MIS THE JESUITS TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH ZP-A-TJL IF'lé^V'.A-Xj AGNES L. SADLIER. ^ fi //^ V SECOND NEW YORK: D. & J. SADLIER & CO., PUBLISHERS, 31 Barclay Street. montreal : 275 notre dame street. 1880. COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY D. & J. SADLIER & CO. 179920 Edward O. Jenkins, Printer and Stereotyper, 20 North Williain Si., N. V. CONTENTS. Preface, 5 I. The First Vow, 11 II. The First Fathers, . . . . . .55 III. A Glance at the Missions, . . . ,87 IV. France, 121 V. POMBAL, 162 VI. A Brief Glance at Choiseul, D'Aranda, and Tanucci, . 214 VIL A Last Word, . - 259 PREFACE. For whom do I write this book ? I write it for those who have not yet assumed a de- cided stand ; for young men, for men of the world, and also for the large class of triflers, swaying, as I was for a long time myself, in a state of irresolute indiffer- ence, as it were, between error, which is not very patent to their sense, and truth, which they have no anxiety to learn. I know not if my book will be read, but I hope so. With some, the pernicious books which I have, un- happily, written, may serve as a passport for the pres- ent good work. In the case of others, malevolence will awaken a curiosity, for the pens of certain petty scribblers have already accused me of having hazarded a speculation in -eturning to God. And, indeed, they are right. Oh, Lord, how grand a heritage I have won for myself, at one stroke, in prostrating myself before Thee! But I will not intone here the Canticle of the work- ings of grace within my heart ; it would take too long, and I have only a few lines in which to announce the object of my labor. I will merely say, in relation to 6 Preface. this insinuation against my honor, that it is a real windfall — it will procure many readers. For, in truth, is it not something amusing to behold an honest man, at a comparatively late hour of his life, wallowing in the mire of hypocrisy ? I calculate on this, and I hasten to take advantage of it, striking the iron while it is hot. This book, at least if the execution be not below the first idea, will be but the sketch of my great pict- ure, "The General History of the Jesuits," which I will achieve, if God grants me strength and life. I desire to fix in advance the principal lines, and to determine the perspectives. It will form but the bare outline, or, to speak liter- ally, a brief synopsis, since it will occupy but one volume, but affording such a view of the whole as, I hope, will bring into prominence certain principal facts which form the special thenie of calumniators, and which have grown, as it were, into the legend of calumny. The point of admiration which marks my title prom- ises to give some importance to the perpetual insult under which hate, for a period of three hundred years, has crushed and killed the Society of Jesus, which is perpetually resuscitated ; it has seemed to me oppor- tune to choose, from among the "crimes" of its eter- nally accused members, the most glaring, in order to expose them under a quasi- dramatic form, before carry- ing the entire case to a Court of Appeal. Preface, 7 I remember to have read, in the writings of that unhappy writer, Gioberti, a page written with all the Italian emphasis, but full of eloquence and original thought, on which he compares, after the method of Plutarch, Ignatius of Loyola and Julius Caesar. Gio- berti uniformly gives the advantage to the founder of the Society of Jesus over the founder of the universal empire, in order to better demonstrate the pretended decline of the sons of Ignatius, together with the too evident decadence of the heirs of Caesar, I say nothing of the parallel in itself. I love neither Anagrams, nor Gnostics, nor Parallels. Caesar was a mighty soldier ; he crossed the Rubi- con. I know not if he left anything, save his military reputation, behind him ; Brutus assassinated him, and assassination is ever a crime. But I know that Igna- tius founded something humble, which became great from its birth, and which has kept pace with time and change. I know that this has won to God forever, or, at least, for a time, the Indies, China, and America, millions of souls — hundreds of millions of souls — of whom many have been again drawn into error by the traitorous efforts of unbelievers and their commercial propaganda. I know that this has existed for three centuries, and in spite of the incessant effort made to crush it, the most potent means of education. 8 Preface. I know that from its very birth this has been cakim- niated, in the time of Pasquier, as in that of Pascal ; in the time of Voltaire, as in the time of Gioberti ; and our own time, and by the same slanderers ; inasmuch as the Church of Christ, owing to its immortality, ever arouses the same implacable hate and envenomed fury. That Church is an army " led by a Sovereign Pontiff, conducted by its thousand Bishops, flanked by its hundred Orders of Religious, among whom stands, in the first rank," * the Order of which we speak, founded by St. Ignatius, the Society which, "born in an age of struggles, is more than all others organized for the combat." " To struggle is the condition of its being, its merit before God, and its meaning in history." What struggle ? The struggle of Authority against Revolt, of Liberty against Oppression, of Order against Disorder, of Good against Evil ; the true, the grand, the only struggle. Furthermore, I know that the struggle is no less general, nor less desperate, to-day than in the sixteenth century. Now, as then, it is not only the Church, but society that is menaced \ and unquestionably, had epochs to be compared, we would find our time much more diseased, both in a political, religious, and social * Mgr. Frippel, "Religious, Historical, and ^Literary Studies." Preface, 9 point of view, than were the times even of Luther and Calvin. I know that our nation, at the present epoch, has two pressing and vital needs — the need of knowing the obedience which gains batdes, and of knowing again the God whom they have forgotten, which is victory itself. I have before my eyes the golden book wherein Father Emil Chauveau enumerates the children of St. Genevieve's school who died on the field of battle in our late disastrous struggle. Compared with the total number of pupils, the num- ber of the victims is truly and gloriously dispropor- tion ed. Every one has remarked that, and I am happy to supplement the remark. Some will say, " That is chance." No. There is no such thing as chance. "Then, it is luck." Ah! certainly, and the grace of God ; but be assured that such happiness as this comes not to him who stands idly waiting. It comes only to those hearts who seek for it. I repeat, that if our country is destroyed, it will re- sult from two causes : absence of religion and absence of discipline. We are a business people, and self-devotedness is not a business ; we are skeptical, and self-devotedness feeds on faith ; we are gay — gay to excess ; and self- devotedness, I assure you, will amuse none among the 10 Preface. throng of maskers who exhale the double poison of ex- travagance and misery in the siifilbcating atmosphere of our halls of pleasure. I am aware of all this, and, therefore, I would nar- rate the history of the Jesuits, who exist by religion, and thorough discipline, in absolute devotedness, en- deavoring to merit thus the happiness and the great honor of losing my worldly reputation in the torrents of hate which ever sweep against this glorious title, the dread of the enemies of God. I. THE FIRST VOW. Day had not yet dawned on the Festival of the As- sumption in the year 1534, when a lame man, who, in spite of his infirmity, moved with a rapid and ener- getic step, might have been seen passing along the street of Saint Jacques, in the University quarter of the city of Paris. Although, to judge by his appear- ance, the stranger had reached middle life, he was at- tired in the dress which distinguished the poor scholars of the University ; but in place of the ink-horn which they generally wore suspended from their side, he had only a rosary. A stout cord, passed under his much-worn hooded cloak, sustained a cloth wallet ; much better armor for a night-traveler in Paris than if he had been pro- vided with a sword or cane ; for the evil-disposed will hardly attack mendicants. As the stranger reached the parapet of the deserted bridge, the clock of Saint Chapelle rang out the hour of three. He turned his eyes across the winding Seine, bor- dered by the houses deep in shadow, and saluted with (II) 12 TJie Jesuits. the sign of the cross the massive pile of Notre Dame. As yet the approach of day is unannounced by even the faintest gUmmer. It is the hour when all Paris sleeps, whether it be the sixteenth century or th.e nineteenth. He passed through the network of narrow streets which intersected the market, without encountering a living soul, until he reached the gate of Montmatre, situated in the vicinity of what is now the Rue du Mail ; the new street of St. Eustache having its first houses built a little later on the outward winding road, of which it still preserves the tortuous outline. The barrier was closed. The sentry demanded, *' Where are you going?" The lame man answered, "I am going to the chapel of Saint Martyr,> to celebrate the feast of the Mary Immaculate." The chapel of Saint Martyr, of which the crypt still exists in the Rue Marie Antoinette, was situated imme- diately under the parish church of Montmatre, and occupied the exact site of the altar of Mars, where Saint Denis, patron of Paris, was dragged and mar- tyred with his two companions, Rusticus and Eleu- therius, on the 9th of October, 272, for having refused to offer sacrifice in the temple of Mercury, god of thieves, merchants, etc., and a whole category of other men for whom no language affords an appropriate name. The First Voiv. 13 The guard answered, "You will have to wait a long time for the first mass. Take the way on your right, the main road is obstructed by the laborers who work at the swamp of Porcherous." The brook of Menelmontant, or Porcherous, which now flows underground, at that time crossed the high- way leading to Montmartre, at the point of our Rue du Provence. In the summer season its waters be- came stagnant, causing pestilence. The lame man took the Fishmonger's Lane, cross- ing on his way the thickets where the eighteenth century was to estabHsh a whole town of philosophic taverns, under the name of " New France," and reached Montmartre from the eastern side, through the fields which extended from the village of the Chapelle St. Denis, and the hamlet of Clegnancourt, to the place called Fontanelle, and also Goutte d'Eau, or, as popular usage has made it, Goutte d'Or. Dawn had not yet appeared ; but the moon, sink- ing toward the horizon, shed its fading gleams upon the surrounding country, revealing where the spire of the abbey built by Suger arose in the center of the plain, against the dark hills of Montmorency, facing the four round towers of the Noble House of Saint Ouen, from whose belfry now all the bells were ring- ing simultaneously, because its masters, the Knights of the Star, according to the obligation laid upon them by their founder, King John, in 1351, were 14 The Jesuits. compelled to hold their yearly full Chapter in mid- August, from noon till the evening of the following day. Our crippled traveler, although he now carried a wallet, had formerly been a knight himself; but he had long since abandoned the world and its glories, and it was not for him that the bells of the Noble House were, ringing. He was destined to found an eminent eccle- siastical Order, more enduring than that of King John's. It was by the path cut through Fontanelle that he gained the summit of Montmartre. The night still lingered. Having arrived at the culminating point occupied by the church-yard, be- hind the apsis of the parish church, on the very spot where now rest the foundations of the basilica vowed by France to the Sacred Heart, he paused fatigued, and looked about him intently, murmuring, " I am first at the rendezvous." He took his repose neither sitting nor lying down, but prostrate^ reciting his rosary. Silence reigned on this exposed elevation, over which the soft summer- night wind gently passed. One heard there no sounds of life. A few scattered houses to the right and left of the church, which formed the suburbs of the village of Montmatre, still lay wrapped in slumber. Nothing was visible on the ridge of the slope be- tw^een the prostrate student and the wall of the ceme- The First Vow, 15 tery only some dark and immovable objects; appar- ently the stones which had lain scattered in these fields since the time of the Druids. The church -clock struck four, and presently the abbey chimes called to the matin office. Then one of the seeming stones moved and stood up ; then two, then all. They were six, and the lame student, rising in his turn, exclaimed : " God be praised ; I thought myself the first, and I was the last." The rising sun revealed six young men gathered about an older student, who bore the air of a master in the midst of his disciples. The term " student," by which we have introduced him, will no longer serve to distinguish him ; for all the others, save one, who wore the garb of a priest, were attired Uke him, in the dress peculiar to the poor stu- dents who followed the course of the University of Paris. The priest only had the appearance of a French- man ; all the others, including the cripple, bore on their dark-complexioned countenances the impress of the Spanish race, which then shared with us the em- pire of the world. Francis the First was king ; Charles the Fifth, em peror ; Columbus had just discovered an unknown half of the earth. Alexander Farnese, under the name of Paul III., had succeeded Leo X., on the throne of St. Peter. 1 6 The Jesuits, In the year 1534 Luther had attained his fiftieth year ; Calvin his thirty-third. The lame student, whose wallet, as the daylight permitted to be seen between the fibers of the coarse cloth of which it was composed, Avas filled with crusts of begged bread, was forty-seven years of age. But why, however, announce the age of this cripple, with that of Luther and Calvin ? Because this poor, obscure man was more powerful * and prolific of good, though alone, than they, though united, were terrible and prolific of evil. His name was Ignatius of Loyola. One could see that he had been a soldier. An expression of indom- itable courage mingled with the humility of his con- version. But he was a thinker ; and his features bore the clear and commanding expression peculiar to men who are predestined to accomplish great objects. Something of the eagle he bore in his profile, of which the proud lines hardly reflected to the full ex- tent the sweetness which, by God's help, had over- flowed a heart agitated by the fever of war, until the light breaking in, had confounded it. Although his face bore the impress of a noble and generous charac- ter, it was in the eyes, especially, that the exceeding beauty of his soul was expressed ; his look at once awed and attracted, because he possessed at once power and tenderness. Tlie First Vow, ij Thirteen years had passed since the bloody night after the siege of Pampeluna, when he was found con- quered, though victorious, after having struggled for twelve hours with lion-like courage. These Loyolas, lords of Ognez, were of Cantabrian origin, and as true in combat as the steel of their sword. Ignatius, the heroic captain, formerly a page of King Ferdinand, young, ambitious, proud, and be- loved, revolted against the will of God which nailed him to a sick-bed, almost within sound of the battle. It is said that he asked those who served him to get him some romances which might serve to divert his mind, and they brought him the histories of the mar- tyrs, and among others, the acts of the first, of the greatest of the martyrs, "The Passion of our Lord." There is a tradition in Guipuzcoa that Ignatius was then deeply attached to a beautiful and wealthy young girl, who had been promised to him in marriage. When he had finished reading the Passion of our Lord as related by St. John, he took her beloved im- age from his heart, and pressing to his lips a medal of the Blessed Virgin, he vowed his soul to the free service of the faith, and his body to the chastity of our divine Lord, saying : " Behold me the knight of the true love, and the soldier of the only glory." The lives of the saints will not serve as exact models for those in the world. Each state has its 1 8 TJie Jesuits. peculiar degree of sanctity. Tlie saints who renounce all are the laborers of God who owe to Him their en- tire day of work. Those who remain in the world are bound to fulfill their duty toward God, without neglecting that which they owe to the world. Ignatius, not wishing to share his work, quitted the world, and constituted himself one of God's workmen, long before binding himself- thereto by a public or solemn profession. He began the work of voluntary detachment from all earthly things, by abandoning to the poor all his goods, and by living in solitude to break his most tender attachments. It was his " call to arms ; " we must not forget tliat it was a soldier who was entering upon the apostolate. Having bidden a final farewell to the glory of war, which had been his profession and his passion, to the love of his betrothed, to the house of his father, to his beloved family and dear friends, he departed with tearful eyes, but a strong heart. On the road he parted not with half of his cloak, like the apostle of charity, St. Martin, but bestowed it entire, together with all his clothes and his horse. But he reserved the last sacrifice of parting with his sword, until he reached the goal of his pilgrimage, the monastery of Mount Serrât, situate near Manresa in Catalonia, where he suspended it from a pillar. The First Vow, 19 In this monastery he made a general confession which occupied three days ; after which, clothed in sackcloth, he returned to the famous grotto where were granted him his first ecstatic revelations, in the intervals of journeys which he made on foot to some distance, despite his hardly-cured wounds, to beg alms for the poor. Here he wrote his great work, " Manresa ; or. Spir- itual Exercises," and the plan of his Constitutions, which may be called the eniire work of his eventful life. In this solitude he saw something more : the neces- sity of being a man of science, in order to teach truth and combat falsehood. But before taking his place, he, the renowned cap- tain of yesterday, on the benches of a school, he desired to quench the thirst which devoured him to press his lips on the tomb of our Saviour. Afoot, penniless, he set out ; obtained, by the help of God, passage on a ship bound from Barcelona to Rome, where, having kissed the feet of the Holy Father Adrian VI., he once more took up his staff, traveled through Italy, begging his bread, and em- barked at Venice in a galley which landed him in the Isle of Cyprus. From thence he went to Jaffa, and reached the Holy City, after a journey that occuj^ied a year. But now, if it were not for a fortunate obstacle in- 20 The Jesuits. terposed by Providence, his future mission would never have been accomplished ; for the land pressed by the sacred feet of our Lord, held for him so pow- erful an attraction, that he resolved there to live and die ; but the delegate of the Holy See, who had au- thority over the pilgrims, ordered him to return to Eu- rope, and Ignatius, having watered for the last time, with his tears, the traces of the sacred footprints of our Redeemer, on Djebet Jor, made at the blessed hour of His Ascension, obeyed. Seven months later, he was entered as a scholar in the lowest class of the University of Barcelona. Persecuted for the miracle of his piety, which was judged to be sorcery, and several times imprisoned ; pursued from Barcelona to Salamanca by persecution ; and opposing nothing to injustice but silence and resignation, he at length quitted Spain, and took the road to Paris, whose University was the first iii the world. At the time of his arrival in France, during the first month of the year 1528, Ignatius, born in 1491, was consequently -T^d years old. He had the courage to re-commence the study of his humanities in the College of Montague, at Saint Barbara ; and notwithstand- ing the obstacles which his practical piety, the depth of his meditations, and the apostleship which he had already begun to exercise, he made some progress ; but persecution had pursued him across the Pyrenees. The First Vow, 21 It happened that a Professor of Saint Barbara, John Pena, accused him, not of being a sorcerer, as they had done in Spain, but of drawing off the attention of the students from their studies by means of the mys- tical reveries in which he indulged, for which he was sentenced to receive public chastisement in the grand hall of the College. Ignatius submitted with such humility to the sen- tence that the Rector was filled with astonishment, and resolved to interrogate the culprit himself. Ignatius replied to the interrogatory the same as he had accepted the sentence. Meanwhile the rumor was speedily circulated that there was to be an example of public chastisement. Owing to the perfection of his life, Ignatius was not popular among the majority of the students ; so this was hailed as welcome news. A numerous throng was assembled in the grand hall, where the punishment was to be administered, testi- fying all the impatience of spectators at a theatre for the rising of the curtain, when at length the Rector appeared. He held, or rather drew, Ignatius after him by the hand. Thus he passed along the cruel and curious ranks, the accused following him, pale as death, with down- cast eyes. In the center of the hall the Rector paused, and to 22 The Jesuits, the intense astonishment of all present, his eyes were full of tears. For a moment he remained silent, apparently over- come by his emotion ; then suddenly pressing Ignatius to his heart (others say he fell on his knees), he ex- claimed : " Not only has he been falsely accused without complaining, but he has joyfully submitted, in recompense for the good he has been able to accom- plish, to the opprobrium of an unjust punishment ! I have seen the conscience of a saint, and I show it to you." Until then the least malevolent among the com- panions of Ignatius had turned into ridicule all the efforts he made to draw souls to God. The rôle of director of consciences assumed by this stranger, who lived ©n the charity of passers-by, and who had not even acquired a single degree in literature, letters, or the sciences, seemed nothing short of presumption ; but after the incident which we have just related, he appeared in a new light, and many souls were attracted toward him. Of these Ignatius repulsed none, but those whom he confided in were few. The reader may be astonished to learn that he was now engaged in an important selection in the midst of his contemplative life ; he was choosing those who one day were to be Jesuits. The first chosen was an ingenuous young man, of The First Vow. 23 simple and unaffected manner, by name Peter Lefëvre. He had also journeyed as a pilgrim from the depths of Savoy in order to enter Holy Orders, and was already celebrated for his learning. Ignatius was at once his master and his disciple; his master in the faith — his disciple in all which concerned study ; and thanks to the assistance of this friendly guide, the difficulties of Ignatius' scholastic path were speedily overcome. He became Master of Arts, and was shortly admitted into the class of Theology. Lefèvre was strongly attached to a student of his own age, Francis Xavier, belonging to an impoverished, but noble family of Navarre, who possessed an ardent heart, brilliant eloquence, and sparkling wit, but was entirely devoted to earthly ambition. Ignatius resolved to convert him ; and the argu- ments which are put into his mouth by historians remind one of the evangelists: "Xavier, what will it serve you to gain the universe and lose your soul ? If there were no other ife than the present, no other glory than the glory of this world, you would be -right to dream only of how to become great among men ; but since there is an eternity, why do you limit your desires to this world ? why do you prefer that which passes to that which never ends ?" Ignatius had hard work to gain this soul, but it was a grand conquest. Neither Lefèvre nor Xavier yet knew that they were 24 The Jesuits, destined to be enrolled as captains in that army which, as yet, lacked soldiers. Until this moment, Ignatius had breathed his thought to none save God. The third and fourth recruit arrived together from Spain, with the intention of attaching themselves to the Society of Ignatius, who, without his ow^n seeking, had already acquired renown. These, James Laynez and Antonio Salmeron, the latter of whom was still very young, were received with open arms ; the first glance of the master had observed on their youthful faces the impress of genius. Then came Alphonso, of the town of Bobadilla, and the Portuguese, Rodriquez Azevedo. All these chosen six were poor, living by charity, with the exception of Xavier, who lectured on Phi- losophy. But Ignatius already assumed the place of a father to this family, tenderly watching over their welfare. And though he revealed nothing of his projects, unconsciously they grew to expect great things of him. Lef evre was ordained priest. Soon after this event, Ignatius sought retirement and solitude for contempla^ tion. But even without the aid of words, a similar cur« rent of thought appeared to pass between his friends' hearts and his, although they presumed not to question him. The First Vow, 25 One (lay, however, Xavier asked him : " Have you nothing to say to lis?" And Ignatius embraced him with tearful eyes, but answered nothing. At length, on the thirteenth of August, two days before the Assumption, he ordered all to fast and go to confession upon the day following; then bidding Lefevre to repair beforehand to the Abbey, and make preparations for a mass to be said in the crypt of Saint Martyr on the morning of the fifteenth of August, he added : " Come, all of you, to the summit of Mont- martre before daybreak, to the field behind the church, near the cemetery. I will be there, and I will speak to you." Those who were gathered about Ignatius of Loyola that morning at the meeting-place were Lefevre, Fran- cis Xavier, James Laynez, Antonio Salmeron, Nicholas Alonzo of Bobadilla, and Simon Rodriquez d'Azeve- do, the first of whom was a priest ; the others only students. All were to have a share, unequal it is true, in the glory of their master. The oldest, Lefevre, was twenty-four years of age ; the youngest, Salmeron, had hardly attained his eight- eenth year. Ignatius kept his promise to its full extent; he spoke in the midst of those chosen souls, who listened eagerly; The grand memories of the Apostle of the Gauls 20 The Jesuits. still lingered about this spot, where the living God had replaced the idols of paganism, hurled to the earth. For, in the distance, arose the royal spire of St. Denis, silvered by the first rays of the rising sun, which hard by caressed the humble church of Montmatre, once the temple of Mercury, but now purified and baptized by the blood of martyrs. As far as the eye could reach, it met nothing to dis- turb the solitude. Paris, awaking from slumber, lay wrapped in mist, and the only sound which broke the stillness was that of the church bells announcing the glory of Mary, alike to those who still loved, and whose hearts had learned to forget her. Paris was far removed from Montmatre in those days, and though already deemed a grand city, merely consisted of a confused mass of buildings, in the center of the plain, rising against the dark towers of Notre Dame. It terminated on the east in the gardens of Skint Paul, widely separated from the Bastile, which resem- bled, with its wheel-shaped towers, a mighty chariot bearing down upon the turret of Vincennes ; on the west, it ended at the Louvre ; toward the south, in the inclosure of Saint Germain des Près ; on the north side, within some hundred steps of St. Eustache, and nothing indicated that it would presently stretch so far beyond its existing limits. The First Vow, 27 All this was faintly outlined through the fog of Paris which no wind stirred, and through which the gilded crosses of the churches caught a mysterious gleam of light. All seemed calm ; but an indefinable menace seemed to lurk beneath the repose. Ignatius spoke ; 'tis duty compels him so to do ; what will he say ? Those who will listen may still hear his words even at this lapse of time ; he repeated them in his work, and his writings have immortalized them. When he had exchanged the Christian salutation with his companions, he paused and collected his thoughts in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And through the open windows of the church, came, clear and sweet, the chant of the Religious, sounding the praises of the Lord. " You are impatient, children, because you have had to wait some days for what I have awaited in patience fourteen years. "Yes, fourteen years I have watched alternately heaven and earth, seeking to learn what Heaven in- tends for this age, and what the age meditates against Heaven. " The present time will occupy a prominent page in 28 The Jesuits. history. Peace to those whose names shall not re-echo amid these stormy times ; all of ours shall be recorded therein, those of some in blood. " Selim and Soliman have alternately menaced Eu- rope ; the Crescent rules Rhodes, where no longer floats the standard of Jerusalem. " We have seen Christians offer up prayers for the Turk ; we have seen kings conspiring for the sub- version of their thrones, and in the midst of the aston- ishment ejfcited by these events, a voice is heard from Rome, denouncing the corruption of the cloister, and the falsehood practiced beneath the shadow of the altar ! What can henceforth be to us a cause of sur- prise ? Where will the chastisement end ? What is the will of God ? Who can comprehend the language of His righteous indignation ? " Behold the apostate Luther, in whom is concen- trated the brutishness of genius, the slavery of a mind enchained by the senses, the appetite of an ogre, the strength of a bull, and the rapacity of a wolf ; a pro- found shame, but a striking lesson ; crying to the world that heresy is not the rebellion of reason, but the eleva- tion of flesh. "At his voice the greedy German arises and inaugu- rates a course of sacrilege, robbery, and murder. There the princes head the tumults among the people, who will trample underfoot the crowns of their rulers. "In ravaging the cathedrals they show them how The First Vow. 29 to demolish the palaces. They will profit by the lesson. " Hell openly triumphs ! It is the orgie of the beast in human shape, who accuses the Blessed Virgin of impurity, and the true God of falsehood; they reject the Mass, that is to say, Jesus Christ ; these men who call themselves Christians, and more than Christians, since they pretend to reform Christianity, by over- throwing the Altar of the insulted Christ, and His dis- honored Mother. *' Behold the reformers, one armed against the other, all mutually accusing one another of perfidy, the only point on which they are not mistaken ; behold the men engaged in this tournament of impiety ; Carl- stadt, who kills the souls of infants by depriving them of baptism ; Munzer, the furious leveler, who finds in the falsified Gospel the justification of theft ; the confusion of mine and thine, and the ancient folly of the sharing of earthly goods ; John of Leyden, the caricature of a prophet, who preaches the common- alty of all, even of women ; he, the masterpiece of Satan, who, in him, burlesques royalty, the priesthood, and even martyrdom ; behold ^winglius, the austere maniac, of whom Calvin appropriates to himself the heritage ; . . . . but how, remember, or what, imports the names ? All is hypocrisy, blasphemy, pillage, rav- age, and carnage ; time put in the place of eternity ; a harvest of high-sounding words justifying the base- 30 The Jesuits, ness of men and the ignominy of things ; such is the Reformation, red with wine and blood, a leprosy under the guise of a remedy. *' The Turks deceive no one ; for the Turks are bar- barians, deluded by a false prophet ; they have denied nothing ; but Luther, Carlstadt, Munzer, Zwinglius and John of Ley den, have known Jesus, and betrayed Him ; they have sacrificed Him to their interest, to their immoderate thirst of power, of renown, of the enjoyments of this world — and of their own free will ; they have constituted themselves the apostles of pride, the ministers of the Enemy of Mankind. "And the enemy plays with these his tools, and amuses himself by introducing into the midst of horror some sinister nonsense which recalls the days when the Lower Empire mocked its own awful situation. " Christiern makes of his barber a prelate ; Henry VIH., the knight of the axe, between the assassinations of two queens, finds time to write pamphlets, wherein he calls Rome a harlot, because Rome refuses to countenance his awful licentiousness. '' For they are all the same ; each of these Reformers accuses the Church of the very crime which he has notably committed ; evil drags the good to judgment, with clamors of indignation ; the assassin shrieks mur- der ; the robber, theft. Judas denounces treason, and Henry VIH. is scandahzed. The latter dips the pen The First Vow, 31 of the former advocate of the Faith, into the mingled blood of women and priests, and finds relief in calum- ny, from the fatigues of the executioner. " Does the evil end here ? We are in France, and Paris is at our feet. Will this oldest daughter of the Church shield her mother from the menaces which as- sail her on all sides ? It may be. I hope it ! But you are like myself, the children of the University of Paris, the pride of sci-ence and the honor of letters ; you have heard, like me, those vague sounds at first so faint — something keen, but furtive as the hissing of the serpent in the grass — and which goes on from year to year augmenting, until it resembles the menacing voice of an approaching tempest. "Here we have not yet attained the shameful level of the settaries beyond the Rhine ; Paris is no haunt of Free-Lancers, and the burlesque exhibition of Wart- bourg, where the intoxicated Luther converses with the devil, as, of old, Moses did with God, satisfies only the Germans. We are not yet stricken with the awful convulsions which afflict the tyrants of the North, whose pagan soil so long resisted the rock of the Cross, and where it is ever tottering ; still less are we acquainted with the uncompromising arithmetic of the London traders, by which they calculate how far their interests might be served by the fact of possessing in their midst a Pope entirely their own, sharing with them the patrimony of the Church ; at once pro- 2,2 The Jesuits. fessor, procreator, and Sovereign Pontiff, wielding the scepter, the censer, and the axe, in a hand as able at the desk of the pedant, as at the block of the execu- tioner ; Enghsh enough to institute an Enghsh faith as such baptized under the name of Anghcanisin, an En- glish morahty, an English modesty, and an English truth, as of old the merchants proper of Carthage invent- ed a Punic faith. These things satisfy only the English. " In order to attract France, other sophistries must be brought into requisition, and above all, more caution used in the manner of presenting them. " She will insist upon the appearance of examination, the seeming of logic, and some plaything with which she can amuse herself by giving it the name of liberty. " Being the most powerful and most impetuous of the nations, France will, perhaps, lose herself most completely amid the mazes of political wanderings, because the strength of fevers is ever proportionate to the generosity of the temperament, but as yet she has not entered upon this perilous way ; so far her spiritual good sense has revolted at the grossness of the allure- ments which heresy holds out to her. " But the character, the beloved and commanding character of the French, has its peculiar temptations. '' There is woman, there is vice, there is the intoxica- tion of the art of writing and of speaking. ". ... It is woman who will open to the plague the doors of France. The First Vow. 33 " The sister of the king, ' La Marguerite des Mar- gueritis/ shields and fosters that viper of vipers, the workman truly strong in evil, who gives to heresy its philosophic mask, and its disguise of moderation ; John Calvin, who has already reformed Luther, and who will be in turn reformed by a thousand others — for the history of Protestantism may be comprised in one line, or rather in one word. Reform, that is to say, revolt ; reformation of reformation, revolt against revolt, heresy within heresy, an array of schisms crossing and multiplying within the schisms, like a profusion of noxious weeds in the field of the bad laborer *' I have promised to build a chapel (do not be as- tonished, we shall build many, and churches, too) on the very spot in Paris where was conmiitted against the Blessed Virgin the first Lutheran profanation. It took place under my eyes, in the Rue Saint Antoine, and you will recognize the spot by seeing dug there the foundations of the sanctuary. " The sacrilegious horde was conducted thither by a page in the livery of the Duchess d'Elampes, the friend of the king, she who, too, reforms not indeed her im- pure life, but the ancient honor of her race, by selling her treason and betraying her deceived king to the in. trigues of England. " Through the medium of these two women, seated upon the very steps of the throne, and on whom God 3 34 The Jesuits. has so abundantly showered His gifts, error is propa- gated throughout France. " The schools swarm with impious books ; the first printed blasphemy of Calvin has been sent, in gilt binding, to her who can so easily insinuate it even into the private apartment of the king. Thanks to his im- portunities, the king has made Nicholas Cop a rector of the University of Paris, and on the last feast of All Saints this master of Calvin, now become his disciple, thanked the king for this mark of preference by publicly preaching rebeUion, not only against the Vatican, but even against the Louvre <' Is this the extent of the evil ? Alas ! No. This year even, Calvin, who lacks the personal bravery of Luther, and before whose eyes his tortured conscience unceasingly evokes the specter of personal danger, fled from Paris. Where does he take refuge ? At the court of Nerac, nigh Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre ! And from thence he endeavors to transport error in- to Catholic Spain ! while on the other side, the poison generated in Switzerland and traversing Savoy, pene- trated into Piedmont, always hostile toward the Holy See ; it is propagated by Renée, Duchess of Férrara, daughter of Louis XH., whose extravagant fondness for Calvin almost equals that of Marguerite de Valois herself, and who joins hands with Jean Valdez, the favorite of the Viceroy of Naples, whose emissaries in- sinuate themselves even into Rome The First Vow, 35 *' There, in the Eternal City, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, seated upon his deserted throne, with supplicating hands raised toward heaven, sees the deluge steadily rising, submerging all parts of the world with a tide of error, and rushing from all parts of the horizon, to invade the heart of Catholicism, the last bulwark of Faith, Authority, and Truth. " I have told you nothing new, my friends ; the evil is so glaring that one may even see it with closed eyes, as the light of a mighty conflagration penetrates through the shut lids. " What I would show you is the number and strength of the battalions leagued against the Faith. Never has such an assembly of mankind joined forces against it. " Will the faith, however, be vanquished ? It can not be. " Who will defend it ? Jesus Christ. " Where is the army of Jesus ? At Rome and in France. " Is the army of Rome numerous ? No. " Is it strong ? Yes. " And the army of France ? It is here ; count it. "Six young men and a cripple, who to-morrow will be an old man ; seven souls in all. " The army of France contains only one Frenchman ; do not despise it, for in it, and by it, God will accom- plish great things. " Whilst you have waited for me to speak, reproach- 36 The Jesuits, ing my silence, the humility of my prayer has vouch- safed me the grace of reading the future. 