these fathers, by occasioning the law-suit which they had lost,
hastened, it is said, their ruin, by a singular circumstance. We
received, at the end of March, 1762, the melancholy news of the
taking of that colony. This capture, so important to the English,
occasioned a loss of several millions to our commerce: the wisdom of
the government was desirous of preventing the complaints which so
great a loss would occasion to the publick. They bethought them, by
way of causing a diversion, of furnishing the French with another
subject of conversation; as heretofore Alcibiades thought of cutting
off his dog’s tail, in order to prevent the Athenians from talking of
weightier matters. They declared then to the principal of the college
of the Jesuits, that nothing more remained for them but to obey the
parliament, and to put a stop to their lectures, by the 1st of April,
1762. From that time the colleges were shut up, and the society began
seriously to despair of its fortune: at length the 6th of August,
1762, the day so wished for by the publick, arrived: the institute was
unanimously condemned by the parliament, without any opposition on
the part of the sovereign: their vows were declared not binding, the
Jesuits secularised and dissolved, their effects alienated and sold;
the greater part of the parliaments, sooner or later, treated them
pretty nearly in the same manner; some mingled still more rigour in
their judgements, and drove them away without other form of process.
They lived therefore dispersed here and there, and wearing the secular
habit; but they remained still about the court, and were even in
greater numbers there than ever: they seemed there to brave in silence
their enemies, and to wait, in order to recover themselves, a more
favourable season. It was said pretty loudly, that these foxes were
not destroyed, if they proceeded not at last to shut them up in the
hole where they thought themselves secure; and that they were not
martyrs so long as they were confessors. “They are very sick;” it was
added, “perhaps dieing, but their pulse yet beats.” They were thought
to be so little annihilated, notwithstanding their dispersion, that a
superior of a seminary, to whom their house for novices was offered,
replied, that he would not accept of it, out of fear of _spirits_.
They were not however very far distant from the moment of their
total expulsion; and it was again to the inconsiderate zeal of their
friends that they owed this obligation. A frantick partisan of the
society published, in their defence, a violent treatise, abusing
the magistrates, entitled, _It is Time to Speak_. Somebody said
then, that the magistrates answer should be, _It is Time to Depart_.
Such person was so much the less mistaken, as a new subject of
complaint succeeded, to fill up the measure of these proceedings.
The arch-bishop, of whom we have already made such frequent mention,
thought the rights of the church violated by the arrêts of parliament,
against vows contracted before the altars: he issued, in favour of the
Jesuits, a mandate, which served completely to set the magistrates
against them; some of these fathers were accused of having hawked
about the mandate; some of their votaries, of having vended it: this
was, as it were, the signal of the last blow given to the whole body.
The parliament ordered, that within the space of eight days, every
Jesuit, professed or not professed, who was desirous of remaining in
the kingdom, should make oath that he renounced the institution. The
term was short; they did not choose to give them time to deliberate:
it was feared they might hold secret assemblies among themselves; that
they might write to their general to beg his leave to give way to the
times; that by favour of _mental restrictions_, they might take the
oath which was required; that under the cover of this oath they might
remain in France, in order to wait there a more favourable juncture;
that they might practise at last the maxim of Acomat in Bajazet:
Promettez; affranchi du péril qui vous presse,
Vous verrez de quel poids sera votre promesse.
