The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Captive of Jesus Christ."

Pombal was determined now to make a master-stroke to discredit the Portuguese Jesuits. He would disgrace and put to death as a criminal their most distinguished representative, Father Malagrida, now over seventy years of age, who had already passed two years in the dungeons of Jonquiera. Malagrida was regarded by the people as a saint. He had labored for many years in the missions of Brazil and was marvelously successful in the work of converting the savages. Unfortunately he had been recalled to Portugal in 1749 by the queen mother to prepare her for the end of her earthly career. As Malagrida knew how Carvalho's brother was acting in Brazil, he was evidently a dangerous man to have so near the Court. Hence when the earthquake occurred and the holy old missionary dared to tell the people that possibly it was a punishment of God for the sins of the people, Carvalho banished him to Setubal and kept him there for two years. When the supposed plot against the king's life occurred, Malagrida was sent to prison as being concerned in it, though he had never been in Lisbon since his banishment. He was condemned to death with the other supposed conspirators; but his character as a priest, and his acknowledged sanctity made the king forbid the execution of the sentence. Pombal, however, found a way out of the difficulty. A book was produced which was said to have been written by Malagrida during his imprisonment. It was crammed with utterances that only a madman could have written: In any case it could not have been produced by the occupant of a dark cell, where there was no ink and no paper. When it was presented to the Inquisition whose death sentences the king himself could not revoke, the judges refused to consider the case at all; whereupon they were promptly removed by Pombal who made his own brother chief inquisitor; and from him and two other tools, promptly drew a condemnation of Malagrida for heresy, schism, blasphemy and gross immorality.

The sentence of death was passed on September 20, 1761, and on the same day the venerable priest was brought to hear the formal proclamation of it in the hall of supplication. There he was told that he was degraded from his priestly functions, and was condemned to be led through the public streets of the city, with a rope around his neck, to the square called do Rocco, where he was to be strangled by the executioner, and after he was dead, his body was to be burned to ashes, so that no memory of him or his sepulchre might remain. He heard the sentence without emotion and quietly protested his innocence. On the very next day, September 21, the execution took place. Platforms were erected around the square. Cavalry and infantry were massed here and there in large bodies; each soldier had eight rounds of ammunition. Pombal presided. The nobility, the members of the courts, and officers of the State were compelled to be present, and great throngs of people crowded the square and filled the abutting avenues and streets.

When everything was ready, a gruesome procession started from the prison. Malagrida appeared with the carocha, or high cap of the criminal, on his head, and a gag in his mouth. With him were fifty-two others who had been condemned for various crimes; but only he was to die. They were called from their cells merely to accentuate his disgrace. Having arrived at the place of execution, the sentence was again read to him; and when he was relieved of the gag, he calmly protested his innocence and gave himself up to the executioners, uttering the words of Our Lord on the Cross: "Father, into Thy hands, I commend my spirit." He was quickly strangled; then fire was set to his lifeless body and the ashes were scattered to the winds. He was seventy-two years of age, and had spent forty-one of them working for the salvation of his fellowmen.

All this happened in Portugal which once gloried in having the great Francis Xavier represent it before the world; which exulted in a son like de Britto, the splendid apostle of the Brahmans, who waived aside a mitre in Europe but bent his neck with delight to receive the stroke of an Oriental scimitar. The same Portugal which inscribed on its roll of honor the forty Jesuits who suffered death while on their way to evangelize Portugal's possessions in Brazil, now made a holiday to witness the hideous torture of the venerable and saintly Malagrida. The Jesuits of Portugal had done much for their country. They had borne an honorable part in the struggle that threw off the Spanish yoke: the magnificent Vieira was a greater emancipator of the native races than was Las Casas; and he and his brethren had won more territories for Portugal than da Gama and Cabral had ever discovered. But all that was forgotten, and they were driven out of their country, or kept chained in fetid dungeons till they died or were burned at the stake in the market-place, in the presence of the king and the people. No wonder that Portugal has descended to the place she now occupies among the nations.

CHAPTER XV

CHOISEUL

The French Method – Purpose of the Enemy – Preliminary Accusations – Voltaire's testimony – La Vallette – La Chalotais – Seizure of Property – Auto da fé of the Works of Lessius, Suárez, Valentia, etc. – Appeal of the French Episcopacy – Christophe de Beaumont – Demand for a French Vicar – "Sint ut sunt aut non sint" – Protest of Clement XIII – Action of Father La Croix and the Jesuits of Paris – Louis XV signs the Act of Suppression – Occupations of dispersed Jesuits – Undisturbed in Canada – Expelled from Louisiana – Choiseul's Colonization of Guiana.

The result of Pombal's work in Portugal was applauded by his friends in France, but his methods were condemned. "He was a butcher with an axe." Their own procedure was to be along different lines. They would first poison the public mind, would enjoy the pleasure of seeing the heretical Jansenist condemning the Jesuit for heterodoxy, and the professional debauchee assailing his morality, and then they would put the Society to death by process of law for the good of the commonwealth and of the Church. There would be no imprisonments, no burnings at the stake, no exiles, but simply an authorized confiscation of property which would leave the Jesuits without a home, replenish the public purse and ensure the peace of the nation. It was much easier and more refined. Meantime, the Portuguese exhibition was a valuable object lesson to their followers, who saw a king lately honored with the title of His Most Faithful Majesty putting to death the most ardent champions of the Faith. Later on, The Christian King, The Catholic King, and The Apostolic Emperor would unite to show that "Faith" and "Christianity" and "Apostolicity" were only names.

