was fiercely to resent any outside interference
with their Congregations, completes an unpleasant picture. The
anti-reformers won, and the voters scattered to their respective
provinces and missions.
Three years later Pius VII. died, and the triumphant clique at the Gesù
had a momentary anxiety when Cardinal della Ganga mounted the papal
throne under the name of Leo XII. Rozaven expresses their concern in a
letter to a colleague, and predicts that he at least will be compelled
to leave Rome. But Leo XII. was convinced that the Society had become
one of the most useful auxiliaries of the Papacy, and he hastened to
assure them that their intrigue against his authority was forgotten.
He had, in fact, hardly been a year at the Vatican when he gratified
them by restoring the Roman College to their charge, and they gathered
their best teachers from all parts of the world to win back its earlier
prestige. Other of their old colleges in the Papal States were secured
for them by Leo XII. and the Italian Provinces quickly recovered their
power.
It was known to all that the liberal feeling engendered by the
revolutionary movement was still intensely alive. The secret Society
of the Carbonari spread its net over Italy, and the cultivated middle
class was very largely liberal and anti-clerical. At Naples, in
1820, the Carbonari had seemed for a moment about to triumph; but
the rebellion was defeated, and the Jesuits returned to the task of
educating the middle class in pro-papal sentiments. They had a college
for the sons of nobles at Naples, and four other colleges in the
Neapolitan district; while they had no less than fifteen colleges and
residences in the island of Sicily. In northern Piedmont, from which
few at that time expected the greatest menace to the Papacy to come,
they retained great power for decades. Victor Emmanuel gave place to
Charles Felix, and the Liberals took the occasion to make a violent
assault on the fathers. Charles Felix replied by choosing a Jesuit
confessor, Father Grassi. Charles Albert patronised them even more
generously than his predecessors. He secured the return of their old
house at Turin, and, when he found it impossible to get for them their
old house at Genoa, which had been converted into a university, he
granted them one of his palaces for a residence.
In the Papal States they entered upon their golden age with the
accession of Gregory XVI., in 1831. Both Leo XII. and General Fortis
died in 1829. A young Dutch Jesuit, Father Roothaan (aged forty-four),
succeeded Fortis, and Pius VIII. ascended the papal throne. He died
in November 1830, and Gregory XVI. assumed the tiara in the very heat
of the revolutionary movement of 1830 and 1831. The "White Terror"
had failed to conquer what it called the revolutionary element; its
thousands of executions and its appalling jails and repulsive spies had
merely fed the flame of insurrection, and the international movement
for reform gathered strength. The middle class in every country--in
Italy, especially, the revolutionary movements were essentially middle
class--suffered with burning indignation the brutalities of Austria,
the Papacy, Naples, Spain, and France, and young men of the type of
Mazzini devoted their lives to reform. In 1831 the Italian rebels,
fired by the success of the July Revolution in France, raised their
tricolour standard and soon saw it floating over Modena, Parma, and
a number of the Papal States. One of the first movements of the
insurgents in every place was to assail the Jesuit residences. At
Spoleto, Fano, Modena, Reggio, Forli, and Ferrara, the Jesuits were
driven from their homes and colleges and hunted over the frontiers of
the revolutionary provinces. But Naples and Piedmont were unshaken by
the disturbance, and the Austrian troops from Venice quickly trampled
out the revolutionary spirit. It was on the eve of this insurrection--a
work almost entirely of the educated class--that Gregory became Pope,
and his policy after the pacification was one of savage repression.
It is needless here to recall the brutal régime which the Austrians
in Venice (to which the Jesuits were formally admitted in 1836), the
Pope in central Italy, and the Neapolitan ruler in the south, spread
over the land. It is enough for us that in the three States, as in
Spain and Portugal, the Jesuits were the most ardent auxiliaries of the
reactionary and sanguinary monarchs. Gregory XVI., the most repulsive
Pope of modern times, was the most generous patron that the Jesuits
had had for more than a hundred years. He went so far as to entrust to
them the Urban College, the institution in which the Propaganda itself
trained its missionaries. Education was the root of the revolutionary
evil, and it was the place of the Jesuits to see that such education as
was imparted in Italy--which sank to an appalling degree of illiteracy,
and is still illiterate to the extent of 70 per cent. in the southern
provinces, where the Jesuits ruled longest--was not tainted with
modern culture. It is true that after 1830 the General appointed five
learned fathers to revise the _Ratio Studiorum_ of the Society; but
one cannot regard it as other than a somewhat humorous comment on
the Jesuit system that the teachers were no longer to be bound to
teach the physics of Aristotle or to slight, in favour of Latin and
Greek, the tongue of the pupils whom they trained. We have, in fact, a
very curious illustration of the level of culture of Gregory and his
teaching Jesuits. In the year 1837 the cholera threatened Rome. The
science of meeting such epidemics was, of course, still in its infancy,
but the conduct of Rome was exactly what it would have been five
hundred years earlier. A solemn procession was enjoined, and, amidst
the masses of terrified people, a statue of the Virgin was borne across
Rome to the Church of the Jesuits. Gregory and his cardinals were in
the procession, and for a time the Gesù was the centre or fount of the
hope of Rome. Within a few months 5419 Romans succumbed to the cholera.
Gregory died in the year 1846, and Italy sighed with relief. The misery
of the working classes, the brutal treatment to which the educated
classes had been exposed, and the control of education and of a very
large proportion of appointments in the Papal States by the Jesuits,
had engendered a hatred of him in every part of his dominion. When
Mastai Ferretti ascended the throne, and took the name of Pius IX., he
was greeted with wild enthusiasm. He was sufficiently known to inspire
a hope that the reign of terror and the reign of the Jesuits were over,
and his first acts confirmed this hope. An amnesty was granted, and
the more brutal of his predecessor's coercive measures were repealed.
Rossi, who, as we shall see presently, had been sent to Rome a few
years before to negotiate the banishment of the Jesuits from France,
was recalled and made leading minister to the Vatican; and Father
Theiner was directed to vindicate the memory of Clement XIV. against
the Jesuits and Crétineau-Joly, who had just published his history.
The Jesuits were so notoriously discontented with the change, and with
the young Pope's concessions to liberalism, that, as he passed through
the streets he heard the warning cry from his people: "Beware of the
Jesuits."
What part the Jesuits had in the termination of the new Pope's pose as
a Liberal it would be difficult to say. The usual statement, that he
was shaken by the assassination of Count Rossi and the revolution of
1848, is superficial and misleading. He had incurred the resentment
of the Liberals because he had rapidly fallen from his first ideal.
Some of the chief grievances of his educated subjects, such as the
monopoly of all remunerative offices in the State by clerics, remained
untouched, and it was soon perceived that he was drifting backward
toward reaction. His confessor was replaced by a friend of the Jesuits,
and, when the popular and somewhat insurgent priest Gioberti published
a fiery and just attack on the Jesuits, Pius IX. harshly condemned him.
At the same time the returned exiles and the refugees who flocked to
Rome from the countries which clung to oppression assuredly had ideals
which it was quite impossible for any Pope to realise in that age. Pius
was alienated more and more, and a violent conflict approached. How the
third revolutionary wave in 1848 spread to Rome, and the Pope fled to
Gaeta, and the Jesuits returned to power in the inevitable reaction,
must be reserved for the next chapter.
When we turn to consider the fortunes of the Jesuits in France during
the first half of the nineteenth century, we find a very different
and more interesting chronicle. They had been banished from France,
it will be recalled, in 1761, and the great majority of them had
actually quitted the kingdom. Many had been secularised, and remained
as teachers, tutors, confessors, or _curés_. During the period of
suppression a large number of them found employment in France; the
learned Father Boscovitch, for instance, was made director of the
optical department of the Navy under Louis XVI. As in Italy and
Austria, some of them sought to incorporate the spirit of their
condemned Society in Congregations with other names, and a curious
assortment of fraternities appeared. The "Fathers of the Faith," or
Paccanarists, whose origin we have seen, found a genial atmosphere in
France, and the little colony they sent from Austria was soon swelled
with ex-Jesuits. Another body was significantly known as the "Victims
of the Love of God." The feminine branch of the "Sacred Heart" Society
also spread to France, and grew into a formidable body of nuns (under
the direction of ex-Jesuits) with the particular function of giving
a "sound" education to the daughters of wealthy people; it remains
to this day, in effect, the feminine branch of the Society, though
the connection is not official. There was a "Congregation of the Holy
Family" for training teachers of the poor, and a "Congregation of Our
Lady" for banding together members of the middle class.
But of all these associations which sprang up mysteriously in the soil
of revolutionary France, and throve under the shelter of Napoleon,
the most important was a certain "Congregation of the Holy Virgin,"
founded in the year 1801. It was controlled by an ex-Jesuit, and had
at first some resemblance to the association of young men organised at
Rome by the ex-Jesuit Caravita. The young men, very largely university
students, were to visit the sick and poor--to be practical Christians,
in a word. But, whereas the Italian young men had become priests and
Paccanarists, the members of the Congregation of the Virgin generally
remained in the world, retaining throughout life their membership of
the Society and their link with its directors. A register of their
names and occupations was kept, and it meant, in effect, that the
Jesuits had friends and ardent secret workers in every school and
profession, in the army and navy, in journalism and politics.
Louis XVIII. came to the throne and was urged by Talleyrand to restore
the Society. He refused, and the Jesuits were forced to rely still
on their secret organisation. Already, in 1814, the Fathers of the
Faith had a house in Paris, and six other houses in the country. Their
title was now a deliberate deception, as they had in 1804 secretly
renounced Paccanarism, in the hands of the Papal Nuncio, and entered
the Society of Jesus, as authorised in Russia. They dressed and acted
externally as secular priests, and were much employed by bishops in
teaching and preaching. From the Congregation of the Virgin they not
only had accurate information of what was being said and done in every
department of French life, but they obtained many novices; other youths
joined the secular clergy, and would in time watch the interests of the
Society within that body. Orders were now given that the Jesuits must
work in perfect harmony with the secular clergy and in most respectful
submission to the bishops.
They grew rapidly in the course of the next few years, and about 1818
they began to stand out prominently in the religious life of France.
They were especially employed in what are known in English church-life
as "revival services." Eloquent preachers, particularly when they were
denouncing liberalism and the "bad" tendencies of the times, they
passed from town to town lashing up the fervour of the Catholics. Large
crucifixes were planted on the wayside as memorials of their oratory;
enthusiastic processions marched through the streets; in places the
churches were so crowded that one had to spend the night at the door
to secure a place near the pulpit. They were the Pères de la Foi,
Catholics said (with a smile); but critics maintained that they were
Jesuits, and there were towns where the missionaries were assaulted and
expelled. A very serious controversy raged in the French press as to
whether there were really any Jesuits in France; even when, in 1822, a
Liberal journal obtained and published a letter of General Fortis to
one of his French subjects, it was difficult to convict them.
At this period, in the early twenties, the famous Abbé de Lamennais
was seeking to form a democratic Christian body, and he made an effort
to secure the support of the Jesuits. Louis XVIII. was one of the more
moderate of the restored monarchs; but the democratic feeling was
still strong in France and, as the clergy were generally reactionary,
democracy, of which Lamennais foresaw the triumph, was allied with
Voltaireanism. Lamennais was convinced that the hour of feudal monarchs
was over, and the Church could be saved only by allying itself with
the people. The development of French history has shown the truth of
his view. Democracy has triumphed, and the Church has shrunk to--M.
Sabatier tells me--less than one-sixth of the population. Seeing the
apparent power of the Jesuit missionaries, Lamennais, who was very
friendly with them, earnestly begged them to incorporate his policy in
their preaching.
The attitude of the Jesuits toward Lamennais is interesting. They
hesitated for years, broke into sections, and eventually had to forbid
all public discussion of the issue. In 1821 some of their members were
censured for attacking Lamennais, in the next year others were censured
for supporting him; and Rozaven, the French Assistant at Rome, directed
that "prudence" forbade them to take either side in public. Later, as
they still wavered and contradicted each other, General Fortis sternly
prohibited public expression on the subject. Fortis died in 1829, and
Lamennais made a fresh appeal to the Jesuits to "turn from monarchs to
the people"; but Roothaan maintained the attitude of his predecessor.
When Lamennais was eventually condemned, the Jesuits eagerly pointed
out that they had declined to support him.
This situation is interesting, because it exhibits the Jesuits
shrinking nervously from the greatest social issue of their time. They
retort that it was a political issue, and their traditions forbade
them to discuss politics. It is in a sense true that the Jesuits had
always abstained from political theorising, and bowed to the actual
ruling power; except in cases where the ruling power incommoded them,
when they might become the most violent of revolutionaries. But, apart
from the question whether the issue was not moral in the finest sense
of the word, it is ludicrous to affirm that the "political" nature of
Lamennais's gospel prevented them from considering it when, in every
country where a reactionary monarch called them to his aid, they were
violent partisans of the aristocratic gospel. For twenty years they had
maintained that the political storms which swept the old monarchs from
their thrones at the end of the eighteenth century were directly due
to the removal of their control of the schools and universities. They
had been restored to life for the express purpose of reconciling Europe
to the old order, and destroying the aspiration for democratic reform,
and it was only in the cantons of Switzerland that they were found to
hold a different theory of the social order; though, as we shall see,
the Swiss cantons were then rather aristocratic than democratic. It
is plain that in France they hesitated only because the future was
uncertain. Their real aim was to restore the age of Louis XIV., but
this new democratic movement looked formidable. They would wait and be
guided by the issue.
The Catholic democrats turned angrily on the Jesuits for their
attitude on this great issue, and accused them of gross ignorance of,
and indifference to, social conditions: an entirely just censure.
