MONACHISM--The superiority of the monastic over the secular
clergy--Reasons for it--Orders of monks--The Carthusians--Their
advancement in agriculture and love of the fine arts--Their seclusion and
mode of living--Only learned men admitted to their order--Their form of
salutation--Curious adventure of a lady found in the cell of a
Carthusian--The Hieronimites--The Mendicant orders--"Pious works"--The
_Questacion_--Decline of Spain accounted for--Vows of chastity, poverty,
and obedience--How vow of poverty eluded--_La honesta_--Vicar-general of
the Franciscan orders--His immense income--Religious orders have produced
many great and good men--Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros--His celebrated
Bible--Corruption of monastic orders--Insubordination of friars to the
bishops--The Jesuits--Deplorable reputation of their literature--Pascal,
Escobar, Sanchez, and Mariana--Suppression of the Jesuits by Charles
III.--Their subsequent expulsion by Espartero under Isabella
II.--Nunneries, though spared on suppression of religious houses, utterly
useless--The Pope's attempt to perpetuate them by _concordat_--The lives
of the nuns described--Their means of subsistence is now
precarious--Convent de las Huelgas.
All the power, all the influence, and all the riches of the secular
clergy, such as we have described them in the preceding chapter, would
not have been sufficient completely to enslave the Spanish nation under
the baneful dominion of Rome, if its unwearied ambition for command and
power had not found out an instrument, much more efficacious, in the
institution of Monachism, the establishment of which propagated itself on
the Spanish soil with more rapidity and in greater numbers than in any
other Catholic nation.
The superiority of the monastic clergy in comparison with the secular, as
to popularity and numbers, was owing to many causes. In the first place,
to become one of the clergy, two things were necessary, and neither of
these were within the reach of the lower classes of the people, viz.,
theological attainments and a _congrua_, which latter word comprehended
the property, income, or pension, indispensable to ensure to the aspirant
a proper and competent maintenance. In many rich families there was,
besides the entail (_el mayorazgo_) pertaining exclusively to the eldest
son, another inheritable portion--the mortmain (_main-morte_), as
inalienable as the entailed estates themselves, and designed for that
individual of the family who might desire to adopt the ecclesiastic
state. These inheritable provisions were called _capellanias_, and
generally the brother, or cousin, or nephew, to whom this right,
separated from the chief inheritance, belonged, took holy orders, but
might or might not practically follow the vocation, by the exercise of
those functions, the discharge of those duties, and submission to those
privations, imposed on one who takes upon himself so high and responsible
a calling. Although there was much laxity in the observance of those
requirements, there were not wanting bishops who insisted on their most
rigorous execution; so that in many dioceses there was great difficulty
in gaining admission to the ranks of the clergy. But none of those
obstacles presented themselves in seeking admission to the monasteries,
or convents. Their doors were constantly open to the poorest and the
most ignorant. In their interior organization there was a sufficient
variety of employment for every class of human beings; the mason, the
carpenter, the simple journeyman, possessed of no other instruments than
his muscular force, was eligible to become a useful member of the holy
community; and, as in the act of taking upon him the habit of the order,
he had guaranteed to him a subsistence and all the conveniences of life,
and at the same time that the habit itself opened to him the doors of
great houses and palaces and placed him on a level with the most elevated
circles, so also these two powerful allurements attracted innumerable
persons to the cloisters, and multiplied in a most surprising degree the
numerical force of the monastic orders.
These orders divided themselves into two great ramifications, the monks
and the friars, and composed what may be called the aristocracy and the
democracy of monachism. The monks were distinguished from the friars by
their immense wealth, by the possessions of their monasteries, which were
generally situated out of, and at a great distance from, towns, by the
dignity of their manners, and by certain peculiarities in their internal
government, over which there reigned a certain spirit of retirement and
love of seclusion, that separated them from worldly things and the
interests and passions of profane society.
