CHARLES III
The Bourbon Kings of Spain--Character of Charles III--
Spanish Ministries--O'Reilly--The Hat and Cloak Riot--
Cowardice of Charles--Tricking the monarch--The Decree of
Suppression--Grief of the Pope--His death--Disapproval in
France by the Encyclopedists--The Royal Secret--
Simultaneousness of the Suppression--Wanderings of the Exiles
--Pignatelli--Expulsion by Tanucci.
Spain had begun to deteriorate in the seventeenth century; it lost all
of its European dependencies in the eighteenth, and in the beginning of
the nineteenth was stripped of almost every one of its rich and powerful
colonies in America. During two-thirds of that period, it was governed
by foreigners, none of whom had any claim to consideration, much less
respect. Until 1700 it owed allegiance to the house of Austria; after
that, the French Bourbons hurried it to its ruin.
Its first Bourbon king, Philip V, had already, in 1713, succeeded in
losing Sicily, Milan, Sardinia, the Netherlands, Gibraltar, and the
Island of Minorca; that is one-half of its European possessions.
Meantime, Catalonia was in rebellion. But little else could be expected
from such a ruler. He was not only constitutionally indolent, but
apparently mentally defective. His queen kept him in seclusion, and he
did nothing but at her dictation; he was professedly devout, but was
racked by ridiculous scruples; "outwardly pious," says Schoell, quoting
Saint-Simon, "but heedless of the fundamental principles of religion; he
was timid and hence sporadically stubborn; and when not in temper, he
was easily led. He was without imagination, except that he was
continually dreaming of conquering Europe, although he never left
Madrid; he was satisfied with the gloomiest existence, and his only
amusement was shooting at game, which his servants drove into the brush
for him to kill." His conscience often smote him for the sin he said he
had committed when he renounced his claim to the throne of France; and,
in consequence, he made a vow to lay aside the Spanish crown until what
time he should be summoned by England to be King of France. To help him
keep his vow, he built the palace of San Ildefonso, which cost the
nation 45,000,000 pesos. He appointed his son Louis, a lad of 17, to
reign in his stead, and the boy, of course, did nothing but enjoy
himself, and died of small-pox in six months' time, having first gone
through the ridiculous farce of making his father his heir. Philip then
began to doubt whether he could resume his duties as king after having
vowed to relinquish them. Besides being thus troubled with scruples, he
was in constant dread of catching the disease which carried off his son;
he died of apoplexy, July 9, 1764 at the age of 53.
Ferdinand VI, who succeeded him, was as indolent as his father, and with
less talent and strength of will; he was afflicted with melancholia, and
like his father was haunted by the fear of death. He took no part in the
government of the kingdom, but spent most of his time listening to the
warblings of the male-soprano, Farinelli, who was so adored by the king
that he was sometimes consulted on state affairs. The queen was another
of his idols, and when she died, he shut himself in, saw no one, would
eat next to nothing; never changed his linen; let his hair and beard
grow, and never went to bed. An hour or two in a chair was all he
allowed himself for rest. He died at the end of the year, leaving a
private fortune of 72,000,000 francs. He was only forty-seven years old.
Like the king, the queen was dominated by fear, not however of death,
but of poverty. To guard against that contingency she hoarded all the
money she could get; accepted whatever presents were offered; and let it
be known that the easiest way to win her favor was to have something to
give. It is gravely said that though she was very corpulent she was
extravagantly fond of dancing.
Ferdinand VI was succeeded by his brother Charles III, who had been King
of Naples for twenty-four years. He had six sons, the eldest of whom,
Philip Anthony was then twelve years of age, but a hopeless imbecile.
The right of succession, therefore, devolved on his second son. The
third, who was then eight years old, was to succeed to the crown of
Naples, and was left in the hands of Tanucci to be trained for his
future office. As Tanucci was a bitter enemy of Christianity, this act
of Charles, who had a Jesuit confessor and was regarded as a pious man,
would imply that he also was mentally deficient. Like his forebears, he
was haunted by a fear of death, a weakness that revealed itself in all
his political acts, notably in the suppression of the Society. That was
one of the reasons why, long after France and Portugal would have
willingly ended the fight with the expulsion of the Jesuits, the
supposedly pious Charles persisted until he had wrung the Brief of
Suppression from the unwilling hands of Clement XIV.
The ministers of state who controlled the destinies of Spain at this
period are of a species whose like cannot be found in the history of any
other nation. They begin with the Italian Alberoni who started life as a
farm laborer; then became an ecclesiastic, and ultimately a cardinal.
"He was destined to trouble the tranquillity of the world for years,"
says Schoell. According to Saint-Simon, he prevented the restitution of
Gibraltar to Spain which England was willing to grant; he was banned by
the Pope; and was subsequently turned out of office, chiefly by the
intrigues of two Italian ecclesiastics. The queen's nurse, old Laura
Piscatori, also figures in the amazing diplomacy of those days, and is
charged with an ambition to be as important as Cardinal Alberoni, who
came from her native village. The next prime minister was the Biscayan
Grimaldi, whose physical appearance Saint-Simon describes, but which we
omit. It will suffice to say that "he was base and supple when it suited
his convenience, and he never made a false step in that direction."