But their power was growing in every decade. New Congregations
appeared,--societies for persuading lovers to marry in church, for
preserving students from liberalism, and so on,--and the Congregation
of our Lady now included half the nobility and higher clergy, and
numbers of writers, lawyers, politicians, and officials. Their
French apologist, who was himself a member of the Congregation and
lived in Paris at this time, admits that the secret influence of the
Congregation was such that many made a profession of religion and
joined it in order to promote their material interests. Charles X., who
succeeded Louis in 1824, renewed their confidence. He opened his career
with Liberal measures; but he was more reactionary at heart than Louis
XVIII., and less prudent, and the Jesuits silently organised their
forces for a restoration of the Society.
The educated Frenchman now commonly united the scepticism of Voltaire
with the moderate democracy of Lafayette, and an angry storm broke
out in the Liberal press. The open activity of the "Paccanarists"
was an affront to the Constitution, and the secret manoeuvres of the
Congregation, notoriously led by Father Ronsin, alarmed them. The
authorities discreetly removed Father Ronsin from Paris, but the work
of the Congregation proceeded. Charles X. was suspected of favouring
the Jesuits. In 1828 the Nuncio openly proposed that the Society should
be restored. We may take the word of Crétineau-Joly that the ground
had been so well prepared that a measure could have been passed safely
through the two Houses. But Villèle, the French historian says, was so
misguided as to appeal to the country first, and he lost. The question
of the Jesuits was not the least of the issues at stake. Showers of
pamphlets fell upon the public, and the popular feeling was such that
when the King was one day reviewing the National Guard, the cry,
"Down with the Jesuits," rang out from the ranks, and the review was
abandoned.
The more moderate ministry of Martignac had now to be formed, and, as
it needed the co-operation of the Liberals, the plan to restore the
Jesuits was abandoned. The Liberals were now encouraged, and they made
a fiery assault. The "little seminaries," as the French called the
preparatory colleges for the clergy, had been left under the control
of the bishops, and several of them were notoriously controlled by the
thinly disguised Jesuits. A commission of bishops, with the Archbishop
of Paris at their head, was appointed to examine the charge, and it was
determined that eight of the seminaries were really Jesuit colleges,
and must be closed; it was further enacted that the seminaries
were to be taken from the bishops and put under the control of the
universities, that the number of pupils was to be restricted, and that
no priest should henceforth be allowed to teach in them who did not
take oath that he did not belong to a non-authorised Congregation.
The bishops, many of whom had won their seats by Jesuit influence,
protested in vain against this violation of their rights. Their protest
made matters worse, since they stipulated that it should remain secret;
but the Liberal press secured the text and published it.
This was a very severe blow to the French Jesuits, who had used
the seminaries for training lay pupils in their spirit as well as
teaching the secular priests to rely on them. While the French press
was discussing the question whether they existed in the country, they
had grown to the number of 436, and had two novitiates and several
residences, besides the seminaries. They now determined to take bolder
measures against the enemy. As I said, the question of the Jesuits was
by no means the only serious issue under discussion; Martignac received
only a moderate and uncertain support from his Liberal allies because
his measures were not sufficiently advanced. It is, however, clear that
the Jesuits, through the Nuncio, had their share in inducing the King
to replace the moderate Martignac with the thoroughly conservative
Polignac. This was in July 1829. The reply of the people, when the
ministry returned to the old coercive measures, was the July Revolution
of 1830. The chief Jesuit houses, at Montrouge and St. Acheul, were
sacked by the mob, and the fathers scattered in every direction. Once
more they had suffered a heavy defeat on what they believed to be the
eve of victory.
The revolutionary wave spread, with devastating force, to Italy, as we
saw; and there also the fathers were for a time driven contemptuously
from their colleges. Their recovery in France was naturally slower
than in Italy. They moved in fear of their lives for the first year or
two of the reign of Louis Philippe, and generally concealed themselves
in devoted Catholic houses. In 1832 the cholera swept France, and
they recollected how frequently heroic conduct in such epidemics had
disarmed their critics. But France was not so easily reconciled in
the nineteenth century, and the few who ventured to appear during
the following years were arrested. In the course of time, however,
the resentment was confined to the more ardent Liberals, and they
resumed the semi-public existence of the previous decade. Catholicism
made great progress in the thirties, chiefly through the agency of a
brilliant group of laymen, and some of the Jesuits took an open part
in the revival. Father de Ravignan, their finest orator, occupied the
pulpit of Nôtre Dame for several seasons, and they were assiduous in
giving retreats to the clergy.
As they no longer ventured to teach,--though it was known that
they had opened a college for French pupils just over the Belgian
frontier,--and betrayed their character in no external action, they
were legally unassailable; but it was not long before they again drew
on themselves the ire of the Liberals. From 1840 onwards the clergy
made a vehement attack on the professors of the university. Since
these included philosophers like Cousin and Jouffroy, historians like
Michelet, and men of letters like Jules Simon, we can easily believe
that their lectures were at times inconsistent with orthodox ideas;
but the attack was gross and exaggerated, and the professors felt that
the Jesuits secretly guided it; Father de Ravignan, in fact, joined
in the spirited conflict of pens. The chief result was to draw on
the Jesuits the sardonic humour of Michelet, the weighty censures of
Cousin, the poisonous raillery of Simon, and the unrestrained diatribes
of the popular Liberal press. It was during this agitation that
Eugène Sue lashed them with his _Juif Errant_, and George Sand wrote
_Consuelo_. Against this fierce and brilliant onslaught the publication
of Crétineau-Joly's _Histoire_ was a feeble defence; it could carry no
conviction except to the already convinced and uncritical Catholic.
Indeed, its treatment of Clement XIV. scandalised many Catholics, and,
as we saw, Pius IX. directed the Vatican Archivist to refute it.[41]
Louis Philippe was at length compelled to take action. Catholic writers
treated it as an amusing scare that there were Jesuits in France, and
were not a little mortified when the fathers betrayed their existence
in a way which entertained the Liberal pamphleteers. In 1845 one
of their treasurers embezzled the funds entrusted to him, and they
imprudently prosecuted. In the controversy which followed it was made
plain that there were two hundred members of the forbidden Society in
France, and their expulsion was stormily demanded. The King knew that
if he suppressed the "Fathers of the Faith" they would do no more than
change their name, and he adopted a shrewder policy. He sent Rossi to
Rome to submit to the Pope that the relations of France and the Vatican
would be much improved if the Jesuits were removed by ecclesiastical
authority. The dignity of the Holy See was saved by a pleasant little
comedy. The Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs
reported that the request could not be granted, and the Pope firmly
replied to the French envoy in that sense. But a private intimation
was made to General Roothaan that it was desirable to meet the wishes
of the King, and Rossi was instructed to see him. Whatever the precise
nature of the intimation was, Roothaan submitted to his French subjects
that it was expedient to dissolve their chief communities,--at Paris,
St. Acheul, Lyons, and Avignon,--and they once more retreated sullenly
from the field. We shall see later how they found a fitting patron in
Napoleon III., and how the third Republic put a definitive close to
their activity in France.
Their fortunes in Spain during the nineteenth century have been
more chequered than their present prosperity would suggest. On 15th
May 1815, Ferdinand VII. repealed the drastic sentence of his great
predecessor, and ordered that their former property should be restored
to the Jesuits. A hundred and fifty of the old members of the Society
returned to their native land; colleges and novitiates were opened by
means of the restored property and the royal bounty; and, we are told,
town after town demanded, and enthusiastically welcomed, its former
teachers. We can well believe that the mobs which saluted the perjured
Ferdinand with the cry, "Down with Liberty," would welcome the Jesuits.
In the recoil due to their hatred of the French, and of the new ideas
which the French had brought into Spain, the densely ignorant mass of
the people fell at the feet of a brutal monarch and a corrupt clergy.
The educated middle class, however, remained substantially Liberal.
They had admitted Ferdinand only on condition that he promised to
maintain their Liberal Constitution, and, as soon as he had attained
the crown, he tore his promise and the Constitution to shreds and
fell with terrible cruelty on the Liberals. Known Liberals were at
once executed, imprisoned for life, or banished; the Inquisition
was restored; and a network of spies spread over the kingdom. Men,
women, and children were savagely punished, and a "Society of the
Exterminating Angel" arose to strengthen and direct the bloody hands of
the King and the Inquisitors.
Those five years of Spanish history constitute one of the most
repulsive chapters in the chronicle of modern Europe. Unfortunately, it
is not possible to determine what part the restored Jesuits had in this
reign of terror. All the clergy and monks of Spain were allied with
their monarch in prosecuting what they regarded as a holy war. It is
enough that the Jesuits did not dissent from the barbaric proceedings
of Ferdinand, and that they flourished and were more than doubled in
number within five years. The year 1820 found them increased to 397,
with several novitiates and a large number of colleges.
And the year 1820 gives us some measure of their guilt in connection
with the preceding years. The middle class was still strong enough,
or humane enough, to put an end to the disgraceful horrors, and
reaffirm the liberal constitution of 1810. The Cortes was summoned,
and, although its members were still predominantly Catholic, it was
determined, with only one dissentient, to expel the Jesuits. The
terrified King yielded to the deputies, and in August the four hundred
Jesuits were pensioned and ordered to quit the country. Unfortunately,
the French King espoused the cause of his "cousin," and his troops
restored the savage autocracy of Ferdinand and the power of the
Jesuits. The reign of terror returned, and even the other Catholic
monarchs of Europe were shocked by the outrages committed and permitted
by Ferdinand. Again it is impossible to disentangle the share of the
Jesuits in this comprehensive guilt. Their chief task was to educate
the young in "better" sentiments. The College of Nobles and a large
military college at Segura were entrusted to them, and they reoccupied
their former colleges. But neither priests nor ruler put confidence in
educational methods. It is enough to note that a conservative authority
on Spain, Major Hume, says of the renewed reign of terror: "Modern
civilisation has seen no such instance of brutal, blind ferocity."
This appalling condition lasted, almost continuously, until the death
of Ferdinand in 1833. Then the country entered upon the long Carlist
war, and the Jesuits were soon expelled for the third time. While Queen
Christina allied herself with the Liberals, Don Carlos rallied to his
standard the absolutists and Ultramontanes, and the great majority of
the clergy supported him. It is usually and confidently said that the
Jesuits, like the rest of the clergy, supported Don Carlos; but when
we recollect their maxim of not taking sides openly in an ambiguous
conflict, or taking both sides, we shall not expect to find any proof
of this in the early stages. Not only the Liberals but the mass of
the people in Madrid were persuaded that they were on the side of Don
Carlos, and they saw hatred gathering on every side of them. In 1834
the cholera descended on the capital. Such occasions had generally
served the Jesuits, but this fresh affliction only further irritated
the people against them. The cry was raised that the Jesuits and the
Carlists had poisoned the water-supply, and it seems that, by some
strange accident or plot, children were found on the street with small
quantities of arsenic. In the afternoon of 17th July the citizens flung
themselves upon the houses of the Jesuits and other religious, and
a fierce riot ensued. Fourteen Jesuits, forty-four Franciscans, and
fifteen Dominicans and others were slain in the struggle. Some of their
provincial houses also were sacked or closed, and the inmates had to
fly for their lives.
In the following year, 1835, the Society was again proscribed, by
the Regent Christina, and the Jesuits were scattered. They now sided
openly with Don Carlos. Alleging, as usual, that they were indifferent
to politics and must discharge the spiritual services demanded of
them under any banner, they followed in the rear of the advancing
Carlists and opened colleges in the districts conquered by them. One
Jesuit guarded the conscience of Don Carlos, another was tutor to
his children, and others ministered in his camps. At length an abler
Christinist General, Espartero, cleared the Carlists from the Basque
Provinces and closed the Jesuit houses. By the time of the revolution
of 1848 there were none but a few disguised and timid survivors of the
Society in Spain.
From Portugal the Jesuits were rigorously excluded during fifteen years
after the restoration of the Society. John VI., a constitutional and
sober monarch, refused to irritate his subjects by admitting them,
and had no need of their stifling influence on education in Portugal.
He resisted all the pressure of Rome in their interest, and observed
the Liberal Constitution which he had accepted. His granddaughter
Maria succeeded to his throne and policy in 1826, under the regency of
her uncle, Dom Miguel. Here again the Jesuits were admitted in virtue
of an act of treachery and throve in an atmosphere of savagery. Dom
Miguel intrigued for the throne, and, when he took an oath to respect
the Liberal Constitution, was permitted to occupy it. "His Jesuit
training," says the _Cambridge Modern History_ (x. 321), "would make
it easy for him to rest content with the absolution of the Church for
a breach of faith committed on behalf of the good cause." He at once
violated his oath and turned with ferocity upon the Liberals. It is
estimated by some of the Portuguese writers that more than 60,000 were
executed, deported, or imprisoned in the next four years.
Such was the second of the leading Catholic monarchs to seek the aid
of the Jesuits. None of the members of the old Portuguese Province
could be discovered, or induced to resume work in a bitterly hostile
world, and eight Jesuits had to be sent from France, in 1829, to begin
the work of restoration. They make little pretence of an enthusiastic
reception in this case. None of their former property was restored,
and for a time they had to take refuge in the houses of rival orders.
They had, however, their usual good fortune to attract the sympathy of
noble ladies, and were enabled to secure their old house at Lisbon in
the following year. When the King saw that no violent upheaval followed
their arrival, he began to patronise them, and secured for them their
famous college at Coimbra. In the same year they had the satisfaction
of establishing a house at Pombal, where their old antagonist had
died, and their superior describes, in an edifying letter, how he at
once "ran to say a prayer over the tomb of the Marquis"; he was deeply
pained, it seems, to find that the remains of Pombal had not even yet
been interred, while the children of Ignatius were received with honour
in his name-place.
