1700-1772.
DOWNFALL OF THE JESUITS.
We have brought down our history to the beginning of the eighteenth
century, an epoch in which the power and greatness of the Society of
Jesus had, by a gradual march, ascended to a point from which, following
the law inherent in all human things, it could not but decline; for
institutions, empires, and nations, have, as well as man himself, their
successive periods of infancy, youth, manhood, old age, and decrepitude;
and if institutions, doctrines, or nations, revive after their moral
death, they never regain the same degree of force and vitality which
they possessed when rising to the maturity of their power. According to
this constant rule, it was evident to any profound observer that the
Jesuits had attained that height from which they must inevitably descend;
but, as always happens, they never dreamed of their impending fate, and
scorned the sinister forebodings of some of their number who foresaw and
predicted it. Then, when these predictions proved true, they laid the
blame of their fall upon every one but its real authors—themselves; for
it is to them that must be attributed the ruin of their institution. To
the causes of decay which we have stated, we must add that which was
perhaps the principal one—namely, that the Jesuits, once in possession of
power, remitted their prodigious activity, for which they had been so
remarkable at the commencement of their institution, and even disregarded
those arts by which they had obtained that power. Even the Instruction,
that all-powerful engine which had so admirably served their purposes,
was neglected, and had lost its original character. It was no longer
either gratuitous or universal; children of families known to be adverse
to the Order, were, on one pretence or another, refused admittance, or
sorely annoyed if admitted. Twice a year, at Christmas, and on their
patron saint’s (Loyola’s) day, the pupils were obliged to bring presents
to the masters; and rewards and marks of distinction were given in
preference to the children of wealthy families, or to those who brought
the richest present. This naturally produced in these young persons a
consciousness of independence, so that they would no longer endure the
severity of the ancient discipline.[321] Some of them even went so far
as to stab their masters, and the revolts of the pupils of the Collegio
Romano became proverbial. Besides, the zeal which the fathers had shewn
at first to promote study, had not only cooled away, but was directed to
oppose any sort of progress.
To those primary and internal causes which accelerated the downfall of
the order, must be added also many external ones, all militating against
them.
In those countries in which the Jesuits had had the greatest influence,
as Spain, Portugal, and Poland, although they preserved, as yet, the
favour of the court, they had lost that of all the other classes of
society, who, at least in secret, accused them of being the cause of the
abasement and the ruin of their respective countries. On the other hand,
those sovereigns of Germany who had sought the Jesuits’ help to oppose
their Protestant subjects, after the peace of Westphalia, wishing to calm
rather than inflame religious quarrels, though they did not withdraw from
the Jesuits that protection they had granted them, at least refused to
give them that almost unlimited authority they had formerly enjoyed. But
the surest, perhaps, of all the symptoms of their approaching ruin was,
that the Court of Rome itself began to frown upon them, and to shew a
determination to lower their pride, and to bring them to some sense of
their duty. We have already seen (pp. 127, 128) many bulls condemnatory
of their conduct in China and India, and that Benedict XIV. had applied
to them the very harsh and offensive appellations of “disobedient,
contumacious, crafty, and reprobate men.” The same Pope, at this period
also accepted the dedication of Father Norbert’s _Mémoires Historiques_,
of which we have already spoken; and encouraged the publication of many
other books, all adverse to the Society. All this was ominous to the
Jesuits.
It was, however, in France, the former seat of their power and glory
during the seventeenth century, that the ruin of the order was most
effectually prepared. The overthrow of Port-Royal, the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, the massacre of the Huguenots, and all the persecutions
exercised in that country in the name of religion, were justly attributed
to the Jesuits. Nor was this all; the exclusion from every office, civil
or ecclesiastical, of every person who was not entirely devoted to the
Order, had made their tyrannic yoke to be detested and abhorred in the
highest degree.
While the despotic Louis XIV. ruled France with an iron hand, and
Lachaise and Letellier had a full disposal of _lettres de cachet_, few
dared openly to give vent to the hatred they bore to the Society; but
hardly had the bigoted prince expired, when the long-restrained animosity
broke forth, and the Jesuits were assailed on every side. The Jansenists,
the other religious orders, the curates, the bishops, all now attacked
the monks, who, some months before, had kept them in such awe, and had
been masters of their fortunes. It has also been asserted—and the
Jesuits repeat it every day—that the abolition of their order was due
to the then fast spreading subversive doctrines of the Encyclopædists,
and that Ganganelli suppressed this bulwark of the Christian religion
to please the atheist Voltaire and his disciples. But this, in the
exclusive sense in which the Jesuit takes it, is by no means true.
The Encyclopædists were not the Jesuits’ particular enemies, nor the
auxiliaries of the Jansenists. They were, perhaps, more opposed to the
strict and ascetic character of the recluses of Port-Royal, than to the
worldly and accommodating morality of the progeny of Loyola. But the
Jesuits had identified themselves with the Roman Catholic religion, and
all its bigoted and superstitious practices, and the philosophers were
happy that they had introduced into it so many ridiculous superstitions
and ceremonies, upon which they could exercise their sarcastic and
trenchant wit. Voltaire and his school could not have awakened in
the hearts of their contemporaries such dislike, nay, contempt and
abhorrence, for the religion of Christ, had not the Jesuits furnished
them the means, by having introduced into it contemptible and idolatrous
superstitions. The Encyclopædists’ principal aim was to destroy the
Christian religion; and for this purpose, coupling with malignant
sagacity the sublime doctrines and pure morality of Christ with the
ridiculous practices and impure doctrines of the Papists, and especially
of the Jesuits, held up the whole to the derision and profanation of
a superficial public; who, unwilling to make any distinction, boldly
asserted that nothing was true, nothing was holy, nothing respectable,
in the Christian code. Again, the philosophers, in their praiseworthy
endeavours to introduce the principles of civil and religious liberty,
attacked the Jesuits, now become the unconditional supporters of all
despotism and tyranny. In this sense, and in this sense alone, it is
true that the Encyclopædists largely contributed to the overthrow of
the order. The pamphlets and books printed and widely circulated at that
time against the reverend fathers were mainly a mass of evidence exposing
their iniquity, and tending to effect their ruin in the opinion of Europe.