The principal orders of monks established in Spain were the Benedictine,
the Bernardine, the Carthusian, and the Hieronimites. The last two were
superior to all the rest in number, importance, and wealth, and it is
only respecting them that we shall treat in this chapter.
The Carthusians were opulent landowners; they lived in the midst of their
possessions, and, to a considerable extent, cultivated their own lands.
In these operations they rendered great service to agriculture; they
practised the science with great care and knowledge; they brought their
productions to great perfection. The breed of the Carthusian horses of
Xeres was notoriously the best in Europe. In most of the Carthusian
establishments they had schools in which education was given gratuitously
to the children of their tenantry, and to those of the poor of the
neighbouring towns. Under this point of view, it is certain that the
monasteries of the Carthusians contributed greatly to the extension and
improvement of agriculture and education in Spain. They were also
notable for the stimulus which they gave to the fine arts; for their
churches and monasteries were true museums of sculpture, painting, and
architecture. In that of Granada, all travellers admire the beautiful
paintings of its cloisters and refectory, the magnificent marbles of its
chapels and sacristy, and the good taste and richness of the ornaments
which cover all parts of the edifice.
The Carthusians observed, as fundamental rules of their order, silence
and seclusion. They had but few acts which they performed in common, and
these only on holidays. Each Carthusian lived in his cell, but each cell
was a house, full of conveniences, with an extensive garden, in which
they cultivated with the greatest care fruits and vegetables of the most
delicious kinds. They were forbidden to give presents or even alms; but
they allowed visitors to take from their gardens whatever they pleased.
In Granada there was a famous Father Reyes who devoted himself to the
cultivation of flowers, and from his garden all the elegant ladies of the
city were furnished with the choicest descriptions. Their male friends
were sent to gather them, nor was the reverend father altogether ignorant
of the fair uses to which they were about to be applied.
The Carthusian dined alone in his cell, into which his food was conveyed
by means of a _torno_, a kind of revolving cylindrical cupboard with
shelves, into which were put the numerous and abundant dishes composing
the dinner. The _torno_ being then spun round on its axis, the shelves
were unloaded of their sumptuous contents by the Carthusian himself.
As these monks were prohibited the use of meat, they kept up in their
monasteries a great stock of live fish and a number of turtles; these
latter being a delicacy they greatly prized. The place in which they
killed these turtles was called the _Galapagar_. They fed them in a
curious manner: at night there was thrown for them, into a large dry
tank, the carcase of a cow or a calf; and such was the voracity of the
amphibious animals, that, in the morning, nothing remained of these
carcases but the bones.
The dinner of the Carthusian generally consisted of eight or nine
distinct dishes, and their friends were accustomed to pay their visits
about the hour of dinner; for, as invitations were not allowed, they were
dispensed with. The wines they grew were always those of the best
quality, and there were no persons in all Spain who fared so sumptuously
and deliciously as did those devoted recluses.
None but presbyters were admitted to the Carthusian order, and even these
were generally only such as had exercised some dignity in cathedral or
collegiate churches; hence nearly all of them were learned men--men of
good morals and great experience in the affairs of the world. Sometimes
a military man of good attainments, a person high in the ministerial
office, or a member of the higher courts of justice, sought admission
within their walls; and although such acquisition was considered as very
useful and very honourable, they were admitted only after having for some
years belonged to the secular clergy and taken holy orders.
In a kind of life so extraordinary, so distinct, and so marked among all
human associations, they were unable to form relations of friendship,
even among individuals of the same community. They, therefore, seldom
saw and scarcely knew each other. Their salutation, when they met, was
brief but expressive; the senior began with _Morir hemos_, {52a} and the
junior answered, _Ya_, _lo sabemos_. {52b} Beyond this the conversation
did not extend. Once a-year the chapter met together to decide on the
urgent and important matters of business of their society; and once in
three years to elect a prior and a _procurator_, who were the only two
persons authorised to treat with the world without, and direct the
material interests of the establishment.