But the ferocity of Miguel had already deeply stirred the population,
and in the following year the defrauded young Queen's father, Don
Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, crossed the ocean to secure her rights and
the Constitution. The Jesuits were painfully perplexed. Don Pedro seems
to have felt that he could not hope for a lasting triumph without the
aid of the Jesuits, and he made a secret offer to them, in an autograph
letter (in March), of his protection and favour if they would desert
Miguel. The issue was uncertain, and, when Don Pedro entered Lisbon in
July, the Jesuits assured him that his letter had reached their hands
too late for them to consider his offer. They had remained ideally
neutral in the war, and had nursed the cholera victims in both camps
with religious impartiality.
The people of Lisbon saved Don Pedro from the dilemma which this
excellent or prudent conduct imposed on him. On 29th July a mixed
throng of soldiers and citizens assaulted and sacked the Jesuit
residence. It would have gone very hard with the fathers themselves
had not certain English naval officers chivalrously saved them. In the
following May (1834) Don Pedro renewed the sentence of suppression.
From their handsome college at Coimbra they were conveyed to Lisbon, to
face the hoots and taunts of a rejoicing mob, and then to be deposited
in prison. The French afterwards secured their release from prison, but
they have never since had a legal existence in the land of Pombal.
We turn next to England, to study the fortunes of the followers of
Ignatius up to the middle of the nineteenth century. In the latter part
of the eighteenth century the Jesuits had availed themselves of the
more tolerant spirit of the age of the Georges, and again increased
to a considerable body. Their colleges in Spain, France, and Belgium
received numbers of young Catholic aspirants, and we find that at the
time of the suppression of the Society the English Province boasted
274 members, of whom 143 were actually in England. The suppression in
Spain and France reduced their colleges; the two colleges at Bruges
were violently closed by the authorities in 1773; there remained only a
house at Liège and the English missions at Liverpool, Preston, Bristol,
and a few other towns.
They continued to live in community in these residences after the
abolition of the Society, and minister as secular priests. In 1794
their situation was again altered by the French invasion of Belgium,
when the English fathers were expelled from their last continental
seat, at Liège. The disaster proved, however, to be the starting-point
of their more prosperous modern development in England. One of their
old pupils, Thomas Weld, offered them a house and estate at Stonyhurst,
near Preston, and on 29th August the refugees reached what was destined
to be one of their most important centres. They opened a school--to be
directed by certain "gentlemen from Liège"--and quietly awaited the
future.
In the meantime the ex-Jesuits who had remained in England bore their
disgrace very impatiently. One of their number, Father Thorpe, wrote
in 1785 so scurrilous a _Sketch of the Life and Government of Pope
Clement XIV._ that his colleagues had to withdraw it from publication
at the demand of their own admirers. In the following year the English
ex-Jesuits opened a correspondence with their rebellious colleagues
in Russia, and, although they could devise no pretext whatever for
disobeying the Pope in England, they offered to unite with the
Russians. Their proposal was declined or postponed, and they waited
until the Pope officially recognised the Russian Society in 1801. By
that time the Abbé de Broglie had led his little colony of Fathers of
the Faith from Austria to London and opened a college at Kensington.
Some of the ex-Jesuits and many emigrant French priests were attracted
to this authorised Congregation, but Paccanari was now an object of
suspicion to most of them, and, on the other hand, there was increasing
hope of a restoration of the Society.
The proposal to enlist under the Russian General was now revived, and
both ex-Jesuits and Fathers of the Faith made their way, secretly and
individually, to Russia and renewed their vows. By the year 1804 there
were between eighty and ninety Jesuits in England. The general and
violent hatred of the French had led to much sympathy with the clerical
victims of the Revolution, but England was not yet prepared for this
substantial resurrection of the Jesuits. Stonyhurst was growing into a
large and busy colony, owing to the continued bounty of Weld and the
return of surviving members of the old province, and in 1804, and more
peremptorily in 1807, the Government ordered the dissolution of their
communities.
Such an order was a feeble check on their growth, and they took
advantage of the successive movements which aided the restoration of
Catholicism. The stream of French emigrants, the Act of Toleration of
1791, the beginning of Irish immigration, and the advocacy of Catholic
Emancipation by Pitt enabled the Catholics to enter the nineteenth
century in increased numbers. The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 so
inflated them that they then estimated their numbers in London alone
as 146,000, or nearly a tenth of the population; to-day they number
about one-fiftieth of the population of London. The Jesuits shared the
growth with the rest of the clergy. Between 1826 and 1835 they built
eleven new churches, and in 1830 the Roman authorities made a formal
province of the English group. The Irish fathers had been detached from
the English in 1829, and formed a vice-province. Ten years later began
the Catholic movement within the Church of England, to the considerable
profit of Rome.
The early history of the Jesuits in the United States is one of the
most interesting chapters in their modern story. When the Society was
abolished and its members momentarily discouraged, John Carroll, a
member of the suppressed English Province, led a small group of fathers
to the North American Colony. He became friendly with Washington
and other leaders of the insurrection, and is said to have had some
influence in shaping the Liberal clauses of the new Constitution. In
1789 he became Bishop of Baltimore, and another ex-Jesuit, Father
Neale, was afterwards made his coadjutor. This transferred the
American mission from the control of the English Vicar Apostolic,
and made Carroll head of the Church in the United States. In 1803 we
find Carroll writing to General Gruber that there are a dozen aged
ex-Jesuits in Maryland and Pennsylvania, with sufficient property
(of the older Maryland mission) to support thirty; they wish to join
Gruber's authorised Society and receive an accession of strength. The
Russian Jesuits had justified their rebellion on the ground that the
secular monarch had forbidden them to lay aside their habits; the
Americans said it was enough that there was in America no secular
monarch to forbid them to wear it. The Papacy counted for little with
any of them.
Gruber complied, and the foundations were laid of the prosperity of
the Jesuits in the United States. In the early years little progress
was made. The newcomers were young foreigners, and the population was
scattered and generally hostile. One of the German fathers was actually
arrested and tried for not betraying the confession of a thief, but
the controversy which followed rather promoted their interest. They
shrewdly established their chief college and centre at Georgetown, near
Washington, and gradually won the regard of American statesmen, who
visited and granted privileges to the college. By the year 1818 there
were 86 Jesuits in the United States, and recruits were arriving from
Europe. A novitiate had been opened at White Marsh in 1815, but few
novices could be secured in America. In fact, as they followed their
usual custom of making no charge for education, they had a severe
struggle with poverty everywhere. In 1822 the authorities at Rome
ordered them to close the school at Washington, as it could no longer
maintain itself without charging. The rector, Father Kelly, defied his
superiors for a time, and maintained the school on the fees of pupils;
but Americanism was not yet sufficiently developed to sustain this, and
Father Kelly was expelled from the Society.
Memories of the "black robes" lingered among the Indians, and it
was suggested, time after time, that the fathers should return to
their work among them, and amongst the blacks of the south and the
islands. Their historian makes a lengthy and very earnest apology
for their refusal, during ten or twenty years, to listen to this
suggestion. They remembered how their work amongst the Indians had
been "misinterpreted"; they were too few in number to spare men for
distant fields; in time, they foresaw the greatness of the United
States and "preferred the certain to the uncertain." The truth seems to
be that commerce in blankets and beaver-skins was not possible in the
nineteenth century. After 1840, however, they sent missionaries among
the Indians, and won a great affection among them. By that time the
Missouri Province alone had 148 Jesuits, and the Maryland Province 103.
It is clear that the early Jesuits laboured devotedly to arrest the
enormous lapse from the Church of Rome in the United States in the
first half of the nineteenth century. We need pay little attention to
their boasts of conversions. Catholic immigrants were now arriving in
millions, and were passing out into the lonely districts and small
towns, where their faith was quickly forgotten. In 1636 the Bishop of
Charlestown estimated the loss at nearly four millions in his diocese
alone. Many of the Jesuits went out among the struggling pioneers and
led lives of great self-sacrifice. Their energies were, however, mainly
concentrated on the aggrandisement of their schools and conciliation
of politicians in cities like Washington. They made sure of power in
the great Republic they foresaw. It may be added that the Society was
at the same time spreading in Mexico. Restored under Ferdinand, they
undertook, as in Spain, to check or destroy the Liberal principles
which had taken root in Mexico. For this they were banished in 1821,
when the news came of the Liberal triumph in Spain, and did not return
to open activity until 1843.
In the Germanic lands, except Belgium, the restored Jesuits had a
severe struggle throughout the nineteenth century. Austria and Bavaria
refused to publish the bull of restoration or comply with it, to the
great mortification of the Jesuits. Metternich, at least, retained
the spirit of Joseph II., and Ferdinand II. was not yet disposed to
tempt his subjects by readmitting them. Prussia was, of course, still
closed against the Jesuits as Jesuits. The first serious attempt to
gain a footing in Germany was made in 1820, when the fathers who had
been driven from Russia appeared on the Austrian frontier and humbly
asked permission to cross the Emperor's territory. They might "cross,"
he drily answered; and when they secured the customary intervention of
noble dames, he permitted them to go and teach loyalty among his poor
subjects in Galicia and his restless subjects in Hungary. He granted
funds for this purpose, and they soon had a flourishing Province in
Galicia, and a general control of education. Even here they were
subject to the bishops, and the imperial decrees intimate that there
was much suspicion and hostility. In 1829, Styria and other provinces
were opened to them, though the opposition was so violent that at Gratz
we find them complaining of having to lodge in some kind of inn, with
an actress for neighbour.
Ferdinand II. died in 1836, but his successor could do little for
them in face of the prevailing hostility. Father Beckx, the future
General, was in Vienna at the time. A Jesuit had at last brought a
ray of hope into the German camp by converting the Duke and Duchess
of Anhalt-Köthen, and Father Beckx was confessor to the Duchess at
Vienna--and secret agent of the Society. He writes in 1837 that their
enemies are very powerful, and Josephite principles triumphant; the
Jesuits have only one public institution in Austria, and are forbidden
to teach. Ferdinand, however, was not indisposed to enlist their
aid in fighting Liberalism, and they quietly spread in the outlying
provinces. The Tyrol was opened to them in 1838, and from their old
college at Innspruck they proceeded to capture its schools. We shall
see presently how the revolutionary storm of 1848 drove them from their
new acquisitions.
In Switzerland the fortunes of the Jesuits were more romantic. During
the suppression they continued to live in communities, and carefully
concealed the offensive title from the eyes of Protestant citizens.
After 1814 they began to induce their lay followers to petition the
authorities to sanction their return to life, and the long and bitter
struggle over the Society began. The canton of Solothurn was then more
than eighty per cent. Catholic, and in 1816 the Grand Council was urged
to restore the Society. It refused, and they then made cautious efforts
in Valais and Freiburg. I am aware that in all these cases the Jesuits
do not appear in connection with the petition; a few influential
Catholics appeal for the return, and the Jesuits are depicted as
serenely aloof from the negotiations. We are accustomed to pretences
of this character. In 1818 the Grand Council of Freiburg (which also
was nearly ninety per cent. Catholic) decided by sixty-nine votes to
forty-two to readmit the Jesuits and entrust its schools to them. At
the same time they recovered their old house at Brigue, and began to
spread in Catholic Valais.
From the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century the
Radicals began their attacks on the growing Jesuits. In 1823 the
fathers secured their old college at Freiburg, which they had long
coveted. Since their settlement in Freiburg this college had been
in the hands of the Franciscan monks, who had adopted the ideas of
Pestalozzi, the great Swiss educationist, and were doing admirable
work. The bishop complained to the authorities of the friars'
innovations, and they were replaced by the Jesuits. The Radicals
of the town were malicious enough to suggest that the Jesuits had
intrigued to bring about this result,--of which, of course, there is
no proof,--and on the night of 9-10th March they attacked the college,
and were with difficulty prevented from burning it. In the following
year the Jesuits were expelled from the Netherlands (which formed one
Province with Switzerland and Saxony) and came to swell the number of
their colleagues in Valais and Freiburg.
In 1836, however, when the second revolutionary wave was passing
over Europe, the Radicals won power in the majority of the cantons
(including Lucerne, Freiburg, and Solothurn). They were not yet in a
position to dislodge the Jesuits, but there was constant friction, and
a serious struggle for the federal authority began. The aim of the
Radicals was to capture and strengthen the federal government, and
expel the Jesuits (and other religions) from the whole of Switzerland.
They and the "young Swiss" were part of the international Liberal
movement, which was everywhere anti-clerical.[42] In 1844 the struggle
became more violent. The Jesuits of Valais refusing to admit government
control of their schools, a band of armed Radicals marched upon Sion
and had to be defeated by the armed inhabitants. In the same year the
Jesuits entered Lucerne for the first time. A wealthy Catholic farmer
named Leu threw all his energy into their cause, and the Jesuits aided
by sending a preacher occasionally to show, by suave and conciliatory
sermons, that the suspicion of them was wholly unfounded. In face of a
storm of Protestant and Radical threats the Council decided to admit
the Jesuits.
There now spread through the country a struggle of passion which
was soon to culminate in a deadly civil war. Leu was murdered, and
Catholics and Radicals faced each other with intense hatred. Opinions
may differ as to the conduct of the Jesuits in pressing their ministry,
since it is clear that the purely political differences would not have
stained the hills and valleys of Switzerland with blood. The war that
followed was a religious war, and mainly a war over the Jesuits. In
the spring of 1845 it was announced that an army of 11,000 Radicals
was marching on Lucerne. The Catholic Confederation sent round the
fiery cross, and gathered an army sufficiently strong to defeat and
scatter the Radicals. It was over the corpses of these opponents that
the Jesuits entered Lucerne and began to teach, with passion still
seething on every side. A graver struggle impended, and both sides
hastily organised. The seven Catholic cantons (to whose enterprise the
French Jesuits contributed 98,000 francs) formed a Sonderbund [Separate
Alliance], and aimed at setting up a Catholic Republic. The Federal
Diet at Berne ordered them to dissolve, and when they refused, pitted
the federal army against the Catholic troops. A bloody and disastrous
war ended in a victory for the federal troops in 1847, the Sonderbund
was destroyed, and the Jesuits (with the other religious orders) were
excluded from Switzerland by the Constitution of 1848. The Jesuits had
not waited for the troops to enter Freiburg and Lucerne; they had fled
to the Tyrol and Austria.