Following him, came Ripperda, who was born in the Netherlands and
educated by the Jesuits at Cologne, but became a Protestant in Holland,
and a Catholic in Spain, where he lasted only four months, as minister.
He turned Protestant a second time, on his return to Holland, and
subsequently led an army of Moors against Spain. It is not known whether
he died a Christian or a Mohammedan.
Patino and de la Quadra followed each other in quick succession, one
good, the other timid and weak. Enseñada, though skilful, was greedy of
money, and was considered the head of the French faction in court.
Carvajal is next on the list, and displays the English propensities
which were natural to him, for he belonged to the house of Lancaster.
Indeed, his policy was entirely pro-English and he was in collusion with
Keene, the British ambassador. Wall, an Irishman, then flits across the
scene, and has with him two associates: Losada and Squillace, both
Italians. When Wall quarrelled with the Pope and the Inquisition, he
fell, and then another Grimaldi came to the fore; not a Biscayan, like
his namesake, but a Genoese. Squillace, apparently from the Italian
branch of the Borgias, was next in order, and then in rapid procession
came the Spaniards: Roda, de Alva, Aranda, Roda, Moniño, Campomáñez,
either as prime ministers or prominent in the government, and nearly all
of them under French influence. Finally, the generalissimo of the army
and the most popular man in Spain was an Irishman, Alexander O'Reilly.
The native Spaniards counted for little; even the king's bodyguard was
made up of Walloons.
O'Reilly was probably not in sympathy with the free-thinking politicians
who then ruled the nation, for the reason that he was born in Ireland
and had all his life been a soldier. Moreover, he was hated by the
Aranda faction and retained his post, at the head of the army, only
because the king thought that no one could shield the royal life as well
as O'Reilly. He was born in 1735, and when still a youth was
sub-lieutenant in the Irish Regiment serving in Spain. In 1757 he fought
under his countryman de Lacy in Austria, and then followed the
_fleur-de-lys_ in France. He so distinguished himself, that the Maréchal
de Broglie recommended him to the King of Spain. There he soon became
brigadier and restored the ancient prestige of the Spanish army. He was
made a commandant at Havana, and rebuilt its fortifications, and from
there went to Louisiana to secure it to the Spanish crown. His only
military failure was in Algiers, but that was not due to any lack of
wisdom in his plans, but because his fleet did not arrive at the time
appointed. Even then, there was no one so highly esteemed as O'Reilly,
and when he died at an advanced age in 1794, the people all declared
that the disasters which fell on the nation would have been averted if
he had lived. He is credited with possessing besides his military ardor
a sweet and insinuating disposition which may explain how he could
easily win over the mob which so terrified King Charles at Madrid.
Meantime, the sinister Choiseul in France had all the ministers of Spain
in his grip, and he then determined to capture the king. He first made
him a present of what up to that time, had been the special pride of
France; the precedence of its ambassadors in public functions over those
of all other countries, the German Empire excepted. Charles naturally
took the gift, but apparently failed to fathom its significance. The
next move was to get rid of the court confessor; and his majesty was
given a confidential letter from Pombal of Portugal accusing Father
Ravago of having fomented the insurrection of the Indians of Paraguay,
against the Spanish troops at the time of the transfer of that
territory. The plot failed, however, for Charles knew Ravago too well,
and then something more drastic was resorted to. Squillace was at that
time in power and under him occurred the historic riot which, in the
course of time, assumed such dimensions in the king's imagination, that
it was one of the three or four things, besides his "royal secret,"
which he urged on the Pope as a reason for suppressing the Society.
The story of the riot is as follows: Squillace was very energetic in
developing the material resources of the kingdom, but always with an eye
to his personal and pecuniary profit. He promoted public works;
established monopolies even in food stuffs; loaded the people with
taxes; and being intensely anti-clerical, was very active in curtailing
ecclesiastical privileges. The people and clergy meekly submitted, but
something happened which brought Squillace's career to an end; though it
had much more serious consequences than that. It scarcely seems
credible, but the incident became one of the serious events of the time.
Though none suspected it, the whole thing had been deliberately
planned, and was the initial step in the plot to expel the Jesuits from
Spain. Squillace objected or pretended to object to the kind of dress
especially affected by the people of Madrid: a slouched sombrero and an
all-enveloping cloak; and he gave orders to change it. Naturally, this
exasperated the people, for although they had patiently submitted to the
imposition of taxes; the creation of oppressive monopolies; the
curtailment of ancient rights and privileges, etc., the audacity of a
foreigner interfering with the cut of their garments brought about a
popular upheaval. On March 26, 1766, the mob stormed the residence of
Squillace, and he ignominiously took to flight. All night long, the
excited crowds swarmed through the streets shouting, "Down with
Squillace." On the following morning, they surrounded the palace of the
king himself and he, in alarm, called for O'Reilly to quell the
disturbance. When it was represented to his majesty that it might entail
bloodshed, he deprecated that and hurriedly left Madrid. Had he shown
himself to the people, they would have done him no harm, for reverence
for royalty was still deep in the popular heart, and the age of royal
assassinations had not yet come. But the king was not a hero, and he
thrust his subaltern into what he fancied was a post of danger.