There is recorded of one of those Carthusian monasteries a narrative of a
circumstance which at first was attempted to be concealed by all possible
means, but at last came to be made known and fully authenticated. The
case is shortly told. There was in that monastery a monk, who, for many
years prior to his entering on a monastic life, had encouraged a vehement
passion for one of the principal ladies of the city. The flame was
mutual; but the lovers finding great obstacles in the way of their union,
agreed to wait, in the hope that time might afford a favourable
opportunity of realising their wishes. The father of the lady offered
her hand to a gentleman very high in the hierarchy. She, not having
sufficient courage to resist the parental authority, obeyed the mandate,
thus sacrificing herself on the altar of filial obedience. The lover
gave himself up a victim of despair, abandoned the world, and retired to
the monastery. A few months after the marriage the husband died. The
lady's affection revived; the flame was kindled anew in her heart; and
she formed the resolution of uniting herself with the object of her first
love, and of overcoming all obstacles which stood in the way of her
determination. In male attire she wandered long in the neighbourhood of
the monastery, informing herself most minutely of its internal position,
and reflecting on the means of introducing herself to the cell of her
beloved Carthusian. The stream of water which served to irrigate the
gardens of the monastery, entered a wall by a large semicircular arch or
opening near the garden itself. The lady, prodigal in the expenditure of
money, and in the employment of faithful and trustworthy agents, procured
a raft to be constructed, by means of which, all other things being
prepared, she ventured through the opening, and was carried down the
stream to the desired spot. The secret was kept. No one had the least
suspicion of this extraordinary voyage, nor was it discovered until many
years afterwards, when the monks observing that this particular one of
their number had not for a length of time been present at any of the
devotional exercises prescribed by the rules of their order, were
desirous of learning the cause of his absence. They entered his cell,
and found to their astonishment, his dead body, a lady, and four
children! The civil power was, at first, about to investigate the
affair, but, in order to avert the scandal that would result from such a
proceeding, all inquiry was suspended, and the fate of that unhappy woman
and her family was never known. The whole account seems romantic. The
facts appear incredible, but they have long been established on
unquestionable authority.
Like the Carthusians, the Hieronimites had their establishments far from
towns and cities. They were very wealthy, but did not cultivate their
own lands; they let them out on hire, and showed great consideration to
their tenants. These fathers devoted themselves, almost entirely, to
teaching, to singing, and to sacred music. From their halls have been
sent forth to the world many vocalists, organists, and composers, of
eminence. When Philip II. built the Escurial, he confided that sumptuous
edifice to the Hieronimites; and so high a position did the prior hold in
the hierarchy and in the state, that he was privileged to enter, at all
times, into the king's apartments without asking leave to do so, and his
coachman and other servants were permitted to wear the royal livery.
General opinion accuses these reverend fathers of too great a propensity
to indulge in gastronomy, and it is related of them that, in prescribing
for themselves, as a rule for their supper rations, one dozen of
mincemeat-balls (_abondigas_), they afterwards, by a supplementary rule,
extended that number to thirteen, from which circumstance the number
thirteen is generally called, in Spain, "_the friars' dozen_."
The inferior section of Monachism, viz., that of the Friars, is composed
of many orders, among which the most important and numerous were the
following: _Mercenarios_, or Friars of Mercy (_de la Merced_), founded
with the exclusive object of ransoming Christian captives who groaned in
the dungeons of the Barbary States; the _Carmelites_,--_calzados_,
wearing shoes and stockings, and _descalzos_, without either; the
_Augustines_, _calzados_ and _descalzos_; the _Preachers_, or
_Dominicans_; the Friars of _St John of God_, whose duty was to serve
sick persons in the hospitals attached to their convents; and above all
the large family of _St Francis_, divided into four great ramifications,
viz., the _Franciscan_ properly speaking; the _Fathers of Observance_;
the _Fathers of St Diego_; and the _Capuchins_. All these orders had
convents in the principal towns of the Peninsula, and its colonies. In
some cities,--as, for example, Madrid, Seville, and Toledo,--there were
as many as twenty or thirty of these establishments, many of which
contained from one hundred to one hundred and fifty inmates; but the
average may be stated, with reason, at thirty for each convent. The
_calzados_ orders were at liberty to hold property; but the _descalzos_,
in whose number are to be reckoned all the family of Franciscans, were
strictly forbidden to do so; and hence they lived, exclusively, on the
alms of the faithful.
