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 a I E) R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVLR.5ITY 
 or ILLI N015 
 
 0<s>3^^dl
 
 ^j^" 
 
 Begpottsm: 
 
 OR 
 
 THE FALL OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 A POLITICAL ROMANCE, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 HISTORICAL ANECDOTES. 
 
 " Je dois regir en Dieu I'univers prevenu, 
 ** Mon Empire est detruit si I'homme est reconnu." 
 Le Fanatisme de Voltaire, 
 
 My Empire falls, if once they view the Man ! 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, FLEET-STREET; 
 AND W. BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH. 
 
 18II.
 
 John Nichols and Son, Printers, ' 
 Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, Loiidou.
 
 8^^ 
 
 /.I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 An historical introduction to a ficti- 
 
 > tious Narrative, has been found sometimes 
 
 o necessary to authorise the novelty of its 
 
 ^ events^ its characters, and its feelings ; 
 
 <^ but a story raising only our transient 
 
 p astonishment, may still fail, by its re- 
 
 ^ moteness from our experience, to excite 
 
 ^ our sympathy; and read like the epigram, 
 
 ^ for its close, our attention terminates with 
 
 oi^ our curiosity. Should the Fable, however, 
 
 ^ be found as full of truth, as of wonder, it 
 
 ^. may claim regard for so/nething more 
 
 lij valuable than itself. No history, whether 
 
 a 2
 
 IV 
 
 genuine or fictitious, will be studied with- 
 out instruction, where the dearest interests 
 of humanity are pursued in its conduct, 
 and involved in its catastrophe. 
 
 The reader of the present day has been 
 too long accustomed to trace the Political- 
 Marvellous, realised in the shifting 
 scenery of these dramatic times, to be 
 totally incredible of its existence. This 
 Narrative has not, however, been solely 
 composed to amuse with playful astonish- 
 ment ; its views are of a better nature, for 
 they would arouse indignation against poli- 
 tical fanaticism, and all its crimes. 
 
 To most readers the Jesuits are here 
 exhibited in a new light ; considered only 
 as Religionists, as far as these Politicians 
 made use of a Religion, abounding with cor- 
 ruptions, for the tremendous engine of a
 
 political body. The Jesuits were origi- 
 nally a Missionary Society ; but the rude 
 constitution of fanaticism and ambition, 
 new-moulded by a dynasty of subtile 
 Italians, from the school of the Florentine 
 Secretary, produced a government unparal- 
 leled in ancient or modern times. The 
 General of the Jesuits was a Sov^ereign ; 
 and the Jesuits were a People, diffused 
 in the two hemispheres, exhibiting the 
 singular spectacle of a secret Despo- 
 tism, tending to Universal Monarchy ; a 
 monstrous ambition, which could only 
 exist by a perpetual growth of power, and 
 spread itself by enormous subjection ; prac- 
 tising the worst crimes of the worst govern- 
 ments ; Craft, Perfidy, Injustice, and Irre- 
 ligion : The use of Spies, Informers, and 
 Assassins; arbitrary imprisonment, social
 
 vx 
 
 excommunication^ and inquisitorial en-? 
 quiry; all actuated by the unrelenting 
 genius of a peculiar Despotism, for it was 
 to be as enlightened as powerful, as seduc- 
 tive as terrific. 
 
 Their true designs had never been de- 
 veloped, during two centuries ; and their 
 accusers had little more than vague sur- 
 mises to urge against them. But the age 
 had changed, though the Jesuits had not ; 
 and its strength produced their weakness. 
 Their views were traced out ; their means 
 discovered ; and the documents of their 
 political crimes produced *. 
 
 Once known, they ceased to exist. They 
 had alarmed the Sovereigns and the Minis-r 
 ters of Europe ; an evidence at once of their 
 
 * The copious anecdotes at the close of this Vo- 
 ume chiefly relate to their secret and public history.
 
 vu 
 
 power and their guilt. The Jesuitic So- 
 vereign seemed struck by the instant light- 
 ning from heaven, and appealed to Rome ; 
 Maternal Rome, stretched out her withered 
 hands over her child and her champion, 
 grieving, while she herself united in one 
 common sacrifice to Peace — and the Je- 
 suits were immolated ! 
 
 While Europe resounded with the cry 
 against the Jesuits, their precipitated fall 
 was here listened to like an incredible tale, 
 and indistinctly told, A Mysterious Society 
 seemed to have perished in Mystery. We 
 had long lain out of the circle of their 
 necromancy ; and of the Jesuits, nothing 
 had remained in this country, but their 
 name as a Proverb. 
 
 Yet two of our great writers have express- 
 ly alluded to the invisible Jesuitic Empire.
 
 VIU 
 
 Algernon Sydney, during his residence at 
 Rome in l66l, a close observer of political 
 intrigues, in a letter to his Father *, tells 
 this curious story : " The last week, at a 
 time when all the Cardinals weare at seve- 
 rall churches, it was soe ordered, that a 
 gentleman put into every one of thei re hands 
 a printed Memoriall, and retired immedi- 
 ately, before they could read it ; and being 
 examined, it was found to be a most bitter 
 invective against the Jesuites, as persons 
 that set up a commonwealth amongst them- 
 selves, independent of and destructive unto 
 the Pope's supremacy/ ; representing them 
 as pollticale heretics, and with such sharp- 
 nesse, full of such truths as they cannot 
 deny." Lord Chesterfield, in 1749, desires 
 
 * In the Collection of the Sydney Papers. Vol. II. 
 p. 709.
 
 ix 
 
 his son to get acquainted with the General 
 of the Jesuits ; " who, though he has nO 
 seeming power out of his own society, has 
 more real influence over the whole world 
 than any temporal Prince in it =**=." 
 
 Robertson, in his History of Charles V. 
 has composed their History, and sketched 
 their singular constitution. The narration 
 is abruptly closed, as it did not further 
 enter into his plan, by this observation : 
 
 " The causes which occasioned the ruin 
 of this mighty body, as well as the circum- 
 stances and effects with which it has been 
 attended in the different countries of Eu- 
 rope, are objects extremely worthy the 
 attention of every intelligent observer of 
 human affairs." 
 
 * Letter 165.
 
 These '^ causes^ and circumstances^ and 
 effects," form the subject of this Political 
 Romance. I would paint, in a moving scene, 
 a political system, whose genius seems re- 
 vived in our times. May we not yet catch 
 an useful moral, that winds up the awful 
 story of perverted wisdom, and power 
 abused ? Who cannot see shadowed in this 
 little history, an Empire more dreadful 
 than an Oriental Despotism, because more 
 enlightened ; in the Institute of the Jesuits, 
 the perfect Code of Despotism ; and in the 
 General and his Jesuits, political fanatics, 
 who, actuated by views of the perpetual 
 aggrandisementof dominion, are themselves 
 victims of false glory, and the scourges of 
 humanity. From the political dangers of 
 so vile and anti-social a government, what 
 can save Nations, but a returning love and
 
 XI 
 
 reverence for their Sovereigns, to guard 
 their independence from the Universal 
 Despot ? While Sovereigns, instructed by 
 severe fortune, and rising with the genius 
 of the tige, shall feel that their inexhaus- 
 tible strength lies in the hearts of their 
 people ; and that the art of reigning is not 
 found by aggrandising the Sovereign, or the 
 State, till the diadem is sparkling with the 
 tears of its subjects, and crimsoned with 
 the blood of its neighbours.
 
 XIU 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 A Supernatural Dominion changed to an Empire of 
 Taste — The Rival Embassies of a Comma and a Period, 
 in a Theological War 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Political Reveries of a Youthful Reformer — Character 
 of Alberoui — In Politics, Patronage may become a sub- 
 
 stitute for Assassination 
 
 Chapter III. 
 The Founder and Legislator of a New Dynasty 16 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Character of the Master of the World — ^The Book of 
 Life and Death by the Side of the Universal Throne ! 21 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 The General of the Jesuits' Levees — His Treasury — 
 Political Neutrahty, and the Cabinets of Europe — 
 His Allies in all Nations — Wrenched two Empires 
 from two Rival Courts — His Religion — His Friend- 
 ship as disastrous as his Enmity 28
 
 XIV 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 A Jesuitical Ambassador — His Ambidextrous Treaties— 
 The Art of singing down a Minister — ^The Political 
 Gratitude of the Great not so binding as their Hope — 
 Young Secretaries 43 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 A Jesuit triumphs over Nature 59 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 The Fall of Alberoni — ^The Despot himself trembles — 
 The Secret Registers — The Dominion of the Human 
 Mind 65 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 The State-Favourite — His Art of making War— Advice 
 to a King respecting his Council — The Vision of Con- 
 quest 82 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 The Appearance of Liberty united with Despotism — No 
 State is free, where the People have ceased to be re- 
 spectable 93 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 The Cry of Liberty '. 118 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 The Education of Despotism 137 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 A Senate of Freemen — A Patriot * 133
 
 XV 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 The Political Hermaphrodite ! 141 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 The Despot strikes suddenly and secretly 14T 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 
 The Vindictive Genius of the Order — No Half-Injuries in 
 Politics — Europe must be charmed while it is sub- 
 jugated — No Avarice in Political Opulence — The Police 
 of the Human Mind 15« 
 
 Chapter XVII. 
 A Conscription — A Roman Mother I69 
 
 Chapter XVIII. 
 Impeachments ! I78 
 
 Chapter XIX. 
 
 The Intolerable Government of Remorseless Ambition 
 —Greatness, founded on Craft and Perfidy, is insepar- 
 able from Misery 198 
 
 Chapter XX, 
 Seduction and Terror ; a Panegyric and a Poignard ! . . . . 204 
 
 Chapter XXI. 
 Ingratitude, one of the Crimes of Despotism 213 
 
 Chapter XXII. 
 A Victim of Fame ! 217
 
 XVI 
 
 Chapter XXIII. 
 Tbe Terrors of Conspiracy , 23 1 
 
 Chapter XXIV. 
 Misfortune is criminal with the Despot 244 
 
 Chapter XXV. 
 The Alps converted into a State-Prison 248 
 
 Chapter XXVI. 
 Political Characters at the Court of Lisbon 2G8 
 
 Chapter XXVII. 
 Prepdi*ations for a Revolution 387 
 
 Chapter XXVIII. 
 Great Designs ruined by the Subaltern Geniuses 298 
 
 Chapter XXIX. 
 The Death of Ribadeneira 305
 
 DESPOTISM, 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 A SUPERNATURAL DOMINION CHANGED TO AN EM- 
 PIRE OF TASTE THE RIVAL EMBASSIES OF A 
 
 COMMA AND A PERIOD^ IN A THEOLOGICAL WAR. 
 
 About the year 17 . . Ribadeneira filled 
 the office of the Generalship of the Jesuits 
 at the Court of Rome. 
 
 Benedict XIV. was a Pontiff, who had 
 at heart the repose of the world, as well as 
 his own; and at Monte-Cavallo, in the 
 seclusion of his Cabinet of Antiques, among 
 his familiar companions, he would forget
 
 that the Pope was present, and that the 
 world was intractable. 
 
 There his secret delight was the con- 
 struction of six magnificent folios of An- 
 tiquities; but when he found his table 
 covered with dispatches relative to the Je- 
 suits, they spoiled his facetiousness, while 
 they abridged his volumes. Graver thoughts 
 were disturbing a head, full of taste and 
 quietness; and the literary Pope, was in- 
 duced to suspect that the world was 
 getting worse and worse, and that his 
 friends the Jesuits, would at length fall 
 the Martyrs of Genius and Virtue. 
 
 Influenced by some invisible power, 
 which his Holiness could neither observe 
 nor controul, the Papal Court had become 
 the centre of the political intrigues of Eu- 
 rope, while the Sovereign Pontiff himself 
 was a political shadow. That power, which
 
 had once in imperial edicts assumed for its 
 jurisdiction the confines of the Universe 
 itself, now beheld the Tiara no more that 
 triple Meteor, in the political horizon, 
 
 shedding disastrous twilight 
 
 On HALF THE NATIONS, and with fear of change 
 Perplexing Monarchs. 
 
 What now was his supernatural dominion, 
 but an Empire of Taste ? His Indulgences, 
 his Relics, and his Peter-pence no more 
 entered his coffers, avaricious now only 
 of Medals, of Vases, and Gems ; his In- 
 fallibility now depended on the accuracy 
 of his Antiquary; and his Supremacy 
 solely consisted in his taste for the An- 
 tique; while the sole anathema of the 
 universal Despot, at which the world now 
 murmured, was that which interdicted it 
 from bribing away from Rome, the marble 
 Statues and the Terra Cottas. 
 B 2
 
 Europe then, as now in its ranker ma- 
 turity, seemed divided by two parties ; and 
 which, by whatever name they are distin- 
 guished in every age, shall be rivals, un- 
 less Society can subsist amidst the annihi- 
 lation of moral feeling, and the abandon- 
 ment of every principle of civil freedom. 
 One, resolute to degrade and subjugate 
 Mankind ; the other, combating for social 
 happiness against Despotism. The spirit 
 of these parties disguised itself in the 
 haughty and potent Order of the Jesuits, 
 and the philosophical Society of the Port 
 Royal. Those immortal enmities which 
 then disturbed a great part of Europe, 
 were indeed raised on some incomprehen- 
 sible dogmas, and appeared nothing more 
 than a cloud of dust shaken from the loaded 
 shelves of Theology. But these were causes 
 too minute to deduce from them such vast
 
 effects as those Proscriptions, and Exiles, 
 and Imprisonments ; a Civil War, and 
 Pontiffs and Monarch s, and Nations in- 
 volved in an universal vortex. The truth 
 is, with the Jesuits the controversy was 
 only a pretext ; a war of words concealed 
 the spirit of dominion ; and their political 
 face, hitherto concealed from the world, 
 had not yet worn out their ancient mask 
 of Religion- Politicians engaged in some 
 vast enterprize look round for some pre^ 
 tence to cover the execution ; and hence 
 the ostensible causes of public events, 
 which are strung together in History, are 
 often totally unconnected with the con- 
 cealed motives, (i) 
 
 Our urbane Pontiff had attempted ,to 
 reconcile the two great contending parties 
 by a stroke of humour. In one of the Bulls, 
 which the wily Jesuits had extracted from
 
 6 
 
 his reluctant hand, the Pope contrived a 
 phrase, where a Comma or a Period, placed 
 at the beginning or the end, with a happy 
 ambiguity, purported that his Holiness to- 
 lerated the opinions he condemned. Two 
 parties, two readings! and Rival deputa- 
 tions dispatched to Rome to plead for the 
 Period, and to advocate the cause of the 
 Comma. The good-tempered Pope sent 
 another Copy, unpunctuated, with his 
 blessing — but the rage of the one would 
 not subside into a Comma, nor that of 
 the other be stopt by a full Period. 
 
 The causes of the conflict lie deeper 
 than the eye of the Pope could reach — it 
 was a conflict between crafty, corrupting, 
 and ambitious Politicians, the criminals 
 of deception, encountering adversaries of 
 a nobler courage, and more generous de- 
 signs ; loftier spirits, whose zeal, while it
 
 7 
 
 warmed their breast, was often careless of 
 the armour which should protect it, 
 
 *' With love of Freedom, and contempt of Life." 
 
 Addison. 
 
 Long indeed his Holiness had admired 
 the uninterrupted labours of the General 
 Ribadeneira, whose industry, proportioned 
 to his genius, insulated him in his College — 
 ambitious, and laborious of Glory!
 
 8 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POLITICAL REVERIES OF A YOUTHFUL REFORMER 
 
 CHARACTER OF ALBERONI IN POLITICS, PA- 
 TRONAGE MAY BECOME A SUBSTITUTE FOR AS- 
 SASSINATION. 
 
 RiBADENEIRA, the descendant of an 
 illustrious race of the antient Nobihty of 
 Spain, had been educated in the solemn 
 magnificence of that Court. Among the 
 haughty he could endure no equal ; and, 
 when in proud humility, he trode them 
 down with the sandals of the Monk, he 
 felt himself born to rank among the 
 Masters of Mankind. In the deep thought 
 and gravity of his physiognomy, the work- 
 ings of his sensibility scarcely concealed
 
 9 
 
 themselves — if sometimes they looked like 
 Pity^ their severity was often such, they 
 struck like Scorn. 
 
 Ten years of political labours had tried 
 the skill of this new Reformer — nor had 
 Ambition yet cost him all the virgin feel- 
 ings of generous youth. A mighty Spirit 
 was slumbering in Europe — the hour ap- 
 proached to break that sleep ! He was an- 
 ticipating the dates of Empires, and com- 
 muning with himself — " Not for ever," he 
 thought, " shall Paris be the throne of its 
 Sovereign; and Vienna exult in an Impe- 
 rial Crown — Seest thou Constantinople 
 flattering herself in the possession of the 
 seat of a double Empire ; and Venice glo- 
 rying in the stability of a thousand years! 
 Their day shall come! and for thee, my 
 Madrid, thou majestic eye of so many 
 Cities! hereafter, too, thy light shall fail." (0
 
 10 
 
 Ten years were closing, and Ribadeneira 
 was still only a solitary Jesuit, lost in his 
 Reveries ! He thought of Luther, who 
 abrogated the universal sovereignty of his 
 day, and of his own Ignatius, who ce- 
 mented, to perpetuate its despotism — ^They 
 had not exceeded his age! The baffled Je- 
 suit perceived that the Founders of Em- 
 pires owe at least as much to Opportunity 
 as to themselves. 
 
 Yet such a man existed before him, and 
 haunted his dreams! Ribadeneira had 
 traced the son of an Italian gardener, 
 through the obscure steppings of his in- 
 trigues, from a hopeless Ringer of his 
 parish, till he burst into the world, the Uni- 
 versal Minister of the Spanish Monarchy, 
 agitating Europe by the most chimerical 
 projects. This was Alberoni, who was go- 
 verning the Court of Spain, and affected to
 
 11 
 
 regulate the destinies of Europe. The pre- 
 sence of the Itahan gardeners boy in- 
 sulted the haughty genius of the Spanish 
 Jesuit — ^yet Alberoni, whose political head 
 was crowned by a Cardinal's hat; whose 
 Machiavelism had triumphed over the 
 feelings of Nature by exiHng the Patroness 
 of his lowly fortunes (2) : whose deep ma- 
 chinations had seated the present Queen 
 on the throne of Spain, while he was 
 planning to place Kings of his own, like 
 crowned slaves, on the thrones of Eu- 
 rope, — Alberoni, the Italian intriguer, who 
 had little to boast but a fortunate teme- 
 rity; the sycophant of the Great, whose 
 soul was not elevated as his fortune to 
 raise himself above those whom he was 
 rather leading, than commanding — Albe- 
 roni, in the presence of Ribadeneira, de- 
 serted of his grandeur, seemed to feel in
 
 12 
 
 his hands the ropes of his parish steeple! 
 
 The Cardinal, too, had encountered this 
 mysterious man, in the dark windings of 
 his own pohtical labyrinth ; and Alberoni, 
 with Italian instinct, was on the point of 
 getting rid of the Jesuit quietly, to adopt 
 the political Vocabulary, a la negligence, 
 or en cacJiette{^), when an extraordinary 
 dispatch from the Court of Rome recom- 
 mended the care of Ribadeneira's life to his 
 protection. The Cardinal was startled! 
 Was he delivered up into the hands of a 
 mightier Intriguer? He had placed his 
 political existence in the aweful eyes of 
 the Spanish Queen, and now he imagined 
 they had become more and more cloudy! 
 Racked with suspicions, in his Cabinet 
 buried among his papers, the hypochon- 
 driac Arbiter of Europe trembled, hesi- 
 tated, and was confounded.
 
 13 
 
 But Alberoni was too subtile a Ma- 
 chiavel not to act his part to the last. In 
 Politics, much of kindness we owe to 
 hatred ; and patronage itself may become 
 a substitute for assassination, whenever it 
 serves to remove him, whose presence is 
 intolerable. The Cardinal instantly pro- 
 moted Ribadeneira to the Bishoprick of 
 San Andero, a splendid exile! Ribadeneira 
 understood the senigmatic gift, and Albe- 
 roni triumphed ; for the Jesuit felt as if 
 he were nothing in the mind of the Ita- 
 lian. " So easily, he imagines, he can dis- 
 miss me !" thus he thought — but the genius 
 of Ribadeneira would not submit to die 
 away under the spotless Rochet ! 
 
 What remained for the inexorable Ri- 
 badeneira ? Absence from the place which 
 humbles our pride, and secession from 
 those we love not, is the miserable con-
 
 14 
 
 solation of the discontented. A more 
 splendid Empire was now contemplated 
 by the Jesuit ; he remembered how once 
 a brother, disappointed in some slight 
 promotion, haughtily abandoned his col- 
 lege ; and, inspired by the vast views of 
 the Order, adoring its genius while he 
 hated its rival Members, he became the 
 sublime founder of the Jesuitic dominion 
 in the new world — and in anger, he added 
 another Empire ! ('^) 
 
 " Let the Italian triumph — it is but in 
 his own way ! I have no feeble passions to 
 exhaust in the contemptuous struggle!" — 
 Thus exclaimed Ribadeneira, while he 
 cursed that mediocrity in the Cabinets 
 of Europe, that slighted the political as- 
 pirant whom they had yet the power to 
 silence — and who, whatever might be his 
 own views, had included in them the
 
 15 
 
 annihilation of the Italian by the Spanish 
 Throne. But the advice given to Mi- 
 nisters by an obnoxious person, is always 
 considered criminal !
 
 16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FOUNDER AND LEGISLATOR OF A NEW 
 DYNASTY. 
 
 1 HE illusion of Empire hung over the 
 new World. The Jesuits had laid the 
 foundation of a splendid government in 
 South America ; but they wanted the au- 
 dacity to proclaim it to the world. There 
 they ruled over an Empire while they con- 
 cealed themselves as Monks, and trembled 
 to be discovered among a million of their 
 slaves. (1) 
 
 When Ribadeneira turned his eyes on 
 that vast Continent, he mused over Nations 
 whom Oppression had matured for Heroes ; 
 and a soil, whose surface lightly covers a
 
 17 
 
 metal more potent than the iron of the 
 Norths which had subdued their fathers. 
 He was meditating to reverse their destiny, 
 and teach them to conquer, as they had 
 been conquered. Let, Ribadeneira ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 *' Peru, once more, a race of Kings behold !" 
 
 The Founder and the Legislator of this 
 new Dynasty, was to be disguised under 
 the grey cloak and the long beard of the 
 Missionary Ribadeneira, armed only with 
 his staff and his breviary — But should the 
 Order discover a rival in their son ? Ri- 
 badeneira had long felt the proud con- 
 viction, that to enslave, or to emancipate 
 a people, required but a change of di- 
 rection from the same genius. He de- 
 signed to offer the inevitable alternative to 
 the Order — ^^ Their terrible Servant was
 
 18 
 
 willing to become their Ally ! The Poli- 
 tician is mutable with time and place. 
 