With all their refinement, however, the French were more radical and more malignant than the Portuguese. Pombal had no other idea beyond that of a state Church such as he had seen in England, forming a part of the government machinery, and when his effort to bring that about by marrying the Protestant Duke of Cumberland to the Infanta of Portugal was thwarted by the Jesuits, he simply treated them as he did his other political enemies; he put them in jail or the grave. In France, the scheme was more comprehensive. With men like Voltaire and his associates in the literary world, and Choiseul and others of his set controlling the politics of the country, the plan was not merely to do away with the Church, but with all revealed religion. As the Jesuits were conspicuous adversaries of the scheme, it was natural that they should be disposed of first.

Such is the opinion of St. Liguori, who says: "The whole thing is a plot of the Jansenists and unbelievers to strike the Pope and the Church." The Protestant historian Maximilian Schoell is of like mind (Cours d'histoire, xliv.): "The Church had to be isolated; and to be isolated, it had to be deprived of the help of that sacred phalanx which had avowed itself to the defence of the Pontifical throne… Such was the real cause of the hatred meted out to that Society." Dutilleul, in his "Histoire des corporations religieuses en France" (p. 279) expresses himself as follows: "The Jesuit is a missionary, a traveller, a mystic, a man of learning, an elegant civilizer of savages, a confessor of queens, a professor, a legislator, a financier, and, if need be, a warrior. His was not a narrow and personal ambition, as people erroneously suppose and assert. He was something more. He was a reactionist, a Catholic and a Roman revolutionist. Far from being attached, as is supposed, to his own interests, the Society has been in the most daring efforts of its indefatigable ambition only the protagonists of the spiritual authority of Rome."

Indeed, we have it from Voltaire himself, who wrote to Helvetius in 1761: "Once we have destroyed the Jesuits, we shall have easy work with the Pope." Rorbacher (Histoire de l'église, tom. XXVII, p. 28) holds the same view, "They are attacking the Society only to strike with greater certainty at the Church and the State." But the real, the ultimate purpose of Voltaire was expressed by his famous phrase Ecrasons l'infâme – "Let us crush the detestable thing," the detestable thing meaning God or Christ, and such has ever been the aim of his disciples. That it still persists was proclaimed officially from the French tribune by Viviani, "Our war is not against the Church, nor against Christianity, but against God." This open and defiant profession of atheism, however, would not have been possible in 1761. Hence, to conceal their purpose, they allied themselves with the most pretentious professors of the religion of the time; the only ones, according to themselves, who knew the Church's dogma and observed her moral law; the orthodox and austere Jansenists, who probably flattered themselves they were tricking les impies, whereas, d'Alembert wrote to one of his friends "Let the Pandours destroy the Jesuits; then we shall destroy the Pandours."

The programme was to compel the parliament to terrorize the king, which was very easy, because of the gross licentiousness of Louis XV. He was simply a tool in the hands of his mistresses, and Guizot in his "Histoire de France" has a picture in which Madame du Barry stands over the king and points to the picture of Charles I of England, who was beheaded for resisting parliament.

The Jansenist section of the coalition began the fight by the time-worn accusation of the "lax morality" of the Jesuits – a method of assault that was by no means acceptable to Voltaire who as early as 1746 had written to his friend d'Alembert, as follows: "What did I see during the seven years that I lived in the Jesuit's College? The most laborious and frugal manner of life; every hour of which was spent in the care of us boys and in the exercises of their austere profession. For that I call to witness thousands of men who were brought up as I was. Hence, it is that I can never help being astounded at their being accused of teaching lax morality. They have had like other religious in the dark ages casuists who have treated the pro and con of questions that are evident today or have been relegated to oblivion. But, ma foi are we going to judge their morality by the satire of the Lettres Provinciales. It is assuredly by Father Bourdaloue and Father Cheminais and their other preachers and by their missionaries that we should measure them. Put in parallel columns the sermons of Bourdaloue and the Lettres Provinciales, and you'll find in the latter the art of raillery pressed into service to make indifferent things appear criminal and to clothe insults in elegant language; but you will learn from Bourdaloue how to be severe to yourself and indulgent to others. I ask then, which is true morality and which of the two books is more useful to mankind? I make bold to say that there is nothing more contradictory; nothing more iniquitous; nothing more shameful in human nature than to accuse of lax morality, the men who lead the austerest kind of life in Europe, and who go to face death at the ends of Asia and America."