These alms were of various kinds. Those called pious works (_obras
pias_), consisted of certain rents, or pensions, granted to a convent on
condition that certain masses should be said therein, during the year,
for the soul of the grantor. Rich men who had acquired a fortune by
unfair means, or through an extortionate usury, were induced to expect
forgiveness of their sins, if they left large sums of money to the
fathers of the convent the saint of which they were accustomed to worship
or venerate, and to whom they usually paid their devotions. Some of
those benefactors, most generously, defrayed the expenses of a religious
festival, from which resulted a considerable profit to the convent in
which that festival was celebrated. Others repaired conventual edifices
at their own expense, or enlarged them by making extensive wings or other
additions, in which there was always a profuse display of marble, bronze,
and other precious materials. But the principal source of the revenue of
the mendicant orders was that called the _questacion_. {57} Every
morning each convent poured out from its gates a certain number of lay
brothers (_legos_), each being furnished with a wallet over his shoulder;
and it was the duty of each to traverse the whole town, begging alms for
his respective convent. These pious beggars visited, one by one, the
shops of the trades-people, and places most frequented, calling at the
houses of the poor as well as at those of the rich. The alms which they
thus received were chiefly in bread, meat, eggs, and every description of
eatables, besides small copper coins generally contributed by the poor,
and which were not the least important parts of these gatherings. In
this way thousands of robust, able-bodied men, not only maintained
themselves, but were enabled to live in the lap of luxury, for many
years, without contributing, on their part, one farthing to the public
treasury, but on the contrary diminishing, immensely, the population and
the number of those engaged in cultivating the soil and in other useful
labour. Was not this alone sufficient to explain the deplorable state of
the economy of the Spanish Peninsula, the paucity of its inhabitants, the
backwardness of its agriculture, its want of capital, and the nakedness
and poverty of its fields and its towns? Indolence being, so to speak,
thus sanctified, what stimulus could there be for productive labour? Why
should men have fatigued themselves by arduous employments, when the
convent offered them not only food, raiment, and lodging, but even a
respectable position in society, without further trouble than that of
passing a few hours in the choir of the church, to confess penitents,
assist now and then at the bedside of a dying person, and to preach an
occasional sermon, for which they always received a decent payment?
In all the religious orders three vows were exacted, namely, those of
chastity, poverty, and obedience. Of the first we shall have some
remarks to make when we come to speak of celibacy in the ecclesiastical
state. That of poverty was eluded in a very simple manner; individuals
were held bound by that vow, but communities were entirely free to accept
and acquire property; and thus it was that the greater number of the
convents lived in opulence, and the friars enjoyed all the conveniences
of life. The friar delivered to the chief of his community all that came
to his hands, either as alms or by way of salary for the masses he had to
say and the sermons he preached.
Each order had, at its head, a superior chief, called the Vicar-general;
the chief functionary of each province was called the Provincial, and
that of each convent the Guardian in the Franciscan orders, and the Prior
in all the rest. These personages were exempt from the vow of poverty;
they had, tacitly, a dispensation for the use of money, under the
supposition that all they received or possessed would be by them laid out
for the good of their community. Every three years the provincial
visited all the convents in his jurisdiction, and it was the universal
custom, that in the act of finishing his visit, the prior of the visited
convent put into his hands a purse of gold. This contribution was called
_la honesta_. The vicar-general of the Franciscan orders, generally a
Spaniard, received another species of tribute, which put him on a level
with the most opulent men in Europe. Each convent of the three Orders in
all parts of the globe sent to him, weekly, the largest amount it had
received for any one mass said during that week. These orders had no
less than two hundred and seventy provinces, and in them twelve thousand
convents, {59a} from which may be conceived the immense sums of money
that came into his power. This personage enjoyed the honours of a
grandee of Spain, and was always in great favour with its sovereigns, on
whom he lavished money. Father Campany, who occupied this post during
the reign of Charles IV., was accustomed to send to the queen, Mary
Louisa, yearly, large quantities of bricks made of fine chocolate, and
studded all over, within and without, with solid gold doubloons.