 The perilous adventure was just spared 
 pur romantic politician^ for at the moment 
 he was hastening to become a Missionary 
 to Paraguay, the Roman Cabinet urged 
 his acceptance of the Generalship of the 
 Jesuits ; an office always destined for him 
 who excelled in that worldly wisdom, dig- 
 nified by Italian sagacity, by the term of 
 La Prudenza Politica, 
 
 This in a moment decided his fate. Ri- 
 biideneira had been connected with the 
 Papal Court, the centre of European Po- 
 litics, by a chain of close intrigues. He 
 had long admired that mysterious influ- 
 ence over human events, of which the 
 enemies of the Jesuits so loudly accused 
 them ; an influence which was governing
 
 19 
 
 the world, though the world knew not 
 how ; nor had yet even Ribadeneira but 
 partially penetrated into the genius of the 
 Order which could produce such vast con- 
 sequences, from a cause apparently so in- 
 significant as the Order itself. To the world, 
 and often to the Jesuits themselves, their 
 General appeared only as a simple Monk, 
 blended with the dependents of the Court 
 of Rome ; but our adroit politician some- 
 times conjectured, that in Politics, in spite 
 of Geometry, a Part may be equal to the 
 Whole. 
 
 The offer from the Holy See was ac- 
 cepted with the humility of a Saint, and 
 the sagacity of a Pol itici an . Rome eagerly 
 adopted the promulgator of her Supre- 
 macy; Him, who sought to enthral the 
 World, in passive obedience. The wily 
 Jesuit had incessantly reminded her of 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 Universal Dominion — it was the gay and 
 refreshing dream of youth charming her 
 decrepitude. Her Vassal only felt him- 
 self the more mighty in the homage she 
 exacted from the World ; for on the 
 Tiara rested all his hopes ! 
 
 The journey from Madrid to Rome was 
 soothed by the political reveries of this new 
 Reformer — He mused on Thrones sub- 
 verted, and new Dynasties ! he was anni- 
 hilating all Despotism, by the despotism 
 of Genius — to charm, while he enslaved 
 Mankind. 
 
 At the feet of the Pope, Ribadeneira pro- 
 strated himself, while he raised his eyes on 
 a throne, whose basis he resolved to sup- 
 port, or to subvert. The humble frock of 
 the General of the Jesuits disguised the in- 
 satiable ambition of his soul.
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MASTER OF THE WORLD THE 
 
 BOOK OF LIFE AND DEATH BY THE SIDE OF THi 
 UNIVERSAL THRONE ! 
 
 1 HE Secret, on which the soul of Ri- 
 badeneira brooded, the Secret of that do- 
 minion which was to subjugate the World, 
 He concealed in the mysterious Institute. 
 Religion and Politics, are the tremendous 
 engines, which move Empires at their base; 
 they were wielded by his hand ! Ribade- 
 neira grasped the terrific code of universal 
 despotism ; and, in the inebriation of Am- 
 bition and Genius, he leaped into a secret 
 throne, which seemed invested with Om-
 
 22 
 
 nipotenceandOmniscience — and he started 
 at his own soHtary despotism ! 
 
 It was the very perfection of the In- 
 stitute which made it criminal ; for it 
 was a Code, whose existence depended on 
 the destruction of all other Codes. There, 
 the Universal Good, was the perpetual ag- 
 grandisement of the Order ; and thus, it 
 was a perfect Constitution for the Jesuits, 
 but a conspiracy against Mankind ! This 
 people had created their Sovereign as Om- 
 nipotent, as an unconditional surrender of 
 their private rights, can concentrate power 
 in one human being ; and as Omniscient, 
 as the faculty of opening the consciences 
 of Men, can be conferred on a represen- 
 tative of the Divinity; a supernatural 
 power hovered in his dominion (*). Such 
 vras this political prodigy of a Constitution, 
 half human and half divine ; it aimed to
 
 23 
 
 steal from the Divinity his almighty con- 
 troul, and from the Kings of the Earth 
 their Crowns. 
 
 If the perfection of Despotism be to con- 
 vert the j^eople into its instruments ; then 
 might Ribadeneira exult in the excellence 
 of the Jesuitic government. It had re- 
 duced Man into an artificial animal, so 
 exquisitely contrived, that the motion of 
 the limbs gave an appearance of life, while 
 his own mastering hand retained the prin- 
 ciple of action. Machiavel might have 
 envied, and Hobbes might have blushed, 
 at the triumph over human nature their 
 Pupils had obtained. This people were all 
 Members of a monstrous body, indisso- 
 lubly combined with their head, moving 
 with one volition ; tremendous Unity ! 
 The Multitude in a Man! the One made
 
 24 
 
 up of the Many ! This is the political Le- 
 viathan, who " when he raiseth up him- 
 self the Mighty are afraid." {^) 
 
 By the side of the secret throne of the 
 Jesuit, was placed an aweful Volume, 
 whose leaves were like leaves of brass — 
 it was the Book of Life and Death, where 
 the unrelenting hand of State Necessity 
 traced its indelible characters. 
 
 There, as in a secret tribunal, were 
 chronicled the deeds and the words of the 
 Great {^) ; there, were developed the infir- 
 mities and the crimes of the Sovereigns, 
 and the Ministers of Europe; and the 
 more potent Men, whose secret Oracles 
 they obeyed (^) ; there, were disclosed the 
 Arcana Imperiorum, the intrigues of 
 Courts, and the ferments of the People; 
 there, the interest of the Order enlarged
 
 25 
 
 or diminished Empire; and there, its 
 vengeance inscribed the names of Kings 
 with their blood. 
 
 When Ribadeneira paused on those awe- 
 ful instructions on which his Eyes now 
 rested — abandoning himself to his reveries, 
 he revolved the history of his own life, 
 and scrutinised into some splendid epochs 
 he had passed ; perils, vast as the designs 
 which had raised them. The Enthusiast 
 shrunk not from the test of frantic Am- 
 bition ; and exclaimed, " I am He ! who 
 am come to perpetuate that Jesuitic do- 
 minion, that PERFECT GOVERNMENT, which 
 
 only can controul these evil times ! Hu- 
 man Nature, and the Institute, flourish 
 together !" 
 
 He wanted none of the accessary ac- 
 complishments which the Institute ex- 
 acted in its perfect Prince. Birth, For-
 
 26 
 
 tune, and Person, had dignified him ; his 
 firm eye, and composed step ; the severe 
 majesty of his air seemed to command the 
 World. " How contemptible a being is 
 Man/' declared the Institute, " who can- 
 not raise himself above all human objects !" 
 The heart of Ribadeneira proudly beat to 
 the more solemn injunctions — in the gran- 
 deur of his views embracing the Universe, 
 and in the unalterable constancy of his 
 spirit — In a genius, fertile of great enter- 
 prises, and the inexorable mind, resisting 
 the menaces, and rejecting the suppli- 
 cations of the Powers of the Earth. He 
 was to abase the Mighty and to lift the 
 Low (^), and his hand was to deaden, or 
 to vivify. Magnanimity, and Fortitude, 
 were to stand beside the aweful throne of 
 Him who was to smile amidst the shock of 
 Empires. The fear of death was not
 
 27 
 
 before him ; the love of voluptuousness 
 could not touch his Ascetic heart ; the joy 
 of Ambition was his solitary enthusiasm ! 
 To become more than Man, he ceased to 
 be a Man ; and the General of the Jesuits 
 had neither Brother, nor Friend, nor 
 Country! 
 
 Such was to be the Mysterious Man 
 whom the Institute saluted as the Master 
 of the World !
 
 28 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE JESUITS LEVEES HIS TREA*- 
 
 SURY POLITICAL NEUTRALITY, AND THE CABI- 
 NETS OF EUROPE HIS ALLIES IN ALL NATIONS 
 
 WRENCHED TWO EMPIRES FROM TWO RIVAL 
 
 COURTS HIS RELIGION HIS FRIENDSHIP Af 
 
 DISASTROUS AS HIS ENMITY. 
 
 1 H E General of the Jesuits, with " su- 
 preme dominion," fed his arrogant spirit 
 in the imperial magnificence of his state. 
 Who would not have deemed him an Em- 
 peror at his College ? 
 
 In his anti-chamber were crouded his 
 Court-levees; there, the Secretaries and 
 the Couriers of many Potentates were
 
 29 
 
 mingled with those of the proud Jesuit, 
 and seemed not less occupied than their 
 Master; the Cardinal-protectors of the 
 Crowns of Europe, waiting to communi- 
 cate their dispatches, were not always ad- 
 mitted to a private audience on " the 
 general post day to all the four quarters 
 of the World (^) ;" then were the Viceroys 
 of the Jesuit, in both Indies, to receive 
 his Imperial Mandates. Majesty itself, 
 the eclipsed Majesty of England, was lost 
 among the purpled Croud; there stood 
 the Stuart, degraded by his own hand, 
 in the Metropolis of his haughty Pontiflf^ 
 while the Jesuit was more deeply engaged 
 in framing a letter to a more real Mo- 
 narch. 
 
 Nor were the cares of Finance omitted 
 in the studies of the Sovereign of Nations* 
 His Throne rested on a Treasury. All
 
 30 
 
 the resources of the General of the Jesuits 
 were not comprised in a milHon of Masses 
 and half a miUion of Rosaries^ nor in Col- 
 leges richly endowed^ nor donatives and 
 legacies, the ordinary traffic of the Order. 
 With them^ indeed^ the Father-General 
 might have bid for a Crown, had it been 
 put up in a lot. He had more vast designs 
 in Europe. The Commerce of the Jesuits 
 flourished from the East to the West; 
 from Japan to the Brazils, and Lima, that 
 touches on the confines of Peru, and from 
 Mexico, in the midst of these two regions. 
 Goa was the Metropolis of their Industry, 
 These were sources of Revenue, which a 
 Monarchy, whose views were so extensive, 
 required. From the hand of the secret 
 Sovereign, a stream of gold was distributed, 
 where Friends were to be bought, Enemies 
 to be silenced, and Rivals overpowered.
 
 31 
 
 He was to invigorate the weak, and to 
 stupify the wise. Gold is that arm of 
 Power, which knows no distance! the 
 hghtning of Power, which dismantles for- 
 tresses ! It was a secret and silent stream, 
 which the General of the Jesuits was con- 
 veying into all the subterraneous cavities 
 of Government. 
 
 Ribadeneira numbered his people, and 
 beheld them, idolators of Glory, driven 
 by terror, or seduced by hope ; from Realm 
 to Realm, his Spirits were moving like a 
 circle within a circle; Men, who could 
 be Citizens in no place, governed by a 
 Code and a Monarch which annihilated all 
 rival Codes and independent Sovereigns ; 
 wherever their destiny placed them, they 
 knew but one Country, and one Sovereign. 
 In what spot on Earth was the genius of 
 the General of the Jesuits absent? For
 
 32 
 
 him the two hemispheres were opened, 
 and to his ear were conveyed all the se- 
 crets of State. Ribadeneira watched the 
 administrators of his power, and the Mi- 
 nisters of his Vengeance holding their 
 dreadful march through Europe. 
 
 For the Jesuit, the whole world was con- 
 tained in two divisions — those who were 
 Jesuits, and those who were not. The 
 Institute, in the affairs of this world, per- 
 mitted no Neutrality ; and Ribadeneira 
 counted the Neutrals, with those who were 
 against him. In Politics, Neutrality is a 
 left-handed wisdom ; it neither acquires 
 friends, nor diminishes enemies ; and the 
 Power who finally triumphs, avenges itself 
 on the luke-warm friend, or the secret 
 enemy. 
 
 When Ribadeneira looked into the Ca- 
 binets of Europe, the infirm Masters of
 
 33 
 
 the World to him formed but one jealous 
 and discontented family (2), addressing each 
 other by the style of Brother; but a po- 
 litical brotherhood is without parent or 
 friend ! These were conducted by the 
 feeble and formal Eleves of alphabetical 
 honours, and chronological promotions! 
 To cajole the Indolent, to provoke the 
 Irascible, to trample on the Torpid, and 
 to render Power, as ineffectual as Weak- 
 ness itself, were to be accomplished by his 
 invention and his influence. In this man- 
 ner was he to construct every European 
 Cabinet into an ingenious piece of Me- 
 chanism, to vibrate at a stroke from the 
 great genius of the Age. 
 
 In secrecy, and in silence, Ribadeneira 
 was bending his dark and sinuous course 
 among the decaying governments of Eu- 
 rope ; the World was agitated, but the 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 Disorganisor was unknown ! The footsteps 
 of the Pohtician must not be traced ; in 
 the Ocean of human affairs he passes hke 
 the keel of the ship, that traverses the 
 seas, and divides the waves, yet leaves no 
 track behind ! 
 
 Under the secret standard of the Jesuit 
 human nature itself was to be enrolled, 
 He had found Allies in all Nations ; all 
 younger sons, all men of talents without 
 fortune, all the disaffected and loose fiery 
 spirits of the Age, were at least respectable 
 in number. " He that goeth about to 
 persuade a multitude that they are not so 
 well governed as they ought to be, shall 
 never want attentive and favourable hear- 
 ers." Ribadeneira, with a fortunate du- 
 plicity of feeling, could sympathise with 
 the Man who had his secret grievances, 
 and in an instant become a part of the
 
 35 
 
 human being to whom he addressed him^ 
 self. Strike on the chords of his heart, 
 and it sounded with the note you loved to 
 listen to. Ribadeneira was in one pkce 
 the Advocate of Liberty — in another the 
 assertor of Supremacy — here Protestant, 
 there Catholic ; he was at this moment 
 even a Hebrew ! 
 
 He had discovered his evil genius re- 
 sided at Lisbon. The affairs of that Court 
 were indeed clouded over with mystery. 
 Joseph L the reigning Monarch, was of 
 indolent dispositions, an amorous temper, 
 and a feeble genius ; yet he had of^late 
 proved himself to be equally powerful and 
 enlightened. This disconcerted the mea- 
 sures of the Jesuit. Ribadeneira had suc- 
 ceeded in saving from that vigilant genius 
 his Colonies of Jesuits in South America. 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 The two Courts of Lisbon and Madrid had 
 discovered, that whenever either of their 
 forces attempted to enter a province, the 
 scrupulous honour of the Jesuits raised an 
 outcry, that they were invading the do- 
 minion of the other ; thus both, were im- 
 partially ejected ! The Courts resolved on 
 a treaty of limits. At the moment it was 
 definitively arranged, the Jesuit insinuated 
 at Lisbon, that Portugal in these exchanges 
 of territory had been most heavily ag- 
 grieved; and at Madrid, that Spain had 
 been duped by Portugal. The crafty Je- 
 suit placed his hand between the two am- 
 bitious Rivals, and an instant divided 
 them — Madrid trembled for her Peru, and 
 Lisbon for her Brazils ; and each seemed 
 to behold the other, insidiously approach- 
 ing to the heart of its power. The sus-
 
 37 
 
 picious treaty mouldered away in the 
 Archives, while the adroit Politician was 
 wrenching two Empires from their Masters. 
 The Anti-jesuitic genius was still aim- 
 ing at the empire of the Order, in me- 
 nacing to suppress its Indian Commerce. 
 It was then Ribadeneira resolved to 
 occupy the Court of Lisbon by more 
 domestic concerns — and for this purpose 
 assumed the character and the cry of a 
 Jeremiah, at an Auto daf^. The hidden 
 fragments of the Hebrews were scattered 
 in corners and privacies : every family of 
 the Christianos Novos, as they distin- 
 guished the reluctant Catholics who dis- 
 guised the feelings of their blood, still ex- 
 ulted in a Martyr. Ribadeneira was now 
 secretly exciting the gentle Benjamin and 
 the valiant Judah to take down their
 
 38 
 
 shield, which hung consuming in its own 
 rust ; and to ghde with an easy transition 
 from Martyrdom, to Heroism. The Je- 
 suits had long considered the Inquisition, 
 as a rival power, and the Jesuitic govern- 
 ment admitted of no divided Empire. Ri^- 
 badeneira would have preferred seeing at 
 Lisbon, the flowing beard of a ductile 
 Aaron, — to the Tonsured, who in humility 
 first cut oflf his hair, but shewed in pride 
 and power his shaven crown. Religion, 
 with the Politician, mantles over his de- 
 sign, or like a crutch, supports it (^) ; but, 
 as Religion itself is not his object, he is 
 a Chameleon of a Saint, and bears always 
 the colour of the spot on which he 
 lodges. In China, the Jesuits had so 
 blended local superstitions with Chris- 
 tian Rites, that it was scarcely a doubt.
 
 39 
 
 they had become the followers of Fohi and 
 had elsewhere even worshipped a Cow ! 
 
 Meanwhile Spain, he reproached with 
 being a stupid wise people, by its inac- 
 tivity ; and pointed to Portugal as a pro- 
 vince of insurgents, till its impatient ge- 
 nius panted to leap into the throne of the 
 Braganzas. But the friendship of Riba- 
 deneira seemed as disastrous as his en- 
 mity. In his tremendous embrace he was 
 dragging his devoted friend of Rome into 
 an Abyss. Seven Princes were at once 
 forming the Hydra, at the side of the poor 
 Fisherman at Rome. Instigated by the 
 concealed manoeuvres of th« Jesuit, an 
 Italian Patriot had roused Modena and 
 Parma, to resist the authority of the Church ; 
 the Pope issued a Monitory; the Italian 
 branches of the Bourbons called on their
 
 40 
 
 family crowns; Naples menaced, Spain 
 was rough, and France politely imperious. 
 Meanwhile in the Roman Cabinet, the 
 General of the Jesuits nerving by a false 
 vigour the feeble arm of the Sovereign- 
 Pontiff, which trembled while it fulmi- 
 nated, the subtile Serpent at his ear, the 
 tempter of Man, and the perturbator of 
 the World, whispered of the Gallican, 
 who was trampling on the Tiara. 
 
 Yet at this moment was the General of 
 the Jesuits embracing in extacy the for- 
 tune and the power of France, too great 
 for its own, and for the World's repose. 
 Ribadeneira exclaimed — " The day that 
 shews a Jesuit on the throne of France 
 shall witness the conquest of Europe ; a 
 Csesar, who will acknowledge no Code — 
 but the Institute!'*
 
 41 
 
 It might have baffled the profoundest 
 PoHtician to have conjectured where Ri- 
 badeneira designed to put that bias in the 
 round globe, which was to make it keep 
 the direction of the Jesuitic hand. 
 
 All was simplified according to the In- 
 stitute ! 
 
 '' To divide, and to reign,'* was but the 
 first step of the Universal Despot — ano- 
 ther ! and the Colossus bestrides the two 
 Hemispheres! The sword of Despotism 
 breaks the pompous seals of Treaties, and 
 exclaims — '^ There are no balances in 
 Power !" For him to reign, the very word 
 of Liberty must not be breathed in one of 
 the regions of the Globe ! {^) 
 
 It was in a general Innovation, the great 
 Usurper was to grow and feel secure. 
 When all was a rude heap, his hand would
 
 42 
 
 re-mouM the heavy Chaos — When old 
 Governments v\^ere forgotten^, nevv^ domi- 
 nions w^ould stand in the freshness of 
 Youth and Hope, for all parties — And to 
 make men adhere to his fortunes, he w^as 
 to wind their own destinies with his. 
 There was but one great End, for the 
 mighty One ! 
 
 All was to be troubled, for him to flou- 
 rish! The Labourer who would live by 
 stealth, gathers in his Harvest, in the 
 Storm I
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A JESUITICAL AMBASSADOR HIS AMBIDEXTROUS 
 
 TREATIES THE ART OF SINGING DOWN A MI- 
 NISTER THE POLITICAL GRATITUDE OF THE 
 
 GREAT, NOT SO BINDING A3 THEIR HOPE YOUN© 
 
 SECRETARIES. 
 
 1 HE office of the Vice-Generalship was 
 not the least remarkable, of that spirit of 
 foresight, which directed the genius of the 
 Institute. The monarchical General, du- 
 ring his life, selected a Regent to shar^ in 
 the secondary cares of Empire, and to fill 
 the chasm of an interregnum ; which, the 
 rival abilities of the Jesuits in their mutual 
 intrigues in the Order, protracted to a great
 
 44 
 
 length. In the Jesuitical Government, as 
 in the great system of Nature itself, every 
 thing was in a state of progi'essive activity, 
 and, like Nature, its Constitution could 
 suffer no vacuum. The mantle of Elijah, 
 was snatched up by the Regent, till he 
 threw it over the shoulders of the new 
 Prophet; and to the future General, he 
 delivered those immortal Plans, which 
 Time, and the silent manoeuvres of Po- 
 litics, were incessantly maturing. The po- 
 litical and prescient Order thus could 
 watch those events, whose fate revolved on 
 minutes, while they meditated on those, 
 which were to grow up with the Century. 
 
 Acquaviva, the Vice-General, had ex- 
 ercised his genius for diplomacy in the 
 School of Ribadeneira ; and had served in 
 various Courts of Europe. The Jesuit
 
 43 
 
 sent him early in life in the train of aa 
 ambassador (*), to form himself as an Ob- 
 server of affairs, to become the Artificer 
 of his own fortunes, and to discover the 
 qualifications in which he might excel. 
 The political seedling placed in its plot, 
 run along the straight line of its instruc- 
 tions ; but soon raising its head in the po- 
 litical nursery, aspired to be transplanted 
 to an open situation. 
 
 Theyoung Secret Agent had distinguished 
 himself in the double diplomacy — ^The per- 
 fection of the Jesuitic Constitution usually 
 sent an invisible, with the apparent Am- 
 bassador. Acquaviva, accomplished in the 
 arts of life, insinuating himself at the fo- 
 reign Court, gay, thoughtless, and se- 
 ductive; in his secret correspondence with 
 his own Sovereign, checking that of tJje
 
 46 
 
 Ambassador, was solemn as an Inquisitor^) 
 and watchful as a Centinel. Who imagined 
 that the tender Adonis pleading at the 
 feet of the Mistress of the Minister, with 
 all the warmth of Nature, while his glance 
 mingled with her glance, and his hand 
 pressed her hand, was a Jesuit, a State- 
 Slave, who has no passion, but to work 
 out the day-task set him by his Despot? 
 
 This was the ancient regime ; but the 
 Jesuitical genius had enriched it with a 
 more exquisite invention. Whenever the 
 views of the Ambassador were untimely 
 detected, Acquaviva was ready to supply 
 his place, and to censure loudly every 
 act done by his predecessor; the latter 
 secretly handing to him his own instruc- 
 tions, Acquaviva was made acquainted 
 with the real views of their Master, while
 
 47 
 
 he ostensibly acted on the reverse ; and 
 thus, an apparent opposition was combined 
 with the most effectual agreement. 
 