It is certain that the Jesuits, in signing the oath which was
proposed, would have greatly embarrassed the Jansenists their enemies,
who sought only a pretext to get them banished, and to whom that
pretext would have been wanting. It is certain moreover, that as
Frenchmen and as Christians they might have signed conscientiously
what was required of them: this a writer, by no means well affected
in other respects to the society, has proved demonstratively, by a
writing which has fallen into my hands, and which will be found in
the sequel of this history: but whether it was fanaticism or reason,
whether a principle of conscience or human respect, whether honour or
obstinacy, the Jesuits did not what they might have done, and what
it was feared they would do. These men, who were thought so much
disposed to trifle with religion, and who had been represented as
such in a multitude of writings, refused almost all to take the oath
which was required of them: in consequence thereof they had orders
to quit the kingdom; and these orders were executed with rigour. In
vain several of them represented their age, their infirmities, the
services which they had performed; hardly one of their requests was
granted. The justice which had been done on the body, was pushed
against individuals to an extreme severity, which probably was thought
necessary. They wanted to take away from this society, the very
shadow of which seemed to terrify even after it no longer existed,
all means of springing up again one day; sentiments of compassion
were sacrificed to what was deemed reason of state. Nevertheless the
implacable Jansenists, irritated by the very recent remembrance of
the persecutions which the Jesuits had made them undergo, thought
that the parliament had not yet done enough: they resembled the Swiss
Captain, who ordered the dead and the dying to be buried together
on the field of battle: it was represented to him, that some of the
interred still breathed, and begged only to live: “Pho,” said he, “if
we were to mind them, there would not be a dead man among them.”
It is certain that the greater part of the Jesuits, those who in
that society (as elsewhere) interfere with nothing, and who are much
more numerous among them than is imagined, ought not, had it been
possible, to have been punished for the faults of their superiors:
thousands of these innocents were confounded unwillingly with a score
of criminals: nay, further, these innocents were unhappily the only
persons punished, and the only ones to be pitied; for the leaders
had obtained, by their interest, pensions which they could enjoy at
their ease, while the multitude sacrificed remained without bread as
well as without support. All that could be alledged in favour of the
general decree of expulsion pronounced against these fathers, was the
famous passage of Tacitus, relative to that law of the Romans, which
condemned to death all the slaves in a house for the crime of a single
one: _habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum_; “every great
example has somewhat unjust in it.” Thus, in the destruction of the
Templars, a great number of innocents fell victims to the pride and
insolent riches of their chiefs: and thus the disorders, of which the
Templars were accused, were not the only cause of their destruction;
their principal crime was that of having rendered themselves odious
and formidable. Posterity will think the same of the judgement
issued against the Jesuits, and of the exile to which they have been
condemned: they will deem it perhaps severe, at least in appearance,
but perhaps also will judge it indispensible: this time alone can
decide.
For the rest, independently of the natural compassion which the aged
Jesuits, or those sick, and without resource, seemed to claim, and
who after all are men, one would think a distinction might have been
made, in the oath which was required, between the professed Jesuits
and those who were not so, between those who had already renounced
the institution and those who adhered to it still, without being
absolutely tied to it. Allow the oath to have been required from the
professed Jesuits, whom they wanted to get rid of, such a precaution
might have been thought necessary: but was it necessary to require
anything more of the Jesuits who were not professed, than a simple
promise that they would not bind themselves to the institution, or
any thing else of the ex-Jesuits, than a bare declaration that they
had renounced it? The contrary conduct which was observed, might have
preserved to the society subjects who were disposed to quit it, and
who were deprived of every other resource: this rigour also might
restore to the order, members which it had already lost.
In proposing these reflexions, I am very far from disapproving of
the conduct of the magistrates; who for just reasons, without doubt,
thought it their duty to act otherwise: it is proper however to
remark, that several parliaments have thought it their duty, on their
parts, to observe a contrary conduct; after having dissolved the
institution, they have left the dispersed Jesuits all the rights of
subjects: but is it not to be feared, said they, that by preserving
them thus in more than one half of the kingdom, they have left to
these men, who are thought so turbulent, a means of forming intrigues,
so much the more dangerous as they are concealed? Once more, time
alone can inform us which of the judges have taken the best method in
this affair; whether the one have not been too rigorous, and whether
the others, in wanting to be less so, have not buried the fire under
the ashes.
Some parliaments besides had pronounced no sentence against the
institution; and the Jesuits subsisted still entire in one part of
France. There was room to apprehend, that at the first signal of
rallying, the _dispersed_ party, suddenly joining the party _united_,
might form a new society, even before any should be in a condition
to oppose it. The wisdom, and the honour also, of government, seemed
to require, that the law, with regard to the Jesuits, whatever it
was, should be uniform throughout the kingdom. These views seem to
have dictated the edict, by which the king has just abolished the
society throughout all France; but permitting, in other respects, its
members to live quietly in their country, under the eye and under the
protection of the laws. May these pacifick intentions of our august
monarch be crowned with the success which they merit!