1 have read our history in the secret of Jesus. God accepts us for His soldiers. He has shown me the immense battle- field, where another standard marches against His. I have seen it. I have seen the entire world descend into the arena ; I have seen you ; I have seen my- self .... " I do not question you to know whether it be your will to combat. To what purpose ? I know that your will abandons itself to the will of God. .... And I know that you are the ' associates of Jesus,' you will bear this name ; understand me, you do not take it ; God gives it you " "You will have hours of triumph so grand that jealous hate will arise about you like a whirlwind, that it will be stirred to its depth like the fuming and boiling water which tempers the red-hot iron. " And you will have reverses so terrible, that your enemies will place their feet upon what they believe to be your corpse. '' Then, you will not strike, and nevertheless they will be overthrown You will never strike. '* Your precept is, not to strike ; and by this pre- cept you will conquer. "What is the name of the enemy? Revolt. "Where is Revolt? In heresy, which is error. The First Vow. 37 " How combat revolt and heresy ? By the Author- ity which is the Truth. "Where are authority and the truth? In the Church, together with Hberty, which is the right of Uv- ing and dying according to the law of God, in order to be born again in the glory of God. " Is the Church attacked ? Yes, on all sides. " Does the Church need to be defended ? The Church herself, no ; for she is assured of living by the promise of Jesus Christ. But, yes, in the interest of what is not the Church, and especially in the interest of the actual enemies of the Church, who must either return to her fold or die, since beyond the Church there is no salvation. " We do not wish them to be lost. " How then to defend the Church ; that is to say, the possibility of salvation for those who do not know the Church, and for those who persecute the Church? " By opposing obedience to revolt, self-abnegation to egotism, the freedom of sacrifice to the slavery of covetousness which can never be satiated ; in a word, by making Christians. " How shall these Christians be made ? By the Word of Jesus Christ recalled to the minds of men, and taught to children and to infidels. " The reign of brute force will never end ; the sword shall be supplanted by the cannon, only until some 38 The Jesuits. force more mighty still shall hurl the cannon to the dust ; but besides these inert powers which blindly serve the justice of God and the perversity of men, there is another power which is named intellect. " It does not date from yesterday, since the Gospel is fifteen hundred years old, but this age in which we live begins to scatter written and spoken opinions as food for the appetite of the many. " In itself this is good ; only error, ever v^atchful, taking the lead of the unsuspecting good, makes use of this as a tool with which to rebuild, under other names, the Hebrew idol and the altar of false gods. *' It is vitally necessary to combat this treason of perverted knowledge against ignorance, which can not defend itself. "We will not be the warriors of the sword, but of the Word ; we will preach to men ; we will teach children ; we will make Christians by precept and by education. " I, who have been taught by all of you, and who possess the least knowledge among you, have at least the science of the humble, and you have chosen me to direct your hearts, if not your intelligences, far superior to mine. Why ? Because you have seen my con- science, where is visible only the name of Jesus burn- ing like a torch. " I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, and above all at Paris ; what have I learnt ? The First Vow. 39 The language of doubt, but that there was no longer room for doubt within me. Jesus filled my soul to overflowing, and the distrust of men has only aug- mented my confidence in God. " I have admired the eloquent and the learned ; I have drunk in the poetry and philosophy which flowed from their lips, and from the depths of my soul I have repeated the prayer to my Father in heaven taught by the Man-God himself to His Apostles. It contains the infinite poetry and the eternal philosophy. *' I have heard Buchanan, the eminent poet ; the pro- found Latomus ; the renowned genius, Gombaut ; the universal WiHiam Bude ; Danes, and his master, Las- caiTs, who could converse with Plato in the pure lan- guage of Homer ; Ramus, so acute in discerning the traces of the decaying genius of Aristotle, and so in- capable of seeing his own weaknesses ; they spoke commandingly, all these grand intellects ; but above their sonorous voices I heard the voice of God, which told me to believe, to hope, to love, and to abandon my soul to the miracle of His mercy. ''And I loved, I hoped, and I believed each day still more ; tasting the joys of faith, even in the midst of the most presumptuous denials of it ; appreciating the more the happiness of hope, as I listened to the skillful arguments advanced to discourage ij; ; and sending to the heavens a canticle of joy above the lamentations of hate. 40 The Jesuits. " For all blasphemy is a cry of agony, extorted by the torture of remorse ! . . . . "Since the thrice-blessed hour when God visited me on my sick-bed, I have been seeking my way, the road which will conduct me to the end so passionately desired ; the greater glory of God, that is to say, ' the greater salvation of mankind.' " On this road, my thought has had three stopping- places. *' In my grotto of Manresa, I devoted myself to alms- giving and prayer, the powerful means which consti- tuted the arms of the first solitaries. I was yet in ignorance of the malady which afflicts our age ; never- theless, something murmured within me, ' This is ftot enough.' " The Mother of Jesus, whom I unceasingly im- plored, inspired me with the need I felt to visit Calvary. All the length of my voyage I heard a furious menace made of the name of Luther. " The desire of the combat was born within me. " This was the second station of my journey. " And the combat of which I speak was even the one that I have but now defined ; the combat which is now without blows, and which is fought only for the happiness of the adversary — the supernatural combat of Charity. "And already, I thought; How little will the world believe of the sincerity of such an effort which utterly The First Vow. 41 overthrows the equiUbrium of human nature ! Noth- ing for nothing ; such.is the law of the world ! " And I heard beforehand the mighty clamor which would be raised against me, crying, ' Hypocrite ! hypocrite ! hypocrite ! ' " It is the hardest insult to submit to. '' I yet retain within a corner of my heart the pride of a soldier. ' Hypocrite ! hypocrite ! ' May I live loaded with this insult ; may I die absorbed in this cry, my Saviour and my God, and may my shame be your glory ! " " In order to preach, however, as well as to teach, it is necessary to have knowledge. I studied ; and while studying, the mysterious voice which I had heard at Manresa still sounded in my ears, murmuring ever the selfsame words : ' This is not enough.' , " Oh, Blessed Virgin ! I implored ; Mother Im- .maculate ! what is still needed ? Will I not obtain a knowledge of what God wills me to do ? .... I pause at this point, overwhelmed with veneration, happiness, and sorrow. I experience the same emo- tions each time that the revelation of the mysterious and miraculous facts that have marked my time of trial arises to my lips Was I worthy of seeing and hearing what I have seen and heard ? Oh, Jesus ! full of tenderness and pity ! Treasure of the poor, Glory of the humble ! the day even upon which I first 42 The Jestdis. clasped the hands of Peter Lef èvre, who was to be the first consecrated among us, my strength augmented, my hope redoubled, and the idea of this association being inspired within my soul, never again did the voice repeat, ' That is not enough.' " It was not enough ; with the idea of the associa- tion, its plan was clearly outlined in my mind. " I am a soldier ; I can dream only of an army. Moreover, do T not continually remember having seen in my first ecstacies the prodigious multitude who march in darkness against the standard of the Cross, and the mystical conflict beneath the two standards on the boundless plain ? " My army existed, although I was yet alone with Lefevre, to whom I had revealed nothing. "You came, one after the other, my friends and childfen, and without your knowledge I enrolled you. Others presented themselves, but I paused at seven. " For the present, there will be no more. What the future demands, God will supply. " We are seven, against millions of men unfaithful to God. Even the millions of mankind who remain faith- ful to God are not always with us. " We do not know our friends who are ignorant of our existence ; but we know our enemies, and we will make ourselves known to them. " We have neither authority nor mission ; we pos- The First Vozv. 43 sess only right, the right of bestowing ourselves, with- out exacting anything in return. Our force lies in the absence of all force. We desire neither arras, nor subsidies, norjramparts, nor anything perishable. " We shall possess all in Jesus Christ. " We will walk among men as the Divine Master traversed Judea, with extended hands and undisguised heart. We are to-day what yesterday I alone con- stituted — the Society founded to carry the Cross of Jesus. *' Each of us will fall along the road under the weight of this sweet and awful burden. But what matters it ? The work will live and increase. I know it. " The Society of Jesus will conquer in Jesus and through Jesus. " It will arrest the progress of the desertion which desolates the temple ; it will fill up the great voids which have been made in the ranks of the faithful. " Do not doubt ; this will be accomplished. " Antiquity possesses a sublime fable : Orpheus, in search of his love, penetrated even into the regions of death. We will do as Orpheus ; the Society of Jesus will seek the victims of apostasy even in the hell of apostasy; it will rescue these precious souls from death, and plunging into the most profound abyss, will endeavor to snatch from supreme misfortune the 6oul of the apostate himself. .... "Already some misled souls hesitate, and question 44 The Jesuits. which is the right road ; it will take but little -to direct these aright. "But there are also multitudes of new-born souls, those of the children, the beloved children, of whom Jesus said : ' Let theui come unto me ; ' we will take these children by the hand, and we will lead them to Jesus ; this will not greatly affect the present, although it may do much for the future. "Again, there are multitudes of souls, as impossible to number as the grains of sapd upon the sea-shore, who dwell in spiritual darkness beyond the Ocean Xavier, thine eye sparkles ; I know how your great heart has bled at this recital of the travelers, showing how the yoke of the demon weighs upon the Indies, Japan, China, the countries of Africa and America — in a word, upon the vaster portion of the earth "You shall go, Xavier; we will go ; the Society of Jesus will go ; it will pay, at the price of the blood of its martyrs, for as many souls as have been lost by the Church in the shipwreck of the Reformation, and double, and treble the number, insomuch that the fold of the Good Shepherd shall be filled again to over- flowing." " Let us praise God. We are the army of God I say, ' We are,' .... for the work is founded ; it exists, since my thought is no longer known to myself alone ; since it has passed from my soul into yours. The First Vow. 45 We are born. Here is the cradle of a force. In esti- mating the age of this force, men will reckon from the act of its sanction \ for us, it will date from the day consecrated to the Immaculate Queen of Angels. We know that from the present hour we are the soldiers of prayer, of sacrifice, and of charity. " Every army must have a General, and we shall have a General who will be our earthly chief. Nothing in the world shall be more vast, nor more complete than his authority, if it be not our liberty. "And this liberty, united to this authority, will form a whole, which shall be perfect obedience, the only remedy applicable to the fever of the times. "The obedience of which I speak can be defined only by naming Him to whom it will be due, in the same measure, and by the same right, as well by our Superior-General as by the last among us. This Su- preme Chief we do not look for here below, but in heaven ; it shall be Thou, oh, Jesus Christ, our Saviour ! " To obey you, O God ! is to be free, and to com- mand in your Holy Name is to obey. " The tree of Faith, which is the tree of the Cross, puts forth its symmetrical branches of authority and obedience ; both bear the same fruit, which is liberty. " To command, to obey ; two phases of the same sacrifice ; two meanings of the same word ; love ! Jesus, Lord, on your level, he who commands is the 4^ The Jesuits. most humble. He is the servant among servants ; he appertains to those who belong to you ; and thus only, O God, our Saviour ! in you, and by you, can the abnegation of power and the devotion of obedience be joined in a union which brings forth liberty " " We are seven to-day ; to-morrow we can number a thousand. It is necessary that an earthly chief be a powerful instrument in the hands of our Divine Master, under the jurisdiction of the Common Father of the faithful. " Our house shall not be built in view of human in- terest ; nevertheless, our house will flourish, even after a method which shall not enter into the vocation of the Order, nor into its efforts, but which may be nec- essary, according to the times, to the accompHshment of its providential work. " I know it ; I see it ; I affirm it. " I know, I see, and I affirm, that the earthly Chief of our Order, the General of our pacific army, shall be powerful among the great ones of the earth, even in the depth of his humility. It is necessary ; it will be. Thus you will choose him ' intimately united to God/ as much in prayer as in all his other actions, in order that he may himself possess, by reason of going to the fountain-head, the abundance of grace which should be diffused by him throughout our body.* * St. Ignatius, " Constitutions," Part IX. The First Vow. 47 " He is bound to recommend, by his example, the practice of all virtues, 'especially the splendor of charity;' there should be seen in him, humility of soul, exterior modesty, circumspection in speech, a severity tempered with sweetness ; and an invincible courage inspired by the words of the apostle St. Paul, 'For when I am weak then am I powerful.'* "As for what is known as force in human language — ■ science, intelligence, discernment, prudence in direct- ing affairs — God will supply them ; because our chief will be the servant whom the Lord has named ' quern constituit Dominus' to command the family. 'He will appear to be above, but he will be really beneath.' The family weighs heavily upon him, and he can say, ' Lord, you have placed men over our heads ; impos- uisti homines super capita nostra. 't "This authority, which shall be confided by us in Jesus Christ to the chosen father of the family, will seem so complete, that it shall be said, ' Nothing of the kind has ever existed ; it is a troop of slaves led by a tyrant,' and others will go further, saying, ' He is a despot, seated upon corpses ! ' " Singular slaves, these, who recognize above them * Quum enim infirmer tunc potens sum. II, ad Cor. xii. 10. fWords of Father de Ponlevoy, cited in the admirable work of Father de Galriac, p. 357 of the " Life of Father de Ponlevoy." 48 The Jesuits. but God alone. - And whoever attacks the religion of Christ, will see these corpses arise. " No, those who will speak thus shall be either mis- taken or calumniators ; there will be in our house neither tyrants, slaves, nor corpses. There will be only living and free Christians. "An election will be the guarantee of this power, really magnificent in strength and extent, and during its entire duration it will be sustained, balanced, and controlled by the judgment of the assembled famil}'-. Never, as courtiers, shall they gather about their head, but as counselors, aids, and judges. His work shall be the application of certain and permanent laws, which he wdll not have made, and which he shall neither elude nor abolish. He will do all, it is certain, for good, but he will do nothing for evil. He will do all— " For the greater glory of God. For the best service to souls. For the sanctification of his brethren. For the sacrifice of himself. He will do nothing prejudicial to truth. Nothing against justice. Nothing against charity.* *' There will be above him, above the power that will be represented as absolute by its enemies, God, the * St. Ignatius, " Constitutions/' Part VI. The First Vow. 49 Vicar of God, the interior law, that is to say, the law of the State ; the exterior law, which is the Rule, and the society itself, obedient, but sovereign. *' We are the army of Authority, we shall bear author- ity. We desire it as great, and greater than ever was borne by any union of men here below, but we wish free- dom too ; and we shall enjoy truer and wider freedom than any human society heretofore, because we shall be nothing in our house, where God shall be all. " Jesus Christ is our beginning and our end. ''We see Jesus Christ in our General ; our General sees Jesus Christ in us ; Christus omnia in omnibus. " It is thus that our celestial mother has given me a heritage for you, which is the Rule of Jesus, so vast as to contain at once perfect authority and perfect liberty in such measure as comports with the sorrowful passage of man here below. " I see it ; I know it ; I affirm it " We are seven, we /:an be one hundred thousand. Throughout our ranks, composed of the dull and the talented, as they will be, the Rule, allowing authority to be exercised to its utmost limits, guarded as it will be against all excess by the counterpoise of liberty, will penetrate our entire body with the hfe and force which is known in war as discipline, and which is a lesser and an expedient form of the absolute, which is perfect obedience. 4 50 The Jesuits, " Our army of peace shall substitute for discipline self-abandonment, such as is owed b}' man only to God, and which we will voluntarily render to one who will be for us the representative of the Son of God. *' Now, or never, is the hour to oppose, to the awful flood, a barrier of devoted hearts. Prayer will no longer suffice ; it is necessary to work. Others have hitherto assembled to imitate Mary of Bethany in her pious contemplation at the feet of Jesus. Happy were they ; let us praise them ; we may not imitate them. "As for us, we are the children of Martha, who serves. We will be priests at the same time that we are re- ligious, and we shall accomplish the work of priests. Study the confessional, the pulpit, the school, alms of spiritual and temporal bread ; behold your task. " Combating the present evil, preparing future good, preaching the Word in the thickest of the schism, and especially where the Truth is attacked ; going in search of ignorance and error even to the confines of the earth ; teaching the little ones to spell, youth to believe, manhood to think ; men, women, and all, to love God, the country, and the family ; teaching the powerful, clemency; the feeble, resignation — com- panion of hope ; the rich, generosity ; the unfortunate, pardon ; all, the holy law of charity ; behold your life ! " To revolt we will oppose our vow of obedience ; to The First Vow, 51 avaricious egotism our vow of poverty ; to pride and ambition our vow of humility. " Neither for praying, nor for celebrating mass, nor for preaching, nor teaching, shall we receive offerings of money from any person, and yet they will reproach us ; for we shall have other enemies than the enemies of the Church. " Notwithstanding the absence of all remuneration, our poverty will build immense dwellings and dis- tribute large alms. " Our foes will be astonished at that, and we will be accused. We will pursue our way, undaunted, as if the insult were not offered, loving those who have out- raged us as ourselves, for the love of God. " It is here, my children, where arises the difficulty to do, and the impossibility to believe. '^ The law which ordains to turn the other cheek, is inhuman, and so utterly repugnant to the heart of man that he, in view of the accomplished law, sees, and always will see, hypocrisy in the impossible sacri- fice, or baseness in the heroism, that he can not com- prehend. I '• Never will a man be found, detached from God, to admit that it needs one thousand times more courage to swallow the bitterness of outrage than to spit it into the face of the insulter. " To men, on account of the miracle of our poverty 52 The Jesuits, we shall appear to be thieves ; on account of the mir- acle of our charity, we will seem to be hypocrites ; on account of the miracle of our humiUty, we shall be accounted base men. " Glory be to God ! *' Our death even will disarm neither mockery nor in- sult ; it will be said of us, as it was said of our divine Master, ' that we have sustained our rôle unto the end,' that our last sigh is our last falsehood. " Glory, glory to God alone ! "We are the companions of Him whom opprobrium glorified. " Praise be to the Lord ! Even as our destitution shall be a store of wealth, our baseness a supernatural courage, so shall our overthrow confer on us an un- rivaled power. "Under the feet of our enemies, kings and people will seek us. Lord, keep from us pride on the steps of the throne, as well as in the depths of misery. " Glory to God ! All glory to God ! All for the greater glory of God." Ignatius fell on his knees, and the six imitated his example. None of them had yet spoken. Ignatius raised his clasped hands, and said in Latin : "Jesus most patient." The First Vow. 53 The others responded in the same tongue : " Have mercy upon us. Jesus most obedient, Have mercy upon us. Jesus, sweet and humble of heart, Have mercy upon us. " Let us pray. — O God, who by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, hath kindled the light of the Holy Spirit in the soul of your servants, grant, if it be Thy holy will, that their dwelling here below be built for all, and not for themselves, in order that having given their lives for the salvation of men in Jesus Christ, they may never cease to be persecuted for your greater glory. Thou who livest and reignest forever and ever. — • Amen." And having made the sign of the cross, they arose. It was now broad day. The people of the neigh- borhood were hastening along the various roads to at- tend mass at the parish abbey. Ignatius and his sons took a path to the left of the church, through the field which made a descent from the cemetery to the chapel of the martyr, situate as we have 'described, and whose vicinity was then deserted. They entered alone into the crypt, which was prepared for the Holy Sacrifice. Tradition fixes nine o'clock as the hour at which Peter Lefèvre celebrated mass. 54 The jfcsints, " After having fasted and prayed in common," says Cretineau-Joly, " they assembled on the fifteenth of August, 1534, in a subterranean chapel of the Church of Montmartre,* which pious beHeff assigns as the spot where St. Denis was decapitated. It was the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Ignatius had chosen this day in order that the Society should be born in the heart of Mary triumphant. There these seven Christians, to whom Peter Lef evre had administered communion with his own hands, made a vow to live in chastity. They pledged them- selves to observe perpetual poverty ; they promised God, that after having finished their theological course, they would undertake a voyage to Jerusalem ; but if, at the end of a year, they found it impossible to gain the Holy City (on account of the war), they would go to throw themselves at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiflf.J to beg of him existence as an Order, and receive his command. And this was all ; the Society of Jesus was founded. * Which is a slight error. j- And impious belief also ; witness Dulaure, for example. \ " History of the Society of Jesus,'' Vol. I., p. 26. II. THE FIRST FATHERS. Tm the will of God all is marked out ; but as there is in eternity nothing of haste, so the designs of God aie accomplished with immutable regularity. Between the first thought conceived, or rather re- ceived, by inspiration in the Grotto of Manresa, and the first word uttered on the summits of Montmatre, which command the city of Paris, and on which, to- morrow, a marvelous temple vowed to the Sacred Heart was to arise to admonish the world, there was an interval of fourteen years. It was only five years after the vow of Montmartre, in the year 1539, that Pope Paul III., taking cogni- zance of the abridged formula of the " Constitutions " of the new Order, presented by Ignatius Loyola, and comparing, with his gift of infallibility, the menace to the world, the promise of heaven, the danger to be averted, and this dawning light with the victory of darkness, cried, ^^ Hie est Dei digitus.'"^ Still it was not until the end of another year that the promulgation of the Bull, Regemini melitantis Ecclesiœ, * Here is the finger of God. (55) 56 The Jesuits. took place, which canonically instituted the Society of Jesiis. To those who are astonished at this delay, we an- swer by the very text of the ** Constitutions," where St. Ignatius takes as much time and as many precau- tions to make a single Jesuit, as to create the entire Order. In fact, a remarkable thing, and one which can not be too much dwelt upon, is the respect of Saint Ig- natius for his work as being an instrument destined by him to the special and immediate service of the Al- mighty. Never has an Order exacted, to test the vo- cation and capacity of its members, such a series of long and difficult proofs. Here, truly, perpetual effort and abundant patience are the aids and the testimony of grace. All is won from God, but by the severe labor of man. Let us count. There are two years spent in the Novitiate without study (which, however, supposes some necessary preliminary study) in order to arrive at the grade of scholastic, or scholar, which comprises two years of Rhetoric, three years of Philosophy (and Science), and at least one year of Regency;* then come four, and sometimes six years of Theology; after, the year of final probation, undergone in Re- * They thus term the professorship exercised by the young Religious. The First Fathers, 57 trea';, after which one is admitted " professed," or be- comes a member of the Society of Jesus, which gives, according to Father de Ravignan, cited in the excellent work of M. Ad. Archier, a " minimum " of fourteen years for an effective novitiate — in memory, perhaps, of the equal lapse of time which in the life of Saint Ignatius separated Manresa from Montmartre. Another proof of the deliberation which attended the first operations of Ignatius and his sons, is that between the vow of Montmatre and the visit to the Chief of the Church, but three recruits were admitted into the Company, which carried the total number of the affiliated up to ten. These three recruits, who were to be no less celebrated than their older spiritual brethren, were named Claudius Le Jay, d'Annecy, John Codure of Dauphiny, and Pasquier Brouet of Picardy. Accompanied on foot, the rosary about their neck and a canticle on their lips, by Lef evre, Xavier, Laynez, Bobadilla, Salmeron, and Rodriquez, they accomplish- ed the long and difficult pilgrimage through Protestant Germany, which brought them to Venice, where Igna- tius awaited them, and where, having recognized the impossibility of gaining Jerusalem, they separated, to meet again at Rome, at the feet of His HoHness the Pope. There, notwithstanding the good-will of the Holy Father, they were met by grave obstacles, and it 58 The Jesuits, would seem as if the strange and obstinate repugnance which should in the future ever, and in a special man- ner, attempt to check the effort of the company of Jesus, came into existence with it, or even before it. Rome was at that time in an attitude of legitimate hostility toward certain Religious Orders, of which the decadence had done so much to furnish a pretext for rebellion, and which had furnished so many apostates from the Faith to swell the ranks of the battalions of heresy. Evil had obtained such headway in the cloisters, and the falling off in virtue had become so great, that Cardinal Guiddiccioni, he of whom Paul III. said, in learning of his decease, " My successor has just died," had proposed the plan of suppressing all the Orders, with the exception of four. It was to this prelate, first among his counselors, that the Pope confided the examination of the " Con^ stitutions " of Ignatius, joining with him in the work two other commissioners. Guiddiccioni, whose opinion had its foundation in the misfortunes of the time, and not in the examination of the new work, reported " that there was no reason for authorizing it," and his sentiments ruled those of his assistants. But these ten men had in them something which was not human. In place of protesting, they praised God, and offered themselves to whomever would take The First Fathers. 59 them, for the service of the Almighty, asking nothing in return, and all advancing with equal pace in the pathway of their steadfast faith. They quietly separated, each to combat heresy at the divers points where it gained the firmest footing ; Lef evre and Laynez at Parma ; Bobadilla in the Isle of Ischia ; Le Jay at Brescia, infected by the plague ; Pasquier Brouet, at Sienna, where revolt had invaded the convents of the Religious ; Codure at Padua, Francis Xavier and Rodriquez at Lisbon, where they pressed already the preparations of the expedition which should enwreathe with such glorious immortality the name of the "Apostle of the Indies." In the meantime. Cardinal Guiddiccioni was con- stantly importuned and besieged by the voices of those who fostered the humble reputation of these indefat- igable laborers, working everywhere in unison. The Society of Jesus leaped into life, and electrified the world by its sudden growth and marvelous achieve- ments. And the learned Cardinal, who had shared the in- credulity of Zachary, at length opened his eyes. He studied the work of Ignatius, which he had condemned without reading, and as soon as he had done so, in- toned a canticle. The man who had been the first to proclaim the necessity of suppressing the greater part of the Re- ligious Orders, and cutting down those which should 6o The Jesuits. be allowed to survive, loudl}'' declared that it was " good, opportune, and indispensable to authorize the Society of Jesus," in order to oppose it, on one side, to the flood of interior corruption, and to meet on the other the invasions from abjroad. The Bull, containing a clear and exact synopsis of the Constitutions, devoted a considerable margin to the approbation of the Holy See, as expressed therein. The work of Ignatius was sanctioned, not only as a whole, but even in its details, and the- Institution be- came an instrument of the Church. Immediately following the promulgation of the Bull, came the election of a General. The service of religion detained the greater part of the members at a distance from Rome. These voted by writing. The others. Le Jay, Salmeron, Laynez, Codure, and Brouet, were collected about Ignatius. Three days were consecrated to fasting and prayer, to implore the light of the Holy Spirit, and on the fourth, by an unanimous vote, Ignatius Loyola was elected General, or " proposed," to employ the terms of the Bull. Ignatius might have expected this result, neverthe- less it terrified him. Disobedient for the first and last time, without utterly refusing the charge imposed — a proceeding which would have been in direct contravention of the rule established by himself — he disputed, to the ut- The First Fathers, 6l most of his power, the unanimous will of his brethren, and insisted upon a new election, which terminated as the first. At this he shed tears, comprehending fully as he did the extent of his responsibility, but yielded. He had at that time attained his fiftieth year, and had been four years a priest. " On Easter Day, the seventeenth of April, 1540, he accepted the government of the Society of Jesus. On the twenty-second of the same month, after having visited the Basilicas of Rome, Ignatius and his com- panions arrived at that of Saint Paul, outside the walls. The General celebrated mass at the altar of the Blessed Virgin, then before communicating, turned toward the people. In one hand he held the Sacred Host, in the other the formula of the Vows. " He pronounced this formula in a loud voice, pledg- ing himself to obedience, in regard to the Missions, to what is specified in the Bull of the twenty-seventh of September. Then he placed five Hosts upon the Paten, and approaching Laynez, Le Jay, Brouet, Co- dure, and Salmeron, who were kneeHng at the foot of the altar, he received their profession, and adminis- tered to them the Holy Communion."* " During the seven years that I have lived in the house of the Jesuits, what have I seen among them ? * Cretineau-Joly. 02 The Jesuits, A most laborious and frugal life, all the hours of which were shared between the care they bestowed upon us and the exercises of their austere profession. This can be attested by thousands of men who have been their pupils besides me ; this is why I can not help being astonished at seeing them accused of teaching ' moral corruption.' " These words being written long after the foundation of the Order, I cite them here, in refutation of the assertion which has been so often made, that, though the Order was glonous in its beginning, it speedily became demoralized. Just two hundred years had elapsed since the Jesuits had taken the first place in the ranks of the cha.rn pions of the Church, when Voltaire traced thes^ lineà, in the month of February. They do honor to VoUaire, and only render justice to the Jesuits, whom calumny then assailed at every point. Voltaire " can not help being astonished " that they should calumniate them. He is easily astonished. Those who are accustomed to follow the current and control the ardor of the philosophical or poHtical passion, in a slight degree, everywhere, but especially amongst us, should rather be astonished that such men could be for one instant free from calumny. It is the custom among their accusers to place the infancy of the Institution above reproach, and to salute its founders with an appearance of courteous imparti- ality. That the first hours of its existence were beau- The First Fathers. 63 tiful and pure and grand, they admit ; only the sequel did not fulfill the promise of the beginning, they affirm, and they lament that this should be the case. We will briefly relate the history of these latter days, as in a few words we have shown the simplicity of the facts which prepared the way for the birth of the Order and accompanied its first existence. But before pursuing this recital, destined to take, so frequently, the form of an historical discussion, I beg permission to remark here a fact which may be viewed from an original stand-point. Each epoch of the social life of the Jesuits possesses, sometimes for one, sometimes for another of its sworn detractors, a little of the satisfecit accorded to the in- nocence of the infancy of the Society ; each episode of the great drama, which they have acted as an Order, has its apologists in the ranks of their most bitter adversaries, and one is perpetually astonished at hear- ing such a Protestant, such a Philosopher, such an Atheist, even defend the Society of Jesus, apropos of some particular accusation, of which it has been the victim, so much so, that by only gathering together these pleadings, these amends for former partiality, these refutations of falsehoods imposed upon the cre- dulity of prejudice, which are brought about by the re- awakening of the old Gallic spirit, a panegyric may be woven, of a most fantastic pattern, it is true, but singu- larly curious and complete, of the posterity of Loyola. 04 The Jesuits. AU the world has done as Voltaire once did. All the world, after having freely and cheerfully con- demned and ridiculed the Jesuits in general, has sud- denly cried out, some fine day, when brought face to face with too gross a falsehood, or some accusation whose absurdity passes all Hmits : " Stop there ! all that is true, but this I will not admit ! " Now, it happens that "this" being " that" for such a critic, and reciprocally for such an other, both "this" and " that," which is to say all, is in the end admitted. By searching carefully, you will find traces of apology even in the archives of Port-Royal, far better furnished as they are, with insults, even than the shop of the " Encyclopedic." If so much may be said of those who are by profession the assailants of the Jesuits, what may be said of the people of the world ? . . . . Here I hesitate, and dare no longer show myself equally positive. In dealing with the indifferent, it is ever necessary to be prepared for an element still more unjust than passion — something of shift and evasion, and ready disloyalty which is politely called prudence, but whose true name is poltroonery. Never will you hear an indifferent sage, wise only in the lowest kind of wisdom, his own interest, defend the Jesuits, except when induced thereto for the sup- port of some particular fact. The First Fathers, 65 The sages of this sort abandon the Jesuits for the ease of the soul and the " safeguard of religion." They are acquainted with the story of that good mother of a family in Russia, who, seeing her sled pursued by a band of wolves through the snow, flung them from time to time one of the little ones to " save the others." They have been told that this worthy mother, having at length thrown out the last, was saved. It is not true. They have been deceived. I affirm on my honor that she was devoured, and that she de- served it. The wisdom of the sages of whom I speak is called interest. Interest is composed of a little, not much, religion, the honesty which each possesses, I sup- pose in a perfect degree ; the rank each occupies, the fortune enjoyed by each; and of existence, to which all naturally cling. The wolves are in pursuit of all this, among us as in Russia, and they coming at full speed. If the Jesuits are thrown to the wolves, there still remain religion, honesty, rank, and fortune, and now if religion must be sacrificed, it will leave behind hon- esty, which is sufficient for life, with rank and fortune. .... If the wolves attack honesty ! But it is so very vague at best, what does one understand by honesty ? There are so many kinds ! And it is essential to cajole the wolves. 5 ^ The Jesuits. Rank, for example ! Ah ! that is serious ! It is time to defend one's self. Men defend their rank if they can ! And they will die sooner than abandon fortune ! And as it will happen, they will die ! They will die because of the first concession made, which has encouraged the wolves. For the sake of the indifferent, however, as well as for the believers, and even the Atheists, let us see what a Jesuit really is. He isia Religious. And what is a Religious ? He is a man, who, to unite himself more closely to God, accomplishes of his own free will certain sacrifices, accepts voluntarily certain duties deter- mined by a rule, and assured by vows which bestow the solemn approbation of an authority, admitted by the law of Catholic countries, and which is known as the Church. From a purely human point of view, what is more legitimate ? "What use, more manifestly lawful, can a citizen make of his liberty ? Under what pretext, by what right, shall the exercise of this liberty be hin- dered or restrained ? If it appear to you useful and proper to seek to ac- cumulate the goods of the earth, it is your right to do so ; if it please me to abandon them^ it is equally my right to do so. The First Fathers, Gy It is yonr right, if it seem to you useful and proper, to found a family ; but if I determine to abandon these joys of the hearth, to devote myself to God and to mankind, my right is equal to yours. If it seem useful and proper to you to retain your entire independence, it is permitted ; but if I fear so much liberty, and wish to limit it, is it prohibited ? No, unquestionably not, except by the exercise of a tyranny at once so imbecile and so odious, that in order to gather any examples of it, one is obliged to peruse the worst soiled pages of the foulest volume in our annals. Thus speaks good common sense, thus reason teaches, faith indorses, and the Church approves. And what says history ? Does she deny that modern life has sprung from Christ ? No. History shows us the first Christians of Jeru- salem laying down their worldly goods at the feet of the Apostles, to live in common, in poverty ; the des- erts of Egypt peopled by solitaries ; the East sancti- fied by the holy men of the desert ; the West, by the sons of Augustine, Bruno, Benedict, and Dominic, fa- thers of those great famiHes of laborers whose work fenlightened Europe ; who civilized barbarism ; taught agriculture ; guarded the treasure of literature, and revived the arts ; heaping all these benefits upon a world which, in return, has shown them the scorn of its ignorance, and the hatred of its ingratitude. 68 TJie Jesuits. In point of being a Religious, the Jesuit is neither a novelty nor a monstrosity. There have been Rehgious before him. But it is urged " He is a Religious, siii generis^ hav- ing but one special end, a manner of living that is peculiarly his own ; tendencies, obligations, and cus- toms which distinguish him from all other Religious." To be sure, and why not ! He is a Jesuit, and not a Carthusian, a Benedictine, nor a Franciscan. Just as an artilleryman is a soldier, a cuirassier also, and a hussar the same, although the cuirassier is not a hussar, nor the hussar an artilleryman, nor the artil- leryman a cuirassier. The Carthusian prays in his solitude for the world he has quitted ; the Trappist sanctifies by his pen- ance the noble and severe labor of the field ; the Benedictine consumes his life in the arid researches of science ; the Jesuits go beyond the seas, converting to civilization the barbarous tribes of Asia and Africa, the savages of America and Oceanica ; or again, with no less bravery, struggle in Europe for truth against error, for the freedom of conscience against the des- potism of men and the tyranny of passion. And is this evil? The Society of Jesus has never denied that it has one sole end in view. Its glory is to have been instituted for a special and The First Fathers. 69 well-defined end ; it is a sacred battalion, or it is nothing. This is its boast. We have seen, beginning from the sixteenth century, a terrible subversion of ideas ; ' the spirit of revolt sweeping over the world like a violent wind, and hav- ing assailed the Church, presently overthrowing the political institutions, and even the foundations of society. These awful storms, whose consequences we still feel, have celebrated names in history — Protestantism, Jan- senism, Philosophy, and the Revolution. Luther, armed with the mutilated Bible, arises against the Church, and presents to the astonished world the spectacle of a triumph as rapid as it is un- fortunate, improbable as an ugly dream. But Luther finds the Jesuits opposed to him, and he fails of victory. Jansenius disguises, but poorly, in the pages of a spurious Saint Augustine, the first workings of his false and illegitimate Protestantism. The Jesuits close that route against him ; he can not pass. The philosophers of the eighteenth century tear up the Bible, deny tradition, and pretend to " crush the Church," The Jesuits come forward to the com- bat They fall, betrayed by the royal authority which they defended, but the earth trembles beneath their fall ; royal authority has worked its own ruin, and the God whose existence was denied, seems to turn 70 The Jesuits. away from the sight of the queen of nations wallowing in the bloody mire of a Saturnalia that dishonors history. Is God vanquished, however? No. Is the Church crushed ? No. One is as impossible as the other. But the Jesuits ? Ah ! unquestionably the Jesuits can die ; they possess neither the eternity of God nor the immortality of the Church in time. But they live ! Would you have a proof? Count their enemies. Would so much hate be roused by anything which exists only in the tomb ? Now, I understand this hate, and the men it animates. It is natural, it is almost just that the Protestants should hate the Jesuits ; that this aversion should be shared by the obscure remnant of Jansen- ism flung disabled into a corner, and by the worthy prosperity of the philosophers of the eighteenth century, and above all, by the unhappy throng of perpetually deceived sufferers for whom the rack is always kept in readiness by the industry of the tribunes ; but the others ? What of the immense majority of those who, among us, are neither Protestants, nor Jansenists, nor Philoso- phers, nor tribunes, nor the prey of tribunes ? Will these never be brought to comprehend that we live in a time when truth, carried along in its sled, can The' First Fathers, 7 1 afiford to throw nothing to the wolf, neither God, nor the Church, nor even the Jesuits, because the wolf who has devoured, will devour ! The Jesuits, however, ask favor from none. Intrepid in the consciousness of their duty, they render reso- lutely to Ccxsar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's. What think you could terrify them, born to encounter danger — the sons of promised persecution ? They but live to combat, and death dissolves all vows, even that of heroism. And it is because they do not fear to die, that they will live. If a proof were needed of the necessity of the work of Ignatius, it would be superabundantly found in the rapidity of its first development. The Company of Jesus numbered ten at the time of the Bull of their institution, which limited their number to sixty, and hardly had a few months flown by, when the Sovereign Pontiff was obliged to remove this restriction — last ves- tige of the "prejudicial" repugnances of Cardinal Guiddiccioni. The limited plan of this book will not permit us to render sufficient homage to the sainted career of these first Jesuits — all singularly eloquent orators, excep- tional professors, accomplished theologians, remark- able writers, ardent apostles of charity, and powerful 72 The Jesuits. defenders of. truth ; hardly can we follow each of them, with a glance along his route, before entering with the Society upon the general current of events. Loyola, center and soul of the Society, is almost entirely lost sight of, as far as personal works are concerned, shortly after his exaltation. His action is immense, but lost in the common movement which it directs. He had said in his " Constitutions," the General shall be chosen neither "to preach" nor ''gain recruits," but " to govern." James Laynez, whose admirable mind seems to have shared most intimately, with Lefevre and Xavier, the confidence of Loyola, of whom he was, it is said, the coadjutor at the time of the definite compiling of the Rule, was first sent to Venice, where the struggle begun by him against heresy was attended with such success, that the throngs slept at the doors of the churches in order not to miss his preaching. When he had van- quished error at Venice, he achieved the same ora- torical triumphs at Padua and Brescia. I was once obliged to seek, for some time, the name of Laynez, badly spelt, in a historical " Dictionnaire," considered everywhere most respectable, and recom- mended to the use of youth, and at length found it beneath the name of the singer Lais, to whom a very fine article was devoted. Two lines only were given to Laynez. He had been, however, one of the lights of the Council of Trent, before distinguishing The First Fathers. 73 himself at the Colloquy of Poissy, and the noble hu- mility which had prompted him to refuse a cardinal's hat, the object of so much passionate ambition, should, perhaps, have merited mention. Peter Lef èvre followed Ortoz, the Ambassador of Charles V^., who was returning to his master, and the disputants of Germany constantly evaded all encounter with him, so great was the reputation for eloquence and science which had preceded him. He accomplished, nevertheless, great work, crowned by a considerable result, since it sufficed to strengthen in the faith the Catholics, startled and tormented by the contagion which surrounded them on all sides. He was the preacher of the court of Ratisbon, where numerous conversions attended his words ; he continued his apostolate in Spain, and returning to the borders of the Rhine, there . professed Holy Scriptures at Mayence, with a brilliancy and an authority which gained over Herman de Wiede, the Archbishop Elector of Cologne, whose imminent desertion brought about that of his flock. Marvelous effect of eloquent charity ! With the flock Lefèvre saved the pastor. But hardly has he gained this double victory, than he sets sail for Portugal ; traverses anew the entire Peninsula, and founds the College of Valladolid. The letter which summoned him to the Council of Trent found him stricken with a fever in the midst of his work. " It is not necessary#to live," he exclaims, full 74 The Jesuits, of the motVier-thought of his Order, " but it is necessary to obey." And he sets out, notwithstanding the sup- phcations of his pupils, never pausing until he reaches the arms of Ignatius at Rome, where he arrives, joy- fully, but to die. Le Jay and Bobadilla had replaced him in Germany, where both, imitating the humility of Laynez, should refuse the honor of an episcopate. It was Le Jay who responded to the Lutherans when they threatened to drown him in the Danube, "What matters it whether one get to heaven by earth or water ? " Salmeron, the Benjamin of the affiliated of Mont- matre, made equal headway against the invasions of Protestantism. After the death of Lefèvre, he was chosen, with Laynez, in the quality of theologian of the Pope, to assist at the discussions of that Council, where the Roman Church was to prove herself stronger and as full of vitality as ever.* Le Jay occupied therein an equal place as the theo- logian of the Archbishop of Augsbourg. Hardly in existence, the Society already placed her humble sons among the Princes of the Church, and they proved themselves worthy of this distinction, for the Arch- bishop of Modena writes : " The Fathers Salmeron and Laynez have spoken on the Eucharist with such * " History of the Society ,"< Ad. Archier, p. 93. The Fil' St Fathers. 75 eloquence that I have esteemed myself happy to be near such learned and holy fathers." The book which should contain only the history of the first ten Jesuits would be most beautiful, and touch upon all the great ecclesiastical events of that portion of the sixteenth century, even though Francis Xavier should not be spoken of therein. On Francis Xavier alone might be written a poem which would be a glowing Epic of Charity ; but our space will not allow us to do more than briefly sketch this marvelous life. From the beginning, or rather before even the Order was founded, Xavier and Rodriquez had been appealed to by John III., of Bragança, to carry the knowledge of the Gospel beyond the ocean. We remember the words addressed to Xavier by Ignatius, speaking of the perils and the joys of mis- sionaries : " Xavier, thine eye sparkles." The apostolic vocation of the young student of the University of Paris had only increased since that time. He received with enthusiasm the order of his depart- ure, and would have set out on his route without even the necessary garments if Loyola had not placed his own mande on his shoulders. Although a most learned Doctor, he had retained all the impetuosity of childhood. This alliance of naive vivacity and great knowledge invested him with a peculiar charm, and there appeared 76 The Jesuits. to emanate from him an indescribable something which was above nature. John of Bragança would have retained him in the Court of Portugal, where all hearts were drawn to God by the flood of love which fell from the lips of this young apostle ; but it was neither for Princes nor courtiers that he designed the treasures of his speech. He set sail on a vessel of the Indian fleet five months after the signature of the Bull, on the 7th of April, 1540. The Fathers Camerino and Mansella accompanied him. He arrived in the harbor of Goa in the month of May of the following year, after a long and dangerous passage, during which he had. •shown an example of piety, courage, and gayety to all. It was during this voyage that he first gained the sur- name of the "*Holy Father," by which Mohammedans and idolaters, as well as Christians, henceforth dis- tinguished him. The quahty of Christian, itself so glorious and beautiful, was not a condition favorable to gaining the confidence of these unfortunate and conquered peoples. Under the name of Christian, these un- happy beings had seen only the avaricious traffickers, cruel and dissolute men, steeped in vice, and, it may be added, loaded with crime. The oppression which these Portuguese merchants exercised throughout the Indies had attained a hideous excess, and it seemed as if Europe had ex- The First Fathers. 