 At length the Secret Agent, taking a 
 higher station, could strike out ari In- 
 trigue, or hide himself in a conspiracy. 
 At the extreme point of disaster he could 
 disentangle himself, without relinquishing 
 his hold of the victims of his adroitness, 
 by that simple principle of Jesuitism, of 
 binding others, but never himself. How 
 many disavowals were to be disavowed! 
 how many recantations to be recanted! 
 He knew to break his faith in laughter. (2) 
 
 Ambidextrous, in the negotiation of a 
 Treaty, with open lips and a closed heart, 
 he was fertile in expedients to conceal, 
 while he obtained his designs. He knew 
 to be dilatory, by rapidly hastening a
 
 48 
 
 treaty, — reserving insuperable difficulties^ 
 to suspend its conclusion ; or whenever an 
 insurmountable obstacle, a sine qua non^ 
 occurred, he could invent an ambiguous 
 expression, w^hose sense hereafter would 
 be affixed as his Master chose (^j. And 
 for the last accomplishment of the Ne- 
 gotiator, he possessed the talent of a sage 
 physiognomist, who discovers secrets of 
 State in a man's countenance, and spies 
 out in a glance, or a gesture, that secret 
 assent wliich his words refused ("*). At 
 the moment he signed a Treaty, the op- 
 posite party ought most to have suspected 
 his views ; it often happened that to annul 
 its force, he had signed with a Rival Power, 
 another, to counteract it. In Jesuitism 
 there are no Treaties ! 
 
 To Acquaviva the Jesuit had assigned;,
 
 49 
 
 as a first practical lesson of the art of 
 reigning, the fall of Alberoni ; for while 
 Ribadeneira seemed to be conducting the 
 World, the shadow of Alberoni, still crossed 
 hirii in the gigantic course he was run- 
 ning — as susceptible of the little as of the 
 great passions. 
 
 The enemies of Alberoni, possessed an 
 advantage over him, not common in the 
 character of a Minister ; we are not apt to 
 ridicule what we fear; and Power, is seldom 
 susceptible of Contempt; but it happened 
 that Alberoni was not less ridiculous, than 
 he was great. At once the child of Na- 
 ture, and the pupil of Ambition, that 
 daring spirit which was guiding the World, 
 could never disencumber itself of the gross 
 simplicity of its origin ; in the depth of 
 his mind he thought like Tacitus, while 
 
 £
 
 50 
 
 he talked and gesticulated like the gar- 
 dener's boy ; so strong were the workings 
 of Nature in the Peasant-Minister ! 
 
 Acquaviva had discovered one of those 
 salaried Wits, whose genius striking in 
 with the humours of a people, can sing 
 down a Minister, when furnished with the 
 burthen of a ballad. His first operation 
 was to attach to the Cardinal a Name, not 
 received in baptism, but more descriptive 
 and picturesque (^) ; a Title, from the 
 scandalous Chronicle, which his Eminence 
 could not insert in the ritual of his ho- 
 nours, The next step was to diffuse in 
 conversation secret anecdotes, where in- 
 firmities were faults, and faults crimes ; 
 truths bitter as calumnies, and calumnies 
 that looked like truths. The year had 
 not closed, ere Alberoni was dressed up in
 
 51 
 
 the terrific garb of a stalking Tyrant. The 
 Minister felt the shock of pubHc opinion^ 
 and maddened^ published an Edicts that 
 the possessor of a Libel, should be consi- 
 dered as the Writer! But the shadowy 
 Author eluded his grasp ; he wrote Epi- 
 grams, easily retained ; his Works no 
 one had seen, but every one had got by 
 heart. State Couplets were now in every 
 one's mouth ; they were sung in the 
 streets, caught up at Court, circulated 
 through the Town, echoed in the Pro- 
 vinces ; they penetrated even to neigh- 
 bouring Nations. 
 
 At Court, Laura, the favourite of her 
 Majesty, trouled the State-carols in the 
 dressing-room. The Queen, with all her 
 elevated Ambition, and penetrating ge- 
 nius, from long habits of affection^ suf- 
 E 2 
 
 HU
 
 52 
 
 fered herself to be led by a native Com- 
 panion^ who^ amidst the heavy pomps of 
 the Spanish Court, could awaken in lei- 
 sure a tender recollection of Italian feel- 
 ings ; the memory of the gayer court of 
 her Father*s httle dukedom. Her Majesty 
 had indeed derived, from the intrigues of 
 Alberoni, the throne on which she sat; 
 yet the Cardinal only held her favour by 
 the fleeting tenure of political Gratitude ; 
 but it is Hope, not Gratitude, which se- 
 cures the favour of the Great ; and a po- 
 litical favourite is like a Counter, which 
 sometimes stands for gold, and sometimes 
 for the basest coin, at the option of those 
 who play a royal game. The Queen 
 scarcely concealed her contempt for the 
 low-born Cardinal ; and Laura, and the 
 little ballads together, assisted her Majesty
 
 53 
 
 in discovering his insolent facetiousness, 
 his ludicrous irascibihty, and his vulgar 
 yet despotic genius. — Laura, who had 
 once been a Miller's Maiden, in the same 
 parish with the Universal Minister of 
 Spain, hated its Ringer ; and sung the 
 ballad which told him so. The Cardinal 
 affected to nick-name Laura the Queen's 
 Nurse ! Such was the situation of affairs at 
 the Court of Madrid — a political toilette, 
 evening pasquinades, and bickerings be- 
 tween the Miller's daughter and the 
 Gardener's boy ; on these were revolving 
 the fate of Spain, and the fortunes of 
 Europe ! 
 
 Acquaviva announced to Ribadeneira an 
 important discovery. 
 
 " Alberoni is the mockery of Madrid," 
 he exclaimed ; " but he must be rendered
 
 54 
 
 hateful, as well as contemptible. Yes, 
 Ribadeneira," exultingly he added, — " Al- 
 beroni is in your hands !" 
 
 Sternly replied the Father- General, 
 checking the want of self-controul in his 
 Minister — ^' Thou speakest in ecstacy ! 
 A Jesuit acts, while his equal soul has 
 neither hopes nor fears. It is only him 
 who has been taught to subdue himself, 
 who finds the world an easy conquest.'' 
 
 Acquaviva bowed — while still in his 
 eyes shone the uncorrected confidence that 
 creates the success it inspires. 
 
 '' Father-General ! two young Secre- 
 taries of the Spanish Ambassador usually 
 pass their evenings at the good Mother in 
 the Strada Nuova — last night they broke 
 their appointment, on the plea that some 
 sudden affairs of importance had kept them
 
 to make up dispatches for Spain — One 
 told a part ; the other told the rest — The 
 dispatches have been delivered to that 
 Polish traveller who came to collect Me- 
 dals for the Elector of Saxony. Three 
 months that pretended Antiquary has 
 baffled me ; but from the moment he re- 
 fused the servants, one of the Order recom- 
 mended, he became suspected — yet never 
 has he been known to enter the Ambas- 
 sador's Palace. The good Mother lost not 
 a moment — the Polish Antiquary sets off 
 for Madrid in about two hours. Now for 
 a grand Coup (TEtat; our emissaries have 
 already preceded him — and, thanks to the 
 good Mother, the dispatches are yours !" 
 
 Ribadeneira, nodding his approbation, 
 observed ; 
 
 *^ We shall discover some new Chimera !
 
 56 
 
 He is busied again in his old trade of Po» 
 litics, and he has bought France, or sold 
 Spain. Peace, there can be none, while 
 this mischief-maker is endured in the great 
 family of Europe. France must not owe 
 Spain, to any other hand than mine !'' 
 
 " And then," continued Acquaviva, pur- 
 suing his own thoughts, " every thing 
 is progressive at Madrid — the train is laid; 
 and Alberoni is to be bought and sold." 
 
 "Ha!" exclaimed Ribadeneira ; "What 
 is the price of this Roman penny ?" (^) 
 
 " A hundred thousand !" * 
 
 " Now have I hopes of the Nurse Laura! 
 She knows the price, and the dignity, of 
 Genius ! Her plan ?" 
 
 " Points direct to its object," replied 
 Acquaviva : " for Laura, a woman of ta- 
 lent, is capable of comprehending my
 
 57 
 
 instructions. Alberoni, more skilful in 
 the ascent, than at the summit, was 
 deemed worthy of reigning, till he reigned. 
 Who rises to such elevated fortune, with- 
 out a mind above it, but overturns him- 
 self? The petty intrigues which wound 
 him up to the Throne will not keep him 
 there; and he is commanding Europe, 
 without the enlarged genius, that regulates 
 the destinies of Empires. In vain he sub- 
 stitutes for great enterprises chimerical 
 projects ; their rise only announces their 
 fall. Alberoni, ambitious as Richelieu, 
 and supple as Mazarine, has still too much 
 of Alberoni, in Alberoni. Laura has dis- 
 covered to the Queen the evident cause of 
 his failures, by repeating to the royal ear 
 Richelieu's State-maxim, that Imprudent 
 and Unfortunate, mean the s?ime thing!"
 
 58 
 
 *^ So much, then, for the gardener's 
 boy !'* exclaimed Ribadeneira. — '^ Now, 
 Alberoni, started from thy covert, I will 
 hunt thee down. Thy life 1 will preserve 
 as thou didst mine, but to blast it with 
 contempt; to degrade it with my mercy! 
 Alberoni, cannot I too smile upon my 
 Enemy, and not brandish the dagger I 
 sheathe in his heart? Yes, Italian! my 
 wrath covered its fires, but did not ex- 
 tinguish them. A Secret Injury required 
 a Secret Vengeance !"
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A JESUIT TRIUMPHS OVER NATURE ! 
 
 1 HE Confessorship of the French Mo- 
 narch was vacant. Three Candidates ap- 
 peared ; but a Jesuit was to neighbour the 
 Throne. 
 
 The Father-General had usually secured 
 this important appointment in the Courts 
 of Europe^ by urging the disinterested 
 character of Men^ who had solemnly re- 
 nounced all dignities whatever. Would 
 they raise Intrigues for Preferments they 
 could never possess r These political Sages, 
 rendered incapable themselves of being
 
 60 
 
 x^orrupted, were satisfied to corrupt others ; 
 and^ while they disdained to accept those 
 places, for which they incessantly in- 
 trigued to bestow on others, they well 
 knew, that the distributor of preferment 
 is greater than the actual possessor. 
 
 Father Tellier was the Jesuitical aspi- 
 rant at the Court of Versailles. With an 
 unbending, stern, and even ferocious air, 
 what amulet of courtly grace could this 
 Cain wear, before a voluptuous Monarch 
 in a court of levity? Ribadeneira, although 
 he confided in the subtil ty of his cha- 
 racter, considering that Nature, in his 
 case, was more powerful than the Jesuit, 
 had hinted to Tellier, to resign to one, 
 who with more suavity, would not be the 
 less a Jesuit. But Tellier had long con- 
 sidered the French Empire as that Province
 
 61 
 
 of Europe which was submitted to his 
 controul. He intreated to be left to the 
 fate he had chosen, assuring the Father- 
 General, that, for the last resource, means 
 were secured to dispossess a more fortunate 
 Rival. 
 
 All that he earnestly requested of Ribade- 
 neira was to dispatch, without loss of time, 
 a troop of Jesuits to act under him, in- 
 cluding a great variety of human nature. 
 A Ballet-Master — an Empiric with a cos- 
 metic — a certain Donna Olympia — and, 
 as all Genius must be humiliated for 
 the good of the Order, he advised to join 
 to this parti-coloured troop, a brother, 
 whose profound studies in Naval tactics 
 had invented a mode of breaking the line 
 of the Enemy. In a word, the Jesuit, 
 with the Confessorship in view, was playing
 
 62 
 
 a political symphony, before the curtain 
 was drawn. He designed to gratify the 
 taste of Louis XV. with a Ballet, Festin, 
 &c. — to wash with bloom the fading cheek 
 of the Pompadour — and to delight the 
 Scavans and all Paris, by exhibiting a 
 model, which might engage their fancy, 
 by shewing how to break the line of a 
 British fleet !(^) 
 
 The political stratagem he employed 
 was his own bold invention, and masterly 
 execution ; he knew his Rivals, and anti- 
 cipated their fate. One, a Father of the 
 Oratory, was a Ciceronian balancing his 
 attitudes with his words ; but his Majesty, 
 fixing his eyes with a dismal stare on the 
 Orator, his beautiful words run in dis- 
 order — and he lost his voice in a musical 
 period. The other, an ascetic Dominican,
 
 63 
 
 for the first time addressing Majesty, could 
 not omit, in a parallel of the wisdom 
 of Solomon, that vanity of vanities, his 
 " Strangle Women." The Marchioness of 
 Pompadour pouted ; the King swelled, 
 and just moved his haughty neck ; and 
 the volatile Wits were blessing the honest 
 Father in Epigrams. 
 
 At length came the rough-hewed Tellier; 
 he who stammered, who limped, and had 
 a frightful cast in his eyes. To conceal 
 himself, the Jesuit became, as it were, 
 another person. 
 
 Motionless behind his Rivals he stood 
 with his eyes riveted to the ground, both 
 hands grasping the flaps of a large hat 
 upon his breast, while reverently, in si- 
 lence, he bowed before his Majesty. Had 
 Tellier studied the figure of Modesty,
 
 64 
 
 from some design of Raphael, he had not 
 produced a more graceful touch of the 
 sweetness of humility. The King, who 
 had yawned over the Babbler, and frowned 
 on the Disciplinarian, instantly made his 
 Election ; and saw in Tellier, just the man 
 he wanted, a plain unwordy Confessor. 
 
 Thus, by personating that humility, to 
 which his heart was an utter stranger, and 
 by enduring a martyrdom of Modesty, 
 the subtile Jesuit triumphed over Nature 
 herself!
 
 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FALL OF ALBERONI THE DESPOT HIMSELF 
 
 TREMBLES THE SECRET REGISTERS THE DOMI- 
 NION OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 All looked prosperous in the dark Je- 
 suitic government ; Ribadeneira was dic- 
 tating instructions to the Confessors, and 
 displacing the Ministers of Monarchs. 
 
 The intercepted dispatches of the Polish 
 Antiquary, gave the last stroke to the 
 chimerical Politician. They contained a 
 secret negotiation where Spain, combining 
 with the Russian, the Swede, and the 
 Ottoman ; the Alliance was to conquer 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 Europe, on a plan whose novelty had 
 dazzled the imagination of Alberoni. The 
 Crescent was to beam on the towers of 
 Vienna; the North floating to England 
 was to re-establish the Stuart, while Al- 
 beroni quietly falling on Sicily and Sar- 
 dinia, was to be the Liberator of Italy, 
 from the German Yoke. Such was the 
 grand outline ; but it included some minor 
 incidents; two Conspiracies, maturing at 
 Paris, and at London. — ^The Spanish Am- 
 bassador, not entrusting the names of the 
 parties to another pen, had written them 
 with his own hand, but in haste, he had 
 neglected to employ his cypher ; on such 
 a minute occurrence in a conspiracy, the 
 fates of the bravest are suspended t 
 
 When the Jesuit caused the project to 
 be divulged, Europe rose against its com-
 
 €7 
 
 mon disturber; and the Courts, alarmed 
 at his intrigues, loudly remonstrated with 
 Spain. Alberoni was now to be mortified 
 by receiving his political extinction from 
 a vulgar hand. It was the insolent Laura 
 who triumphed in presenting the royal 
 Order for his banishment. At that mo- 
 ment Alberoni thought of the Princess of 
 Ursini, the first Patroness of his fortunes ; 
 and the poisoned chalice was returned to 
 his own lips. He left Madrid with great 
 pomp, but among his treasures, he did 
 not carry away the regrets of a people, 
 whose patience, the perturbed Politician 
 had so long exhausted. The last efibrt of 
 his intriguing spirit was discovered on the 
 second day of his journey; the Italian 
 with Machiavellian cunning had purloined 
 the testament of Charles II. on which the 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 present Spanish Monarch founded his 
 right to the throne. He now designed to 
 offer the precious document, with his ser- 
 vices, to his old adversary, the Emperor 
 of Germany, who had so long inflamed 
 Europe with War, to dispute its validity. 
 But the crafty Ex-Minister was compelled 
 to relinquish the Royal Will to the Dra- 
 goons sent after him, for when he ha- 
 rangued them he discovered he was out 
 of place. 
 
 Ribadeneira desired Acquaviva to watch 
 the movement of Alberoni. " That per- 
 turbed spirit is not yet an extinct Volcano! 
 Where now will the Ex-Minister go? 
 Rome averts her eyes from the Cardinal 
 and Saracen ; France vomits forth her 
 Conspirator ; and the Seas will betray him 
 to their great Sovereign. In what obscure
 
 69 
 
 corner of Europe will this inflammable 
 genius now blaze ?" 
 
 Thus he derided — and thus his soul, 
 reaching extremes, could turn aside from 
 the conduct of that World, he imagined 
 he was directing, to enjoy the mean tri- 
 umph of individual revenge. 
 
 Yet at this moment, was Ribadeneira 
 himself, experiencing that peculiar terror 
 of Ambition, when it fears to have over- 
 leapt itself. The enlightened Despot trem- 
 bles even in that Empire he is perpetually 
 extending; his creatures will often pay 
 their own services by their independence, 
 and the Multitude he is governing are 
 ripening for revolt. 
 
 The shade of Insurrection passed over 
 the throne of Despotism ! In the Despot's 
 political arithmetic, the People are only to
 
 70 
 
 be calculated ; to be augmented or dimi- 
 nished as State-interest requires. Yet^ 
 often Terror checks him in his wild ca- 
 reer — The One^ trembled before the 
 Many ! The truth he banished from their 
 lips found a refuge in the silence of their 
 hearts. This, the Universal Despot knows, 
 and he bites his terrific sceptre in despair. 
 Ribadeneira was startled at the pride of 
 dominion which was growing up among 
 his Indian Provincials. A Jesuitic diaden^ 
 was glittering in their imagination. They 
 were prepared for War, with the Courts 
 of Madrid and Lisbon ; they urged their 
 Sovereign to open the Campaign ; for they 
 cried, *^ One battle, and the Continent is 
 ours." Ribadeneira, who at once desired, 
 and feared, to evince his power to Europe, 
 still cherished the spirit he curbed. He
 
 71 
 
 had not however neglected their interests ; 
 and, under the pretext of sending some 
 Jesuits, to reform those abuses the Courts 
 had constantly remonstrated on, Ribade- 
 neira had dispatched several German Mis- 
 sionaries ; and in the plains of Paraguay, 
 twelve Saints had appeared with twelve 
 pieces of artillery. The good Fathers were 
 suspected to be Engineers in disguise; 
 their genius discovered itself in the Mili- 
 tary Science ; they raised fortifications, 
 converted Caciques into Colonels, and dis- 
 ciplined tVieir Neophytes, into squadrons 
 of Infantry and Cavalry. And now his 
 Indian Viceroys haughtily panted to raise 
 the Curtain, and exhibit the magnificent 
 scenery, so long concealed behind it. A 
 rumour too was spreading through Europe, 
 that the Jesuits had elected one of their
 
 72 
 
 brothers to the throne of South America, 
 and Nicholas I. reigned from the Andes 
 to the Atlantic^ and from the Plata to the 
 Amazons. It was known to the General 
 of the Jesuits, that one of his Missionaries 
 in China, having, both predicted an Eclipse, 
 and presented his Imperial Majesty with a 
 violin, had so ingratiated himself into Im^ 
 perial favour, that being sent by his Su- 
 periors to convert a province, he rather 
 permitted the province to convert him. 
 Now cloathed in the Yellow Robe of the 
 first Order of Mandarines, the political 
 Apostle kept Viceroys prostrate at his feet 
 for an hour, and barred the entrance of 
 his province, like a loyal Chinese, against 
 every Jesuit, but a Martyr. 
 
 At such a moment it was that Acquaviva 
 presented to Ribadeneira the labour of the
 
 73 
 
 long life of a Missionary ; it was an ela- 
 borate exposition of the State of South 
 America ; its revenues, its population ; its 
 mines. The history was composed in the 
 Imperial and military style which the 
 haughty Order had adopted from the ge- 
 nius of its founder — it unfolded a magni- 
 ficent plan of conquest, triumphantly in- 
 scribed to the General. The eyes of Riba- 
 deneira sparkled while he beheld villages 
 were towns, and towns were cities, and 
 eagerly turning the pages, counted pro- 
 vinces expanding into future kingdoms, 
 and a million of Neophytes, a disguised 
 Soldiery. 
 
 " Too admirable Jesuit !** he exclaimed, 
 " Spain would give him for his work, one 
 of those Mines, which he is satisfied to 
 have described. Whence is he ^"
 
 74 
 
 Acquaviva consulted the Secret Re- 
 gisters. (*) 
 
 These exhibited the moral Portraits of 
 the Jesuits ; the dispositions and talents 
 of each, delineating even their persons 
 with the eye of a physiognomist. A 
 moving picture of his subjects was thus 
 placed under the eye of their Despot. 
 From childhood, the young Slave placed 
 under an odious Inquisition of Spies, be- 
 traying and betrayed, was discovered to 
 his Tyrant. The Master observed, the 
 Superior meditated; political Sages, grown 
 old, and without human affections, who 
 knew to direct the movements of the 
 heart. These Archives supplied that per- 
 petual requisition for human talents, which 
 enabled the Despot to furnish that per- 
 fect capacity, which lies level with its
 
 75 
 
 vocation ; the most refined mystery of 
 Governments he with facility obtained; 
 for every Jesuit discovered himself moving 
 in his proper sphere ; if the Order con- 
 tained not more genius than any other 
 Community, at least the secret of its 
 value, was only known to them. 
 
 But the enlightened Despot would if 
 possible penetrate into the inmost thoughts 
 of his Slaves — that aweful height of De- 
 spotism denied to the tyrants of the Earth, 
 was possessed by the General of the Je- 
 suits. At the silent motion of his will, 
 the consciences of his creatures, and those 
 of crowned heads, were opened to his 
 secret eye. Confession, was the micro- 
 scope, by which the Jesuits searched the 
 naked human heart, and watched the 
 beating of every fibre. Cromwell, victo-
 
 76 
 
 rious after the battles that seated the for- 
 tunate Usurper on the Throne^ with such 
 an Institution, would have been the Im- 
 perial Villain, who would have enslaved 
 his Country with absolute power; but 
 Cromwell only conquered Men, without 
 the power to reign over their secret 
 thoughts ; and his Ambition obscured it- 
 self, under the feeble and timid disguise 
 of the Protectorate. 
 
 Acquaviva now read from the Secret 
 Register : 
 
 ^' 1690, Joseph Saavedra de Gumilla, 
 aged 20. Of a cold temperament, an 
 athletic frame, laborious and inquisitive in 
 the works of Nature. With no imagi- 
 nation, and little judgment, has an ex- 
 cellent Vocabulary memory. He wastes 
 his days in our Botanic garden ; famishes
 
 77 
 
 himself among the Mountains, herbo- 
 rising ; and lately escaped a stoning from 
 the peasants who having watched the Mine- 
 ralogist the whole day lurking among the 
 rocks^ attacked him in a body." Thus 
 the Master, the Superior adds ; 
 
 '' Gumilla, with the innocence of a 
 child, hesitated to take the Oath with the 
 three &c. &c. &c. till explained that they 
 only signified the Oath included every 
 thing, according to the Institute, He 
 must not advance in his probation ; he 
 can be nothing but a mere Scavan ! His 
 Confessions as furnished by the Master 
 of the Novices, and his conversations, as 
 delivered by his Social, accord; and his 
 zealous application for a Mission, is merely 
 for the purpose of forming a Hart us Sic- 
 cus in the Brazils."
 