It was without doubt the better to fulfill these respectable
intentions, that the parliament of Paris, on registering this new
edict, ordained the Jesuits to reside each in his own diocese, and
to present themselves every six months before the magistrates of the
place in which they shall dwell. We know not whether the Jesuits, who
are already withdrawn into foreign countries, will think proper to
submit to this constraint. The same arrêt forbids them to come within
ten leagues of Paris, which banishes them at least six leagues from
Versailles, but prohibits them not from dwelling at Fontainbleau and
Compiegne, where the court resides at least three months in the year.
It was thought, perhaps, that during so short a space of time, their
intrigues at court would not be to be dreaded.
On banishing the Jesuits by its first arrêt, the parliament of Paris
had assigned them pensions for their subsistence: this mitigation to
their exile appeared to many people a contradiction. Wherefore, said
they, facilitate a retreat into foreign countries to subjects reputed
dangerous, apostles of regicide, enemies of the state, and who, by
refusing to renounce the society, prefer their Italian general to
their lawful sovereign? There is no cause, however, for blaming with
severity this apparent contradiction; though we should disapprove,
in logical rigour, of what it is not our province to decide upon,
we ought still more to excuse it, on account of the law of nature
which existed before there were Jansenists and Jesuits. Those who
have hampered themselves in the institution of the society, did it
altogether under the protection of the publick faith and the laws:
if they have refused to renounce it, it may be thro’ a delicacy
of conscience ever to be respected, even in men who are wrong. On
sacrificing them to the necessity which was thought indispensible, of
no longer permitting Jesuits in France, it would have been inhuman to
deprive them of the necessaries of life, and to forbid them even the
air which they breathe. As to the rest, these reflexions, whether well
or ill founded, have no longer place, from the moment that the Jesuits
are permitted, without requiring any thing of them, to remain in the
kingdom: after having deprived the society of its effects, it is right
to furnish its members with the means of subsisting, inasmuch as it is
thought possible, without inconvenience, to restore them to the state
to which they belong.
Let us not forget, before we conclude this narrative, a singular
circumstance, extremely proper to shew, in its true point of
view, the pretended concern for religion, with which several of
its ministers seek to bedeck themselves. Some bishops, who reside
in their dioceses, joined themselves, by their mandates, to the
archbishop, defender of the Jesuits: other bishops (who reside not)
were ready to join themselves also. The parliament made a shew of
wanting to renew, and causing to be observed with rigour, the ancient
laws respecting residence: these bishops then were silent, and their
menacing zeal expired on their lips. Disconcerted and humbled at their
impotence against the enemies of the Jesuits, they will seek perhaps
to indemnify themselves, by falling upon the philosophers, whom they
accuse, very unjustly, of having communicated to the parliament of
Paris their pretended liberty of thinking: even already some of these
prelates, we are assured, have taken this sad and feeble revenge; like
that wretch, on whom, as he was passing, a tile fell from the top of a
house, the roof of which was repairing; and who, to revenge himself,
threw stones up to the first story, not having strength, as he said,
to throw them higher.
Such has been in this kingdom the fate of the Jesuits: the
circumstances of their destruction have been very strange in all
respects; the storm began at a place where it was expected the least,
in Portugal, the most addicted of all the countries of Europe to
priests and monks, which appeared not formed for delivering itself so
speedily from the Jesuits, and still less to set in that respect the
example; their annihilation in France was prepared by the rigour which
they assumed in spite of themselves; lastly, it was consummated by a
dying and abject sect, which has finished, against all expectation,
what an Arnauld, a Paschal, and a Nicole, would neither have been able
to execute, nor attempt, nor even to hope. What more striking example
of that inconceivable fatality which seems to preside over human
affairs, and to bring them, when we expect it least, to the point
of maturity or destruction? It would make a fine chapter, to add to
history the great events which have happened through slender causes.