77 tended her conquests to the confines of the earth only to carry further the leprosy of her sordid and corrupt avarice. Xavier preached to the merchants before preaching to the natives, and he said to them : " How can you expect that I should advise, in the name of God, those who have no other fault than their blindness, to become what you are, loaded with such iniquity ? " There were, assuredly, no people more difficult to convert than these assemblages of greedy adventu- rers whom our older civilizations had sent four hundred years ago to seek for fortune throughout the Indies and the New World ; and among these adventurers, those of the Peninsula, Spanish as well as Portuguese, had gained the worst renown. But there was an influence so irresistible in the speech of Xavier, a persuasion so powerful and overwhelming arose from the depths of his heart that the contractors of Goa, irritated at first by his boldness, finished by capitulating. To convert the inmates of a Portuguese counting-house was more difficult (and so his contemporaries deemed it) than to subjugate to the Faith the whole of India. As soon as Xavier had surmounted this obstacle, all others seemed to him easy to overcome, and in the midst of the priests of Sirah themselves, he could smile and say : " I have vanquished, with the help of God, the merchants of Goa." In an incredibly short space of time he had reached y s The Jesuits. Cape Comorin, and won over the Paravas by a mira- cle. A dying woman was cured by only touching the crucifix, and thousands of natives crowded about him, " observing his signs," guessing his unknown lan- guage. He had predicted the magic of the cross ; he witnessed its prodigies ; his crucifix spoke for him all the time tha^he was learning the Malabar language, and even in the days when he was acquainted with it, when the fatigue of incessant preaching overcame him, he was accustomed to ring his famous bell with one hand, and in the other held aloft the image of the dy- ing Redeemer, and entire villages hastened to bend their heads to the waters of baptism. It often happened — so great was his fatigue — that he was unable to raise his arms to pour the saving waters on the brows of the last flock of catechumens who would come at the close of his glorious day's work. And his heart was overwhelmed with torrents of joy, and a canticle of gladness arose from him ; he suffered cold, heat, hunger, and sickness ; his naked feet bled from the thorns of the road, but he complained of nothing, or rather seemed to enjoy all ;,he went on his way, indefatigable and invulnerable ; still on earth, he walked already in heaven. The night, in place of reposing, he consumes in preparing his aids to instruct those who are well dis- posed, and often his simple auditory relapse into dead The First Fathers. 79 silence ; they do not stir ; they hold their very breath, while exchanging all around a sign which says : *' Do not wake him." It is when the " Holy Father," conquered by excess- ive fatigue, had closed his eyes in spite of himself, that his waiting class, this class of humble savages who would study how to be martyrs, prolong as much as they can these furtive minutes during which sleep robs them of the attention of their beloved master. So much respect and ardent admiration had he aroused, that one of his principal efforts was to destroy among the children the idea that he was a God. Meanwhile, the success of his mission augmented with marvelous rapidity. In two years the harvest of auxiliaries that he has sown, almost reaches maturity. He has founded a seminary at Goa, his general head- quarters ; his first priests are approaching ordination ; he can attempt to-day what yesterday seemed impos- sible ; in truth, behold him penetrating further, always further; he is no longer alone. In some weeks he baptized in Travancor ten-thousand persons with his own hand. " You will not strike," Ignatius had said. Xavier put the armed troops to flight by means of the crucifix, and when an idolatrous village obstinately refuses to Hsten to his preaching, he asks of God the power to raise Lazarus, and Lazarus is raised from the dead. 8o The Jesuits. All Travancor is converted at this miracle, stated in the Acts of the canonization of St. Francis Xavier. Ignatius was at Rome when he received the letter of his tenderly cherished son, announcing to him his tri- umphs, and asking for soldiers to retain these victories. Ignatius hastens to accede to his request. The re- cruits are embarked at Lisbon, but Xavier does not wait for their coming ; he has set off in a new direc- tion ; follow step by step the invasion of Grace ; be- hold Xavier in. the isle of Wanar, then at Meliapour, he arrives at Malacca, besieged by the king of Achim, and his presence is equal to that of an army India is his. India no longer suffices him ; a mysterious finger directs him to Japan ; he goes thither, accompanied by three missionaries. It is now nine years since he has quitted Europe, and he has not allowed himself the re- pose of a single day. His arrival in India had been modest and unassum- ing ; at Japan, the vessel which carried him, landed at Friardo, where it was saluted by all the ordnance of the harbor. However, this proved there no certain augury of success. The obstacles, it is true, were not revealed at first, for Xavier was allowed to reach the capital and preach there in peace, but the strange and extravagant character, and the thoroughly corrupt manners of the Meaquins disconcerted for a time the man whom nothing had ever stopped in his career ; The First Fathers, 8 1 he regrets having left India, and it needs all the force of his resignation to prosecute a work which he deems impossible. He redoubles his efforts. At length God, who has heard his prayers, measures the recompense by the sacrifice. After two years of an- guish, which cost him his life, Xavier is master of Japan. Does he pause at length ? No, he will never pause. He only changes his route. He has turned his eyes in the direction of the mighty and unknown land — China. Before undertaking this gigantic campaign, he returns again to Goa, where he receives the assurance that India counts half a million of Christians. " Glory to God ! the harvest here is great, let us go to sow the seed in other fields." And he embarks for China. But God has measured the task, and marked the repose of this mighty apostle, fashioned on the model of those who first enlightened the world. The passage proves most unfortunate. At length the strength of Xavier, never accustomed to spare himself, gives out. After terrible suffering, they land him dying on a shore which is not that of China. His hour has come ; his companions gather around him weeping ; he presses his crucifix to his breast, smiles, and dies, repeating the last verse of the Canticle of Saint Ambrose : "//^ te Do?nine^ speravi ; non confundar in aeturnum. * In Thee, Lord, have I hoped ; let me not be confounded forever. 6 82 The Jesuits. He had attained the age of 45 years, twelve of which had been consumed in his apostleship. His memory is honored in the Church among those of the greatest saints. Of all the missions of Francis Xavier, the most fruitful in martyrs was that of Japan, where thousands of faithful natives and nearly one hundred Jesuit Fathers confessed the faith in torture. Ignatius lived four years after the death of Xavier. There remained now only one of the three students of the College of Saint Barbara. He shed tears of sor- rowful joy upon learning of the happy end of his friend and brother. His work had assumed the proportions of an em- pire. To speak here of only his remote conquests : three years before the death of Xavier, and at the time when the latter carried the light of faith to Japan, six members of the Society of Jesus landed on the shores of Brazil, and strove there so effectually that their popularity sufficed to counterbalance the hatred aroused by Portuguese commerce. Placed as media- tors between two barbarous hordes — one civiHzed, the other savage — the Fathers experienced less dif- ficulty with the devourers of human flesh than with the hungry seekers after gold, for they could put an end to the atrocious festivals of the cannibals, but could not quench the awful thirst of riche's which devoured the Europeans. % The First Fathers. 83 The Portuguese colony of San Salvador ruled by canon law ; but the companions of the noble and learned Father Anchita were the masters by love, and the rulers by law were more than once obliged to take refuge as trembling supphants behind these sons of charity who never refused them their protection. Later, the Portuguese metropolis shall take its revenge for so many benefits showered upon its colonies, for it shall be at Lisbon that the killer of Fathers (matador dos Padres), Sebastian de Pombal, the philosopher of the eighteenth century, will lock his dungeons and light his funeral piles ! In 1553, the preponderance of the Society was such in South America that Ignatius thought fit to create there a Province, as he had already made for the extreme East the Province of the Indies. At the same time Ignatius sent a holy ambassador to Fez and to Morocco to negotiate there the deliver- ance of the slaves. Ah ! hate was now fully aroused, as it saw the career of the Jesuits shaping itself in all its detested grandeur. Other Jesuits penetrated into Ethiopia, and even as far as Congo, there to seek or make Christians. For a time the kings of Abyssinia were Catholic, but Protestant missionaries came, and the flood of idolatry remounted. Go>i defend us from misjudging the conscience of Protestants in general. We only remark the obstacles 84 The Jesuits, which they have always placed in the way of the prop- agation of the true Faith, and the inutility of their efforts to copy the Catholic missions, which they have everywhere essayed, and which have almost every- where proved unsuccessful, notwithstanding the im- mense material sources at their command. The apostles make a vow of poverty, and they suc- ceed ; the Protestant Church possesses millions, and it fails. Ignatius was now more than sixty years of age. Notwithstanding the care which he took to conceal his life, he. was among the most illustrious of his time. From the depths of his cell he had exercised an im- mense influence on passing events, and though he had assisted in person neither at the Council of Trent nor the Colloquy of Poissy ; though his foot had never crossed the threshold of the palaces of princes, his spirit had everywhere made itself felt as well in the public assemblages, where sound the thunders of eloquence, as in the close retreats, where is murmured the mysterious language of the policies of kings. He had accomplished even more than he had prom- ised, and the outrages with which his enemies assailed him on all sides, rendered him justice in proclaiming him the veritable stumbling block in the way of the Reformation. One time he wished the repose of a workman who had terminated his day's labor. The First Fathers. 85 But those who venerated him, reminded him, not without some severity, that for him who has pledged his life, there is no repose elsewhere than in the tomb. He obeyed. He remained and died General of the Order, on the thirty-first of July, 1536. In his life-time he never said : " I have done," but " I have seen." He had seen heresy, if not utterly vanquished, at least arrested in its formidable progress, and he saw infidel countries gain to the Faith more souls than had been drawn away from her fold by all the false prophets, with which this century, agitated by so many and such strange convulsions, abounded. He had seen reform, the true Catholic reform intro- duced by the Church throughout all her branches, already producing admirable results. To understand the part which he had taken in the accomplishment of these great things, one must not look to him nor to his religious posterity. That would be to evoke a suspected testimony. If one would be duly informed, he must turn to the records of the testimony contained in the " mountain of documents " accumulated by passion and rancorous hate. Here the invective of the wounded enemy glorifies the soldier who has made the wound ; each outrage brings with it honor, and it is from the writings of Protestants that Loyola and the Jesuits of his time take their letters of nobility. Twenty-two years, lacking two months, after the morn- 86 The Jesuits. • ing of the Assumption, when we saw the poor and crip- pled student climb alone the steep of Montmartre, at the moment when Ignatius, now an aged man, and still poor, but no longer alone, gave up to God his great mind and pious soul, he could see, with the clear eye of a saint, which extends over the earth, thirty houses, eighty colleges, upwards of one thousand Fathers, and one hundred thousand pupils, bearing the mysterious sign upon their .foreheads, scattered over the surface of the earth. III. A GLANCE AT THE MISSIONS. The better to proceed with the History of the Society of France, we will briefly finish beforehand with the grand movement of the evangeUzation of re- mote countries, splendidly inaugurated by Francis Xavier, continued so heroically by his successors, and which shall cease only with the life of the Order. Xavier had died without passing the mysterious barrier which separated China from the rest of the universe. The first of the Jesuits to obtain admission was Melchior Nunez, who traveled thither with some Portu- guese merchants, in the year 1556. He arrived at Canton, that enormous city, whose riches filled him with astonishment. Xavier had undoubtedly preached from the time of his arrival in pagan lands, but Xavier possessed the gift of miracles. Through a prudence which was for a long time imitated, and which bore its fruits, Father Melchior, whose greatest fear was to close, by any pre- mature movement on his part, the entrance which had been extorted from such zealous vigilance, abstained (87) 88 The Jesuits. from all public preaching. The laws and custonis of China are opposed to the dissemination of intelligence among the people. In 1563, five Jesuits accompanied the Portuguese ambassador thither and observed the same guarded line of action. Matthew Ricci was the first to penetrate as far as the court of Pekin, and not only breaks this regulation, but furthered, to a great extent, the work of evangeliza- tion in the Celestial Empire, where so many of the So- ciety of Jesus were to receive the palm of martyrdom. Ricci was the pupil of Father Valignani, a man who was the universal grammarian of the languages of the far East. The history of the education and the pains taken by Valignani to prepare his youthful apostles for the con- quest of martyrdom, makes one of the most curious and, at the same time, most touching pages that can be read. The Abbé Vertot narrates, in his " History of the Order of Malta," an old, but most interesting work, the adventure of Dieudonnede Gozon, afterward Grand Master of Rhodes, who, to obtain the victory over a certain monster (dragon or serpent) which infested the Isle, constructed a figure of the animal and accustomed his pack of hounds to rush upon it. Up to this time, all who had been rash enough to attack the monster had been devoured, because it was covered with scales which afforded it a complete armor. A Glance at the Missions. 89 Its hide was of the color of bronze and utterly im- penetrable to the sword ; but the ChevaHer Dieudonné had observed on the belly of the dragon a vulnerable point ; this was a large spot of a yellow hue, and he ac- cordingly devised a stratagem which the Abbé Vertot is right in pronouncing ingenious. He constructed in the same spot upon the figure, a hole as nearly alike in form and dimensions to the orig- inal as possible. This he closed with a door, which he painted exactly the shade of the yellow skin on the spot, and which appeared to open of itself, by means of a weight. When all was complete, the Chevalier loosed the hounds, having previously filled the inside of the figure with meat. The pack, as may be imagined, no sooner ap- proached the pasteboard dragon than they scented the food and rushed at the yellow door, which, at first, resisted, then opened and allowed the dogs to obtain their feast. For an entire month the Chevalier repeated this ex- ercise, so that the pack began to display a strong inter- est for the indicated spot as being the door which guarded their meal. At the end of a month, the ChevaHer left the dogs three days without food, and then led them, no longer against the image, but to an encounter with the mon- ster in flesh and blood. According to his custom, the dragon vomited forth smoke and flames ; but the 90 The Jesuits, dogs were not to be frightened ; they were in search of food. At length, the monster in his unwieldy struggles ex- posed the familiar spot, and the dogs recognizing their yellow door, tore a passage into the monster's body. I know not if Father Valignani, previous to Vertot's relating it, was aware of this anecdote, but certainly his plan of campaign, so laboriously worked out, bears some parallel to that of the Chevalier Dieudonne. For the former also trained a pack, »a band of heroes, to force an entrance into the interior of a mon- ster defended by impenetrable scales — China ; that land of improbabilities and fantastical novelties, a solid enigma, so well screened from the eager curiosity of the universe, that imagination pictures her famous wall of steel as guarding enchanted palaces erected by the genii of poetic romance. The pack of Father Valignani were hungry with the desire of saving souls, of extending civilization, of spreading knowledge, of spiritual strife, of martyrdom. The monster, armed to the teeth, possessed one vul- nerable point : was marked with one yellow spot, well concealed, but nevertheless a door which could be forced. The defect in the Chinese armor was a childish thirst for information, an innate curiosity, and an odd but subtle aptness for all pertaining to the study of Mathematics, Astronomy, Physic, or even Philosophy. A Glance at the Missions. 91 The entire life of Father Valignani, preparer of apostles, as Warwick was creator of kings, had been spent before this closed door, devising for others the means of opening it, and not only that, but end'^avor- ing also to find some way of establishing firmly within the open door those who should once have procured admittance. And where else beside in the institution of the Jesuits, so original in its grandeur, is there shown a similar appropriation of aptitude ? In our own day, Charles Fourier, a man of incon- testable talent, but still-born, or nearly so, as an influ- ence, because he forgot God and the law of God, in the fabrication of an ingenious toy which he called a phalanstery, beHeved himself to have invented the rational culture of vocations, from the stand-point of social utility. Unquestionably he had never read St. Ignatius ; him who lost no precious time in balancing card- houses of systems, but stole from Heaven that sacred fire, the knowledge of the human heart. And as it was before, so it shall be after, Fourier, with whose curious and puerile work perhaps it is not even acquainted, the Society of Jesus, from the stand-point of universal good and final salvation, has ever traversed, as ever will, with master hand, the keyboard of attractions and aptitudes. Among those whom Father VaHgnani prepared for 92 The Jesuits, this novel and difficult undertaking, of which until •then none had formed any idea, the young Fathers Pazio, Rugguri, and Matthew Ricci, came out of the ranks perfect instruments, especially Ricci, who was in all ways a living masterpiece of education. And if anything could be more astonishing than the bare recital of this skillful preparation, so appropriate even in the smallest particulars, it is the admirably correct, bold, and exact use which was made of the gymnastics taught for that epic struggle begun by Ricci and con- tinued by his successors. Xavier, the likeness or reflection of Christ, had per- formed countless prodigies ; in him was personified the genius of enthusiastic piety ; he commanded men and things from the heights of his love ; what he would have accompHshed in China, if God had permitted him to touch its shores, all sanctified as he was by the grand victories of Japan and India, none can estimate ; but Xavier was dead. It was necessary to replace this divine talisman which he had won from Heaven, by the efforts of hu- man prudence, aided by Divine grace, without which all work is vain. It is on this account that Ricci, less supernatural than Xavier, excites, however, more interest through- out the pages of this Christian Odyssey. He is but man, struggling with the Chinese Empire — that enor- mous trifle, with every imaginable weapon ; he is at A Glance at the Missions. 93 once, if one may use the illustration, an apostle and an adventurer — a Saint Paul and a Robinson Crusoe ; sublime, industrious, subtle, and daring ; playing with the eclipse like Christopher Columbus ; disdaining not the smallest detail necessary to the accomplishment of his object ; profiting by the high-road, but guessing which side-paths to traverse ; intrepidly piercing his way, but, in the face of an obstacle, drawing back without demur, only to try another route ; entitled to twice the privileges of all diplomatists, but gaining every inch of ground at the price of himself, his entire self, dispensed with an able economy, with an inex- haustible prodigaUty. He knows all — all which the Chinese know, in order to insinuate himself; all which they do not know in order to rule them. He is a twofold Jesuit, possess- ing at once the humihty of a disciple and the com- manding spirit of a master. Every attack he can parry ; to every barrier he possesses a key. He knows their literature better than the literati themselves, and amid the mazes of their philosophy might guide Confucius himself. He has the mandarin geography of the earth at his fin- ger ends ; representing the globe, square as a tile, float- ing lazily in space under the protection of the emperor, Son of Heaven ; he is not ignorant of the gratitude which this same earth owes to the celestial Van Lei, the same emperor, who, at the bottom of his palace, 94 The Jesuits, obligingly sustains it, and whose bounty of soul alone prevents it from falling at any moment into the abyss ; but he knows still better the true earth, such as Eu- rope represents it, voyaging through space, and the sun and planets, and entire system of the universe, as it is recognized at Paris ; a well-invented system, and probably the true one. Above all, he could, at his choice, expatiate upon the odd opinions of their savants, or utterly astonish them by unexpected revelations of learning. In fact, knowledge which should be new to them, is the treas- ure that he has brought thither. If he so willed, he could, in place of announcing Christ, pass himself among them as a god, by nothing more than placing the first book of Euclid within the reach of the priests. Thus, after having had so much difficulty to pass the threshold of the empire, behold him, after some time, nearly naturalized therein. He writes to Father Valignani, then at Macao, to consult him on the choice of an official costume. Having been given the country, it is a question of the greatest gravity, and his former master advises him to adopt the ample robe and mitre of the Chinese savants. The choice is good ; Ricci adopts it, and thus at- tired pursues his journey, which is marked by as many fantastic as heroic adventures, as far as Nankin, where he marks out the site of the future house of the So- ciety, then goes on even to Pekin, where he is admit- A G/ance at the Missions. 95 ted (sovereign honor) to visit, not indeed Van Lei himself, who can not, in conscience, relax for a single instant his grasp of the square earth at the risk of los- ing it forever, but, at least, the empty throne of Van Lei; — which amounts to the same thing, however — and which invests him with an influence equal to that of the mandarins of the best quality. You may readily believe that he does not pause on this happy road. Without any effort on his part, the rumor begins to be circulated that the Son of Heaven admits him into the secret of these particular meet- ings, where are determined questions of immeasur- able importance; among others, the form of a new helmet which shall put the Tartars to flight without combat. This rumor, which had its birth among the people, at length reached the court ; and as there was no pos- sible control to be exerted by an invisible and dumb emperor, it came to pass, incredible as it appears, that the chief minister of the empire himself, adding faith to what was everywhere alleged, sued for the friendship of the supposed favorite, flattering him, and becoming his most obsequious follower. But what of God in all this ? And the Word of God ? W^hat becomes of the apostolate in the midst of all these strange adventures ? It should be readily understood that the apostolate here is all, and there is nothing but the apostolate. 96 The Jesuits. These adventures are only the windings of th-e road along which the apostle is ever moving. Extraordinary prudence, and most delicate ma- nœuverings are needed to arrive at the first preaching. Nothing here resembles what is seen in any other part of the world. The Chinese understand every- thing, but play with everything ; they discuss all, but evade all, though desirous to know everything. The great question is, how to utilize these materials ? In or- der to build, it is necessary to reconcile these contrasts. The subtility of their minds is satisfied, to a certain degree, by the evident grandeur of the Christian law, but they admit Christ only under reserve, and to the Cross exclusively. This childish though ancient people, this half-polish- ed, half-savage aristocracy, where each mandarin is in reality only a grotesque figure, can not accept the hu- miliation of the Cross. They can understand all the rest, but this, no. It is not Chinese. Never would a Chinese have submitted to it. A Chinese will open his stomach without repugnance, but will not attach him- self to the Cross. And from the moment that the God of the Christians transgresses the law of de- corum, how can the Chinese adore Him longer ? For a long, long time this obstacle proved abso- lutely insurmountable. Ricci had gained the battle over all other things, but Chinese obstinacy disputed the ground with him inch by inch at this last point. A Glance at the Missions, 97 The great pride humbled itself, but not the puerile vanities, and the very life of this fantastic people is made up of boasting, competitions, and petty strata- gems, all having for their object the satisfaction of their childish vainglory ; it nourishes, through self-love, the most gigantic fooleries, microscopic monstrosities, which astonish logic, disconcert reason, and open up at every step, along the apparently level path, abysses which are both ridiculous and terrible. Still, however, results had been obtained which may be styled enormous. Churches had been erected ; seminaries, before completion, had been filled. Priests might be seen bearing the Blessed Sacra- ment, and the converted mandarins were counted by the hundreds. Chinese apostles there were even, true, invincible confessors of faith, among whom, Paul Sin, the ad- mirable orator, the great Mandarin Li, and numbers of others, shine with peculiar radiance. These were men of the antique type, whose virtue and learning adorned the primitive Church. Elsewhere, under such favorable conditions, one might regard the foundations of one of the largest and grandest Christendoms of the earth, as firmly estab- lished ; but we are writing of China, and, in this coun- try of nightmares, one is always fearful of being awak- ened with a start. They were awakened. 7 98 TJie Jesuits. And, as all calculation is ever set at defiance, b]^ the events which occur among this extravagantly original people, where strangers themselves speedily become infected with the malady of the impossible, it came about that they were awakened by a persecution which came neither from the Chinese priests, nor the governors, nor the mandarins, nor the emperor, but — I may as well state at once, for the reader would never divine from whence — from ecclesiastical authority. It frequently happens that the Church, infallible in herself, has some untrustworthy soldiers in the ranks of her vast army. These blemishes are lost in the glory of the whole, but they have existed, and do exist. In the year 1606, the eighteenth of the able and fruitful apostleship of Matthew Ricci, the ecclesiastical authority in those remote regions was vested in the per- son of the Vicar-General of Macao, where a Jesuit col- lege was established. The rector of this college had been chosen as arbitrator in a dispute pending between the Vicar-General and a Franciscan monk, which he decided in favor of the latter. In the heat of his in- dignation, the Vicar-General launched an interdict against the Franciscans, the Jesuits, the government of the city, and the city itself* At the same time, a m Dre violent demonstration was * Crétineau-Joly, p. 173, and following. A Glance at the Missions. 99 excited against the Jesuits in Canton, by a worthy eftbrt of the Chinese imagination, which accused the Jesuits of building citadels, and planning, with the Portuguese and Japanese fleets, the invasion of the country. But Httle was needed to inflame the populace. En- tire provinces rose up in arms against the Christians ; they threatened a general massacre, and Father Mar- tinez was put to death by torture. This was a violent, but transien>t storm. Ricci soon calmed the tempest, and shortly after established a house of the Novitiate in the very center of Pekin. When God called this faithful servant to Himself, four years later, the entire population of the capital followed the cross which led his funeral procession, and Father Schall, successor to this truly great man, prospered in his heritage. Adam Schall, no less illustrious than Ricci, was in- volved in all the revolutions with which that era among the Chinese was rife, and which finally culminated in a change of dynasty. At his death the Jesuits had one hundred and fifty pubHc churches, and thirty-eight houses or colleges. After the second persecution — of which we say nothing, through respect for an illustri- ous Order — another period of prosperity followed un- der Fathers Verbust, Gerbillon, Perennin, and Gaubii. which lasted many years, during which the scientific and literary attainments of the Chinese niission were 100 TJie Jesuits. the glory of the Church and the admiration of the savants of Europe. We must not imagine that the great effort of the Jesuits in China had made them abandon India. They had evangcHzed Mogul, Ceylon, Bengal, and Coro- mandel. Kx. the close of the sixteenth century we find the seminary at Goa sending confessors beyond the Ganges, even to the Indus. Robert di Nobili, nephew of Popes and Emperors, becomes the apostle of the Brahmins, whilst others evangelize the Pariahs. The most illustrious among these, Jean de Bretto, son of the Viceroy, shed his blood in Maduras. Bengal, Thibet, Tartary, Syria, Persia, and Armenia see the cross planted, and hear the Gospel preached fey the Jesuits. The Faith penetrates with them into the deserts of Africa, the Empires of Ab) ssinia and Mo- rocco, and the coasts of Caffre, Mozambique, and Guinea. But it is especially on the New World that they seek to place the yoke of Christian civilization. There they have not only the ferocity of the savages to conquer ; their most bitter enemies are the Calvinist Corsairs — Enghsh, Hollanders, and, alas! French also, who, no less cruel than the Redskins, massacre every Jesuit who falls into their hands. Such are their orders. Calvin himself has particu- larly designated the Society of Jesus as their chief and A Glance at the Missions loi mortal enemy. He does not say, "Kill this one or that one ;" but he says ; " Here is an obstacle ; re- move it." His command is only too faithfully obeyed. Thus perished on the fifteenth of July, 1570, within sight of Palma, the blessed Ignatius of Azevedo and his thirty- nine companions, destined for the missions of Brazil. A few days later, thirty others shared a like fate. The Society of Jesus lost seventy-one victims to the rage of these heretics. It was the crusade of piracy. Sourie, Capdeville, and others reaped for themselves a twofold good by thus infesting the seas ; on one hand, enriching themselves by the spoils of their victims ; on the other, gaining the Calvinistic heaven by the slaughter of missionaries wherever they encountered them. But all the missionaries did not fall under the blows of these pirates, the malcontents of Catholic morality. Those who escaped their sabres and the empoison- ed arrows of the Indians, traversed these deserts and began another Crusade. Enough survived for this holy war, and it was by their efforts that Canada, so French even in our own day, was first subjugated to the Catholic faith and the French dominion, after the most strenuous efforts, even at the price of the blood of these heroes of religion and patriotism, who died for God and France and who reap in heaven the glory of being forgotten in the ingratitude of earth, 102 The Jesuits. and whose names, at least, I will inscribe on these pages — Joques, Baniel, and Brebeuf. the noble foUovr- ers of Champlain. Who has not heard of the Catholic governments of Paraguay, those famous "Reductions" so praised by Robertson, Albert de Haller, Biiftbn, Montesquieu, Chateaubriand, and of which Voltaire said : " The Establishments of the Spanish Jesuits alone in Para- guay seem, in some respects, the triumph of human- ity ? " Unha}>i3ily, we shall be compelled to speak of Paraguay again, and of the cruel recompense which was reserved for the Jesuits by the contemporaries of Voltaire. In another part of South America, Carthagena, the Jesuits performed wonders of charity. Even as in India, they had made themselves Pariahs in order to convert the Pariahs, and Brahmins in order to convert the Brahmins ; so, now, the blessed Father Claver be- comes, as far as possible, a negro — nay, even more than a negro, he becomes the " slave of slaves " — in order to preach the truths of religion, and awaken some of its sentiments within these miserable victims of European cupidity. One must read his story in order to understand the wide difference which separates Philanthropy from Charity, As for Claver, he has no power to liberate the slaves, but he waits in the place of sale to which they are A Glance at the Missions. 103 driven, like so many cattle. Sick, poor, dying with fatigue, he nevertheless bears to them, on his shoulders, his burden of begged provisions ; he nurses these cap- tives, gives them to drink, laves their faces, bathes their feet, and kisses away their tears, exclaiming, " Oh ! my brothers ! my friends ! my dear masters ! what would you ask of me? Do not fear to exact everything from your servant, even his life, for I belong to you ; you have bought me in Jesus Christ ! I, Peter Claver, am the slave of slaves forever." Other instances of intense devotion are frequent ; witness .that of Father de Rhodes, at Tonk-kirig ; Father Cabrai, in Thibet and Nepaul ; Fathers Men- drano and Figueroa, at New Grenada ; and Jean de Arcos, at Caraccas. It was here that the Jesuits, for the first time, were accused of mixing themselves in commercial affairs because they furnished to their neophytes, at a dis- count, the goods for which the real dealers charged them usurious prices. Behold, their unpardonable crime ! Better to attempt to pass between the tree and its bark than to interfere between the merchant and his profits. Neither time nor evidence can extinguish the hatred of those to whom the only wrong done by the Jesuits was to reduce their too enormous profits, and you may still encounter those who will inform you that the Jesuits maintain mighty, though invisible, fleets on the 104 The Jesuits. ocean which sail to and fro with marvelous rapidity, carrying goods of an unknown nature from mysterious consignors. When a Jesuit involves himself in business affairs — and of this there exists a mournful and too well-known example — the Order interdicts him, expels him, and ruins itself in paying a debt it never contracted. And notwithstanding, the Order suffers for the fault of a single member ! We will recount the iniquitous proceedings to which history has given the name of the trial of Father de la Valette. The Jesuits do not interfere with commerce. They give, but never sell. They possess neither stores nor fleets, though they never contradict the false asser- tions to the contrary. You will look in vain, in their books, for the proofs of their zeal, their courage, and their persistent charity. Rarely do they put forth a denial even to the most startling accusations, and it is really amongst their enemies that you must seek for the refutation of the absurd calumnies advanced against them. " It is a remarkable fact that the authors who censure, in the severest terms, the licentious manners of the regular Spanish monks, all accord a tribute of respect to the conduct of the Jesuits. Governed by a more perfect discipline than that of the other Orders, or actuated by the desire of preserving the honor of the A Glance at the Missions. 105 Society, so dear to each of its members, the Jesuits, as well in Mexico as in Peru, have preserved an irre- proachable regularity of manners." It was not a Jesuit who wrote this ; not even a Cathohc* How far removed is this tribute of a Protestant, an honest man and intelligent writer, from the infamous falsehoods which defile our books and journals. Previous to the ministry of Choiseul, under which was consummated that suppression of the Jesuits which Montalembert, after Montyon, has termed, " the greatest iniquity of modern times," let us glance briefly at the general state of the missions founded among the infidels, by the disciples of Ignatius, in the most diverse countries of the world. To begin with the Jesuits of Portugal. Between the time of 1551 and 1623, a period of seventy-two years, they had sent six hundred and sixty-two missionaries to the Indies, and two hundred and twenty-two to Brazil, thus allowing a rate of twelve a year ; and numbered in 1616, two hundred and eighty in the Province of Goa, and one hundred and eighty in that of Brazil, which, in 1759, contained four hundred and forty-five. The mission of Japan counted, in 1581, one hun- dred and fifty thousand Christians, two hundred church- es, and fifty-nine missionaries. In China, in the year * Robertson, "History of America," Vol, X., p. 27. io6 The Jesuits. 1680, the single Province of Nankin contained more than one hundred thousand Christians. As for the Indies, Father Laynez baptized in Maduras fifteen thousand idolaters, in the course of six months, in the year 1699. In 1763, America counted in Peru alone, five hun- dred and twenty-six Jesuits ; in Mexico, five hundred and seventy-two ; at Noveau Royaume (New Cartha- gena), one hundred and ninety-five ; at Quito, two hundred and nine ; at Chili, two hundred and forty- two. At Maragnon, Father Vieyra da Silva, in 1167, organized fifty Christian villages, on something over four hundred leagues of coast. The missions of the Levant, founded by Henry IV., and revived by Louis XIV., propagated the Faith, and with it the French influence, in Greece, Constanti- nople, Persia, Smyrna, throughout the Archipelago, in Armenia, the Crimea, Chaldea, Syria, and Fgypt. Such was the prosperous situation of afiairs, ever tending toward the enlargement of the missions of the Order, at the moment when a cruel tyranny, urged by the representations of a Pombal, an Aranda, and a Choiseul, destroyed the work of so much effort and so many years, whose foundations extended throughout the universe, and which resembled a great empire. The mind is astounded at the idea of such insignificant men, who showed themselves so disas- trously incapable in their several administrations, being able to destroy such a gigantic work. A Glance at the Missions. 107 We say nothing here of the Portuguese, the Spanish, nor the French minister, because we shall devote a portion of this book to the study of each in turn. It will repay the trouble of perusing, not on account of what they have accomplished, for their work is naught, but because of the moral and material treas- ure which they have destroyed in the blindness of their hate. Whilst a large number among the Jesuits devoted themselves to the conversion of idolatrous peoples, others endeavored to stem the tide of heresy and schism throughout Europe. We have seen Lefevre, Le Jay, and Bobadilla, three of the original Jesuits, oppose themselves to the in- numerable army of apostates and rebels who filled Germany with sacrilege and murder. They were soon followed into the arena by the blessed Peter Canisius,* one of the noblest figures of the Order — a man en- dowed with the most persuasive eloquence, the pro- foundest science, and as fertile in resources as a polemist. The Lutherans themselves said of him : " There is no way of resisting the truth that this man proclaims." * Born on the 8th of May, 1521, at Nimeguen ; died the 2ist of December, 1597, at Freiburg, in Switzerland ; beatified on the 20th of August, 1864, by Pope Pius IX» io8 The Jesuits. But his charity was his most distinguishing charac- teristic ! At Ingolstadt, Canisiusand Sahneron, both eminent Professors of the University, were seen each day leav- ing their chairs to minister to the sick in the hospitals, or instruct the little children in the schools or even public places. As a recompense for this they naturally received persecution. Canisius, writing to Father Laynez, who had be- come General of the Society on the death of Loyola, says : " Our enemies, by the calumnies which they circulate concerning me, have made for me a reputa- tion which I dare not lay claim to for myself. They honor the other Fathers in a similar manner. Soon, perhaps, words will be replaced by blows and other cruel treatment. " Thank heaven, the more they endeavor to decry us, the more eager we are to show them all charity. - "They are our persecutors, but they are our brothers also. We are bound to love them, because of the love of Jesus Christ, who shed His blood for them, and because they sin, perhaps through ignorance." I can not refrain from remarking here that these beautiful thoughts, so discreetly expressed, constitute what its enemies term, /^r excellence^ "Jesuitism"; that is to say, visible hypocrisy. What avowal do those who can not, nor will not, believe in the honesty A Glance at the Missions. 109 nor the goodness of the human heart, suffer to escape them ? Their creed should be written on their foreheads. We deny that which we are incapable of ourselves. Jesuitism is Charity, reviled by men who are so far removed from it as never to have experienced it nor even seen it. Meanwhile the minds of many were convinced. Everywhere the souls of many were converted. " The Jesuits," says a Protestant writer, Dr. Leopold Ranke, speaking of their labors in Germany, " lack neither zeal nor prudence. One sees them successfully spread- ing throughout their vicinities, and attracting the masses. Their churches are the most frequented. Should they discover anywhere a Lutheran well-versed in the Bible, and who, by virtue of it, holds great sway in his vicinity, they employ every means of converting him, and nearly always they are successful, being so habituated to controversy The Electoral Prince of Mayence, Schweickhard, MaximiUan of Bavaria, and the Archduke Ferdinand, all the eminent men, come from the school of the Jesuits ; so capable of engendering great ideas within the minds of their students." These princes were themselves reformers, and they have reaUzed by their faith the religious restoration. Do you perceive now what rôle was played by those who are so readily termed the obscurantists, in no The Jesuits. the history of superstition ? Witness the biography of Father Frederic de Spée,* for instance, one of the most renowned writers of his time. Indignant at the frequent abuse of the criminal process then in force against sorcerers, he undertook, with rare courage, their defense against their Winded judges and a fanatic pubhc. His book, " Causa CriminaUs," produced such an impression in France and Germany, that from the time of its pubHcation, notwithstanding the credu- Hty of the people and the faulty tribunals, the absurd and sanguinary legislation which had regulated Europe for so many centuries, steadily fell into disuse. Shortly after, in 1635, Father de Spée happened to be in Treves when the Imperialist forces seized that city, occupied by the French. The Jesuit by his zeal and courage saved that great city from pillage, and the captives from death. Four hundred French pris- oners obtained their lives and liberty, together with clothes and an authorized conduct, enabling them to return to their own country. But pestilence followed war, and Father de Spe'e could not follow those whom his efforts had saved ; he remained to supply the needs of the sick, and then soon after expired, aged forty years, on the field of honor and charity. During the reign of Henry VIII., Salmcron and Born at Kaiserwerth, near Dusseldorf, in 1591. A Glance at the Missions. in Pasqiiier Broiiet had traversed England and Ireland, in order to console and strengthen the Catholics under the terrible persecution to which they were subjected. But to a constant peril, a constant safeguard must be afforded. Under the sanguinary reign of Elizabeth, whose edicts recall those of Nero and Diocletian,* a mission of twelve Jesuits was organized under the direction of Edmund Campian and Robert Parsons, both former members of the University of Oxford. A price was set upon their heads, and they were aware of it. "We have so much to do here," writes Father Parsons, '' that often we pause only for two hours at most, just sufficient to enable us to take a short re- pose." The illustrious Doctor Allen assures us that in the space of a year, the Fathers had gained more souls in England than they could during a life-time in other places. "The number of Catholics," he adds, "is estimated at ten thousand more than last year." But the shedding of blood was needed to perfect the apostles' work. Edmund Campian was the first to lay down his life ; after him, several of his brethren gathered the palm of martyrdom — Jean Cornelius, * Example : From the 15th of July to the 31st of August, 15S0, warrants were issued against fifty thousand Cath- olics, who were accused and thrown into prison, and pun- ished, with confiscation, banishment, and a great number with capital punishment. 112 The Jesuits. Robert Southwell, Henry Walpole,* Thomas Bosgrave, Roger Filcock, Francis Page, Henry and Thomas Gar- nett, Thomas Holland, Rodolphe Corby, Henry Mors, Richard Bradley, Cansfied, Cuthbert Prescott, and Ed- mund Neville. These martyrs were first hung from the gallows, then cut down aHve and quartered, after having had their entrails plucked out. "Ibant Gau- dentes,"t as was to be said three hundred years later of one of the companions of the beloved Father Oli- vraint in marching to his death. Their canticle was silenced only when their hearts ceased to beat. It is of their persecutors that Voltaire has written, " The absurdity of these fanatics was joined to fury; they were at once the most foolish and the most ter- rible of men." We joyfully cite this testimony of a mind which God had gifted so wonderfully with all save the inestimable boon of faith. He has brought against the Society numerous accu- sations which bear the stamp of falsity, but numerous also are the pages where his pen seeks to do them justice. The cruelty of their insane persecutors was con- quered by the wisdom of these sages, who knew how to die ; and after that long and fierce persecution, the * He had three brothers and a cousin in the Society. \ The}' went rejoicing. A Glance at the Missions. ■ 113 Catholic faith, thanks to the labors of the apostles and the blood of the martyrs, became firmly rooted in England, and flourished anew there. The proof that Protestantism, which appeared so completely victorious at first, was checked in its triumphant career, is the fact that all the Northern countries of Europe wavered in it at the same time. The "plague of Jesuits," as they were termed by the preachers of the Reformation, had overrun those king- doms where Christiern prostituted the mitre to a valet. Where, not long before, Gustavus Vasa had over- thrown the images of Mary, Father Anthony Possevin * preached anew the Gospel, and both kings and people returned obedient to his voice. He traveled to Stock- holm, received there the secret abjuration of the King of Sweden, John HI., and took the route to Moscow. There the confessor showed himself a diplomat of the first order; he negotiated at Kremlin the peace be- tween the Czar, John IV., and the Poles ; then joy- fully abandoning this brilliant rôle, he returned to Pa- dua to modestly resume in that city his functions of professor and preacher. Admiration is not even al- lowed for this absolute obedience practiced with so much humility ; it is the Rule, and in this instance hu- mility was particularly fruitful ; for out of the hands of this master came St. Francis de Sales. * Born at Mantua in 1534. 