The last vicar-general of the order was the celebrated Father Fray Cirilo
de Alameda, now Archbishop of Burgos, well known for his attachment to
the cause of Don Carlos, during the civil war between that prince and
Queen Christina.
The vow of obedience was observed with the most rigorous exactness. The
chief of each convent was a despot to whose mandates it was not possible
to offer the least resistance. All his inferiors, except those ordained
to the priesthood, spoke to him only on their knees. The most tyrannical
precepts were obeyed with the greatest docility. It would often occur
that the guardian, or the prior, wishing to exercise influence in some
powerful family, commanded one of his friars to use all possible means of
gaining an introduction, so that the end might be accomplished. In this
way they became possessed of great power over the most important families
in the chief cities and towns of the kingdom; and from these families
they received large donations and handsome legacies.
The penal code of the convents provided for certain offences the
punishment of flagellation, imprisonment in a dungeon for indeterminate
periods, living on bread and water, and public confession of sins. The
mildest punishment consisted in being compelled to eat off the ground,
kneeling, at the hour of the refectory. The friar who by his conduct had
become incorrigible, and worthy of the severest punishment, was sent
away, for the remainder of his life, to one of the convents situated in
desert places.
All the religious orders of Spain have produced many men eminent for
science and virtue, and among these may be reckoned one of the greatest
and most distinguished statesmen that ever governed in that
country,--such was the Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, minister of
Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic sovereigns, and of Charles V. This
cardinal was the founder of the proud university of Alcala; he was the
conqueror of Oran, and the great reformer in all branches of the
administration and of the government.
The sacred sciences owe to him inexpressible benefits for his famous
Complutense Polyglot Bible, one of the most correct and splendid editions
of the sacred writings hitherto published. One of the few copies now
extant of that monument of piety and wisdom is to be found in the British
Museum. Such men, however, were, it must be admitted, extremely rare
exceptions, which do not weaken the force of our objections to the whole
system of monastic institutions.
The corruption of the monastic orders began during the earliest times of
the monarchy. In the time of Isabella the Catholic, the immorality of
the friars had arrived at such a height as to induce that eminent woman,
led by the counsels of the Cardinal Cisneros, to demand of Pope Alexander
VI. a bull permitting her to introduce a radical reform among the
religious orders in Spain. The Pope resisted, but, ultimately, was
obliged to cede to the Spanish court; and Isabella checked, for some
years, the disorders which brought so much scandal on the nation. The
fact is, that the friars formed a separate state, independent of the
government, and even of the bishops; they acknowledged no authority but
that of the Pope, and their communications with the court of Rome were as
frequent as they were private and mysterious. The bishops often claimed
the right to exercise their own authority over this part of the
ecclesiastical state, but always in vain; and although the Chamber of
Castille, which was the supreme tribunal, lent its support to those just
pretensions, that support was always disregarded by the pontifical court.
The friars never would submit themselves to the bishops, except to
receive holy orders from them; and whenever these were refused, although
it might be on strong and just grounds, the friar had recourse at once to
Rome, and returned from thence ordained.