A well-known writer, speaking in 1759, three years before the
destruction of the Jesuits, of the two parties which divided the
church of France, said of the most powerful party, “that it would
cease soon to exist[17]:” some wanted to make these words pass for
a prophecy; but as probably the writer aspires not to the honour
of being a prophet, he will confess that on writing this sort of
prediction, he was very far from suspecting it was so true. It was
plainly seen, that the party till then oppressed began to gain ground;
but nobody could foresee to what a degree it was to oppress, in its
turn, that by which it had been till then kept under: fine matter to
the enemies of the society, to enforce the validity of their ordinary
commonplace sayings, on the Providence of God in support of what they
call _the good cause_!
It is not less singular, that the French nation, at a time when she
suffered her weakness to appear abroad, by an unsuccessful war,
should have performed this act of vigour at home: it is true, that
on reflexion we shall find perhaps, in the same principle, the cause
of so much weakness without, and of such great strength, or, if
you please, of such great fermentation within: but this political
discussion would carry us too far, and is no part of our subject.
What is more singular still, is, that an undertaking, which would have
been thought very difficult, and even impossible at the beginning of
1761, should have been accomplished in less than two years, without
noise, without resistance, and with as little trouble as they would
have had in destroying the Capuchins and the Pickpusses. We cannot say
of the Jesuits that their death has been as brilliant as their life.
Nay, if any thing ought to humble them, it is that they have perished
so pitifully, so obscurely, without lustre and without glory. Nothing
better discovers a real weakness, which had only the appearance of
strength. The Jesuits will say, without doubt, that they have only
executed, and wanted only to execute, literally the precept of the
gospel; “When they persecute you in one city, fly into another.” But
why, after having forgot this precept for two hundred years, have they
remembered it so late?
Lastly, what will complete our astonishment is, that two or three men
only, who would not have thought themselves destined to effect such a
revolution, should have conceived and accomplished this great project:
the general impulse given to the whole body of the magistracy was
their work, and the fruit of their impetuous activity. Mankind indeed
are seldom led by cold and calm spirits. Tranquill reason has not,
of herself alone, the warmth so necessary to enforce her opinions,
and make us enter into her views: she is content with instructing her
age silently, and without bustle, and to become afterwards a mere
spectatress of the effect, whether good or bad, which her lessons
shall have produced. She resembles, if we may use the comparison,
the “old man of the mountain,” at whose voice the young people, his
disciples, ran to throw themselves over precipices, but who took care
not to throw himself over.
It is true, that this small number of men, who set all the tribunals
of the kingdom in motion against the Jesuits, found the nation
favourably disposed for that fermentation, and eager to support it by
its discourses. We say _by its discourses_; for in France all that the
nation can do, is to speak, right or wrong, for or against, those who
govern: but it must be confessed also, that the publick cry is there
held in some account. Philosophy, against which the Jansenists had
declared war almost as hot as against the company of Jesus, had made,
in spite of them, and happily for them, sensible progresses. The
Jesuits, intolerant by system and situation, were become by it only
the more odious: they were considered, if I may so say, as the giants
of fanaticism; as the most dangerous enemies of reason, and as those
whom it imported most to get rid of. The parliaments, when they began
to attack the society, found this disposition in all minds. It was
properly philosophy, which by the mouth of the magistrates, issued the
decree against the Jesuits: Jansenism was only the sollicitor in it.
The nation, and the philosophers at its head, wished the annihilation
of these fathers, because they are intolerant, persecutors, turbulent,
and formidable: the Jansenists desired it, because the Jesuits
maintain _versatile grace_, and themselves _efficacious grace_. But
for this ridiculous scholastick dispute, and the fatal bull which was
the fruit of it, the society would perhaps still exist, after having
so often merited destruction, for causes somewhat more real and more
weighty. But at last it is destroyed, and reason is avenged.
Qu’importe de quel bras Dieu daigne se servir?