8 1 14 The Je suit s. Less than fifty years after the death of Possevin, two of his brethren, seconded by René Descartes, that illus- trious pupil of the Jesuits, converted the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus to Catholicism. Doctor Ranke, the Protestant, to whose impartiality we have already borne honorable testimony, wrote as follows : "The activity of the Jesuits made itself felt, throughout the Provinces, among the people of Livonia, in Lithuania, where they had to combat the ancient worship of serpents; among the Greeks, where often the Jesuits were the only Catholic priests ; and in Poland, where hundreds of Religious of the Society of Jesus consecrated them- selves to the revival of the CathoHc faith." Here, however, their work received the seal of the cross. Andrew Bobola,* cruelly martyred by the schismatic Cossacks, was henceforth to be in heaven the new patron of Catholic Poland. We will close this brief summary of the missions on the two continents by a few remarks upon the work of the Jesuits among the great Catholic nations in Italy, Spain, and Portugal ; the countries of Germany remaining faithful to Rome, which were the Low Countries anci- Austria. As for France, we shall de- vote to it a special chapter. * Born in Poland in 1590 ; died for the faith at Yanov on the i6th of May, 1657 ; beatified by Pope Pius IX., 30th of October, 1853. The martyred Father Olivraint has writ- ten the life of this martyr. A Glance at the Missions, 115 Certain it is that two at least among these nations verified the assertion brought against them by one of the most hostile writers of the enemies of the Society, the apostate Huber, of Munich. " The Order," *he says, "obtained in a short time surprising advantages over Protestantism, the 'reform' movement was stifled in Italy, and thrown back in the Northern countries of Germany." In support of this statement, Huber employs the grand testimony of Macaulay. *' Protestantism," says this noble writer, " was arrested in its victorious march, and repulsed with a giddy rapidity from the foot of the Alps, to the borders of the Baltic. " The Order had been only a century in existence, and already it had filled the entire world with monu- ments of its sufierings, and its grand struggle for the faith." " In short, Rome, Venice, and Padua, and the entire Italian Peninsula, as well as the immense empire which united under one sceptre Austria, Spain, and Flanders, saw the Jesuits for more than two centuries combating error, defending the true faith, re-establish- ing ecclesiastical discipline, propagating piety by their ^example, preaching charitable works for the relief of the sick and poor; opening asylums to suffering, to indigence, to repentance, and old age, and forming in youth the admirable virtues that we admire in a Louis de Gonzaga, or a Stanislaus Kostka. Ii6 The Jestiits, Again, look at the altars raised on all sides in honor of saints whom the Society had filled with its own spirit. '* Rome venerated Saint Ignatius, and Saint Francis Borgia ; Naples, Saint Francis de Hieronimo ; Spain, the blessed Alphonso Rodriquez ; Belgium, the blessed John Berchmans ; Holland, Catholic Swit- zerland, and the Tyrol, the blessed Peter Canisius ; France, Saint John Francis Regis. "* And how did all these men arrive at the heights of Christian perfection ? By the exact and heroic ob- servation of the rules of their Institute ; by the prac- tice of obedience, such as Saint Ignatius defined it, by their devotion to good works, and by faithfully retain- ing the spirit of the Society of Jesus, which can suffer persecution, and even be for a time destroyed, but which none has ever dreamed of reforming, because no one has ever called it corrupt, except the " Soli- taries"! of Port-Royal, to whom Voltaire himself has replied, and those worthy people whose trade it is to sell flayed Jesuit, and whom assuredly none will take the trouble to answer. There is, however, one trifle which deserves a pass- ing notice which should be refuted. It is the fashion among the copyists of " dictionnaires," which have * Born the 31st of Januarys 1597 ; died 31st of December, 1716 ; canonized the 5th of April, 1737, by Pope Clement XII. f The French Jansenists. A Glance at the Missions. 117 faithfully transmitted the same fooleries since the *' En- cyclopédique " deluge, to proclaim from the housetops the decadence of the countries which remain firm in the Faith, and to attribute to the Jesuits the cause of this torpor. Among other infected countries, they cite Austria, Spain, and Portugal. But yesterday they cited Mexi- co ; but since Juarez, they presume to do so no longer. Why not Italy ? And especially why not Belgium ? Are they so convinced that the diadem shall remain so securely on the brow of England, who sees heresy at work within her, and who already questions per- haps, if Protestantism be at bottom a good bargain ? Much has been remarked on the inferiority of Catholic countries. For my part, I grant it to a certain extent, because I do not measure human grandeur ex- clusively by the acquisition of the hundred-cent piece ; and the American god, whether it be the dollar or the revolver, does not inspire me with any species of rev- erence ; but even admitting the decadence of certain Catholic countries, is it comparable to the horrible in- testinal corruption of certain Protestant countries ? It is not necessary to name these countries; but who does not know them ? Again, were not these Catholic peoples, Catholic in the time of their splendor ? Were they not more Catholic then than they are to-day ? Have they not gradually fallen away, little by little, according as they Ii8 The Jesuits. lost faith, as they imbibed the poison of indifference and incredulity ? As for casting the odium of this decHne upon the Jesuits, whom does it make appear ridiculous ? Is it necessary to impute to them the progress of a disease which they have so energetically combated ? Moreover, the Jesuits have been driven from most Catholic States, chiefly, by the very ones who have enervated and weakened these States ; they have been driven from the midst of the prosperity which their efforts had so largely contributed to produce in those States ; and their fruitful labor in those States has been replaced by — But of what use to say by what ? Has Spain, Portugal, the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Parma, the Empire of Austria, all the States which have driven out the Jesuits, been so prosperous since in their internal affairs ? And France? If they have been prosperous, why do they com- plain ? If, on the contrary, they have regretted the absence of the Jesuits, as history testifies, whom do they hope to befool in attributing to the agents of prosperity the misfortunes which were only produced after their un- just and ill-omened expulsion? Let each be at least responsible for his acts. If what was pure gold in the hands of the Jesuits A Glance at the Missions, 119 changes into lead in the hands of their spoliators, whose the fault ? Has the reader yet discovered, by what he has read so far, the motives of the truly extraordinary hate which has ever attended the Society of Jesus ? I myself answer, Yes and No. Yes, for the enemies of the Church; no, for its friends. The enemies of the Church have good reason to hate the Jesuits ; the friends of religion have cause to esteem and love them. It is not our intention to give to these words any meaning which would tend to confound the servants ^nth the master, the Jesuits with the Church. The Society of Jesus is nothing in comparison with the Church, which alone has the promise of immor- taUty. The Society of Jesus could disappear, without one stone of the divine edifice being disturbed. But " all the enemies of the Church are in a special manner the enemies of the Jesuits." This is their peculiar recommendation to the confi- dence of Catholics. *' It is an unparalleled glory for the Society of Jesus that the enemies of the Church should unanimously strike at it, denounce it, and calumniate it ; a singular privilege, a glorious prerogative, which has made their 120 The Jesuits. name the most glorious that could be borne by Chris- tians in the times in which we live."* We have cast a glance at their work outside of France. Let us now turn our eyes homeward, and see what they have done here to merit their name being used as the crowning insult, applied not only to every priest, to every Catholic, but to every honest man, honestly seeking to serve his country. Read the standard journals, enter the *' good" clubs, and you will hear there the name Jesuit, applied in- discriminately to advocates, property owners, states- men of every shade of politics, to all those who know how to read, but not how to howl. Jesuits is applied to gendarmes, prefects, marshals, and Brothers of the Christian Doctrine ; to Protestant pastors themselves the name is called ; to magistrates ; to soldiers. Jesuits ! Jesuits ! Jesuits ! Never has an equal fury rendered men illustrious. If there be not glory in this, where is it ? * Count de Montalembert, speech in the Chamber of Peers, 8th of May and nth of June, 1844. IV. FRANCE. The hour in which the lame mendicant of the Col- lege of Saint Barbara toiled up the steep of Mont- martre was an eventful one for our ancestors. France, baptized with Clovis, glorified by Charlemagne, plant- ed with the palm of St. Louis, was essentially a Chris- tian country, but still experienced the consequences of the religious and political revolution which con- vulsed Germany, Switzerland, and England. Desolation spread beyond her frontiers ; within, Cal- vin steadily forged his armor. Between the vow of Montmartre and the Bull of Paul III., Calvin had brought to light his " Christian Insti- tution," and thus founded the sect from whence should spring the Huguenots,* and with them civil and more dire calamity, religious war, '■'■plus qiiavi civilia bella." The smoldering fire already sent forth sparks and smoke. Some years later the Amboiset conspiracy should betray the fanatical aspirations of the so-called " re- formers." 1536. 1 1560. (121) 122 The Jesuits. At this perilous juncture, the rôle of the new-born Society could not be mistaken ; it fulfilled precisely the end for which it was instituted ; devoting itself to the Catholic, which had already become the national cause. At the solicitation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and several other wise and learned prelates, Henry II. had, in 1550, granted letters patent to the Society of Jesus.* But both the declared and secret enemies of the Catholic Faith feared these new comers too much not to oppose, with all their force, their establishment in France. The Huguenots and politicians worked so effectually that Parliament, whose opposition, coeval with the existence of the Order, remained unwavering to the end, refused to register the royal letters. t Two years later, a new edict was the occasion of new opposition, favored by the death of the king. Francis II. reiterated three times his injunctions on the subject. Charles IX. returned to the charge with no more success, so deeply had the spirit of rebellion and repugnance to all that was essentially Catholic, infested the haughty magistracy. Finall}^ on the 15th of September, 1561, the Col- loquy of Poissy to which Parliauient, taking refuge in * Letters Patent of the 12th of February, 25th of April, and the gth of October, 1550. f Letters Patent of the 4th and i8th of March, 1561. France. 123 subterfuge, had referred the case, solemnly received the Jesuits into France, under some restrictive clauses, afterward removed by Charles IX. ^ in 1565, and by Henry III. in 1580. They certainly merited this mark of confidence by their zeal in preaching and defending the Faith. As a prelude to the long series of successful teach- ing by the Order, Maldonat, then occupying a pro- fessor's chair in the College of Clermont, at Paris, attracted thither a brilliant auditory of prelates, no- bility, and savants ; the colleges of the Society, hardly opened, were filled with pupils. " The Protestants themselves," says Ranke, " recalled their sons from distant colleges to confide them to the Jesuits." Meanwhile, Edmund Auger combated the work- iiigs of the Calvinists in the South. At Valencia, he fell into the hands of the Baron of Adrets, and from the gallows, even, preached with such force and eloquence as to move his executioners to spare his life. No sooner is he released, than he hastens to Lyons, where a contagious malady was raging, which in a short time carried oft' sixty thousand persons ; here he min- isters to the needs of the dying and the poor, restore? confidence, and saves the city, which with one accord follows him to the feet of Mary. In all Lyons, Calvin could not then have found a single partisan. To this zeal and devotion the heretics could only 124 '^^^^ Jesuits. oppose violence and calumny, but they were sustained by the University of Paris, which had taken alarm at such formidable opposition. The conflict was begun. The University endeavored to close the schools of the Jesuits, as some centuries previous it had done in regard to the grand Religious Orders who gave to the Church and to science a Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, and a Duns Scotus. And it was necessary that the cause of the Univer- sity should be indeed compromised, and this struggle against free access to education, most glaringly un- reasonable, in order to induce Parliament, to whom the affair had been referred, to twice decide, all prej- udiced as it was, the case in favor of the Jesuits, as it did. According to the testimony of even BouUay and Cuvier, historians of the University, the low ebb which education had reached at this period was greatly to be regretted. Study within its walls was almost entirely forsaken, and what was far more disastrous, the dissolute man- ners which prevailed had the effect of disseminating among the youth of the schools, shameless ideas and impious doctrines. The Jesuit Colleges opened gratuitously to all, re- established with the taste for literature, zeal for the Faith, and practical Christianity ; and from that may be said of all these instructors, what Voltaire said of France. 125 Father Parée, that " he had the gift of making his pupils love learning and virtue." But the League was established. This grand move- ment, legitimate of itself, since its sole end was the defense of the almost universal religion of France against certain factions, brought in its train numerous and evil excesses. We can cite from a history at hand, the conduct of the Society throughout this delicate affair as a model of prudence. Its members readily admitted the principle of the League, which was only the resistance of national Catholicism to Protestant invasion, but they strove at the same time to calm the excess of passion and reconcile ail interests. Far from mingling in the struggles of poHtical parties, they remained from first to last the apostles and mediators of peace. In the provinces their influence was not so great, for the fifty large cities which adhered to the League did not con- iaiii a single house of the Jesuit Order. At Paris, one of their members, Father Pigenat, modestly played the rôle of a most disinterested devo- tion, which had not even the encouragement of possi- ble success. His efforts, as may be supposed, were lost sight of in the tempestuous tumult and the fury of the " Seize," which he had devoted himself to moderating as far as lay in his power, rose to such a height that, though he succeeded in calming it more than once, it was at the risk of his liberty, and even of his life. 126 The Jesuits. Other members of the Society accepted a more hopeful mission, and entered into parley with the Sovereign Pontiff for the promotion of peace. At the height of excitement in Paris, a few of the priests of the Order, carried away by their zeal, began to break through the reserve which the spirit of their Institute enforced ; but these were speedily recalled by the energetic measures of the General of the Society, Claude Aquaviva. " State to the King," he writes to the Provincial of France, " how strongly our Consti- tutions prohibit our mingling in temporal aifairs," Moreover, he ventured to make to Sixtus V., so manifestly partial to the League, the firmest remon- strances on the subject of the necessary neutrality of the Order. The conversion of Henry IV. to Catholicism, how- ever, rendered the further existence of the League su- perfluous. Bellarmine, who was then at Paris, being interrogated on the legitimacy of the approaching surrender of the Capital to the King, answered (contrary to the advice of the University) that " it was legitimate to ground arms, and henceforth cease a struggle without an ob- ject." Meantime, at Rome the Jesuits devoted themselves to bringing about a reconciliation between the King of France and the Church, and it is a remarkable fact that the most active and zealous of these negotiators France, 127 was an Italian, Father Possevin ; a Spaniard, Cardinal Tolet; and two Frenchmen, unjustly banished by decree of Parliament, Fathers Commolet and Gueret. The Béarnais proved himself no ingrate. " My cousin," writes Henry IV. to Cardinal Tolet, " I know that, after God and our Holy Father, I owe to the integrity of your conscience the Absolution (that is to say, the removal of the ban of excommunication) that it has pleased His Holiness to grant me." This moderation on the part of the Jesuits, joined to their zeal for the preservation of the Faith, was not of a nature to disarm the hate which already existed against them. Their enemies had been hopeful of a line of conduct more favorable to their plans ; disappoint- ment was unanimous in Parliament and in the Uni- versity. By degrees, the confidence testified in their regard by the Holy See, the Episcopacy, and the Catholic people, joined to the royal favor of which Henry began to lavish many proofs, served to arouse the envy of their numerous enemies. The same fanatics whose hands had armed Poltrot, the murderer of the Duke of Guise, and Clement, the assassin of Henry III., en- deavored to involve the Jesuits in the sentence of Chastel. It was no easy task to prove them guilty, supported, as they were, by public esteem, and possessing the avowed sympathy of the king. But public estimation 128 The Jesuits, is wavering, and the king was otherwise much en- grossed. Besides, the times afford examples of parlia- mentary intrigue which confound reason itself. John Chastel had followed the course of the Uni- versity for ten years ; he was, in fact, studying law there, under Marcellius, at the time when he attempted the life of Henry IV. But he had formerly attended the College of Clermont, for some months, in the quality of external pupil. This paltry detail was made the pretext for instituting an examination ; but how to follow it up ? Ah ! Parliament was equal to the occa- sion. It sought diligently for some other trifle on which to build ; but finding nothing, and not being, in truth, exacting in this regard, it contented itself with these months of the criminal's attendance as external pupil at the Jesuits' College. " The Huguenots and Free- thinkers," says the historian Dupleix, " launch a thou- sand execrations, curses, and imprecations against the Jesuits, but neither proof nor presumption could be extorted from the assassin by the violence of the torture." The " Etoile," the enemy of the Jesuits, Sully like- wise, de Thou, Mathieu, Cayet, the " Memoirs of the League," all chroniclers, are unanimous in admitting that " Chastel exonerated the Jesuits, and maintained with his last breath that they had been unjustly sus- pected." But to what purpose 1 There was the fact of his France. 1 29 attendance at the college. During those months the Jesuits had taught him, besides the art of assassination, the art of remaining silent. Moreover, why so much ceremony about the affair ? " If not thee, then it is thy brother." It was imperative that the Jesuits be proved guilty, and the Parliament of Paris, for the first time, covered itself with dishonor, and created a precedent for the stupendous infamy of the eighteenth century. Parhament, against all appearances, and in defiance even of good sense, condemned them. This great body, heretofore so worthy in many respects, but now swayed by the dictates of blind passion, did not hesitate at that most odious of crimes, judicial assas- sination. A harmless old man who, perhaps, had never seen Chastel — Father Guignard — lived a most retired life in the library of the college. He was arrested, con- demned, and hanged in the Place de Grève, guilty of the sole crime " d'etre venue à mauvaise heure,^^ says the "Etoile." Why the summary judgment and cruel sentence? Because, replies the Chancellor of France, Hurault de Chiverny, in his State Memoirs, " the enemies of the Jesuits found, or perhaps pretended to find, in the chamber of Guignard, certain writings hostile to the late king, Henry III." *' Now, the Judges who condemned him/' adds the 9 130 TJie J estât s. " Etoile," " were for the most part those who had co- incided in the judgment of arrest given against the late king in 1589 (five years previous), which is a most remarkable fact." Remarkable in truth, and even impossible, if it were not a question of the condemnation of a Jesuit. We have preferred to cite, in this instance, the wri- ters and chronicles hostile to the Jesuits, and this for a very natural reason ; there is not an honest writer's pen which has allowed to pass, without execration, this act of repulsive iniquity. But the works of " modern liberalism " afford a curious study of the same facts. I have under my eyes a so-called popular work, one which in certain circles has gained great notoriety, '"The History of Paris," by Dulaure, and I am bowed down with admiration. He is not wicked at heart, good Uncle Dulaure is not ; he would have been better pleased if they had not hanged Father Guignard, and especially if they had not burnt his body and scattered the ashes to the winds, which appears to him an excess. He slightly bemoans this circumstance, even while insult ing the victim through force of habit, and gently cen- sures Parliament. But Ke detests the Jesuits so cordially and frankly. In view of the chaplet of naive calumnies which he weaves against the Jesuits apropos of the hideous mur- der of a Jesuit, it is plainly seen that his principal grudge against Parliament has its origin in the regret France. 1 3 1 which he experiences at beholding so many of the Jesuits aUve. The paragraph in the decree which condemns all Jesuits as " corrupters of youth and disturbers of the public peace, to depart within three days' time from Paris," elicits from him chuckles of satisfaction, and he devotes, I know not how many 8vo pages to the description of the grotesque pillar, *' the monument raised to the shame of the Jesuits," but which would more likely have perpetuated the eternal ignominy of Parliament if Henry IV., through charity for his friends, both speakers and judges, had not demolished and swept it away. While ■ censuring slightly the judicial assassins of Father Guignard, who, after all, was but one Jesuit, the w^orthy Dulaure applauds the exile of five hundred Jesuits, "w^ho, perhaps, had not yet attempted the life of Henry IV., but who would eventually poignard him as they had Henry III." For Ravillac shall be a Jesuit, as Jacques Clement was a Jesuit, and all the assassins of kings, from Brutus to Damiens, have been Jesuits. And this it is which forms the essence of the dull, weary refrain set to the false air of a sorry composition of Beranger's. But in the time of good Uncle Dulaure, people were only liberal and enlightened \ the lyric of the gutter was not in vogue. Each took his meai of 132 The Jesuits. Jesuit quietly, like a well-brought-up burgher, and when he had finished Father Guignard, remarked with the fine irony of the unbelievers of Yvetot : *' " If Henry IV. had not cajoled the Jesuits, there stood ready ten thousand of them enumerated, who would have poign- arded him, each in turn. It is a well-known fact." Ah ! Hail to the light ! And believe me when I declare, that I have not the faintest pretension to hin- der men equally "enlightened" from taking the "Al- manachs" of good Uncle Dulaure. Dulaure's account was correct ; not content with having shed the blood of an innocent priest, the Par- liament expelled the Jesuits from Paris, ''not without much astonishment and the regret of many ! These upright magistrates then loyally appropriated the goods of the banished." t The fine and ample library of the Order was exposed to pillage. The books were judged fairly confiscated by the gentlemen of th« king's council, who first accommodated themselves according to their conclusions. J "This outrage of justice committed by those who were its representatives was not only," says Protestant Sismondi, " an iniquitous scandal ; it was an act of extraordinarily political baseness." * A small French town whose inhabitants are famed for their stupidity. f Chivcring, '• Memoirs of State," p. 241. % L'Etoile. France. 133 It will be difficult to make mankind believe, even by employing the eloquence of such historians as Du- laure, that Henry IV. was a coward ; but it is univer- sally admitted that he had a soul too lofty to stoop to connivance at such infamy.* He was not slow in making reparation, as far as lay in his power, for this bloody injustice, and notwith- standing all the opposition of Parliament, recalled the Jesuits with éclat. In the month of September, 1603, the king signed at Rouen a Decree which legally re-established the Order within the jurisdiction of several Parliaments ; and as the members of that of Paris, with the Presi- dent, Achille de Harlay, at the head, thought good to present to the king their " most humble remon- strances" on this subject, the king replied in those green and living words which certainly breathe no spirit of poltroonery, " I am very thankful to you for the care that you have of my person and of my kmgdom ; I have all your conceptions in mine, but you have not all mine in yours. You believe your- selves most skillful in the managing of State affairs, * In 1762 they invented, in the exigencies of the cause, an Edict of Henry IV., of the 7th of January, 1595, which was recently quoted to the Chamber of Deputies and the Court. Proofs exist in abundance which show that this pretended Decree never existed. (See, among others, Documents con- cerning the Society of Jesus, 1827, Volume ist.) 134 The Jesuits. but very often you know no more of them than do 1 of the chicanery of the law. I would, then, that you should know (relative to the Colloquy of Poissy), that if all these had done as well as one or two Jesuits who chanced to be present, very fortunately, things would have gone better for the Catholics. Since that time we recognize, not their ambition, but their capacity, and I am astonished on what grounds you found your opinion of the ambition of persons who refuse dignities and prelacies when offered them ; who make a vow to God never to accept them, and who pretend to noth- ing in this world only to serve, without recompense, all those who will accept their service. . If the word Jesuit displeases you, why do you not find fault with those who call themselves Religious of the Trinity? .... For my part, I would love rather to be called Jesuit than Jacobin or Augustin. If they have only been tolerated in France up to this time, God has re- served for me the glory, which I hold as a great grace, to estabHsh them there ; if their existence there has only been provisionary, it shall henceforth be by edict and decree ; the will of my predecessors retained them there ; my will shall establish them there. "The University has openly opi)Osed them, for the reason that they are more successful in teaching, as is shown by the number of scholars in their colleges, or because they are not incorporated with the Uni- versity. France. 135 *' You say that in your Parliament the most learned have not studied with them ; if the oldest be the most learned, this is true, for they must have studied before the Jesuits were known in France ; but I am certain that all the other Parliaments do not speak thus, nor even all of your own ; and, if they learn not better in their colleges than elsewhere, whence comes it that through their reputation your University is deserted by those who, notwithstanding all your decrees, seek them at Douay, at Pont (at Mousson), and beyond the kingdom ? " To term the Society factious, because it took part .with the League, has been the insult of the times. They believed themselves right when they were mis- taken, like several others ;* but I believe that they lose less malice than the others, and hold that the same conscientiousness, joined to the favors I have done them, binds them as affectionately, and even more so, to me than to the League. " They attract, you say, the youths who possess good parts, and choose the best among them ; for this I esteem them. Do not we make choice of the best soldiers for the war ? And if interest were unknown among you, would you receive any who was not worthy of your company, or to serve in your Parliament ? If * One can hardly expect Henry IV. to ;ipprove of the League. 136 TJie Jesuits. they furnish you with ignorant preceptors or preachers, you will despise them ; they are possessed of fine minds, and you find fault with them. As for the wealth which you say they possess, it is a calumny ; in all France they have not more than twelve or fifteen thousand crowns revenue altogether. The vow which they make to the Pope is not binding in all things. *' They are bound to obey the Popes only when the Pontiffs wish to employ them to convert the infidels, and, in fact, it is through them that God has converted the Indies, You say that they enter as they best can, so also do others and myself enter into my kingdom as best I could ; but it must be acknowledged that their patience is grand, and commands my admiration, for with patience and holy living they accomplish all things. And I esteem them none the less for being, as you say, great observers of their Institute ; this is what sustains them. Touching their opinions of the Pope, I know that they respect him highly, as I also do. As for the doctrine of emancipating the ecclesiastics from my authority, and teaching the murder of kings, it is necessary to see on their side what they say, and inform ourselves if it is true that they teach their youth this. One circumstance makes me believe that this is not true. During the thirty years that they have taught the youth of France, one hundred thousand scholars of all conditions have come from colleges, having lived among them as of them, and there can not be France. 137 found a single one of this great number to affirm hav> ing heard such language, nor anything akin to it, to give rise to these reproaches. "As to Barrière, so far from a Jesuit having con- fessed him, as you affirm, I was warned by a Jesuit of his intention, and another told him he would be damn- ed if he dared to undertake it. "And as for Chastel, the torture could not wring from him any accusation against Varade, or any Jesuit what- ever ; if otherwise, why did your spare them ? For the one who was executed was found guilty on another charge, that which was said to be found in his writings. But even if one Jesuit has directed the blow, must all the apostles suffer for the crime of Judas, or myself be- come answerable for all the thefts and crimes which shall be done in the future by those who shall be my soldiers ? " If a Spanish Jesuit and Cardinal, Father Tolet, as- sists me to obtain the benediction of the Holy Father when I become a Catholic, why should you disparage the French, my natural subjects ? I would know those whom I would judge, and I would impart to them what I wish ; leave me the management and di- rection of this Society ; I have managed and governed more difficult things, and less easy to conduct ; obey only my will." We have produced ^t length these words of a king so often assassinated by the Jesuits, not only in defense 138 The Jesuits, of the Jesuits who have been long since absolved of the charges in question, but also in homage to an au- gust writer who, at the distance of half a century from Bossuet, Pascal, or Labujere, expresses himself in such pure, clear, vigorous French. Never has the mask been plucked from the face of calumny with a more forcible gesture. The speech reveals at once a lofty style and a grand heart. It commanded obedience, and the Edict of Rouen, notwithstanding the manifestations of ill-will, was reg- istered in ParUament on the fourth of January, 1604. Henry did not pause here. In a thousand ways he testified his esteem, his gratitude, and his affection for the members of the Society. And it would be difficult indeed to reconcile with the idea of his alleged dread of them, the favor which he carried to the extent of establishing them in his own "Maison de la Flèche," of giving his utmost confidence to the famous and learned Father Coton, and finally, which passes the limits of all probability in regard to cowardice, of be- queathing to them by will his heart, as a last proof of that tender regard which drew from him the avowal : " I have loved you since I have known you." Louis XIII., following in the path of his father, took the entire Order *' under his protection and safeguard, as the late king had been pleased to do ; " he confirmed the right of teaching which had been granted them by France. 139 Henry IV., and recommended them to the Protestant Princes of Germany " as men of lofty, great piety, and immense prudence." In 1627 he came with Riche- lieu to lay the corner-stone of their church in the Fau- bourg St. Antoine ;* in short, the royal protection and public favor defended them so effectually against the pitiful jealousies and hatred of their opponents, that during this single year the number of their pupils in the province of Paris alone amounted to thirteen thousand one hundred and ninety-five. What think you of times of darkness, in which the desire of knowledge was so universally spread ? And what think you of these ignorant, these *' ob- scurers " taking the first rank in all branches of science, and vanquishing the leaders of the Reformation at ev- ery passage at arms, whether religious, moral, or philo- sophical ? Whose radiance will dim the light of a Bellarmin or a Tolet ? Does this epoch furnish an o ator of more winning eloquence than Canisius ? Any sounder theologian than Molina, so much and so vilely misrepresented ? Molina maintained the liberty of man under the infinite power of the Almighty. Such a generous belief as this sufficed to rouse against his doctrine those who would fain teach God, * Founded, according to the promise of St. Ignatius, in the same spot where was made by the Protestants, the first sac- rilegious attempt against the Images of the Blessed Virgin. 140 The Jesuits, as well as those false rigorists who weight at will the yoke of God, until they render it insupportable. Judas has diverse fashions of betraying his Master. Can a grander doctrine be cited than that of Suarez, of whom Eossuet said, " In him is contained the entire school " ? I have no intention of here narrating the services rendered to intelligence by the Institute of the Jesuits ; such a proceeding would take too much space ; but I can not pass over in silence the gigantic work of the Benedictine, Jean Bolland, the " Acta Sanc- torum," so popular in science under the name of " The BoUandists," and which Leibnitz termed a Chris- tian Encyclopedia. Labbe and Sirmond flourished at that period, and Petau was the oracle of learned Europe. Aquarira governed the Order. Later, D'Alembert passed a panegyric on this General, which makes one imagine that he ranks him above Ignatius himself. The Society possessed five hundred and fifty houses, and had branches in thirty-three provinces, possessing upward of twelve thousand Religious. Owing to the researches of Father d' Eckel, a great advance was made in Numismatics ; the Jesuits com- posed grammars and lexicons, of nearly one hundred languages and idioms ; among which may be enumer- ated the Basque and the Low-Breton, the Hungarian and the Turkish, the Persian, the Japanese, and the Chinese, and the greater part of the savage idioms. France, 141 Father Lanzi discovered the Etruscan language ; two other Jesuits, Ernest Hanxleden and Jean Pons, revealed to the learned world the mysteries of Sans- crit and of Telenga. Father Bouvet brought into France the forty-nine volumes in the Chinese tongue, which were the origin of the present collection of the National Library. Finally, that universal genius, Kir- cher, had furthered more than our Champollion the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics. As for the Jesuit astronomers, mathematicians, min- eralogists, naturalists, geographers, inventors, they are simply innumerable. On this subject, the "History of Mathematics," by Montuela, the "Astronomical Bibliography" of La- lande, and the " History of the Society of Jesus," by Cretineau-Joly, may be consulted. I will merely cite foy the curiosity of inventors, victims of ".SzV vos non vobis^^ the instance of Father Lana-Terzi, born in 1 63 1, who discovered Aerostation, and another Jesuit, a Portuguese missionary to Brazil, Barthélémy de Gusmao, who a century later made the first public experiment of what is called a Montgolfier, long be- fore Montgolfier lived. The same Lana invented the drill-plough, of which Tall in 1733 proclaimed himself the inventor. Not only are we indebted to the Jesuits for that proud flower, the Camellia, and the celebrated drug known as the Peruvian Bark, but also for the gem of 142 The Jesuits. our gardens, the spreading horse-chestnut. But in the contemplation of these smaller things, we must not lose sight of their great services. When royal absolutism attempted to establish itself as a dogma in France, and especially in England, the Jesuits, with Bellarmine and Suarez at their head, de- fended the right of the people, again demonstrating to the world that the grand law of obedience, insti- tuted by Ignatius, was far from excluding the idea of freedom. Certain it is that Pascal, to whom we have at length come, never turned his weapons on such men as these ; he omitted to touch, though ever so lightly, upon Suarez, Canesius, Possevin, Petau, Solet, or Bellar- mine ; nor, truth to tell, on any one ; for the perpetual fool, the idiotic and distorted manikin of a Jesuit which he fabricates, to scoff at and deride at his pleas- ure, is Nobody. If, for instance, when bringing before the world the case of the Jesuits of the seventeenth century, the name of Bourdaloue, immortal honor of the French pulpit, should be carefully eschewed, it would not dim in the least the radiance of that of Francis Regis, the radiant apostle of charity. They may be numbered by the hundredfold, these great Jesuits ; history is replete with their names. Did Pascal not know of them ? Or did he despise them ? Had Pascal, who won so easily his amusing tri- France. 143 umphs, by furnishing those inventions of insult, spiced even to indecency, and attaching to them the humble names of some obscure Religious, never heard those names which had resounded throughout Europe ? There is none so deaf as he who will not hear ; and he who employs his own hands to bandage his eyes is blind to all save a faint glimmer. There is a legend of the time of Francis Regis which relates that, entering on a certain Sunday an inn, where some gay revelers had chosen the hour of high mass for their debauch, he attempted to preach to them. They laughed at him ; a proceeding which the austere Pascal would not have approved, still less the brutal act of one of the young men, who gave the saint a blow. But what of the blows of the '' Provinciales," who have not even the wine of the inn to plead in excuse ? Regis said to him who struck him : " I thank you, my brother ; I have merited worse treatment ; but consider your soul." Note well ! Themistocles had acted almost similarly ; and it is his glory ; but this constitutes the difference : Themistocles was a practical hero, whilst the saint's action affords only a pretext for abuse. What happens ? The unhappy young men, although intoxicated, threw themselves at the saint's feet and begged pardon. 144 ^/^^ Jesuits. Behold the first step toward a good life ! Jesuits ! Troublesome ones to deal with ! In the position of Francis Regis, a hearty, honest fellow would have re- turned the blow, crying quits, and without rancor. Such is the nature of Yvetot. The God of these worthy people exacts no more. Well, a little indul- gence ! As for me, I willingly incline toward the side of in- dulgence, and singular to relate, so do the Jesuits ; but it is Pascal who will not. Ah, Pascal was no hearty, honest opponent ; no more than were the Arnaulds, his patrons, sincere comrades of such. Indulgence ! The Jansenists ! Why, the very words shriek their protest against being used together ! Sooner would the Jansenists enlarge hell ! Assuredly, no one can accuse them of offering the other cheek for a blow ; they would resent the assault with the club, and their indignation against the Jesuits took root in the indulgence of the Jesuits. Francis Regis, that angel of purity, was, to them, a being of " lax morals " and " weak devotion," he who fell dead under his cross ! God defend me from denouncing, or even judg- ing, the conscience of Pascal, of whose writings cer- tain pages learnt by heart in my youthful days are still embalmed in memory. He had the great style of a gieat mind, and than many passages of his I know uothing more beautiful. France. 145 In the "Provinciales" even, so unworthy of his genius, there are admirable things, but what poison mingles with the success ! and to what depths can the vainglory of success debase a proud soul ! The first intoxication of Pascal was induced by the astonishment of the Arnaulds, who were amazed at nothing ; and by their admiration of him, they who admired nobody, seeming unimpressible. The Arnaulds had essayed a pamphlet ; they were celebrated for the unvarying dullness which was dis- tilled from their pens. This particular one had been the work of several Arnaulds, and they had finally brought forth some- thing so awfully dull, as to terrify themselves and Pascal also. Pascal carried the manuscript to his study ; he corrected it, or rather wrote something new. The Arnaulds asked to see it ; Pascal read, and the Arnaulds, brought face to face with whatever he had retained of their ideas, so brilliantly and trench- antly expressed, henceforth publicly bowed down be- fore him. The astonishment of the Arnaulds at finding the solitary Pascal more efficient than the combined Ar- laulds, was loudly expressed. And nothing is so flattering as the tribute of aston- ishment, extorted from the innocent pride of one's masters. 