Nor did the Jesuits, blinded as they were by past success, oppose any
efficacious resistance to the torrent which threatened to sweep them
away. Without changing their conduct in the least, they had recourse
to expedients, and thought that a little patience and cunning would
suffice to shelter them from the passing hurricane. This was their
general practice. However, not to be altogether passive spectators in
the contest, they made an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the
sceptical and profligate Philip of Orleans, regent of France, not,
indeed, by granting him absolution, which he cared very little for, but
by negotiating for him with the Papal Court, by discovering to him the
secrets of Philip V. of Spain, who had intrusted to his confessor his
intention of abdicating, and by procuring for the libertine and ignoble
Dubois an episcopal seat and a cardinal’s hat. But if D’Orleans, for
political ends, seemed to be the Jesuits’ friend, he was not assuredly
the man to use his authority to defend them; and they were, from 1716 to
1729, deprived of the exercise of every ecclesiastical function, having
been interdicted by Cardinal de Noaille. Under the sensual and voluptuous
Louis XV., the Jesuits attempted again to regain their lost influence,
and, as far as the favourable hearing of the sovereign was concerned,
they in part succeeded. They contrived to insinuate to him that their
cause was the cause of religion and of the throne, both menaced by the
philosophers; and, to a certain extent, they persuaded many that such
was the case, and their enemies did not remain unmolested. But while
the parliament and the court, in their official capacities, condemned
the Encyclopædists to the Bastile, and their works to be burnt, they
individually read with avidity whatever epigram was aimed at the Jesuits
and the Christian religion, and Louis XV. was not the last to participate
in the sneer.
Meanwhile, the new doctrines of political reform and civil liberty had
spread so fast, and were so eagerly embraced by the populations of
different kingdoms, that their sovereigns thought proper to give some
satisfaction to public opinion, and call to their councils reforming
ministers. In France, Choiseul; in Spain, Wall and Squillace; in
Portugal, Carvalho; in Naples, Tanucci—were placed at the helm of the
state, and began to attack the most obnoxious abuses against which people
had set their minds. Now, in this disposition of the public opinion, it
was evident that, at the first favourable circumstance, the ruin of the
Jesuits, who had been so greatly damaged in popular favour, would be
actually consummated; because it was to be expected that in this case
would happen what generally takes place in political movements, that when
once the moral revolution is accomplished, the smallest pretext suffices
to achieve the triumph of the material one also.
Either the Jesuits furnished this pretext to Carvalho, prime minister
of the King of Portugal; or, at any rate, imagining that he had himself
discovered it, he attempted the overthrow of the Order. But the causes of
this overthrow were not, as is asserted by the able historian of the fall
of the Jesuits, wholly local, and of a private and personal nature.[322]
Any other occurrence would have served the purpose as well. It may be
that Carvalho accelerated their ruin; but even without him the Jesuits
must have fallen. We shall briefly trace the order of events which issued
in their expulsion from Portugal.
The Jesuits, from their first entrance into the kingdom, had exercised
a great influence over the destinies of Portugal. This influence, which
they had in part lost during the interval that Portugal was under the
sway of the Spanish monarch, became paramount under the new dynasty. The
Jesuits governed in the name of the two queens, the widow of John IV.
and the wife of Alphonso VI., who had married her brother-in-law during
the lifetime of her first husband, whom she dethroned, and chained to
a rock.[323] Under John V., their power reached its climax, and it was
while they ruled the nation that “Portugal fell exhausted under the
protecting power of England, never again to recover her position.”[324]
At the commencement of Joseph I.’s reign, which we are now considering,
they possessed an equal and again unlimited power; but at that juncture
a man arose to arrest their progress. This man was Carvalho. He was born
in 1699, of a family of the middle class, or at the most of the lowest
grade of the nobility. He was endowed with many rare qualities, with a
great aptitude for business and administration, with unequalled energy
and courage, and with a mind vast and capable of great designs; but he
was proud, vindictive, cruel, and not seldom unjust. To arrive at power,
Carvalho (subsequently Count of Oeyras, and Marquis of Pombal, under
which last name he is better known to history, and by which we shall
henceforth designate him) had courted the friendship of the Jesuits, and
was by them brought into favour. He soon became the favourite, and then
the master, of the weak and contemptible Joseph I. Pombal, in appearance,
shewed himself grateful to the Jesuits, and to the last moment assured
them of his friendship. But whether, in his capacity of statesman, he
thought them to be prejudicial to the welfare of the Portuguese nation,
or whether he began to hate them, because the fathers, perceiving that
they could in no way govern such a man as Pombal, had leagued with
the nobility, a class of citizens whom the vindictive minister wished
to annihilate, it is unquestionable that at a certain period Pombal
resolved, if possible, to rid Portugal of these dangerous monks. But,
prudent and crafty, he dissembled his sentiments till a pretext or a
favourable moment should arrive.
A first unjust pretext he thought he had found in the conduct of the
Jesuits in 1753. At this epoch a treaty between the Kings of Spain and
Portugal effected a mutual exchange of provinces in America; and, in
order that the inhabitants might remain under their former sovereigns, it
was stipulated that they should respectively quit the ceded territories.
These people resisted such an unjust and tyrannical order; and the
population of the Reductions took up arms and fought bravely for their
own country, although in vain. The Jesuits were accused by the minister
of having excited them to revolt, which they have denied, even affirming
that the General wrote to his subordinate of Paraguay to prepare the
neophytes for such a change, and warning them that, if difficulties
should arise, he would transport himself to the place, to see that the
orders of the kings were obeyed.[325] But, from what we know of the power
exercised by the Jesuits in the Reductions, it is evident that these
submissive beings would never have dared to stir without the consent
and the encouragement of the fathers—encouragement which possibly they
may have given them underhand, while preaching, in public, obedience to
the sovereign’s orders. By resorting to this duplicity, they incurred
the blame of both parties, while, if they had boldly asserted their
interference in vindicating the inalienable right of men not to be
bartered as cattle at the caprice of every despot, they would have
earned the applause and the eulogy of every noble and generous soul.
However, Pombal had not as yet acquired that unlimited power which
he afterwards attained, and did not dare, or was not able, to strike
the blow he was meditating against the Society, and was obliged to be
contented to prepare the way for their ruin. But an event soon occurred
which rendered him absolute master of the destinies of Portugal, and left
him at liberty to deal with the Jesuits as he pleased.
On the 1st of November 1755, an earthquake destroyed three-fourths of
Lisbon. A conflagration added to the desolation, and, that nothing
might be wanting in this scene of horrors, an armed band of brigands
preyed in open day on the unfortunate victims of the direful calamity.
Discouragement and despair had seized on the boldest. The courtiers
insisted that the court should emigrate to Oporto, and the king and the
royal family ardently desired to leave the desolate Lisbon. Pombal alone
refused to let them depart. “The king’s place,” said he to Joseph, “is
in the midst of his people; let us bury the dead, and take thought for
the living.”[326] Under appalling and difficult circumstances, the power
belongs to the most energetic. Pombal seized on the helm of the state
as his right, declared himself prime minister, and, unaided and alone,
prepared to conquer all the difficulties with which Portugal was at
this moment threatened. There was something of antique greatness in the
courage which Pombal displayed that excited general astonishment.[327]
In fact, he was everywhere; he thought about everything; he provided for
every emergency; and soon, by his unequalled energy, a new town sprung up
on the ruins of the ancient capital.