Thereupon, unarmed and unattended, O'Reilly faced the excited mob.
Delighted by his trust in them, they greeted him with cheers, but
demanded a redress of their grievances. Unfortunately, while he was
keeping them in good humor, the Walloons, who were guarding another gate
of the palace, got into an altercation with some of the rioters. Hot
words were exchanged, shots were fired and several persons were killed.
The whole scene changed instantly, and the capital would have been
drenched in blood, and perhaps Charles would have been dethroned, had
not a number of Jesuits headed by the saintly Pignatelli, hurried
through the crowd and held the rioters in check. Finally, when a placard
was affixed to the palace walls, granting all their demands, the mob
dispersed, cheering for the Jesuits--a fatal cry for those whom it was
meant to honor. They were accused of provoking the riot; and, from that
moment, the king's hatred for the Society began. It was made more acute
by the consciousness of his own cowardice. Thus, a farce was to
introduce a tragedy. Ten years afterwards, the Duke of Alva, a
descendant of the old tyrant of the Netherlands, confessed that it was
he, who had planned the sombrero and cloak riot to discredit the Jesuits
(de Murr, "Journal," ix, 222).
Towards the end of January 1767, another episode in this curious history
presents itself. Like the affair of the riot it seems to be taken from a
novel, but unfortunately it is not so. Its setting is the principal
Jesuit residence at Madrid. The provincial and the community are at
dinner, when a lay-brother enters with a package of letters, which he
places before the provincial. It is not the usual way of delivering such
communications in the Society, but the story is told by de Ravignan in
"Clément XIII et Clément XIV" (I, 186), and he is quoting from Father
Casseda, who is described as "a Jesuit Father of eminence and worthy of
belief." The package was handed back to the brother, along with the keys
of the provincial's room, where it was left. Immediately afterwards, an
officer of the court arrived, searched the room and extracted one of the
letters, said to be from Father Ricci, the General of the Jesuits, who
among other things, declared that the king was an illegitimate son and
was to be superseded by his brother, Don Luis. That such a letter was
really written, is vouched for by several historians: Coxe, Ranke,
Schoell, Adam, Sismondi, Darras, and others; and it is generally
admitted to have been the work of Choiseul in France though he covered
up his tracks so adroitly that no documentary evidence can be adduced to
prove it against him. His intermediary was a certain Abbé Beliardy an
attaché of the French embassy in Madrid.
According to Carayon (XV Opp., 16-23) and Boero ("Pignatelli" Appendix)
there is a second scene in this melodrama. Two Fathers are leaving
Madrid for Rome. A sealed package is entrusted to them, purporting to be
from the papal ambassador in Spain. On the road they are held up and
searched; the package is opened, and a letter is found in it reflecting
on the king's legitimacy. Precisely at the same moment, the trick of the
refectory letter was being played in the Jesuit residence at Madrid, and
thus a connection was established. With this scrap of paper and the
"cloak and sombrero riot" at their disposal, the plotters concluded that
they had ample material to carry out their scheme, and the next chapter
shows Aranda, the prime minister, Roda, Moniño and Campomáñez meeting
frequently in an old abandoned mansion in the country. With them was a
number of boys, probably pages about the court, who were employed in
copying a pile of documents whose import they were too unsophisticated
to understand. Older amanuenses might have betrayed the secret.
The chain of evidence was finally completed, and these grave statesmen
then presented themselves before his majesty and, with evidence in hand,
proved to him the undoubted iniquity of the religious order which up to
that moment he had so implicitly trusted. He fell into the trap, and a
series of cabinet meetings ensued in which information previously
gathered or invented about every Jesuit in France was discussed. The
result was that on January 29, 1767 a proposal was drawn up by
Campomáñez and laid before his majesty to expel the Society from Spain,
and advising him, first, to impose absolute silence on all his subjects
with regard to the affair, to such an extent that no one should say or
publish anything either for or against the measure, without a special
permission of the government; secondly, to withhold all knowledge of the
affair, even from the controller of the press and his subordinates; and
finally to arrange that whatever action was taken, should proceed
directly from the president and ministers of the extraordinary council.