In the Netherlands the story of the Jesuits during the nineteenth
century has been one of great prosperity, checked only by a few early
reverses. No sooner had the Pope issued the bull of restoration, and
the French rule been destroyed, than the ex-Jesuits who lingered in the
country as secular priests and the Fathers of the Faith (who had at
last entered the Society) proceeded to organise their body. A novitiate
was opened at Rumbeke and another at Destelbergen, in Belgium. The
Congress of Vienna, however, placed the united Netherlands under the
control of William of Nassau, and he watched the progress of the
Jesuits with uneasiness. The former father of the Faith, the Count de
Broglie, was now bishop of Ghent, and he and other prelates and nobles
sedulously assisted the Jesuits. The controversies which were bound to
arise after the union of Protestant Holland and Catholic Belgium under
one crown soon raged furiously, and William, in the summer of 1816,
ordered the Jesuits to close their novitiate at Destelbergen. They were
forced to retire, but de Broglie encouraged them to resist the King,
and lent them his palace for the maintenance of their community. De
Broglie himself was afterwards banished for assailing the Constitution,
and the fathers were put out of the palace at the point of the bayonet
in 1818. As William threatened to expel them from the country, they
removed the novitiate to Switzerland, and assumed an appearance of
submission. As, however, they continued to stir the Catholics, William
ordered the bishops in 1824 to forbid them to give retreats to the
clergy, and in the following year he closed two of their residences.
This succinct account will suffice to introduce the Catholic revolution
of 1830, in which Belgium won its independence. We are again asked to
regard the Jesuits as idle spectators of the fierce Catholic agitation
which ended in the rebellion; but, in view of their experience under
William, it seems wiser to accept the Dutch assurance that they played
a large, if secret, part in it. The revolution was just, however, and
there were other grounds than religion in the dissatisfaction of the
Belgians.[43] From that date Belgium has been a golden land for the
Jesuits, and Protestant Holland has suffered them to prosper in peace.
After 1830 they literally overran Belgium; they numbered 117 in 1834,
and 454 in 1845. After that date came the great revolutionary storm of
1848, and Belgium was almost the one land in which the hunted Jesuits
could find refuge. Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was too prudent a Protestant
to interfere with them, and from the Belgian frontier they maintained
the strength of their struggling colleagues in France. In Holland they
were treated with leniency by the successor of William; and, when
the storm broke upon their German colleagues in 1872, they were able
to receive the refugees and maintain houses on the frontier for the
invasion of Germany, as they do to-day.
It is needless to show, in fine, how the restored Jesuits spread again
over the foreign missions. After 1830 especially, when their number
had increased, they began to regain their lost Provinces. In 1834
six fathers landed at Calcutta to restore the Indian Province, and
when the Portuguese missionaries and authorities tried to expel them,
they succeeded in getting the protection of the English authorities.
Madaura, the richest of their old fields, was restored to them in 1837.
Here again the existing missionaries protested so violently that for
many years the few Jesuits led a hard and almost fruitless existence.
In 1842 some of the Jesuit missionaries secured the charge of a native
college in Bengal, but the prince was compelled to evict them after a
few years. There was an angry feeling and great outcry against them in
India well into the middle of the century. In 1854 they received charge
of the vicariate of Bombay, in 1858 of Poonah, and in 1859 of Bengal.
China was re-entered, very modestly, in 1841, and the various Republics
of South America admitted them whenever the Catholics alternated in
power with the Liberals. They entered Argentina in 1836, but were
banished again in 1843; they were permitted to settle in Guatemala
in 1853, and expelled when the Liberals came to power in 1871. But
it would be little more than a calendar of dates to record their
appearances and disappearances in the South American States, and on
the foreign missions generally. In 1845, of 5000 Jesuits, 518 were
missionaries: in 1855 there were 1110 on the missions: in 1884 they
counted 2575 on the missions. They no longer presented to the historian
the interesting features of their early years; Jesuits no longer
flaunted the silk robes of a mandarin or the mythological vesture of
a Saniassi, no vast estates or commerce sent gold to their European
brethren, no troops of soldiers marched at their command, no quaint
rites or rebellions against bishops engaged the Roman Congregations.
They had entered the age of prose.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: It seems to have been on account of this slanderous
attack on the Pope, as well as to give it an air of impartiality,
that General Roothaan publicly denied that the Jesuits had assisted
the author. The learned Abbé Guettée, in the _Histoire des Jésuites_,
which he published soon afterwards, tells us that, not yet knowing his
hostility to them, some of the Jesuits of Paris freely acknowledged to
him their share in the work. In any case, the Jesuits were obviously
in close co-operation with the writer, since he speaks constantly of
having before his eyes unpublished documents which belonged to the
Society.]
[Footnote 42: There were, of course, more important issues at stake
in the Swiss struggle. The franchise was narrow, and the government
aristocratic in the cantons, and the central or federal power was weak.
The Radicals mainly aimed at reforming these features, but they were
hardly less inflamed at the privileges given to the Jesuits. In Valais
the fathers travelled free on the public services.]
[Footnote 43: Historians usually include among the causes the
enforcement of a system of secular education only in the schools.
But--as Sir Robert Stout kindly pointed out to me--the Catholic
prelates in their letter to the French Minister of the Interior, dated
30th May 1806, had previously "willingly" accepted this arrangement.
They agreed that it was enough to teach religion in the churches.]
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST PHASE
If we attempt to sum up in few words the story of the Jesuits during
the first few decades after their suppression, we must say that there
was little change in their spirit, and that they were wholly bent
on returning to their former position. In actual conduct there is
a material change. The industrial and commercial system, which had
formed one of the most irregular roots of their power in the earlier
centuries, has disappeared; they no longer haunt the courts of kings as
they had done; they, as a rule, show less arrogance to the non-Jesuit
clergy and the bishops; they are less lax in their casuistry; they
shrink from regicide. Much of this change is, however, plainly
attributable to their new situation. There is, for instance, hardly a
single country where they enjoy an unbroken prosperity for even thirty
years during the first half of the nineteenth century, so that we could
hardly look for large estates or traffic; and their foreign missions
are only slowly and laboriously constructed. As to regicide, the new
age has a more humane way of dealing with superfluous kings. If they do
not counsel kings, it is clearly not from lack of desire to do so. On
the whole, let us say that the dreadful age, as they conceive it, into
which they are reborn has improved their conduct in spite of themselves.
We have now to see how, as the age increases in wickedness, to use
their phrase, the Jesuits continue to improve: how they retain their
worst features only in lands which they pronounce godly and just, and
are so innocent as to cast suspicion on the dark legends about them
where heresy and unbelief abound. This last phase of Jesuit activity is
very important, yet too close to us for proper historical study. Enough
can be said, however, to show that what may be called the intermediate
view of Jesuit degeneration is disputable. There are those (_i.e._
all Jesuits and their admirers) who hold that the Jesuits were never
open to grave censure as a body; and there are those who maintain that
the Jesuit of the nineteenth or twentieth century is as bad as the
Jesuit of the seventeenth, and would poison a pope or forge a cheque
complacently in the interest of the Society. A third view is that their
heavy and repeated chastisements have made their evil features a thing
of history. During the first half of the nineteenth century, however,
we have seen that they had no idea of burying their past; they were
to co-operate with kings in restoring the old order, and we have not
the least ground to think that, had they restored it, they would have
used their power otherwise than they did in the seventeenth century. It
remains to see if they become wiser in the next half-century.
We left them on the eve of the revolution of 1848. Except in
Switzerland, where their obstinacy in asserting their rights had been
one of the chief causes of a civil war and made their prospects worse
than ever, they still dreamed of erasing the revolution from the
chronicle of Europe and beginning again at 1750. Hence the fearful
storm of 1848 broke on them almost unexpectedly. They had only recently
been forced to retire from France, so that the outbreak in that country
affected them little. But the storm passed on to Austria and Italy,
even Rome, and drove the Jesuits before it. A Jesuit writer observes
sadly that "the first attack of the revolutionaries everywhere was
on the Jesuits." Naturally; there were no more vehement opponents in
Europe of the new age which the revolutionary movement represented.
They had themselves traced the revolutionary spirit to their temporary
absence from the schools of Europe, and the revolutionaries[44]
concluded that the reign of terror had had their support. So from
Rhineland, Austria, Galicia, Venice, Turin, Rome, Naples, and
Sicily--the only Provinces of the Society which seemed secure--the
Jesuits were driven by armed and angry crowds, and a vast colony of
bewildered refugees shuddered in Belgium.
The Emperor of Austria was forced on 7th May to sign their expulsion
from the whole of his empire, but it was in Italy that they suffered
most. Since 1840 the authorities of the Society had received a
succession of painful shocks. The Carlists had lost and the fathers had
been driven from Spain: in 1845 they had been forced to dissolve the
communities in France: in 1847 the Swiss Catholics had lost, and the
Jesuit houses had been wrecked. They had attached themselves everywhere
to losing causes. Manning was in Rome in the winter 1847-48, and his
diary records the coming of the revolution to Rome, and flight of the
Jesuits. Pius IX. had exhausted his Liberalism, and the Romans were
uneasy and suspicious. Then, in January and February 1848, news came
that the revolutionaries had triumphed in Sicily and Naples, and the
Jesuits were flying north. By March the Jesuits at Rome were ready to
fly at a moment's notice, as Manning found when he visited them. On
29th March they were expelled; and in the same month the Viennese
conquered their Emperor, the Venetians rebelled and drove out the
Jesuits, and the Piedmontese won a Liberal Constitution from Charles
Albert. Manning speculates on the causes of the intense hostility to
the Jesuits, and traces it to their alliance with ultramontanism and
political reaction.
As the historian tells, the revolution of 1848 had in most countries
only a temporary triumph, and in the course of 1849 and 1850 the
Jesuits returned to their provinces. In very many places they returned
to find their comfortable home a heap of ruins, but the storm had had
one consoling effect. It had proved that the Jesuits were the chief
enemies of Liberalism, and to the Jesuits must be entrusted the task of
extinguishing such sparks as remained of the revolutionary fire. Pius
IX. had been driven to Gaeta, while the Romans set up their short-lived
Triumvirate and declared papal rule at an end. He returned to Rome in
the spring of 1850, when French troops had cleared out his opponents,
and from that moment he became the closest ally of the Jesuits. His
first act was to canonise several members of the Society. He took a
Jesuit confessor, and, with the aid of Cardinal Antonelli and the
Society, set up the selfish and repressive system which the English
ambassador described as "the opprobrium of Europe."
At last, it seemed, the spectre of revolution was definitively laid,
and a prospect of real restoration lay before the Society. At Rome the
Jesuits had enormous power. Their influence is seen in the declaration
of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the appalling Encyclical
against modern culture and aspirations of 1864. To them in 1866 the
Pope entrusted his chief organ, the _Civiltà Cattolica_, and they had
a large part in agitating for, and ultimately passing, the declaration
that the Pope is infallible in 1870. During all this period they
controlled Catholic culture, if not the Papacy. Their power was at
the same time restored in Sicily, Naples, and Venice, so that Italy
(except Piedmont) was covered with their colleges and residences.
In Austria the Emperor, embittered by his hour of humiliation, now
opened the whole of his dominions to them, and they collected fathers
from all parts of the world to come and restore the prosperity of the
Austrian Province. In Belgium they prospered luxuriantly; and they made
quiet and stealthy progress in Holland, Bavaria, Switzerland, Saxony,
and Prussia, where they were not authorised. In France Napoleon III.
cancelled the decrees against them, and cherished them as one of the
supports of his throne. In England they found a friend in Wiseman and
made rapid progress; in the United States they were growing with the
phenomenal growth of the population. The age of trouble was over. The
sage old fathers at the Gesù and the Roman College saw chaos returning
to order.
In 1853, at the beginning of this happier turn of their fortunes,
Roothaan died, and Beckx, the son of a Belgian shoemaker, was elected
General. The one cloud on the horizon was Piedmont, where the earlier
affection for the Jesuits had died, but it had been proved, apparently,
that France and Austria would check the ambition of that State. But
France was drawn to Sardinia, and in 1859 Victor Emmanuel began to
extend his rule over Italy. From that time until 1870 the Society heard
of nothing but disaster. In 1860 Victor Emmanuel annexed Tuscany,
Emilia, and Romagna, and the Jesuits were driven from their homes into
the Papal States. In the same year Garibaldi landed in Sicily, put
an end to the brutal rule of the Catholic King, and ejected the 300
Jesuits from their palatial college at Palermo and other residences.
In the autumn he entered Naples, and swept further hundreds of the
Jesuits before him. We learn from a letter of protest which Father
Beckx addressed to Victor Emmanuel, that in the two years the Society
had lost 3 institutions in Lombardy, 6 in Modena, 11 in the Papal
States, 19 in Naples, and 15 in Sicily. Of 308 Jesuits in their most
prosperous Province of Sicily only 8 aged and ailing fathers were
allowed to remain on the island. Of 5500 members of the Society no less
than 1500 were homeless, and were not even allowed to find shelter in
Catholic houses in their native Provinces. In 1866 the Austrians were
ejected from Venice, and further scores of Jesuits were driven from
their homes. In 1868, it may be added, the Jesuits were again banished
from Spain, to which they had returned under Isabella II.