And now Pombal, having attained a position which permitted him to attempt
everything, thought of putting in execution the two great projects he
had conceived—the subjection of the aristocracy, and the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Portugal. He had already published a number of edicts
to restrain the power and humiliate the pride of the nobility, against
whom he had conceived a great hatred, for the scorn they had offered him
in refusing to admit him among them. And now the turn of the Jesuits had
come. On the morning of the 19th September 1757, without any new motive
or circumstance having determined the proceeding, he removed from the
court the three Jesuit confessors, and assigned to the royal penitents
three ordinary priests. This first act of enmity was immediately followed
by manifestoes which soon inundated Europe, in which the premier brought
against the Jesuits several terrible accusations. Then, to countenance
his accusations, Pombal applied to the Pope, as ecclesiastical chief
of these monks, and in his complaint he gave especial prominence to
that which was most calculated to displease and provoke the censure
of the Court of Rome. He represented to the Holy See that the great
mercantile operations of the Society impeded the accomplishment of his
commercial plans and the promotion of the national prosperity, and asked
for a prompt and efficient measure to put a stop to it. The chair of St
Peter was at that time occupied by the amiable, learned, and upright
Lambertini. Benedict XIV. did not hesitate a moment to comply with
Pombal’s desires, and committed the visitation of the Order to Cardinal
Saldanha, a very intimate friend of the minister.
Before we proceed further, we think it necessary in this place to give
our readers some general idea of the commercial operations of the Society.
The large donations which, at the commencement of the institution,
had enriched the Society, having become less frequent, the Jesuits
thought of increasing their wealth by applying themselves to trade.
They pretended that there was no material difference between the
practice of agriculture, which had formed the principal occupation of
the first monastic orders, and the labour of commerce in which they
were engaged. The Collegio Romano possessed a manufactory of cloth
at Macerata, and though at first they produced it only for their own
use, yet they soon proceeded to supply all the other colleges in the
provinces, and ultimately the public in general, for which last purpose
they attended the fairs. From the close connexion existing between the
different colleges, there resulted a system of banking business; and the
Portuguese ambassador at Rome was empowered to draw on the Jesuits of
Portugal. Their commercial transactions were particularly prosperous in
the colonies. The trading connexion of the order extended, as it were, a
network over both continents, having Lisbon for its central point.[328]
Such is the account given by our contemporary historian. We shall now
quote the opinion of an eye-witness, a man high in power in India, and
who could certainly have had the best information regarding the facts. M.
Martin, general commander of Pondicherry, expresses himself thus:—
“It is certain that, after the Dutch, the Jesuits are the largest and
the richest traders in India, richer even than the English, than the
Portuguese themselves, who have brought them there.... Those disguised
Jesuits intrigue everywhere. The secret correspondence they keep up
amongst themselves, apprises them of the merchandises that ought to be
bought or sold, and to what nation, in order to make a more considerable
profit; so that those disguised Jesuits are of immense advantage to the
Society, and are only responsible to the Order represented by other
Jesuits, who overrun the world under the true habit of St Ignatius, and
who possess the confidence, the secrets, and the orders of their chiefs
in Europe. Those Jesuits, disguised and dispersed all over the earth,
know each other by signals, like the freemasons, and act all upon the
same plan. They send merchandise to other disguised Jesuits, who, having
the goods from first hand, realise considerable profits for the order.
However, this traffic is highly prejudicial to the interest of France.
I have often written about it to the Company (of India), but under
Louis XIV. I have received orders very precise, and often repeated, to
grant and advance to those fathers all that they may ask. And Father
Tashard alone owes at this moment more than 450,000 francs to the
Company (of India).”[329] We have reported this document, because it was
considered at the time, even in Rome, and by the Papal Court, as of great
importance, and as representing the real state of things.
In the West Indies, Jesuits were to be found in all the markets with
different kinds of produce; and this they do not even attempt to deny,
but excuse themselves by saying that “the ecclesiastical law has never
forbidden the sale of the produce of one’s own domains. The Jesuits were
the guardians of the Christians, whom they had re-united in society in
Paraguay; and in consideration of the inability of these savages to
manage their own affairs, many Spanish kings granted to the missionaries
the right of selling the produce of the ground cultivated by the
neophytes, as well as that of their own industry.”[330] The Jesuits had
so well used this liberty of trading, that the largest banking houses in
South America belonged to the Company, and one of them[331] alone became
bankrupt for more than two millions and a half of francs, an enormous sum
at the epoch.
Nor had they been less busy and active speculators in Europe. In
Malta, in the year 1639, during a famine, the Jesuits, who had five
thousand sacks of corn in their granaries, in order that they might
not be obliged to give it up to the government at a lower price than
they expected for it, applied to the Grand Master Lascaris for succour
to their actual necessities, and were relieved, on account of their
supposed poverty, from the public storehouse. But the trick was at last
discovered, and they were expelled from the island. But we could not
adduce stronger proofs of their eagerness to accumulate wealth than the
letters of Vitelleschi, Caraffa, and Nickel, some passages of which we
have reported, in which they bitterly complain of that spirit of avarice
and speculation which had pervaded all the classes of Jesuits, and which
they vainly deprecated.
To return to our narrative; Saldanha, either to satisfy the impatience of
Pombal, or because the proofs of the Jesuits’ guilt were too numerous and
too clear, soon published a decree severely reprobating the commercial
pursuits of the order, and empowering the royal authorities to confiscate
all merchandise belonging to those ecclesiastics.[332]
But, in the meanwhile, the man who had ordered the visitation, and to
whom belonged the ultimate decision, Lambertini (Benedict XIV.), had
departed from this world. Had God granted him a longer life, he would
probably have taken energetic and decisive measures against the order;
and any other pontiff than the one who succeeded him, would in all
likelihood, in one way or another, have given satisfaction to the public
opinion. But, unfortunately perhaps for the Jesuits, Benedict XIV. was
succeeded by a man wholly blinded in their favour, who declared that, to
the last, he would be the protector and the friend of “the holy Company
of Jesus.” This man was Raggonico, who assumed the name of Clement
XIII. He was pure in soul, and upright in purpose. He was constantly
engaged in fervent prayer, and his highest ambition was to obtain a
canonisation. But he was a bigoted fanatic—was convinced that the power
of the Papacy should be unlimited; and in the Jesuits he beheld the most
faithful defenders of the Papal See and of religion. But, besides the
disposition of the Pope in their favour, the Jesuits had, in the Court
of Rome, a still more efficient supporter in the person of Cardinal
Torrigiani, in whose hand actually resided all the power. “He had the
reputation,” says Ranke, “of taking a personal interest in the farming of
the papal revenues, and was said to be generally fond of power for its
own sake.”[333] It is, then, easy to be conceived that the Jesuits, in
order to preserve the bulk of their wealth, did not hesitate to sacrifice
a part to satiate the avidity of the cardinal; and that to this is to
be attributed the partiality, we should say the servility, evinced by
Torrigiani towards the order. But this partiality of the Pope and his
minister proved fatal to the Company. Had they consented to effect some
substantial reforms, the Society might yet have existed for some time
longer, or at least have only perished in the general shipwreck produced
by the French Revolution, and they would not have had pronounced upon
them the terrible and crushing sentence of Clement XIV.