The romances about the immense wealth of the Society best appealed to the public imagination, especially as the news of an impending financial disaster was in the air. One instance of this style of propaganda may suffice. The others all resemble it. A Spaniard, it was said, had arrived at Brest with, 2,000,000 livres in his wallet and was promptly killed by the Jesuits. Soon the 2,000,000 had grown to 8,000,000. Then there was a distinguished conversion; that of a Jesuit named Chamillard who had turned Gallican and Jansenist on his death-bed; and although Chamillard a few days afterwards appeared in the flesh and protested that he was neither dead nor a Gallican nor a Jansenist, his testimony was set aside. It had appeared in print and that was enough. Such absurdities of course could do no serious harm, but at last, a splendid fact presented itself which could not be disproved; especially as a vast number of people, in France and elsewhere, were financial sufferers in consequence of it. It was the bankruptcy of Father de la Valette. In the public mind it proved everything that had ever been written about the Order. Briefly it is as follows:

At the very beginning of the Seven Years War, the British fleet had destroyed 300 French ships, captured 10,000 sailors and confiscated 300,000,000 livres worth of merchandise. Among the sufferers was Father La Valette, the superior of Martinique, who was engaged in cultivating extensive plantations on the island, and selling the products in Europe, for the support of the missions. Very unwisely he borrowed extensively after the first disaster, going deeper and deeper into debt, until at last he was unable to meet his obligations which by this time had run up to the alarming sum of 2,000,000 livres, or about $400,000. Suit was therefore brought by some of the creditors, but instead of submitting the case to a commission established long before by Louis XIV for adjusting the affairs of the missions, they laid it before the usual parliamentary tribunal in spite of the fact of its inveterate and well-known hatred of the Society. Guizot says that they did it with a certain pride, so convinced were they of the justice of their plea. Hundreds of others had suffered like themselves at the hands of the enemy in the Seven Years War, and they had no desire to avail themselves of any special legislation in their behalf. They underrated the honesty of the judges.

A verdict was, of course, rendered against them, and the whole Society was made responsible for the debt, though by the law of the land there was no solidarity between the various houses of religious orders. Nevertheless, they set to work to cancel their indebtedness. They had made satisfactory arrangements with their principal creditors, and although Martinique, where much of the property was located, had been seized by the English; yet one-third of their liabilities had been paid off when the government took alarm. If this continued, the public treasury would reap no profit from the transaction. Hence, an order was issued to seize every Jesuit establishment in France. A stop was put to the reimbursement of private individuals and the government seized all that was left. But although the Society was not to blame it incurred the hatred of all those who were thus deprived of their money. That, indeed, was the purpose of the government seizure.

Long before the crash, the superiors had done all in their power to stop La Valette, but in those days Martinique was far from Rome. Although attempt after attempt was made to reach him, it was all in vain. One messenger was crippled when embarking at Marseilles; another died at sea; another was captured by pirates, until in 1762 Father de la Marche arrived on the island. After a thorough investigation de la Marche declared (1) that La Valette had given himself up to trading in defiance of canon law and of the special laws of the Society; (2) that he had concealed his proceedings from the higher superiors of the Society and even from the Fathers of Martinique; (3) that his acts had been denounced by his superiors, not only as soon as they were made known, but as soon as they were suspected. The visitor then asked the General of the Society (1) to suspend La Valette from all administration both spiritual and temporal: and (2) to recall him immediately to Europe.

La Valette's submission was appended to the verdict of the visitor; in it, he acknowledges the justice of the sentence, although as soon as he knew what harm he was doing he had stopped. He attests under oath that not one of his superiors had given him any authorization or counsel or approval; and no one had shared in or connived at his enterprises. He takes God to witness that he did not make his avowals under compulsion or threat, or out of complaisance, or for any inducement held out to him, but absolutely of his own accord, and for truth's sake; and in order to dispel and refute, as far as in him lay, the calumnies against the Society consequent upon his acts. The document bore the date of April 25, 1762. He was expelled from the Society and passed the rest of his life in England. He never retracted or modified any of the statements he had made in Martinique.

Following close on the decision in the La Valette case, parliament ordered the immediate production of a copy of the Constitutions of the Society. On the following morning, it was in their hands and was submitted to several committees made up of Jansenists, Gallicans and Atheists. These committees were charged with the examination of the Institute and also of various publications of the Society. Extracts were to be made and presented for the consideration of the court. The most famous of these reports was the one made by La Chalotais, a prominent magistrate of Brittany. He discovered that the Society was in conflict with the authority of the Church, the general Councils, the Apostolic See, and all ecclesiastical and civil governments; moreover that, in their approved theological works, they taught every form of heresy, idolatry and superstition, and inculcated suicide, regicide, sacrilege, robbery, impurity of every kind, usury, magic, murder, cruelty, hatred, vengeance, sedition, treachery – in brief, whatever iniquity mankind could commit was to be found in their writings. As soon as the report was laid before the judges, a decree was issued on May 8, 1761 declaring that the one hundred and fifty-eight colleges, churches and residences with the foreign missions of the Order were to be seized by the government; all the physical laboratories, the libraries, moneys, inheritances of its members, the bequests of friends for charitable, educational or missionary purposes – all was to go into the Government coffers.