10 146 The Jesuits. Pascal had accepted the Arnaulds as his masters, and I deem it only fair to state here that all the Ar- naulds were not called by that name. Their name was legion ; they were a convent of close-cropped Calvinistic fathers ; they were a clan, a camp ; they were Port-Royal. Pascal was caught at once by this astonishment, which became a veritable family ovation. The " Provinciales " sprang into existence ; that Protestantism, convoked by Jansenius, to empoi- son Faith by disturbing its dogmas ; morality, in de- nying free-will to man ; and the practice of religion, by substituting in place of charity a pharisaical rigor, had gained its apostle, greater far than it had dared to hope for ! It must be acknowledged that in all things aston- ishment is the half of success. The success of the "Provinciales" was enormous, because it amazed the public more than the Arnauld faction had done. Did it satisfy Pascal ? Did he who had allowed to ascend from his heart those transports of ardent love, find in the same heart an equal treasure of wicked and sluggish hate ? It is a curious question. And Pascal, the great Pascal, the gloomy, to sud- denly become facetious and amusing ! The grave Pascal cutting capers in the dress of a pamphleteer ! Ah ! it was rich ; and, as was just, France, 147 won for him more applause from his enemies than from his friends. Did he need that, however ? And would not some meaner or greater among the Arnaulds have sufficed to serve up Aristides to the appetites of the Athenians ? I have said that Jansenism was only Calvinism disguised ; I add, badly disguised ; the same error was there with increased falsehood. The Abbé of Saint- Cyran said indignantly to Saint Vincent de Paul, in speaking of Calvin, ^^ Bene se^isit, male Ioc7itus est :" '' He thought well; he spoke badly." The Arnauld party, who had assumed the rôle of traducing Calvin in a pseudo-orthodox language, had long been Calvinistic, and remained at heart Calvin- istic ; Port-Royal, while disguising its own colors, accused the Jesuits of hypocrisy. Such is the per- petual tactic of falsehood. This explains the struggle entered into by the So- ciety of Jesus and the new sect. The Jesuits com- bated with energy ; it was a question of vital interest, both for the Church and for France. Menaced with the anathema of the Holy See, distrusted by those in power, yet openly embraced or secretly favored by [many members of the Parliament and University, the gansenist heresy, powerless to defend its own too glar, ing faults, found means, thanks to the pen of Pascal, to attribute imaginary ones to the Jesuits. The " Pro- vinciales" was a mere diversion, rendered potent by 148 The Jesuits. the personality of its author. Why did not the Jesuits respond in the same tone ? In the first place, they had no Pascal. But even had they possessed a Pascal, they would have blunted the too sharp edge of his pen. I smile at the thought of all the smiles which will greet my assertion. Not only would the Jesuits have refused to furnish their Pascal with the abundance of false or mutilated texts which adorn the " Provin- ciales," but also would have said to him," Pardon," like St. Francis Regis, " remember the words of I-oy- ola, * strike not ! ' " The advocate of the Society of Jesus is prevented from striking, for it bears the name of Him who said to his apostles: " Odio évites omni- bus propter nofuen nieiimr * " We are the sons of Jesus, and as far as man can accomplish so grand a duty, we will pay in love all the outrages of hate." Louis XIV. ! Great monarch ; still greater person- ality, who filled a mighty age 1 Each of the elements which composed this glory is in itself grand, and sufficient to illuminate an age ; with those blocks, precious in the material, gigantic in the mass, a Pantheon was constructed, of regular and square proportions, in exact correspondence to those of the monarch, illuminated by the light of the mon- * " You shall be hated because of my name." France. ' 149 arch, made for the monarch, by the monarch, like unto the monarch ; of a kind which makes one ask, at view of the monument, most imposing in its symmetry, but drawn in such rigorous Hues, though tame, as to fatigue the eye, how the royal architect contrived to smooth away so many grand projections ? With nothing, at the moment when death surprised him, Henry the Great had reared a mountain ; with mountains, Louis the Great constructed a fair and reg- ular colonnade on level earth. He found that high enough, and, alas ! mounted no higher. From the ashes of Henry IV. arose a power which bore the name of Richelieu. On the scarcely closed sepulchre of Louis XIV., his testament was destroyed. Bossuet, Corneille, Bourdaloue, Racine, Conde, and Turenne, gave place to the atheistical " convives " of Phillipe de Orleans, the " sweet heart," and amiable character of his admirers, who renders between two '■^ peiis-soiipersl' the first oracles of the religion of Voltaire. I will say little of the reign of Louis XIV. Perhaps I do not appreciate, at its just value, the grand rôle which the Jesuits played therein. My opinion is faulty, no doubt, when I assert that here is not the glory which I love. I merely say of this reign, that it was not reserved for our times to invent violent opposition to the Holy See. Do not doubt for a moment, that at the time of which 150 The Jesuits. I write, the germ of the Revolution was already in the bosom of absolutism. He who is accused of having one day said, " 1 am the State ! " if he said it on the day when he uttered it, invoked the thunderbolt. The Jesuits had the perilous honor of furnishing a confessor to Louis XIV. ; it must have been but a thankless office. One can picture only embarrassment of the guardians of this conscience, at once so vast and so narrow, which thought to ennoble sin by clothing it in the robes of etiquette, and dignify scandal by lend- ing it the allurements of majesty. It is true that the monarch showed a really great spirit in misfortune, and it was then that the influence of these holy men made itself felt. He justly stands out glorious in history for having possessed, by the bounty of Providence, a soul suffi- cient to inspire a throng of geniuses ; but I am one of those who can not pardon his having ceremoniously, solemnly, almost religiously, steeped in the solvent of illegitimacy the robust wood of the legitimate throne, making it decay, piece by piece, until less than a cen- tury after it should fall under the chaste holiness of Louis XVI. Still less will I linger at the Regency, the immediate chastisement of the faults of Louis XIV. As for Louis XV., whose death was as ignoble as the lives of his ancestors had been glorious, we must pause, perforce, at his reign, which witnesses the France. 1 5 1 league of kings, ministers, parliaments, courtesans, and philosophers, definitely inaugurate the siege against the Society of Jesus, the advance work of the fortifications of the Church, and carry it in the fury of a general assault. This war, one may say, originated with the birth of the Order. All revolt, sensualism, doubt, incredulity, heresy especially, patent or disguised, held in abhorrence these unparalleled defenders of orthodox truth, obedi- ence and pure spirituality. They marred the play of the gloomy comedians of parliamentarianism even more effectually than they opposed the effort of the open rebels of the pretended philosophy, and, unquestionably, the hate of the avowed Protestants against them was far less enven- omed than the sullen rage smoldering in the hypo- critical hearts of the perpetually masked offspring of Jansenius ; those even whom Molière has held up to view in '' Tartufe." Now, these false apostles, whose crime and whose misfortune was, to set at defiance, like Judas, the Infinite Good, and to cry out scandal, when they saw the entire vase of precious ointment poured over the feet of Jesus, stood thick about the throne. Through- out the oratories of the Court, of Parliament, and even among the clergy — for Cardinal de Noailles had his numerous adherents — mi2:ht be found the crucifixes 152 The JesuHs. bearing our Lord represented with upraised instead of extended arms, thus giving semblance to the blasphe- mous calumny attributed to Saint Augustine, by the Abbé of Saint Cyran, namely, that "Jesus did not die for all, but for a small number." Jesus ! Love ! immense, absolute charity ! narrow- ing Thy benevolence, and limiting Thy mercy ! The Son of the Almighty God, Father of Truth, of unalloyed justice, making a choice and diminishing the divine breadth of His embrace, to clasp within it the least worthy hearts ! Madness of Bourgeois pride ! Insanity of Oligarchical pretensions ! For it is impossible to avoid the cursory remark that the most determined party, in point of aristocracy, is precisely that which engenders every revolution, the party of the ''Arnaulds " ;* the terrible brood of " doc- trinaires " and the men of the ^^ piste milieu,'' enemy to all above it, and to all beneath it ; demolishing with one hand, oppressing with -the other, and periodically losing its self-control, so far as to give free rein to the evil passions of the lower against the upper classes ; a nice speculation by which it has existed during the last century and a half, but of which the country is dying. The so-called authority of the court lowered its standard, and gradually fell into contempt. * Leaders of the Jansenist party in France. France. 153 The Regency had given to the world a fantastic poem on the faults of Louis XIV., couched in most obscene language. From that tainted spot, the Palais- Royal, fountain-head of the sparkling wit, from whence escaped ever an echo of the atheistical refrain, a wind of contagion swept over Europe, and the child- hood of Louis XV. had been passed in this pestilential atmosphere. France took the lead in this course of royal debasement, and all the other courts followed their leader, marching and stumbling in the same rut. One single sovereign remained an exception — Maria Theresa ; as her interests were not those of France, she could regard with contented eye the descendant of the great enemy of the House of Austria, the heir of Henry IV., swept along by the current, a waif on the gulf where menaced unknown dangers. When the Due de Choiseul assumed the direction of State affairs, it was said, for the first time since the foundation of our Monarchy, that a French Minister received the pension of the stranger, and those who said it, added, that the pension was paid by Austria. However, Prussia paid some substantial pensions too, and the proverb, " to work for the King of Prussia," had its birth in those times when the Duke, a Peer and Marshal of France, built himself a dwelling with money which caused the house to retain the name of the " Pavilion of Hanover." But that the level of patriotic pride could still fall 154 TJie Jesuits. lower, was proven, when in our midst, at Paris, a man, an illustrious writer, the idol of the people, addressed publicly, in time of war, flatteries to the Prussian, and lost nothing of his popularity ; but the contrary. It was the fashion among the poets to draw our Generals on the hurdle, while twining, though not gratis to be sure, garlands for the victor of Rosbach. And were these poets Jesuits ? Even Rome herself felt for a time the pall which lowered, over the world at this period. And what wonder ! Throughout the ages a prophetic spirit has hovered about the Chair of Saint Peter, and the presentiment of that convulsion which was to agitate the world, certainly afflicted in advance the saddened hearts of the Sovereign Pontiffs. With the clear eye of faith they saw that which had been the pride of the great European fauiily especially tottering to its fall, and the prostrate Church sorrow- fully regarded the flood of ignominy which rose high about the thrones before overwhelming them. One day Madame de Pompadour, that female Me- ceanas of the philosophy which threw men into the Bastile for a witticism, and left them there ruthlessly to scratch its stones with their nails, until her death, and even after it ; she who aided M. de Choiseul to betray Montcalm in Canada, and to persecute Dupleix in India, previous to killing La Bourdonnais by grief, and Lally-Tolendai by the axe; but a most chairaing France. 155 woman, except for these little instances, ot'ierwise, who protected the P>ee-thinkers, and permitted some madrigals on the part of Voltaire, in moments of good humor — one day conceived the startling idea of receiv- ing the Blessed Sacrament at Easter. Why? None can answer with certainty. Some pretend that this fancy originated with the king, who still retained at the depths of his sad life a leaven of " superstition." Certain it is, however, that Madame de Pompa- dour, pardoning God, resolved to receive him once more, but without ceremony, in nonchalant fashion. As for purifying her conscience (on this subject, M. de Richelieu having in mind, no doubt, the Augean stables, asks, " But, how ? Hercules is dead,") there was no question ; no other way of doing it save that of abandoning her charge, who was worth in emolu- ments the trade of M. de Choiseul. She informed herself of the ways and means to be taken in order to arrive at the conclusion of " the af- fair," which, according to her, would redound to the advantage of religion. Women of this sort are ever surrounded by the most vile category of flatterers, each one of whom affirms that the obsequiousness is on her side, since she can do without God, and that God will only be too happy to enter into the good graces of a person of such importance. " The priests," say they, " exact so-and-so from a new-comer ; but they under- 156 The Jesuits. stand very well that Madame de Pompadour, the cousin of Maria Theresa of Austria, and the patron of M. de Choiseul^ can not be treated as a simple princess of the blood. State your conditions — they are ac- cepted in advance." And note how much nearer to the grand and mer- ciful truth was the unbridled flattery of these cour- tiers than even she supposed. The crucifix widely extends its arms. If Antoinette, wife of Detiolles, Marquise de Pompadour, Princess de Neufchâtel, a creature, shameful even amongst the most shameless of this ignoble epoch, had discovered only one atom of repentance within her heart, the arms of this im- mense Love would have closed to gather it to Itself, and cherish her repentance. And thus, as certainly as gospel, would have been verified the burlesque affir- mations of the court-parrots : '* God was happy, only too happy," to re-enter into the good graces of this sinner. And there was no priest in the world to exact -of her, living poison and crying scandal as she was, any more than would have been required of any humble woman of the wayside. The path of Mary Magdalen lay before her. But no heart was in the body of this courtesan, aging in years, and already a veteran in infamy. Mary Magdalen had loved much ; Madame de Pompadour had haggled much, hated much, and defiled much. France, 157 She was of the Jewish race, and it was a bargain which she proposed to Heaven. She knew this so well that she hesitated. They say, that at this juncture M. le Duc de Choiseul, the states- man-philosopher, who ruined our colonies, who fam- ished our soldiers in campaign, and reduced our prov- inces to despair, by paying the monstrous " appropri- ations" of the "favorite"; this the man, worthy of a profound pity, as the apparent cause of all the dis- asters of France ; he who had the supreme misfortune, as the minister of kings, to be praised by the assassins of kings, desired to implant the seed of an undying hatred in the base mind of this fallen woman. He had need of it. He pronounced in the ear of Madame de Pom- padour the word : " Society of Jesus." The famous commonplace of the Jansenist calumny — the "lax morality" of the Jesuits — was naturally discussed. Those whom Pascal had accused of "weak devotion," would smooth all difficulties, and arrange everything in the furtherance of their own interests. The fact is, that Madame de Pompadour addressed herself to the Jesuits to demand their complicity in a sacrilegious rite. Many still affirm that the Jesuits repulsed her over^ ture with violent indignation. They are mistaken ; the indignation of the Fathers was mute, because their conscience was clear. 158 The Jesuits. It appears from all documents, that Madame de Pompadour was received with the commiseration due to her ignorance and to her moral misery. The same was said to her that is said to all who seek the tribunal of penance. If she persisted and carried into effect a sacrilegious negotiation, as seems to be proven by the insensate appeal which she carried even to the feet of the Holy Father, it is proved equally by this appeal that she was put off with all the firmness, full of gentleness, that would have been employed in any similar case, toward no matter what sinner, who lacked the most simple religious education, so far as to claim a place at the Festival of the Spouse, without having re- ceived the nuptial robe. They could do no less, they could do more. But as full of clemency as appeared the refusal, Madame la Marquise could not pardon it, and the ruin of the Jesuits Avas sworn. History teems with like instances of great catastro- phies, brought about by the most contemptible causes. We have already spoken of the establishments or " reductions," those small model repubHcs, founded ia the two Americas by the Fathers, and which, accord- ing to the unanimous testimony of Protestant writers^ whether philosophers or otherwise, restored the golden age to these countries so remote from Europe. Fénélon had only to paint their morning in order to France. 159 give a picture of Salentum, and later, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, after Jean Jacques, took from thence the principal traits of his charming "Studies of Nature." The " Reductions " of Paraguay and Uruguay, which Pombal afterward destroyed, were especially celebrated ; but besides these, there were colonies of the Antilles. Certainly none would have believed that this work of civilization, so universally vaunted and appreciated, should contain for the Jesuits the germ of disease and death. So it proved, however. The repulse of Madame de Pompadour was one of those occasions that can not be suffered to pass, and in order to profit by it, the Minister determined to seize the first pretext which should pre- sent itself. Let us take the account of the Protestant historian Sismondi : " The establishment of the missions where .the con- verted Indians worked," says the Genevese writer, " to contribute toward a common fund, administered by the Fathers, had induced these Religious to take upon themselves a most weighty aduiinistration ; in economics, it was their charge to support and to clothe an entire people.* * The intervention of the Jesuits was especially needed to protect the credulity and ignorance of the native Indians against the cupidity of the European traffickers. — Ad. Archier, "The Order of Jesus," p. 257. i6o TJie Jesuits. " Father de Lavalette, a Frenchman, treasurer of the mission of Martinique, was intrusted with vast mercantile interests ; but several of his vessels were captured by the English in 1775, before any declara- tion of war, to the astonishment of the entire merchant service of France." Such was the point of dispute calmly exposed by a historian, who can not be taxed with partiality in favor of the Order. Later, it is true, the case became more aggravated. The action of the English Government was, in fact, an excess, which had its origin in the contempt which was felt for the Government of France under the administration of Choiseul. The foot of the stranger weighed on our neck, and England thus repaid the concessions of our favoring Minister. The responsibility of the misfortune which over- whelmed the merchant service of France in general, and the fleet of Martinique in particular, may be laid at the door of the Administration, which, far from com- ing to the aid of the innumerable victims of its unskill- fulness, treated them with the utmost rigor. Father de Lavalette,* plundered of the enormous * He was warmly defended by colonial authority. He was descended from the elder brother of Jean de la Valette, Grand Master of Rhodes. France, i6i wealth of which he had been only the administrator, committed the unpardonable fault of disobeying the " Constitutions." He speculated in order to fill the void in the common fund, and his speculations proved unfortunate. His creditors closed upon him, and began a suit against the Order. Before judging the case by which the partial Parliament, utterly disregarding facts when acting against the Society, searched for and found a pretext for flattering at once the recent fury of the favorite, and the inveterate hatred of the Minister, we will quit Paris, and pass the frontier of Portugal, where Pom- bal, the " Great Marquis," inaugurated against the Order the first and decisive battle which produced so disastrous an influence upon the situation of the Insti- tute, both in France and throughout the entire world. We are happy to be able, in the chronological order of events, to give precedence to the royal tiger over the wolves and foxes of the pack, which are about to enjoy a feast of so many saints and martyrs. II V. POMBAL. ** What is most strange," said Voltaire, '^ in their disaster (the disaster of the Jesuits) is, that they were proscribed in Portugal for having degenerated from the requirements of their Institute, and in France for having conformed to it too closely." Strange is used here in the sense of curious, and amusing; for, in fact, all philosophical Europe had been considerably amused by this whole performance, and been in no way sparing of scorn, as expressed by absurd fancies and humorous sallies, toward the execu- tioners who spilt so much blood ; and sarcasm toward the imprudent demolishers who threw down so grand an edifice, the bulwark of royalty for so many cen- turies. Delighted as it was at heart, the *' Encyclopédie " could not do less than find fault. In it was contained the journalism of the time. Some slight pity was not unbecoming; just a suggestion of. justice as a set-off to the whole against those self-constituted champions who slash away at random, in all causes ; that gives to its garrulity 'an air of impartiality, and besides, it (162) Pombal. 163 is sweet and easy, as well as agreeable, to moiirii for a murdered enemy. The crocodiles weep. In one of the principal squares of Lisbon stands the statue of the king, Joseph Emmanuel, son of John V. At the foot of this statue one may see that of his Min- ister, Don Sebastian de Carvalho y Melho, Count d'Oeyras, Marquis de Pombal, whom those of the liberal school compare to Cardinal Richelieu. No international law prohibits pleasantries of this nature. We must not judge a country by the number of square miles which its surface covers, and Portugal, an insignificant nation, if considered in point of extent and population, is historically great. It possesses in its annals the history of more dis- tinguished men than it has public places to fill with their statues in the whole of its illustrious capital of Lisbon; kings, navigators, soldiers, and poets; Cam- oens, Albuquerque, Gama, Cabrai, Henry, John, and Pedro ; the empire of Brazil is its work, stamped as itself with the royal crest of Bragança. Its merchants were fortunate, daring, and powerful ; its fleets cov- ered the seas ; its colonies dotted the earth ; its no- bility was as ancient and haughty as any in Europe ; and if its ancient influence has considerably deterio- rated, it is because Protestant zeal never allows a Cath- olic people to arrogate to themselves power, and on account of English disinterestedness, always on the watch to repeat the experience of Ireland. 164 Tlic Jesuits. . Many rich Portuguese pickings have found their way into the yawning pockets of its generous friend, England. Certain protections cost not too dear, and it is the popular opinion that Portugal will have diffi- culty in ever recovering entirely from the effects of the pompous, but bloody strategy tliat was played on her ground at her expense, to gain Arthur Wellesley a bouquet of titles and a garland of pensions, a pocket full of English glory, and a re-christening from which he emerged " His Grace, my Lord Duke of Wellington." Without railing at or blaming those who draw a parallel between the Marquis of Pombal and Cardinal Richelieu — for even the errors of patriotism are touch- ing and command respect — I can not forbear express- ing my astonishment that the Portuguese should have chosen to erect a statue on the beautiful banks of the Tasus, to the Minister who made so notorious an eftbrt to betray his country to the point of hiding the noble brows of the sons of "Avez" under the furred bonnet of Calvin, along with that of the king who suf- fered the attempt. Were not the Portuguese Anglicized enough with- out that ? It is hardly worth while censuring Joseph of Bra- gança in this affair, for, truth to tell, he hardly thought except by the brain of his Minister ; but it is certain Pombal entertained this project; that he had even Pombal. 165 begun to put it into execution, ana ihat he was only deterred from its completion by the firm, obstinate resistance of the Portuguese themselves, manifested without outward sign, but mutely protesting their un- alterable resolution of not deserting the Catholic Faith. Pombal served the English throughout his life, al- though playing in their regard the comedy of enmity. Never, apparently, did Portuguese oppose more strongly their invading caresses, but he had in his portfolio the famous project of marriage between the Princess of Beira and the Duke of Cumberland ; a union which would have eventually made the latter inherit the crown of Bragança. It can not be alleged that it was his devotion to the English which induced him to this step ; he was de- voted to none save himself; he courted power, and took any road which led thither. It is, however, certain that the Jesuits were natural- ly opposed to English rule in Portugal, and conse- quently to the proposed marriage.' "The Duke of Cumberland," says the Marshal of Belle-Isle,* " expected to become King of Portugal, and I have no doubt his design would have been ac- complished were it not for the opposition of the Jesuits, the confessors of the Royal family," and, he * "Political Testament," p. 108. 1 66 The Jesuits. adds, " Behold the crime which could never be par- doned them."* Already we have a motive for the hatred of Pombal against the Jesuits ; he endeavored to import Protest- antism into Portugal, and, in conscience, the Jesuits could not suffer it ; first cause. But he had other reasons for hating the Fathers. First of all, he had carried his passion of philosophical doctrines to such an excess that the select circle of Atheists who ruled the " Encyclopédie " school at Paris repudiated him more than once as being a ques- tionable ally. M. de Choiseul, who later was to follow him step by step along the road of persecution, began by ridiculing him, along with his protectress, and Madame de Gram- mont, her sister, who laughingly asked the Spanish Ambassador (Charles III., .by the way, had ordered the pamphlets of Pombal to be burnt by the hand of the executioners), "if the great Marquis of the little country always carried a Jesuit astride his nose ? " Second cause, Pombal had flattered the Jesuits in the beginning of his career ; going so far as to invest his second son with the habit of the Order ; he now wished to do away with the remembrance of this, by his zeal in their persecution. In the third place, the Jesuits were very powerful ; * Ibid. Pomhal. 167 as the Marshal of Belle-Isle relates, they were con- fessors to all the members of the Royal family ;* such men as Pombal are jealous of all power, and envy is the most essential element of hate. The testimony of both ancient and modern moral- ists goes to show that the evil-doer detests his victim ; witness, for example, the instinctive aversion which the spoKator nourishes against the despoiled is an example. Now, Pombal was the unrelenting spoliator of the Jesuits, whom he had robbed, per fas et nef as ^ of the magnificent establishments of Maragnon, of Uruguay and others, by means of bribes, skillfully used to in- crease his considerable personal influence. By this enumeration, far from complete as it is, which we have made, it will be seen that the Marquis of Pombal had numerous and solid excuses for hating the Jesuits. The first of these, in point of time, was the habit of a Jesuit put upon the shoulders of his son, in order to gain the good-will of Père Moriera, confessor to the king ; the most important was the devastation of the establishments at Uruguay, and the violent expulsion of thirty thousand Christians of Parana, in order to facilitate the work of the pretended gold mines, which. * Father José Moriera was confessor to the king ; Father Timothee to Olivia Maria, Dutchess of Bragança ; Father de Costa to Dom Pedro of Portugal. 1 68 The Jesuits, according to Pombal, the Jesuits had discovered in these regions, and which proved a mere chimera. This was still some years before the occurrence of the Lavalette trial. The Court of France testified great warmth, apropos of the unjust proceedings of the great Marquis, though later it was to inaugurate against the same Order, a less bloody, but still more senseless war. Pombal could pardon the Jesuits neither the terri- ble misery into which he had plunged the terrestrial paradise of the poor Indians, the absence of the gold mines, nor the pleasantries of Mesdames Pompadour and Grammont. At the time of entering the ministry, he was a man of fifty years of age, worn out by incessant struggling and unceasing political efforts which had not always been attended with success. He had other enemies beside the Jesuits. In early life he had incensed the nobility by outraging many of its most cherished prejudices, and above all in espousing publicly, in the face of his equals, what is known as a daughter of the blue blood {sang azur) for which in consequence he was obliged to submit to many scornful slights and much insolent treatment. He, however, took horrible revenge, and if it be on account of the torrents of blood shed by him, that his admirers compare him to Cardinal Richelieu, they are far from just in their estimate of him. Ponibal. i6g In this respect Pombal merits, without question, the place of honor ; in the scale of ferocity, he should be compared with none. He passed in France for an able Minister ; his con- duct during the earthquake at Lisbon had gained him great praise ; and indeed, save the Jesuits, whose noble devotion to suffering humanity at this period is legend- ary, none showed more skill and courage than he. M. de Choiseul, notwithstanding the witticisms which he poured forth for the king's amusement, held him in much esteem, and fondly hoped that '' the good Car- valho," as he called him, would rid the world some time or other of the meddHng Jesuit, whom all the philosophers and Jansenists " carried astride their nose." The affair of Uruguay and the hostile attitude which Pombal began to assume toward the Holy See, did not diminish this hope. Between the years 1750 and 1758, at the court of his royal master, Pombal still preserved some show of friendliness toward members of the Order, who stood in high favor- there, while at the same time he made great efforts to regain the favor of the nobility. But in vain ; the nobility hated him, and perhaps they were right ; but in despising him as a foe, they were wrong. During the night between the 3d and 4th of Sep- tember, 1758, at a time which appeared singularly free from any pohtical disturbance which could furnish the I/o ' The Jesuits, motive for such an act, an attempt was made to as- sassinate the King of Portugal, Joseph had reigned eight years, and was in the forty- third year of his age. He was no worse than the princes of his time ; his character was free from wick- edness, and he had shown in many circumstances an honorable solicitude for the public welfare. As king, he shared the weakness common to so many kings, and w^illingly allowed others to think for him ; he saw through the eyes of another, and from the first day unconsciously permitted himself to be led by his Minister, who had succeeded in inspiring him with a lurking jealousy against Dom Pedro, his brother, a young prince much beloved by the people. Pedro of Bragança was too popular in Lisbon ; the king not sufficiently so. In this regard the individual history of Pedro in Por- tugal is the eternal history of the brothers of kings — a history which has too frequently ended in a manner not calculated to increase the confidence of the elder brother. There is no better occasion than it to es^ tablish the credit of a favorite, for an atmosphere of distrust lurks about thrones. At Constantino[3le only has a certain remedy been found for this uneasiness ; the Sultans strangle their brothers, and end the sub- ject. For a long time Pombal agitated the weak mind of his- sovereign with only vague hisinuations. It was at Pomhal. \j\ first in connection with himself that Pombal pro- nounced the word assassination ; he pretended to dread personal danger ; and during the summer of 1754, we find Joseph signing a truly extraordinary- edict, " to provide for the case of the assassination of a Minister of State."* Joseph, nevertheless, had never passed for a fool — entirely. There are those who only come near it. The above-mentioned edict supposed a future con- tingency of such assassination, decreeing that it be con- sidered as high treason, and a magistrate, the Senator Gonzales Cordeiro, was charged, apropos of this folly, to seek diligently and continually for information. Do not smile, but guard yourselves well, people of Lisbon ! The number of prisons was tripled, and even then lacked room. Forty years before Paris, Lisbon had her Terror. Chosen emissaries swarmed throughout the city, eager to gain the reward promised to the inventor of the man seeking to assassinate the Minister of State ! The existing state of affairs produced grumblings o\ the part of the philosophers on the borders of the Seine, who, when the rumors of the prevaiHng excess reached Paris, accused the philosopher of the banks of the * It was said in the decree of August, 1754, that a Minis- ter of State might be assassinated by the intrigues of some one. — C RETINE AU-JOLY, Vol. I., p. I24. 172 The Jesuits. Tagiis, of improving upon the Inquisition, but Pombal turned a deaf ear to these critics. He was only in the first steps of his journey; mean- while, his enemies fell before him like so many flies. I repeat it : the Portuguese nobility did wrong to despise this man. He knew how to make a skillful use of decrees, li- bels, riots,* proscriptions, and confiscations; he was great with the pen and in diplomac}^ ; mighty with bolts and with tortures ; he had talent — enormous talent. Besides which, he possessed " liberal ideas," since he combated the Church. Liberal with the axe, liberal with the torch, liberal with falsehood ; all is liberal in this connection, even hypocrisy united to ferocity. Time went on, however, and notwithstanding the fantastic provisions of the decree of 1754, the Marquis of Pombal was not assassinated. At length, at the end of four years, the decree havmg done nearly all that was possible in the way of procuring arbitrary arrests, condemnations, banishments, and confiscations, the lynx-eyed emissaries began to relax their vigilance, and the hidalgos to breathe freely once more, when occurred the attempt of the night of September 3d. * Witness that of Oporto, raised in favor of the English, while the Minister ostensibly opposed the English irrfluence at Lisbon. PombaL 173 The king had left the hotel Tavora, and was return- ing to the palace, not in his own coach, but in that of a rich gentleman named Antonio Tejeira, when, in a cross street, two pistol shots (others said four) were fired at his Majesty by some unknown person.. . Who was the person ? Was not this Unknown the famous "someone" of the decree? The king had been' wounded in the right arm. This was nearly two years after the knife thrust of Damiens. Jesuits ! What a glorious occasion ! They have asserted against all probability, against good sense even, the knife of Damiens to be that of the Jesuits ;* they accused them of the mysterious shooting in the face of certainty itself. In regard to those men whom he had checked in their work of self-sacrifice and devotion in the New World, whom he had pillaged, outraged, and persecuted in every possible and almost impossible manner, Pom- bal felt himself so guilty, that to the depths of his heart, so full of hatred, nothing could restore security save their death. Jesuits ! He uttered this sonorous name, whose men- * Voltaire had written, refusing to compromise himself in the falsity of this accusation (letter of the 3d of March, 1763), " I have no affection for the Jesuits, but I will raise posterity in their favor, if I accuse them of a crime of which Europe and Damiens justifies them. I will not serve merely as a vile echo of the Jansenists." 174 ^^^ Jesuits. tion serves to wake, unquestionably, as many echoes of evil passions, as did even the divine name which it contains. And it grants the Jews an eternal feast of Calvary. But as he detested the great body of the Portuguese nobility nearly as much as he hated the Society of Je- sus, he resolved to make the blow strike in two places, and massacre all his enemies at "once. An impenetrable cloud envelopes these proceedings where Pombal was accuser, judge, and executioner. It certainly seemed a difficult task to implicate the Jesuits, confessors and friends of the king and of the whole royal family, in an attempt upon the life of his Majesty. What motive could persuade them to such a crime ? " Reus is est cut p7'odest delictum^^ says the pagan wisdom of the Romans. " Seek the criminal in him who profits by the crime." Pombal, a doctor of the University of Coimbra, was not ignorant of this axiom, and had he been gifted with prescience, would have seen it condemn him be- fore the tribunal of posterity. In truth, even the writers opposed to the Catholic belief, while slightly praising him, as in duty bound, through gratitude for the war of extermination which he waged against the Jes- uits, show neither warmth nor sympathy in his regard. Throughout the praise, -commanded by the "Mot d'Ordre," there is an undercurrent of repugnance, some- Pombal. 175 thing of the reserve and rekictance which M. de Choiseul, Madame de Grammont, and even the " Encyclopédie " display to clasp the bloody hand of this State butcher. He is a questionable ally, and awakens shame even within those who profited by his base work. The English alone, his pretended enemies, have cordially and openly applauded him. Does the reader suppose, then, that it is intended to designate Pombal as the mysterious " some one " in the mystery of the shooting ? Certainly not, if by this it be supposed that he wished to kill his royal master ; he would have lost too much by his death, as is proved by the sequel. If it is supposed, on the contrary, that the attempt was merely an audacious ruse, intended to excite the timorous fears of Joseph, we reply that no historical proof can be brought forward to support this theory, and that its only foundation lies in the savage duplicity which was the chief characteristic of the slayer of " The Fathers." As the pistol-shots were necessary to further his sanguinary ends, some have thought that he instigated them, inasmuch as the whole criminal prosecution, which was exclusively his work, is throughout a shameful instance of the triumph of error. But all that is known of the events of this period utterly refutes this theory, as well as a second, enter- tained for a time, which attributed the attack to a mis- 176 The Jesuits. take. According to this latter version, the king had been assailed in the carriage of Tejeira, which he occupied, by some personal enemies of Tejeira, who mistook the object of their vengeance. It was by means of this version that Pombal implicated the unfortunate Duke of Aveiro, reserved for so frightful a sentence. It is time that the truth of the matter be finally established in the popular mind, as related with slight alterations in the Memoirs of Pombal himself. Joseph of Bragança, a feeble imitator of his royal contemporary, Louis XV., had also his gallant advent- ures, conducted it is true with less scandal ; for on this point no court can compare with ours. The inmates only of the palace of Alcantara knew that the king most frequently directed his steps toward a certain hotel, spacious and isolated as a castle, which com- manded a view of the mouth of the River Tagus, beyond its vast gardens. The master of this dwelling was the old Marquis of Tavora, one of the proudest members of thé Portu- guese nobility, and the chief of what is known as the " Hidalgos." * Pombal had been refused the hand of a daughter of this house for his eldest son ; and he had encountered a similar refusal in other families. He remembered it. * This name, common to all noble blood across the Pyr- enees, seems to have attained a quasi-political signification during the Ministry of Pombal. Poinbal 177 Whether truthfully or not, it was whispered at court that the king had insulted, by his advances, the young and beautiful Dona Teresa, wife of the eldest son of the Marquis. In France, the manners of the court had become so corrupt, that such a fact would have been deemed almost an honor, as is shown by numerous sad exam- ples in its history ; but in spite of the contagion of skepticism which had begun to infect Lisbon, the ancient Portuguese blood still retained its pride. I am far from asserting that the young Marquis of Tavora was right in punishing his king, who had dis- honored him ; I urge, on the contrary, that the king who does a wrong of this nature, deserves as much pity as any ordinary man ; nay, even more so, because he is more guilty, being more powerful ; but I only re- late that, in defiance of the laws of God, which visits with equal reprobation the crime of the seducer and the vengeance sought by the spouse, according to the savage law of Portuguese honor, the life of the king was forfeit to Tavora. I allege nothing in favor or defense of this custom ; I confine myself merely to a statement of facts. As a Christian, Tavora was obliged to pardon ; as a hidalgo, in accordance with the code of the hidalgos, and the terrible spirit of justice which pervaded the Peninsula, he was obliged to strike even his king. And everything points to the probability that he did 12 178 TJie Jesuits. strike. The exception made in favor of the young Marquise Teresa of Tavora, amid the cruelties prac- ticed upon all the other members of her family, proves at once the injury committed and the attempted vengeance. Another strong and decisive proof of this is the in- terest, sui generis^ manifested by the French Ambassa- dor under the express order of his court, for her safety, whilst her husband, whether guilty or not, lay suffering in the depths of a dungeon ; an interest wholly lacking in behalf of the innocent father, and the admirable mother dying in tortures. It is a chapter on Louis XV, and his age. I add, that the Jesuits had no place nor part in these proceedings except that with which Tombai charged them. All writers have commented upon the inactivity which distinguished Tombal' s movements during the three months following the attempt. Hitherto, the feline side of his nature had not dis- played itself. He resembled a tiger-cat raising him- self slowly — before bounding — to bound like all beasts of prey. He wishes to rush unawares upon the victim that he has lulled to sleep. On the 1 2th of December, after sunset, a mounted guard patroled the city, while a detachment of foot- soldiers took up their position in the narrow streets of the quarter occupied by the nobiHty. Pomhal. 179 All Lisbon inquired what fête was about to be celebrated, for all had forgotten the affair of the assas- sination, which, indeed, many altogether doubted, an opinion which was shared -by the court of France, where Choiseul had remarked, upon hearing it : -'It is one of Carvalho's frolics." At the hour of seven, a squad of soldiery presented themselves before the principal entrance of the Hotel Tavora, all other outlets being strictly guarded. They demanded admittance in the name of the king, and immediately kindled their torches. The king had often partaken of hospitality within this picturesque dwelling, and even in his slavish weakness he was still capable of generous instincts ; that he was ignorant of what was taking place at this hour, we must believe, in compassion to his memory. The doors were opened. The soldiers passed in and scattered themselves throughout the palace. A cap- tive hand was laid on every inmate, from the master to the most infirm servitor, and all w^ere conducted to the new prison, built by Pombal, near the College of Saint Antonio. The prison was a spacious building, and certainly it needed to be, for at one time, it is a certain fact, Lis- bon counted more than four thousand State prisoners. Our " 93 " was eclipsed in advance, for such a number of captives in a capital which contained only one hun- dred and fifty thousand inhabitants surpasses the most i8o The Jestiits, sinister "curiosities" of History. Our "Diction- naires " of liberal education are right in declaring that Pombal was no ordinary Minister. Elenora, Marchioness of Tavora, she who had re- fused the hand of Pombal's son for her daughter, was separated from her husband and children, and con- fined, perhaps by especial grace, " ifi pace " of a con- vent ; the other women, servants and mistresses, were plunged into dungeons and subjected to the most rigorous measures. Domestics and masters, the men disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them. Thanks to the honorable, but exclusive solicitude of M. de Choiseul, shown by his correspondence with M. de Saint Julien, French chargé d'affaires at Lisbon, in obedience to the humane spirit of Madame de Pompadour, we are able to state that the interesting Dona Teresa was treated with exceptional lenity. Louis XV. was satisfied. One voice at least is raised (that of Saint Julien) to assert that this unhappy young creature merited neither the insulting interest of Choiseul nor the infamous clemency of Pombal. We learn, by means of the same correspondence, that Pombal was deeply incensed on learning that the subal- terns, touched by the misery of the prisoners, had afford- ed some slight alleviations of their miserable condition. Besides the family of Tavora, a great number of other PombaL i8i " hidalgos " were arrested on the same night, among others, Don José de Mascarenhas y Lancastre, Duke of Aveiro, a cousin of Dona Elenora, and one of the chiefs of the nobility ; one Souza, and Milho, nearly related to the king, and a more distant kinsman of the Minister, Don Miguel de Antonguia, etc. The same night also saw some of the Jesuits taken prisoners, among others, P. Hyacinthe da Costa, con- fessor of the prince Dom Pedro. A stupor of terror settled on Lisbon. The phrase, "State of Siege," was not yet in vogue, but the thing existed. None but mercenary soldiers were seen in the streets, and the king ceased to leave the palace. A leaden pall weighed on the city. Any one who dared express a doubt of the guilt of the prisoners, or let fall the least sentiment of pity, was instantly arrested. This motley collection of State prisoners, whose large number I have remarked, was composed of nearly as many trades-people as gentlemen. It was now necessary to institute some official pro- cee^ding ; the people looked for it, and the king was an honest man. Pombal resolved to enact the judicial farce of an examination. It was poorly played. He threw aside all semblance of decorum ; his judgment forsook him. He defied even common sense ; his hatred had mounted to his brain and intoxicated hhn. 1 82 The Jesuits, According to the Portuguese law, the accused were entitled to be judged by their peers ; the Duke of Aveiro and the Marquis of Tavora were the two first noblemen in Portugal ; Pombal refused them the privilege. He would not even permit them to be judged by the ordinary tribunals. He formed what the religious and political Protest- ants of all times have incessantly opposed to Authority, in order to overreach her whenever an occasion pre- sented itself, from the time of Henry VHI. and Calvin, down to Robespierre ; he created a fashion of revolu- tionary tribunal devoid of legal competency, which he named the " Court of Mistrust," * (curious fatality of names), and he naturally composed this tribunal, as such always are, of his own creatures, among whom were two of his colleagues, da Cunha and Cartte- Real. And he presided himself ! As the proceedings had not yet been confined solely to the Jesuits, the " Encylcopedie " grumbled a little at the sight of these monstrosities. The Parisian philosophers upheld the nobility, by whom they subsisted. M. de Saint-Priest, a not over equitable Judge, alludes frequently, in his " History of the Fall of the Jesuits," to the bad effects produced in the philosophic world by the terrible freaks of Pombal. * The name existed before Pombal. Pombtxl. 183 If possible, they would have sustained his action, on account of the community of " liberal ideas," but he had gone, in truth, a little too far, and M. de Saint- Priest forgets himself so far, as to allow the following phrase to escape him: "We pity the victims and laugh at the executioner." This confession, in such a mouth, is not insignifi- cant — " laugh at him." Indeed, the Choiseul coterie had long been accustomed to do this. Beginning with Madame de Pompadour, all re- garded him as a monster even more ridiculous than ferocious. They were wrong in their estimate, as you will find ; I have already said this apropos of the nobility of Lis- bon ; never is a Pombal to be despised ; never is a hyena to be laughed at. Not content with presiding in this '' Court of Mis- trust," Pombal took upon himself the charge of exam- inations — an action wholly without precedent, and which provoked remonstrances from two of the most celebrated jurists in Portugal — Freiro, and Bucallao, the Senator. Still more, Pombal recorded the sentence, which is still in existence, in his own handwriting.