Pombal perceived at once that no hope could be entertained that such
a Pope would co-operate in the suppression, or even in the reform and
abasement of the Jesuits, but did not, for that reason, renounce his
projects; he only waited for a more fitting moment to effect his purpose
by his own authority.
Circumstances served Pombal’s designs better than he could have expected.
Joseph I. had an intimacy with Dona Theresa, the young wife of the
Marquis of Tavora, one of the noblest families in Portugal, and one
which, having scorned Pombal’s alliance, was particularly hated by
him. Now it happened, on the night of the 3d of September 1758, that
the king, returning to the palace from a visit to Dona Theresa, was
wounded in the arm by a pistol-shot fired upon him. Next morning the
court presented an unusual aspect. The gates of the palace were shut;
the king did not make his appearance, and nobody knew exactly what was
the cause of these strange measures. It was indeed whispered that an
attempt had been made upon the king’s person; but nobody dared to speak
it aloud, or knew to what extent it was true. The courtiers were all
taciturn and in consternation. Pombal alone appeared calm and serene.
This state of things lasted for some days. At last this anxiety was by
degrees dispelled, and, a few weeks after, nobody thought any more about
the attempt, and many doubted whether it had ever occurred. But on the
12th of September, the Duke of Averio, of the family of Mascarenhas, who,
with Tavora, was at the head of the Portuguese aristocracy, the Marquis
of Tavora, Dona Eleanor, his mother, and many of their relations and
servants, were suddenly arrested and thrown into prison. Our limits will
not admit of our examining whether or not the prisoners were culpable,
or in what degree. It seems most probable that the young Marquis of
Tavora may have attempted to avenge his injured honour; and indeed there
is every reason to believe that some of the prisoners arrested were
really accomplices of the crime; but, as the trial was not public, as
it was conducted by an exceptional tribunal _la inconfidenza_, and as
Pombal has never substantiated, by valid proofs, the accusation brought
against them, it would be harsh to form any decided judgment. What is
incontestable is, that all forms of justice were violated in the trial,
and that the cruel and inhuman way in which the unfortunate prisoners
were tortured and executed, would induce us to believe that this
sacrifice of human life was offered rather to revenge than to justice.
In the night of 12th of January 1759, a scaffold, eighteen feet high,
was erected on the square of Belem, fronting the Tagus. At daybreak, this
open space was filled with soldiers and the populace, and even the river
was covered with spectators. The servants of the Duke of Averio appeared
first upon the platform, and were fastened to one of the corners to be
burned alive. The Marchioness of Tavora then ascended the scaffold with a
rope around her neck, and a crucifix in her hand. She was scantily clad
in some tattered clothes, but her whole figure and demeanour were stamped
with firmness and dignity. The executioner, in attempting to bind her
feet, accidentally raised the hem of her robe. “Stop!” cried she, “forget
not who I am; touch me only to kill me.” The executioner fell on his
knees before Dona Eleanor, and begged her to pardon him, whereupon she
drew a ring from her finger, and said, “Here; I have nothing but this in
the world; take it, and do your duty.” This courageous woman then laid
her head upon the block, and received her death-blow. Her husband, her
sons, the youngest of whom was not twenty years of age, her son-in-law,
and several servants, perished after her in frightful torments. The Duke
of Averio was led forward the last; he was fastened to the wheel, his
body covered with rags, and his arms and thighs naked. Thus was he broken
alive, not expiring till after he had endured protracted tortures, making
the square and the neighbourhood re-echo with frightful cries. At length
the machine was set on fire, and presently wheel, scaffold, bodies, all,
were burned and cast into the Tagus.[334] Even if the sentence had been
just, the merciless cruelty which Pombal shewed in accomplishing its
execution has greatly tarnished his fame, and diminished the admiration
due to his other eminent services rendered to Portugal.
Meanwhile, on the night which preceded the execution of the prisoners,
the house of the Jesuits was invested, their chiefs were cast into
prison, and three of them, Mattos, Alexander, and Malagrida, accused of
having fomented the conspiracy. With what degree of truth this accusation
was brought against them, it is also difficult to say. According to the
sentence passed upon them, the suspicions of their having participated
therein were confirmed by their arrogance previous to the attempt, and
their desponding after its failure; by their intimate connexion with
the chief of the accused (D’Averio), with whom they had formerly been
at variance; by a conversation reported of Father Conta, who, it seems,
had declared that a man who should murder the king would not be guilty
of even a venial sin. Their intercourse with the conspirators was indeed
unquestionable. They had been their friends and advisers, and had taken
a decided part in the discontent, murmurs, and open opposition of the
Fidalgoes.[335] But no other material proof was brought to confirm the
charge, and although the three accused were condemned to suffer the
highest punishment, the sentence was not executed. Malagrida, who some
time after was burned, suffered for the crime of heresy, not for that of
regicide. Whatever opinion our readers may form of the Jesuits’ guilt or
innocence, Pombal, in his manifestoes, represented them as guilty, and
called for the animadversion of Europe upon them, while he himself was
taking more decisive measures to destroy the order.
As in Portugal, up to that moment, to the nuncio alone belonged the
right of pronouncing judgment upon ecclesiastics, Pombal, although
he had already resolved to transfer that right to a commission named
by the sovereign, thought proper to solicit the Pope for a nominal
authorisation; and as Clement’s answer did not come quick enough for the
minister’s impatience, he, on 1st of September 1759, issued a decree for
the expulsion of the Jesuits from all the states of his most faithful
majesty. All the bishops of Portugal received a command to take the
office of instruction out of the hands of the Jesuits, and supersede them
instantly in the universities of Coimbra and elsewhere; and immediately
after, all the Jesuits residing in Portugal were put on board royal and
merchant vessels, and shipped over into Italy;[336] similar orders were
given to the governors of all the Portuguese colonies, and immediately
executed.