 78 
 
 " This character," observed Ribadeneira, 
 " has been pourtrayed with the prescient 
 sagacity that detects in the unsteady out- 
 hnes of Youth, the Stature of the Man. 
 Weil, Acquaviva! the Order has enabled its 
 Pliny, to pursue the researches adapted to 
 his capacity ; he has been made happy and 
 we wise! But the grey-headed votary of 
 Fame rocks himself in his dream ; the 
 complimentary letter of his General, is 
 the immortality of a Jesuit. Not for him, 
 nor for the World, this treasure ! but let 
 him proceed, and quickly, for he is old. 
 Instruct Martinez to become his Amanu- 
 ensis, to spare the feeble eyes of our Ge- 
 ographer; write in cypher to Gumilla, 
 that he find Martinez constant employ- 
 ment, for we suspect him with the 
 Spaniard whose troops hover on the
 
 79 
 
 borders. Thus let them watch each 
 other !" 
 
 " One of our Brothers," obser\^ed Ac- 
 quaviva, " requires instant attention, would 
 you save a genius who invents crimes, from 
 the Galleys. Du Vergier at Marseilles 
 has degraded himself by brutal infamy. 
 He says that he is not certain that he may 
 not die on a scaffold, but swears he will 
 not at the Hospital. With terrible passions 
 he has an inexhaustible genius. He is 
 marked in the Registers as the most in- 
 famous of Men, but able to revolutionise 
 a Kingdom. This is he whose favourite 
 project was to be dispatched to Turkey to 
 raise a new Sect, and to oppose the In- 
 stitute, to the Koran ; or to proclaim 
 himself a Jewish Messiah, and collect the 
 scattered Hebrews, in the Archipelago.
 
 80 
 
 And now that the Frenchman sees th^ 
 Greve before him, he is more pressing 
 than ever to found a new ReHgion." 
 
 " An exquisite Villain/' (replied Riba- 
 deneira) " for whose maturity of crime I 
 have been long waiting. Such a genius 
 is made for the World, but must not re- 
 main too long in one place. You know 
 our maxim, the vices of the Man are not 
 those of the Jesuit. An Enfant perdu 
 is the forlorn hope of the Politician ; and 
 our Government requires to be supported 
 not so much by virtues, as by talents. 
 We want daring promulgators of Inno- 
 vation, who will beard authority, as well 
 as those docile children who can only 
 pace in trammels, and who start at no- 
 velties. It is thus, Acquaviva, we balance 
 the public opinion, while we conceal our
 
 81 
 
 own ; and equally govern, whether the 
 licentious excite, or the timid protest. — 
 Instruct Tellier that he dispatch this Jewish 
 Messiah, with any name except his own, 
 to Lisbon. There let him await our 
 Orders."
 
 82 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STATE-FAVOURITE — HIS ART OF MAKING WAR 
 
 ADVICE TO A KING RESPECTING HIS COUNCIL 
 
 THE VISION OF CONftUEST. 
 
 Sceptres, are blazing torches/ and 
 the hand which approaches too near, must 
 burn — thus said our pohtical EHzabeth 
 (that " miserable woman/' as the English 
 Jesuits called her), congratulating Henry 
 IV. on his condemnation of his favourite 
 the Marechal Biron, from whom he had 
 experienced the same unruly and impe- 
 tuous genius she had crushed in the Earl 
 of Essex.
 
 83 
 
 Kings, too great for friendship, and too 
 proud for Love, are yet levelled by the 
 hand of the State Spy ; that aspiring 
 Slave, who sports with the diadem he does 
 not wear. Those crowned heads, who 
 themselves have been refined Masters of 
 dissimulation, like Tiberius, discover that 
 their most secret artifices betray them- 
 selves to the close eye of their Sejanus. 
 
 As it is not by leaping, but by clam- 
 bering up steep rocks that we gain the 
 summit, so Tellier used the minutest means 
 for the greatest end ; and to possess the 
 Monarch, wound himself about the Man ; 
 soothing the Voluptuary with a code of 
 royal morality, which simply consisted in 
 " lengthening the Creed, and shortening 
 the Decalogue." 
 
 The Jesuit had the authority of one, 
 
 6 2
 
 84 
 
 who was himself a Monarch, a Philoso- 
 pher, and a Sinner, " Not to be wise be- 
 fore the King." And now our grave and 
 inexorable Jesuit was telling facetious tales, 
 collecting biting lampoons, unravelling se- 
 cret history, and seasoning all with a kind 
 of acid pleasantry, 
 
 Quid Rex, in aurem Regina dixerit, 
 Quid Juno febulata sit cum Jove. 
 
 Plautus. 
 What the King whispers to his royal Love j 
 What Juno fables to her idle Jove ! 
 
 He excelled in persiflage; that art of 
 raillery practised on a simple soul without 
 his perceiving it ; very delightful to the 
 Great, who are gratified in seeing great 
 men ridiculed. And with versatile levity, 
 he discovered the rare talent of exquisite 
 mimicry ; in a word, he was interesting
 
 85 
 
 his Majesty's drowsiness, without disturb- 
 ing it. 
 
 Not an allusion to politics! for he had ob- 
 served whenever these topics were touched 
 on, the haughty Monarch, stiffened his 
 neck, and scarcely breathed through his 
 lips. Louis XV. was a pacific, because 
 Louis XIV. had been a warlike Sovereign — 
 yet the taste, rather than the talent, of 
 Ambition, was inherited. (^) 
 
 The Minister was the celebrated Abb^ 
 Bertin, who from an Adonis gliding into 
 the silken Cabinet of Madame Pompadour, 
 had become Ambassador, Minister, and 
 Cardinal ; but still he considered his better 
 fortune to consist in the florid rhimes and 
 tripping Alcaics of his ^^ Quatre parties 
 du Jour." His treaty of Versailles, was 
 the worst of his works ; but as he never
 
 86 
 
 staked his reputation on his prose^ he con- 
 soled himself every morning at the Toi- 
 lettes he haunted^ with a fresh bouquet 
 of petit Vers. Tel Her confided to the 
 War Minister a single line, which the 
 King of Prussia had not yet allowed to 
 escape from his Port-folio ; 
 
 " Evitez de Bernis^ la sterile abondance." 
 
 The spoiled child of the Graces, turning 
 on the dark messenger of his fate, hesi- 
 tated between thanks and curses. The 
 Jesuit, with a countenance which did not 
 even betray the searching malignity of the 
 Jesuitical physiognomy, stood with an 
 immoveable simplicity — " I know," cried 
 Bernis, ^^ you understand nothing of 
 Verses; but a single, and a singular Verse, 
 is never forgotten !" — ^The calm PoHtician,
 
 «7 
 
 and the enraged Poet, as extremes meet, 
 had but one idea — " War with Prussia !" 
 murmured on the indignant Hps of the 
 Minstrel-Minister. " War with the He- 
 retic/* hoarsely echoed the Jesuit — and 
 the veins of France were to open for a 
 hitch in rhyme ! {^) 
 
 The determination of the Minister, evi- 
 dently affected the Monarch, when it 
 reached him; his Majesty liked War, and 
 did not like it — and one day, hastening to 
 Council, he complained of that torment of 
 Royalty. 
 
 " Wherefore, Sire?" enquired the Jesuit. 
 
 "It is a Chaos!" 
 
 ^' Sire, you need not endure these per- 
 plexities for a moment, if your Majesty 
 condescended to decide, before they meet. 
 Charies V. revolved his plans long iu his
 
 88 
 
 mind; when he summoned his Council, 
 it was to command, and not to dehberate." 
 
 The King, struck by the grand result of 
 this simple principle, applauded his own 
 sagacity in having discovered in Tellier, a 
 Politician who could " revolve his plans 
 long in his mind." 
 
 Now " the whitened sepulchre" opened, 
 and nothing was found but " dead men's 
 bones." In the dark soul of the Jesuit 
 were treasured the secret instructions of 
 Ribadeneira ; plans of imperial aggran- 
 disement; partitions of Empires; domi- 
 nion heaped on dominion— the War-con- 
 vulsion of Europe ! 
 
 The flattering phantom of Universal 
 Monarchy had flitted from Spain to Au- 
 stria, and escaped from Austria, porten- 
 tously to hover on the throne of France —
 
 89 
 
 Britain, the guardian of the freedom of 
 Europe, suspended the evil genius of 
 Man — she grieved she could do no more! 
 Teljier touched the secret spring in the 
 soul of the haughty Monarch. 
 
 At first the Jesuit covered whatever was 
 reprehensible in his system, with the var- 
 nisli of some virtue, veihng his designs, 
 by professions diametrically opposite to 
 their real purpose. Even Crime to render 
 itself respectable must speak the language 
 of Virtue — it is a homage which even Ty- 
 rants pay to public opinion — in their Ma- 
 nifestos. 
 
 No crime so bold but would be understood 
 A real, or at least a seeming good ; 
 Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name> 
 And free from Conscience is a Slave to Fame. 
 
 Denham.
 
 90 
 
 The Preceptor of Tyrants, and the 
 Doctor of the laws of Iniquity, pictured 
 the World as an image of Hell. It is the 
 first principle of Machiavelism, to accuse 
 Nature of all the horrors itself practises. 
 To a Sovereign how fatal is one false rea- 
 soning ! The Jesuit demonstrated the ne- 
 cessity of Crimes — to have listened was to 
 be lost — and his pupil was now only anx- 
 ious to learn the facility of their execution. 
 
 Modern policy was with the Jesuit ra- 
 ther a Science of Mysteries, than a System 
 of Politics. A new scheme of Empire 
 broke out with a strange lustre ; and as 
 the Jesuit passed his hand over the face of 
 Europe, it changed its features. The 
 tactics of the field were often to be mas- 
 tered by the tactics of the Cabinet. 
 
 The Vision of Conquest passed before
 
 91 
 
 the eyes of the haughty Monarch. Louis 
 hastened to Council. A hurried signature 
 formed by the phrenzy of Ambition and 
 the tremor of Hope^ ^^ covers the face of 
 the Earth with the feet of his Armies." 
 The Sword devouring hke Famine, and 
 Famine sharper than the Sword. 
 
 The crowned Egotist glances in the dis- 
 tant perspective,, at the Lilies of France 
 on the Towers of Vienna — In the garden 
 of Italy the human flower itself must pe- 
 rish — ^Thy tears, Germany, must fall, but 
 thy lamentations shall be heard — Spain 
 reposing in her Olive Groves, starts from 
 her lethargy to join the general massacre 
 of Mankind — Holland presses on Bri- 
 tain — The North is shaken, the South 
 trembles — America, and Asia watch for 
 I the bright spark in Europe that kindles
 
 92 
 
 the general conflagration — ruthless and 
 remorseless, War devours its million, and 
 another, and another must succeed — And 
 wherefore ? — for the ambition of France — ' 
 the whisper of a Jesuit! (^)
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE APPEARANCE OF LIBERTY UNITED WITH DE- 
 SPOTISM NO STATE IS FREE, WHERE THE PEOPLF 
 
 HAVE CEASED TO BE RESPECTABLE, 
 
 1 HE accession of Tellier towards the 
 throne of France, entered deeply into the 
 vast plan of the Jesuit. To create the 
 Confessor's influence over the mind of the 
 Monarch, he resolved to transfer into the 
 hands of Tellier, the Venetian Republic, 
 to regale GaUic ambition, and evince Je- 
 suitical predominance. 
 
 The celebrated Republic of Venice was 
 long considered as a prodigy of political
 
 94 
 
 invention. There, Men seemed to have 
 been born Pohticians, so early were their 
 minds bent on pubhc affairs, and so gra- 
 dually conducted into State- mysteries. 
 With the prescience of political sagacity, 
 it had long expelled the Jesuits, for per- 
 petuity. In a government where Secrecy 
 was the soul, the ostensible crime against 
 the Jesuits was " their great and painful 
 curiosity." The truth was, that the wise 
 guardians of Venice, had discovered more 
 than they wished the world to know, could 
 possibly exist in their perfect Republic — 
 a secret power balancing their own ! The 
 Jesuits were banished — but still the Jesuits 
 were in Venice ; invisible, apparently not 
 connected with the Order, not wearing 
 the livery, and concealing the proud title. 
 They substituted concealed manceuvres,
 
 95 
 
 for that public power they could not ex- 
 ercise. These Invisibles, from a Cardinal 
 to a Valet, gliding into the Senate, or 
 dispersed in families, with exquisite dissi- 
 mulation, formed an ambulatory Inqui- 
 sition, whose secret Registers were placed 
 under the eye of the great Jesuit at 
 Rome. 
 
 The Venetian government was clouded 
 over with mysterious politics. Every 
 where it wore a studied appearance of po- 
 pular freedom. Yet Ribadeneira well knew^ 
 the State was without patriotism. He had 
 watched this Aristocracy, contracting itself 
 into an Oligarchy, ready to receive a 
 Master-genius ; Venice flattered while 
 she distrusted Austria ; and invited France 
 while she raised the price of her prosti- 
 tution. Already a negotiation, conducted
 
 96 
 
 with esprit, was silently pursuing with 
 the Savi of Venice, who were watching 
 in slumbers, their shadowy Republic. 
 
 Two Venetian Nobles, with infinite 
 good fortune, had eluded the hundred in- 
 visible hands of their monstrous Republic; 
 and escaped from the midnight tribunal, 
 to Rome, and to Ribadeneira. 
 
 The youthful Contadini, with the im- 
 petuous ambition of his age, aspired after 
 those dignities in the Republic, granted 
 only to the white hairs of grave Senators. 
 He murmured that men should obtain the 
 first Offices of the State, about the time 
 he imagined they should be driven from 
 them. Often this boy-politician would 
 stand at the entrance of the great stairs of 
 the Palace of San Marco, when the Nobles, 
 ascending to the grand Council, would
 
 97 
 
 point to him the quaint symbol on the 
 Pillars. Italian genius^ perpetuating a 
 Concetto in marble, and facetious while 
 profoundly political, had there engraven 
 for the eye and the .understanding of the 
 people, two baskets of medlars covered 
 with straw — alluding to the familiar pro- 
 verb, Col tempo, e colla puglia, si matu- 
 rano le Nespole ; " Time and Straw ripen 
 Medlars !" This mortified ; but to become 
 a volatile Brutus, it was further necessary 
 that he should be provoked into Patriotism. 
 His Father, one of the Case Vecchle, not 
 finding his fortune improving with his 
 antiquity, had married the daughter of his 
 banker ; the haughty Nobili, branded the 
 mongrel breed of Nobility and Citizenship, 
 by the odious designation of " The Am- 
 phibious P* The aspiring Contadini beheld 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 himself scorned by hereditary blockheads. 
 Patriotism is not always an independent 
 virtue, and a good deal of public spirit 
 may be produced by a little private 
 grievance. 
 
 Foscarini, differing in age, in character, 
 and in feeling, initiated in the State-mys- 
 teries of Venice, v^ith a deeper gravity 
 mourned over his Country. He had wit- 
 nessed how the proud jealousy of Freedom, 
 among the Chief, the Nobles, and the 
 People, urged them alike to become the 
 prey of each other ; and raised a state of 
 political delusion, covered with the tre- 
 mulous shadow of an unsteady Liberty. 
 Foscarini revered that nobler Constitution, 
 where this jealousy is a sound part of the 
 existence of Freedom itself; but that mas- 
 culine Freedom was the hardy progeny of
 
 99 
 
 the North, keeping its march in the open 
 road; not the puny and artificial child of 
 Italian subtlety, skulking in bye-paths, 
 and building its Senate-house, in a subter- 
 raneous Cavern. 
 
 Ribadeneira in his conference with the 
 Venetians^ inquired, " Why the Republic 
 refused public admission to his Jesuits ?" 
 " Ribadeneira/' replied Foscarini^ '' Your 
 Order were tremendously political ; and 
 the Archives of the Senate preserve the 
 ancient decrees against You." " If your 
 Senate can produce from its Archives a 
 solitary document against the Order, I will 
 not complain of our banishment. But i 
 tell you, my friends, none are there! 
 Who has seen them ? Let the Senate look 
 into the Archives ; and be just to the Je- 
 suits!" This information surprised the 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 Venetians, who easily comprehended, that 
 the secret hand of Ribadeneira had de- 
 spoiled their pohtical casket of one of its 
 jewels. He now pressed on a close alli- 
 ance between Church and State. 
 
 The volatile Contadini exclaimed, — 
 " How can you convert a Priest into a 
 Patriot ? Our Clergy are fat hogs, and all 
 the World for them, is in their stye ; the 
 Senate suspect no treason in a conspiracy 
 of Cooks, against ihe fish-market ; the fat 
 capon and the rosy flask are the rubies in 
 their cheek ; and the Harridan or the 
 Maid, are their only old, and new, testa- 
 ments. Our people call you Priests, 
 * God's Gentlemen !' 
 
 " It is the wretched policy of Venice," 
 observed Foscarini, ^' to indulge their 
 Clergy in Epicurean grossness ; and to
 
 101 
 
 deprive them of all power, they render 
 them contemptible to the people. They 
 prefer to be irreligious, rather than not to 
 be political." 
 
 " The graceful decency of our Jesuits 
 once awed the different Orders in your 
 State/' replied Ribadeneira — " Yet you 
 persist in calling yourselves the free Re- 
 public!" 
 
 Foscarini replied — " We Venetians, in- 
 deed, possess the forms, and the appear- 
 ances of a free government, but our pre- 
 dominant genius is our pride! Venice is 
 haughty on the stability of a thousand 
 years ! and when she inscribes the names 
 of Kings, in the golden book of our Pa- 
 tricians, more than one hand drops the 
 ball, that protests against the honour con- 
 ceded to a Monarch. Our mutual jealousies
 
 10^ 
 
 have induced us to throw all the power of 
 the State into the hands of the Few. Is 
 Venice free, where the most intelligent 
 Venetian would tremble, and lose his 
 voice, should a stranger inquire the nature 
 of his government ? Words there, are 
 actions (^) ; Men are punished to prevent 
 danger, before they have committed the 
 crime ; and the accused there, is usually to 
 be accounted among the dead, rather than 
 the guilty (2). So eagerly the coward 
 fears of State-policy grasp its victim ! 
 Yet here no treasons are known, no trai- 
 tors are seen ; the one are prevented in 
 their concealment, and the other are too 
 numerous to be shown. And what means 
 treason in a State made up of the envious 
 and the timid? A terrible quiet prevails 
 in the Republic ; and this Politicians
 
 103 
 
 admire ! but what Government can be free 
 where Despotism hes concealed in one of 
 its corners ?'* 
 
 Ribadeneira started — Was the Venetian 
 Patriot opening the secret springs of the 
 Jesuitical Empire ? 
 
 '^ How is your Government so bad, 
 while your people are so content?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Because the multitude/' replied Fos- 
 carini, '^ only see appearances, and never 
 realities !'* 
 
 " True/' exclaimed Contadini, " the 
 people are dupes ! allowed to live in un- 
 controuled pleasures and licentiousness, 
 brutified, to be corrupted, they are with- 
 out Masters, rather than possessed of Li- 
 berty. The effervescence of their Free- 
 dom, is a shout — Pane in Piazza t
 
 104 
 
 ^' bread at Market !" and Guistizia in Pa- 
 lazzo! *^ Justice in Court!" but the Vermin 
 can live on dry morsels ! The Nobles, who 
 contemn the Senators, and the Senators, 
 who are jealous of the Nobles, unite to 
 humour and to flatter the populace. How 
 fares it with the high pride of these No- 
 bles, and the gravity of these wise Se- 
 nators, when with their mock Sovereign, 
 our degraded old Man, the Doge, in the 
 Saturnalia of this populace, doffs his ducal 
 crown for their straw hat, and pledges 
 them from their common flask — while 
 guiding the prow of the proud Bucentaur, 
 the Admiral of the hour is some vile Me- 
 chanic, laughing his contempt on the State 
 of Venice ! It is then the reeling repub- 
 licans babble of their liberty, and call 
 Kings, the wolf-dogs of their flock. And
 
 105 
 
 so the Many are cajoled, and so are 
 free !" 
 
 " No people are free, who have ceased 
 to be respectable ; It is of the essence of 
 Liberty^ to confer dignity on the meanest 
 Citizen/' observed Foscarini. 
 
 " True !" cried the Jesuit, suppressing 
 his emotions, " but there is a real power 
 in your State. It rests at least among 
 your Aristocracy r" 
 
 Contadini replied. ^' The Doge courts 
 the Nobles ; the Senate flatters the people, 
 and the Council of Ten compliment the 
 Senate ; all hate and fear each other (2). 
 If there are more than ten evil passions in 
 Statesmen, then are they all personified 
 in this Council of Ten. Their levelling 
 scythe sweeps over all genius^ all patri-
 
 106 
 
 otism, all glory, to strike them down to 
 their State-level." 
 
 " Ingratitude is the vice of Republics !" 
 cried Foscarini. " With an evil eye, they 
 look even on the Saviours of their Country ; 
 for he who preserves, they fear may also 
 destroy. If Venice possesses political vir- 
 tues, one of them at least she wants — Pa- 
 triotism ! Who can love, what he fears r" 
 
 " What then," impatiently inquired the 
 Jesuit, *^ is the unknown genius that per- 
 petuates your mysterious Government ?" 
 
 The eyes of Foscarini flashed ; his frame 
 was agitated — the workings of a wounded 
 spirit breaking from its thoughts spoke. 
 
 " Ribadeneira ! there is a Power which 
 only infinite goodness can exert, and the 
 world still endure — it is secret Despotism!
 
 107 
 
 When the mania of Ambition invests itself 
 with the attribute of the Divinity/ and 
 pohtical fanatics confer on one mariy 
 greater power than can be safely entrusted 
 to Man^ ever the creature of his passions, 
 then, he ceases to be a Man ; for the De- 
 spot is the enemy of Men. Such are the 
 Three who preside at theTribunal, Venice 
 has reared in the secrecy of Night. Men 
 with marble hearts, but heads raging with 
 PoUtics ; What to them is this Senate, 
 these Nobles, this Council of Ten, and 
 the great Doge himself? The Three enter 
 the chamber of their Sovereign, he pe- 
 rishes in the midnight darkness, and all 
 Venice is silent!" 
 
 Ribadeneira turned aside — a deadly hue 
 was on his cheek. 
 