* And what were the means employed to perfect this diabolically philosophical examination ? Proscribed, and even false evidence, of shameless Crétineau-Joly, Vol. V., p. 153. 1 84 The Jesuits, and open intimidation, and above all, the torture, are certain measures to obtain convictions ; the latter is a means which never fails to produce its effect. Odious in the hands of upright judges, in the clutches of buf- foons who only profane and caricature Justice, it proves an excellent instrument. The respectable *' Dictionnaire " intended for the use of the young, to which I have already made several allusions, says, in speaking of Pombal, that he served his country with fervor (I fully believe it) ; that he was an able Minister (a proof!); but that he mani- fested, perhaps, too ardent a tendency toward the philosophical ideas. Why too great ? One can never cherish too dearly that which is good, and he only went as far as the torture. It is true that this torture brought about a judicial carnage, of which the very recital freezes the blood ; but it was for a worthy motive — torture and carnage produced the extermination of the Jesuits. Must not that be taken into consideration ? Jesus said of the sister of Lazarus, " Much is forgiven her, because she has loved much." Why do not the Dictionaries say of this philosophic Minister, " Not only much, but all should be forgiven him ; because he has terribly hated " ? This, with the approbation of those whom it may concern, and always with a regard to the interest of Pombal. 185 youth, whose inconsiderate insults are apt to trouble sometimes the consciences of the approvers of " Dic- tionnaires." What astonishes me is — but why should I concern myself with such matters ? These quarrels are merely family disagreements between great men who have made " Dictionnaires," and httle men who will make them. The family of Tavora, and all the other accused, remained mute under the torture ; but the unfortu- nate Duke of Aveiro was vanquished by torments. He was a great nobleman, but his was not a valiant heart. He accused his fellow-prisoners of all that was de- sired, and, more dead than alive, implicated also the Jesuits. It is true that when he recovered his senses, he re- tracted this accusation, but Pombal held his testi- mony, and would not relinquish it. They refused to record the retraction. The sentence of death was rendered against the relations and friends of Tavora on the 12th day of January, 1759. Tombai, fearing an outburst of popu- lar indignation, caused the scaffold to be raised during the night, at Belem, outside the city, where two regi- ments of mercenaries were stationed. The platform, illuminated by the glare of the torches, was raised eighteen feet from the ground. 1 86 The y estât s. The soldiers encumbered the place and water-side to such an extent that the people were forced to take refuge on the river in boats, which was dotted with a thousand barks, from whence ascended groans and maledictions. Thus passed the night of the 13th of January. At daybreak the domestics of the Duke of Aveiro were brought thither, fastened to the corners of the scaffold, and burnt alive. Elenora, Marchioness of Tavora, next arrived alone^ the cord about her neck, the crucifix in her hand, and attired in the garments which had been rent by the torture. Pombal must have been present somewhere in the vicinity, for his Memoirs recount vividly the awful and sublime scene ; but where was the beautiful Teresa, who alone awakened the tender pity of Louis XV. and his Minister Choiseul ? She it was who had attracted the lightning which had blasted this noble house, where she had been welcomed as a well-beloved daughter, and she alone had received the insult of being spared in it. We also pity her, and only her. Who would pity Dona Elenora with her proud, gray head erect, press- ing her crucified God to her heart? The executioner would have bound her feet. She said to him without anger, " Man, I beseech you, forget not who I am ; touch me only to kill me." Ponihal. 187 The executioner fell on his knees before her ; Pom- bal himself relates that Dona Elenora took a ring from her finger. She was one of that race who reward ev- ery service, even the last. " Here," she said to the executioner, presenting it to him, '■'■ every work deserves its wages ; I have only this, and I give it to you, that you may per- form your duty well." The executioner arose and did his duty. After the first noble blood had reddened the block, the others came in turn, the old Marquis of Tavora first, then the husband of Dona Teresa. Poor wife ! Do you think I speak in mockery ? No, poor, poor woman, who, in the opinion of M. de Choiseul, was spared. There remained the other sons of Elenora, of whom the youngest had only attained his twentieth year ; her son-in-law, and according to some, her daughter; then the long file of officers and servitors of the household, who died like Christians and brave Portu- guese. The last sufferer was the unfortunate' Duke of Aveiro, whose limbs were hardly able to support the weight of his body. He was bound on the wheel, his shoulders being covered with rags by a nice refinC' ment of vengeance. ' This Pombal was insatiable ! And the great Cardi- nal, who, when he killed, killed grandly, if it be per- 1 88 The Jesuits, mitted to statesmen in the other world to know of the insulting parallels to which they are subjected here below, must smile in scornful disdain at being com- pared with Pombal. In dying, Aveiro glutted to the full his enemy's ap- petite for vengeance. For nearly one hour he strug- gled on the wheel, which slowly ground his bones, extorting from him shrieks of agony which were heard even in Lisbon. Pombal relates in his Memoirs, with evident satis- faction, that the . Duke was Grand hereditary Master of the royal palace. President of the Court of the palace, first Grandee of Portugal, etc. The house of Mascarenhas had been founded by George, a natural son of John II., called the Perfect. When all was over, the torch was put to the ma- chine of death, scaffold and all, and the corpses, half consumed, were flung into the Tagus. Certainly the "dark ages" present few examples of carnage so skillfully carried out as this. The putting of the work into motion lacks some semblance of prob- ability, and we could wish for a little less of that gener- ous want of ceremony in that which takes the place of the criminal examination ; but the execution is above all eulogy, and I allude to it only with the respect which is due to a master-piece. Why, then, do the approved " Dictionnaires " ignore this subject ? Is it because they deny its truth, notwith- PonibaL 189 standing the testimony of Pombal himself? Is it not only rendering justice its due to avert, by the recital of this action, the unmerited reproach — although most gently administered, it is true — against this Minister, charging him with having too strongly inclined toward the " enlightened ideas " of his age ? In fine, however they arrange it, Pombal is a ques- tionable ally. After his death the Senate of the " Encyclopédie," that mother of " Dictionnaires," would have repudiated him, without a scruple, if it had not been that he atoned for his massacre of " Hidalgos " by his heca- tomb of slaughtered Jesuits. Happily for him, blood washed out blood. After what had taken place, it will not be surprising to learn that the great Marquis still retained in prison the relations and friends of the sufferers who had not shared their fate ; that he razed to the ground all their hotels and palaces, and by his order salt was sown on their sites. The arms of the house of Tavora, and those of their pretended accomplices, were effaced in the Hall of Chevaliers in the Castle of Cintra, where their escutcheons may still be seen, covered with q black veil, like the portrait of Faliero in the ducal palace at Venice. This last fact is remarkable, because the wicked judgment which commanded it remained in force 1 90 The Jesîdts. comparatively only a few years. In fact, Pombal himself lived long enough to feel, even in this world, the weight of God's hand. By the decree of the Grand Cortes, dated the 7th of April, 1781, during his life-time, all his victims were declared reinstated, and by the same decree Pombal was himself dishonored. But at the time of which we write, this tardy and in- sufficient justice was still far away ; it did not occur until after the death of Joseph, who never succeeded in throwing off the yoke of his tyrant. And this is the particular in which Pombal most closely resembles Richelieu ; his king was his slave. When he had finished razing walls, the great Marquis erected a monument worthy of him ; which was a beautifully constructed pillory, intended, by special privilege, only for members of the nobility exclusively. Those who think that now, at least, the measure of his vengeance was complete, are mistaken. The vengeance of Pombal was to extend much further, and the fact deserves to be chronicled. Later, in his implacable old age, he employed the last breath of his expiring political power to forcibly effect a union between the granddaughter of the great Elenora, Marchioness of Tavora, and the Count of Oeyras, his son. These nuptials recall to mind the bridals of fabulous ages, on which is founded antique tragedy ! But the ways of God point often to the very reverse PombaL 191 of human logic ; and from this frightfully incongruous union a peaceful happiness was born. This mingling of the blood of the victims with that of their persecutor, which might have been expected to remain sterile, or produce most unhappy fruits, was blessed in its numerous posterity. Reconcihation arose out of violence, and the tragic convulsions which had distinguished the enmity of two haughty races gave place to the undivided honor of a numerous and tenderly-united family. We would fain have done with the subject of Pom- bal, but of his two objects of hate he had yet only attained the first; in the slaughter of the "Hidalgos" the other had as yet escaped him. We may say that the massacre of the nobility was only a means to ar- rive at the heart of his real enemy, the Society of Jesus. He was transported with savage joy when excess- ive suô"ering extorted from the unfortunate Duke of Aveiro an accusation against the Fathers. It placed the game in his hands, and, as he himself said, he that day won his stake. Between the time of the Duke's confession and the hour when, returned to consciousness, he in vain supplicated his persecutors to receive his retraction, Pombal, with the same pen which had written the famous edict, signed the order to arrest ten Jesuits, among whom was the Portuguese Provincial, Hen- 192 The Jcstiits. riquez ; Father Malagrida, spiritual director of the Marchioness Elenora; Oliveira, confessor of Marie, Duchess of Bragança ; Suarez Mattos, and even Joseph Moreiro, notwithstanding his dignity of royal confessor. As for Father Costa, who was first submitted to th-e torture, in the secret hope of wringing from him some avowal sufficient to compromise his penitent, the prince, Dom Pedro, he had been arrested and thrown into prison some days previous. Malagrida, as confessor of the Marchioness Elenora, Mattos as being a friend of Rebeira, and Alonguia, and Father Jean Alexandre, for having returned from the Indies in the same vessel with the Tavoras, were all three condemned to death by the edict of the 12th of January, but they did not suffer in the mas- sacre of Belem. Pombal was gathering all his forces in order to take the surer leap, as he had waited, after the attempted assassination of the king. The tiger was settling on his haunches for a spring His second and more mighty bound, made always under cover of darkness, took place during the night which preceded the i6th of February. All the houses of the Society throughout Portugal, colleges as well as residences, were surrounded by his followers, accompanied by detachments of soldiers, and all the Jesuits in the kingdom awoke in the morning to find themselves prisoners. PombaL 193 Collectively, and without any distinctness, the Jes- uits were accused of having favored the regicide plot, and to give some idea of the complete tyranny which was exercised over the unhappy king, it is sufficient to state that neither himself nor the queen could obtain permission to see Father Joseph Moreiro, for whom the royal pair entertained a most sincere aftection. Besides this general accusation, the greater number of the Fathers were inculpated as having been the private counselors and friends of the conspirators, of having fomented their hatred, and excited their mur- murs, either in the tribunal of penance or the privacy of social life. This vague assertion had a still more vague founda- tion. It was based upon a single visit which the Duke of Aveiro had made to the College of San An- tonio, for which a most probable explanation was given, to wit, that in obedience to the laws of cour- tesy, the Duke had attended on that day a Thesis of Philosophy, sustained by a young relation of his, the heir of his great house. Evidently, Tombai hardly took the trouble to dis- guise his sinister intentions, since under so flimsy a pretext the names of three Jesuits were inserted in the death-sentence of Aveiro, Tavora, aiid so many others. Among the Jesuits condemned, was the celebrated Gabriel Malagrida, whose martyrdom we shall relate. 13 194 ^/^^ Jesuits. No Jesuit mounted the scaffold at Belem. It was only on the 28th of June that the Minister launched against this Order the edict of general pro- scription. The intervening months the)' had passed in new and old prisons, subjected to the greatest in- dignities. The " Killer of Fathers," as he was for a long time termed in Uruguay, had richly earned his title ; during the persecutions directed by him against the establishments of the Order in South America, several professed members, and numbers of novices or brothers, without counting the dirong of native Christians who were of the one great family of Jesus, watered with their blood the soil of the New World which they had fertilized by their labor, and which the violence of Portuguese myrmidons again made sterile ; but this was only a feeble imitation in its slaughters and spoliations of the bloody drama enacted in the mother-country. Tombai was intoxicated with the evil of his own creating ; rage had mounted to his brain and produced delirium ; he saw only through a medium of blood. Others before him, and from remote ages, have made use of the prison as a deadly instrument of punishment ; but it was reserved for him to perfect this base and barbarous means to such a degree that eight hundred unfortunates alone survived the dun- geons which had enclosed nearly six thousand victims. The historians have produced divers letters of these Pombal. 195 captives, more calculated to excite pity than the living deaths of the "Leads of Venice."'^ These are not all written by Jesuits ; but there is a letter from one of the members of the Society of Jesus, which has be- come celebrated for the admirable gentleness which it expressed, though written in the midst of unheard-of torments. It is signed by Father Laurent Kaulen, who denominates himself " Captive of Jesus Christ," and is dated from the prison or Fort of St. Julien at Lis- bon, the 12th of October, 1766. At that time, this innocent sufferer, or rather saint, had already passed seven years in chains, and this without even giving utterance to a single complaint, only praying night and day for his persecutor ; earnestly entreating the infinite mercy of God in behalf of Don Sebastian de Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, But how could it be expected that Pombal and his kind should credit such things ; in conscience, how could you expect it ? This pardon in the midst of tortures surpasses the limits of the probable, and I am afraid that there is a dash of malice in the provoking pleasure which I experience in making myself appear as a hypocrite in their eyes, by exalting, as I do, such apparent hypocrisy ! Jesuits ! Jesuits ! Jesuits ! Assassins who never as- sassinate, but are ever assassinated ; haughty ones who Dungeons under the roof. 196 The Jesuits. kiss the earth ; ambitious ones who vow to accept neither honors nor high places ; calumniators who are steeped in calumny, and absorb it without contradic- tion, who return benefits for injuries ; impossible ! incredible men ! heirs of divine infamy ! I can not comprehend you fully, since it is necessary to be a saint in order to sound the depths of your consciences ; but I understand enough to kindle within my heart an ardent admiration for you, and to make me experience a perhaps culpable pride in proclaiming it with all the strength of my voice. I do not ask for your famous secret; I believe I know it; my crucifix has told it me; but I conjure you, Jesuits, oh ! Jesuits, abhorred by the large class of writers who act consistently with the character which they assume, and tenderly cherished by me, who once essayed to despise you ; (alas ! how difficult I found it) ; confide to me only, whisper low in my ear, I will not repeat it ; reveal to me, ye assassins of kings, who protect and love you, what prevented you from plant- ing ten, twenty, one hundred, even a thousand of your historical poignards in the bosom of this Pombal ? Was it the fact of your incurable dissimilation ? Is it in order to more completely mystify the world, ye astonishing jugglers, that ye slay your friends and al- low your enemies to live unmolested? .... Pombal lived to complete his eighty-second year. While directing the pistol-shots against the poor miser- PomhaL 197 able King Joseph, your penitent, do you, then, ad- minister to Pombal surreptitiously, traitorously, Jesuit- ically, some philter to produce long life ? I must confess to having experienced a sentiment of impatience, even of indignation, in .reading the too beautiful letter of Father Laurent Kaulen, from whom seven awful years of captivity could not extort the least expression of bitterness, but the contrary. I should have bowed to the earth in reverence before the superhuman grandeur of this soul, I who can readily believe it, and experience a proud satisfaction in asserting my belief, and a pity not unmingled with contempt for those who can not credit it ; I should have bowed down, I repeat, and I do not say that I have not done so. But across my admiration as a Christian, a senti- ment altogether human passes, and I question if the heroism of the martyrs had the right to encourage in this way the violence of their persecutors. Is it meet that the miraculous charity of the saint be prolonged to the point of fomenting the impious audacity of the persecutor ? There are times when I am irresistibly seized by the thought that the Jesuits did not oppose sufficient resistance to the Marquis of Pombal ; that there was a weakness on their part, as well as that of the Church herself, both in regard to the Portuguese Minister and to Choiseul, his less daring imitator, and all the other 198 The Jesuits. sanguinary despots who followed in the way of murder and spoliation. Sublime weakness ! says an eminent writer ; but I question if weakness be ever sublime. The letter of Father Kaulen is cited at length in the "Journal of Literature and Art," published by the Protestant, Christopher de Murr. It awakened a deep and sorrowful interest throughout Europe, and only shortly preceded the fall of Pombal. Written from the " depths of a subterranean dun- geon, infected with disease, where the water pene- trates, rotting away the garments," and leaving the prisoner nearly naked; tended by "an extremely hard- hearted jailor, who did all in his power to increase the sufferings of these unfortunates, already so weighted with misery," while to crown all, " they were offered their liberty and all kinds of good treatment if they would abjure their Institute." Is it necessary to state that none took advantage of this offer ? In this prison of St. Julien, where even the conso- lation of the Eucharist was wanting to the agonizing, where air, garments, and even bread, which was only measured out in sufficient quantity to barely sustain life in these hideous dungeons, where all was lacking save cruel treatment, of which there was a prodigal excess, there were twenty-seven Fathers of the Province of Goa, in Hindostan ; one of the Province of Malabar, ten of that of Portugal, nine of Brazil, twenty-three of PombaL 199 Maragnon, ten of Japan, twelve of China; in all, eighty-two. " In this number there were one Italian, thirteen Germans, three Chinese, fifty-four Portuguese, two Spaniards, and three Frenchmen." The Frenchmen were reclaimed, not, be it understood, by the Govern- ment of M. de Choiseul, but by the queen, Marie Lec- zinska, in person. Out of this number of eighty-two, thirty-seven Fa- thers died martyrs in the prison. In the dungeons of Azeitao, which contained seventy-three, thirty-one Fa- thers perished under the weight of their sufferings. The " Matador dos Padres " merited his name equally well in Europe as in the New World. In the long list of martyrs appear the names of three cousins of Pombal, Christopher and Jean de Carvalho, who perished in the dungeons of Azeitao, and Joachim de Carvalho, who died in the prison of Almeida. It numbers, besides, one Albuquerque, four of the name of da Costa, one da Cunha, one Fon- seca, and one Castro. This very incomplete list is taken from the Protestant Journal of Murr.* If we add to these the victims who perished at sea, in the holds of ships, and in the other prisons, we will arrive at seven hundred, the total number, as set forth by Father Oliveira, in his memorial to Queen Maria.f * For the year 1780. f Journal of Murr, Vol. X., p. 14g. 200 The Jesuits, Besides these, a great number of other Fathers had been stowed away without provisions, in merchant vessels, to be thrown on the shores of Italy, after the edict of proscription. The number of these exiles, counting those from Brazil and the other Portuguese colonies, is estimated at two thousand, and this was only the overflow of the prisons which remained full. Among those who remained prisoners, was Father Joseph Moreiro ; notwithstanding the supplications of the queen herself, in vain did the wife of Joseph beg with tears the liberty of the friend who has so long directed her conscience ; Pombal was absolute master. The Pope, Clement XIII., protested ; Pombal evoked before his eyes the spectre of a schism with which he would rend Portugal, and the Pope was hushed. By way of thanks for his silence, Pombal insolently dismissed his ambassador, and confiscated the goods of the Jesuits. (1761). There are some " imaginative writers," who in re- counting these events make Pombal the victim and the Jesuits the persecutors. When there is question of them, no audacity is too great for error. In reality, far from shrinking, they did not even attempt to parry the blows which crushed them. It may be said that in Portugal, the Jesuits were defended only by the Holy See, who feebly, but in a Pombal. 201 paternal spirit, combated for them. As for them- selves, they had strength only to die. Among the victims of the " Killer of Fathers," the most illustrious is Gabriel Malagrida, whom Pombal, with awful irony, and in spite of his determined par- tisanship of so-called " liberal ideas," vowed, to em- ploy his own words, to " bind upon the funeral pile of the Inquisition," and who in fact perished in the flames on the 2Tst of September, 1761, on the Place Auto-da-fe of Lisbon. He it is of whom Voltaire has said in his "Age of Louis XV.," ^ with an indig- nation which seems slightly forced : " The criminal was burnt only for being a fool," which is a calumny clothed with a thin veil of pity. Malagrida was no more a fool than Francis Xavier. It is true that Voltaire afterward gives utterance to some more noble lines, characterizing the conduct of Pombal in this infamous affair : " The excess of ridi- cule and absurdity was joined to the excess of hor- ror,"t but one can denounce the executioner without insulting the martyr. This " fool " was one of the most glorious mission- aries that Portugal has ever produced. He was seventy-three years of age, of which he had passed forty in conquering souls for God, in savage countries, * Vol. XXII. of his Works, p. 35. f Ibid. 202 The Jesuits. and he answered, when questioned by the courtiers of Jean V., by what right he " disturbed the peace " of these poor Indians, with the idea of another world : " By the right which Jesus has given me in dying for them." If the sentiments of these courtiers savor of a more advanced period— for the century was at that time only forty years old — and sound like those of the school of Raynal, I answer that courtiers have ever been philosophers, even as philosophers have ever been courtiers. Recognizing only the one narrow, petty duty of their egotism, courtiers of all epochs have regarded as fools those who have devoted themselves to others, not to further their own interest, but for the advantage of those others. In fact, the furtherance of one's own interest alone excuses an interest in the affairs of others ; such is the precise teaching of their code. According to this pagan wisdom, all beyond this interest is immoral, excess- ive, and opposed to the philosophic notion of liberty which gives each man absolute right over himself and nothing more, and which, from the stand-point of self- interest, charges with extravagance the superior idea of charity. To these, as well as to the " practical minds " of our ingenious epoch, Malagrida seemed, indeed, a fool, and God grant us this folly. Pombal. 203 May God keep from us the giand reason of the mathematicians who can calculate algebraically, almost to a hair's breadth, the distance which separates their spectacles from the sun, but who, on the contrary, know not how to resolve the childish equation of the few sad hours of our human life as compared with an incommensurable eternity ! From his earliest years Malagrida had been a '' fool." Adventurer of the Faith, he had traversed the countries which others seek in quest of fortune, and in the delirious atmosphere of the gold regions had become infected only with the fever of charity. Forty years ! How many fortune-seekers, think you, spend the space of forty years in coaxing from mother Earth her golden favor ? Malagrida had heaped up a treasure of thousands of souls, and still his sublime cupidity was unappeased. He had suffered all that a human creature could suffer ; hunted like a wild beast through the woods by the Calvinist preachers, fastened to the stake by savages, one hundred times he had intoned with a premature gladness the canticle of his death. He had performed miracles like Francis Xavier ; he had converted entire countries, and the odor of his sanctity had penetrated across the sea. His body was so covered with wounds that the men who were charged with the duty of removing his garments at his last 204 ^^^ Jesuits, hour, were unable to count the scars of this valiant soldier of Jesus Christ. Ah ! we were wrong in finding fault with Voltaire ; he was right ; the saint was, iwdeed, a fool. Where would you find a single practical mind to deny it ? It was during the year 1749 ^^^^ he was recalled from the American Missions by his superiors, because the king, John V., asked to be attended by him during his last hours. Pombal, then a restless and ambitious man, without success, and devoured by an eager thirst for power, must have smiled with disdain at this phantasy of the aged king summoning the '' fool " from so great a dis- tance. It is said that he was jealous of the " fool," and that then began his implacable hate. Could he, however, have replaced the "fool" beside the bed of death? Pope Benedict XIV. said, in speaking of the de- ceased king and his "fool": "Happy king to be sustained in his last step by the hand of an apostle." Malagrida returned to the desert just as the action of Joseph Emmanuel placed Pombal in power. This atrocious Minister had already been in office some years, when the queen, wife of John, manifested also a desire to die sustained and encouraged by the " fool." Joseph gave the order to recall Malagrida — a pro- ceeding which rendered Pombal uneasy, for the war Pombal. 205 against the Jesuits had already been begun in the colonies, and he feared the testimony of the apostle against him. He strongly opposed his return, but his intentions were frustrated, and the ruin of the saintly old man was sworn. It is a fact recorded by several historians that on many occasions, when his intrepid zeal had brought him face to face with death, Gabriel Malagrida, who was accustomed to speak of things with the assurance of a prophet, said : " God has promised me that I shall not fall under the blows of the infidels. I shall enjoy the supreme happiness of the supreme ignominy. I shall end in a Christian country in the midst of Christians who will applaud my sentence." Pombal was aware of this prophecy. One day, when conversing with Paul Mendoza Carvalho, his brother, and Minister of his spoliations in Maragnon, he said laughingly, "The reverend Father shall have what he wishes." And so began that dark work, the masterpiece of a demon, that long, patient, and truly infernal effort, thanks to which one reputed a saint through- out Christendom ; the noble defender and heroic prop- agator of the Faith ; a prophet, honored after his death by the veneration of the head of the Church ; one endowed with the most precious gifts of Heaven, should be transformed into a despicable and shame- 2o6 The Jesuits, fully fallen creature — no longer worthy to bind and loose souls, a heretic, a regicide, an impostor, a cor- rupter of men ; in short, a vile and impious tool, used to spread abroad brutal illusions and idiotic phantasies which suggest the Spirit of Darkness. I have said it was the masterpiece of a demon. It was the masterpiece of Pombal. Against the evidence of all sense, Malagrida was implicated in the Tavora accusation. It was merely a pretext for closing upon him the door of a dungeon. The detail of the cruelties which were perpetrated upon him, as he lay confined twenty feet below the light of day, matters little. For two years the un- fortunate old man is the property, the thing of Pom- bal, more skilled than the savages in devising torture. Did he, in truth, lose his reason under the weight of his atrocious torments ? Do they enact in this perpetual night, akin to that of hell, thé farce of apparitions, phantoms of diaboli- cal voices speaking from the depths of darkness ? Do they sound those awful calls, inhuman awakenings of the captive for a time relieved from misery by nature, and of which the jailor of the son of Louis XVI. in the Temple, turned to account, it is said, the awful practice ? Do they affect, in a word, this great and lofty mind, which had held converse so long with God ? And does God permit, for his greater glory, this ter- Pombal. 207 rible torture to be prolonged to such a degree that His servant, under the stroke of insanity, writes, he who lay dying in such complete darkness, writes, with his paralyzed fingers, without paper or ink, two huge volumes which give the lie direct to his faith, his life, his death — in a word, to himself! The mind refuses to believe it. And where are the books : "The Reign of Anti- Christ," and " The Life of the blessed Saint Anne, dic- tated by Jesus and His holy mother " ? No one has ever seen them. We only know the titles, and some wildly extrava- gant extracts. Do you not scent Pombal ? Which is easier to an honest conscience : to believe that two great volumes of blasphemy, not in existence, are the works of a saint, or to believe the extracts fabricated by the fabri- cator of so many falsehoods, and who pushed his au- dacity one time to the extent of fabricating a false brief of Clement XHI. ? Moreover, the extracts were written by a master- hand. Some literary talent must have been possessed by one who merited comparison with Cardinal de Riche- lieu, founder of the French Academy, They con- tained superbly -expressed idiotism and immorality. The former degenerated into folly (spirituaHsm was not yet invented), the latter into utter indecency. Through- out Portugal, a contemptuous laugh was raised at 2o8 The Jesuits, the expense of the Jesuit whom all Portugal had al- most adored. No one here expressed the insulting pity of M. de Choiseul and the '' Encyclopédie," and when Pombal referred the parcel of clumsy blas- phemies to the Inquisition, all Lisbon applauded. The only drawback was, that the tribunal of the In- quisition refused to judge in the matter, because it saw clearly through the fraud. One of the king's brothers was Grand Inquisitor. Think you Pombal' s course was arrested? No, he is more powerful than the brother of the king, whom he holds fast in his grip. He deposes the noble In- quisitor, and names in his place who ? — Paul Men- doza Carvalho, his worthy brother. But it was neces- sary that the chief of the Inquisition should be created by the Holy See. This proves no obstacle ; Pombal makes himself Pope in order to confer the office, and all goes smoothly. Was I not right in terming the whole a master- piece ? '' First strangled, then burnt by the hand of the executioner, so that no grave may receive his ashes." Thus ordered the decree of the Inquisitors ! Do you recognize the emphasis of Pombal — " The tomb," " The ashes" ? He certainly possessed talent ! On the evening of the 21st of September, in pres- ence of all Lisbon solemnly convoked to attend, the aged, illustrious, and holy apostle of the Faith, PombaL 20ç with his hands tightly bound, a gag in his mouth, and surrounded by the hideous and burlesque figures of demons, an idea Pombal, " rather too much inclined toward the hberal ideas of his age," had revived from the annals of the Inquisition, the better to provoke hisses and insults ; in a word, surrounded by tlie ap- paratus of the bloody comedies of a former age, ex- humed by a philosopher, Gabriel Malagrida, appeared upon the scaffold. How? With disheveled hair, wandering gaze, the mien of a man laboring under mental aberration, with the appeai-ance of a. mind odious enough even in deg- radation to have written " The Reign of Anti-Christ" ? Far from it ! The narratives are many in number, and all agree in testifying the venerable serenity of the condemned. He had the modest and joyful air of one who consummates the sacrifice which was the complete realization of his prophecy, or rather of his passionate desire. At the moment of dying he made an effort to bless the throng, and his face shone with a radiance so luminous that the word '' miracle " passed from mouth to mouth among the people, who were moved by a rehgious a\ye. His last word in quitting the prison had been (Jesuit) to pardon his assassin. Clement XHL, upon hearing the recital of his death, said : " This is a martyr at the feet of Jesus Christ." Voltaire, who was neither a " fool," nor cut off by 14 2IO The Jesuits. strangling, is not credited with having experienced this supernatural calm during his last hours. And Pombal ! Pombal imprisoned the people who dared to murmur the word miracle, and remained ab- solute master of Lisbon, which the Queen of France justly termed "The city of prison-hells." Some years later, on the 24th of February, 1777, the unfortunate King Joseph expired, and immediately a clamor of reprobation arose against his Minister. I draw no conclusion from this fact ; clamors, to my mind, prove nothing. Pombal was obliged to flee, and the prisons were opened, rendering up the unfortunate from those dun- geons, where so many had languished in agony. The queen, Dona Maria, did not revenge upon Pombal the oppression she had sustained from him. She willed, only for the sake of justice, that the political proceed- ings should be reversed. The greater part were can- celed, among others the decree Aveiro-Tavora-Mal- agrida. In consequence of this tardy and ineffective justice, Pombal, condemned to numerous restitutions, and pro- claimed " criminal " by the mouth of the queen, who unquestionably showed great clemency upon this occa- sion, went to die in exile at the chateau of his name. Notwithstanding the urgings of his son, he refused the last sacraments. This man, undoubtedly gifted with remarkable fac- Pombal. 211 ulties, who had lived in such power and died in such ob- scurity, had aroused much hatred, beside his poHtical animosities, and especially in his native town. On one hand, the inhabitants of the little city of Pombal were opposed to the idea of his body being interred in their church ; on the other, the Marquis of Villanova, Min- ister of State, would not permit the mortal remains of his predecessor to be transported to Lisbon, where a gorgeous tomb, raised by Pombal himself in the time of his grandeur, awaited them. The body was simply inclosed in a coffin, draped with a mortuary cloth, and deposed in the Convent of the Franciscans at Pombal. The working of events moves but slowly in Portugal, as the statue in the square of Lisbon bears testimony, which still shows the Minister of Joseph Emmanuel at the feet of his master,* after so many and glaring condemnations. The coffin of Pombal remained fifty years above the earth literally without burial. We relate here a curious fact, apropos of which, however, we pronounce no eulogy, because it is easy enough to pardon the dead. What was sublime, was the prayer of the dying Malagrida for the triumphant Pombal. The following is the fact, which may, perhaps, seem * It is a bitter enough irony ; for the sake of truth, the group should be reversed. 212 The Jesuits. curious: In 1829, the date of the official return of the Jesuits into Portugal, Father Delvaux was charged with the reinstalhnent, which took place with concur- rence alike of the Government and of the people. He set out from Lisbon with an ample escort, and began his journey through the diocese of Coimbra. But let us see his account : "Pombal," he relates in his official report, "is the first town in the diocese of Coimbra after leaving Lis- bon. Now, the Archbishop had given orders to all the parishes on our route to receive us in triumph, and in consequence I was literally obliged to run away from the ovation in order to gain the convent of the Franciscans, (The reader will recollect that it was here the body of Pomba] lay deposed). I ran thither, however ; it was a need of my heart ; I cele- brated mass ; I will not describe what I experienced in offering the victim of propitiation, the Lamb who prays on the cross for his executioners, in offering, I repeat, the holy sacrifice for the repose of the soul of Don Sebastian Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, corpore prœsante.^^^ For fifty years his body had waited here the return of the Society from the exile to which his unrelenting cruelty had condemned them, and whose return, more- over, he had himself predicted. * In presence of the body. PombaL 213 Whilst I was discharging this religious duty, the triumph which we were forced to accept, or rather endure, was in progress throughout the city and its en- virons. All the bells were rung. The Prior Archpriest came in solemn procession to conduct our Fathers to the church, which was illumi- nated. The whole was like a dream. If only the pitiful remains of the once potent Minister could have spoken. I repeat, that to my mind, sublimity of soul was here easily attained ; but I can also add, that in fol- lowing the history of this Order, so proverbially vin- dictive, according to the Hterature which cuts it up in order to sell the pieces to the voraciously morbid appetite of its readers, I have found only this decided instance of the "Vengeance of the Jesuits." VI. A BRIEF GLANCE AT CHOISEUL, D'ARANDA, AND TANUCCI. I HAVE given considerable relative importance to the drama of Lisbon, because the "great Marquis," if not the most redoubtable, was, at least, the nicst celebrated among the political enemies of the Order of Jesus, even as Pascal personified, in the community of readers, the type of the enemy of the Jesuits in polemics. I am certainly far from comparing all the statesmen who have shown enmity to the Order, to Don Sebas- tian de Carvalho, "the killer of the Fathers," and still less disposed to honor the many libellists who have calumniated the Order, by exalting their medi- ocrity to the height of the genius of Pascal ; but it is certain that, in these two men, so widely different, is personified the persecuting hate humbly implored from God, and obtained by Saint Ignatius, from the founda- tion of the Order. Nor can I determine which of these two men gained to the Institution the more good, or the more evil, since that may not be called abso- lutely bad which is the very essence of a work, and the special grace attached to its creation. (214) Choiseuly UAranda^ and Tahucci, 215 However, from a serious consideration of facts, it appears that the furious attack of Pombal, which opened the breach to all the other attacks, and visibly decided the nature of the battle, was a mere isolated blow, and that the Minister of a little country ignored at the time the tactics of the great Protestant League, which held in its snare all the kings, and also the rash plan of the Princes of the House of Bourbon, united in a family pact for the purpose of imprudently throwing off what they termed the " "^oke of the Church." The fault was not entirely due to them ; an irresist- ible movement swept them along. It is necessary to take into consideration their constitutional short-sight- edness, which never permitted them to see three steps before them; their courts, swarming hives of noble bees ; their Parliaments, clothed with false gravity and dyed in th| Jansenist vat ; and their Ministers, wholly or half philosophers, who, while eagerly pursu- ing chimerical advantages, rushed into the reality of their ruin. It is certainly a remarkable thing to observe how unanimous were these unfortunate kings in choosing, for men in whom to repose confidence, creatures de- voured by ambition, without either principle or faith — Choiseul, Alba, Aranda, Tanucci, and du Tillot ; four examples of the same infidelity. And equally strange is the unanimity of these pretended " Free Thinkers" 2i6 The Jesuits. in working toward their own fall with an activity, ar eagerness, and a passion truly worthy of pity ! But can not this be said, with equal reason, of the Protestants themselves ? and, excepting some few who were possessed of the perception and the malice of the demon, can we not place in the ranks of these blii:ypd ones the entire band of philosophers, nay, even the more than philosophers, the very demolishers, by profession and by trade, who became, in reality, frantic devotees of privilege as soon as they possessed therein a greater or lesser part ? Fancy we, for example, the womanish terror and horrible disgult that would have seized Voltaire could he have seen, were it only in a dream, the bloody, hirsute arms of his daughter, the Revolution ! No ; none among these men had fathomed the people. All played on their poor game of polished indolence or unrestful covetousness, emulating each other in elbowing aside the things which restrained them, which ruled them, which maintained them in the right and detested road, indifferent to God, or mocking Him, or hating Him ; all ignorant, even the learned ; all tainted with the leprosy of the egotism of this age, which lightly accepted the end of the world, provided the end of the world but came not until the to-morrow of its death ; all singing, jeering, railing, blaspheming, doubting, or pretending to doubt, in order to appear Choiseul, D'Aranda^ and Tanucci. 217 consistent ; respecting nothing, not even their moth- ers, and that, perhaps, not without reason, so aban- doned had woman become, and so low had marriage, which is the human sanctity of woman, fallen ! Never has there been seen a time so utterly void of God's influence ; never an hour so manifestly marked by the seal of agony and final impenitence. I have regretted, in my own mind, the lack of com- petency to treat, as it should be treated, the question of whether the Jesuits, and above them, the Church, could at this time have acted otherwise than they did, and better combated the evil ? But to what pur- pose ? The hand of Providence is here in a special manner visible. The close of this epoch resembles an old age without dignity, broken down by its vices, and infirm to the point of repugnance, suddenly seized by a convulsion. It gives forth a final cry, then is silent, and stirs no more. It has lived. Now listen to what say the professors invested with the requisite authority to entitle them to compile " Dic- tionaries" for the instruction of youth. They say that this dead beast called itself "the Old World." And they show, I know not what, born at the same moment of its death, known as " the New World." This is very good as a metaphor ; but do not be de- luded and awed by the bombast of these high-sounding phrases, whose sense could be contained in the hol- lowed-out head of a pin. Let the garrulous who hope 2i8 The Jesuits. to convince by the sonorous sound of their words, talk on. They do less harm than people imagine, for with- out them there would be exactly the same number of obtuse intelligences, and common fools imagining themselves learned. Let these empty talkers beat their drums and Hsten to the sound of their own noise. Nothing is dead ; nothing has been born. The Old World is only the world, as is the New. Both are of the same age, and these interments and these bap- tisms of worlds are but so much material to assist these phrase-sounders. There was one birth of time in Adam, one baptism of time in Christ, and between them a deluge which will never return. At best, the great age of the world subjects it to crises which are unavoidable, and to which only one remedy is appHcable — faith. Behold the truth ; we are very old. This is the question : Has the Revolution revived the faith ? Perhaps. Then be the Revolution blessed, even amid its pro- found shame ! Has the Revolution lessened faith? Then be it accursed, even amid its incontestable grandeur ! But I do not credit the decrease of faith, and the progress of faith is proved to me by evidence : God is more with us, unfortunate and humbled as Chotseulj UArattdciy and Tanucci. 