This was the first blow dealt to the Society of Jesus; and, as if it had
been a signal, it was followed by a succession, till Ganganelli dealt
it the last and mortal one. It seemed as if before no one had dared to
attack such a powerful colossus: but when once the people saw with what
facility it could be attacked, and even conquered, every one wished to
break a spear upon it. France, as was to be expected, struck the second
blow. When the minds of men were once bent upon it, any pretext would
have been sufficient to expel the Jesuits; and it requires no great
insight to perceive that the apparent causes which led to this step were
only secondary. It is true that Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress,
had resolved upon their destruction; but, although it is well known that
she harassed the king to obtain it, it is by no means certain that Louis
yielded to her influence alone, and we doubt much that she would have
been able to effect it at all, had she lived a hundred years before. It
seems that the Jesuit confessors of the marchioness and the king refused,
we do not know for what reasons, to absolve them, unless the lady should
quit the court. She herself has transmitted to us a long recital of her
negotiations with the confessor;[337] and when she could not bring him
to her wishes, she vowed a mortal hatred against the Society, which,
however, remained for some years without result.
But in 1761 a more decisive occasion was offered to the enemies of
the order to ask for their expulsion. Father Lavallette, the Superior
General of Martinique—a bold and unscrupulous speculator, a priest who,
by their own confession, began to operate not only on the produce of the
goods belonging to the house, but who purchased large properties, and
_bought two thousand slaves_ to work them—was the means of creating this
occasion.[338] He entered into vast and complicated speculations with
different maritime towns of Europe; and as some of these speculations
failed, he stopped payment—a measure which caused the ruin of several
houses, among which were one of Lyons and another of Marseilles.
The house of Marseilles, Leoncy, held the Society responsible for the
debt of its member, and applied to the General for payment. Ricci, the
then chief of the order,[339] committed the irreparable error of refusing
to recognise the debt. The Widow Grou & Son, of Nantez, then commenced
a process before the consular tribunal of Paris. Leoncy followed the
example. The Jesuits having been condemned, were blind enough to bring
the cause before the parliament. This supreme court of judicature, the
better to estimate the merit of the cause, ordered that the Constitutions
of the Society should be brought before the tribunal. The Jesuits
consented, and this decided their ruin. After prolonged examination, the
parliament gave its judgment, by which the Society was condemned to pay
all the engagements incurred by Lavallette, for which, according to the
tenor of their Constitution, the whole order was answerable.[340]
Many authors, speaking of this affair, have expressed their astonishment
that the Jesuits, who were accounted so cunning, could have committed
such blunders. We have nothing to answer to this, except that they may be
compared to those generals who, having lost their presence of mind in a
difficult and critical moment, have suffered defeat by committing errors
that a simple non-commissioned officer would never have been guilty of;
or they may be compared perhaps to those consummate criminals who, having
long eluded the vigilance of the police with extraordinary dexterity, at
last commit such blunders, that one could almost swear they conspired
for their own capture. Or it would be more correct to say that God had
numbered their days, and their hour was come. _Quem Deus vult perdere
prius dementat._
From the moment when the Constitutions of this mysterious and dread
Society were brought to light, Constitutions which had been kept
jealously secret, all minor questions disappeared. Father Lavallette,
the bankrupt, the bankers (who were never paid), all were forgotten in
the great question affecting the Society itself. “Dogmatic disputes,
which had so long been forgotten, now resumed all the force of present
interest, and all the attraction of novelty. There was a universal
eagerness to discover and apply those mysterious Constitutions. Women,
and even children, were animated with the ardour of old practised
lawyers. Pascal became the idol of the day, and La Chalatois its
hero.”[341] Innumerable writings were daily printed and read with the
greatest avidity by all classes of persons; and for a while nothing else
was spoken of but the Society of Jesuits.
In these circumstances, fifty-one French bishops, under the presidency
of the Cardinal of Luynes, assembled, and, after a prolonged examination
of the Constitutions, declared that the unlimited obedience that the
General residing in Rome was empowered to exact from every member, was
incompatible with the laws of the kingdom, and with the general duties
of the subject to his sovereign. Now the opponents of the Jesuits,
and Madame do Pompadour at their head, pressed upon the king to take
a decisive measure. Louis XV. was an indolent profligate, whose chief
characteristic was the love and veneration of himself. Provided royalty
did not perish in his own person, he cared little what should become of
it after his death. He had no liking for any person but those who could
amuse him—a thing in his old age by no means easy. He cared nothing for
the Jesuits, but he feared them. He was persuaded that they had been
accomplices in the assassination of Henry III. and Henry IV.; he had
always before his eyes the poniard of Damiens, and attributed to the
fathers both the will and the power to murder him. For this all-important
reason, he resisted long all solicitations to expel them from France,
but he consented to address a request to the Pope to grant a reform, but
to grant it immediately, and without hesitation or subterfuge. Choiseul
himself prepared a plan of reform, which, it may be said, centred in
this principal point, namely, to propose to the General the appointment
of a vicar-general for France, who was to fix his residence in that
country, and pledge himself to render obedience to its laws—a measure
which was in conformity with the statutes, since these authorised the
General, in case of a great emergency, to name a vicar-general.[342] The
fact of this most reasonable demand having been made, would of itself
be a sufficient answer to the Jesuits and their partisans, who pretend
that the destruction of the order was not the consequence of any of
these misdemeanours, but that it had been planned long before between
the Encyclopædists Choiseul and Pombal. Yet we shall adduce some further
proofs to shew how unfounded their assertions are.
Pombal, although he was executing some of the reforms called for by the
Encyclopædists, was no way connected with them, and he is perhaps the
only man of mark of this epoch whom Voltaire has not favoured with a word
of his inexhaustible correspondence. On the contrary, the Patriarch of
Ferney often blames the marquis for his affected deference to the Pope
and respect for religion, as well as for his cruelty, so displeasing to
the naturally humane heart of Voltaire. Choiseul was indeed for a time
the friend of Pombal, and acted in concert with him in affairs of general
policy. But Pombal was too haughty, he had too exaggerated an opinion of
his own capacity, to act under or by the direction of any man whatever.
Besides, the well-known character of Choiseul renders it altogether
incredible that he could have been long and deeply engaged in a plot
to expel the Jesuits from Europe. The duke was the type of the French
gentilhommes of the eighteenth century. He possessed the incredulity,
the grace, the vanity, the courage, and that levity which would have
sacrificed the dearest interests to the pleasure of an epigram, and
which was so characteristic of the French noblesse in the former part of
Louis XV.’s reign. He was too frivolous to be capable of nourishing in
his heart for years a deep scheme of malice; nor did he honour or value
the Jesuits enough to make them the object of a mortal enmity. On the
contrary, with the Count of Kaunitz, the Austrian minister, he ridiculed
the sort of passion with which the Marquis of Pombal persecuted the sons
of Loyola. “Ce, Monsieur,” they would say, “a donc toujours un Jesuite a
cheval sur le nez.”[343]
However, it is evident that Choiseul could not be the man to protect the
Jesuits: it is evident that, to please Madame de Pompadour, and to court
public opinion, he must have shewn himself unfavourable to the fathers,
and must have pursued them with his sarcasms. It is also certain that
afterwards he became their enemy, not out of hatred, but rather to comply
with Charles III.’s wishes, and in order to get rid of them, and that he
used all his influence to have them expelled from France, and ultimately
abolished. The duke renders our assertions incontestable, when, in a
memorial addressed to the king, after having reminded him that he had
not been the man who had commenced the great measure of the expulsion
of the Jesuits, he adds, “Your Majesty knows well that, although it has
been said that I have laboured at the expulsion of the Jesuits, ... I
have in no way, either at a distance or on the spot, either in public or
in private, taken any step with this intent.” And he finishes by saying,
that only at a later period, after he had known them, he had become
their enemy. When, then, the duke made application to Rome to obtain the
nomination of a vicar-general who should reside in France, with authority
independent of the General, he was personally indifferent in the question.