There was a great concentration of Jesuits in Rome and the remaining
Papal States, and desperate efforts were made to secure that at least
this remnant of earthly principality should remain loyal to the Pope.
To the great joy of the Jesuits an OEcumenical Council gathered at the
Vatican, and the design of declaring the Pope personally infallible
in matters of faith or morals was eagerly pressed. In the long and
heated conflict of affirming bishops and denying bishops, and bishops
who thought a declaration inexpedient, the Jesuits were very active,
scorning the idea that it could be imprudent to enhance the power of
the Pope. Then came the Franco-German War, the withdrawal of the one
Catholic force which could save Rome from Victor Emmanuel, and the
clouds gathered more thickly than ever. The Jesuits had declared their
opinion of the "usurper" too freely to have any illusion as to the
issue.
When the Piedmontese troops entered by the breach at the Porta Pia on
20th September, the Jesuits knew that they were doomed. A detachment
of soldiers at once proceeded to the house attached to the Gesù and
took up quarters there. Whatever the reason was, the new Italian
Government proceeded very slowly in the work of expelling the Jesuits.
For some weeks soldiers and fathers lived together at the Gesù--the
fathers afterwards said that the soldiers chose the General's room
for practising the drum and trumpet--and the various residences were
confiscated "in the public interest" at wide intervals. In October the
novitiate at St. Andreas, with its large estates, was taken and the
novices forced to enlist. In January 1772 one of their smaller churches
was handed over to the secular clergy; in January 1873 a second church
and the Roman College (which was used by the Ministry of War) were
annexed.
At last, in June 1873, a law was published enacting that the monks
and religious of all orders must quit Italy. One house was to be
reserved at Rome for each order, so that they might communicate with
the Vatican, but this privilege was refused to the Jesuits. They were
hated by the great majority of the educated Italians, who recalled
with anger their support of the bloody reigns of Ferdinand of Naples,
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, Miguel of Portugal, and Gregory XVI. and
Pius IX. They had sided with reaction and lost. There was no general
sympathy when, in October, Father Beckx, now a feeble old man of
seventy-eight, went sorrowfully to his exile in Florence, and the
remaining Italian Jesuits were pensioned and scattered. The novitiate
at Sant Andreas was rented by the American Seminary (and Father Beckx
was allowed to die there some years later). The Gesù was entrusted to
other priests, and the sacred rooms of Ignatius and the other saints
of the Society were respectfully preserved. The Roman College became a
State school: I remember seeing a vast Congress of Freethinkers hold
their fiery meetings in its dark chambers and airy quadrangle thirty
years afterwards, at the invitation of the civic authorities of Rome.
It was just one hundred years since the Roman Jesuits had been
scattered by Clement XIV. But the catastrophe in Italy was not the only
affliction to mark that dark centenary. They had in the previous year,
when they were awaiting the sentence of Victor Emmanuel, heard that
their fathers were expelled from the new German Empire. For some years
they had made quiet, but considerable, progress in Prussia, Bavaria,
and Saxony, as well as Austria. They had opened a number of colleges
at Cologne and in the Rhine Province, always a rich field for their
work, and had institutions at Posen, Münster, Metz, Mayence, Bonn,
Strassburg, Essen, Aix-la-Chapelle, Marienthal, Ratisbon, and many
other places. From the Rhine Province and Bavaria and Baden they sent
so many recruits to the German College at Rome, who would return to
work in Germany and further the influence of the Jesuits in seminaries
and bishoprics and universities, that Frederick William III. was
compelled to forbid any of his subjects to go to the German College or
any other Jesuit institution. Frederick William IV. genially overlooked
their progress, and they spread over the States which were presently to
form the German Empire.
But the birth of the German Empire coincided with the declaration of
papal infallibility, and a strong agitation for the expulsion of the
Jesuits arose. The prolonged check on Jesuit activity in Germany had
permitted the growth of a more virile and honest culture among the
secular clergy, and many of the best Catholic scholars were amazed at
the papal claim. Politicians and Protestants generally were concerned
about this victory of ultramontanism, and attributed it largely to the
intrigues of the Jesuits. Even before 1870 the Catholic statesmen of
Bavaria were in conflict with the Church over its extreme pretensions.
When, in 1870, two more Catholic Provinces were added to Germany,
bringing its Catholic population up to fifteen millions, Bismarck
watched attentively every step in the growth of ultramontanism. The
dissenters at the Vatican Council had very serious ground indeed for
their plea of inexpediency, as far as Germany was concerned. Even
Austria threatened to break its Concordat with the Papacy when the news
of the declaration of infallibility arrived. Over Protestant Germany a
feeling of intense hostility spread, and the Old Catholics joined in
the outcry.
Petitions for the expulsion of the Jesuits began to reach the
Reichstag, and the Government proceeded to act. A measure was debated
in the Reichstag in June 1872, and on the 4th of July it was signed
and promulgated. Six months were allowed for the settlement of their
affairs, and in the course of that time the whole of their communities
were dissolved. As communities they retired upon Switzerland, Austria,
Holland, and Belgium, but the law permitted them to enter the Empire
as individual citizens, and Bismarck knew that it availed little to
expel Jesuits with a fork. Dr. Falk, a strenuous Liberal, was made
Minister of Public Instruction, and he framed a series of measures (the
"May Laws") for the complete control of education by the State and
for determining the qualifications of teachers in such a way that no
disguised Jesuit could return to his desk. The control of schools had
hitherto been left generally to the bishops, on whose indulgence or
zeal, as far as the Catholic schools were concerned, the Jesuits could
generally rely.
A stormy controversy ended in the passing of the Laws, and Germany
entered upon that long and bitter struggle of the Catholics against
the Government which is known as the _Kulturkampf_. To this day the
Jesuits have been unable, in spite of the most industrious intrigue,
to secure readmission into the German Empire. They still hover about
the frontiers, in Holland, Austria, and Belgium, and maintain large
colleges in which hundreds of the sons of the wealthier Catholics are
educated in orthodox principles. Individually, they live frequently in
Berlin and control the incessant demand of the Centre Party for their
rehabilitation. "Exile" has no effect on their growth and prosperity,
for the 755 expelled Jesuits of 1872 now number 1186. It is not
impossible that they will secure return by some such bargain as that
which contributed to the ending of the _Kulturkampf_. Bismarck saw a
"red terror" growing more rapidly and threateningly than the "black
terror," and he made peace with the Catholic clergy and Rome on the
understanding that they would combat Socialism in Germany. Socialism
continues to grow, and it would not be surprising if the Emperor at
length enlists the sons of Ignatius in his desperate struggle against
it. If he does, the Society will find a luxuriant field for growth
among the 22,000,000 Catholics of the Empire, until the last deadly
struggle with Social Democracy sets in.
For the inner spirit and character of the modern German Jesuits I
must refer the reader to Count von Hoensbroech's invaluable _Fourteen
Years a Jesuit_ (2 vols., Engl. transl., 1911). The whole story from
beginning to end is a sober but pitiful indictment of the Jesuits, and
shows how little change there is below their accommodating expressions.
We find the Jesuits hovering about the houses of the wealthy,
using their influence with the women, extorting money by the most
questionable means, practising and teaching mental reservation at every
turn, and intriguing for political power through the Catholic laity, as
they had done through three centuries. When Father Anderledy (a future
General of the Society) was convicted, in the 'forties, of maintaining
studies in the Cologne residence, contrary to Prussian law, he flatly
denied the charge, making the mental reservation that from that moment
the school should cease to exist. The Jesuit historian who records the
fact says: "What presence of mind!" When Hoensbroech, intending to
enter the German service, asked the learned Jesuit Franzelin whether
he might take an oath to observe the laws (which then included the May
Laws), he was told that he might, with the mental reserve that he did
not respect any laws denounced by the Church. Numbers of instances
of deliberate lying (with mental reserve) are given, and the work
exhibits the character, the training, and the educational activity of
the Jesuits in an extremely unattractive light. It is an indispensable
document for the study of modern Jesuit character.
The German Jesuits were, as I said, expelled in 1872; the Italian
Jesuits followed in 1873. At that time the Jesuits of France were
enjoying the reaction of public opinion which followed the attempts of
the Communists. Under Napoleon III. they had quickly recovered, and as
early as 1855 there had once more been appeals for their expulsion.
They returned to their schools and colleges after the disturbances
of 1871, and the Conservative Government permitted them to prosper.
A reaction set in in the later 'seventies, when Gambetta vigorously
led the anti-clerical forces and began to denounce the Society. The
Catholics had almost succeeded in overthrowing the Republic and
enthroning the Duc de Chambord. When (in 1877) they went on to demand
the employment of French troops for the re-establishment of the Pope in
his temporal power, they lost the cause of their Church. From that year
Catholicism has decreased in France, shrinking from 30,000,000 to about
5,000,000 followers in thirty years.
Within two years there was an enormous growth of the anti-clerical
feeling, especially against the Jesuits. They, and the great majority
of the religious orders, had no legal right to existence in France.
Only three or four Congregations, of a philanthropic character, were
authorised by French law. Yet these useful bodies made no progress,
while the unauthorised Congregations held property of the value of
400,000,000 francs. Jules Ferry now became Minister of Education,
and framed a law to prevent any member of an unauthorised Society
from teaching. When the Catholic Senate rejected it, the unauthorised
Congregations were dissolved by decree (1880). Once more the Jesuits
were banished from France, and 2904 members of the Society were added
to the number of exiles. In 1880 more than half the Jesuits--or 7400
Jesuits--were excluded from their respective countries.
As France was still overwhelmingly Catholic, the successive Governments
were unable to enforce the law, and the Jesuits quietly returned to
their work. It is enough to say that during the next twenty years,
until France had become predominantly non-Catholic and disposed to
insist on their exclusion, the 2900 Jesuits actually increased their
number; the property of the unauthorised Congregations rose in value
from 400,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 francs; the higher education was
controlled to a great extent by the Jesuits, whose pupils passed
largely into the army and navy. It is hardly necessary to recall the
successive blunders by which the Jesuits (and other religious) brought
on themselves the sentence of expulsion in 1901. In 1886 Boulanger
became Minister of War and popular idol. His Radical friends soon
distrusted him, and the Monarchists and Catholics fanned the popular
agitation to have him made Dictator. In this case we have positive and
sufficient information of the complicity of the Jesuits. Count von
Hoensbroech, then a young Jesuit, heard from the lips of Father du Lac,
the most prominent of the French Jesuits, that he had collected large
sums of money for the "Deliverer of France" and the overthrow of the
"dirty and impious Republic."[45] We can hardly doubt that they had
been equally zealous for the Duc de Chambord, and were later as zealous
for the cause of the Duc d'Orleans.
Boulanger fled, to escape arrest, in 1889, and the Republicans added
to the reckoning against the Jesuits. In 1897-99 occurred the famous
agitation for the retrial of Dreyfus, and once more the Jesuits ranged
themselves on the losing side of tyranny and prejudice. By the end of
the century France had become overwhelmingly non-Catholic, and was not
disposed to tolerate further the intrigues and wealth of bodies which
had no legal existence in the country. The Jesuits, in particular,
were a menace to the Republic. The new century opened therefore with
an anti-clerical campaign which is still fresh in our memories.
Waldeck-Rousseau passed his Associations' Bill in 1901, and the Jesuits
now were once more expelled. Combes and Rouvier completed the work
in subsequent years. There is, however, no very drastic action taken
against invading religious, and the Jesuits frequent Paris as they do
Berlin. The number of members of the French Provinces of the Society
has risen to 3071 (many of whom are on the foreign missions), and from
comfortable homes in England (where we have 226) and other countries,
with their funds safely invested, they await the day of recall. But the
general collapse of the Church in France makes it certain that they
will never be readmitted.
Apart from the Latin-American Republics, in connection with which it
would be tedious to enumerate the various expulsions and recalls of
the Jesuits, and Portugal the Society has made great progress in other
countries. Of Portugal little need be said; the situation is similar to
that in France. The Jesuits had no authorised existence in the country,
and, when Portugal was at length enabled to assert its will (after the
revolution of 1910), it sharply dismissed them. Here again the country
is predominantly non-Catholic, if we confine our attention to voters,
and the Jesuits are never likely to return.
Spain has become the refuge, and almost the last hope in the Latin
world, of the expatriated Jesuits. In the corrupt and worthless reign
of Isabella II. they had been suffered to return to their posts and
prosper. Properly speaking, they have had no legal right to exist in
Spain since they were abolished by Christina in 1835. The Concordat of
1852 stipulates for the admission of the Oratorians and Vincentians and
"one other" Congregation; but casuistic skill has interpreted this to
mean "one for each diocese," and all have been admitted. The abominable
rule of their patroness Isabella ended in revolution in 1868; the
frivolous Queen was deposed, and the Jesuits shared the fate of her
other strange favourites. With the accession of Alfonso XII., however,
they returned to Spain, and obtained the wealth and power which they
enjoy to-day.
The secrecy of the Society emboldens its apologists to make the most
audacious denials of these constant charges of wealth, power, and
intrigue, but it constantly happens that some confiscated document
or disaffected admirer betrays them. Such an instance may be quoted
in connection with the Spanish Jesuits. In 1896 a devout Catholic, a
former pupil and employee of the Jesuits, Señor Ceballos y Cruzada,
quarrelled with and turned against them. In the little work in which
he expounds his grievances (_El Imperio del Jesuitismo_) he tells us
some interesting facts about their wealth and activity. There is in
Spain a vast Catholic Society known as the Association of Fathers of
Families, which is quite as much concerned with sound politics as sound
morals. Señor Ceballos shows how the Jesuits secretly use and direct
it for their political aims, and for thwarting rival ecclesiastical
bodies. As to their wealth, he says that they have 11 colleges worth
from 1,000,000 to 12,000,000 _reales_ each, while their chief house
at Loyola has property of incalculable value. At his own college, at
Deusto, there were about 300 pupils paying 1500 _pesetas_ a year each;
in none of them is education gratuitous. The schooling is very poor and
antiquated, and few of their scholars later rise to any distinction.