We have not entered, in our list of religious orders, that of the
Jesuits, because these formed an entirely separate class, and the
greatest insult that could be committed against a Jesuit was to call him
a friar. The Spanish Jesuits, like those throughout all Europe, were, in
their exterior conduct, modest and decorous. They mixed but little with
the lower classes of society, and their chief occupation was to direct
the consciences of eminent persons, and particularly those of kings,
bishops, and ministers. In Spain, as in all other places, they took a
large share in politics, they patronised good studies, and accumulated
great wealth. If jesuitical casuistry had not its birth in Spain, at
least the greater part of its ecclesiastical writers, who propagated and
defended that absurd and immoral conceit, were Spaniards, as may be seen
on reference to the catalogue of them published by Pascal, in his
_Lettres d'un Provincial_. The names of Escobar and of Sanchez have left
a deplorable reputation for them in this branch of ecclesiastic
literature. The treatise _De Matrimonio_ of the latter contains such
profound immorality, and such dangerous and obscene queries and
doctrines, that the Inquisition included the publication in its index of
prohibited books. But far greater scandal was produced throughout Europe
by the book entitled _De Rege et Regis Institutione_, written by the
celebrated Jesuit, Juan de Mariana. This man, truly great, and whom
Gibbon places in the number of the most distinguished historians of
ancient and modern times, wrote that work, apparently with the view of
assisting in the education of Philip IV., but in reality to justify the
assassination committed in France on the person of Henry III., and
probably to prepare for that of his successor. Mariana sustains, with
warmth, with eloquence, and with erudition, the dogma of regicide;
determines the cases in which the commission of that crime is not only
lawful but necessary and praiseworthy; lays down rules by which the deed
should be executed, under certain and determinate circumstances; and even
goes the length of excusing the use of poison, if other means fail, to
get rid of a tyrant! The book was prohibited by all the governments of
Europe, and burnt publicly in Paris by the hands of the common hangman.
That culpable and highly dangerous doctrine was not the only one of the
same character with which the Jesuits poisoned the public morals in
Europe. The system of ethics which they taught in their classes, and
propounded from the pulpit and confessional, had for its basis the famous
doctrine of probablism, by means of which all crimes found a powerful
subterfuge through which their perpetrators were enabled to avert
responsibility and punishment. For all kinds of excess, that doctrine
afforded excuses; and hence falsehood, perjury, robbery, and even murder
and adultery, might be converted by it into innocent actions, by means of
the sophisms and frauds with which that absurd theory was interwoven. To
this was united, in order to exasperate opinion against such men, the
irresistible influence which these Jesuits exercised in all the courts.
Meanwhile the immense wealth which they were accumulating, by means of
commerce with the West Indies and in South America, betrayed, in the
so-called Company of Jesus, a mundane and ambitious spirit totally
incompatible with that which ought to prevail in every religious and
cloistral establishment. About the middle of the eighteenth century, all
the enlightened men of Europe exclaimed against that company, and
ardently desired its extermination; and, although many works were
published against it, and the voices of many religious orders were raised
in denouncing it to the pontifical throne and to the public, such was the
power and dexterity with which it neutralised these hostile dispositions,
that nobody dared to attack its front, until a king of Spain, the
illustrious Charles III., undertook that great work, and carried it on to
its consummation with as much resolution as ability.
We have already described the characters of those good and able ministers
who surrounded that monarch, and we have alluded to their Jansenistic
doctrines, which were diametrically opposed to those professed by the
Jesuits. But neither the upright principles nor enlarged ideas of the
monarch, nor yet the influence exercised by Aranda, Campomanes,
Floridablanca, and Roda, would have been sufficient to induce him to take
a measure so violent, if there had not intervened a circumstance which
necessarily appeared, in his eyes, an outrage on his dignity, a wound on
his self-respect, and a threat against the legitimacy of his rights.