It is well known what answer the General, Ricci, made to this
application—“Sint ut sunt aut non sint,” Let them be as they are, or be
no longer.
The parliament first abolished and suppressed all the congregations,
those powerful engines of the order; then, on the 6th of August 1762, it
declared that the Institute of the Jesuits was opposed to all authority,
spiritual and temporal, ecclesiastical and civil, and was calculated to
render them entirely independent of such authority by all sort of means,
and even to favour their usurpation of the government; it therefore
declared that the order should be irrevocably and for ever expelled
from the kingdom.[344] In consequence of this decree, the eighty-four
colleges of the Jesuits were shut up. The fathers were expelled from all
their houses, their properties were confiscated;[345] each individual,
however, being allowed a small income from the public treasury, and
being permitted for the moment to reside in France, separately, and as
secular clergymen. This permission was withdrawn two years after, and in
1764, the repugnance of Louis XV. having been overcome, the Jesuits were
ordered to quit the French territories.
But a more serious and unexpected calamity befel the Company only three
years after. Till the present moment, the Jesuits and their partisans had
boasted of their defeats and persecution, and had haughtily proclaimed in
the face of the world that they were only persecuted by the philosophic
spirit which had pervaded Europe, and which, its principal aim being the
destruction of the Catholic religion, had begun by attacking its firmest
bulwark—the Society of Jesus. Pombal and Choiseul were but the emissaries
of Voltaire; Joseph and Louis, indolent and voluptuous monarchs, entirely
under the guidance and yoke of the two ministers. But what had they to
say, now that they were going to be expelled from the dominions of a king
not only adverse to the philosophers, not only a bigoted Roman Catholic,
but, till the present moment, the friend and the protector of the Order?
What had they to say against this exemplary Christian, Charles III. of
Spain, loyal, frank, virtuous, chaste, and irreproachable, as he was?
Narrow-minded, indeed, he may have been, but no less clear-sighted,
active, and considerate; self-willed rather than disposed to succumb to
the influence of any person; and if he can be reproached with anything,
it were with the fault of having been rather partial to that nursery of
monks and nuns which infested Spain, and for one or other of whom he was
continually petitioning Rome for a canonisation. Yet this man, more than
any other, contributed to the abolition of the order.
The motives which induced Charles to take such a decided part in the
destruction of the Society are not very well ascertained, and the two
parties attribute it to different causes. We will try to throw some new
light on this obscure affair. As every one, in the absence of proofs, has
been obliged to have recourse to conjectures, we beg leave to give our
own also. We begin by relating the facts.
The long and ample cloaks, and the low, large-brimmed hats, worn at this
epoch in Spain, served to facilitate the perpetration of many crimes,
and to conceal the criminals. Squillace, the king’s prime minister, by
Charles’s order, issued a proclamation prohibiting the use of them; but
the populace of Madrid broke out in insurrection, besieged the minister
in his house, pulled it down, repulsed the Walloon guards which had
marched against them, and obliged the king, whose exhortation they
despised, to retire for the moment from Madrid. The revolt lasted for
several days, when the Jesuits, mingling amongst the rioters, appeased
them in a moment with the greatest facility. This revolt, which happened
in 1766, is known in history as the _Emeute des Chapeaux_.
This outbreak, which had no result, was entirely forgotten, when, on the
2d of April 1767, appeared a royal proclamation abolishing the Society
of the Jesuits in the peninsula, and expelling them from the Spanish
monarchy. Let the reader imagine the astonishment which the proclamation
produced throughout Europe, and the consternation and despair into which
it threw the Jesuits. What had happened that could furnish a motive for
such a harsh and most severe measure? No sign of change had been the
precursor of the storm; no warning had been given to the Jesuits; no
signs of enmity had been shewn to them. The proclamation not only was
silent as to the motives which had elicited it, but forbade every man
to appreciate and discuss either the measure or its causes; and this
redoubled the astonishment and the curiosity. Let us try to penetrate
this mystery. First of all we shall give the reasons which, according
to the Marquis d’Ossun, French ambassador at the court of Madrid,
were adduced to him by Charles himself, as having induced him to the
suppression of the order.
“Charles pledged his honour to the Marquis d’Ossun that he had never
entertained any personal animosity against the Jesuits; that, before
the last conspiracy, he had even repeatedly refused to sanction any
measures inimical to them. Notwithstanding that he had been warned by
confidential advisers, on whose word he could rely, that, ever since
1759, the Jesuits had incessantly traduced his government, his character,
and even his faith; his reply to these ministers had uniformly been
that he believed them to be either prejudiced or ill-informed. But the
insurrection of 1766 had opened the king’s eyes; Charles was convinced
that several members of the Society had been arrested in the act of
distributing money among the populace. After they had prepared the way
by poisoning the minds of the citizens with insinuations against the
government, the Jesuits only awaited the signal to spring the mine. The
first opportunity was sufficient, and they were content with the most
frivolous pretexts;—in one instance, the form of a hat or cloak; in
another, the misconduct of an intendant, or the knavery of a corregidor.
The attempt (the _émeute_ of 1766) failed, as the tumult had broken out
on Palm Sunday. The time fixed upon had been Holy Thursday, during the
ceremonies of visiting the churches, when the king was to be surprised
and surrounded at the foot of the cross. Such is the substance of the
motives stated by the King of Spain to the Marquis d’Ossun, accompanied
by a reiterated protest of the truth of what he had said, and, in proof
of this, he appealed to judges and magistrates of the most incorruptible
integrity; he even reproached himself with having been too lenient to
such a dangerous body, and then drawing a deep sigh, added, ‘I have
learned to know them too well.’”[346]
These are the motives assigned for this conduct by the opponents of the
Jesuits, and they rest, as may be seen, on very high authority. On the
other hand, the Jesuits and their friends assert that the whole affair
was an abominable and dishonourable plot of Choiseul. They pretend that
the duke had managed to put into the hands of Charles an autograph letter
supposed to be written by the General of the order to a provincial
in Spain, in which it was asserted that Charles was an illegitimate
son of Cardinal Alberoni, and that the throne belonged to Don Louis,
the king’s younger brother, and that it was this letter that excited
the resentment of Charles. Crétineau affirms that such was the case.