2ig we are, than He was among our more fortunate fathers ; God among us is more skillfully attacked, and better defended ; since it is necessary to employ these imperfect expressions to designate the undying battle of Doubt against Faith — that grand conflict of the two standards which the ecstasy of Ignatius viewed on the mystical plain. God draws us to Him. Our lethargy has passed, startled as much by His anger as by His mercy. God works great and hidden things within us — He who gives children to fill with joy the desolate mansion of the sterile. It is the seed-time, and the Father of the family is at work. As ever, a portion of the seed sown by Him falls by the wayside, and is devoured by the birds ; a portion on the stones, and becomes the prey of the parched earth ; a portion among thorns, which choke the young shoot ; and finally, a portion on the good earth, which recompenses all losses, and yields grain an hundredfold to the sower. But in the good earth, even, behold how the enemy unhappily steals in and traitorously sows tares above the wheat ! O God ! how difficult to bring the seed to fruit ! If the germ of your word escape the voracious birds, our vices multiply Hke the sparrows of the way side ; if it survive the noonday heat, it is burned by our passions; if it elude even the thorns, those tangles 220 The Jesuits, of human interest, covetoiisness, ambition, and pride, it is not even yet safe, for the enemy who never sleeps, seeks at night to over-sow it with tares ; that useless, and therefore noxious plant, of which the stalk is straight, and the flower radiant and beautiful, but which affords nourishment to neither man nor beast ; true symbol of error adorned with false freedom, and heresy concealing its old leprosy under the seducing colors of novelty. O God ! how will it ever ripen into the wheat of your word ? It will ripen, however ; it has ripened, despite the pillaging sparrows, the dryness, and the tangles, which are the war of nature ; despite even the tares which are the war of wicked men. It has ripened, and will ripen, because your mercy, saving Jesus, perpetually opposes virtue to nature, and the caution of super- natural devotion to the wiles of the enemy wlio in- cites to revolt the things of nature against the Master of Nature. The frail stalk and the wheat which bends it have a providential prop ; until the end of time, education will cherish the wheat, preaching will weed the field, and the harvest, though unceasingly impoverished, will be always plentiful. Since the day when the chief workman, employed by the nocturnal sower, placed in our French earth sucli an abundance of tares that the harvest was for a Choiseul, UAranda, and Tanucci. 221 time choked, and the famished world was afflicted with a faUing sickness, beHeve you that the tares have yet retained the enormous place in the field which was given them by the traitor ? No ! the tares have disappeared, and by this I un- derstand the special tares sowed by M. de Choiseul and his colleagues, the Jansenist tares — which is so utterly dead that we have no longer a market of tares; it has disappeared completely, this noxious invading herb, once so flourishing, which infested the nobility, the clergy, the Parliament, the Bourgeois class, and the Government alike ; so thoroughly has it been rooted out, that the youth who study the " Dictionnaires," seek vainly its definition in the "Dictionaries of youth." The candidates for degrees rebel when they are served so mischievous a turn as to be questioned on such antiquated subjects. Who has ever seen a live Jansenist ? There may still remain one in the museums, but it must command an immense price, and collectors only who have been happy enough to exhume from its tertiary the breast- bone of an Epiornis, or the first teeth of a Mega- therium, can hope to procure in exchange so great a curiosity. It was the thing, however, of which one revolving century has sufficed to destroy the last trace ; it was tares of these lost species whose growth endured long 222 The Jesuits, enough to impair the harvest of intelligence, and produce a long and mortal famine in human hearts. Blind and odious instruments of Protestantism, which itself pursued with closed eyes an unknown route, the Jansenists, enemies of the Protestants, and of the Philosophers, renewed the coalition of the Pharisees and Sadducees of which the Gospel speaks, for a united attack upon the Society of Jesus, the ob- ject of their implacable jealousy. They surrounded the throne, they infested the Parliaments, they governed the Ministry, and their austerity did not prevent them from being perfectly acquainted with the geography of that Armidian isle where Pompadour, the middle-aged enchantress, misled the premature decrepitude of the king. A league was formed between this unfortunate woman (whose name we have too often repeated), the directing Minister, the Parliaments, and the Jansenists, among whom a man of severe virtue, Francis de Fitz-James, Bishop of Soissons, was the first to demand the suppression of the Order, even while making this, to say the least, strange reservation: "We willingly render them the justice of admitting that there is not a single Order in Europe whose Religious are more regular and aus tere in their manners." Pascal, at least, would have reviled them. But let us turn to the Protestants : Schlosser first, Professor of History at the University of Heidelberg; Ckoiseul, D'Aranda, and Tanucci, 223 *'The diverse courts of the House of Bourbon," he says, "not seeing that they would place instruction in widely different hands (from those who had hitherto formed the minds of the young generation), united themselves against the Jesuits."* • "This blindness of royalty was patent to the Philosophers, and afforded them hearty amusement. * D'Alembert uttered real cries of joy,' " Schlosser adds, speaking of the Jansenists. "They had de- prived the Jesuits, by means which were often equivo- cal, of the acquired esteem of centuries."t And Schoell : " The Jansenists, under the appear- ance of great religious zeal, and the Philosophers, while declaiming the most philanthropic sentiments, worked steadily toward the reversal of Pontifical au- thority. But, in order to set aside the ecclesiastical power, it was necessary to isolate it by depriving it of the support of this phalanx which had devoted itself to the defense of the Pontifical Throne." The literal truth of history is contained in these avowais. Some lines further on, Schoell continues : " The imprudences committed by some of the mem- bers furnished the arms with which to combat the Order, and the war against the Jesuits became popu- lar ; or rather, the persecution of an Order whose ex- * Schlosser, Vol. I. t History of Courts, Vol. XLIV. 224 The Jesuits. istence was incorporated with that of the Catholic reHgion and the throne, became a title which gave it the right to call oneself philosopher." The style is Teutonic, but says much. "They held in their hands the future generations. Nothing hostile to the Holy See, and consequently to religion, could prosper as long as the Jesuits were there." . . . . " The Jesuits were immovable in their faith They conspired against them and declared them guilty, since they refused to be associated in the plots which menaced the Holy See and the Mon- archies." Marvelous to relate, the Monarchies themselves joined against them, conspiring against their most firm defenders. " Quos vult perdere " . . . . the poet has said, speaking of the time of Jupiter. God first deprives of sense those whom His providence has condemned. The kings began the work of their slow suicide. In the midst of the gloomy tidings which daily arrived from Portugal, whetting the curiosity of the public, diverting the cfmiii of court, inspiring the idea of emulation within the breast of the ParUaments, and suggesting to M, de Choiseul a way of arriving at the proposed ends without having to wade toward it through blood, the affair of Father de Lavalette occurred, which, very simple in the beginning, assum- ed most aggravated proportions, by a sudden change Choiseulj UAranda, and Tanucci. 225 of circumstances, which the Order was certainly power- less to prevent, but to which no energetic remedy was applied. Father de Lavalette was decidedly culpa- ble, if not as a man, certainly as a Religious. To parry losses which had been incurred, not amid the hazards of a loyal war, but through a manifest crime against the right of mankind, which has been added to the al- ready long list of like misdeeds which History lays at the door of England,* Father de Lavalette trans- gressed at first by little, then still further, the limits imposed by the Rule. He became a trader ; he be- came even a speculator. Proof exists to show that Father Visconti, General of the Order, took from the first moment the most severe measures in his regard. The examiners ap- pointed to judge him, and provided with most extended powers, set out in good time, but it appeared as if everything had conspired to prevent their arrival — war, tempests, captivity, and death. When Father de la Marche, the fifth or sixth ex- aminer named, at length arrived in the Antilles with a safe conduct from the British Government, the affair had been in progress for seven years. Father de la Marche, assisted by the principal mem- * Some writers have maintained that the seizing of the vessels was a Protestant blow, but it was entirely an English affair, and the result of an old habit: " Fides anglica înercari-' alis fides." IS 226 The Jesuits. bers of the Order resident in Martinico, rendered the celebrated judgment which condemned I.avalette to both spiritual and temporal interdiction. He acqui- esced in his sentence, expressly declaring that he acted entirely of himself, without either the authorization or counsel of his superiors. He reiterated this assertion in London, after his ex- pulsion from the Order, and always persevered in the statement throughout the numerous actions brought against him in the courts of law. Even the fact of the judgment rendered by Father de la Marche could not destroy the credit of what has been termed " the counting-houses of Father de Lavalette," although already imperilled. The operations engaged in remained, nevertheless, considerable, and the closing of the warehouses which depressed the values, thus greatly augmenting the debt, magnified the deficit into the proportions of a disaster. It was, however, merely a loss of money, which could be refunded in money. The first movement of the General was to pay in- discriminately all the creditors, although the Order was not responsible, either according to the Constitu- tions, or thfi ordinary jurisprudence, but the members of the French Bar counseled the Society to delay payment, and publish the bankruptcy of Father de Lavalette, "in order to bring revindicatory action against the British Government." Choiseul, D'Aranda^ and Tamicci, 227 It is at this juncture that perfidy, far greater than that of the English themselves, appears ; for sev eral members of Parliament, having been sounded, warmly advocated this course. The trap was most invitingly arranged. Madame de Pompadour remained motionless ; M. de Choiseul feigned to be particularly occupied in another direction ; Philosophy remained concealed in order to laugh more heartily ; and Paris, engrossed with the decree by which one hundred and seventy captains had been discharged, chanted a badly-rhymed song which threatened the "Captain Jesus" in the name of the king, to overthrow " His company" too. The king slumbered. One morning the parliamentary trap closed upon an imprudent shred of parchment which had been let fall, and immediately an extraordinary excitement became visible around the snare. With one accord, Madame de Pompadour, M. le Duc, the Philosophers, the Jansenists, Parliament, the Court, and the city stretched their necks to see what had been taken. It was nothing, but it meant everything, and the king was very nearly awakened by the joyful rumor which circulated about his throne, " The cause of the Jesuits was in Parliament." Under pretense of judging the Lavalette case, Par- liament executed a plan, which it had been long con cocting, and ordained that a copy of the Constitutions 228 The Jesuits. of the Order be placed in the register's office. Fof the time the king was thoroughly awakened, but he was soon lulled to sleep again. " Madame de Pompadour aspired in a special man- ner to a reputation of energy, and believed that an oc- casion of gaining it had at last presented itself, by showing that she understood how to make a grand stroke of policy in State affairs. "The same littleness of mind also influenced the Due de Choiseul. Moreover, both were anxious to distract the public attention from the events of the Vv^ar."* Thus says Sismondi, and it is not badly put for a Genevese, inasmuch as the events of the war, which was bravely fought on the battle-field by our Generals and soldiers, but directed at Paris with a deplorable lack of ability, were of a nature which could not be too speedily forgotten. I can not close the quotation without relating what Sismondi observes of the joint glory of the favorite and the Minister : " They hoped to acquire popularity by flattering at the same time the Philosophers and the Jansenists, and defray the expenses of the war by the confiscation of the goods of a very wealthy Order, etc., and thus dispense with the need of retrenchment, "t Do you prefer the worthy T.acretelle? His text is the same, nearly identical: "The Duke de Choiseul," * French History, Vol. XXIX. f Ibid. Choîseul, D'Ara^tda, and TamiccL 229 he says in his History of France, during the eighteenth century, " and the Marquise de Pompadour fomented the hatred against the Jesuits. The Marquise, who had never justified her pretensions to energy of char- acter, was impatient to show, in destroying the Jesuits, that she knew how to make a telUng stroke in State affairs. The Duke de Choiseul was no less jealous of the same honor. The goods of the monks would serve to defray the expenses of the war, and enable them to dispense with all recurrence to reform. To flatter at once two powerful parties, the Philosophers and Jansenists, was a great rieans of popularity." I trust that none will accuse me of serving to my readers " clerical " prose. Neither Sismondi, the Calvinist, nor Lacretelle, the avowed enemy of those whom, in order to better tes- tify his hatred, he terms "monks," are possessed of great eloquence, but it is impossible for two, either lofty or insignificant intellects, to coincide more exactly in the terms employed. As they were almost con- temporaries, I know not if it much matter which of the two has copied the other. But M. de Choiseul responds to both, one and the other, by a glaring falsehood. Louis XVI. did not love M. de Choiseul ; he had expressed once, at least, the aversion of an honest man and a Christian, in what may be called a terrible fashion, but it was not on ac- count of the Jesuits. 230 The Jesuits. Long after the Lavalette trial, when Louis XVI. was king, M. de Choiseul appealed to him thus in his " Justificatory Memoir " : " They represented to the king that I was the author of the expulsion of the Jesuits. Chance alone began this affair; the action of Spain terminated it At the close of an un- fortunate war, overwhelmed with affairs, I viewed only with indifference the subsistence or destruction of a community of monks." I have cited this ministerial text only to show that M. le Duc, once fallen, remembered : " All bad business is deniable." '^As soon as the Parliament had the ' Constitutions ' in its hands, it no longer troubled itself about the creditors of Lavalette, who were never fully paid," says Cretineau-Joly, " not even after the confiscation of the goods of the Society." And the same author adds in a note :* " The house of Martinico, and the lands of Dom- inica, which were all the property of Lavalette, were j)urchased by the English conquerors at the price of four miUions." Why did not Parliament show its disinterestedness in behalf of the creditors, the sum total of whose debt amounted to only two miUions, four hundred thousand livres ? History of the Society of Jesus," Vol. X., p. 204. Choiseul, UAranda, and Tanucci. 231 It made a great stir in behalf of the creditors. Both Lacretelle and Sismondi are agreed in saying that this was but a mere pretext ; it was necessary to please the Philosophers by trying to crush the Church, to please the Jansenist Athenians by exiling Aristides, and " to pay the expenses of the war." The king moved at length almost at the conclusion of the affair. He referred the case to his council. The council of the king gave advice favorable to the Jesuits, and the Bishops of France, united on its ques- tion, unanimously responded (lacking only six Jan- senist voices) by a magnificent eulogium of the Insti- tute. But the king could not remain awake for any length of time ; as soon as he had closed his eyes once more, Madame de Pompadour made a sign to Choiseul, who in turn notified Parliament, and on the ist of April, 1762, all the Jesuit colleges were closed. How gayly d'Alembert announces the fact : "They received at the end of March the sad news of the taking of this colony (Martinico.) "* They thought to effect a diversion, by engaging the attention of France on another subject, as of old Alcibiades had thought to cut the tail of his dog, etc., etc. He becomes a prophet in his joy, and exclaims : " I * D'Alembert, " Suppression of the Jesuits," p. 168, 232 The Jesuits. see everything, couleur de rose ! I see all the Jan- senists dying a beautiful death next year, after having caused the Jesuits to perish by a violent death this year." The Jansenists are dead in truth, and forever — and the Jesuits live. More remains to be told, however. The voice of the clergy of France penetrated even to the foot of the throne. " Sire, religion recommends to you its defenders, the Church its ministers, Christian souls, the depositories of the secrets of their consciences ; a great number of your subjects, the masters who have educated them ; the youth of your kingdom, those who form their minds and hearts." This last clause contained the knotty point of the question, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, charged with the presentation of the "vote of the clergy "* to the king, represented its importance. The Dauphin, on his side, possessed of keen int^el- ligence and a noble heart, neglected nothing m order to make the king comprehend the terrible danger of leaving to chance, at so menacing a period, the edu- cation of youth. It must be granted, that the danger was from that time forth appreciated by all the world ; only while it was a subject of fear for the friends of * Vote of the clergy of France. Choiseul, D'Aranda, and Tanucci, 233 the throne, it raised the hopes of the conspirators en- listed in the cabal against it, and of the still more numerous, wild, reckless beings whose curiosity led them, with bandaged eyes, to the discovery of abysses toward which civilization was hurrying. As yet, the Revolution had no name, but each felt it drawing near, and each felt that in the attack upon the Jesuits had been swept away the most sohd of the last barriers raised across the declivity on which the world Avas slipping. To expel the Jesuits was to plunge the young generation into a chaos of aspirations, of doubts, falsehoods, undisciplined science, ambitions, treasons, egotisms, impieties, with which they became imbued, under the name of "new ideas," to fill them with the obstinacy of caste, the prejudice of sect, and the passion of privilege peculiar to certain bodies, such as the Parliaments and the Universities. The day will come when history, well written, and free from the declamatory twaddle which overloads it and obscures its meaning, will establish clearly the truth of this axiom : That the Revolution, at its birth, was nothing more 'than a fever of caste, a conspiracy of sect, and a revolt of privilege, in which the people were not at all inter- ested, because its great instinct, not yet empoisoned, saw in it only the interest of castes, of sects, a-nd of prerogative, excited by the representations of sophistry. There was no need of the Revolution in order to 234 ^^^ Jesuits, further the measure of progress where progress is only possible according to Divine permission. Beyond this allotted measure all progress is a false- hood and an irony, as may be plainly seen by the peri- odical and constant recoils of the Revolution, which ever exists, and which, perhaps, will never end. Those who live long, nearly all acquire the certainty that in- telligent revolutionists do not believe in the Revolu- tion. We should be more advanced in that vague path which they call progress, and which is least marked by splendid monuments, either in point of view of ma- terial conquest or purely physical science, if the revo- lutionists did not take the trouble to pause, from time to time, to assassinate Louis XVI., or to play some other highly insensate tragedy in order to fill up the inevitable reaction attendant upon proclaiming from the housetops that they are the ignorant evil, the ferocious evil, and the incurably blind evil, before which everything must give way. The most convincing argument against the revolu- tionists, more telling even than the history of their political abortions, which will long be the surprise of posterity, is this : What have they discovered in phi- losophy, leaving aside the negation of God ? Voltaire beUeved in God. He has said so time and again, both in brilliant prose and pitiful verse. It is melan- choly to see Voltaire among them, or even Diderot, Choiseul, ly Aranda^ and Tamicci, 235 who has showed himself in certain passages to be a man of genius. Both of these were thoroughly French in mind, although naturalized Prussians in heart. Vol- taire, especially, was guilty of the wrong of despising and detesting the French people, and allowed them to see it with a cynical effrontery, because, mighty genius as he was, and perhaps for that very reason, he was the exact opposite of a great prince. Under the quasi- royal mantle which the easily-understood infatuation of his contemporaries draped upon his shoulders, the parvenu thrusts itself into view. And it is a ludicrous thing to say, but behold, why the Church proved so obnoxious to him : they had raised him a mimic throne, and, in his simplicity, he wished a true Altar ; and God eclipsed him by taking up too much space thereon. Voltaire, in killing God, hoped to inherit His throne. Others since Voltaire, and with less excuse than he, have attempted this at once sorrowful and ludicrous work, which is the imbecility of genius. But among all, even including Voltaire, living by the eloquence of their hates, what have they found ? In the place of the mocked God, what have they put ? Steam is magnificent ; the electric telegraph a per- petual marvel; there are fairy-like wonders in the dark box where the light works to produce photographs of the smallest thing. But all this is from God. 236 The Jesuits. Where is the essentially human invention ? I re- peat it, where is the philosophical idea brought by the revolutionists ? Nowhere ! In this regard, they are more poorly off than the most pitiful of the heresies, whose carcasses lie rotting in the ditch all along the grand route of Catholicism. There were heresies which endured for centuries ; there are some "which, unhappily for the world, still exist ; but where are these devotees of matter, these seekers of a binomial which will replace God in their empty Church, and liberty in their slavish Republic ! nowhere ! nowhere ! Nowhere ! Those who have attained the age of fifty years have seen their startling or laughable Utopian schemes twisted into a thousand, which are shame- lessly proclaimed in the obscenity of their silliness, in order to gain the attention of niankind ; loudly advertising, posting their placards, waving their stand- ards, illuminating their booths like those of a char- latan at a fair, only to disappear, drowned in the flood of some new foolery which rises. What is at the bottom of all this ? The shop. The shop of men who, refusing all belief in the disinter- estedness of the veritable apostolate, constitute them- selves the apostles of all kinds of nonsense, in ordei to gain reputation, influence, or money ; the miniature shop of Voltaire ; also, the shop of caste, of sect, of privilege ; the shop, alas ! of the Court of France in Choiseuly UAranda, and Tanucci. 237 the eighteenth century, of Protestants, of Jansenists, and the shop of Parliaments ! Must it be understood, then, that to combat this in- vasion of Bourgeois charlatanism, which, hardly born, was already so powerful, there was only the eftbrt of the Society of Jesus ? Such is, most certainly, not the impression we wish to give. The Society of Jesus is only a battalion of the grand army of the Church, and the Church will be provi- dentially guarded in its integrity, independent of that Order, independent of all which is not essentially the Church ; but since we have been speaking of the army apropos of the Church, it is necessary to take note of the element of every army — the soldier. The army of the Church has numbered equally as good soldiers as the Society of Jesus has furnished them, but none better ; and their force was tenfold increased by the marvelous discipline to which the unanimity of their adversaries has constantly rendered homage. Through this discipline, which stationed them in the center of the Church, they were as the heart of the Church, and the enemies of the Church drawn up and collected for a supreme effort, rushed upon this heart. If the Church did not succumb, it was because she is immortal. Not only did the Church survive the shock, it was not even shaken ; but all which was not the Church, 238 The Jesuits. but depended for its existence on her, although refus- ing to believe so, all tottered and fell ! The severest chastisement which could be inflicted, not only on the memory of M. de Choiseul, whose lavish partiality hung so heavy a weight on the con- science of Parliament, but on that of Parliament itself, is the publication in its integral parts of the Act which expelled the Jesuits, and the considerations of that Act. The comic genius of Molière never conceived anything as ridiculous as this vocabulary of charges, an unrivaled monument of bad faith, ignorance, and impotency. The Parliament was an illustrious body, and when we utter in their default the word "ignorance," it is not that we are unaware of the fact that it consulted the most eminent and upright jurists in France, or probably in Europe, but that besides the balance of votes being rendered unfair by the presence of a large number of young courtiers — the avowed creatures of Pompadour, whose pestilential influence everywhere penetrated — it is certain that the bolstered theology, improvised for the occasion in the half pagan sanctuary of Themis, was the occasion of great disorder, followed presently by the most unblushing of all pedantries. These young " time-servers," wicked creatures of An- toinette Poisson, disguised as Fathers of the Council, would convey to the mind only the idea of a carnival, were it not that the consequences proved so funereal. Choisenlj D'Ara?îda, and Tanucci. 239 The 6th of August, 1762, Parliament, judging this cause in a single sitting, and neglecting almost entirely the main point of the case, rendered a judgment which even its delay impeaches as having been decided upon in advance, and which declares the Order known as the Society of Jesus inadmissible in all civilized States," as being opposed to natural right, to all spiritual and temporal authority, and tending to introduce into the Church, under the specious veil of a religious Institu- tion, not an Order whose aspirations are veritably and solely toward evangelical perfection, but a political body,* whose very essence consists of a constant activity in bringing about by every possible means a state of absolute independence, and consequently the usurpation of all authority. So far is only vague, and written in defiance of all sense, since the Order " opposed to all spiritual authority" was at the time defended by the infalHble testimony of the Holy See, the Apostolic Council, and by the entire clergy of France, with the Bishops at their head. But the sequel will be better understood by employ- ing the precise terms of the Decree to show the crimes * At first they made rise of the word " secret," and the President, Roland, he who was later so unmercifully plun- dered by the Jansenist sharks (the famous " Boite à Perette "), compared them to the Freemasons, who had made some stir since the attempt of Damiens. 240 The Jesuits. of which the Jesuits are accused : ^' Siuiony, blas- phemy, sacrilege, magic and sorcery, astrology, irré- ligion of all kinds, idolatry and superstition, lascivious- ness, .... theft, parricide, homicide, suicide, and regicide." This not only in practice, but in doctrine with the approbation of their Superiors and Generals. Where was the Béarnais, who understood so well how to deal with the hypocrisy of Parliament ? Had there been on the throne of France, I do not say a Henry IV., nor even the half, the quarter, but only the tenth, the hundredth part of a king, .... alas ! if there had been even Louis. XV., without Choiseul or Pompadour ! The Jews, says the Evangelist, had great difficulty in procuring false witnesses to testify against our Lord. And it seems that ParHament found no more easily than they the sources by which their unparalleled judg- ment was gained; for the same President Roland, to whom we have alluded, when justly attacking the Jansenists for having disputed, amid their gloomy dis- sipation, the succession of his uncle, Rouilli des Fille- tieres, complained bitterly " of having expended more that sixty thousand livres of his own money in the affair of the Jesuits ; " and he candidly adds : " In truth, the labors that I have gone through in relation to the Jesuits, who would never have been ' exterminated ' (precious word) if I had not conse- Choiseul^ UAranda^ and Tajiucci. 241 crated to the purpose my time, my money, and my health, should not have been rewarded by a desertion of my uncle." So much for the favor of the Jansenists ! A little further on, and this unfortunate President had reason to weep; the " Boite à Perette " did not show itself very gracious in his regard. How shameful and pitiable a comedy ! The Parlia- ment of a d'Agueseau, of Lamoignon, and of a Mole ! At least Pombal supplied himself with his authority, and did not dishonor the justice of his country. But let us peruse the considerations of this Choiseul Act ; it must be read in order to be believed. '"'' Their doctrines in all times have been favorable to the schism of the Greeks ; opposed to the dogma of the Procession of the Holy Ghost ; favoring Arian- ism, Socinianism, Sabellianism, and Nestorianism ; ■ endeavoring to shake belief in the truth of other dogmas concerning the hierarchy, the rites of sacrifice and sacraments ; reversing the authority of the Church and Apostolic See ; favoring the Lutherans, the Cal- vinists, and other innovators of the sixteenth cen- tury; reviving the heresy of Wyckliffe, renewing the errors of Tichonius, of Pelagius, and of the semi- Pelagians, of Cassien, and of Fauste, along with that of the Marseillais ; adding to heresy, blasphemies offensive to the Holy Fathers, to the Apostles, to Abraham, to the Prophets, to St. John the Baptist, and 16 242 The Jesuits. to the Angels ; being outrageous and blasphemous against the Blessed Virgin Mary ; shaking the founda- tions of Christian Faith ; assailing the divinity of Jesus Christ, and attacking the mystery of the Redemp- tion ; favoring the impiety of the Deists ; entertaining. Epicurism ; teaching men to live as beasts, and Chris- tians to live as Pagans ; offending the ears of the chaste ; nourishing concupiscence and conducing to temptation and toward grievous sins ; eluding the divine law by artifice, pretended societies and other frauds of this kind; palliating usury; inducing judges to prevarication ; apt to accomplish their ends by diabolical artifice ; troubling the peace of families ; adding the art of deceiving to the iniquity of theft ; shaking the fidelity of domestics ; opening the way to the violation of all laws, civil, ecclesiastical, or apos- tolic ; injurious to sovereigns, and to governments ; making the life of mankind and their rule of manners so as to depend upon vain reasonings and systems ; ex- cusing vengeance and homicide ; justifying cruelty and personal vengeance ; opposed to the second Com- mandment of charity, and stifling even in fathers and children all sentiments of humanity — thus execrably acting in opposition to filial love ; opening the road to avarice and cruelty ; capable of procuring homicide and parricides to be committed ; openly opposed to the Decalogue ; justifying massacres ; menacing mag- istrates and human society with certain riiiii ; contrary Choisetil, UAranda, and Tanucci.. 243 to the maxims of the Gospel, to the example of Jesus Christ, to the doctrine of the Apostles, the opinions of the Holy Fathers, and the decisions of the Church ; to the security-of the life and honor of princes, and their magistrates, and ministers ; to the peace of families, and the good order of civil society ; seditions opposed to all natural right, to divine right, to positive right, and the right of mankind ; fomenting fanaticism and its horrible carnage ; a disturbing element in the society of men ; ever creating an ever-present peril to the life of kings ; holding doctrines whose venom is so dangerous that it can only be estimated by it's sacrilegious effects, which can not be viewed without horror." Bah ! Never, assuredly, have even our daily journals, who seize so greedily upon every detail bearing on the Jesuits, served up to their readers such ludicrous ac- cusations as these. Nothing has been found to equal the absurdity of this decree save its infamy. But still greater than the infamy of the decree itself was the rigor with which it was executed. The king was saddened, and as deeply touched as it was possible for him to be. The Dauphin gazed into the sinister perspective of ithe future, and shortly afterward died. The accusa- tions directed against M. de Choiseul, by the con- science of the public, on the subject of his death, have never been proven; but Horace Walpole, in October of 1765, writes as follows : 244 ^^^ Jesuits. *'The Dauphin has infaUibly but a short time to live. The Philosophers are overjoyed." Lacretelle, on the contrary, describes the intense mourning of Paris. Philosophers and people alike both knew with what ardor the Dauphin worked toward the re-es- tablishment of the Jesuits, who were, in the full force of the term, popular, besides having in their favor the queen, Stanislaus of Poland, and the king himself, if he counted for anything. The king had written to M. de Choiseul : " AH' heresies have ever been detested by them." Choiseul knew enough of modern history to not be in ignorance of that fact, and certainly it was not a reason to make him love them any the better. Listen to a mighty voice, that of I.amenais, speak- ing from the distance of half a century (in 1820) : "They knew it," he says (the devotion of the Order to religion and humanity) ; " they knew it, and it was for them a reason to destroy it, as it is for us to pay it, at least, the tribute of regret and gratitude which it merits for the numerous benefits it has conferred. We will long feel^the void made in Christianity by the suppression of these men, as eager for sacrifices as others in the pursuit of enjoyment, and we will have to work a long time to fill it. *' Who has replaced them in our puljnts ? Wl o will replace them in our colleges? Who in their stead has offered to carry Faith and Civilization and the Choiseîil, D'Aranda^ ajid Tamicci. 245 love of the French name into the forests of America, or across the pathless wastes of Asia, watered so often with their blood ? They are accused of being ambi- tious ; no doubt they were ; what society of men is not? '' But their ambition was to do good ; all the good in their power ; and who does not know that it is often that fault which the world will least pardon ? "They wished to rule everywhere; and where did they rule if not in the regions of the New World, where, for the first and only time, they seemed to realize those chimeras of happiness which we pardon in the imag- ination of poets ? They were dangerous to monarchs ; is it well for Philosophy to make them this reproach ? " However it may be I have examined history, I have seen these accusations ; I have searched for proofs, and found only a clear justification of the Order." This extract, taken from the "Reflections on the State of the Church in the Eighteenth Century," was written a short time previous to the re-estabHshment of the Jesuits, who had returned, but without having received the sanction of the Christian government of the Bourbons. Under the Restoration the shadow of Choiseul still seemed to linger in ministerial places. Moreover, in the nick of time the doors of the Ad- ministration had been found sufficiently ajar to let that Bourgeois riot, which bore the name of the Revo- lution of 1830, effect an entrance. 246 The Jesuits. But let us return to the close of the eighteenth cen- tury and cast a glance at Spain. Here we find that the baneful shadow of Choiseul has stretched across the Pyrenees. Nothing appeared to quench the thirst of hate which consumed the heart of this man ; and Sismondi, after expressing astonishment at the rapidity with which the persecution against the Jesuits spread from country to country, explains it by saying : " Choiseul made this persecution his own personal affair, and devoted himself to the one great object of expelling them from every State ruled by Bourbon power." The reason of this was, because Choiseul loved the Bourbons no better than he loved the Jesuits. He mined, he sapped the throne as well as the altar. But here he was defeated. His gnawing teeth could tear the gilded wood of the throne, but broke against the altar-stone. The throne needed the Jesuits, that is to say, edu- cation, for its support ; and after the empoisoning of only one generation which followed the expulsion of the Jesuits, the throne fell. The altar, which needed no human support, survived, rising miraculously from the midst of ruins. Choiseul, principal cause of the shan)eful excesses of his country, the man who by his weakness and inefficiency had provoked the anti-Catholic, that is, to Ckoiseul, D'Aranda, and Tanucci. 247 the anti-national rage; Choiseul, more noxious even than Voltaire, and more guilty, because he was at the same time more interested and more responsible, had exerted all his power; but '^ non prœveluit^^ his work hastened the unlooked-for disaster which terrified his last hour, but even then he saw the altar and the lamp of the altar suspended on high, reigning above the dis- aster, and giving glory to God, with the incense which rose from the death of the martyrs. Non prœveluit : he has not ; non prœvalehunt : they shall not ! Nothing can prevail against the Church, which is the rock of Jesus Christ. In the strange Memoir of M. de Choiseul, which shows uneasiness, but no repentance, addressed during the following reign to Louis XVI., and of which we have already quoted some lines, he lays to the " action of Spain only, the suppression of the Company in France." Beside that the dates give the direct falsehood to puerile justification, so little worthy the dignity of a statesman, celebrated at least by the piles of rubbish which he had heaped up along his route, and the many wounds which he had dealt his country,* the as- * The history of this Minister, such as it is related in the "Dictionaries" for the use of youth, is the masterpiece of its kind- he is there represented as a well-educated man (which is false), gifted with talents (which is true), a friend of letters (he corresponded much with the stranger), an able 248 The Jesuits. sertion of M. de Choiseul is sufficiently refuted by the facts themselves. Not only did not the " action of Spain " influence the conduct of the French Minister, but it is clearly demonstrated that the French Minister was, if not the author, at least the instigator of the *' action of Spain." Charles III. in truth resembled neither Joseph Emmanuel nor Louis XV. ; he was a Christian king, and it may be remembered that far from being a sys- tematic enemy of the Jesuits, he had ordered the first pamphlets of Pombal against the Society to be burnt. To excite this just prince against the Order, even to the excess of the most furious persecution, a skillfully conducted intrigue was needed ; and to conduct this intrigue, it needed the character whom the amateurs of our popular theater call '* The Traitor," and who is as great a personification of evil, gifted with tale7it^ as the Mephistopheles of Goethe. The traitor was at hand. administrator (after the fashion of the famous steward whc* sold the chateau), and the youth are taught to believe that this noble Minister hunted the Jesuits, for having made the colonial fortune of England, served Austria without mili- tating against Prussia, enriched Pompadour, betra)'ed Canada, ceded Louisiana, as easily as they do all things, with their hands in the pockets of their soutanes. It all lies in the art of lying moderately, but impudently, with the ap- probation and privilege of the King of Prussia. Choiseul, D'Aranda, and Tayiucci. 249 The historical facts here assume such a coloring, that they can only be explained with the guarantee of impartiality by Protestant pens. The least phrase uttered by a writer friendly toward religion would be suspected. Let the recital be writ- ten from one end to the other, therefore, with Protest- ant ink. In the year 1766, three years after the action of France in regard to these '■'■ ci-devaitV^ Jesuits, as Par- liament called them, already filled with the spirit of "'93," even to the point of using its very language, a riot took place in Madrid known as that of " The Sombreros," of which the apparently frivolous motive here matters but little, but which had its concealed ori- gin in Paris and Lisbon. The royal authority was for a time overthrown, and Charles was obliged to retreat to Aranjuez, protected with great difficulty by his Wallonian Guards, The disturbance, which neither the regiments of Flanders nor the guards sufficed to quell, was appeased by the Jesuits, who had become even more popular in Spain than they had been in France, as the public demonstrations testified. Unfortunately, the crowd insisted upon attending them even to the doors of their several houses, crying : " Vivent les Feres'^ Charles III. possessed some fine qualities, but he was arrogant, jealous, and vengeful as a Castilian, 250 The Jesuits. He had been obliged to flee ; the Fathers had subdued the people who had risen against him. At the height of his indignation he received advices from Paris stating " that it was not difficult for the Jesuits to quell the riot which they had themselves excited r M, de Choiseul had long before insinuated himself into the good graces of Charles by conceding to his Ambassadors precedence over the Ambassadors of France. The dignity of his country counted as nothing with M. de Choiseul, who was as prodigal of her honor as of her finances. Soon after the affair of " The Sombreros," a Ministry friendly to the views of Choiseul (and looked upon favorably by the " Encyclopédie ") was instituted at Aranjuez. The chief of this cabinet was a most distinguished diplomat, Don Abarca de Bolea, Count d'Aranda, whom the Lutheran Schoell represents as transported by the praises which unbelieving Paris lavished upon him. His colleague, the Duke of Alba, was a veritable veteran ot philosophy, and but Httle scrupulous in the choice of means when there was a question of striking at the Church ; for a second Protestant, Christopher de Murr,* clearly convicts him of forging the letters which he attributed to the Jesuits. *IXth Vol. of the Journal, p. 222. Choisezil, D'Aranda, a?id Tanucci. 251 Beginning with Pombal, all the persecutors of the Society were of an equal moral standard, and this it is our concern to prove from non-Catholic sources. According to Christopher de Murr, the repentant Duke of Alba later made Charles III. a written avowal of the wrong committed by him in the affair of the Jesuits. Furthermore, he declared before the Archbishop of vSalmanaca, "That he had fomented the riot of '■ The Sombreros ' for the express purpose of attributing it to the Jesuits'^ Thus, we have before us the workings of a world absolutely devoid of truth, although the Spanish philosophers, far from being plebeian, like those of our nation, possessed each quarterings of nobility enough, and to spare. But there were other means needed beside the in- citing of mobs at Madrid, in order to destroy the sympathy which had existed between the zealous Catholic, Charles III., and the Society of Jesus. A third Protestant, the English historian, Coxe, lets us into the secret of a romantic manœuver which brings M. de Choiseul on the scene. From the year 1764, the French Minister* had en- tertained the idea of effecting the expulsion of the Society from the other countries, especially Spain. * " Spain under the kings of the House of Bourbon," Vol. ^, p. 4. 252 The Jesuits. • Choiseul attributed to them every fault which he thought Ukely to bring about the disgrace of their Order. He had not the least scruple in circulating forged letters under the name of their General and the Superiors, and setting in circulation odious calumnies against certain individuals of the Society. In truth, these calumnies were rather directed against the king and against Elizabeth Farnese, his mother, wife of Philip Fifth. This brings us back to the epistle forged under the name of Father Ricci, General of the Society, by the Duke of Alba. It is evident that this intrigue pos- sessed powerful fomenters, and Coxe, in dividing the responsibilities, attributes to M. de Choiseul the accu- sation of illegitimacy, brought against Charles III. in the alleged correspondence of Father Ricci. . I do not think that the falsity of these letters has been denied by a single historian, whether friendly or otherwise to the Society. The only difference is, that one Protestant attributes the work to the Duke of Alba, another to the French Minister. But this point is of little importance. Coxe speaks of another forged letter of the Father- General. " They forged a letter supposed to be writ- ten from Rome to the Spanish Provincial.""^ This letter ordered him to excite an insurrection ; it had been ^ Ibid., p. 9. Choiseuly UAranda, and TaniiccL 253 sent in such a manner as to be intercepted, and en- larged upon the subject of the immense riches and property of the Order. It was a stratagem by which to obtain its suppression. But the principal cause of their expulsion was the successful means employed to make the kins: believe that the insurrection at Madrid had been incited by them, and that they had fomented other machinations against himself and the royal family. Charles, but lately their zealous protector, became their most implacable enemy. He resolved " to take pattern by the French Government, and expcrl so dangerous a Society from his dominions." Thus, in the shame of having been obliged to flee, the shame of having been succored in his extremity, joined to that of having had his birth charged with ille- gitimacy, the haughty son of Philip Fifth was baited like a bull on all sides. The "picadores" of Paris and Madrid who tormented him were skillful in their work. The forged letters intended to excite his fears could have been dispensed with ; the wounds dealt to his vanity would have sufficed. A fourth Protestant, Ranke,* adds, however : " They persuaded Charles III. that the Jesuits wished to put his brother Don Luiz in his place," as they had endeavored to put Dom Pedro in the place of Joseph History of the Papacy/' IV., 494. 