It is curious to know that these wealthy Jesuit institutions have the
British flag ready to be hoisted in case of revolution (which they
yearly expect).
There is, however, little need for proof of the wealth and political
influence of the Jesuits in Spain. In the struggle which is proceeding
between the reformers, of all parties, and the supporters of the
deeply corrupt political system, the Jesuits use their whole strength
as educators, and intrigue far beyond their schools, in the interest
of corruption; and, true to their maxim of educating and capturing
the sons of the wealthier classes, they have permitted the mass of
the people to remain at an appalling level of illiteracy. The great
majority of the men of Spain, in the large towns, hate them intensely,
and await with impatience the day when, like their Portuguese
neighbours, they will expel their insidious enemies. A few years ago a
drama entitled _Paternidad_ was put upon the stage of one of the chief
theatres at Barcelona, and received with the wildest enthusiasm. It was
written by a Catholic priest, Segismondo Pey-Ordeix, and represented
the Jesuits of modern Spain as practising the most corrupt devices
known in the history of the Society. The sternly critical works of
the great Spanish writer, Perez Galdos, are just as enthusiastically
received at Madrid and in all the cities. Spaniards watch with
indignation the concentration of exiled Jesuits on their territory.
To the exiled French communities of 1880 were added the 147 Jesuits
of Cuba and the Philippines in 1898, and these are now reinforced by
the Portuguese. They now number 3859. In 1901, 1906, and recently, the
Liberals have attempted or threatened to deal with them; but there is
too much collusion in the Cortes between the opposing parties, and
the Jesuits have too strong an influence at the Palace: I am informed
that the present Queen has surrendered entirely to the pressure of
the Queen-mother and the Jesuits. Unless the King has the courage to
lighten the labouring vessel of royalty by sacrificing the Jesuits,
which would give him immense popularity, Spain will, within ten years,
follow the example of Portugal.
Several of the South American Republics, and Mexico, have already
reached a state of permanent triumph of the Liberal elements, and
expelled the Jesuits for ever. As this work proceeds with the growth
of education, it is natural to presume that they will all in time
exclude the Jesuits. Italy also will return to its strict law, when the
Government discovers that the shrinking influence of the Papacy is no
longer a valuable ally against advanced schools. At present the law is
not enforced, and there are large numbers of Jesuits in the country;
the Italian Province numbers more than a thousand members. At Rome
they control the Gregorian University, the German and Latin-American
Colleges, the Biblical Institute, and other papal establishments.
Restrained in some measure by Leo XIII., they have recovered all their
influence at the Vatican under the present mediæval Pontiff, and they
are amongst the most ardent supporters of the reactionary policy with
which he is paralysing higher culture in the Church of Rome. The
higher secular clergy are little less anxious than the Socialists
and Freemasons to see them suppressed. The same forces are at work
against them in Belgium, where they number 1200 (including foreign
missionaries), and Austria. A coalition of Liberals and Socialists in
Belgium would at any time put an end to the Catholic power, as the
anti-clerical voters are in the majority, and the Jesuits would not
long survive the change.
Yet one of the most singular features of the whole singular story
of the Jesuits is that they have increased enormously during this
half-century of afflictions. The growth of the Society during the last
hundred years is seen in the following table:--
1838 3,067 members.
1844 4,133 "
1853 5,209 "
1861 7,144 "
1884 11,840 members.
1906 15,661 "
1912 16,545[46] "
Of the present members, 3531 are on the foreign missions; and the
re-opening of these fields, under less adventurous conditions,
accounts for much of the growth of the Society. The advance of the
United States and the British Colonies, with their large percentage
of Irish and Italian immigrants, accounts for a good deal of the
remainder. The Jesuits of the United States now number 2300; and there
are 373 in Canada and 100 in Australasia. It is most probable that the
future of the Jesuits lies in the Protestant countries. Probably the
Jesuits will, in twenty years' time, be excluded from every "Catholic"
kingdom, yet number more than 20,000.
Their progress and activity in England may be more closely described
in illustration of this tendency. We saw how the survivors of the old
English mission joined with the Fathers of the Faith in 1814 and 1815
to re-establish the Society. They then numbered 73, and had several
chapels, besides the estate and house at Stonyhurst. They advanced
with the general body of the Roman Catholics, especially when the
stronger current of immigration from Ireland began in the forties.
The secular clergy were still very much opposed to them, however, and
Dr. Griffiths, the Vicar Apostolic of the London district, refused to
allow them to set up a community in the metropolis. After years of
pressure at Rome they secured the interest of Dr. (later Cardinal)
Wiseman, and were admitted to settle in Farm St., among the wealthiest
Catholics. When Wiseman succeeded Griffiths in 1847 (and the hierarchy
was established in 1850) they were cordially patronised and made
greater progress. They then numbered 554. With the accession of Manning
the patronage ceased and their work was restricted. They were eager
to found schools for middle-class boys; but Manning sternly refused,
in defiance of the favour of Pius IX., and they were compelled to
establish their schools at such places as Beaumont and Wimbledon,
outside his jurisdiction. When they pressed for a school of higher
studies, a kind of Catholic university, Manning hastily founded his
ill-fated school at Kensington and refused their co-operation, with the
natural result that the wealthier Catholics, under the influence of the
Jesuits, would not support it. Bishop Vaughan of Salford was not much
more indulgent to them.
The secret of Manning's opposition is said by his biographer to have
been his wish to raise the dignity of the secular priesthood, which
Catholics are too apt to think lower than the monastic state. This
was, however, not merely a mystic theory on the part of the Cardinal.
He despised the comparative indolence and petty hypocrisies of the
religious orders generally, and had a particular dislike of the
intrigue, the secrecy, the insubordination, and the pursuit of wealthy
people, of the Jesuits.[47] Manning refused sacerdotal faculties to his
nephew, Father Anderdon, and forced the Jesuits to surrender a site
in West London for which they had paid more than £30,000. Cardinal
Vaughan, however, relaxed his coercive policy when he was transferred
to Westminster.
The English Province has now (1912) 729 members, and about fifty
churches; though the _Catholic Directory_ gives only 285 English Jesuit
priests, and 226 French refugees, in this country. The feeling against
them amongst the secular clergy and the other religious Congregations
is almost as strong as ever. Their obvious preference for the wealthier
quarters of cities is sneeringly discussed in clerical circles, and
it is said that they intrigue incessantly to draw the more comfortable
Catholics from other parishes. The poverty of their literary and
scholastic output,--mainly, a number of slight and superficial
controversial works, more intent on making small points than on
substantial and accurate erudition,--and their remarkable failure
to produce men of distinction, are regarded as a grave reflection
on their body, in view of their wealth, numbers, and leisure. It is
not, however, believed that they indulge any other intrigue than an
amiable zeal among the Catholic laity to add to their own comfort and
prestige.[48]
Returning, in conclusion, to the question at the beginning of this
chapter, we find it impossible to give a general answer and embrace
all the existing Jesuits in a formula. The Jesuits of Spain, with
their political machinations, their sordid legacy-hunting, and their
eagerness to support the Spanish Government in the judicial murder of
their enemies, are a very different body from the Jesuits of England or
Germany or the United States. The Jesuits of Cuba and the Philippines
were, until 1898, little different from the more parasitical Jesuit
missionaries of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The modern age
has affected the Jesuits much as some ancient revolution in the climate
of the earth modified its living inhabitants. Where the old tropical
conditions more or less linger (say, in Chile or Peru) the Jesuits
are hardly changed; and we find the alteration in exact proportion
to the environment. There is no change in the inner principles and
ideals. "All for the Glory of the Society," as Mgr. Talbot sardonically
translated their Latin motto, is still the ruling principle; the
Society remains the Esau of the Roman clerical world. It still chiefly
seeks the wealthy and powerful; it is the arch-enemy of progress
and liberalism in Catholic theology; its scholarship is singularly
undistinguished in proportion to its resources;[49] it embarks on
political intrigue, even for the destruction of State-forms, whenever
its interest seems to require; it is hated by a very large proportion
of the Catholic clergy and laity in every country. Let a liberal Pope
again come to power and Modernism prevail, and it is not impossible
that Catholicism itself will again angrily suppress the perverse and
irregular construction of the Spanish soldier-diplomatist, and insist
that religious ideals shall be pursued only by scrupulously clean and
unselfish exertions.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 44: I use the phrase of historians, but may observe that this
was, in the main, a middle-class movement to secure liberty of opinion
and other elementary political rights.]
[Footnote 45: _Fourteen Years_, ii. 164.]
[Footnote 46: It must be borne in mind always that "members" does
not necessarily mean priests. Rather less than half are priests: the
remainder are scholastics or lay coadjutors.]
[Footnote 47: I am speaking here on what I heard, in clerical
days, from men who were intimate with Manning. Purcell's _Life_ is
misleading. The author intended to be candid, but the Jesuits and
others made such threats, when it became known what disclosures the
book would contain, that he was compelled to omit much. The suppression
of truth has greatly injured its historical value.]
[Footnote 48: There are in Count von Hoensbroech's book some scathing
reflections on the character and culture of the English Jesuits. The
Count underwent part of his Jesuit training in England.]
[Footnote 49: Let me recall that I do not personally expect the Society
to produce anything but theologians, and of these it has produced
many in the nineteenth century. In controversial theology, however,
the work of the Jesuits is grossly unscholarly and casuistic; truth
seems to be a secondary consideration. But it is so often claimed that
the Jesuits are a learned body in the more general sense, that it is
necessary to invite reflection on their record. Of the fifteen thousand
living Jesuits, and their predecessors for a century, who has won even
secondary rank in letters, history, or philosophy? In science there
are only Father Secchi, the single distinguished product of their
science-schools, and Father Wasmann, whose philosophy (apart from his
observations) is the laughing-stock of biology.]
INDEX
Abyssinia, the Jesuits in, 52, 78, 140, 296.
Acosta, Father, 114, 115.
Acquaviva, General, 106-140.
Adorno, Father, 96.
Aiguillon, the Duc d', 350.
Alberoni, Cardinal, 270, 271.
Alcalà, the Jesuits at, 10, 42, 44, 85.
Alessandrini, Cardinal, 84, 87.
Alexander I., 377, 378, 380, 381.
Allen, Cardinal, 144, 152.
Almeida, Father, 136.
Alphonso VI., 256-7.
" XII., 437.
Alva, Duke of, 88, 91.
Anderledy, General, 434.
Anna, Queen, 266, 297.
Annat, Father, 238.
Antonelli, Cardinal, 427.
Aranda, 275, 276, 277.
Araoz, Father, 38, 42, 72, 84.
Armada, the, 152, 153.
Arnauld, Angélique, 222, 223, 236.
" Antoine, 223, 225, 227, 231, 237, 243.
Arrowsmith, Father E., 199.
Aubeterre, Marquis d', 343.
Auger, Father, 89, 90, 99, 117, 118.
_Augustinus_, the, 224, 230.
Austria, the Jesuits in, 92, 93, 101, 132, 324-7, 360, 417, 426, 428.
Azpeitia, 3, 17.
Azpuru, Mgr., 343.
Bañez, 135.
Barrière, 123.
Barry, Mme du, 350.
Bathori, Stephen, 101, 131.
Bavaria, the Jesuits in, 327, 328.
Bay, Michel de, 100, 130.
Bayle, 176, 238.
Bayonne, the Conference of, 88.
Beaumont, Archbishop de, 360.
Beckx, General, 417, 428, 429.
Bedloe, 210, 211.
Belgium, the Jesuits in, 48-9, 75, 91-2, 100, 128, 130, 180, 421-2.
Bellarmine, Cardinal, 100, 113.
Benedict XIV., 262, 287, 295, 339.
Benislawski, Bishop, 373.
Bermudez, Father, 271, 272.
Bernis, Cardinal, 343, 344, 346, 350.
Bérulle, Cardinal de, 177, 178.
Bismarck, 432, 433.
Blackwell, G., 158, 159.
Bobadilla, 14, 20, 40, 49, 50, 56-8, 94, 106.
Bodler, Father, 316.
Borgia, Francis, 43, 71-2, 80-94.
Borromeo, Charles, 67, 68, 69, 96-9.
" Frederic, 69.
Bosgrave, Father, 149.
Bossuet, 236, 241.
Boulanger, General, and the Jesuits, 436.
Bourbon, Cardinal de, 88, 99.
Bourg Fontaine, the Plot of, 230.
Brazil, the Jesuits in, 52, 78, 104, 139, 304.
Briant, Father, 151.
Britto, Father, 291.
Broglie, Abbé Count de, 382, 413.
Brouet, Paschase, 16, 20, 36, 41, 47, 58.
Buckingham, Countess of, 199.
Burnet, 38, 39.
Bzrozowski, General, 378, 381.
California, the Jesuits in, 308.
Camara, Gonzales da, 70, 71, 86.
Campion, Father E., 143, 144-9, 150.
Campmüller, Father, 351.
Canada, the Jesuits in, 193, 308-9.
Canisius, Peter, 49, 50, 75, 92.
Cano, Melchior, 42, 43.
Caraffa, Cardinal, 17, 53.
Caravita, Father, 383.
Cardenas, Bishop, 299-302.
Carlists, the, and the Jesuits, 408, 409, 426.
Carroll, John, 414.
Catesby, 157, 159, 160, 161-4.
Catherine de Medici, 73, 74, 88-91.
Catherine of Portugal, 71, 86.
Catherine the Great and the Jesuits,370-4.
Catholic League, the, 117, 118, 119.
Caussin, Father, 176.
Chambord, the Duc de, 435.