The king was as much a Jansenist as his ministers. The Jesuits knew it,
and resolved to make a secret war against him, which should terminate in
his dethronement. Father Rizzio, General of the Jesuits established in
Rome, gave orders to all the chiefs of the convents belonging to their
institution to propagate, by means of their subalterns, as well by
private conversations as through the confessional, the important secret
that Charles III. was the illegitimate son of Ferdinand VI., and that,
consequently, he ought to be considered as a usurper of the throne of his
reputed father. The minister, Roda, intercepted a correspondence
containing irrefragable proofs of that abominable intrigue; and this was
sufficient to make the king resolve upon a course of action which he had
refrained from for some time, at the instance of his ministers, through
fear of offending the court of Rome and of bringing a scandal on the
Christian world. The king had no power to suppress a religious order;
but he could, as chief of the state, expel from his territory any persons
whomsoever, and this was the part which he took with respect to the
individuals of the Company of Jesuits. The execution of this grand
design was a master-work of foresight and prudence. The civil
authorities of all the towns having Jesuitical establishments, as well in
Spain as in the colonies, received a sealed packet from the government.
On opening the outer cover was found an order that the interior packet
was not to be opened till a certain day and at a certain hour, and in the
presence of the subaltern authorities, and a most severe injunction to
keep even that operation secret till the moment of its execution. On the
arrival of the day and hour appointed the packets were opened, as had
been previously arranged, simultaneously; and then was found, in each, an
order to take immediate possession of the houses of the Jesuits, to
sequester their goods, and transmit, without delay of time, their persons
to the nearest port, in which would be found vessels already waiting to
receive them on board, and convey them into Italy. This was done, at the
same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without
the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of
information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over
them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the
least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other
religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing of the
Jesuits, and who beheld their opulence and preponderance with envy,
celebrated their fall without restraint, and considered it as a triumph
of the true religion over the dangerous novelties which these men had
introduced.
From that period nobody cared for the Jesuits nor thought of them, and
the rest of the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. passed without a
single voice being raised in their favour.
In 1817, Ferdinand VII., released from his captivity in France, and ruled
entirely by the persecuting and fanatical party, not satisfied with
having re-established the Inquisition, wished also to recall the Jesuits.
The Council of Castille, which he consulted, _pro forma_, on that
business, showed itself favourable, moved by the able report of his
fiscal, Gutierez de la Huerta, a man known for his Voltairean opinions,
who was suspected of having received a large sum of money to defend, with
energy, the cause of fanaticism and of intolerance. The few Jesuits who
have outlived their expulsion, and who are scattered over some of the
towns of Italy, are returning to the Peninsula in such small numbers,
that they are scarcely enough to occupy the ancient establishment of San
Isidro in Madrid. Their installation, which was announced as an epoch of
triumph, disappointed the expectation of the court, and of their friends.
Those extraordinary beings, whose dress, customs, and even affected
Italian accent, were opposed to the national habits and the ideas of the
new generation, were beheld by the public with the most perfect
indifference. It was said publicly that they were strangers, and that
they despised their country; that they ate _maccaroni_ instead of
_garbanzos_; {67} and people spread about innumerable other epigrams and
satires against them, regardless of the government police, and even
without fear of the inquisitors. But what most tended to destroy their
reputation was the circumstance that none of them were in a condition to
instruct youth, and that, in order to fill the professorships of their
college, they were obliged to take their professors from the secular
ranks, some of them notorious for their independent and
anti-Roman-Catholic opinions. When they began to recruit novices, they
were unable to find any decent men, or known family, who would submit
their children to their rule; and their noviciate was consequently
composed of only ninety young persons, and these drawn from the lowest
classes of society.
For the space of seventeen years they maintained themselves in this
precarious condition, without advancing one step in their popularity, and
even without exhibiting any of the qualities which had given confidence
to their rule in former times. Far from captivating the will of the
people, they exasperated it to such a degree, that in 1834, after the
death of the king, the people of Madrid, in one of those moments of
madness and irritation so frequent after the scourge of the cholera,
penetrated the establishment of those holy fathers, and inhumanly
sacrificed them to their fury. Even to this day the mystery which
covered that sanguinary catastrophe has never entirely been revealed.
One thing is certain, that in spite of the religious ideas of Spaniards,
and of the superstitious veneration with which they beheld a religious
habit, the Jesuits were immolated without causing one murmur of
fanaticism or one tear of compassion.