“Charles, who remained a fervent Christian, would not have destroyed
the institute, but that they affixed upon his royal escutcheon the
stigma of illegitimacy.... This fact is certified by other contemporary
testimonies, and by the documents of the Company.”[347] Ranke, without
accusing either party, seems to incline to this supposition, and says,
“Charles III. became persuaded that it was one of the purposes of the
Jesuits to raise his brother Don Louis to the throne in his place.”[348]
Now, rejecting the absurd accusation of the forgery of this letter, which
many reasons render altogether impossible, and which is by no means
consistent with the character of Choiseul, and adopting the version of
Ranke or of Ossun, there still remains to be explained the enmity of the
Jesuits against such a good Roman Catholic as Charles; and this enmity,
no historian, as far as we know, has ever attempted to explain. Yet this
is the point most necessary to be examined; because, unless we suppose
that such a sagacious and clear-sighted man as Charles III., after a
year of strict and severe investigation, came to the serious decision
of condemning the Jesuits solely on the authority of a forged letter,
without any other proof of their ill-will to him, it remains certain
that the Jesuits were guilty, and adverse to his person and government.
Whence, we repeat, this enmity? By considering a little the well-known
character of the Jesuits, we may perhaps be able to answer the query.
Every one who directly, or indirectly even, opposes the wishes or the
designs of the Society, is regarded as its mortal enemy, and every enemy
must, by whatever means, be broken down. Charles, from the beginning of
his reign, had constantly insisted upon the canonisation of Palafox, the
abhorred opponent of the Society—first grief. Charles did not shew the
Jesuits any particular affection, and had protected and befriended them
only as he did all other monastic orders—second grief. Charles would not
submit as his predecessors had done to the influence of the fathers,
and his confessor was of the order of the Dominicans, the ancient and
implacable enemy of the Company—third and most serious grief. Now, if
once it is admitted that the Jesuits had reason to dislike Charles,
all is easily explained. Then no act of enmity on their part ought to
surprise us. They would not have hesitated a moment to spread the
report that Charles was a bastard, to raise a conspiracy, to excite the
people to revolt, and to endeavour to supplant the king by his younger
brother. Thus it becomes clear how Charles, after obtaining the proofs
of their machinations, became furious against them; and it may easily be
conceived that, from pride and delicacy, he did not mention to the French
ambassador, among the other causes of resentment against the Jesuits,
that of their having slandered him as a bastard liable to be dethroned.
This is the view we take of the matter, and we doubt if the conduct of
Charles can be explained in any other plausible way.
Such, in our opinion, were the motives which induced the pious King of
Spain to expel the Jesuits from all his estates. The way in which this
was accomplished was also most remarkable, and deserves to be mentioned.
Immediately after _l’émeute des chapeaux_, which seems to have awakened
Charles’s suspicions, the proceedings against the Jesuits commenced, and
were continued for a year with the greatest secrecy. D’Aranda, now the
principal minister, conducted them. He neglected no precautions to insure
the success of his plan. He took great care, above all, that the Court of
Rome should have no suspicion of his projects. The king and his ministers
admitted into their confidence only Don Manuel de Roda, an able jurist,
and previously an agent of Spain in Rome. D’Aranda conferred with Moniño
and Campomanes, two very influential magistrates, in a singular and
romantic manner. They repaired separately and unknown to one another, to
a kind of ruined house, worked alone, communicating afterwards only with
the prime minister, who either transcribed himself their informations
or intrusted them to his page, who was too young to be mistrusted.
Those informations the minister carried himself to the king.[349]
Notwithstanding these precautions, it seems the Jesuits were not
altogether ignorant that some strange measures were contemplated against
them. In fact, it would have been almost incredible that a judicial
investigation, although surrounded with mystery and secrecy, in which
many persons, no matter of what measure of discretion, were interrogated,
could have been so conducted that not a word should have come to the
ears of the fathers. They certainly were ignorant of the real state of
things, and were perhaps far from suspecting the calamity impending over
their heads. But what proves that they must have had some intimation of
what was going on, is, that some short time before their expulsion they
had requested of the king the confirmation of their privileges, and had
removed their papers and their money.[350]
When all measures were ready, despatches were sent from Madrid to all
the governors of all the Spanish possessions of Africa, Asia, America,
and throughout all the peninsula. These despatches, signed by the king,
and counter-signed by D’Aranda, were sealed with three seals. On the
second envelop was written, “Under pain of death, you shall not open this
despatch but on the 2d April 1767, towards the closing of the day.”[351]
The orders to be executed in the different places, on the 2d of April,
were all of the same tenor. The alcaldes were enjoined, on the severest
penalties (Crétineau says on pain of death), immediately to enter the
establishments of the Jesuits armed, to take possession of them, to expel
the Jesuits from their convents, and to transport them within twenty-four
hours as prisoners to such ports as were designated. The fathers were to
embark instantly, leaving their papers under seal, and carrying away with
them only a breviary, a purse, and some apparel.[352] The orders were
executed everywhere with the utmost rigour, and six thousand Jesuits were
very soon floating at the same time on the waste ocean on their way to
the coast of Italy.
Charles had not notified his intentions either to the French Court, the
indiscretion of whose minister he feared, or to the Court of Rome, which
he knew would thwart the measure with all its might. Neither of these
courts was informed of the fact till after it was accomplished. When
the news reached Rome, the old and infirm Clement XIII. shed a flood of
tears. His spirits were broken down by the misfortunes that had befallen
his Jesuits. Already, after their expulsion from France, he had declared
that the decree which banished them was null and void, adding, “We
repel the grave injury offered to the Church and to the Holy See, and
we declare in the plenitude of our certain knowledge, _certâ scientiâ_,
that the institution of the Jesuits is in the highest degree pious and
holy.”[353] In the present circumstances he again attempted to shelter
the children of his predilection under the mantle of his infallibility,
and addressed to the King of Spain a brief, in which we read as follows:
“Of all the misfortunes that have afflicted us during the nine years
of our unhappy pontificate, the most sensible to our paternal heart
has been that inflicted by the hand of your Majesty. So you, too, my
son, _tu quoque fili mi_, so the Catholic King Charles III., who is so
dear to our heart, fills up the chalice of our suffering, condemns our
old age to a torrent of tears, and precipitates us into the grave. The
pious Spanish king ... thinks of destroying an institution so useful, so
meritorious for the Church, and which owes its origin and its splendour
to those saints and heroes whom God chose in the Spanish nation for His
greater glory” (this rather savours of Jesuit composition).... “_We call
God and men to witness_, that the Society is not only innocent of all
crime, but that it is _pious, useful, holy, in its pursuits, in its laws,
in its maxims_.”[354] Charles answered that he alone knew the crimes of
the Society, and that he would keep them concealed in his own breast, to
spare Christendom a great scandal.[355] Clement returned to his tears,
and this was all that was left him to do in favour of his children.