Crétineau-Joly estimated that the total value of the property seized amounted to about 58,000,000 francs or $11,600,000. The amount of the booty explains the zeal of the prosecution. To soften the blow a concession of a pension of thirty cents a day was made by the Paris parliament to those who would take an oath that they had left the Society. The Languedoc legislators, however, cut it down to twelve. Moreover this pension was restricted to the Professed. The Scholastics got nothing; and as they were considered legally dead, because of the vows they had taken in the Society, they were declared incapable of inheriting even from their own parents. The decree also forbade all subjects of the king to enter the Society; to attend any lecture given by Jesuits; to visit their houses previous to their expulsion; or to hold any communication with them. The Jesuits themselves were enjoined not to write to each other, not even to the General. It is noteworthy that the lawmakers who issued these regulations profess to be shocked by the Jesuit doctrine of "blind obedience."

By a second decree it was ordered that the works of twenty-seven Jesuits which had been examined should be burned by the public executioner. Among them were such authors as Bellarmine, Lessius, Suárez, Valentia, Salmerón, Gretser, Vásquez, Jouvancy, – all of whom were and yet are considered to be among the greatest of Catholic theologians, but the lay doctors of the parliament held them to be dangerous to public morals; and to the peace of the nation and in order to express their horror emphatically, they called for this auto da fé. It should be noted that all of these works were written in Latin, and that their technical character as well as the terminology employed would make it absolutely impossible for even these solons of the French parliament to grasp the meaning of the text. In order to sway the public mind, a summary of the Chalotais report, commonly known as "Extraits des assertions" was scattered broadcast throughout the country. The desired effect was produced and even to-day if an attempt is made to answer any of its charges the answer is always ready, "We have the authority of La Chalotais; he was an eminent magistrate; he examined the books; the highest court in France accorded him the verdict, and any attempt to explain away the charges is superfluous!"

Yet there was in Paris at that time a higher tribunal than the one which gave La Chalotais his claim to notoriety. It was the General Assembly of the Clergy which had been convoked by the King to pass upon the character of the Jesuits as a body, before he affixed his signature to the decree of expulsion. It consisted of fifty-one prelates, some of them cardinals. They met on June 27 and with the exception of the Bishop of Angers, Allais, and especially of Fitzjames, the Bishop of Soissons, who was the head of the Jansenist party and whose pastoral utterances were condemned by the Pope as heretical, addressed a "Letter" to the king conjuring him "to preserve an institution which was so useful to the State," and declaring that "they could not see without alarm the destruction of a society of religious who were so praiseworthy for the integrity of their morals, the austerity of their discipline, the vastness of their labors and their erudition and for the countless services they had rendered to the Church.

"Charged as they are with the most precious trust of the education of youth, participating as they do under the authority of the bishops, in the most delicate functions of the holy ministry, honored as they are by the confidence of kings in the most redoubtable of tribunals, loved and sought after by a great number of our subjects and esteemed even by those who fear them, they have won for themselves a consideration which is too general to be disregarded."

"Everything, Sire, pleads with you in favor of the Jesuits: religion claims them as its defenders; the Church as her ministers; Christians as the guardians of their conscience; a great number of your subjects who have been their pupils intercede with you for their old masters; and all the youth of the kingdom pray for those who are to form their minds and their hearts. Do not, Sire, turn a deaf ear to our united supplication; do not permit in your kingdom, that in violation of the laws of justice, and of the Church and of the State an entire and blameless society should be destroyed."

The Archbishop of Paris, the famous Christophe de Beaumont was not satisfied with this general appeal. He was the chief figure in France at that time; and every word he uttered was feared by the enemies of the Church. He was great enough to be in correspondence with all the crowned heads of Europe, and Frederick the Great said of him: "If he would consent to come to Prussia, I would go half way to meet him." Louis XV had forced him to accept the See of Paris, but had not the courage to support him when assailed by his foes. He was a saint as well as a hero; he lent money to men who were libelling him, and would give the clothes on his back to the poor. When a hospital took fire in the city, he filled his palace and his cathedral with the patients. Hence, he did not hesitate, after parliament had condemned the Society, to issue a pastoral which he foresaw would drive him from his see. "What shall I say, Brethren," he asks, "to let you know what I think of the religious society which is now so fiercely assailed? We repeat with the Council of Trent that it is 'a pious Institute;' that it is 'venerable,' as the illustrious Bossuet declared it to be. We spurn far from us the 'Extraits des assertions' as a resumé of Jesuit teaching; and we renew our declaration that in the condition of suffering and humiliation to which they have been brought that their lot is a most happy one, because in the eyes of religious men, it is an infinitely precious thing to have no reproach on one's soul when overwhelmed by misfortune." As he foresaw he was expelled from his see for this utterance, not by parliament but by Louis XV whose cause he was defending.

Perhaps this treatment of the great Archbishop of Paris explains the silence maintained through all the uproar by the Jesuits themselves. One would expect some splendid outburst of eloquence in behalf of the Society from one of its outraged members; but not a word was uttered by any of them. Their protests would not have been printed or published. Even Theiner who wrote against the Society says: "All France was inundated with libellous pamphlets against the Jesuits. The most notable of all was the one entitled 'Extracts of the dangerous and pernicious doctrines of all kinds which the so-called Jesuits have at all times, uninterruptedly maintained, taught and published.' Calumny and malice fill the book from cover to cover. There is no crime which the Jesuits did not teach or of which they are not accused. Never was bad faith carried to such extremes. And yet there is no book that is so often cited as an authority against the Society and its spirit."