To these reflexions we may join another no less important, and formed
to serve as a lesson to all religious orders, which may be tempted
to imitate the Jesuits. If those fathers had been prudent enough to
confine the credit of the society to what it might draw from the
sciences and letters, that credit would have been more solid, less
envied, and more durable. It was the spirit of intrigue and ambition
which they displayed, the oppressions which they exercised; in one
word, their enormous power (or what was thought such) and, above all,
the insolence which they joined to it, that ruined them. There is
no believing to what a height they had carried their audaciousness
lately: the following is a pretty recent stroke, which will make them
thoroughly known.
Benedict XIV. at the beginning of his pontificate, accepted the
dedication of a work, which father Norbert the Capuchin had composed
against the Jesuits; for they were come to that pass, as to arm even
the Capuchins against them: _Tu quoque Brute_[18]! cried a famous
satyrist on this occasion. The pope thought he might permit Norbert to
remain at Rome under his protection. He had not the power to do it:
the Jesuits took their measures so well, that in the end they drove
the Capuchin not only out of the pope’s territories, but even out of
all the Catholick states: he was obliged to fly to London, and found
not till 1759 an asylum in Portugal, when the society were driven from
thence: he had the satisfaction, as he tells us himself, to assist
at the execution of Malagrida, and to say mass for the repose of his
soul, while they finished burning his body.
The persecution, so rancorously carried on by the Jesuits against
this monk, who was protected by Benedict XIV. had greatly irritated
that pope against them; he omitted no opportunity of giving them, on
all occasions, disgust, whenever it was in his power. The Jansenists
even doubt not but, if he had lived, he would have availed himself
of the circumstance of their destruction in Portugal and France, to
annihilate the society: but whatever they may say, it is not probable
that a pope, be he what he will, should ever forget so far his own
true interests. The Jesuits are the sovereign Pontif’s Janissaries,
formidable sometimes to their master, like those of the Ottoman Porte,
but necessary like them to the support of the empire. It is the
interest of the court of Rome to curb and to preserve them: Benedict
XIV. had too much sense not to think so. The Czar Peter, it is true,
broke at one time 40,000 Strelitzes, who had revolted, though they
were his best soldiers: but the Czar had twenty millions of subjects,
and could recruit them with other Strelitzes; whereas the Pope, whose
whole power is supported only by the spiritual army under his command,
would not be able easily to recruit it with such soldiers as the
Jesuits, so well disciplined, so devoted to the church of Rome, and so
formidable to the enemies of the sovereign Pontif.
It may be asserted with truth, that Pope Benedict XIV. would have
acted better on such an occasion than his successor Clement XIII.
He would not, like the latter, have written to a king, who did him
the honour of consulting him, “that the Jesuits must remain as
they were:” he would have returned an equivocal answer, as he did
on occasion of the refusal of the sacraments to the Jansenists; he
would have gained time; he would have granted the parliaments some
modifications in regard to the institution (at least with respect
to the French Jesuits); he would have flattered and engaged the
Jansenists, by some bull, in favour of _efficacious grace_: in short,
he would have deadened or weakened the blows that were aimed at his
regiment of guards. But it looks as if, in this affair, the Jesuits
and their friends had been seized with a fit of giddiness, and that
they did themselves all that was necessary to accelerate their ruin:
they shewed themselves, for the first time, inflexible in a matter,
where it was of the highest importance to them not to be so: they
caballed in secret, and talked openly at court against their enemies:
they cried out, that religion was undone, if we parted with them;
that we drove them away only to establish in France incredulity and
heresy: and by these means they cast oil on the fire, instead of
extinguishing it. It looks as if the Jansenists had put up to God,
for the destruction of the society, the following prayer of Joad in
Athalia.
Daigne, daigne, grand Dieu, sur _son chef_ & sur elle
Répandre cet esprit d’imprudence & d’erreur,
De _leur destruction_ funeste avant-coureur.
Accordingly the Jansenists strongly assured us in their bigotted
language, that the _finger of God_ was manifest on all parts in this
affair: “Alas!” replied a quondam Jesuit, seemingly consoled at being
no longer of the order, “you may say, all his four fingers, and the
thumb too!”