 " Their irrevocable laws are written in
 
 108 
 
 blood. I am the Father who condemned 
 an only Son, whose virtues they envied, 
 but Virtue is not long envied in the Re- 
 public ! The history of my Son is glorious, 
 yet is it but the beginning of a Life! 
 When our Markets were without supply, 
 arid our Magistrates hunted from their 
 seats, my Son rose, and sedition died away 
 at the Patriot's voice. The Senate re- 
 ceived him, with murmurs. — He sighed 
 to have Venice guarded by Venetians. — ■ 
 My glorious boy would not be taught that 
 Indolence and Corruption were public Vir- 
 tues at Venice. 
 
 " In the Council of Ten, his name was 
 placed before me — His fate was decided 
 • — In agony my hurried hand traced a 
 father's name to extinguish his own race! 
 
 *^^ When the Council broke up, I could
 
 109 
 
 not return to a Home desolated by the 
 swift Ministers of Despotism ; nor com- 
 mand Servants^ who were now the Spies 
 and Executioners of the State (4). Despair, 
 and undefined Vengeance were in my heart. 
 Wrapt in my cloak, dropping unobserved 
 among a crowd of Senators, I entered the 
 Pregadi. I sat retired, and scarcely ob- 
 served the Senate was emptied, when the 
 massy Portals closed ; 1 waked from my 
 reverie in its Solitude ; awed, as in the 
 depth of a sepulchre, I thought of my Son, 
 and I knelt to my God, while grasping my 
 dagger, I resolved to penetrate to that tri- 
 bunal where no Advocate was ever seen. 
 
 " I still at times feel the agony of that 
 night, when roaming from chamber to 
 chamber, I heard footsteps approach, and 
 dreading the disappointment of Vengeance,
 
 110 
 
 more than the certainty of death, I glided 
 behind the hangings, and raised my poig- 
 nard. A man, holding a lighted torch, 
 passed into an inner apartment : how anx- 
 ious was that moment — lest 1 should not 
 be spared shedding innocent blood. He 
 returned, and I now discovered the spot 
 I resolved to immortalise by the retribu- 
 tion of a Venetian Noble, whom Despo- 
 tism had driven to the mean concealment 
 of a house-robber, and disgraced his sword 
 by the stroke of the Night-Bravo. 
 
 " A solitary lamp glimmered on the 
 heavy instruments of torture hanging round 
 the wall. — The Three shall perish! So 
 I resolved — the recess of Despotism sanc- 
 tified the Patriot's dagger. 
 
 " The great clock of San Marco struck 
 the eleventh hour — and feeble steps crept
 
 Ill 
 
 on my ear. The Three old Men took 
 their seats^ who struck dismay at midnight 
 through the noble houses of Venice. Lean- 
 ing from the tapestry, I perceived my own 
 lengthened shadow streaming over the 
 cieling ; I moved, and it moved. Visconti, 
 the chief Inquisitor of State, looking up 
 suddenly exclaimed, " Brothers ! w^e are 
 Four here !" Aghast, Raimondi and Con- 
 rado would have struggled from their seats. 
 — I advanced, and cried, ^^For once feel 
 the terrors, you inflict !" 
 
 " What wouldst thou, Foscarini ?" en- 
 quired with an unaltered tone the noble 
 Visconti. 
 
 "My Son!" 
 
 ^^ At Noon, Thy hand subscribed his 
 death!" 
 
 " The Law of Venice abrogated the law 
 of Nature. Where is my Son ?"
 
 112 
 
 *' Where was thy Son ? two hours past 
 I could have told thee. Where is he ? I 
 know not where th^ waves carry the body 
 of a traitor." 
 
 " And you hope to escape this dagger?'* 
 
 " I neither hope nor fear! I have suf- 
 fered more in this chair for the good of 
 Venice, than the evil which a Madman's 
 unjust poignard can inflict." 
 
 "You have children, Visconti! — and 
 you deem me frantic !" 
 
 " Foscarini, had I children who were 
 traitors, I like thee should now be child- 
 less !" 
 
 " Oh how much more rapid than even 
 a Father s wild affection, flies the Mandate 
 of Despotism. Already my Son was no 
 more! — I accused the Three of personal 
 hatred. 
 
 " Man of despair !" awefully exclaimed
 
 113 
 
 Visconti— " On the threshold of that door 
 all private feelings expire ! There, is neither 
 Love^ nor Hatred ; thy passions only, 
 have polluted the sanctity of this tribunal. 
 Mercy is not a principle in the Code that 
 preserves Venice. Thou hast dared to lift 
 the veil of the Republic! Whom hast 
 thou found but Three old Men, without 
 a human passion in their breasts ; whose 
 hands pure and severe, are stretched over 
 the State, like the protecting genms. — 
 Plunge thy dagger into the hearts of the 
 Fathers of their Country — thou canst not 
 deprive them of many days — but know, 
 that not with us, expires the' safety of 
 Venice!" 
 
 Awed by the venerable Visconti, I now- 
 perceived the cruelty of avenging on its
 
 114 
 
 ministers, the despotism that was enve- 
 loped in the whole State itself — to destroy 
 the Governor, will not annihilate the prin- 
 ciple of the Government. Life was worth- 
 less to me, — I suffered the dagger to fall 
 from my hand. Raimondi eagerly seized 
 it, exclaiming, " I vote instant death !" 
 
 ^^ I see," I replied contemptuously, " that 
 Raimondi is neither so old, nor so wise, as 
 to have banished every human passion from 
 his breast." 
 
 " Raimondi !" exclaimed the noble Con- 
 rado, " the life of a Venetian Noble de- 
 pends not on a single Vote." 
 
 Visconti decided my fate. 
 
 ^^ Foscarini ! ere the Sun rise, a price 
 will be set on thy head. Brothers ! be it 
 chronicled, that Foscarini has been spared
 
 115 
 
 for three hours^ — for services rendered to 
 Venice, in preserving the Hves of the 
 Three!" 
 
 Visconti conducted me to that secret 
 gate where it is equally dangerous to see, 
 or to be seen — Pressing my hand, the 
 good old man whispered, " Fly, unhappy 
 father! or thou must join thy Son in the 
 Canal of the Orfano!'' 
 
 Such was the history of Venice ! a State 
 which only preserved itself in perpetually 
 renewing its safety, by a convulsive vio- 
 lence ; a government refined by Italian po- 
 litics into an artificial strength, which, 
 like all curious machines of art, friction and 
 accident, wear out. Of the laurel of Li- 
 berty, worn as the symbol of triumph, too 
 subtilly laborious, they distilled the essence, 
 and extracted the secret poison. Such 
 12
 
 116 
 
 arts of politics close in despotism : for the 
 pure feelings of Nature, the eternal prin- 
 ciple that guards a State, Patriotism, is 
 for ever denied! 
 
 In the mind of Ribadeneira during the 
 recital the most opposite emotions had 
 passed; if sometimes the Jesuit had ex- 
 ulted in the refinement of a political sys- 
 tem so congenial to his own, often the 
 Despot had shrunk in the presence of the 
 Patriot. Yet he had the tone to echo, and 
 the feeling to sympathise with. 
 
 " Foscarini !" the Jesuit mysteriously 
 exclaimed, "The pride of your Nobles is 
 now extinguishing them ; the grand arch 
 of Aristocracy is struck at its key-stone. 
 Venice shall be avenged ! she shall con- 
 template on her Nobles, standing Men- 
 dicants at their own palace-gates; her
 
 117 
 
 haughty Dames shall be her miserable 
 Courtezans ; no more shall there be plea- 
 sure in their loves, nor terror in their 
 Councils. — ^The juggle of their Politics is 
 over ; dragged into open light the people 
 shall view the conjurers among their empty 
 puppets — Those great waxen images of 
 State, the Savi, are melting away in the 
 warm touch of France !" 
 
 He turned with more satisfaction to 
 Contadini, and allotting to the man of 
 pleasure an embassy of love, directed his 
 hopes to the Court of Lisbon. " Fosca- 
 rini and myself," he added with a bitter 
 smile, " are too old to sacrifice to the 
 Graces, and not wise enough to make 
 trifles, not trifles if they please. I will 
 find employment for youth ; age is not 
 tractable.''
 
 118 
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 THE CRY OF LIBERTY 
 
 RiBADENEIRA had rightly conjectured 
 that the chimerical genius of Alberoni, 
 would not submit to ill fortune — and that 
 the Ex-Minister, who had so long con- 
 trouled the politics of Europe^ would not 
 now condescend to sit in an easy chair, 
 commenting on Tacitus ; and in a parlour- 
 sermon to pensioned listeners, prove him- 
 self to be the Man on the white horse, in 
 his own political Apocalypse. 
 
 Not but that Alberoni was reduced to 
 the last distress — his offers of services^ 
 alarmed those Courts in Europe, to which
 
 119 
 
 he had so often prescribed the terms of 
 their obedience. 
 
 He was looking over the map of Europe, 
 not so much for a retreat, to hide himself 
 in, as for a kingdom to govern. At length 
 he discovered a rugged mountain, often 
 covered by clouds and vapour, compressed 
 between the territories of the Pope, and 
 the grand Duke of Tuscany. The old po- 
 litician was astonished that neither Rome, 
 nor Florence, had united 4:he independent 
 Mountain with their Tuscan Vallies. 
 
 They who loved to track Liberty in her 
 native Mountains, have sometimes ascended 
 the heights of San Marino. The Moun- 
 tain, frowning on strangers, stands like 
 a Savage Mother, concealing her hardy 
 Children ; and they clung to her, loving 
 the roughness which protected them.
 
 120 
 
 On this mountain stood the singular 
 Republic of San Marino. This domestic 
 Commonwealth enjoyed Laws, without 
 Lawyers ; was guarded without soldiers, 
 by its natural fortifications ; and in its 
 &jmple annals, the great Epochs of the 
 Year, were dated from the Harvest, and 
 the Vintage. Here Liberty had spread 
 that political sunshine which makes all 
 things fertile ; he will sow who is sure to 
 reap, and the Reapers will multiply whom 
 the State does not diminish. The preci- 
 pices, which Independence cultivated, were 
 covered with Corn and Vines. The whole 
 circumference of the little State, did not 
 extend to thirty miles ; but a swarming po- 
 pulation of seven thousand free-men, made 
 the territory not seem diminutive. Some 
 of the glorious Republics of Greece, had
 
 121 
 
 not exceeded in space, or in numbers, the 
 little Republic of San Marino, hanging 
 amidst its craggy cliffs. 
 
 The chimerical lolitician meditated a 
 great Coup d'Etat — to conciliate the fa- 
 vour of the Pope, and to dignify his final 
 retirement in the pontifical Court, he 
 projected to annex the Republic to the 
 papal territories. 
 
 Philip of Macedon, who knew to cor- 
 rupt, as well as to conquer the world, de- 
 clared he could take any town provided its 
 entrance w^ould admit of a mule loaded 
 with gold; the ascent of the Mountain of 
 San Marino was so narrow, that the Re- 
 public might have stood secure from the 
 Mule of Philip. But the minds of men 
 must be more impregnable than their 
 strongest places, else their Liberty is pur- 
 chased,
 
 122 
 
 Alberoni first solicited the honour of 
 Citizenship, in the RepubHc ; and to be- 
 come a Master, he submitted to be an Equal. 
 The Council of Sixty were soon taught to 
 admire that profound poHcy and those re- 
 fined tricks of State to which their simpler 
 notions had been strangers. Liberty, was 
 in danger, when the Politician was suffered 
 to approach her presence with a smile, 
 and to degrade her with his familiarity. 
 
 The Republic was on the point of being 
 lost; but Ribadeneira preserved the free- 
 dom of San Marino to mortify his fallen 
 Rival. His Emissaries had kept up among 
 the Mountaineers that spirit of patriotism, 
 which the Jesuit would have regretted to 
 have witnessed, but on a solitary Moun- 
 tain. 
 
 The appointed day came when the chiefs 
 of the Republic were to swear allegiance
 
 123 
 
 to their new Sovereign of Rome. The 
 Inauo:uration of the. Cardinal was to be 
 solemnised. Alberoni designed to dazzle 
 the rude Mountaineers of Liberty by the 
 magnificence of his processional entrance 
 into the Republic. The Cardinal^ ascended 
 in State, with a long line of his gentlemen, 
 winding the heights of San Marino — there 
 the Council, and the Bishop, awaited to 
 conduct his Eminence to high mass, and 
 to chaunt Te Deum. The Cardinal that 
 day wore the ahito paoiiazzo, the violet 
 dress; the Rochet of thin Mantua silk 
 shewed its spotless whiteness ; and the broad 
 scarlet hat, emblem of that blood which 
 his race had sworn to shed for his Holi- 
 ness. The Sun blazed on the porch of 
 the great Church at the Cardinals en-
 
 124 
 
 trance ; the people murmured — Alberoni 
 beheld faces which menaced, and the eyes 
 of rough Patriots — The Cardinal receded — 
 the Maestro di Camera starting could ne- 
 ver recover the white wand which a hun- 
 dred feet had trodden down ; the Pages in a 
 flutter were trampling on the purple train 
 shaken from their hold; the people pressed 
 on them ; and they entered the Church in 
 disorder. 
 
 A Canopy of State was raised to inau- 
 gurate the Cardinal — Alberoni, with un- 
 easy thoughts, ascended in triumph and 
 dismay. 
 
 An aweful silence prevailed ; Yet it was 
 not the stillness of Men assembled in the 
 house of God — they were interpreting each 
 other's looks. He who read the prayers
 
 125 
 
 was without devotion^ and those who 
 heard them gave but few responses. The 
 Bishop ascended, and frowning on the 
 people, while he stretched his hands, it 
 looked not that he was granting the be- 
 nediction. The Mass began. The Cho- 
 risters broke forth, with the usual word 
 that opened the Mass in the Republic — A 
 single, but a mighty word, was chaunted, 
 and other was not heard on that day. 
 
 LiBERTAS ! 
 
 LiBERTAs! with one voice echoed the 
 Multitude — Libertas, was caught from 
 Men to Children — the watch-word of the 
 Republic, instantaneously struck through 
 the little State. And now the gathering 
 of the People was like a tumultuous Sea, 
 and the swell of their Cries like its break-
 
 126 
 
 ings. The gorgeous Canopy was dashed 
 to the ground. The Cardinal, and his 
 train, flew from the spot where they had 
 sought Sovereignty, by violating Liberty. 
 Hurried down the steep ascent, their souls 
 trembled while Libertas was echoing in 
 the Heavens. Q)
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF DESPOTISM. 
 
 RiBADENEIRA was that enlightened 
 Despot, who would educate his youth^ 
 only to add to his Multitude. He would 
 cast the Intellect into his single mould ; 
 and Men were to be struck like Coin, all 
 alike, and bearing the Stamp-mark of the 
 Tyrant. (*) 
 
 It was with this design that the Order 
 had raised throughout Europe magnificent 
 edifices, towering above the Palaces of 
 Kings ; Monuments of human grandeur 
 which will stand from century to century, 
 as their mighty vestiges.
 
 X28 
 
 The splendour of the Order, and the 
 allurement of a gratuitous Education, had 
 drawn the youth of Europe into its Col- 
 leges, subverting the Universities. 
 
 These haunters of families, and sedu- 
 cers of youth, warped the human blos- 
 som — to produce the monstrous efflo- 
 rescence which was to grow like Nature, 
 but was not to be natural — and to train 
 the slave, to strengthen his prejudices, 
 and to substitute a preternatural character, 
 bearing only the appearances of all Vir- 
 tues ; for their reality would have undone 
 him ! The Jesuits too possessed a strange 
 facility in avowing the most opposite sen- 
 timents — but the truth was, however the 
 Jesuits might differ in their sentiments 
 to the World, they themselves could never 
 have but one opinion. {^)
 
 129 
 
 The sole feeling of the Jesuit was an 
 omnipotent passion for the Order — in the 
 illusion of self-love the young Jesuit had 
 been taught to identify himself with its 
 glory, and to believe that the Universe 
 was only made for Jesuits, This was 
 the State-magic which resolved the pro- 
 blem of their antithetical character. It 
 made the Jesuits more, and less, than 
 Men ; Conquerors of the World, and 
 Slaves at home* The same chimera of 
 pride, made the Jesuit, like that haugh- 
 tiest of Men, the Roman Citizen — a stern 
 oppressor of Mankind, and a mild slave 
 to his Chief. 
 
 All that was required, as the first step 
 into the glory of the Order, was a precipi- 
 tated obedience in will, in understanding, 
 and in execution, to the One ! 
 
 K 
 
 %
 
 130 
 
 Every regiment of Jesuits was moving 
 on that simple principle of Passive Obe- 
 dience (^), which renders all military go- 
 vernments^ the terror of the World. At 
 the voice of their General, thev acted in 
 silent obedience; wherever they were 
 placed^ no earthly power could move 
 them^ but the Sovereign in their Metro- 
 polis of the World; from the Superiors 
 Chiefs of Legions, and his Lieutenants of 
 Provincials, down to the solitary Jesuit, 
 who took his stand like a Centinel. 
 
 Obedience, not Literature, was incul- 
 cated in the Colleges of the Jesuits. And 
 as the Universe was to be cousened by a 
 Government, where the appearance of 
 Virtues was found more useful, than their 
 reality, even, the genius of Literature, 
 which it patronised, was held in secret
 
 131 
 
 contempt by the political Sovereign ; a 
 literary Jesuit was as far removed from 
 promotion^ as the Missionary sent to pe- 
 rish in Japan. 
 
 When Acquaviva observed that the pub- 
 lic murmured that Literary Men were 
 never promoted in the Order, Ribadeneira 
 replied — 
 
 " And they never shall ! We are proud 
 of their names ; we quote their Works 
 and extend their celebrity ; but Politi- 
 cians, not Philosophers we value ! These 
 men, with minds softened by the charms of 
 their Studies, are for ever enlightening the 
 people, whom afterwards they want the 
 firmness to govern. Look on the heads 
 of our People ! They are not Men distin- 
 guished for brilliant imagination, or pro-^ 
 found science, but at the moment of 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 decision, and in the choice of difficulties, 
 they have an instinct for business, and are 
 hoary in action, rather than in age. Their 
 necks can patiently bear the harness, as 
 their hands could magnificently wield the 
 Sceptre. These are the true Masters of 
 the World!"
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 A SENATE OF FREEMEN A PATRIOT. 
 
 IN this usurpation of the dominion of the 
 Mind^ the Jesuits had been successfully 
 combated by the celebrated Society of Port- 
 royal. Those illustrious Recluses had bor- 
 rowed a modest name from their abode, 
 while they derived its greatness from them- 
 selves; unlike the ostentatious Order of 
 Jesus, who to exact a precedence they 
 could not claim, stampt on their Order, 
 the name of their God. Q) 
 
 After many a triumph, the Port-royalists" 
 at length had sunk beneath the political
 
 134 
 
 intrigues of the vindictive Order, dispersed 
 in Exile, or buried in a Duno^eon. 
 
 But their late abode was still consecrated 
 by its local associations. Here was the seat 
 where Learning had unfolded its ample 
 scroll, and Patriotism had performed its 
 most solemn deeds. There, was still viewed 
 the study of Arnauld in all its severe sim- 
 plicity, preserved reverently, as he had left 
 it in his flight ; the antique reading-desk 
 and stool — the pitcher and earthen dish — 
 and still were hanging on the wall his thick, 
 garden-gloves and pruning-hook — the All, 
 he required for the wants of life ! — On the 
 shelves, the Fathers, in rough wood and 
 brass clasps, were mixed with all the R^o- 
 man and Grecian Eloquence, as they were 
 in his own mind. There, was still shewn 
 a rustic seat by the side of a well, where
 
 135 
 
 Pascal would sit, the most eloquent and 
 sublime genius of France, instructing the 
 children of the hamlet in their first rudi- 
 ments, while, great even in the things of 
 daily life, observing their helplessness, he 
 invented a machine, by which a child could 
 easily raise the water from the well — and 
 there, was the orchard, the delightful la- 
 bour of the moral Nicolle, who after his 
 vehement pen had detected " The prac- 
 tical Morals of the Jesuits," equally alive 
 to Nature, traced her silent operations in 
 ^^The Culture of Fruit-trees ;" and the hand 
 which liad corrected its morning pages, 
 ^closed the day, by pruning the Vines. (^) 
 
 Here, were their Monuments — memo- 
 rials of their greatness or their aflfections. 
 An urn — a tomb — a statue, with a strange 
 influence, like their own presence, excited
 
 136 
 
 our love and reverence. The Memory of 
 the Great, the Despot attempts in vain to 
 annihilate, while he forbids us to gaze on 
 their very Effigies, lest we might catch 
 inspiration from a Bust ! {^) 
 
 This feeling, which animates great souls, 
 by local associations, was that of the suc- 
 cessors of Port-royal. Here, a Society had 
 been formed of those eloquent Advocates 
 of France, who for two Centuries had pre- 
 served the spirit of Freedom under the 
 half-subdued despotism of their Monarchy, 
 precursors of an aweful Revolution ! From 
 this little Senate, had issued those Works, 
 which perpetuated the feelings of Liberty ; 
 and Men, breathing their thoughts, its 
 mightier instruments. 
 
 At their head, stood Saint-Amour, who 
 ''^ dared be singularly good ;" of a genius
 
 137 
 
 ardent and inflexible ; never silent, when 
 only the undaunted would speak ; never 
 slow, when only the zealous would act ; 
 a Republican when he addressed his Sove- 
 reign ; a Monarchist, when he admonished 
 the people ; a Patriot ever ! Indignantly 
 he repelled those concealed Jesuits, who 
 to wean nations from their mutual inde- 
 pendence would reduce Patriotism to a 
 problematical virtue, and destroy those 
 strong emotions, and all those tender re- 
 collections which crowd on us when we 
 contemplate that little spot, which holds 
 the cradle of our hopes and the monuments 
 of our glory — where the first blessings of 
 life were tasted, and its last consolations 
 shall soothe. Saint-Amour, with a single- 
 ness of heart and a simplicity of feeling, 
 was a Patriot ; because Patriotism, is the
 
 138 
 
 virtue^, the courage^ and the wisdom of 
 an elevated Mind. 
 
 In pleading a cause against one, who 
 was supported by the secret influence of 
 the Jesuits, he beheld that influence tri- 
 umph over Justice, and his own Eloquence. 
 Saint- Amour, in the open Court, solemnly- 
 appealing to Heaven, and fixing his search- 
 ing eyes on . the Judges, thus addressed 
 them; — "My Lords! I am an unfit Ad- 
 vocate in this Court! I, who will never 
 plead but the cause of Justice, will not 
 submit to tell my Client that the Event is 
 uncertain !" So saying, he disrobed him- 
 self, and placing his gown on the Bar, 
 which he was quitting for ever, he retired 
 in the aweful silence of the Court. 
 