Charles I., 201, 202.
" II., 205, 206, 209, 212, 268.
" III., 274-7, 349, 351.
" IV., of Lorraine, 179.
" X., 402-4.
Charles Albert, 393.
" Felix, 393.
Chastel, Jean, 123.
Chateaubriand, 234.
Cheminot, Father, 179, 180.
China, the Jesuits in, 78, 104, 138-40, 190-1, 281-8, 423.
"Chinese Rites," the, 281-8.
Choir, 29, 31.
Choiseul, 348, 349, 350.
Christina of Spain, 408, 409.
Christina of Sweden, 312-4.
Cisneros, 8.
Cistercians, the, and the Jesuits, 187.
Civiltà Cattolica, the, 427.
Clarke, Father, 272.
Claver, Father, 297.
Clavius, Father, 107, 133.
Clement VIII., 114, 115, 155.
" XI., 284, 286, 339.
" XII., 295.
" XIII., 262, 264, 277, 339, 340, 342.
" XIV., 345, 346, 347, 348, 350, 352-7, 358, 368.
Clément, Jacques, 119, 126.
Clenock, Dr., 144.
Clermont College, the, 75.
Cochin China, the Jesuits in, 289-90.
Cock, Archbishop, 322.
Codacio, 21, 25.
Codde, Archbishop, 321-2.
Codure, 16, 20, 36.
Cogardan, 58, 73.
Coimbra, the Jesuits at, 46, 70.
Coleman, 208, 209, 211.
Colleges, 31.
Colmar, the Jesuit college at, 331.
Cologne, the Jesuits at, 49, 361.
Condé, 73, 74.
Congo, the Jesuits in the, 52, 78, 296.
Congregation of the Holy Virgin, 398, 402.
Congregation of the Sacred Heart, 382, 384.
Consalvi, Cardinal, 391, 392.
Constitutions, the Jesuit, 24, 28-31, 59.
Contarini, Cardinal, 24, 25.
Contzen, Adam, 216.
Copts, Mission to the, 296.
Cordara, Father, 168, 274, 347.
Coster, Father, 129.
Coton, Father, 125, 127, 128, 178.
Cottam, Father, 149, 150.
Coxe, 269, 273, 275.
Cracow, the Jesuits at, 185.
Crétineau-Joly, vi, 4, 23, 38, 50, 56, 69, 77, 85, 96, 98, 120, 165,
168, 171, 178, 183, 215, 225, 228, 238, 285, 305, 344, 349, 353, 360,
373, 391, 402, 405.
Crichton, Father, 64, 149, 151.
Cromwell and the Jesuits, 203, 204.
D'Alembert, 351, 365, 366.
Damiens, 248.
D'Andilly, Arnauld, 225.
Darbyshire, Thomas, 142.
Daubenton, Father, 268, 269, 271.
Declaration of the Gallican Clergy, 241, 250.
Democracy, the Jesuits and, 400, 401.
Despotism of the Jesuit general, 335.
Destelbergen, 421.
Dillingen, the University of, 76, 92.
"Doleful even-song," the, 200.
_Dominus ac Redemptor Noster_, the bull, 353-8.
Douai fraud, the, 243.
Drury, Father, 200.
Dubois, Cardinal, 246.
Edict of Nantes, Revocation of the, 242, 321.
"Edifying Letters," the, 279, 299.
Eguia, 17.
Elizabeth, Queen, 145, 148, 152.
Emerson, Ralph, 144, 151.
England, the Jesuits in, 38-9, 64, 142-66, 198-219, 412-4, 441-3.
Épernon, the Duc d', 127.
Espartero, 409.
Falk, Dr., 432.
Farnese, Cardinal A., 33.
Farnese, Elizabeth, 270, 271.
Fathers of the Faith, 383-5, 397, 399, 406.
Favre, Peter, 13, 20, 22, 25, 32, 43, 46.
Fawkes, Guy, 158.
Ferdinand II., 182, 186, 324, 325, 417.
" IV., (Naples), 342, 378.
" VI., 272-4, 302.
" VII., 389, 406-8.
Fernandez, Father, 254-6.
Ferry, Jules, 435.
Figueroa, Gomez de, 39.
Florida Blanca, Count, 350.
Fortis, General, 392, 394, 400.
Fourth vow, the, 24, 29.
France, the Jesuits in, 47-8, 72-5, 87-91, 99, 117-28, 174-9, 220-252,
397-407, 434-7.
Franco, Father, 254.
Frederic Augustus I., 317, 318.
Frederick the Great and the Jesuits, 351, 364-70.
Freiburg, the Jesuits at, 361, 418, 420.
Franzelin, Father, 434.
Gaeta, flight of the Pope to, 427.
Galitzin, Prince, 379, 380, 381.
Galicia, the Jesuits in, 417.
Gambar, Father, 66.
Gambetta, 434.
Ganga, Cardinal della, 391, 392, 393.
Garibaldi, 428.
Garnet, Father H., 152, 153, 157, 158, 159-64.
General, authority of the Jesuit, 30.
Gerard, Father J., 153, 158.
Gerbillon, Father, 283.
Germany, the Jesuits in, 49, 50, 75-6, 92, 101, 130-3, 184-7, 364-70,
416-7, 431-4.
Gesù, the, 33, 107.
Gilbert, George, 146, 147.
Gioberti, 397.
Giussano, 96, 97.
Godfrey, Sir E. Berry, 209-12.
Gonzalez, General, 335-6, 339.
Good, William, 64, 103, 143.
Gouda, Nicholas, 64, 65.
Greenway, Father, 154, 157, 162-4.
Gregorian Calendar, the, 107, 133.
Gregory XIII., 94, 95, 107.
" XVI., 353, 394, 395, 396.
Griffiths, Dr., 441.
Gruber, Father, 374, 376, 377, 378.
Guéret, Father, 123, 124.
Guerrero, Archbishop, 289.
Guiddiccioni, Cardinal, 24, 25, 26.
Guignard, Father, 124.
Guise, the Duc de, 117, 118.
Gunpowder Plot, the, 158-64.
Hagenbrunn, 382, 384.
Hay, Father Edmund, 64, 118, 142.
Henriquez, Leo, 70.
Henry III., 117-9.
" IV., 117, 119, 121, 122-5.
Hernandez, Father, 109.
Heywood, Father, 149, 151.
Hoensbroech, Count von, 120, 433, 436, 443.
Holland, the Jesuits in, 128-30, 180-1, 320-3, 422.
Holt, Father, 149, 151, 154.
Hozes, 17, 20.
Hume, Major, 266, 408.
Hungary, the Jesuits in, 330-1, 417.
Ignatius, St., birth of, 1.
" at Barcelona, 9.
" canonisation of, 169.
" and Cardinal Pole, 38, 39.
" character of, 5, 27, 28, 33, 34, 53.
" conversion of, 4, 6.
" daily life of, 34, 35.
" death of, 54.
" diplomacy of, 28, 45.
" early disciples of, 9, 10, 11, 14.
" early morals of, 5.
" election of, 32.
" founds his Society, 15.
" and the Inquisition, 10, 11, 22, 40.
" at London, 12.
" at Manresa, 7, 8.
" in Palestine, 9.
" at Paris, 11-16.
" at Rome, 9, 20-35.
" secrecy of, 14, 16, 28, 43.
" at Venice, 9, 17.
" at Vicenza, 19.
" and women, 21.
" wounding of, 2.
_Imago Primi Sæculi_, the, 180.
Immaculate Conception, the, 100.
_In Coena Domini_, the bull, 348.
India, the Jesuits in, 51, 77-8, 103-4, 188-90, 291-5, 422-3.
Infallibility, papal, and the Jesuits, 429.
Innocent X., 305, 307, 308.
" XI., 240, 241, 336.
" XIII., 287.
Inquisition, Jesuits and the, 10, 11, 22, 40, 45, 110, 258.
_Interim_, the, 50.
Ireland, the Jesuits in, 35-7, 64, 149.
Italy, the Jesuits in, 40-2, 65-76, 93-4, 96-9, 169-70, 334-60, 383-9,
390-7, 426-31.
James I., 157, 198, 199.
" II., 206, 211, 213-8.
" V., 35, 36.
Jansen, Bishop, 221, 222, 223, 224, 229.
Jansenists, character of the, 225-6.
Japan, the Jesuits in, 51, 78, 136-8, 191, 280.
Jessopp, Dr., 143, 153.
Jesuits, the, and the Papacy, 24, 35, 50, 57, 60, 61, 82-4, 95, 110-4,
240, 277, 285, 286-8, 289, 295, 307, 339, 353-63, 367, 371-3, 412.
" casuistry of the, 43, 61, 75,81, 100, 119, 129, 136, 179, 183,
205, 232-4, 280, 281, 284-95, 316, 319, 335-7, 411.
" and the Catholic clergy, 39, 44, 85, 97, 110, 154, 177, 178,
181, 201, 202, 237, 244, 283, 285, 289, 290, 299-302, 305-8,
321-2, 323, 442, 443.
" and church-dignities, 44, 45, 93, 215, 254, 267, 272, 330.
" commerce of the, 52, 81, 137, 172, 192-3, 202, 248-9, 255,
269, 283, 288, 290, 294, 298-9, 307, 308, 309, 319, 328, 331,
339, 373.
" learning of the, 140-1, 196, 281, 326-7, 366, 395.
" morality of the, 46, 65, 66, 68, 69, 109, 110, 171, 177, 226,
238, 246, 272, 274, 280, 282, 285, 289, 290, 300-2, 306, 327,
329, 351, 359, 362.
" and national decay, 314-5.
" obedience of the, 58, 72, 110, 169, 336-7.
" political activity of the, 70, 71, 86-7, 89, 103, 117-21,
134, 149, 153-7, 176, 182, 203, 215, 256-7, 267-72, 316, 317,
325, 328, 330, 376, 436, 438.
Jesuits, quarrels of the, 58-9, 72, 106, 107, 110, 114-7, 167, 336-7,
362, 391-2.
" untruthfulness of the, 75, 102, 153-4, 157, 161, 164, 171,
179, 180, 186-7, 188-9, 229, 230, 240, 243, 260, 272, 273, 291,
292, 305, 316, 339, 349, 353-4, 360, 368, 372, 373, 380, 434.
" wealth of the, 41, 81, 85, 86, 92, 109, 122, 132, 136, 186, 269,
283, 290, 294, 298, 304, 307, 325, 326, 328, 331, 362, 436, 438.
John III., 45, 59.
" IV., 254, 255.
" VI., 389, 409.
John Casimir, 316.
Jones, Dom, 202.
Joseph II. (Austria), 345, 350.
Joseph of Portugal, 259, 260, 261-5.
Jouvency, Father, 116, 245.
Julius III., 53.
July Revolution, the, 394, 404.
Kaempfer, 138.
Kang Hi, 282, 287.
Kaunitz, Count, 344, 350.
Keene, Sir B., 273.
Kelly, Father, 415.
King, Thomas, 64.
Kulturkampf, the, 433.
La Chaise, Father, 208, 238, 243.
Lainez, Diego, 14, 20, 22, 25, 41, 49, 53, 56-65, 72, 76-9.
Lamennais, Abbé de, 400, 401.
Lamormaini, Father, 186, 324, 325.
Lang, K. von, 325.
Lavalette, bankruptcy of, 248-9, 251.
Law, T., 143, 154.
Le Jay, 16, 20, 49.
Leo XII., 393.
Letellier, Father, 243, 244, 245.
Leu, 419, 420.
Lippomani, 41.
Lisbon, the earthquake at, 261.
Louis XIII., 174, 176, 183.
" XIV., 206, 207, 208, 236, 238, 239, 242, 245.
Louis XV., 247, 248, 251.
" XVIII., 389, 398.
Louis Philippe, 402, 403, 404.
Louvain, the Jesuits at, 48, 75, 100, 130.
Loyola, the house at, 1, 2, 3, 16.
Lucerne, the Jesuits at, 360, 419-20.
Luisa, Queen, 254, 255, 270.
Luynes, Cardinal, 343.
Macedo, Father, 313.
Maggio, Father, 124.
Maintenon, Mme de, 242.
Maistre, Joseph de, 377, 379.
Malabar Rites, the, 293-4.
Malagrida, Father, 265.
Maldonat, Father, 100.
Malta, Jesuits expelled from, 170, 342.
Malvezzi, Cardinal, 352.
Manares, Oliver, 88, 89, 91, 95, 106.
Manning, Cardinal, 426, 441, 442.
Manresa, 7, 8.
Marcenius, Father, 110.
Margaret of Parma, 76.
Maria Theresa, 326, 344, 350, 351, 360.
Mariana, Father, 108, 114, 119, 120, 126.
Marianne, Archduchess, 382, 384, 385.
Marie Isabelle, Queen, 256, 257.
Marie de Medici, 125, 128, 175.
Mary Queen of Scots and the Jesuits, 64, 142, 151, 153.
Maryland, the Jesuits in, 218, 308.
Martignac, 402, 403.
Martin, Commandant, 280, 294.
Martini, the Jesuit Mandarin, 283.
Matthieu, Father Claude, 117.
Maurice of Nassau, 128.
May Laws, the, 432, 434.
Mayenne, the Duc de, 121.
Mazzarino, Father, 97.
Mendoza, 148, 149, 151, 344.
Mental reservation (_see_ Untruthfulness of the Jesuits), 164.
Mercurian, General, 94-104.
Metternich, 417.
Mexico, the Jesuits in, 139, 305-8, 416.
Mezzabarba, Mgr., 286, 287.
Michael Angelo, 33.
Michelet, 405.
Miguel, King, 410, 411.
Milan, the Jesuits at, 67-70, 96-9.
Missions, the Jesuit, 51-2, 77, 103-4, 135-40, 187-94, 279-310, 422-3.