The advice was assented to by the king, and a decree was issued in
virtue of which silence was passed on 6,000 Spanish subjects who not
only had no trial but who were absolutely unaware that there was any
charge against them. They had been as a body irreproachable for two
hundred years, had reflected more glory, and won more territory for
Spain than had ever been gained by its armies. They were men of holy
lives, often of great distinction in every branch of learning; some of
them belonged to the noblest families of the realm; and yet they were
all to be thrown out in the world at a moment's notice, though not a
judge on the bench, not a priest or a bishop, not even the Pope had been
apprised of the cause of it, and, as we have seen, it was forbidden even
to speak of the act. A more outrageous abuse of authority could not
possibly be conceived.
It was arranged that on the coming second of April, 1767, a statement
should be made throughout Europe by which the world would be informed:
first, that for the necessary preservation of peace, and for other
equally just and necessary reasons (though the world is not to be told
what they are), the Jesuits are expelled from the king's dominions, and
all their goods confiscated; secondly, that the motive will forever
remain buried in the royal heart; thirdly, that all the other religious
congregations in Spain are most estimable and are not to be molested.
The decree was signed by Charles and countersigned by Aranda and then
sent out. The ambassador at Rome was ordered to hand it to the Pope and
withdraw without saying a word. The despatches to the civil and military
authorities in both worlds were enclosed in double envelopes and sealed
with three seals. On the inner cover appeared the ominous words, as from
a pirate addressing his crew: "Under pain of death this package is not
to be opened until April 2, 1767, at the setting sun." The letter read
as follows: "I invest you with all my authority and all my royal power
to descend immediately with arms on the Jesuit establishments in your
district; to seize the occupants and to lead them as prisoners to the
port indicated inside of 24 hours. At the moment of seizure, you will
seal the archives of the house and all private papers and permit no one
to carry anything but his prayer-book and the linen strictly necessary
for the voyage. If after your embarcation there is left behind a single
Jesuit either sick or dying in your department, you shall be punished
with death."
"I, the King."
The motive that prompted Charles to keep the secret of this amazing
proceeding "shut up in his royal heart" has been usually ascribed to his
intense resentment at the suspicion cast on his legitimacy, and his fear
that even the mention of it would lead people to conclude that there was
some foundation for the charge. Davila, quoted by Pollen in "The Month"
(August, 1902), finds another explanation.
"Charles III," he says, "had become an extravagant regalist, and was
convinced by his Voltairean ministers, mostly by Tanucci, whom he had
left in charge of his son at Naples, that in all things the Church
should be subject to the State. It was on that account that he kept the
reasons for the expulsion of the Jesuits 'buried in his royal heart.'
The sole cause of this act was his change of policy; a true reason of
state such as, on some occasions, covers grave acts of injustice--for it
must be always a grave injustice to charge a religious society with
having conspired against the fundamental institutions of a country, and
yet not be able to point out in any way the object and plan of so dark a
conspiracy. If such be the case," continues Davila, "it is easy to
understand why his majesty could not reveal this 'secret of his royal
heart' even to the Pope, or perhaps least of all to him, for it would be
a painful avowal that his Catholic Majesty was a yoke-fellow with the
Voltaireans of Europe whose avowed purpose was to destroy the Church."
Clement XIII was overwhelmed with grief when he read the king's decree
and wrote to him as follows: "Of all the blows I have received during
the nine unhappy years of my pontificate the worst is that of which your
majesty informs me in your last letter, telling me of your resolution to
expel from all your vast dominions the religious of the Society of
Jesus. So you too, do this, my son, _Tu quoque fili mi_. Our beloved
Charles III, the Catholic King, is the one who is to fill up the chalice
of our woe and to bring down to the grave our old age bathed in tears
and overwhelmed with grief. The very religious, the very pious King of
Spain, Charles III, is going to give the support of his arm, that
powerful arm which God has given him to increase his own honor and that
of God and the Church, to destroy to its very foundation, an order so
useful and so dear to the Church, an order which owes its origin and its
splendor to those saintly heroes whom God has deigned to choose in the
Spanish nation to extend His greater glory throughout the world. It is
you who are going to deprive your kingdom and your people of all the
help and all the spiritual blessings which the religious of that Society
have heaped on it by their preaching, their missions, their catechisms,
their spiritual exercises, the administration of the sacraments, the
education of youth in letters and piety, the worship of God, and the
honor of the Church.
"Ah! Sire! our soul cannot bear the thought of that awful ruin. And what
cuts us to the heart still deeper perhaps is to see the wise, just King
Charles III, that prince whose conscience was so delicate and whose
intentions were so right; who lest he might compromise his eternal
salvation, would never consent to have the meanest of his subjects
suffer the slightest injury in their private concerns without having
their case previously and legitimately tried and every condition of the
law complied with, is now vowing to total destruction, by depriving of
its honor, its country, its property, which was legitimately acquired,
and its establishments, which were rightfully owned, that whole body of
religious who were dedicated to the service of God and the neighbor, and
all that without examining them, without hearing them, without
permitting them to defend themselves. Sire! this act of yours is grave;
and if perchance it is not sufficiently justified in the eyes of
Almighty God, the Sovereign Judge of all creatures, the approval of
those who have advised you in this matter will avail nothing, nor will
the plaudits of those whose principles have prompted you to do this. As
for us, plunged as we are in inexpressible grief, we avow to your
majesty that we fear and tremble for the salvation of your soul which is
so dear to us.