Meantime, the government had approached the Pope for the purpose of obtaining for the French Jesuits a special vicar who should be quasi-independent of the General. It was harking back to the old scheme of Philip II and Louis XIV. His Holiness replied in the memorable words: "Sint ut sunt aut non sint" (Let them be as they are or not at all.) We find in a letter of the procurator of Aquitaine that in case a vicar was appointed every member of the province of Paris would leave the Order, which under such an arrangement would be no longer the Society of Jesus. Again in his letter to the king, after declaring that the appointment of a French Vicar would be a substantial alteration of the Institute which he could not authorize, the Pope says: "For two hundred years the Society has been so useful to the Church, that, though it has never disturbed the public tranquillity either in your kingdom or in any one else's, yet because it has inflicted such damage on the enemies of religion by its science and its piety, it is assailed on all sides by calumny and imposture when fair fighting was found insufficient to destroy them." Finally, on January 9, 1765, after the final knell had sounded, Clement XIII issued his famous Bull "Apostolicum." It is given at length in de Ravignan's "Clément XIII et Clément XIV," but a few extracts will suffice.

After enumerating the glories of the Society in the past, and calling attention to the fact that it had been approved by nineteen Popes, who had most minutely examined their Institute, Clement XIII continues: "It has, nevertheless, in our days been falsely and malignantly described both by word and printed book as irreligious and impious, and has been covered with opprobrium and ignominy until even the Church has been denounced for sustaining it. In order, therefore, to repel these calumnies and to put a stop to the impious discourses which are uttered in defiance of both reason and equity; and to comfort the Regular Clerks of the Society of Jesus who appeal to us for justice; and to give greater emphasis to our words by the weight of our authority and to lend some solace in the sufferings they are undergoing; and finally to defer to the just desires of our venerable brothers, the bishops of the whole Catholic world, whose letters to us are filled with eulogies of this Society from whose labors the greatest services are rendered in their dioceses; and also of our own accord and from certain knowledge, and making use of the plenitude of our Apostolic authority, and following in the footsteps of our predecessors, we, by this present Constitution, which is to remain in force forever, say and declare in the same form and in the same manner as has been heretofore said and declared, that the Institute of the Society of Jesus breathes in the very highest degree, piety and holiness both in the principal object which it has continually in view, which is none other than the defence and propagation of the Catholic Faith, and also in the means it employs for that end. Such is our experience of it up to the present day. It is this experience which has taught us how greatly the rule of the Society has formed up to our day defenders of the orthodox Faith and zealous missionaries who animated by an invincible courage dare a thousand dangers on land and sea, to carry the light of the Gospel to savage and barbarous nations… Let no one dare be rash enough to set himself against this my present approbative and confirmative Constitution lest he incur the wrath of God."

These splendid approvals of their labors did much to keep up the courage of the harassed Jesuits, but if what Father de Ravignan and Crétineau-Joly relate be true, they had ample reason to keep themselves in a salutary humility or rather bow their heads in shame. On December 19, 1761, we are told, the provincial of Paris, Father de La Croix and one hundred and fifteen Fathers addressed a declaration to the clergy assembled in Paris, by order of the king, which ran as follows: "We the undersigned, provincial of the Jesuits of the province of Paris, the superior of the professed house, the rector of the College of Louis Le Grand, the superior of the novitiate and other Jesuits professed, even of the first vows, residing in the said houses, and renewing as far as needs be the declarations already made by the Jesuits of France in 1626, 1713 and 1757, declare before their Lordships the cardinals, archbishops and bishops now assembled in Paris, by order of the king, to give their opinion on several points of the Institute: (1) That it is impossible to be more submissive than we are, or more inviolably attached to the laws, maxims and usages of this kingdom with regard to the royal power, which in temporal matters depends neither directly nor indirectly from any power on earth, and has God alone above it. Recognizing that the bonds by which subjects are attached to their rulers are indissoluble, we condemn as pernicious and worthy of execration at all times every doctrine contrary to the safety of the king, not only in the works of some theologians of our Society who have adopted such doctrines but also those of every other theologian whosoever he may be. (2) We shall teach in our public and private lessons of theology the doctrine established by the Clergy of France in the Four Articles of the Assembly of 1682, and shall teach nothing contrary to it. (3) We recognize that the bishops of France have the right to exercise in our regard what, according to the canons of the Gallican Church, belongs to them in their dealings with regulars; and we renounce all the privileges to the contrary that may have been accorded to our Society or may be accorded in the future. (4) If, which may God forbid, it happens that we are ordered by our General to do anything contrary to the present declaration, persuaded as we are that we cannot obey without sin, we shall regard such orders as unlawful, and absolutely null and void; which we could not and should not obey in virtue of the rules of obedience to the General such as is prescribed in the Constitutions. We, therefore, beg that the present declaration may be placed on the official register of Paris, and addressed to the other provinces of the kingdom, so that this same declaration signed by us, being deposited in the official registers of each diocese may serve as a perpetual memorial of our fidelity.