[Illustration: _Lorenzo Ricci._
_Hinchliff._]
However, there was a man in Rome who would not witness the ruin of the
Company of Jesus without attempting a desperate effort to save it.
This man was Ricci, the General. Ricci was a morose, obstinate, and
narrow-minded bigot, extremely jealous of his authority, and altogether
incapable of appreciating either circumstances or persons. Unlike
Acquaviva, he placed all his glory in never yielding an inch of ground;
and to partial loss, he preferred an entire ruin. Acquaviva would have by
some timely concession deferred for a while the impending storm. Ricci
accelerated its march by his intractability. “Let them be as they are,
or not at all”—these words shew the man. And now that his disciples were
expelled from a part of Europe, he, to save the Society, if possible,
decided upon sacrificing some thousands of individuals. Either the
persecution, which he studied to render more cruel, and in some measure
effective, would bring the Pope, the other sovereigns, or the different
populations, to some acts of energy, to retrieve the affairs of the
order, or it must incur the last distressful consequences. He would
submit to every extremity rather than to humiliation. In consequence,
he obliged Torrigiani, whom he seems to have kept under a severe yoke
(if the Cardinal received, or had received money, we can understand it),
to write to the Spanish minister that his Holiness would not permit the
Jesuits to land on his estates. Charles paid little attention to the
letter, and gave orders to the commander of the fleet to land them, if
necessary, by force of arms.
Torrigiani obeyed Ricci’s injunction to the letter. When after some
days’ sailing the first vessels arrived before Civita Vecchia, they were
received by cannon shot. The poor Jesuits, who thought they were near
the end of their sufferings, and had smiled at the sight of the promised
land, were furious when they saw themselves rejected from a country in
which they knew that their General had the utmost influence, and loudly
accused him of being the author of all their miseries. The Spanish
commander, not wishing to employ violence, and to land by force of arms,
coasted away towards Leghorn and Genoa, but there too they were refused a
landing. A similar fate was reserved for them on their first approach to
Corsica; and only after having been for six long months at the mercy of
the winds and waves, were those unfortunate monks, decimated by illness,
fatigue, and old age, permitted to disembark in Corsica, lately ceded by
Genoa to France, and where Paoli at that same moment had begun to fight
for independence.
The King of Naples and the Duke of Parma, both of the house of Bourbon,
the former in the month of November 1767, the latter in the beginning of
1768, resorted to the same measures as France and Spain, and the Jesuits
were expelled from their estates.
At the news of these repeated outrages, as he considered them, the old
Pope, driven to extremities, and instigated by the Jesuits, resolved on
an act of vigour, to test what the Supreme Pontiff could do for the sons
of his predilection. It seems that he could not summon courage enough to
strike the blow against France, Spain, or Naples, but he thought he could
dare anything against the Duke of Parma. He did not view him in the light
of a grandson of France and infant of Spain, but as a Farnese, over whose
dukedom the Roman See had always, if not exercised, at least claimed,
the right of suzerainty. In this persuasion, he published a “monitorium,”
wherein he pronounced ecclesiastical censures against his vassal, and
declared that he had forfeited his estates. Charles and Louis were aghast
at the boldness of the old Pope, and although the indolent Louis shewed
no great resolution to resent the insult, Choiseul and Charles contrived
to stir up his indignation, representing to him the scorn which would
fall on the house of Bourbon, if a son of a Venetian merchant (Clement)
should insult with impunity a grandson of St Louis.[356] In consequence,
the ambassadors of the three courts, France, Spain, and Naples, had
orders to present to the Pope a memorial, asking him to revoke the
“monitorium,” or to expect to see some of his estates confiscated.
Torrigiani and the Jesuit partisans, who knew the demand that was going
to be addressed to the Pope, fearing lest the old man should yield,
represented to him how glorious it would be to uprear again the tiara,
humbled by Benedict XIV., before the secular powers, and made him even
descry in the distance the crown of martyrdom, an honour which the
enthusiastic and pious Pope would have wished above all things. Clement
accordingly, when the ambassadors presented themselves for the appointed
audience, would hardly deign to look at the memorial; and when they spoke
of _reprisals_, his whole frame trembled, and he exclaimed, in a broken
voice—“The Vicar of Jesus Christ is treated like the lowest of mankind.
True that he has neither armies nor cannon, and it is an easy matter to
despoil him of all his possessions; but it is beyond the power of man to
compel him to act against his conscience.”[357]
The moment this answer was made known to the monarchs, the troops of the
French king seized on Avignon, those of the King of Naples on Pontecorvo
and Benevento, all possessions belonging to the Roman states.
At such distressful news the poor Pope was overcome by grief, and
perceiving that he was unable to offer any material resistance, resolved
to endure patiently those injuries, but not to yield to threatening;
and he remained firm in his determination, although the Romans loudly
murmured against him, and menaced and offered insult to the Jesuit party
as the sole cause of the public calamities. The Pope’s position became
more and more desperate every day, and he did not know that he had a
single friend left. To whom could he now turn for aid? Genoa, Modena,
Venice, nay, all the Italian states, took part against him. Once more he
directed his eyes towards Austria. He wrote to the Empress Maria Theresa,
that she was his only consolation on earth; she would surely not permit
that his old age should be oppressed by acts of violence.[358] But the
empress answered him that the affair was one concerning not religion, but
state policy, and that she could not interfere without injustice.
Nor was this the greatest affliction reserved for the old pontiff.
While Clement was so overwhelmed by grief, in the beginning of 1769
the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples presented themselves, one
after the other, before him, and demanded the irrevocable suppression of
the whole Order of the Jesuits. The Pope, on hearing the proposal, was
stupified, and remained for some time speechless. When he had recovered
some composure, he answered, in a broken and faltering voice, that he
would soon make known his intentions, and called a consistory for the
3d of February. But on the evening preceding the day on which that
consistory was to assemble, he was seized with a convulsion, in which he
expired.[359] The Jesuits have extolled the virtues and the holiness of
this Pope to the skies, and consider him as the best friend the order
ever had; while the philosophers, in their speculations, have attributed
to him the ultimate ruin of the Society, on account of his obstinate
resistance to the demands of reform.
Canova has immortalised the memory of Rezzonico by the most beautiful of
all the monuments which have a place in St Peter’s. Strangers go there
to admire the chaste and pure figure of religion weeping over his tomb,
the majestic dignity of the vigilant lion, the imposing calmness of the
sleeping one, and the admirable execution of the whole group.
With Clement XIII. the Popes lost all independence as secular princes,
and, as such, have been ever after at the mercy of the strongest secular
power that has wished to domineer over them.