"Your Majesty tells us that you have been compelled to adopt these
measures by the duty of maintaining peace in your states,--implying we
presume that this trouble has been provoked by some individual belonging
to the Society of Jesus. But, even if it were true, Sire, why not punish
the guilty without making the innocent suffer? The body, the Institute,
the spirit of the Society of Jesus, we declare it in the presence of God
and of man, is absolutely innocent of all crime, and not only innocent,
but pious, useful, holy in its object, in its laws, in its maxims. It
matters not that its enemies have endeavored to prove the contrary; all
calm and impartial minds will abhor such accusers as discredited liars
who contradict themselves in whatever they say. You may tell me that it
is now an accomplished fact; that the royal edict has been promulgated
and you may ask what will the world say if I retract? Should you not
rather ask, Sire, what will God say? Let me tell you what the world will
say. It will say what it said of Assuerus when he revoked his edict to
butcher the Hebrews. It accorded him the eternal praise of being a just
king who knew how to conquer himself. Ah! Sire, what a chance to win a
like glory for yourself. We offer to your majesty the supplications not
only of your royal spouse, who from heaven recalls to you the love she
had for the Society of Jesus, but much more so, to the Sacred Spouse of
Jesus Christ, the Holy Church, which cannot contemplate, without
weeping, the total and imminent extinction of the Society of Jesus,
which until this very hour has rendered to her such great assistance and
such signal services. Permit, then, that this matter be regularly
discussed; let justice and truth be allowed to act, and they will
scatter the clouds that have arisen from prejudice and suspicion. Listen
to the counsels of those who are doctors in Israel; the bishops, the
religious, in a cause that involves the interests of the State, the
honor of the Church, the salvation of souls, your own conscience and
your eternal salvation."
How Charles could resist this appeal, which is among the most admirable
and eloquent state papers ever given to the world, is incomprehensible.
But he did. He merely replied to the Pope: "To spare the world a great
scandal, I shall ever preserve as a secret in my heart the abominable
plot which has necessitated this rigor. Your Holiness ought to believe
my word, the safety of my life exacts of me a profound silence."
Not satisfied with writing to the king himself, the Pope also pleaded
with the greatest prelate in the realm, the Archbishop of Tarragona as
follows: "What has come over you? How does it happen that, in an
instant, the Society of Jesus has departed so far from the rules of its
pious Institute, that our dear Son in Jesus Christ, Charles III, the
Catholic King, can consider himself authorized to expel from his realm
all the Regular Clerks of the Society? This is a mystery we cannot
explain; only a year ago, the numberless letters addressed to us by the
Spanish episcopacy afforded us some consolation in the deep grief that
affected us when these same religious were expelled from France. Those
letters informed us that the Fathers in your country gave an example of
every virtue, and that the bishops and their dioceses received the most
powerful support by their pious and useful labours. And now, behold, in
an instant, there come dreadful charges against them and we are asked to
believe that all these Fathers or almost all have committed some
terrible crime; nay the king himself, so well known for his equity, is
so convinced of it, that he feels obliged to treat the members of that
Institute with a rigor hitherto unheard of."
Addressing himself personally to the king's confessor he says: "We write
to you, my dear son, that you may lay this before the prince who has
taken you for his guide, and we charge you to speak in our name and in
virtue of the obligations which the duty of your office imposes, and the
authority it bestows on you. As for us, we do not refuse to employ
measures of the severest and most rigorous justice against those members
of the Society of Jesus who have incurred the just anger of the king,
and to employ all our power to destroy and to root out the thorns and
briars which may have sprung up in a soil hitherto so pure and fertile.
As for you, it is part of your sacred ministry to consider with fear and
trembling as you kneel at the feet of the image of Jesus Christ, to
compel the king to consider the incalculable ruin that religion will
suffer, especially in pagan lands, if the numberless Christian missions
which are now so flourishing, are abandoned and left without pastors."
Evidently the confessor could do nothing with his royal penitent.
This mad act of Charles did not please some of his friends in France.
Thus, on May 4, 1767, D'Alembert wrote to Voltaire: "What do you think
of the edict of Charles III, who expels the Jesuits so abruptly?
Persuaded as I am that he had good and sufficient reason, do you not
think he ought to have made them known and not to 'shut them up in his
royal heart?' Do you not think he ought to have allowed the Jesuits to
justify themselves, especially as every one is sure they could not? Do
you not think, moreover, that it would be very unjust to make them all
die of starvation, if a single lay-brother who perhaps is cutting
cabbage in the kitchen should say a word, one way or the other in their
favor? And what do you think of the compliments which the King of Spain
addresses to the other monks and priests, and curés and sacristans of
his realm, who are not in my opinion less dangerous than the Jesuits,
except that they are more stupid and vile? Finally, does it not seem to
you that he could act with more common sense in carrying out what after
all, is a reasonable measure?"