254 The Jesuits. of Portugal ; when a falsehood works well why change it ? A fifth Protestant, Sismondi,* goes on : "The plots and counter-plots, slanderous accusations, forged let- ters, intended to be intercepted, and which were, in short, determined the resolution of the king." Finally, a sixth writer, the Englishman, Adam, al- though manifestly afraid of wounding the prejudices of the English, believes himself justified in questioning the truth of the guilt and bad intentions attributed to the Jesuits, and declares it " more natural to believe that a faction, hostile not only to their Institute, but to Christian religion in general, wrought a ruin to which the Governments lent themselves the more readily, as they thereby better served their own interests." We will pause at this half dozen of Protestant proofs. But there are others. Pombal, with the customary audacity of his nature, had usurped the office of justice, and created himself magistrate ; Choiseul, a better comedian, concealed himself in the side-scenes, and regulated the " mise en scene'' of his Parliaments, on the judicial stages of Paris and the provinces. The Count d'Aranda employed no ceremony ; some lines signed, " I, the King," and that matter was ar- ranged. * "History of the French," XXIX., 370. Chôiseîil, UAranda, and Taniicci. 255 With this authority, wrung from the error of a prince crazed with the fever of vengeance, the Spanish Minis- ter went to work, and surpassed in small and great cruelties Choiseul himself. Here, then, was manifest emulation. The hidalgo desired to rival the gentle- man, and show the authors of the '' Encyclopédie," that the country of Ignatius of Loyola himself, after an infusion of "liberal ideas," could equal in its ex- cess the country of St. Vincent de Paul, doctored by " philanthropy ! " And the Count d'Aranda had not presumed upon his merits. In this campaign of persecution against un- armed Religious, who, far from resisting, prayed ardent- ly for their executioners, he displayed the valor of the Cid. Saving the wheel, the rack, and the funeral piles which distinguish more the genius of Pombal, Spain pushed philosophy to the most revolting and arbi- trary limits, and threw in a single day six thousand priests into the. holds of ships, of which the greater part were unseaworthy, leaking in every part. They were obliged to disembark, the vessels having threat- ened to sink, even before they had put on sail. The same as in Portugal and in France, magnificent promises were made to any of the Society who would consent to abjure their vows. Is it necessary to add, that these promises were vain ? It would, indeed, be wonderful if in the peninsula 256 The Jesuits, and throughout the colonies, containing more than six thousand Religious, there were not some desertions, but the number of these is so insignificant as to as- tonish the Protestant writers we have cited. We will not speak either of the patience of the victims, nor the gratuitous cruelty of their perse- cutors. To what purpose ? The world is well acquainted with both ; but we would say a word concerning the indemnity allowed to the Spanish Jesuits by Spain, who confiscated this immense wealth of the poor. Their action was little less ridiculous than that of the Parliaments of Choiseul in regard to the French Jesuits. Each Spanish Father received one hundred piastres a year, instead of the twenty, eighteen, or twelve sous, given each day to the Fathers of France, where the Exchequer received the benefit of more than sixty millions. Worse than all, it robbed only the poor ! The Pope, Clement XIII., who loved Charles III. with a tender affection, defended the Jesuits in Spain, as he had done in France and Portugal, but with equal ill success. The will of God went on, pursuing its way, of which none may know the merciful turns. Ferdinand IV., the Bourbon of Naples, naturally possessed a philosopher for a Minister. Bernard, Marquis de Tanucci, had been the factotum, while the latter was king of Naples. Choiseul, UAranda, and Tanucci. 257 When Charles succeeded to the Spanish crown, and ceded Naples to his son Ferdinand, Tanucci re- mained the factotum of P'erdinand. The " Diction- aries " cite hitn as being one of the most determined enemies of the Church, and consequently worthy of the utmost consideration, Tanucci having dictated a mere " I, the king," to Ferdinand, who was but a boy, became instantly "^ la mode'' in the choice places at Paris, and compares even with Pombal, for the thor- ough brutality which he exhibited toward the Fathers, whom he expelled at the point of the sword. There was still another Bourbon besides him of Naples — the Duke of Parma, who was happy enough to possess, like all the rest, a Minister-Marquis-Philos- opher in du Tillot, Lord of Felino. This statesman was particularly obscure, having no other claim to glory than that of having shown the Jesuits of Parma the door. That was sufficient. The " Dictionaries " inscribe his name in grateful re- membrance of the grain of sand which he brought to the revolutionary heap. He was a miniature Choiseul. As the authors of their common misfortune, the de- scendants of this most illustrious royal race in the world, while reviewing the past in order to better un- derstand the future, should execrate the names of those traitors, great and insignificant, who have in- jured the people still more than the kings. 17 258 The Jesuits. All was over ; the Jesuits had no other asyhim than Rome. And now all the Ministers of the deluded Bourbons, who were either blinded or lulled to slumber — Choiseul, Aranda, Tanucci, Felino, in complicity with Pombal — pointed the knife at the breast of the Pope. The ex- pression is not too strong, and do you believe that the martyrdom of Louis XVI. had nothing to expiate ? The Pope resisted, heroic and saintly old man, but he died because the measure of bitterness which had filled his long days was complete. He died, and his last look, full of prophetic sadness, was turned on these degenerate sons of St. Louis, tot- tering on their Catholic thrones. And Laurent Ganganelli, elected Sovereign Pontiff, destroyed the Bull of Paul III. The Society of Jesus fell without a murmur, dying, as it had lived, in perfect obedie?ice. This page is perhaps the grandest and most touch- ing in the history of the Order. I might say here, that I reserve further mention of it for my other and more complete work, but this would be a falsehood ; I shall never re-write this page. Indeed, my respect for the chair of St. Peter is un- bounded VII. A LAST WORD. At the close of his excellent and truthful work, Crétineau-Joly declares, as a proof of his impartiality, that he is neither a friend, an admirer, nor an adver- sary of the Jesuits. They are to him, he affirms, merely what Vitellius, Otho, and Galba were to Tacitus. At the end of my hasty and incomplete little work, I declare on the contrary, that I admire and love the Jesuits. It is not necessary to be indifferent in order to be impartial, for beyond this neutral virtue of im- partiality, there is the Truth, which rules all. I speak the truth ; the truth which obliges us by the sovereign law of justice to expose the persecutor, and to avenge the persecuted good. A Christian has no need to state that he has no human interest which could induce him to deceive ; his interest is the law of God, which says to him, " Thou shalt not speak falsely," and all the human interests united would not excuse the transgression of this law. (259) 26o The Jesuits. To show one's colors is praiseworthy. Sincerity is the first of human virtues. I add, that to show one's colors, to loyally wear one's chosen cockade, is the first condition of imparti- ality. Therefore, in declaring, " I love the Jesuits, and condemn their enemies," I at once declare my sincere convictions, and tear aside any veil that might obscure the sense of my judgments. This pleases me, because it obliges me all the more fully to show good and solid motives for my verdic.t. My principal wish in writing this book, after having rapidly sketched the mighty work of the Jesuits, was to outline also the dark and malignant workings of their enemies. I wished to show how, in every particu- lar, the men who have made the word "Jesuit" an insult, are themselves a portrait of the disloyal monster whom they call a Jesuit. This is the true state of affairs. I charge the Protestant writers with showing Tar- tufe Philosophy, or Jansenism, as alone guilty of the profligate actions, the plots of all the infamies in force, with which this king of hypocrites reproaches the posterity of Loyola. Pombal is the Tartufe -Tiger,* whom Molière has not made, but M, de Choiseul, uniting all the Jesuits in the "case of conscience" of Madame de Pompa- * Molière's comedy of " Tartufe. A Last Word. 261 dour, has the hands of the noble juggler, with fingers soft and white enough to allow him to feel, without making her blush, the stuff of the robe of Elmira ; * he is a comedian, this Minister who touches on the melo- drama, only in the days when he beheads Lally Tollen- dal. The remainder of the time, he confines himself to merely cutting the tail of the dog of Alcibiades, for the amusement of the Athenians while he ruins and dishonors Athens, as the punishment of those who had glorified and enriched him. Look well at the "Tartufe" of the Lexicon. Be- hold the Tartufe of the " Dictionnaires," the normal enemy of the Jesuits. Such is he who, looking into the depths of his own conscience as into a mirror, and seeing in the world none more accomplished than him- self in the tactics of hypocrisy, ordered a faithful like- ness of himself, and wrote beneath it "Jesuit," in order that the hate of the world might fall upon this expiatory manikin. It was not for Socinianism that the Jesuits were hunted, nor for Arianism, nor for Sabellianism, nor on account of Tichonius, whose marvelously invented name procured the Act of Parliament an immense amount of laughter, nor even on account of St. John the Baptist, nor Abraham ; the Jesuits were hunted because it was necessary to the little political farce of * Molière's comedy of "Tartufe. 262 The Jesuits. Choiseiil and Madame de Pompadour — Monsieur and Madame Tartufe — by which they satisfied their deadly hatred and juggled some millions. Are these things less true because they are uttered by a man who does not conceal his loathing for the actors in this infamous comedy, calumniators of their victims ; and his admiration for the saints who beg of God the salvation of their executioners ? The blow which crushed the Jesuits rebounded on both sides ; their suppression left an iinmense void, but principally in religious instruction and education. The echo of this disaster penetrated to the confines of the universe, and was prolonged throughout the age. We hear the cry of sorrowful astonishment, not only among Christian writers, but in philosophical works and those of the University. Chateaubriand has no different sentiment from Fontaine ; Joubert writes as a Maistre, Lamenais as Voltaire, and Frederick of Prussia as Lally Tollendal. The learning of Europe has sustained an irreparable loss. Listen to the avowal, the lamentation of intelli- gence! Ah! how foreign to the Jesuits are the ac- cusations of darkness and ignorance. " There are among them," said Voltaire, " writers of rare merit, men of great learning, of vast eloquence, of genius." "The Jesuits," adds d'Alembert, "are A Last Word. 263 successful in all paths of learning, in eloquence, his- tory, antiquities, geometry, light and profound litera- ture ; there is hardly any class of writing in which they do not number men of great merit." Frederick II., writing to Voltaire, " that this Order had brought and supplied to France men of gigantic genius," declares to him " that he would preserve the precious seed to furnish those who would cultivate so rare a plant." Lalande does not pause with an eulogy of the Jesuits; he goes on to reproach their enemies " with having destroyed a Society which presented the most astonish- ing union of science and virtue that was ever known." " Carvalho (Pombal) et Choiseul," he adds, "have destroyed the greatest work of mankind, one with which no earthly establishment will ever compare ; object of my constant admiration, of my gratitude, and my re^ gret." He goes on to avow " that he had formerly experienced a strong desire to enter this Order, and regretted not having followed a vocation that he owed to innocence and a taste for study." And Lally Tollendal : " The destruction of the Jesuits was the most arbitrary and tyrannical act that could be done ; it resulted in the disorder that always follows injustice, and made an incurable void in public education." A vast collection of these severe judgments pro- nounced against the murderers of the Society, might be 264 TJie Jesuits. brought forward — ^judgments gathere 1 from the most diverse sources, and signed by names most incongruous In their celebrity ; and, likewise, a vohmie of praises allowed to the works of the Institute. In their favorable testimony are united Jean Jacques Rousseau, Lamartine, Diderot, Talleyrand, Silvio Pellico, Jean de Mùller ; Macaulay, who has written some fine pages on this subject ; Chaptal, Fontanes, and Dumouriez. But let us pause ; the task of collect- ing these passages is not famihar, and laborious ; and I fear the unskillful use which I make of these quota- tions may weary the reader. I will transcribe only some lines of Kern, the Professor of Gottingen, thus closing the array of Protestant judgments in favor of the Order. "The grandest minds and noblest hearts have ever been in favor of the Jesuits." Thus, Frederick the Great, when asked to expel them from his dominions, replied : " I know no better teachers for my Catholic subjects." Catherine, Francis Bacon, Hugh Grotius, Pierre Bayle, Leibnitz, Lessing, Herder, Ranke, and Becke- dorf^ have all pronounced in favor of the Jesuits ; whilst the vilest minds and souls are ever violently opposed to them. Kern is in Germany one of the special luminaries. But the loss which intelligence sustained was com- paratively nothing by the side of the wrong done to A Last Word. 265 morality, and which did much to hasten the overthrow of royalty. Ignatius of Loyola had created the Order in the sixteenth century for the special end, as he expressly declared, of opposing an imminent Revolution, and hardly was the Order born when the Revolution had indeed recoiled. This is not my assertion ; it is the testimony of the Revolution, or, rather, of the Revolutions, as well that which miscarried in the time of lAither, as that which rendered infamous the time of Marat. No partisan of the Jesuits can ever invest them with an importance equal to that which the hatred of their adversaries lends to them, not only in the past, but in our own day. What ! in our own day ! Are they, then, not dead, since they were so utterly exterminated with the axe, with the wheel, with exile, famine, the union of all those tortures previously known or invented for them ? Are they, then, like the trees of tropical regions, which, when cut, spread into forests ? Have they the gift of immortality ? Their death startled the world, and created an abyss. Beside their funeral pyres, arose a chorus of laments and acclamations which shook the two hemi- spheres ; and yet, behold ! in opening no matter what daily paper, heir of the " philosophic gazettes," I Bee that nothing has changed ; that they are still at 266 The Jesuits. their old work, holding families slaves to their detestable power, oppressing the clergy, infecting Rome, tormenting Prussia, magnetizing Tm-key, and finding time to cement, by the aid of truly infernal stratagems, hyperdramatic marriages between mys- terious demoiselles dowered with mysterious millions, and all the ancient Zouaves of the Pope, They have a few more colleges than formerly, and in their colleges a few more pupils. And, as Henry IV. expressed it, these pupils are their own ; yon could exile them to America : their pupils would fol- low them there. It must be the influence of some spell worked by hellish art, for it may be truly said that the more these worthy journals exert themselves, proscribing, raving, and howling, the more obstinately do the fathers of families persist in their choice. I do not pretend to explain this. I only state it, and I further affirm that were these gentlemen of the penny journals, or the " reunion privée," to found some fine day their colleges (and why not?) I, for one, to avert the influence of their education, would willingly send my children to the Jesuits of Timbuc- too ! As far as that goes, there are in France a very large number of bad fathers. There is no disputing tastes. But, after all, what has been the definitive result of aU these unwholesome enormities committed — the A Last Word. 267 Choiseul-Pompadoiir coalition, the league of pious Jansenists and Athenian Philosophers, the waste of money by poor President Roland and his associates, the ludicrous and cruel decree of Parliament, the tooth- pick of M. de Châtelain and the foul atrocities of Pombal, the great "I, the King" of Aranda, the humbler "I, the King" of Tanucci, the microscopic " I, the Duke " of Felino, and all the other foul in- trigues and base barbarities ? Nothmg ! Is it not true that the Jesuits have never taken the trouble to defend themselves ? They die, and what happens ? The greater glory of God is seen. Their defense is not their duty; it should be the duty of all those who do not wish to see again the disaste s which their fall ever announces and precedes. They are made to fall beneath the weight of the Cross. It is their happiness and their honor. They can pray here as well as there ; when their riches, amassed for the patriotic work of education and charity, are snatched from them, the wealth which is not theirs, but only amassed for the patriotic work of civilization, of education, of evangelization, wealth which they need not for themselves, it being incompatible with their vow of poverty ; they work in poverty, and are more than ever blessed. Only their work profits us less ; and whose the fault ? 268 The Jesuits. For them the profit is ever the same ; God never changes the price of their day's labor. A day will come when those who call themselves " conservatives," to whatever shade of politics they belong, to those who scrutinize so earnestly the edu- cation of their sons by the Jesuits, will understand that the good of the Jesuits is their good and the good of their children ; that the existence and liberty of the Jesuits are the education and the future of their chil- dren ; that is to say, in a great measure the future and morality of France. When they understand this well — these conserva- tives — perhaps they will defend those who may not defend themselves. On the 7th of August, 1814, Pius VII. re-estabHshed the Society of Jesus throughout the world. The Order obeyed this mandate, which said to them, as of old Jesus said to Lazarus, " Arise, and walk." But did they, too, arise from a tomb ? Not entirely. The Order was dead through absolute obedience, but that its members were living we find striking proof in history. In 1775, one year after the death of the unfortunate king who had had M. de Choiseul for a Minister, in full view of Paris, of the University, of Parliament, and of Philosophy, Père Beauregard, a Jesuit, mounted the pulpit of " Notre Dame," and you shall see t^at his voice was indeed that of a living A Last Word. 269 man ! He spoke, or rather prophesied, as follows : ** It is to royalty, to religion, that the Philosophers are opposed. The axe and the hammer are in their hands. Vour temples, O Lord, will be plundered and de- stroyed, your feasts abolished, your name blasphemed, your worship proscribed. To the holy canticles which resounded through the sacred arches shall succeed ribald and infamous chants. " And thou ! obscene divinity of Paganism, thou comest to usurp the place of the Eternal God, to seat thyself on the throne of the Holy of Holies, and re- ceive the perjured incense of thy blind adorers." Was it possible to announce more clearly than this, eighteen years in advance, the advent of the goddess of Reason, adored under the likeness of a Pompadour of the rabble, to foretell the hour when the blood of the members of Parliament, flowing in torrents, should expiate, if possible, the support they had lent to the enemies of the altar and the throne ? Non prœvalebunt. Impiety has worked well ; the Jesuits are not immortal ; but they have not died. They have a promise of eternal martyrdom which is equivalent to immortality ; for it is necessary to live in order to sufier. Revive the Ministry of a Choiseul or a Pombal, or even place the reins of power in the hands of the sav- age offspring of those sons of nothingness, who by a mysterious reversal of the doctrines of Darwin, come 2/0 The Jesuits. to beget apes ; they will lead the Jesaits to execution. Some miserable street Arab of Paris, marching behind Father Olivaint, who advances joyfully to heaven, will thrust his bayonet into the heel of his prisoner, sur- rounded by twenty guns, whose owners dare not fire, until in a deserted and wretched street they find cour- age to assassinate their victim. This is well ; this is what takes place : OHvaint passes into eternal life. Does this remind you of death ? The murderers themselves, perhaps, live to the hour so ardently prayed for by their victim ; for he does pray for them, and especially for the poor unfortunate ; who, in his blind hatred, tears the flesh of his heel on the way to Calvary ; recommending him with an irre- sistible gesture to the pity of our Saviour. In these seeming deaths are unheard-of treasures of life, not only for the Jesuits, to whom life is nothing, but for France and for the world. So that after the sacrifice is consummated, the wound- ed country recovers and walks in the way bordered by abysses, as if a miraculous balance had been estab- lished between the deadly influences of crime and the vivifying merit of the martyrs. Devoted to preaching and instruction, thus they live. " You have a degree," said a skeptical friend of mine to his son, reluctantly confided to the Jesuits, A Last Word. 27 1 upon the earnest entreaty of his Christian mother, " but what have they taught you ? " The youth remembered having formerly often shocked this excellent parent by a precocious spirit of revolt. "They have taught me," he answered, "to respect and love you." My worthy confrere in literary pursuits has not exactly become a partisan of the Jesuits, but at the time he related to me the foregoing anecdote, his eyes were full of tears. And his second son has been confided willingly to those masters who, without neglecting knowledge, teach also respect and love. I have not added virtue, for it is a word which has now only a comic meaning, exciting foolish laughter ; besides, it is a fact patent to the world that all the pu- pils of the Jesuits are not by any means saints. Voltaire was their pupil, and lived in days which were very evil, but when it was at least peruiitted to pronounce the word " virtue " without exciting the risibiUty of men. We have progressed since then, however, and if I dare make use of the word, while asking pardon for the liberty, it is because I take the word in Voltaire which he lets fall at every turn, when there is question of his former masters ; although im- planting a sting, he assumes a most reverential attitude. The least of the faults of the posterity of Voltaire is never to have read Voltaire, nor Rousseau, nor any noxious writings, save those of the "Almanachs." 272 TJie Jesuits. I grant that Voltaire and Rousseau brought about the Revokition ; but even so, the Revolution made them celebrated, and in this, both parties were the victims of a mutual mistake, for the Revolution no more knew what it was doing in adoring Rousseau and Voltaire, than either of these knew what they did in preparing the Revolution. Voltaire was a thorough aristocrat, not to speak of his being a courtier ; and Rousseau proclaimed himself the most eloquent adversary of democracy in the " great countries." All the more would he tolerate the democratic Republic of Monaco. To return to the Jesuits. Whilst the posterity of Voltaire and of Rousseau vomit forth against them in invectives the French of the tavern, Voltaire employs his admirable French in deploring their suppression (to which, however, his admirable French had helped not a little), and Rousseau, in still more magnificent language, peremptorily refuses to lend his support to the odious plots which united the bigots of Jansenism and the fanatics of Atheism against the sold ers of the true God, whom he respected without loving. But these things have been written one hundred times, and it is hardly worth while to re-write them. The tavern reads only the daily Almanachs, which serve up its repast of Jesuit (he whom Tombai carried horse- back on his nose), chopped up, and highly seasoned, in A Last Word. 273 paragraphs, which would have made Voltaire or Rous- seau fly to the Antipodes. Such, and such alone, satis- fies the taste of the tavern. It is certainly a profound misfortune that the abasement of a whole people should be accomplished by two or three thousand political mercadets, who do not merit even the name of Tribunes. It may be said that they possess only one sense — the ' instinct of priest-hunting. The priest — or, as they say, the Jesuit — is to them the last barrier which opposes the final deluge of the " Almanachs." They believe that were the Jesuit dead, the deluge would naturally overwhelm the army, the Government, all property, capital, the arts, and literature, and the Almanach should become the sole government. It is apparent that they are, perhaps, right, as far as concerns a brief period at least. The trials of this age, which had so bloody an inauguration, are not yet ter- minated ; there will be other martyrs. I say this age, because it is not centuries which divide the periods of the world, but rather the grouping of facts. The present cycle, made up of so much grandeur and so much ignominy, has lasted eighty-four years. As an age, we were born in '"93," and we are dying of the politics of the Almanachs, as our fathers expired of the philosophy of the " Dictionaries." Philosophy, that fluxion of intelligence, addressed itself to the masses by intelligent error. 18 274 The Jesuits. The policy of the •' Ahiianachs," paralyzed at heart and overloaded with egotism, eager to enjoy its power, brews for its numerous patrons an unknown beverage, an amalgamation of covetousness and hate, of passion and of promises which it has not had even the in- genuity to invent ; for they are a revival of the cheat- ing formulas in vogue among the demoniacs of the sixteenth ceotmy, at the beginning of the disease with which the world was inoculated by Luther. The casks of this beverage, of Protestantism were already broached throughout Germany, Switzerland, England, and other places, at the time when Ignatius and his companions registered the Vow- of Montmartre, It was against the Revohition, whose germ was divined in the lees of this beverage, that the pact was entered into. The Revolution, bursting forth in the fullness of time, instinctively hated these adversaries who had arrested its first movement and held it in check for hundreds of years, and whom it one day crushed, to its own surprise, with the unlooked-for aid of kings, nobles, and magistrates ; whom it saw die — and whom it finds arisen — living in the face of its victory. Thus the daily Almanachs, less polished than philos- ophy, and disdaining all metaphor, no longer cry, " Let us crush 'L'Infâme,'"* but shriek with one accord, " Down with the Jesuits ! " Only it is so evidently and so entirely the same **' L'Infâme." It was under this title that Voltaire and his followers always spoke of the Church. A Last Word, 275 thing, that the class of indifferentists are involuntarily obliged to reflect. Even as "L'Infâme" comprehended^ in point of fact, the throne, and all which appertained to the throne, so by the Jesuit of the Almanachs is understood first of all the Church, and then all which exists by the aid of the Church, although holding no allegiance to the Church, neither honoring her nor loving her — it may, even to a certain point, be hostile toward her ; that is to say, the administration, all administrations ; the government, all governments ; the academies, individual property, and even philosophy ; all, in short, which is not the " Almanach," nor the tavern ; all ex- cept the void made by greedy and blind demolition. All the world sees this, even the most short-sighted. This is assisted by an effort still far from effectual, but fairly in earnest. A movement has been begun which was delayed until the last moment, and then only aroused by a sight of the yawning precipice. The men who style themselves the " Conservatives," not because they defend in common some well-defined principles, but because they have, in short, something material to preserve — as the traveler uses every pre- caution to prevent his purse being stolen out of his pocket — these men, having watched attentively, have seen gathering in their midst this disturbance of the class who have nothing to preserve, but who will take 276 The Jesuits, all ; and even as the latter unite their forces for the purposes of ravage, the first seem vaguely inclined to band together for mutual protection. It is astonishing that they should have opened their eyes so late. For it is late. And time presses. And perhaps the mutual fear which binds these new confederates together is not a chain of great strength. Their interests, which are widely different, must con- flict, and some must be crushed and thrown to one side, along the road which they are pursuing. Not starting from the same point, they do not journey to- ward the same end ; while their enemies are united in a terrible similarity of purpose, second only in strength to the Unity of Good, of which it is the opposite and the negation, since they are bound together by Evil. That is a principle, negative, it is true, but absolute. God grant that the tardily formed and frail League of the Conservatives may find some absolute principle on which to rest ! The effort is good in itself ; it has al- ready produced in France the result of clearly drawing the line of demarkation between those whose interest it is to demolish and those who wish to preserve, so that for the time there are but two parties in France — those who wish to destroy, and those who wish to avert destruction. Is that sufficient ? To my mind, no; these coali- tions of interests are of short duration, resembling houses of which the stones are held together by no A Last Word. 277 cement. The several interests become displaced, jos- tling against one another, and thus each becoming ob- structive to the rest. Ah ! how long has the cry been heard ! Again and again it is repeated, " We seek to unite respectable interests upon a common soil," and by it numerous apprehensions are always roused ; but few hopeful expectations. This phrase, "respectable interests," has already been in vogue some time, and I do not criticise it ; but I would ask, What epithet will henceforth charac- terize the disinterested? Shall they become con- temptible ? And this is not so idle a question as it appears. I am not what may be called a practical man, but I have studied pretty attentively the history of my own time, and also that of the past. I have seen that the disinterested alone have proved useful to their country and themselves, whilst all interests, were they " respectable," met their own ruin in that of their country. Carthage was encumbered with respectable interests, whilst Rome was inhabited by the disinterested. But this does not signify. We were treating only of the question of finding a common soil. In oppos- ing disinterestedness to interest, I had no other end than to facilitate the solution of the problem which seems to contain for our epoch a question of life and death. 278 The Jesuits. There is no common soil capable of containing in- terests. Large as are the deserts of Africa, I defy you to place there two respectable interests which would not conflict. On the contrary, all soils are alike common to the disinterested. I do not go to the length of urging the interested to turn and walk in the way of self-abnegation, but I merely suggest to them with all the veneration which is their due, " If you wish a rallying point — and it is certain that you do, for in your disunion lies your weak point — do not seek the center where it is not. Be as little interested as you can, and as much disinterested as it is possible for you to be. " In order to distance one another in your competi- tions, you have the habit of conceding much to your common enemies ; concede to them no longer, and mutually increase the measure of concessions to what appear to you the wise and good. " These sacrifices in time of war are called discipline ; no army exists without disciphne, and you are an army ; wherefore should you dispense with sacrifice ? " Who knows if you have more than one battle to fight ? In order to gain it, employ discipline. Your egotism is your weakness. Be disinterested in your own interest. " And seek attentively, find a chain which will mut- ually bind you ; seek for some cohesive force. It has A Last Word. 279 a name, the greatest of all names, this rallying point, where the disinterested start from this vast center, where have been gained so many unhoped-for victories, but among us there are a large number of worthy hearts who have forgotten it. The Conservative army is almost as indifferent to this name as is that of the .•avagers, " It is useful, however — and more than useful, it is necessary, it is essential — that this name should be heard above the combat ; for, since Constantine and Clovis, it has lost none of its all-powerful magic. Your Tallying point is the Faith ; your standard — the only standard beneath which millions of opposed wills, di- verse passions, and contrary hopes can march cheer- fully and without collision in reconciliation and peace — is the Cross. By this sign you shall conquer. With- out it you shall be vanquished. Your enemies have everything on their side, save God. By what insanity- do you not oppose God to your enemies ? . . . . " And retain all your army ; abandon none, not even the Jesuits, in the hour which precedes the conflict. Never, in return for the gifts that he presents to you with his hand 'full of riches,'* never sacrifice to the caress of the pagan ' Tartufe' the men of Catholic edu- cation. Remember the exulting cries of the ' Encyclo- * " In quortitn manibus inqintates sunt. Dertera eorum ie- tileta est 7nunerihus 28o The Jesuits. pedie,' at the time when the perverse counselors of Louis XV., by mowing down the Jesuits, killed at the root the young harvest of the future, and destroyed the Dalance maintained in France by education ! " I do not depreciate the glory of the University, but I say : " Alongside of the palace which doubts, must be the house which believes." It is a necessity of conscience. " They ceased to educate only when they ceased to exist. The Society of Jesus is among us, the great half of Christian education. As far as the Order it- self is concerned, I again repeat that it needs neither you nor me ; it is I, it is you who need it, for our children, for the France of the future. " Fathers of famihes, render to C^sar that which belongs to Caesar, faithfully, fully, but render to God that which belongs to God. In these unhappy days, it happens often, as you know, and have seen, that the pagan Tartufe governs ; render him all; it is !he law; but guard your conscience, your faith, and the educa- tion of your children. "That is your own^ because it is God's. Whether the Atheist * Tartufe ' smile, caress, or menace, be strong in the right ; in your hands is placed the trust of a family and of a country. " Frenchmen, defend France ; fathers, protect your children." I have finished, and this little preparative work is A Last Word. 281 far from what I would wish, though it contains in germ all the ideas that I will later enlarge upon. It outlines the splendid birth of a mighty work opposed to the sinister origin of a great disaster. It indicates the way followed through an obedience which has never wavered ; it shows the heroic prayer of Loyola answered by the miracle of an unremitting a.nd ceaseless persecution ; it shows how the sentinel Dody, furnished by the vow of Montmatre, has kept guard on the road of the Revolution, and that only on the day when it fell, stabbed at its post by those whom it guarded ; the Revolution could usurp the office of education, and so effect an entrance. The Order said to these honest people, alike to the indifferent and to the timorous, " Be brave, be vigi- lant, when the subject of education is in question, be cause education is the breach through which your ruin always enters." It says to them still, " The people, the castes, the parties, who for their own preservation resign the sovereign right of choosing the teachers of their children, perish more quickly and die dishon- ored." This little book is not even an abridged history of the Society ; it is rather a page snatched from the list of crimes which go to make up the history of the ene- mies of the Company. In truth, we have endeavored to slightly sketch the learned persecutors, defended by 282 The Jesuits. the " Dictionaries," on the same ground as Julian the Apostate, their especial favorite. We have en- deavored to draw some likeness from nature, of tyrants devoted to their especial work, ])ausing at no falsehood, even the grossest that could be imagined, stopping at no crime, before no fraud, and flinging their mantle of infamy on the shoulders of the cruci- fied, and crying Ecce Homo ! Behold " L'Infâme ! " This is what a modern writer has termed the " re- verse maneuver," and which he characterizes thus : Tartufe-Judas encounters Jesus in a lonely place, kills Him, despoils Him, and nails on His chest his own name, " Judas." The trick is done, and behold the " Dictionaries," edified forevermore. We have all been more or less deluded by the jug- glings of Judas or Tartufe, we have all more or less trampled underfoot the twice assassinated body of Jus- tice, transformed into a malefactor by the industry of Caiaphas, of Herod, of Pombal, or of Choiseul, become the editors of our daily journals. And as the youth of the crowd is incurable, not- withstanding all evidence to the contrary, the name of him who has committed the crime is ever exalted by the crowd, whilst the daily blows are aimed against religion, right, authority, liberty, truth, honor, charity, even glory, in striking the victim " Iv' Infâme ! " This little book will not change all that. Happy if A Last Word. 283 it be able, not to teach, but to recall to mind, all the grand things injured by the daily blows, and to those who still cherish these great things, that there is no more time to remain passive, nor to yield ; that the last possible concession is made to Judas, and that amongst the barriers which intervene between the j^oung generation and barbarism, the highest, the most firm, and that which must be sustained even by those who love it not, is the wall of the House of Jesus. LEAYES FROM MY EXPEHIENaS. BY O. Â. BROWNSO^, LL.O. ■ A new revised edition, edited by bis son. Henry F. Brownson. vol. 12mo, clotb extra, witb portrait, $3 00. It is full of interest as it is, containing mucb useful information re- speciingtbe various sects, scbools, and parties witb wbicb tbe Con- vert at different times c^me in contact, witb skctrbes of tbeir several founders and cbiefs. Passing tbrougb tbe experiences of Presbyteri- anism to become a Universalist, and a World Reformer and Humani- tarian, at last, after many vicissitudes, tbe earnest, single-bearted en- quirer obtained tbe blissful glimpse of tbe one trutli. Like many anotber similarly favored, be could exclaim: "Darkness and doubt are now flying away, No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn — So breaks on tbe traveller, faint and astray, Tbe brigbt and tbe balmy effulgence of morn.- — Lond'j/i Catholic Btgister. We need not introduce tbis book to our readers. We are glad to see nnotber edition called for. Tbe experiences of sucb a mind as Brownson arc of vital interest. " I bave net addressed my work," SLiys tbe author, "especially to Catbolics or non-Catbolics, but to the public at large. My purpose bas been to render to till wbo may take an interest in tbe matter an account of my conversion to Catbolicity, and to enable tbe curious in sucb matters to discover tbe connecting link between mv past and my present life, in order to en- able tbem to discover tbe connecting link between nature and grace, f tbe natural and ibe supernatural, and to perceive tbat, in becoming af Catbolic, a man bas no occasion to divest bimself of bis nature, or to forego tbe exercise of bis reason. ... I bave aimed to write an in- structive, not an amusing book." — Pilot. Sent by mail, postage paid, to any address upon receipt of tbe price. Address D. & J. SADL.1ER & CO., 31 BARCLAY STREET, NEW YORK. TM ADVENTURES OF A PROTESTAN'l IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. By IOTA.. One Vol. IGnio. Cloth, bereled boards, ornamental gilt sides $1.50 Clotli, ffllt 2.00 "No two men seem to be led to the truth by the snrae road, and henoe it comes to pnss that every conversion is a study by itself, and a special revelation of God's dealing with souls. It is this fact which lends an ia^ter- est to tills historv of a Protestant's adventures in search of a religion beyond tlint whicfi it would possess as a mere story. It is a Ckarrative of the trialg and searchings, the lights and darknesses, of one who, led by invisible grace, gropes his way from the furthest outpost of error, as man- ifested by extreme Calvinism, up to the very citadel of eternal truth. It is a long and painful journey, and the writer has succeeded well in the design he had in view when he essayed to give us an account of his hero's Bteps through the maza . . . "Taking it as a whole, we have liked the work exceedingly. It is well written, and the interest of the story well kept up. It will form a valua- ble addition to every Catliolic library, and be read with interest by both Catholics and non-Catholics. Nor should we be surprised to hear that through its perusal many another Protestant will have been helped in his search, after a religion." — Lojidcm Tablet. ** This, as its title imports, is a controversial tale ; but it is also what its name does not import, a story of more than ordinary merit of its kind, both in beauty of sentiment and grace of composition. It has none of the childish wishy-ioasldness which too often characterizes doctrinal tales. The author, in a truly beautiful and instructive preface, explains the scope of the work as follows : *We attempt in these pages to exhibit some of the workings of a mind that may be taken as the type of a large class of young, thoughtful, studious men of the day, who having had instilled into their minds the divine right of private judgment, as the phrase is, have deter- mined to shape out their own course of thought, cast off the prejudices of their education, and adopt as their motto for life, "Every man his own creed-maker." ' Of course, the author is himself a convert, and therefore abundantly able to compose such a work in even a far more satisfactory manner than one to the manner born, and therefore happily ignorant of that unbligsful gift, a mind working with religious fermentation. — Catholic Record. "The book he has given us is the well-told tale of the trials, the strug gles, the difficulties through which one particular mind made its way from the darkness of doubt and uncertainty in Protestant negation into the regions of eternal truth and assured trust in the full light of Catholic faith and Catholic dogma. It is told as a story, and is indeed more deeply in- teresting than any mere story, yet it has in it no factitious aids from fiction, no meretricious adornment of any kind.'' — New York Tablet. Ê^^ The above book will be sent hy inail, postage pre-paid, upon receipt of the advertised price, by the publishers, to any address in the United States, D. k J. SADLIËR & €0., 31 Barclay St., N. T. Catholicity and Pantheism: ATT. TRUTH OR NO TEUTH. BY REV. J. DE CONCILIO. Vol. 1 2ino. Cloth, extra |2.oo A FORMAL introduction of this work is, no douht, superfluous, in face of the high reputation as a theologian enjoyed by the author, the Rev. J. De Concilio. Suflice it to say that, in " Catholicity and Pantheism/' lie has done all that could have been expected, and that is much. He has presented an old subject in a new light ; he has handled the grand old arguments of the Catholic Church with novel dexterity, and he has massed his forces on the whole army of heresies and false systems of philosophy with wonderful tact. Tearing aside the flimsy trappings of Protestantism, and laying bare the ambitious forms of modern philoso- ph>, he holds up to our gaze the naked figure of Pantheism ; — Panthe- ism, that under one guise or another, has ever been the absorbing error of mankind ; Pantheism that has ever been the insidious foe of Catho- licity in all nations and in all times ; hence, the watchword that sounds through the pages of this book, " Catholicity or Pantheism ; all truth or no truth ; life or death." ••This monstrous evil, Pantheism, being the natural enemy of Catholic truth, our author has attempted to refute it, by showing the internal beauty of Catholicity, a form of controversy and a means of carrying conviction which he believes to be peculiarity adapted to the require- ments of the day. His work is profound and trustworthy." — Pliiladelphia Catholic Record. D. & J. SADLIER & CO., ji Barclay Street, N. F. Saii by Mail, postage paid, to any address, on receipt 0/ the price. CHARACTERISTICS FROM THE WRITINGS OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, BEING Selections, Personal, Historical, Philosophical, and Religious, from his various Works. ARRANGED BY WILLIAM SAMUEL LILLY, Of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, WITH THE author's APPROVAL. I Vol. 12mo. Cloth, extra $1.50 Half morocco 2.50 Extract from the Preface. "In the following pages I have endeavored to give an account through extracti from his books of his present views on the chief matters of general interest on which he has written from time to time. I have Bought especially to present his mind on the great religious questions which have so largely exercised the intellect of this age, and which, even in the judgment of those who are unable to accept his conclusions, he has faced, investigated, and determined for himself with an unflinching courage, and an unswerving steadfastness of purpose, almost as rare perhaps as the high mental endowments which he has brought to the task. *♦■'** In compiling my volume I have primarily endeavored to consult for readers who from want of leisure, or from other reasons, are unable to procure and peruse for themselves Dr. Newman's writings tX large, and who desire to possess in a compendious form a summary prepared with his approval of his ultimate judgments on the most impor- tent matt'irs of which he has written during the last half century.'' D. & J. SADLIER & CO. ji Barclay Street, N. V. Sent by Mail, postage piad, to any address, on receipt of the price. f Date Due . 3 9031 031 43419 ^ Feval, Paul 179920 " Author The Jesuits Title ^^\/^L BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL. MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless reserved. Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. The borrower is responsible for books drawn on his card and for all fines accruing on the same. iiiniiiiiiiiiiliillil'illii 11 I !!l!!niill!1l!ii!nil!ii;ili]llîil111lll! iiiiiiiiiiiiiit