Molinism, 135.
Monita Privata, the, 184.
Monod, Father, 176.
Montepulciano, the Jesuits expelled from, 65.
Montespan, Mme de, 236, 238.
Montmartre, the vows on, 15.
Montserrat, 6.
Morality, Catholic, in the seventeenth century, 49.
More, Father, 143.
Müller, H., 8.
Naples, the Jesuits at, 66.
" Jesuits expelled from, 342.
Napoleon and the Jesuits, 376.
Natalis, Father, 56, 72.
Navarro, 275.
Neale, Bishop, 414.
Neercassel, Archbishop, 321.
Netterville, Father, 203, 204.
Nicolai, Father, 102, 103.
Nicolini, 46.
Nidhard, Father, 267, 268.
Noailles, Cardinal, 244, 245, 246.
Nobili, Robert de, 188-90.
Nouet, Father, 226.
Oates, Titus, 207, 209, 211.
Obedience, Jesuit [see Jesuits], 29, 34.
Ogilvie, Father, 149.
Oldcorne, Father E., 153, 164.
Oliva, General, 257, 336.
Oratorians, the, 177-8.
Orlandini, 25, 37, 38.
Orsini, Princess, 268, 269, 270.
Ortiz, 18, 21, 25.
Otho, Cardinal, 62.
Paccanari, 383-5.
Paccanarists, the, 383-5, 397, 398, 402.
Pacheco, Cardinal, 59.
Palafox, Bishop, 172, 274, 305-8, 351.
Palermo, the Jesuits at, 93.
Palmio, Father, 95.
Pamiers, Bishop of, 237, 240.
Panne, Peter, 128, 129.
Panzani, 201, 202, 203.
Paraguay, the Jesuits in, 140, 191-3, 260, 273, 297-304.
Pardo, Archbishop, 289.
Pariahs, Jesuit, 293.
Parsons, Father Robert, 112, 143-53, 155-7, 165.
Pascal, Blaise, 231-5.
Pasquier, 86.
Paul I., 374, 376.
" III., 18, 20, 23, 24, 53.
" IV., 53, 57, 58, 60, 62.
Pedro I., 256, 257.
" II., 411.
Percy, Father, 199.
Persia, Jesuits penetrate, 296.
Petre, Father E., 214, 215, 216.
Petrucci, Father, 390, 391, 392.
Phaulcon, 291.
Philip II., 96, 110, 121, 152, 153.
" IV., 266.
" V., 268, 270, 271.
Philippines, the Jesuits in the, 288-9.
Piazza Margana, house in the, 22, 23, 33.
Piedmont, the Jesuits in, 388, 393.
Pigenat, Fr. Odon, 118.
Pius IV., 63, 70, 82.
" V., 82, 83, 84.
" VI., 369, 372, 373, 374, 382, 383.
" VII., 375, 376, 386, 387, 392.
" IX., 396, 397, 426, 427.
Poissy, colloquy at, 74.
Polanco, 38, 94, 95.
Poland, the Jesuits in, 101, 131, 185, 314-20, 361, 370-1.
Pole, Cardinal, 38, 39.
Polignac, 404.
Pollock, J., 208, 209, 211.
Polotzk, College at, 377, 378, 380.
Pombal, Marquis de, 259-65.
Pompadour, Mme de, 247.
Popish Plot, the, 207, 208, 209-12.
Port Royal, 222-4, 229, 231, 236, 237, 243.
Portugal, the Jesuits in, 45-7, 70-1, 86-7, 174, 254-65, 409-11, 437.
Possevin, Father, 87, 88, 90, 103, 122, 131, 132.
Postel, 48.
Privileges of the Jesuits, 31, 48, 63.
Probabilism, 235 (note), 336-7.
Professed houses, 31.
_Provincial Letters_, the, 231-5.
Prussia, the Jesuits in, 364-70.
Purgatory, Jesuit view of, 100.
Puritans, the, and the Jesuits, 203.
Puteo, Cardinal, 61.
Quesnel, 244, 245.
Rabago, Father, 272, 273, 303.
_Ratio Studiorum_, the, 140, 395.
Ravaillac, 125, 126.
Ravignan, Father de, 404, 405.
Reductions, the, 192, 193, 297-9.
Reformation, the, 1, 16, 20.
Regale controversy, the, 239-42.
Regicide, Jesuit doctrine of, 120, 126.
Rhodes, Father de, 289.
Ribadeneira, Father, 33, 38, 39, 48, 75, 169.
Ribera, Father, 68.
Ricci, Father, 138, 139.
Ricci, General, 251, 262, 275, 339, 340, 341, 343, 345, 357, 359.
Richelieu, 174, 175, 176, 177, 183, 224.
Ripperdá, 271, 272.
Robinet, Father, 269, 270, 271.
Rodriguez, Simon, 14, 20, 25, 45, 46, 57.
Rohan, Anne de, 224, 225.
Rome, Jesuits expelled from, 430, 440.
Roothaan, General, 294, 400, 405, 406.
Rossi, Count, 396, 406.
Royal confessor, instructions to, 324.
Rozaven, Father, 391, 392.
Russia, the Jesuits in, 370-81.
Sacchini, Father, 47, 55, 57, 59, 61, 65.
Saint Simon, 244, 245, 269.
Salamanca, the Jesuits at, 11, 42.
Saldanha, Cardinal, 262, 264.
Salerno, Father, 330.
Salmeron, Alfonso, 14, 20, 36, 37, 41, 49, 67, 94.
Sammier, Fr. Henri, 118.
Saniassi, the Jesuit, 188-90, 291-2.
Saragossa, the Jesuits at, 44.
Sasbold, Archbishop, 181.
Savelli, Cardinal, 68.
Saxony, the Jesuits in, 329.
Schall, Adam, 190, 281-2.
Schoppe, Caspar, 69.
Scotland, the Jesuits in, 35-7, 64, 65, 142, 149.
Sebastian I., 87.
Secular education, the Dutch clergy and, 422.
Sens, the Archbishop of, 237.
Seville, Jesuit bankruptcy at, 171-4.
Siam, the Jesuits in, 290-1.
Sicily, the Jesuits in, 333, 342, 378, 386, 395, 428.
Sigismund III., 132.
Simpson, R., 143, 148.
Sixtus V., 107, 110-3, 121.
Sobieski, 317.
Socialism and the Jesuits, 433.
Society of the Faith of Jesus, 383-5.
Society of Jesus, establishment of the, 15, 22, 25.
Society of Jesus, origin of the name, 20.
_Sollicitudo_, the bull, 387.
Sonderbund, the, 420.
Southwell, Father R., 152, 153.
Spain, the Jesuits in, 42-5, 71-2, 84-6, 96, 107-12, 170-4, 265-78,
389, 406-9, 437-9.
Spiritual Coadjutors, 29, 30.
"Spiritual Exercises," the, 7.
Spying in Jesuit houses, 30.
Sta. Maria della Strada, 33.
St. Bartholomew Massacre, the, 89-91.
St. Cyran, the Abbé de, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227.
St. Omer, the college of, 145, 209, 219.
St. Petersburg, the Jesuits at, 377-9.
Steinmetz, 92.
Stonyhurst, 412, 413.
Sunderland, the Earl of, 215, 216.
Suppression of the Society, 353-63.
Sweden, the Jesuits in, 101-3, 312-4.
Switzerland, the Jesuits in, 321-2, 360-1, 418-20.
Taicosama, 137, 138.
Talbot, Mgr., 443.
Talleyrand, 398.
_Taly_, the, 293.
Tamburini, General, 339.
Taunton, E.L., 143, 201, 203.
Tavora plot, the, 263.
_Teatro Jesuitico_, the, 171.
Theatine order, the, 18.
Theiner, Father, 327, 342, 344, 353, 396.
Thibet, Jesuits penetrate, 295.
Thirty Years' War, the, 182-3, 325.
Thompson, Francis, 13, 37.
Thorn, Edward, 92.
Thorn, the massacre of, 318-20.
Thorpe, Father, 412.
Tilly, the Jesuits and, 182, 183.
Toledo, Cardinal, 101, 115, 122.
Tonge, Dr., 209.
Torres, Miguel de, 70, 71.
Tournon, Cardinal de, 284, 285, 294.
Transylvania, the Jesuits in, 131, 132.
Trent, the Council of, 49, 50, 77.
Trevisani, Archbishop, 66.
Turks, Ignatius and the, 4, 7, 9, 15, 18.
_Unigenitus_, the bull, 244, 245, 246.
United States, the Jesuits in the, 414-6, 441.
Urban VIII., 224, 227.
Valais, the Jesuits in, 418, 419.
Valignani, Father, 137.
Vallière, Mlle de la, 236, 238.
Valtellina, the Jesuits expelled from the, 65.
Vatican Council, the, 429.
Venice, the Jesuits at, 18, 41-2, 66, 133-4, 337-8.
Verbiest, Father, 282.
Vermi, Onufrio de, 169.
Victor Emmanuel I., 388.
" " II., 428, 429.
Vieira, Father, 255, 256, 304.
Villalon, Friar, 299, 300.
Villanueva, Father, 42.
Villèle, 402.
Vincent de Paul, St., 178, 226.
Vitelleschi, Mutio, 167, 168, 179.
Viterbo, the prophetess of, 359.
Vota, Father, 317, 318.
Vows, the Jesuit, 24, 30, 82.
Vrillière, Father de la, 360.
Waldeck-Rousseau, 436.
Walpole, Father H., 154.
Warner, Father, 211, 215.
Warsevicz, Father, 102, 103.
Weld, Thomas, 412, 413.
Weston, Father, 151, 152, 153, 154.
Whitbread, Fattier, 210.
William of Orange, 129.
Wisbeach, the quarrels at, 154-6.
Wiseman, Cardinal, 441.
Woulfe, David, 64.
Xavier, Francis, 13, 16, 20, 25, 45, 51.
Zahorowski, Jerome, 184.
Zapata, 34, 36.
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to expect from the author of "Saïd the Fisherman."
LADY OF THE NIGHT
By BENJAMIN SWIFT
A charming story centreing round the romantic attachment of two
delightful people--Ysmyn Veltry, the daughter of a wealthy French
perfume manufacturer and Vivian Darsay, a great-grandson of an old
Crimean veteran, Colonel Darsay--whom, years before the story opens,
chance had brought together and made playmates of among the perfumed
fields of roses, jasmine and all the other fragrant flowers which
surrounded Veltry's world-renowned distillery at Grasse.
At the instigation of an ambitious sister-in-law, Veltry has come to
London to inaugurate, on lines which shall outvie in magnificence any
similar establishment, a shop in which to sell his perfumes. Ysmyn and
Vivian meet again under dramatic and greatly changed conditions to
find their path to happiness beset with difficulties, and it is not
until the "Maison Merveille," which has quickly become the talk of
fashionable London and developed into a veritable "palace of beauty
culture" is, in the height of its success, overtaken by disaster,
that the "Lady of the Night"--so called after jasmine, her father's
favourite flower--becomes the wife of her erstwhile playmate.
THE EMPEROR'S SPY
By HECTOR FLEISCHMANN
"The Emperor's Spy," which deals with the struggle between Napoleon
Bonaparte's secret police, headed by a beautiful woman spy--Elvire--and
a gang of daring Royalist conspirators led by Georges Cadoudal and the
Chevalier Lahaye Saint Hilare, is one of the most exciting, vivid and
elaborate historical novels since Dumas's "Three Musketeers."
Famous historical characters, from Napoleon downwards, crowd its pages.
Incident follows incident in quick succession, and plot is met by
counter-plot, until, at last, under the shadow of the wild cliffs of
Brittany the Emperor's Spy, having achieved the crowning triumph of her
life, meets with a swift and tragic death at the hands of the last of
the Royalists. The book is 576 pages long and there is not one page of
this tremendous story which does not glow with living, human interest.
GLOOMY FANNY AND OTHER STORIES
By MORLEY ROBERTS
_Author of "Thorpe's Way," "David Bran," etc._
Readers of Mr. Morley Roberts's novel "Thorpe's Way" will remember that
"Gloomy Fanny," otherwise the Hon. Edwin Fanshawe, was one of the most
amusing characters in that very amusing story.
I'D VENTURE ALL FOR THEE
By J.S. FLETCHER
_Author of "The Town of Crooked Ways," "The Fine Air of Morning," etc._
A story of the Yorkshire coast, 1745.
THE LOST MILLION
by WILLIAM LE QUEUX
_Author of "The Mystery of Nine," "Without Trace," etc., etc._
CARNACKI
THE GHOST-FINDER
By WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON
_Author of "The Night Land," "The Boats of Glen Carig," etc._
A NEW NOVEL
By LADY TROWBRIDGE
A HAREM ROMANCE
By E. DE LA VILLENEUVE
A very lifelike picture of the Young Turk Revolution is contained in
this novel. A double love story, full of thrilling incidents, is woven
into the web of public events, the two heroines, one a lovely Turkish
girl, the other a beautiful Armenian, having each been prisoners in the
Palace of Yildiz. The personality of Abdul Hamid is vividly realised,
and the cruel oppression to which he subjected the inmates of his harem
is graphically described.
_Three-and-Sixpence Net Novels._
POISON
By ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
_Authors of "The Shulamite," "The Woman Deborah," etc._
ROADS OF DESTINY
By O. HENRY
_Author of "Cabbages and Kings," "Heart of the West," etc._
_Two-Shilling Net Novels._
QUEEN SHEBA'S RING
By H. RIDER HAGGARD
_Author of "King Solomon's Mines," etc._
THE MYSTERY OF NINE
By WILLIAM LE QUEUX
_Author of "Without Trace," etc., etc._
SETH OF THE CROSS
By ALPHONSE COURLANDER
_Author of "Mightier than the Sword."_
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