In spite of the royal order enjoining silence on his subjects high and
low, there was a great deal of feeling manifested at the outrage. Roda,
an agent of the ministry at Madrid, tried to conceal it and wrote to the
Spanish Embassy at Rome on April 15, 1767: "There is not much agitation
here. Some rich people, some women and other simpletons are very much
excited about it, and are writing a great deal of their affection for
the Jesuits, but that is due to their blindness. You would be astounded
to find how numerous they are. But papers discovered in the archives and
libraries, garrets and cellars, furnish sufficient matter to justify the
act. They reveal more than people here suspect." And yet not one of
these incriminating documents "found in archives and libraries and
garrets and cellars" was ever produced.
Among "the simpletons" who denounced the act was the Bishop of Cuenca,
Isidore de Carvajal, who told the king to his face, what he thought of
the whole business. The Archbishop of Tarragona did the same, but they
both incurred the royal displeasure. The Bishop of Terruel published a
pamphlet "The Truth unveiled to the King our Master" and he was
immediately confined in a Franciscan convent, while his Vicar-general
and chancellor were thrown into jail. The Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal
de Córdova, wrote to the Pope and the contents of his letters were known
in Spain, for Roda, the individual above referred to, hastened to tell
the Spanish ambassador on May 12, 1767: "In spite of all their tricks,
the Archbishop of Toledo and his vicar-general have written a thousand
stupid things to the Pope about this affair. We would not be a bit
surprised if the Bishop of Cuenca, Coria, Cuidad Rodrigo, Terruel and
some others have done the same thing, but we are not sure." A year and a
half after the blow was struck something happened which again threw the
timid Charles into a panic about his royal life. According to custom, he
presented himself on November 4, 1768, on the balcony of his palace to
receive the homage of his people, and to grant them some public favor
out of his munificence. To the stupefaction of both king and court, one
universal cry arose from the vast multitude. "Send us back the Jesuits!"
Charles withdrew in alarm and immediately investigations began with the
result that he drove out of the kingdom the Cardinal Archbishop of
Toledo and his vicar on the charge that they had prompted the demand of
the people (Coxe, "Spain under the Bourbons," v, 25).
With regard to the supposed letter of Father Ricci which brought on this
disaster, it may be of use to refer here to what was told thirty years
after these events, in a work called "Du rétablissement des Jésuites et
de l' éducation publique" (Emmerick, Lambert, Rouen). The author says:
"It is proper to add an interesting item to the story of the means
employed to destroy the Society of Jesus in the mind of Charles III.
Besides the pretended letter of Father Ricci, there were other
supposititious documents, and among these lying papers was a letter in
the handwriting of an Italian Jesuit which had been perfectly imitated.
It contained outrageous denunciations of the Spanish government. When
Clement XIII insisted on having some proof to throw light on the
allegations, this letter was sent to him. Among those who were
commissioned to examine it, was a simple prelate, who afterwards became
Pius VI. Glancing at the missive he remarked that the paper was of
Spanish manufacture, and he wondered why an Italian should send to
Spain for writing material. Looking at it closer and holding it up to
the light he saw that the water-mark gave not only the name of a Spanish
paper-factory, but also the date on which it was turned out. Now it
happened that this date was two years after the letter was supposed
to have been written. The imposture was manifest, but the blow had
already been struck. Charles III was living at the time, yet he was
not man enough to acknowledge and repair the wrong he had done."
(Crétineau-Joly, v, 241).
On the day appointed by the king, April 2, 1767, every ship selected to
carry out the edict was in the harbor assigned to it, in every part of
the Spanish world, where there happened to be a Jesuit establishment.
The night before at sundown the captain had opened the letter which had
the threat on its envelope: "Your life is forfeited if you anticipate
the day or the hour." He obeyed his instructions; and early in the
morning the Fathers in the college of Salamanca, Saragossa, Madrid,
Barcelona and all the great cities, as well as in every town where the
Jesuits had any kind of an establishment, heard the tramp of armed men
entering the halls. The members of the household were ejected from their
rooms, seals were put on the doors, and the community marched down like
convicts going to jail. Old men and young, the sick and even the dying,
all had to go to the nearest point of embarcation. Not a syllable were
they allowed to utter as they tramped along, and no one could speak in
their defence without being guilty of high treason. When they reached
the ships, they were herded on board like cattle and despatched to
Civita Vecchia, to be flung on the shores of the States of the Pope,
whose permission had not even been asked; nor had any notice been given
him. It was a magnificent stroke of organized work, and incidentally
very profitable to the government, for at one and the same moment it
came into possession of 158 Jesuit houses, all of considerable value as
real estate and some of them magnificent in their equipment. How much
was added to the Spanish treasury on that eventful morning, we have no
means of computing.