Etienne de la Croix, Provincial."

Quoting this document and admitting its genuineness Father de Ravignan exclaims: "In my eyes nothing can excuse this act of weakness. I deplore it; I condemn it; I shall merely relate how it came to pass" (Clément XIII et Clément XIV, I 135). He goes on to say: —

"In a personal letter the original of which is in the archives of the Gesù at Rome, Father La Croix, provincial of Paris explains to the General the circumstances and occasion of this unfortunate affair. He tells how the royal commissioners came to him with the aforesaid declaration already drawn up and accompanied by a formal order of the king to sign it immediately. It was a most unforeseen demand, for although the Jesuits of France had already suffered considerable trouble about the question of the Four Articles in 1713, and also in 1757, when Damiens attempted to assassinate Louis XV, they had been compelled on both occasions to sign only the first article which dealt with the temporal independence of the king. Shortly afterwards, a new royal decree had been brought to their attention. It consisted of eighteen articles, the fourth of which was as follows: 'Our will is that in every theological course followed by the students of the Society, the propositions set forth by the Clergy of France in 1682, should be defended, at least in one public discussion, to which the principal personages of the place shall be invited, and over and above that, the arrangements laid down by the edict of March 1682 shall be observed.'

"While these matters were being debated by the king and his ministers on one side and by parliament on the other, a royal order was despatched to the Jesuits of Paris to affix their signatures to the disgraceful capitulation given above. It is said that Louis XV imagined that he could mollify the recalcitrant parliament by this new concession: and, hence, La Croix and his associates were foolish enough to imagine that such a result could ensue."

Continuing his indictment of La Croix and his one hundred and fifteen associates, de Ravignan informs his readers that "an unpublished document which no writer has so far made mention of, furnishes important details about the matter. It is entitled 'An exact relation of all that took place with regard to the interpretation of the decree of Aquaviva in 1610, which was sent to Rome in 1761 and rejected by the General; and also the declaration which the General refused to approve.' The author is M. de Flesselles, who was charged by the commission to report to Choiseul whose agent he was.

"With regard to the declaration about Gallicanism" says de Flesselles "the Jesuits, after some difficulties regarding its form, determined to sign it, and even when urged by the royal commissioners they undertook to send it to their General for approbation. Soon after, when the Jesuits received the reply of their General, the provincial came to tell me that when the Pope was made aware of the declaration which the French Jesuits had made and of the one they proposed to make, His Holiness angrily reprimanded the General for permitting the members of the Society in France to maintain doctrines which are in conflict with the teachings of the Holy See."

Now it is unpleasant to contest the authority of such an eminent man as de Ravignan, but, on the other hand, his conclusions that this letter was a Jesuit production or received a Jesuit endorsement are by no means convincing. In the first place, no Jesuit would ever sign a paper which began with the words: "We the Professed, even of the first vows." There is no such category in the Society. Secondly, no Jesuit or indeed any one in his senses would ever ask a superior for a permission to teach error, and say, in the same breath, that it was a matter of indifference whether the permission was granted or not. Thirdly, as all the Jesuits of the province had announced their intention of leaving the Society if Louis XV imposed on them a commissary General independent of their superior at Rome – as we recited above from an extant letter from the procurator of the province of Aquitaine – it is inconceivable that those same men, at that very same time should solemnly declare themselves rebels against the Father General at Rome. Fourthly, as no association rewards a man who attempts to destroy it, one finds difficulty in understanding how, after this revolt, the leader in the rebellion, La Croix, was not only not expelled from the Society but was retained in his responsible post of provincial and later was made assistant general of the Society.

Moreover, it is difficult to understand why, when de Flesselles says that "the Fathers determined to sign the document," de Ravignan should go one step further and say that "they signed it." Nor does it help matters to say that this was "un acte de faiblesse," when, it was a wholesale, corporate and deliberate crime of cowardice and treason; nor will it avail to suggest that the Pope and General must have been intensely, grieved – "Ils durent être amèrement affligés." History does not deal with conjectures but with facts. The question is not whether they must have been, but whether they were really grieved over an act which had really occurred and which reflected such discredit on the Society? Again, as one of the greatest glories of the French Jesuits was their long and successful battle against Gallicanism, it is inconceivable that they should suddenly reverse and stultify themselves at the very moment when all the bishops of France, save one, had abandoned Gallicanism and had united in eulogizing the Society; and to do it at a time when the greatest friend they ever had, Pope Clement XIII, glorified them for their orthodoxy and pronounced the famous words: "Let them be as they are or not at all!"