It is but a few years ago that the Spanish government had the
inexpressible condescendence to allow a community of Jesuits to establish
itself in the magnificent convent of Loyola, the country of their
founder. The last revolution which happened in that country offered them
an opportunity of putting in practice those absolute principles which
have always governed their conduct. The government of Espartero,
informed of their secret intrigues, by which they contrived to agitate
the public mind in the Basque provinces in favour of Don Carlos, ordered
them to be expelled to the Balearic Islands; but they, fearful perhaps of
severer measures being adopted against them, and convinced of the general
hatred in which they were held by the people, fled to France, from whence
it is probable they will not attempt to recross the frontier.
Monachism, then, has entirely disappeared from Spain, where only two
convents remain for the instruction of those who are destined for the
priesthood in the Philippine Islands. These men live within the
cloisters according to the ancient regime; but they are forbidden to
appear in public in the costumes of their respective orders. The
preservation of those two establishments was considered indispensable for
the preparation of materials for the government of those remote
possessions, where the Indians are accustomed to obey the priest, and
look upon him with more respect than that shown to the civil authority,
and where their influence is sufficient, according to general opinion, to
put down that revolutionary spirit which has despoiled Spain of her
splendid dominions in South America. All this, however plausible, may
arise out of a mistaken policy. New political ideas and legislation,
under constitutional rule, have respected the convents of the nuns. One
can scarcely conceive of this inconsistency on the part of governments
which, under the name of liberty, have ruled Spain in these latter times.
If the abolition of the convents of friars had for its chief ground the
uselessness of those who inhabited them, it must be admitted that
infinitely more useless is the life of a nun, consecrated to perpetual
idleness, and without further occupation than that of assisting in the
choir and in devotional practices, to which duties she could equally
resign herself in the bosom of her own family.
The religious communities of women have the same denominations as the
convents of friars, and they call themselves Augustines, Franciscans,
Benedictines, &c. The respective rules of their organization do not
exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative
life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns
whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of
their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all,
forms no part of that useful knowledge required by modern civilization.
The Spanish nuns are, absolutely, some of the most insignificant of
beings. There is nothing recorded of them either good or bad, and for
many centuries we have no account of any Spanish nun distinguished for
her talents, her writings, or even for her eminent virtues. In their
conversation, they display a childish simplicity and an unwearied
curiosity, together with an extraordinary deficiency of knowledge as it
respects the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The amusements
with which they while away their secluded lives are reduced to those of
making sweets (_dulces_), dressing images of saints, embroidering
scapularies, {71a} and other such-like frivolities. A celebrated living
poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the
following epitaph:--
"Aqui yace Sor Belen,
Que hizo almibares mui bien,
Y paso la vida entera
Vistiendo ninos de cera." {71b}
Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of
them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime,
considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of
the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are
reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension which _ought_ now to be
paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been
neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have
interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often
been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases
Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have
contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has
prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order
that death itself might, without violence, extinguish those institutions,
which are contrary to the ideas of the age. But this salutary provision
has been imprudently eluded by the bishops, and recently modified by an
article of the _concordat_ effected with the court of Rome a few years
ago, and which is everywhere unpopular.
One of the great evils resulting from the continuance of these nuns in
Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose,
and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one
convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the
great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the
singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its
institution. It is called the Convent _de las Huelgas_, and is situated
at a short distance from Burgos.
This magnificent establishment, founded and enriched by ancient monarchs,
maintained an hospital in which a great number of invalids were attended
to with the greatest care. The abbess wore the mitre and _baculo_ like
the bishops, and exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the
vast dominions belonging to the convent; she was called Senora de _horca
y cuchillo_, {72} and was the chief of several ecclesiastical and secular
officers. The sumptuous church of this convent contained within its
walls the ashes of many of the kings and princes of ancient Spanish
dynasties.