There was one difficulty in the proceedings, however. The supply of
ships was insufficient, for 2,643 men had to be simultaneously cared
for; but their comfort did not interfere with the progress of the
movement. "They were piled on top of each other on the decks or in the
fetid holds," says Sismondi, "as if they were criminals." It was worse
than the African slave-trade. Saint-Priest thinks "it was a trifle
barbarous, but the precipitation was unavoidable." It was indeed a
trifle barbarous and the precipitation was not unavoidable.
In rounding up the victims, the king and the ministers were naturally
anxious about the effect it might have upon many of the best Spanish
families who had sons in the Order; notably the two Pignatellis, who
were of princely lineage. Inducements were held out to both of them to
abandon the Society, but the offer was spurned with contempt. Indeed
very few even of the novices failed in this sore trial. As for the
Pignatellis they were the angels of this exodus, particularly Joseph,
whose exalted virtue is now being considered in Rome in view of his
beatification. He was at Saragossa when the royal order arrived, and
though suffering with hemorrhages, he started out afoot on the weary
journey to Tarragona, and from there to Salu, nine miles further on,
where nineteen brigantines were assembled to receive this first batch of
600 outcasts. He was so feeble that he had to be carried on board the
ship.
From there, they set sail for Civita Vecchia, where they arrived on May
7, but were not allowed to land. Even the generally fair Schoell
describes the Pope's action in this instance as "characterized by the
greatest inhumanity." On the contrary, it would have been an act of the
greatest inhumanity to receive them. There were some thousands of
Portuguese Jesuits there already, who had been flung on the shore
unannounced, and in that impoverished region there was no means of
providing them with food or medicine or even clothes and beds. To have
admitted this new detachment of 600 who were merely the forerunners of
4,500 more, and who, in turn were to be followed by all the Jesuits whom
Tanucci would drive out of the Neapolitan Kingdom, and those whom
Choiseul would hasten to gather up in France, the result would have been
that ten or fifteen thousand Jesuits without money or food or clothing,
some of them old and decrepit and ill, would have to be cared for and
the native population in consequence would be subjected to a burden that
would have been impossible to bear. It was "inhuman" no doubt, but the
inhumanity must be ascribed to Charles III who had plundered these
victims, and not to Clement XIII who would have died for them. His first
duty was to his own people and his next was to proclaim to the world and
to all posterity, the grossness of the insult as well as the injustice
inflicted on the Vicar of Christ by the Most Catholic King, Charles III.
Nor were the "unhappy wretches," as Böhmer-Monod call them, "received by
cannon shot, at the demand of their own General, who had trouble enough
with the Portuguese already on his hands;" (p. 274) nor did the Jesuits,
as Saint-Priest adds: "vent their rage against Ricci and blame his harsh
administration, as the cause of all their woes." Ricci was begging for
bread to feed his Portuguese sons at that time, and he certainly would
not have received those from Spain with a cannon shot; nor would the
Jesuits have vented their rage against him and blamed his harsh
administration, especially as his administration was the very reverse of
harsh; and, finally, Jesuits were not accustomed to vent their rage
against their superior.
Sismondi (Hist. des Français, xxix, 372) says that "many of them
perished on board ship, and Schoell describes them as lying on top of
one another on deck for weeks, under the scorching rays of the sun or
down in the fetid hold." The filthy ships finally turned their prows
towards Corsica where arrangements had been made for them to discharge
their human cargo. It took four days to reach that island, but Paoli was
just then fighting for the independence of his country, and French ships
which were aiding Genoa occupied the principal ports. At first the
exiles remained in their ships, but, later, they were allowed to go
ashore during the day. Meantime, a vessel had been despatched to Spain
for instructions and when it returned on July 8, the "criminals" were
ordered to go to Ajaccio, Algoila or Calvi. They reached Ajaccio on July
24, and as they were then in a state of semi-starvation, Father
Pignatelli went straight to the insurgent camp, though at every step he
risked being shot or seized and hanged, but he did not care, he would
appeal to Paoli's humanity. He was well received, help was sent to the
sufferers, and they were given liberty to go where they chose on the
island.
They remained there a month and were then sent to the town of
Saint-Boniface, where they bivouacked or lived in sheds until the 8th of
December, when they were ordered to Genoa. This time the number of
brigantines in which they embarked had been reduced from thirteen to
five, though the number of the victims had considerably increased; but
that mattered little; they finally reached the mainland but were not
permitted to go ashore. Meantime, other Jesuits had arrived and they
now numbered 2,000 or 2,400. After a short delay in the harbor, they
made their way separately or in groups to different cities in the Papal
States, chiefly to Bologna and Ferrara.