To have declared for Gallicanism would have stripped them of their priestly functions, it would have aroused the intense disgust and contempt of the hierarchy of France and of the world and would have called down on them the anathema of the Pope. Indeed, is it likely that Pope Clement XIV would have omitted to note the defection in his Brief of Suppression, if they had been guilty? Fortunately, we may refer to the explicit declaration of the Protestant historian, Schoell (Cours d'histoire, xl, 53), who says: "These men who are accused of playing with religion, refused to take the oath to sustain the principles of the Gallican Church. Of 4000 Fathers who were in France, hardly five submitted." If there were "hardly five" Gallicans in all the provinces of France, it is a justifiable conclusion that 116 Jesuits of the provinces of Paris did not sign the famous "Statement" of de Flesselles.

Louis XV made a feeble attempt to save the situation by withdrawing the decree of expulsion from the jurisdiction of parliament, but Mme. de Pompadour and Choiseul so effectively worked on his fears that he ignominiously rescinded his order. The Pope had meantime delivered an allocution in a consistory on September 3, 1762; and had sent a letter to Cardinal Choiseul, the brother of the minister, on September 8 of the same year, in both of which he declared that "by a solemn decree, he had quashed and nullified the proceedings of the various parliaments against the Jesuits." He enjoined upon the cardinal "to use all his episcopal power against the impious act which was directed against the Church and against religion." He wrote to other bishops in the same tone of indignation and anger. It was not, however, until the November of 1764 that Choiseul succeeded in extorting the royal signature which made the decree irrevocable. Of course, Mme. de Pompadour was to the fore in securing this shameful surrender of the royal prerogative. The poor king cuts a sorry figure in signing the document. After making some feeble scrawls on the paper, he complained that the preamble was too long and that it would have sufficed to state that "the Jesuits had produced a great tumult in his kingdom." He added he did not think the word "punish" should be used; it was too strong; "he never cordially liked the Jesuits, yet they had the glory of being hated by all heretics… I send them out of my kingdom against my will; at least, I don't want people to think that I agree with everything the parliament said or did against them." He ended by saying: "If you do not make these changes, I will not sign, but I must stop talking. I would say too much and I do not want anyone in France to discuss it." One could hardly say of Louis that "he was every inch a king."

The desire to close the mouths of every one of his subjects on a matter that concerned them all as intelligent beings and as citizens was carried out with extreme rigor. Thus, when two secular priests had the temerity to condemn the decree, they were promptly hanged. The audacity of the ministers and parliament went still further; and on December 3 the Duke de Praslin sent a note to Aubeterre, the French ambassador at Rome to advise him that "under the circumstances, it would be very futile and still more dangerous for the Pope to take any measures either directly or indirectly in contravention of the wishes and intention of his majesty; and hence His Holiness must, out of zeal for religion and out of regard for the Jesuits, observe the same silence which His Majesty had ordered to be observed in his states." The Pope replied to the insult by the Bull "Apostolicum," which was a splendid proclamation of the absolute innocence of the proscribed Order. It aroused the fury of the Governments of France, Portugal, Naples and other countries. In France it was burned in the streets of several cities by the public executioner. In Portugal, any one who circulated it or had it in his possession was adjudged guilty of high treason; but on the other hand, from the bishops of the entire Catholic world came enthusiastic letters of approval and praise for the fearless Pope who dared to stand forth as the enemy of tyranny and injustice.

Böhmer-Monod, in their "Jésuites," are of the opinion that the Pope was "injudicious, and that out of the hundreds of Catholic bishops, only twenty-three assured him of their approbation." De Ravignan, who is better informed, tells us that "almost the whole episcopacy of the world were a unit in this manifestation of loyalty to the supreme Pastor." Before the event, two hundred bishops had sent their appeals to the Pope, in favor of the Society; and the Pope himself says in the Bull: "Ex omni regione sub cœlo est una vox omnium episcoporum" (From every region under the canopy of heaven, there is but one voice from the episcopal body). After the Bull appeared, other bishops hastened to send him their adhesions and felicitations. Even in France itself, in spite of the terrorism exercised by parliament, the assembly of the clergy of 1765, by a unanimous vote, protested against the condemnation of the Jesuits, extolled "the integrity of their morals, the austerity of their lives, the greatness of their labors and science"; and declared that their expulsion left a frightful void in the ministry, in education, and in the sublime and laborious work of the missions. Not only that, but they wanted it put on record that "the clergy would never cease to pray for the re-establishment of the Order and would lay that plea at the feet of the king."

The exiles lingered for a while in various parts of France; for some of the divisional parliaments were not at one with Paris in their opposition to the Society. Indeed, in many of them, the proscription was voted only by a small majority. Thus at Rennes, there was a majority of three; at Toulouse two; at Perpignan one; at Bordeaux five; at Aix two; while Besançon, Alsace, Flanders and Artois and Lorraine pronounced in their favor and proclaimed "the sons of St. Ignatius as the most faithful subjects of the King of France and the surest guarantees of the morality of the people." On the other hand, Brittany, the country of Chalotais, author of the "Extraits," was especially rancorous in its hate. Thus, it voted to deprive of all civil and municipal functions those parents who would send their children abroad to Jesuit schools; and the children on their return home were to be punished in a similar fashion. The Fathers lingered for a few years here and there in their native country employed in various occupations; but in 1767 a decree was issued expelling them all from the territory of France.