 The Dauphin, a prince of generous pro- 
 paise, was the friend of Saint-Amour ; and
 
 139 
 
 the Patriot and the Prince found their 
 souls indissolubly Hnked^ by the love of 
 their Country^ and their indignation at 
 that anti-social government whose glory 
 was founded on the humiliation of its 
 subjects. Their science of Politics was 
 to give perfection to the art of reigning, 
 by creating social happiness ; not by ag- 
 grandising the Sovereign, or the State, till 
 the Diadem was sparkling with the tears 
 of its subjects and crimsoned with the 
 blood of its neighbours. 
 
 Ribadeneira hated the abode of Patriots, 
 and with sullen jealousy had marked the 
 visits of the Dauphin. His Emissaries 
 were busied in spreading calumnies, in- 
 fusing suspicions, and inventing persecu- 
 tions against the assertors of Freedom —
 
 140 
 
 and his minister, Tellier, was meditating 
 to strike an exterminating blow. 
 
 Such was the Conflict ! " And be it per- 
 petual !" resounded at Port-royal. It is 
 the eternal struggle which shall exist be- 
 tween Purity and Corruption, between 
 Simplicity and Craftiness, between the en- 
 thusiasm of Freedom and the enthusiasm 
 of Crime !
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE POLITICAL HERMAPHRODITE ! 
 
 The Society at Port-royal, had long 
 been occupied by an union of talents, in 
 preparing an appeal, which was to deve- 
 lope to Europe the dangerous nature of 
 the Jesuitic Government, founded on Fraud, 
 Injustice, Irreligion, and Despotism, In 
 such a design there could be but one ob- 
 ject, and one opinion. 
 
 But, of late, intestine divisions had sus- 
 pended their common labour, and shook 
 the little Senate. Jealousy, Suspicion, and 
 Egotism appeared, varying their shapes;
 
 142 
 
 while there were, who even admired the 
 character of Ribadeneira, and appealed to 
 the most positive evidence of a deficient 
 comprehension of so great a character. 
 
 One might perceive that Tellier was 
 reigning in France; he indeed had per- 
 suaded the King, that the Anti-jesuits, 
 were those dangerous revolutionists in a 
 State, who, like the insects which harbour 
 in ships, madly eat through the very fa- 
 bric that supports them. 
 
 The Dauphin and Saint-Amour were 
 themselves induced by the conduct of Ri~ 
 badeneira, in some important events, in 
 the history of humanity, to acknowledge 
 he was the friend of Man ; and powerful^ 
 as his views were benevolent and grand. 
 
 About this time an extraordinary com- 
 munication was confided to Saint-Amour.
 
 143 
 
 The unknown^ brought the evidence of no 
 ordinary power, by the tone which he as- 
 sumed, the facts he disclosed, and the do- 
 cuments frequently alluded to, as existing 
 in the Cabinets of the Sovereigns of Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 Regretting the state to which Europe 
 seemed reduced by the secret influence of 
 a new system of Politics, the deadliest es- 
 sence of Machiavelism, he asserted that 
 *^ Artifice may be more expeditious than 
 Force. None but a Jesuit can destroy a 
 Jesuit, and the only means to annihilate 
 your subterranean geniuses^ is by counter- 
 mine." 
 
 He further confessed that " Even him- 
 self who individually feared no other power, 
 knew to dread that of a Man of the Moun- 
 tains. Every Monarch in Europe is placed
 
 144 
 
 under a Centinel. Every thing around 
 me seems jesuitised ; there is an echo in 
 our walk, and he who trusts his secrets to 
 the silence of paper, may fall a victim to 
 its treachery. 
 
 ^' I know the Criminal I am describing. 
 He can conquer Fortune by his darings or 
 win her by his embraces. I have listened 
 to the splendour of his words, and ob- 
 served the meanness of his artifices ; he 
 talks like Marcus Aurelius, and acts like 
 Ceesar Borgia. He has taught me that 
 all possible Evil, may be concealed under 
 the ostensible plea of doing all possibly 
 good. He ceases to have an equivocal 
 character, the moment you discover his 
 monstrous nature ; the extremes of Nature 
 touch ; and in the Cabinets of Europe he 
 is a political hermaphrodite ! Hence, he
 
 145 
 
 can assume the most opposite characters 
 in different places. Where favoured, he 
 combines with the Government to crush 
 the people ; where opposed, he raises the 
 people against the Sovereign. This Enemy 
 of both, puts a sceptre of iron in the hand 
 of the Monarch, and a poignard in their 
 subjects. He himself only seeks to be 
 every where an unresisted Conqueror !" 
 
 He closed by gently reproaching the 
 Dauphin and the little Senate, for their 
 languor in the ardent cause in which they 
 had engaged. " Shall Liberty be chased 
 back to her Mountains to perish in spots 
 inaccessible to men ; for so this new Despot 
 designs. Can you look on the tombs per- 
 petually before your eyes, and forget those 
 who now fill them ? Were Freedom 
 hunted from the Universe, it would 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 make its last stand on the graves of Free- 
 men !" 
 
 The Exhortation was not given in vain 
 — It had perhaps been poHtical wisdom to 
 know to yield to the times, and to have 
 adopted the counsel of the Communicator 
 in their conduct with the Jesuits ; but they 
 did not suppress their indignation. They 
 were not Politicians, and were so much the 
 more strenuous adherents to Liberty. — 
 There is no heroic enthusiasm in States- 
 men. 
 
 From the first day of his appointment, 
 had the ferocious Tellier fixed his eyes on 
 the little Senate at Port-royal. There he 
 was to Ribadeneira as the hand on the 
 Watch-dial ; turning with all the interior 
 movements of the Society ; — and their 
 hours were counted !
 
 147 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE DESPOT STRIKES SUDDENLY AND SECRETLY. 
 
 Sublime were the days, for they were 
 days of uninterrupted study ; and lovely 
 were the evenings, for they were the 
 evenings of Nature — in the retreat of 
 Port-royal. The Society assembled in the 
 Gardens — Near the spot where, half co- 
 vered by a laurel, was placed the Urn 
 which held the heart of Racine — the ten- 
 der poet's last pure memorial — Saint- 
 Amour would sit, like Cato amidst his little 
 Senate. Romantic tranquillity and har- 
 h2
 
 148 
 
 monious emotions ! but these could not 
 last where a Jesuit inhabited. He hates 
 the natural temper that binds Man to 
 Man ; and it is his vocation to oppose one 
 half of the world against the other. 
 
 The Dauphin had been forbidden by 
 the King, all intercourse with the Society. 
 After several secret interviews with Saint- 
 Amour, the Dauphin was suddenly de- 
 clared to be on the point of death. 
 
 ^^ Europe is deprived of her solitary 
 hope !" exclaimed Saint-Amour. " We 
 must combat in despair. Had the Dau- 
 phin lived, the world would have wit- 
 nessed the sublimest spectacle, Man can 
 exhibit on this earth — a Prince who had 
 learnt to reign before he ascended the 
 throne." 
 
 In these gardens. Saint- Amour was sit-
 
 149 
 
 ting amidst the little Senate : — The even- 
 ing was sultry^ while a storm was gather- 
 ing. A dead stillness was in Nature — one 
 of those aweful pauses which precedes the 
 elemental War. 
 
 Saint- Amour thoughtfully was looking 
 on the skies. 
 
 " I have been observing," he suddenly 
 cried^ " that thunder-cloud — It stands 
 dense^ dark^ and solitary^ while the small 
 and motionless clouds, all of various shapes^ 
 are irresistibly attracted towards it; they 
 mingle with the mighty mass, and in an 
 instant all of them become uniform in 
 touching it — and shortly a prodigious ex- 
 plosion shall shake the earth. My friends, 
 I have amused a wayward fancy, but that 
 mighty dark mass, marks the progress of 
 the Despot in Europe, whenever some fu-
 
 150 
 
 ture Ribadeneira shall triumph — some 
 thunder-cloud of Despotism absorbing as 
 they approach it^ the lighter powers around 
 it." 
 
 '^ The World indeed seems made for 
 Ribadeneira/' observed Renaud. 
 
 ''And Ribadeneira, for the World!" 
 replied Saint-Amour. " Without the De- 
 spot our nobler virtues might die away 
 on the pens that inculcate them. The 
 Wrestler calls forth the strength that was 
 sleeping in our arm; Renaud, he gives 
 us a triumph we wanted !" 
 
 " But this Ribadeneira, we are perpe- 
 tually dreading, what virtues he incul- 
 cates !" 
 
 " Curse on the Virtues which a Politician 
 lectures on — he never felt them ! I know 
 the Ignatian ! 'T is his maxim that to
 
 151 
 
 reign^ all things are permitted, and success 
 justifies every enterprise. There is not 
 on the face of the earth a human being 
 more criminal and heartless than a tho- 
 rough-paced politician." 
 
 ^^ The government of the Jesuits em- 
 braces the Universe," said Renaud. "There 
 must be political wisdom in a secret power, 
 more formidable than the most open Au- 
 thority. And is the glory inferior to the 
 greatness ? Their column wants not the 
 Corinthian ornament." 
 
 Saint- Amour replied, " The splendid 
 exterior of this government conceals from 
 its people, the dark mysteries at its base. 
 He who is a Sovereign, not by Nature, 
 but by violence, is seated on a throne 
 placed between a dungeon and a scaffold — 
 he must be feared^ and have victims, as
 
 152 
 
 well as subjects. It is a tremendous go- 
 vernment, solely devoted to Power and 
 Glory ; and the last terrific victory of 
 Despotism is the conquest of its own sub- 
 jects. Look on this people. Spies over 
 each other; every slave who will swear, 
 is the Lord of his Companion. Often 
 bating each other individually, still they 
 will co-operate, for the State-illusion is 
 potent; their Sovereign calls them the 
 Masters of the World, and they imagine 
 they participate in his greatness. The 
 skilful Despot leads them by their own 
 passions ; the Gaoler of Man, warbles the 
 wild-notes of Liberty, while he is ri vetting 
 the fetter." 
 
 " Obedience is indeed their first duty," 
 replied Renaud — "That makes a great 
 Sovereign and 2^ great people."
 
 153 
 
 '^ Obedience to the laws will," said Saint- 
 Amour with dignity. " But in this go- 
 vernment, Despotism is not an incidental 
 malady, it is inherent in the Constitution 
 itself. There are no Laws, where brute 
 force is absolute ; there is no public, be- 
 tween a Despot and his state-slaves, for 
 there is no community of feelings. The 
 Jesuits are proud of this blind passiveness ; 
 they are dove-tailed in this carpentry of 
 human nature— And even this all-powerful 
 mover of all things, what is he himself but 
 a machine ? He holds to the chain he has 
 himself forged ; he is but the head-link, 
 and this vile Despot is himself but a 
 slave !" 
 
 " It is an enlightened Despotism," said 
 Renaud, " and every thing is kept still by 
 one voice."
 
 154 
 
 *' I know/' replied Saint-Amour, "there 
 are some shallow souls who can see no 
 further than that artificial horizon the Ty- 
 rant has raised about them ; and it is na- 
 tural for such slaves to fear to live in a 
 Jree Government — But Man was not cre- 
 ated for slavery — his good passions will 
 not endure it, and even his worst may 
 free him. There are Despots who have 
 publicly proscribed themselves, in their 
 language and by their acts. When Ta- 
 merlane fearlessly told what he thought 
 himself to be, saying, " You talk to me 
 as to a Man ; I am not a Man, but the 
 scourge of God, and the pestilence of 
 Mankind," I would have asked the sub- 
 lime Misanthrope, exulting in his hatred 
 4of Man, if the daggers point would find
 
 155 
 
 the passage more distant to the Despot's 
 heart than to our own ?" 
 
 At this moment the httle Senate were 
 disturbed by the hasty intrusion of a 
 breathless peasant — the Messenger of Woe 
 announced his tale before he told it. — 
 They collected from his terrors, that a 
 body of Sblrri, headed by the Lieutenant 
 of Police, and a military detachment, 
 were hastening down the valley. Renaud, 
 suddenly turning on Saint Amour, with 
 a countenance undisturbed, but by a 
 malignant smile, " A Philosopher," (said 
 he) " is never taken by surprize ; and he 
 will enter the Bastille, as he was .driven 
 out of Port Royal." " Ah !" exclaimed 
 Saint-Amour ; " This is he who has dis^ 
 united us! this is the Jesuit! and this is^
 
 156 
 
 Jesuitism !" as he beheld the Sbirri enter- 
 ing the gardens. 
 
 Scarcely were these words uttered, when 
 a multitude of terrific sounds struck terror 
 in their hearts — louder than thunder, and 
 irresistible as an earthquake — the Earth 
 they stood on groaned, and the ancient 
 Monastery looked as if it had motion. 
 They dragged their prisoners to a little 
 distance from the strange scene they were 
 to behold, that no agony of their feelings 
 might be spared. The Library of Arnauld 
 sunk as if by one stroke, and through the 
 dilapidations as they were made, they 
 viewed the Pioneers and Miners with 
 their instruments of busy destruction. — 
 And now the vengeance of Ribadeneira 
 had changed the Solitude of Philosophy 
 into a Solitude of Ruins ! (*)
 
 157 
 
 Saint-Amour, in mourning over them, 
 exclaimed, " Such is the secret march the 
 Despot holds ! he strikes suddenly to 
 spread terror, and secretly to prevent de- 
 fence ^
 
 158 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE VINDICTIVE GENIUS OF THE ORDER NO HALF- 
 INJURIES IN POLITICS EUROPE MUSTBE CHARMED 
 
 WHILE IT IS SUBJUGATED NO AVARICE IN PO- 
 LITICAL OPULENCE THE POLICE OF THE HUMAN 
 
 MIND. 
 
 In Europe^ the sons of Ignatius had War 
 in their hearts, but not in their hands ; as 
 yet they had not half a milHon of sabres 
 glittering around their unrelenting Code. 
 Their Ambition, however, without Armies 
 was performing many military exploits. 
 They never failed of success in the ambu- 
 scade of a Closet. Whenever the affairs 
 of the Jesuits seemed critical, it was ob-
 
 159 
 
 served that some great personage in Eu- 
 rope was suddenly indisposed. Many a 
 General was quietly conquered, after draw- 
 ing on his gloves ; an Emperor has silently 
 pined away, from a comfit ; and the Papal 
 Chair has been declared vacant, from a cup 
 of chocolate. (^) 
 
 These indeed were not the acts of 
 Heroes — but of Politicians, whose State- 
 reason discovers that whatever is useful is 
 permitted. 
 
 An extraordinary Courier had arrived 
 from Tellier : Ribadeneira observed to 
 Acquaviva, that ^^ the Dauphin was de- 
 clared in the most imminent danger." 
 
 " Tellier," he proceeded, " is acting 
 like an Attila; his victory is extermina- 
 tion ; a race must be annihilated ; the 
 plough-share must pass over the domains
 
 160 
 
 of our enemy. Men shall enquire where 
 stood the Port-royal! So, Acquaviva, 
 shall our name be terrible to the world !" 
 
 Acquaviva bowed. 
 
 " Tellier," continued Ribadeneira, " ob- 
 serves that Louis XIV. had been ruined 
 by doing half injuries ; humiliating, but 
 never crushing his enemies. Admirable 
 politician ! he has a heart like a rock ! 
 He sits like Marius in the Carthage he 
 has struck down. The intrepid avenger 
 of the order is bold in conception and ar- 
 dent in execution." 
 
 " It is a dreadful vengeance!" observed 
 Acquaviva ; " and the Dauphin must die — 
 Saint Amour — " 
 
 " Be buried in a dungeon — " exclaimed 
 Ribadeneira, ^^So perish all who oppose us !'* 
 
 He paused — ^^ I feel," he cried, ^^this
 
 161 
 
 is the painful duty of a General of the^ 
 Jesuits. But it is not enough to be ter- 
 rible; we, too, must be beloved! We 
 must charm that Europe whom we have 
 subdued ! Should the immortal Order 
 perish (you perceive the impossibility), 
 the world shall cry out in their deepest 
 wants, '^ This, the Jesuits alone could 
 have done for us !" 
 
 " Let us do whatever good," replied Ac- 
 quaviva, '^ and still the world will suspect a 
 Jesuit. Must we then be martyred by our 
 contemporaries, to become new Saints, six 
 centuries hence? They accuse us of ava- 
 rice because we are rich." 
 
 *' If opulence be criminal," observed Ri- 
 badeneira, " it is the vice of the age, but 
 the virtue of the Jesuits. The general 
 avarice gives the politician a strong arm of 
 
 M
 
 162 
 
 power. The ridiculous metal which go- 
 verns Europe we know at once to contemn, 
 and to conceal. The Jesuits accumulate 
 the treasures of the new world, not like a 
 company of merchants, to amass wealth, 
 but like princes, to conquer mankind." 
 
 Ribadeneira paused, and resumed. 
 
 " Another instrument we wield in Eu^- 
 rope, more precious than its wealth — the 
 art of creating public opinion : Opinion is 
 stronger than truth ! We ripen public 
 opinion, ere we pluck that else forbidden 
 fruit " of good and evil." We accomplish 
 our greatest ends, while we are seeming 
 only to yield to the clamours, we ourselves 
 have raised. — Look roundEurope forGenius, 
 and drag it by the bait of Glory ; Glory, 
 more absolute than the pittance of a Mo- 
 narch's pension! Is not the great Muratori
 
 163 
 
 writing the history of our Paraguay ? Who 
 will suspect his credit ? But who inspired 
 him with the conception ? A whisper from 
 the Order ! Who furnished him with the 
 documents ? The hand of the Order ! that 
 hand which never shews, what it wishes 
 to conceal. Whence comes that shock 
 which is communicated through the world r 
 From this Cabinet ! Here we have raised a 
 Police of the human mind ! From China 
 to Paris, from Madrid to Paraguay, all is 
 revealed to me ! In vain our enemies op- 
 pose with their boasted liberty of the Press ; 
 I confound them witlr their own engine ! 
 and Nations secured as they deem them- 
 selves from our power, are to be governed 
 by their own humours. In France, an 
 Epigram is fatal ; Holland may be dis- 
 turbed by heavy Rumours ; and in Eng- 
 M 2
 
 164 
 
 land when you want the truth not known, 
 publish it; their pamphleteers will im* 
 mediately prove the reverse. There^ with 
 pamphlets, I make Peace or War ; prove 
 Non-entities to be Realities, and Truth to 
 be a Non-entity !" (2) 
 
 " I know our Writers are imbued with 
 the true genius of the Order," said Acqua- 
 viva, '^ but either there are mysteries in 
 your Police of the human mind, of which 
 you have not yet instructed me, or we 
 have fiends among our friends. Serra at 
 Lisbon declaims against seditious doctrines, 
 at the moment we are resisting the tyranny 
 of that Court." 
 
 "Serra," replied Ribadeneira, "imagines- 
 himself a Politician ; I know his genius, 
 and ordered his Provincial to indulge it. 
 On the crisis of a great, yet uncertain events
 
 165 
 
 we must keep afloat in the Order^ contra- 
 dictory opinions. Whatever happens, we 
 shall have secured the triumphant party ; 
 and have to appeal among Ourselves, for 
 their own opinions. As for Serra, we shall 
 hereafter transmit him to his proper place, 
 to inculcate his passive obedience among 
 our Californians." 
 
 " That hated Court of Lisbon," cried 
 Acquaviva, " often terrifies my thoughts. 
 I know your political omnipotence, and 
 trace your finger on the face of the globe. 
 Do 1 oflTend, when I remind you of the am- 
 biguous conduct of some of the Order at 
 Lisbon, and the concealed hostility of that 
 Court ?'' 
 
 Ribadeneira started^- the Vice-general 
 had struck on the secret nerve of his soul- 
 he looked in silence, in mystery, and in
 
 166 
 
 agony — " Art thou too a Recreant?'' he 
 exclaimed. " When I see a man fearful, 
 where no cause of fear is, then am I afraid 
 of him — other fear I have none !" 
 
 ^^ Fear," haughtily replied Acquaviva, 
 '^ cannot enter the soul of the Vice-general 
 of the Jesuits !" 
 
 Ribadeneira breathed more freely, while 
 his eye kindled over the child of his favour 
 — for a time he seemed lost in thought, 
 and then addressed Acquaviva. 
 
 " It is well to know the haunt of the 
 Serpent, whose hissings have betrayed him. 
 I am revolutionising a credulous people. 
 The Precursors of Insurrection are abroad ! 
 The oracles of the People, circulate every 
 day dark predictions, strange terrors, and 
 imaginary evils; all those vile men who
 
 167 
 
 know to sport with political fictions, and 
 to live on the terrors of the public. At 
 Lisbon I have sowed the seeds of Liberty 
 so thickly, that their imaginations make 
 them presumptuous and daring. I have 
 created, for a King of Portugal, a Nero 
 made up of dirt and blood ; and so repub- 
 licanised the people, that it would require 
 half a century to bring them down to obe- 
 dience (^). Wouldst thou have more ? 
 Our Apostles of Rebellion, our Martyrs 
 of State, shall stretch their arm and strike 
 from their Cloud ! I have a Cavern of 
 Tyrannicides to let loose. I will shake 
 that Lisbon with a more tremendous 
 Earthquake, than when its palaces were 
 buried in its precipices. Now wouldst 
 thou have more ?'*
 
 168 
 
 Acquaviva was awed and silent ; he knew 
 the resources of his mysterious Sovereign, 
 
 Ribadeneira heaved a profound sigh. 
 
 " Acquaviva, thinkest thou that the in- 
 visible throne of Jesuitism rests on Air ? 
 I possess all the power, that Man can grant 
 — but that of Repose! I am at once the 
 hammer and the anvil. Rest, there is not 
 for the Master of the World ! Yet is my 
 spirit refreshed when I contemplate on the 
 concealed end of the Order : But half a 
 Century ! — Oh that my life were immortal, 
 as the labour in which it is engaged !*'
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A CONSCRIPTION — A ROMAN MOTHER. 
 
 X HE Despot who marshals Armies cries, 
 " Children do not belong to their Relatives, 
 but are the property of the State !" All is 
 property for the Tyrant, and Men are but 
 his political cattle. When he tears a Son 
 from the Parent, he makes a slave, and we 
 lose a citizen ! 
 
 As the plans of perpetual conquest, are 
 insatiably exacting Men and Treasure, the 
 same principle operated with the Jesuits. 
 They were gradually possessing themselves 
 of all the Youth, and the Wealth of the
 
 170 
 
 Country, for the purposes of their govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Among the great famiHes of Rome, who 
 had suffered from the Jesuitic tyranny, 
 were the noble race of the Aldobrandini. 
 
 That illustrious house was desolated. 
 Seven Sons had been dragged by the se- 
 ductive authority of the Jesuitic Autocrat 
 to his dominion ; the treasures of the 
 family had been gradually obtained from 
 their various branches, and the head of this 
 ancient house, struck by blindness, wan- 
 dered in the solitude of his palace. 
 
 The sole personage, who remained as 
 the representative of all the glory and pride 
 of this illustrious race, was the Princess ! 
 She stood alone — and was now a Mother 
 without children. 
 