Their ejection from the Two Sicilies was a foregone conclusion, for it
was ruled by the terrible Bernardo Tanucci, whom Charles III on his
accession to the throne of Spain had left as regent during the minority
of Ferdinand IV. Tanucci was a lawyer who began his career in a most
illegal fashion by exciting riots in Pisa against his rival Grandi. They
had quarrelled about the discovery of the Pandects of Justinian. He next
drew the attention of Charles by assailing the right of asylum for
criminals, which he maintained was in contravention of all law human and
divine. "He attacked the prerogatives of the Court of Rome and of the
nobles of Naples, with more fury than prudence," says de Angelis
(Biographie universelle). Subsequently he showed himself the enemy of
the Church in every possible way, and, meantime, so neglected to provide
for the security of the State that during the war of the Pragmatic
Sanction, King Charles had to sign an act of neutrality at the mouth of
the cannons of a British man-of-war. His political incapacity continued
to injure the country during the reign of Ferdinand until it was no
longer reckoned among the military powers of Europe. Meantime, he kept
the young king in ignorance of everything so as to maintain himself in
power. He robbed the courts of justice of their power; drew up the
Caroline Code which was never published; ruined the finances of the
country, as well as its industry and agriculture, and allowed men of the
greatest ability and learning to die in penury. In brief, says his
biographer, "Tanucci's reputation both before and after his death is a
mystery. It is probably due to his prominence as a bitter enemy of the
Holy See. He seized Beneventum and Pontecorvo which belonged to the
Patrimony of Peter; he suppressed a great number of convents,
distributed abbeys to his followers, fomented dissensions against the
bishops and, of course, persecuted the Jesuits."
When Charles III of Spain expelled the Society from Spain everyone knew
what was going to happen in Sicily, and news was eagerly expected from
the peninsula. While they were waiting, an eruption of Vesuvius took
place, which the excitable Italians regarded as a sign of God's wrath.
Penitential pilgrimages were organized to avert the danger and angry
murmurs were heard against the government. To quell the tumult, Tanucci
sent out word that the Jesuits would be undisturbed, though ships were
at that time on their way to carry off the victims. The young king's
signature to the decree had, however, to be procured, but he angrily
refused to give it until the official confessor, Latelle, the retired
Bishop of Avellino entreated him to yield, saying that he himself would
answer for it on the Day of Judgment. The prelate did not know that he
himself was to die at the end of the month. The expulsion took place in
the usual dramatic fashion. At midnight of November 3, 1767, squads of
soldiers descended on every Jesuit establishment in the land. The doors
were smashed in; the furniture shattered; all the papers seized, both
official and personal, and then surrounded by platoons of soldiers, the
Fathers were led like criminals through the streets to the nearest beach
with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The whole affair was
managed with such lightning-like rapidity, that though the prisoners had
been taken from their houses at midnight, they were out at sea before
dawn and were heading for Ferrara.
At Parma another Spanish prince ruled. He was still a child, however,
but his minister was du Fillot, a statesman of the school of Tanucci and
Choiseul. The expulsion took place simultaneously on the night of
February 7, 1768 at Piacenza, Parma, San Domino and Busseto. In the
first city, all the available vehicles of the place had been
requisitioned. At seven o'clock at night a dozen soldiers entered the
house. Later, an officer, two adjutants and a magistrate appeared, read
the decree, the fourth article of which declared that any one not a
priest or professor who would take off the habit of the society would be
received among the faithful subjects of his royal highness. The fifth
announced that the innate clemency of his highness accorded an annual
pension of sixty _scudi_ to the professed and forty to the brothers who
were his subjects. The scholastics were to get nothing. In a quarter of
an hour they were hurried to the citadel where carriages and carts were
waiting and were driven all night at top speed to Parma, where they
arrived at day break. Passing through the city they caught up with those
who had been expelled from the other places. Half an hour's rest and a
bite to eat were allowed and then the journey was continued on to Reggio
and Bologna. Not to be outdone in zeal for the king, the Knights of
Malta drove them from the island on April 22, 1768. The expulsion at
Parma was disastrous not only to the Jesuits but to the Pope. Parma was
his fief, and he protested against the action of the duke. It was
precisely what the plotters were waiting for. France immediately seized
the Comtat Venaissin, and Naples took possession of Beneventum, both of
which belonged to the Patrimony of St. Peter. Of course, the Jesuits
were immediately expelled and their property confiscated.
The expulsion in Spanish America meant the seizure of at least 158
establishments belonging to the Jesuits in Mexico, New Granada, Ecuador,
Peru and Chili. It involved the flinging out into the world of 2,943
Jesuits, some of them old and infirm and absolutely unable to earn their
living. Of those who embarked at Valparaiso sixty were drowned in the
wreck of the ship "Our Lady of the Hermitage." Carayon gives some
interesting diaries of the journeys of these exiles (Doc. inédits, xvi),
while Hubert Bancroft in his monumental work of thirty-nine volumes
about the Pacific Coast furnishes abundant and valuable information
about the exodus from the missions of Mexico. The victims underwent the
same sufferings as their Portuguese brethren in the long journeys over
mountains and through the primeval forests and in the long, horrible
crossing of the ocean to their native land, which they were thought
unworthy to enter.