An interesting manifestation of affection by the pupils of St. Omers for their persecuted masters occurred when the parliament of Paris issued its order of expulsion in 1767. St. Omers was founded by Father Persons in 1592 or 1593. It was not for ecclesiastics as were the colleges of Douai, Rome and Valladolid, but to give English boys an education which they could not get in their own country. It was twenty-four miles from Calais and in territory which at that time belonged to the King of Spain. Shortly after its transfer from Eu in Normandy where an attempt had been made to start it, there were one hundred boys on its register and, thirty years later, the number had doubled. For years it was a favorite school for English Catholics and it rejoices in having had twenty of its students die for the Faith. It continued its work for a century and a half. When the expulsion of the Jesuits left the college without teachers it was handed over to the secular clergy, but when they arrived there were no boys. They had all decamped for Bruges in Belgium, and there the classes continued until the general suppression of the Society in 1773. Even after that, the English ex-Jesuits kept the college going until 1794, when the French Revolution put an end to it. By that time, however, one of the former students, Mr. Thomas Weld, had established the Fathers on his property at Stonyhurst in England, so that St. Omers and Stonyhurst are mother and daughter.

The buildings and land at St. Omers were handed over by the French government to the English secular priests, who were at Douai. Alban Butler, the author of the "Lives of the Saints," was its president from 1766 to 1773. At present a military hospital occupies the site.

In Louisiana, which still owed allegiance to France, the dismissal of the Fathers was particularly disgraceful. For no sooner had the news of Choiseul's exploit in the mother-country arrived than the superior council of Louisiana set to work. "This insignificant body of provincial officers" as Shea calls them (I, 587), "issued a decree declaring the Society to be dangerous to the royal authority, to the rights of bishops, to the public peace of society" and pronounced their vows to be null and void. These judges in matters ecclesiastical, it should be noted, were all laymen. They ordered all the property to be seized and sold at auction, though personal books and clothes were exempted. The name and habit of the Society were forbidden; the vestments and plate of the chapel at New Orleans were given by the authorities to the Capuchins; but all the Jesuit churches in Louisiana and Illinois were ordered to be levelled to the ground. Every Jesuit was to embark on the first ship that set sail for France; and arriving there, he was to report to Choiseul. Each one was given about $420 – to pay for his passage and six month's subsistence.

There was a deviation in some cases about going to France, for Father Carette was sent to San Domingo; and Father Le Roy made his way to Mexico. A difficulty arose about Father Beaudoin, who was a Canadian. Why should he be sent to France where he had no friends? Besides, his health was shattered by his privations on the missions, and he was at that time seventy-two years old. He was to go to France, however, but just as he was about to be dragged to the ship a wealthy friend interceded for him and gave him a home. Another Father in Alabama did not hear of the order for several months; and when at last he made his appearance in New Orleans, he was arrested like a criminal and packed off to France.

On September 22, a courier reached Fort Chartres, which was on English territory; and in spite of the danger of embroiling the government, Father Watron who was then sixty-seven years old was expelled, and with him his two fellow missionaries. The official from Louisiana gave the vestments to negro wenches and the altar-plate and candelabra were soon found in houses of ill-fame. The chapel was then sold on condition that the purchaser should demolish it. At Vincennes, the same outrages were perpetrated and Father Duvernay, who had been for six months confined to his bed, was carried off with the others to New Orleans and despatched to France. Two only were allowed to remain, owing to the entreaties and protests of friends. One of the exiles was Father Viel, who was a Louisianian by birth. The most conspicuous personage enforcing this expulsion was a certain Lafrenière, but he soon met his punishment. In 1766 Louis XV made a gift of the entire province to his cousin of Spain, and when Count Alexander O'Reilly was sent out with three thousand soldiers to quell the disturbance that ensued, Lafrenière and three associates were taken into the back yard of the barracks and shot to death. Others were sent in chains to Havana.

Thus the Suppression of the Society in France was not carried out with the same brutality as in Portugal. There were no prisons, or chains, or deportation, and they had not the glory of suffering martyrdom. They were merely stripped of all they had and told to go where they wished. Whether they lived or died was a matter of unconcern to the government. It was merely a difference of methods; but both were equally effective. The Portuguese Jesuits were scourged; their French brethren were sneered at. Perhaps the latter was harder to bear.

There is a curious sequel to all this. Choiseul, proud of his achievement in expelling the Jesuits from France and its colonies, now conceived the magnificent project of colonizing Guyana on lines quite different from those followed by the detested Order. He induced 14,000 deluded French people to go and take possession of the rich and fertile lands of Guyana. They found one poor old Jesuit there, who because he was not a subject of France, had refused to obey the decree of expulsion. His name was O'Reilly, but what could he do with 14,000 people? He simply disappeared from the scene. Very likely, he joined the Indians, who fled into the forests at the sight of this immense army of Frenchmen, who now had the country to themselves without striking a blow. But two years later, Chevalier de Balzac had to report back to France, that of the 14,000 colonists only 918 were alive. Thus, expelling 6,000 Jesuits from France, Choiseul had murdered 13,000 of his fellow-countrymen (Christian Missions, II, 168).