 She had long inwardly groaned at the
 
 171 
 
 ravages made in her family, by a despo- 
 tism she could not avert. But the last 
 Son was snatched away ! — and the Mother, 
 humiliating the Princess, solicited an in- 
 terview with Ribadeneira. 
 
 Admitted to his Cabinet, the General of 
 the Jesuits rose, as the Princess entered; 
 his eyes dwelt on the most august of 
 forms. 
 
 "Father-General," she said, "The Prin- 
 cess of Aldobrandini comes to you only as 
 a Mother— she claims her children." 
 
 " Your Highness," replied Ribadeneira, 
 " seems to reproach me, for the glory, the 
 Order has cast on your House." 
 
 The haughty Princess, receded from the 
 General of the Jesuits — "My House!'* 
 she exclaimed—" My House was honoured 
 by Italy, before your proud Order pb-^
 
 172 
 
 tained its humble origin. Pardon us^ if 
 we can derive no glory from those on 
 whom we have bestowed it." 
 
 The General of the Jesuits gently bowed 
 his head with a dignified air — '^ Our hum- 
 ble Origin!" he repeated with a bitter 
 smile, " How many centuries does it re- 
 quire to confer all the honours of the Al- 
 dobrandini ? So many hereafter shall the 
 Order boast. Forgive me if I anticipate a 
 few centuries ; to me, they are but as mo- 
 ments ! The Jesuits are grateful to their 
 friends — and your Sons are all Jesuits! 
 How many of the Great, wise by age, ad- 
 mired for their genius, and eminent for 
 their power, have been conducted by us, 
 in the career of glory ! We have excited 
 gratitude even in the Great, and raised 
 admiration in the breasts of Kings I'*
 
 173 
 
 " Father, do not dazzle my weak ima- 
 gination with the grandeur I abhor — that, 
 which a Mother's tears cement." 
 
 *' A Mother's tears must not sully a Son s 
 glory," said Ribadeneira. 
 
 " Of glory, do you talk to me, who so 
 well know your Order?" exclaimed the 
 Princess. " Does your glory then include 
 the spoils you have collected ; and would 
 the Votary of Glory, be our universal 
 heir? You will obtain all Italy, if Italy 
 submits — Our last Estate was yielded!" 
 
 Ribadeneira turned aside — and replied 
 not. 
 
 " Forgive a wounded spirit," resumed 
 the Princess ; " I talk at times, not know- 
 ing what I say. I come not here to re- 
 proach your avarice of Wealth ; a more 
 dreadful avarice, that of Men, I will ac- 
 cuse. — ^The last Child too has gone !"
 
 174 
 
 " Father-General ! Return me — 1 would 
 say my Children — Save me at least one 
 Son ! a Mother's gratitude has no limits. 
 Listen to me ! We have four Claudes in 
 our Picture-gallery, which so long have 
 formed the proud possession of the Aldo- 
 brandini. The sole pleasure of my poor 
 Lord since his blindness, is to sit by these 
 pictures, dwelling on their perfections, to 
 strangers. They are his most valued pos- 
 session, his dearest enjoyment. An English 
 agent has bid for them half a million of 
 Scudi. No Monarch on Earth can pos- 
 sess them ; the Jesuits may ! Give us then 
 a Son !" 
 
 "The Claudes!" exclaimed Ribadeneira, 
 and paused. They were looking on each 
 other in silence. 
 
 "Your Highness afflicts me!" he re-
 
 175 
 
 sumed. ^' You know not the genius of 
 the Order. Those illusions of Nature 
 which prey on the distempered mind of 
 your sex, were dissolved for your Son, the 
 instant he joined our Body — there glory 
 awaits him ! The Novice who but touches 
 the threshold of our College, is for ever 
 the Order's ! He says no more, I have a 
 Mother, but I had !'* 
 
 " What is it you tell me ! that my Sons 
 WERE my Sons I Bring them into my pre- 
 sence, and you will witness the triumph 
 of Nature over Despotism ! Let me but 
 embrace them — Oh, it is a Mother's pri- 
 vilege to be loved !" 
 
 " Your Highness is agitated — Had all 
 your Sons perished in war, would you not 
 have suffered your present doom ?" 
 
 " No ! Then they would have died for
 
 176 
 
 that cause which is common to us all ! The 
 blood of my Sons is their Country's, even 
 more than their Mother's ! The Patriot 
 never dies a Slave ! — but to be dragged 
 from their hearths, to be blotted out of 
 life, by becoming the blind instruments of 
 the will of a Despot — to perish in the 
 cause of Tyranny— this is not glory! this, 
 shall never be forgiven ! 
 
 " You are silent ! — I am a fond Mother, 
 dreaming in my agony, I could have 
 melted the iron heart of a cold political 
 Monk! — but I am talking to him who has 
 no Child! Though all the world were 
 Jesuits, I am none! I mourn over my 
 Sons, and curse the desolator of my 
 House ! Flatter not yourself you have ex- 
 tinguished the race of the Aldobrandini — 
 though it lives but in a Woman, know. 
 Tyrant, she is a Roman !"
 
 177 
 
 From her breast she drew a poignard^ 
 and aimed at the heart of the Despot. It 
 struck but the air; Ribadeneira grasped 
 the dagger from her feeble hand ; and the 
 Princess sunk at his feet.
 
 178 
 
 Chapter xviii. 
 
 IMPEACHMENTS ! 
 
 An interview which the Pope had desired 
 with the General of the Jesuits, could no 
 longer be delayed. 
 
 Ribadeneira entering the Cabinet of the 
 Pope looked around, as if expecting to have 
 met with others than Father Naldi, an 
 ascetic Dominican, and the confidential 
 secretary of his Holiness. With that air 
 of majesty which commands the world, he 
 affected to prostrate himself at the feet of 
 the Pope, but his Holiness caught him in 
 his arms.
 
 179 
 
 Benedict, in acknowledging the indisso- 
 luble bond which had identified the Soci- 
 ety with the Court of Rome, added, '^ that 
 the world, grown impatient of their yoke, 
 menaced the destruction of the Jesuits ; he 
 proposed to reform the Order." 
 
 " Reform T sarcastically exclaimed Ri- 
 badeneira, *^ Who? What? When? How? 
 Has thy too indulgent Pontificate rendered 
 our Contemporaries, so much purer than 
 their x4ncestors ? Reform ! It is the cry of 
 impatient striplings who are counting the 
 grey hairs of their Fathers ; the concealed 
 pride of the abject, who would level to 
 equalise ; the airy babble of the vacillating 
 Many, ever in motion, like the leaves in 
 the wind. Abhor the word ! the Statesman 
 knows what it means, and whom it comes 
 from !'' 
 
 N 3
 
 180 
 
 " Can 1 stop these loud criers for 
 Liberty ?" asked the Pope. '' Give them 
 but an odious name and they perish/' re- 
 phed Ribadeneira. " Call them Liber- 
 tines ! These little Luthers and Calvins 
 will reform even thee, holy Father ! And 
 once more, a Gallic Pope, shall rise to 
 overshadow the Italian !" 
 
 The image of rival power startled — the 
 Pontiff wavered — grateful and terrified, 
 for he loved his services while he feared 
 his intrigues. 
 
 " Your Order," the Pope resumed, " stands 
 accused of being a political people, governed 
 by a secret code; which cannot become 
 Law, without the extinction of all other 
 Laws. To establish the oppressive gran- 
 deur of the Order, even your own subjects 
 must become its Victims. With you it is 
 said to be a maxim, that the State is
 
 181 
 
 every thing, and the Individual nothing! 
 
 " Are the views of your Order solely di- 
 rected to the perpetual increase of dominion, 
 so destructive of public repose, and so in- 
 compatible with private happiness? What 
 is this mysterious Volume of your Institute, 
 every where talked of, and no where seen ? 
 It is said to be a labyrinth of affected ob- 
 scurities, and ambiguous decisions, where 
 opposite opinions are equally asserted^ 
 while the Examiner is still referred to 
 Laws, he only hears of, and to Oracles 
 concealed. Mysterious Code ! which like 
 the cloudy column in the desart, on one 
 side enlightens your Israel, while on 
 the other it scatters darkness on your 
 Adversaries !" 
 
 " Our Institute," replied Ribadeneira 
 haughtily, " is indeed the admiration and 
 despair of the Statesman, who contem-
 
 182 
 
 plates on a perfect order of Beings, pro- 
 duced he knows not how (*) ; but could he 
 comprehend its excellence, were it revealed 
 to him ? We must be pure ourselves, if 
 we would touch Purity. The Institute, is 
 the code of human nature, and its most 
 valuable part is included in its practice. 
 Let our immortal deeds over the face of 
 the Universe, and not the vain eloquence 
 that perishes with the breath that formed 
 it, declare who are the Jesuits. We who 
 cherish Virtue more than Wealth, and 
 Glory, like Virtue." 
 
 " Much more!" exclaimed Father Naldi, 
 ** all is to be Glory, and this Glory is per- 
 sonified in yourself! You care not for 
 virtues, but you cannot exist without 
 talents. Your secret Institute is here de- 
 scribed," and he read : " This mysterious 
 Institute exhibits on its shadowy face, ^
 
 183 
 
 in a perfection of Ugliness, ambiguous fea- 
 tures and a changeable complexion. The 
 waxen Code shrinks, or swells, as the hand 
 of the Machiavel at Rome, moulds it ; it 
 is a Legislation that well accords with the 
 genius of the Order — Despotism! The 
 Despot will choose to have laws, and to 
 have no laws, — and this, is the Institute 
 of the Jesuits !" 
 
 Ribadeneira darkly frowned, exclaiming, 
 " Am I summoned here to answer Charges, 
 made up of antitheses, and to repel ca- 
 lumnies, concealed in metaphors ? Facts ! 
 Facts ! Mr. Secretary ! though I know how 
 hasty spies, and malicious informers, are 
 often paid for clumsy inventions." 
 
 Father Naldi, having looked over a va- 
 riety of documents, proceeded. 
 
 " One Virtue includes all others in the
 
 184 
 
 political Creed of the Jesuits — blind pas- 
 siveness^ and non-resistance! — that dread- 
 ful abandonment of all their rights as men; 
 their liberty, their reason, and their hap- 
 piness they see extinguished, and even 
 unlamented ; they have delivered them- 
 selves bound into the hands of theirDespot, 
 who skilfully practises on the infirmities 
 of Nature — thus he can send forth his 
 Philosophers at Pekin, his Martyrs in 
 Japan, and Sovereign-legislators in Para- 
 guay. The timid, swear to be passive, as 
 inanimate Corpses, unresisting to his hand ; 
 the more artful, who have their interests 
 involved with those of their mysterious 
 Governor, vow to be like a Staff in the hand 
 of Age, which it wields at its pleasure; 
 while bolder spirits, terrified while they 
 are driven, have sworn to be as Hatchets
 
 185 
 
 in the hand of the great Woodman, and 
 to level as he strikes. Thus has Despotism 
 reduced its subjects to bUnd instruments ; 
 to Corpses, to Staffs, and to Hatchets! — 
 rather let us say, wherever the Jesuit roves, 
 he is a naked sword, whose hilt is at 
 Rome r 
 
 The eyes of Ribadeneira sparkled with 
 anger. He would have spoken, but the 
 Pope protected the Secretary, declaring 
 " he was a man void of guile." 
 
 Meekly bowed the Secretary, crossing 
 his hands on his breast. 
 
 " I know the value of the virtues of 
 Father Naldi," cried Ribadeneira ; " your 
 Holiness could not have elected for your 
 Antiquarian researches, a more diligent 
 transcriber, nor a more punctilious Col- 
 lator. Father Naldi is an admirable dis-
 
 186 
 
 coverer of Truth — a thousand years ago; 
 and a most impartial judge of the ac- 
 tions — of the Dead !" 
 
 " He is a man without passions !" ob^ 
 served the Pope, with a marked solemnity, 
 
 Ribadeneira knit his brows, and fixing 
 his eyes on the papers which covered the 
 table of the Secretary, observed, '^ I must 
 consider him more innocent than those 
 criminal papers, he arranges with so much 
 complacency." 
 
 Father Naldi calmly raised his eyes to 
 Heaven^ and proceeded with his docu- 
 ments. 
 
 " A secret intelligence runs from the 
 Supreme head, to the humblest Member ; 
 and you know but half the Jesuit if you 
 only judge him by his own actions, so 
 rtmch he performs by the hands of others.
 
 187 
 
 It is an Empire founded on intrigues, and 
 whose victories are often only stratagems. 
 Were the General, as military, as his title 
 designates him, Europe were subdued ! 
 The haughty style, and the magnificent 
 plans, of Conquest, form the familiar lan- 
 guage of this people ; and the image of 
 military power preserved in the Order, 
 reminds the Chiefs of the true means to 
 perpetuate Empire. They say their flower 
 of Chivalry are born with helmets on their 
 heads and cuirasses on their breasts, and 
 they have sworn by watering every soil 
 with their blood, to conquer the Uni- 
 verse !" (2) 
 
 " To lay it at the feet of Rome!" in- 
 terrupted Ribadeneira. " For thee, holy 
 Father, we triumph, and for thee we die ! 
 Be Rome, the Metropolis of this Universe !
 
 188 
 
 One God, one Sovereign, and one Earth!" 
 
 Elevating his voice, he exclaimed, " My 
 people have vowed the government of the 
 World to me;" then gently bending to- 
 wards the Pope, he said — '^ And I have 
 sworn it to thee !" 
 
 ^^ Father Ribadeneira," replied his Ho- 
 hness, " What avails your assurance ? 
 At Rome you kiss our feet while in India 
 you cut off our hands. Letters from Goa, 
 describe the persecuted state of our 
 Bishops; you exile Saints!" " We!" 
 cried Ribadeneira — " We who furnish so 
 many Martyrs for Martyrdom." " You 
 are a strange people," cried the Secretary ; 
 *^ You can die for the cross, and trample 
 on it too !" 
 
 " Read the dispatches from Madrid,'* 
 said the Pope.
 
 189 
 
 Father Naldi resumed. 
 
 " Their imperial ostentation has at length 
 founded a new Empire, and the World 
 beholds the monstrous spectacle of a Je- 
 suit on a throne ! They drop the mask of 
 their Ambition in the river Plata. The 
 subject of Spain dare not pass the imagi- 
 nary line they have draw^n around a Nation 
 of Jesuits ; and w^ere he, he cannot speak 
 the language their despotism has invented ; 
 they doom their Slaves to death, v^^ho would 
 speak a dialect intelligible to Freemen; 
 while for the Spaniard the Scourge disgraces, 
 the Prison entombs, or, if he receives a 
 mock liberty, it is to perish in the wide 
 Savannahs." 
 
 " I know thrs Calumniator !" firmly re- 
 plied Ribadeneira. " I know him by his 
 cry ! it is the howl of the Wolf who can- 
 not leap over the folds of the sheep. He
 
 190 
 
 is one of those Christians, who are cla- 
 morous to barter with the simple Indian 
 their nails and their fish-hooks for gold- 
 dust, and pearls in the shell. We would 
 preserve from the Christians of Europe, 
 the Christians of Nature !" 
 
 " Your Government is oppressive to 
 your subjects," said his Holiness. — " You 
 are said to have established a perpetual In- 
 quisition; you encourage Spies, Informers, 
 and all that dark fraternity of secret Emis- 
 saries, that haunt us, and with an ex- 
 tinction of all natural feelings, can make 
 even the friend betray the friend! the 
 brother accuse the brother/' 
 
 " Yes !" exclaimed Ribadeneira ; '^ The 
 virtues of the Jesuits fear none of these ; 
 let the corrupt tremble ! The virtuous Ro- 
 man wished his house could have been
 
 191 
 
 built of glass^ that his Enemies might see 
 what was passing in it. Happy shall the 
 subjects be of that wise Power who coun- 
 tenances Accusers, and punishes Calum- 
 niators ; a Government is maintained by- 
 Accusations, but ruined by Calumnies." 
 
 *^ The Jesuits are accused of professing 
 a vow of Poverty, and amassing treasures!'* 
 
 Bitter was the smile of Ribadeneira-^ 
 *^ Look on our decent habits and our sim- 
 ple wants ! We are removed beyond the 
 contagion of a frivolous World. It is the 
 Vulgar who know not, that Men, born for 
 Glory, have long learnt to contemn wealth. 
 The Spartan, fearing the corruption of 
 gold, banished it from the Republic. 
 More virtuous, we live as Spartans, amidst 
 treasures, Lycurgus could never have ima- 
 gined."
 
 192 
 
 ^•' The Jesuits are farther accused/' re- 
 sumed Father Naldi^ " of a Morality 
 merely accommodated to persons and to 
 places. Severe in the pulpit, but indul- 
 gent in the Confessional Chair, they make 
 a peace with the Conscience, without de- 
 claring war against the Passions. With 
 them every thing is opinion, and all opi- 
 nions are alike ; and there is no Truth !" {^) 
 
 " I shall reply to this accusation," ob- 
 served Ribadeneira, ^^ when Mr. Secretary 
 has learned to be intelligible !'* 
 
 Father Naldi handed a paper to the 
 Pope, who returning it with a silent as- 
 sent — the Secretary read. 
 
 '^ The Jesuits believe the Universe is 
 made for them ; and for the Order, there 
 is no distance of place, nor opposition of 
 interests ; Whether Portuguese or Russian,
 
 193 
 
 or Frenchman, scorched at the Line or 
 freezing at the Pole, wherever their des- 
 tiny places them, they are Jesuits ; and at 
 the extreme points of their Empire, they 
 breathe their Vows for the Despot with 
 whose fate their own is hnked." 
 
 " An Empire, and a Despot !" exclaimed 
 Ribadeneira. " Me, the father of Mis- 
 sionaries ! Men, whose Kingdom is not 
 of this Earth." 
 
 Father Naldi, with a firm and elevated 
 voice, proceeded. 
 
 " A stupendous Despotism, is opening 
 a path through the Universe, in the terrific 
 march of its ambition. A People, have 
 made an imperial Sovereign, who sports 
 with the Tiara, and with Crowns, as omni- 
 potent as a combination of men can make 
 one human being. In the breast of this 
 o
 
 194 
 
 Despot, what impulse can rage more 
 fiercely, than to diffuse that people over 
 the world, to flatter them they are its 
 Masters, while he himself reigns over 
 them ? His secret pleasures are his Enter- 
 prises ; the fullness of his Enjoyment, the 
 inordinate Ambition, that only lives on 
 increase of Power; and in the pride of 
 dominion, from his throne, concealed in 
 secresy and silence, he dictates Laws to 
 the World, and influences the Councils of 
 Kings !" 
 
 Ribadeneira started — terrible was his 
 glance — impatiently turning to the Pope, 
 he cried, " Have my Enemies no other 
 dispatches to send your Holiness, than the 
 ravings of a Romancer ?" 
 
 The Pope was thoughtfully leaning on 
 his arm, and raising his eyes on Ribade-
 
 195 
 
 neira, he addressed him^ in a tremulous 
 voice. 
 
 " It is said that your Order glides into 
 the Cabinets of Monarchs, while they blend 
 with the mass of the people ; and to one 
 you give a sceptre of iron, and to the other 
 a poignard. The interior consciences of 
 Men are discovered to you, and the eye of 
 the General of the Jesuits, can dwell on 
 the confessions, revealed only to God. — 
 Ribadeneira ! who can penetrate into the 
 silence of your Cabinet, and trace in the 
 mysterious retreat of the General of the 
 Jesuits, those projects, which not Men, 
 but Jesuits, are conducting from Age to 
 Age ?'' 
 
 Ribadeneira approached the Pontiff, 
 standing between his Holiness and the 
 Secretary. His breast heaved, and his 
 o 2
 
 196 
 
 eye sparkled, yet soft and solemn were his 
 tones as he addressed the Pontiff. 
 
 '^ Benedict ! we placed thee on this more 
 than imperial throne. Lambertini has not 
 forgotten Ribadeneira ! Doubtless thou re- 
 collectest when it was long debated whe- 
 ther thou wert adapted to be a Missionary 
 of a Village, or a Martyr for the Indies. I 
 penetrated into thy soul ; I pronounced thy 
 destiny ; I marked thy passion for tranquil 
 studies, and I decreed the Tiara !" 
 
 His Holiness turned aside, and his coun- 
 tenance was darkened with thought. A 
 frown half-gathered on his brow, but his 
 tones were mild. 
 
 " Oh Ribadeneira !" he exclaimed, '^why 
 art thou made up of contrarieties ? What 
 wouldst thou I should understand ? Man ! 
 alike potent in good and evil, do not con- 
 found me: Be one!"
 
 197 
 
 Ribadeneira bowed with humility, say- 
 ing, " We are as it pleases God^ and shall 
 be as God pleases !" 
 
 In retiring he turned towards the Secre- 
 tary, pausing in his step. His eye flamed 
 with rage, and his lip was curled with sour 
 disdain; while with a menacing gesture 
 he pointed to the Earth. The terrified 
 Dominican felt his heart die within him, 
 as the General of the Jesuits passed. 
 
 The Pope ordered the Secretary to con- 
 vey all the papers to his private closet — 
 " Naldi !" he cried, " This it is to have 
 made the Servant greater than the Master !"
 
 198 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE INTOLERABLE GOVERNMENT OF REMORSELESS 
 AMBITION — GREATNESS, FOUNDED ON CRAFT AND 
 PERFIDY, IS INSEPARABLE FROM MISERY. 
 
 RiBADENEIRA had leapt into the 
 throne of universal Despotism^ and having 
 ascended its first step, he found himself 
 already far removed from Humanity — that 
 throne, surrounded with convulsive in- 
 trigues, and dark machinations, was but a 
 pledge of permanent ambition ; there, the 
 labour was immortal, and nothing could 
 stand at rest ! 
 
 If the Jesuitical Sovereign was despotic 
 pver his subjects, the Institute itself was
 
 199 
 
 more despotic than the Despot it had cre- 
 ated. This Chief could only secure his 
 power, hy carrying out of the Order that 
 restless activity, which would otherwise 
 return upon himself. There was no re- 
 pose for this " Lord of Lords," as the Insti- 
 tute in its seducing style described the 
 Sovereign ; this revolutionary Chief was 
 ruling an Empire whose existence required 
 the extinction of all others, and was go- 
 verning Men, who if they did not fear, 
 would dethrone him. Should this Despot, 
 with a vacillating hand, pause in guiding 
 its perturbed spirit through the world, he 
 dropped from the throne he incumbered ; 
 in his imbecility he found his extinction ; 
 and a feeble Despot, was the political he- 
 retic, whom the Code of the Jesuits ana- 
 thematised. Q)
 
 200 
 
 Such was the intolerable government of 
 remorseless Ambition ; it preyed on its 
 Chief, and it devoured its people; yet 
 while its prosperity was destructive of so- 
 cial happiness, from the supreme head to 
 its humblest member, all were driven along 
 by the illusions of the State-magic of false 
 Glory ! 
 
 Ribadeneira, retreated to his Cabinet, 
 secretly agitated by the impeachments of 
 the austere Secretary, startled like a man 
 who feels the links of a heavy chain sud- 
 denly fastening about him. 
 
 The moderate talents of the Secretary, 
 he at once despised and dreaded; and his 
 haughty genius, he knew not why, shrunk 
 before the humble patience, the incor- 
 ruptible honour, and the pure self-devotion 
 of Father Naldi. Considering the intelli-
 
 201 
 
 gence the Secretary had displayed as not 
 of a piece with the Man^ but as the finer 
 iniayings of some higher Artist, a ridicu- 
 lous imagination disturbed the General of 
 the Jesuits. '* Was undetected treason 
 growing up in the Society ?" It was then 
 he felt, that some evil genius, potent and 
 mysterious as himself, was with a Master- 
 force wrestling with him in his own dark- 
 ness. '^ The Web," he exclaimed, " is 
 seen, but the Worm lies concealed ! Am 
 I wounded by a feather from my own 
 wing ; an arrow from my own quiver ?" 
 
 It was in moments like these that Riba- 
 deneira found he stood alone in the Uni- 
 verse — thcj Despot has no brother ! 
 
 At length the dream of Povvcr came 
 over him — he looked around his provinces; 
 he counted his slaves , and he seemed lis-^
 
 202 
 
 tening to the eloquent writers throughout 
 Europe who directed the pubhc mind as 
 they received the impulse from the Jesuitic 
 Cabinet. He brooded over all his dark 
 political people of visible and invisible 
 Jesuits, and for a moment, Europe seemed 
 submitted to his will. In South America, 
 the darling infant of his Ambition, a new 
 Empire was ripening under his hand ; Exile 
 itself, would place the General of the 
 Jesuits, on an impregnable throne. 
 
 Such was the dream ! In the warm co- 
 louring of his brain, had died away the 
 colder impressions of the Pope, the Secre- 
 tary, and the Conspiracy ! 
 
 Thus musing, the blood rushed in his 
 heart, and the spirit of the Legislator of 
 Man beamed in his eye — the World looked 
 in repose, and the lovely work was the
 
 203 
 
 labour of his own hand ; sweet illusion of 
 a great Soul returning on itself! 
 
 But soon the proud desire of dominion 
 darkened the Visionary's reverie ; Rival 
 rose on Rival, Empire struck against Em- 
 pire ; gigantic Phantoms terrified his 
 fancy — And Ribadeneira, relapsing into 
 all the severity of his soul, frowned the 
 great Exterminator! the scourge of Pro- 
 vidence, who could convulse an Empire 
 by his intrigues, and subvert a throne by 
 his ambition.
 
 204 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SEDUCTION AND TERROR J A PANEGYRIC AN» 
 
 A POIGNARD 
 
 ^^ Human life is a perpetual combat 
 with Mankind ; but the PoHtician is armed 
 with stratagems, and the Fox, can foil 
 even angry Lions !" 
 
 So thought Ribadeneira — but still his 
 thoughts were disturbed. With all that 
 Omnipotence, and Omniscience, his san- 
 guine temper, and his haughty genius, 
 had seduced him to imagine surrounded 
 his power, he trembled at the thought 
 that he was feeling what other men feel.
 
 205 
 
 when confounded by surprize ; like Au- 
 gustus^ he found the inconvenience of 
 too extensive an Empire ; but yet not 
 used to Fear, he would cry with the crafty 
 Phihp IL " Time and Myself, are worth 
 any two !" 
 
 Those who surrounded his person would 
 not betray him. Created by his hand, 
 these Scions could only live in the graft of 
 the Jesuitic tree. But Suspicion distem- 
 pers the faculties and raises illusions. Ac- 
 quaviva, he thought, had questioned him 
 of late too frequently ; and in Politics, he 
 who is too curious is either the Spy of 
 others ; or one of those weak and change- 
 able men, who live in a continued circle of 
 Desire and Repentance. Had not Acqua- 
 viva expressed his fears for the Conspiracy 
 maturing at Lisbon? seemed to regret
 
 206 
 
 the glorious ruins of the Port-royal ? and 
 started at the death of their great Enemy 
 of France? might he not have silently 
 acquiesced in the attempt of the Princess 
 of Aldobrandini ; her dagger might have 
 been pointed by the hand of the Vice- 
 General ; for he knew, to direct others 
 to do that, which he himself would not. 
 Surmises gathering on surmises, in the 
 diffusive haziness of his mind, the form 
 of Acquaviva, ever before it, seemed gi- 
 gantic. 
 
 It was a principle in the Jesuitic Go- 
 vernment, that the only means to be cer- 
 tain of any subject, was to renew trials 
 and temptations, till he came out like 
 gold, seven times drawn from the furnace. 
 Acquaviva had been purged of all the 
 dross of a political Negotiator, and not an
 
 2o; 
 
 atom of honour lurked in the perfect Je- 
 suit. But a more solemn act was now to 
 be performed ; Acquaviva was to give the 
 most cruel proof of his fidelity, or his 
 rebellion — in either case, Ambition in 
 its anger was to be appeased by a 
 Victim ! 
 
 Ribadeneira, partly communicating the 
 ill temper, in which he had discovered his 
 Holiness, observed, that " the Pope seemed 
 impatient to enjoy that literary celebrity, 
 which his own slow and heavy labours 
 could not obtain ; and that to restore his 
 Holiness to his own natural dispositions, 
 and infuse a grateful feeling for the Order, 
 he had resolved, that forty panegyrics, in 
 as many languages, should be shortly pre- 
 sented to the Literary Pope, which, while 
 the Volume discovered to all Europe his
 
 208 
 
 Holiness's great merits^ would also those 
 of the Order itself." 
 
 " It is indeed," observed Acquaviva, 
 *^ to the honour of the Order, that a Vo- 
 lume, in forty languages, with forty Pane- 
 gyrics, on a harmless Pope, is not more 
 difficult to perform than any other; we 
 excel in manner, whatever be the matter." 
 
 Ribadeneira paused — there was a seri- 
 ousness in his air and manner, a darkness 
 in his countenance, — when, turning to a 
 portrait of Louis XI. he resumed. 
 
 " This is the Man-King! the Jesuit of 
 ia dark Age, who only fell short of our 
 greater design, because he wanted the re- 
 velation of our Institute. It was in his 
 Cabinet only he warred with his Enemies. 
 The artifices of Louis XL never swallowed 
 up so many of the people, as a single
 
 209 
 
 Victory of Charlemagne ! They are not Po- 
 Hticians, who think it more just, to attack 
 with the pomp of Armies him, whom we 
 can secretly annihilate ! Q) 
 
 " You are a friend of Father Naldi, the 
 Pope's Secretary," added Ribadeneira. 
 
 Acquaviva replied, " We were foster- 
 brothers. We have grown up together. 
 I have often regretted that this pure spirit 
 went to the Dominicans ; he would have 
 been a Father among our Indian children.'* 
 
 " True," replied Ribadeneira ; " there 
 is no Block, but which we can carve into a 
 Jesuit. With Us, Naldi would have been 
 made useful to the World. We look 
 round for men to put into places ; not for 
 places to put men into. Thus talents 
 obtain their due predominance in the ma- 
 chinery of our Government; the smaller 
 p
 
 210 
 
 wheels of other societies are perpetually 
 deranging their operations. But to Naldi ! 
 — You must consider him as an old alma- 
 nack ; he has been useful in his time, but 
 now would only lead you wrong." 
 
 Acquaviva gave some symptoms of un- 
 easy emotions ; and murmured, '^ I love 
 him as a Brother !" 
 
 " Brother !" exclaimed Ribadeneira, and 
 heaved a profound sigh : " There is no 
 Brother in the Order !" — He paused ; a 
 momentary emotion came and passed 
 away. 
 
 *^ Naldi is more than indiscreet ; he is 
 one of those who says what he knows, but 
 knows not what he says. We must break 
 the instrument, though we cannot reach 
 the hand that holds it. Thou hast turned 
 over the secret history of the Order. — ?
 
 211 
 
 When Clement VIII, concerted with 
 Phihp II, to correct abuses in the Order, 
 for so these mistaken Kings and Pontiffs 
 miscall the wisdom of our government-— 
 from Clement,Our great predecessor Mutio 
 Vitelleschi received the humiliating order 
 to appear before the Monarch of Spain ; 
 and from Vitelleschi, Clement received that 
 obedience we have sworn to the Pontiff — 
 Yet not for this, to Spain went our General 
 — rfor at a moment most opportune. Hea- 
 ven protecting the Order, Clement mira- 
 culously was no more ! The same danger 
 calls for the same security ; the Order an- 
 ticipates its destroyer — Naldi is confided 
 to your care !" 
 
 Whenever an Immolation was to be per- 
 formed, and a Jesuit was commanded to 
 do an act at which Nature revolted^ he had 
 P2
 
 212 
 
 only the choice of becoming the Sacrificer, 
 or the Victim ! 
 
 The time may come when the people 
 shall exclaim- — "It were well if the Despot 
 would rest content with only the politics 
 ofMachiaveir
 
 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXi. 
 
 INGRATITUDE, ONE OF THE CRIMES OF DES1*0TISM. 
 
 1 HE Secretary of the Pope was no more ! 
 The meaner Despot is an animal of prey, 
 and loves the taste of blood; but with 
 blood, the Usurper must cement his un- 
 steady throne; and of the method, Ma- 
 chiavel will temperately instruct him in 
 his ^^ Duke Valentine." 
 
 " Princes have still their grounds, reared with themselves. 
 Above the poor low flats of common men." 
 
 JONSON. 
 
 Dark and perturbed now was the spirit 
 of Ribadeneira; whenever some half-re-
 
 214 
 
 maining feeling of Humanity touched hi^^ 
 temper, it was on Jire ! If he exulted that 
 Alberoni had fallen, while he had covered 
 him with scorn — that he held the Pope in 
 his own sovereign hand — that he reigned 
 absolute over a vast, though distant Em- 
 pire — still while he gloried, a gloom hung 
 over his soul, at the destruction of a Senate 
 of Philosophers, and in the blood of the 
 most accomplished Prince, and of many, 
 such as the pure spirit of Naldi. 
 
 Nor were these all his agonies — His 
 suspicions gradually growing on him, and 
 a trembling uncertain Hope, were racking 
 his faculties, and wasting his constitution. 
 He sat retired for hours, his hurried meals 
 were not tasted, and in the midst of night 
 he rose, to return without sleep. (^) 
 
 Among the cares of his dominion he had
 
 215 
 
 grown impatient, for the accomplishment 
 of two important Events. He was hasten- 
 ing the great insurrection at Lisbon, and 
 had given his orders, to risk a battle in 
 South America with the Spanish troops. 
 
 Ribadeneira was insensibly becoming 
 the victim of his passions; and had his 
 subjects known it, the General of the 
 Jesuits had already, in the spirit of the 
 Institute, forfeited his claims to the throne 
 of universal dominion. 
 
 Whether he perceived this sad change 
 in himself, and dreaded the detection of 
 those near him, or whether his haunting 
 suspicions deprived him of all confidence 
 even in his tried agents, it is certain that 
 he withdrew, more than he ought, from 
 his public duties; the Spider shrunk up, 
 sat in a remote corner of his web, with a
 
 216 
 
 gloomy watchfulness, while its threads 
 were still trembling. 
 
 His communications with Acquaviva 
 were interrupted. The conversations of 
 Ribadeneira were now abrupt, and he no 
 more delighted to expatiate with a pomp 
 of words in a high tone of feeling, unfold- 
 ing the mysteries of his Government, to a 
 Man whose presence now seemed to im- 
 portune him — because the Vice-General 
 was become, even from the services exacted 
 from him, a dangerous witness, of whom 
 he felt inclined to rid himself. He who 
 confers favours on a Despot, will not se- 
 cure his gratitude; he hates to receive, 
 what he only chooses to grant. Ingratitude 
 is the black poison of a Despot's breast; 
 Serve him well, and he fears you !
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A VICTIM OF FAME ! 
 
 As Ribadeneira sat absorbed in thought, 
 revolving the conspiracy at Lisbon, over 
 which a strange confusion was hanging, 
 a Stranger was announced, whose name 
 startled him. The Vice-General, wha 
 led him in, in quitting the apartment^ 
 viewed him with curiosity. 
 
 He was of a commanding figure, tall, 
 meagre, and pale — his features strongly 
 marked, with more fierceness than majesty, 
 his brow contracted, his countenance 
 clouded,, painful thoughts were there —
 
 218 
 
 Whoever gazed on him might feel a shud- 
 der in their heart, whilst his motions were 
 restless as his eye, which incessantly turn- 
 ing on every object, seemed full of suspi- 
 cion and watchfulness. 
 
 The Stranger bowed — ^Ribadeneira con- 
 templated him in silence — at length re- 
 suming all his energies, he exclaimed, 
 " Rebello! and at Rome!'* 
 
 " Behold the veriest wretch wherever he 
 is!" replied the Stranger. 
 
 " What wouldst thou ? Comest thou a 
 fugitive from thy duties ; or art thou ex- 
 pelled from Lisbon ?" 
 
 " What but despair could have conduct- 
 ed me into thy presence ? Give me repose! 
 let me forget myself!" 
 
 " Rebello! thou wert born for better 
 things ! I'hou didst enlist early in the ca-
 
 219 
 
 reer of glory in the Order. Wouldst thou 
 retrace thy steps ? Art thou one who 
 with a coward's baseness forms grand de- 
 signs, but ends them ignominiously ? He 
 who attempts great enterprises, must be 
 endowed with the force not to rehnquish 
 them but with hfe." 
 
 " The glory of the Order!" exclaimed 
 Rebello. ^' I have heard that sound too 
 often ! It is Ambition, which will not grant 
 its votaries a pause from crimes." 
 
 Mildly replied the adroit Despot, " My 
 Son, thou hast long had my heart. Think- 
 est thou that Glory is an empty sound, ac- 
 companied by Power ? Thou hast wit- 
 nessed the secret energy of the Order. Do 
 we not remunerate with imperial magnifi- 
 cence ? Who placed the Minister Carvalho 
 by the throne of Portugal? Thyself!
 
 220 
 
 Canst thou think thou art " the ve- 
 riest wretch," who to-morrow mayst 
 ascend the throne, thou hast thyself be- 
 stowed ?" 
 
 The Stranger profoundly sighed. '' Am 
 I still to be urged on ? Father-General, 
 may I still call thee by a title more hu- 
 mane. Friend of my Youth ! I swear I can- 
 not paint my wretchedness! Every day 
 am I not trafficking with delusions, in- 
 flaming the ambitious, stirring up the dis- 
 contented, seducing the unwary, and ter- 
 rifying the timid, inventing crimes for 
 others to practise, and practising the 
 crimes which others invent. But I who 
 terrify, am myself shaken by innumerable 
 fears. I who deceive, am myself deceived! 
 O God ! that I were an atom in thy Uni- 
 verse, floating in air without design, and
 
 221 
 
 but glittering in thy sun-beams ! Father, 
 I am desperate; I am but a Man !" 
 
 " Rebello, thou wouldst be something 
 more than Man, wert thou a Jesuit!" 
 exclaimed Ribadeneira, with more dignity 
 than anger. '' Once I loved thy soaring 
 Spirit ! Where are now the sublime sym- 
 pathies of thy Nature? Once thou didst 
 sigh to be the theme of some immortal 
 story." 
 
 " Father-General," the Stranger resumed 
 with a collected air, '^ When a Youth, 
 I have wept reading great deeds, which I 
 had not performed. Glory beat with the 
 pulses of my heart. My ruling passion 
 was my great infirmity — they touched me 
 there, and I fell ! I, who only breathecj 
 honour and heroism, am covered with 
 fraud and crime! Could a man be a md-
 
 222 
 
 tured Villain at once^ he would never be a 
 Villain ; Nature starts at enormous crimes ; 
 but experienced demons make invisible the 
 dreadful path they are conducting us in ; 
 and when we discover it, then we are in^ 
 fernal Spirits like themselves!" 
 
 Ribadeneira frowned, " Thus, thou didst 
 not talk when all thy thoughts were full of 
 the little fame, which even Literature 
 bestows. But thy aspiring Spirit still 
 mounting, sighed to become the Chief of 
 a Nation !" 
 
 ^^ True !" cried Rebello, " I spurned at 
 that celebrity which always comes late, and 
 is more disputed than enjoyed. What 
 is that little fame of most men — it is 
 ever distant from them! Where it is, 
 they are not; and where they are, how 
 rarely shall it be! And what is posthu-
 
 223 
 
 mous fame ? A banquet on a tomb-stone ! 
 He, for whom it has been prepared^ shall 
 never be present, shall never taste it! Fame 
 after death, is nothing but syllables that 
 perish in the air, heard by few, and claimed 
 by no one. What to me signifies, when I 
 shall have ceased to be, that the syllables, 
 Rebello, be pronounced with love or with 
 hatred ? Father-General, absolve me from 
 my vows !" 
 
 *^ Miserable victim !" exclaimed Ribade- 
 neira, ^^ Ere thy wish was pronounced, it 
 was granted ! It is now six months, thou 
 hast ceased to be a Jesuit!" 
 
 Rebello started, striking his forehead, 
 and exclaiming, " Then it is, as it was 
 foretold! My days are counted!'* 
 
 " Unhappy man!" cried Ribadeneira, 
 resuming all the sternness of his genius,
 
 224 
 
 and the bitterness of his looks, ^^ Thou 
 art free to wander on the face of 
 the Earth, but wherever thou art, thine 
 Evil genius shall be present. Thou shalt 
 perish by no other hand than thine own! 
 If thou hast so degenerated as to value so 
 mean a life, mortify thyself with thy ex- 
 istence ! a life of obscurity, of disappoint- 
 ment, and remorse. But thy track is 
 marked out ; thou canst not go to the 
 right, nor to the left. At Madrid, the 
 Almeidas, the Medina-Celis, the Da Var- 
 gas answer for thee; at Paris, our Father 
 Tellier awaits thee ; at Vienna, the Lieu- 
 tenant of the Police, suffices." 
 
 " Where, where shall I hide me?" cried 
 Rebello, covering his face with his hands^ 
 jand flinging himself on the ground. 
 
 " Abject fallen Rebello!" exclaimed
 
 225 
 
 Ribadeneira. " At forty thinkest thou 
 thy passions are extinct ? No, deceiver ! 
 that is not thy thought! 'Tis Nature only 
 who can extinguish the volcano in thy 
 heart. Change thy character ! thou mayst 
 indeed be an Apostate, but never canst 
 thou be a Penitent. Can 1 make an old 
 Traitor, a new Martyr? Hear, and tremble ! 
 In the hall of the Lions in the Alhambra, 
 at midnight, who was at thy side ?" 
 
 Rebello started in confusion and agony. 
 
 " Mysterious man !" he exclaimed, " wilt 
 thou never cease to persecute me ?" 
 
 He hesitated, and trembled — and cried 
 — " Or art thou thyself deceived ? Thou, 
 who seemest to command more than mor- 
 tal instruments, tremble thou thyself!" 
 
 Ribadeneira stood collected in aweful 
 majesty, and with a disdainftil smile, ex- 
 a
 
 226 
 
 tending his hand^ replied, "Thou menacest 
 the General of the Jesuits ! I exhort thee 
 to suffer that thy death may be decent — 
 it is the last effort the miserable owe to 
 themselves !" 
 
 " Father !" cried the agitated man, " I 
 do not menace him, whom I admire, while 
 I execrate. But who is he who now pro- 
 tects, and now opposes me ?" 
 
 Ribadeneira, looking on Rebello with a 
 mixed feeling of tenderness and resent- 
 ment, desired him to explain himself. 
 
 " Father-General ! it is now more than 
 a year, that at Lisbon I have exhausted 
 my inventive powers, and still am lost in 
 a dark labyrinth. I am dragged to and 
 fro, by some invisible hand. How am I 
 to know whether it be thine, or another's? 
 Even now am I not trembling at the Un-
 
 227 
 
 known ? I know not if to be silent, or to 
 speak !" 
 
 " I command thee !'* 
 
 " But in obeying thee, I know not but 
 I am violating thy commands. So am I 
 hedged around ! Already, I come to Rome, 
 and thou tellest me, I am a proscribed 
 Exile! I know not with whom I stand 
 connected !" 
 
 Ribadeneira was impatient, and Rebello, 
 kneeling, cried — ^^ Imagine the most ter- 
 rific event ; thou canst not come up to my 
 fears! What if in the Order, there should 
 be one greater than thyself?" 
 
 Ribadeneira looked wildly on him ; " It 
 is death to have pronounced these words!'* 
 
 Rebello, declined his head, prostrate at 
 the feet of Ribadeneira. ^^ I call Heaven 
 to witness that I have hitherto obeyed 
 €12
 
 228 
 
 the solemn injunction, never to repeat the 
 name I now repeat. It was given to me 
 as an incommunicable name. Never till 
 this moment have I breathed the potent 
 sound. Who is Santiago ?*' 
 
 The cheek of Ribadeneira was instantly 
 blanched ; his voice was lost, and he sunk 
 into his seat in astonishment and terror. 
 Rebello lie immoveable with fear. Horror- 
 struck, Ribadeneira with hurrying words 
 cried — " What talkest thou to me of San- 
 tiago ? — The flesh mouldered on his bones ! 
 He, He who — died of a fever — in these 
 arms he died ! We have no brother." 
 
 Rebello, in the emotions of his General, 
 now saw that the mysterious name of San* 
 tiago was terrible — ^This seemed to console 
 him, and he collected confidence. 
 
 ^^ This year has passed in receiving
 
 229 
 
 communications, usually brought to me 
 by some young Fathers — subscribed, San- 
 tiago, as wonderful, as true. To this name 
 the Order owes its most subtile intrigues. 
 Whatever was desired, this Unknown ob- 
 tained. My silence was obedient to your 
 written injunction, and my correspondence 
 was carried on by the Cypher that accom- 
 panied it." 
 
 Ribadeneira, shrieking in agony, ex- 
 claimed, " Forgery ! Treason !" 
 
 Rebello proceeded — 
 
 " Could this terrible and potent being 
 be other than thyself, exerting his invisible 
 power, among the Courts of Europe? — 
 Thus I thought. — I have traced him like 
 a distant star in regions beyond the power 
 of our telescope. Exiled from the Heretics 
 of Britain, little we hoped our genius 
 <3l3
 
 230 
 
 could leap on the untouched shores of those 
 haughty islanders. I have mused to de- 
 lirium on that unconquerable Kingdom, 
 to punish the crimes of three Centuries, 
 by avenging our Fathers. It was this Un- 
 known who, shifting the political scenery 
 at will, now made me exult to view our 
 Provincials shadowing that land, and a 
 Consistory of Jesuits presiding over Ca- 
 tholic Ireland-— but of late — spa'' '^e 
 recital — imagine the worst I — Father, ttiou 
 art Omnipotent ! or We are nothing !" 
 
 ENP OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Printed by J. JficHOLS and Son, 
 }led Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London.
 
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