All the authors are unanimous on this point, and agree in representing Ganganelli as full of vigour, and enjoying the most perfect health. “The Pope,” says Botta, “enjoyed rather good health, because he was of a strong constitution, and his natural strength had not been wasted by an intemperate and licentious life; for, on the contrary, he had always lived with frugality and moderation, according to his own natural inclination.”[403] And the ex-Jesuit Georgel, who certainly can be accused of anything but partiality to the suppressor of his order, says “that Ganganelli’s strong constitution seemed to promise him a long career.”[404] Nevertheless, in spite of appearances, sinister rumours were afloat not only in Rome, but throughout all Italy. At the very time that the Pope was seen in the public ceremonies, in all the churches and everywhere else, enjoying the most perfect health and strength, the rumour of his death was widely circulated. The Pythoness of Valentano announced it with a characteristic obstinacy; and a Jesuit, writing to a brother of the order, and relating such impious predictions, says, Aplica ut fiat systema.[405]

Nor was it long before the ominous predictions were realised. This man, represented by everybody as strong and healthy, suddenly, on the approach of the holy week of 1774, some eight months after the signature of the Brief, was taken ill, confined to his palace, and unable to grant any audience, even to the diplomatic body. What had happened to Clement, who, when on the 17th of August the ambassadors of the great powers were admitted into his presence, appeared a MERE SKELETON? Whence such strange and fatal change? The answer to these questions will appear from the following statement of facts.

One day, on rising from table, the Pope felt an internal shock, followed by a great cold; and although he was for a moment alarmed, he soon recovered from his fright, and attributed his indisposition to indigestion. But soon after, the voice of the Pope, which had always been full and sonorous, was lost in a singular hoarseness; an inflammation in his throat compelled him to keep his mouth continually open. He had repeated attacks of vomiting, and felt such feebleness in his limbs, that he was obliged to discontinue his long habitual walks. His step became interrupted by sharp pains, and at length he could not find any rest at all. An entire prostration of strength suddenly succeeded a degree of even youthful activity and vigour; and the sad conviction that his fears were realised, and that his life had been attempted, seized upon Clement, and rendered him strange even to his own eyes. His character was changed as by magic. The equability of his temper gave place to caprice, his gentleness to passion, and his natural easy confidence to continual distrust and suspicion. He saw poison and poniards everywhere. Sometimes, under the conviction that he had been poisoned, he increased his malady by inefficacious antidotes; at other moments, in the hope of escaping an evil which he imagined not yet accomplished, he would feed upon dishes prepared by his own hands. His blood became corrupted, and the close atmosphere of his apartments, which he would not quit, aggravated the effects of an unwholesome diet. In this disorder of his physical system his moral strength gave way; all trace of the former Ganganelli disappeared; and even his reason became disordered. He was haunted by phantoms in his short moments of rest; and, in the silence of night, he started up continually, as if dreams of horror had struck his imagination. Often he ran from one place to another as if he was pursued, exclaiming, as in the act of asking mercy, “Compulsus feci! compulsus feci!”—I have been compelled![406] Indeed, that his reason had abandoned him, is generally believed; and Pius VII., when prisoner at Fontainebleau in 1814, exclaimed that he should die mad, as Clement XIV. These words are reported by Cardinal Pacca, a fellow-prisoner of Pius.[407] Ganganelli passed seven months in this dreadful state; at last his reason resumed its sway. For a while he shewed himself superior to his terrors and infirmities. “He resumed some tranquillity,” says Botta, “as generally happens some moments before man arrives at the last moment of his life, as a warning of God to mortals to think of their own affairs in that last moment. Already the attendants were rejoicing as if their master was returning to life; but the calm was the forerunner of death. The fatal signs soon re-appeared, and on the 22d September Ganganelli breathed his last—giving back his courageous soul to Him from whom he had received it.”[408]

The Romans heard of the Pope’s demise with indifference, as of an event daily expected; but the Jesuits and their partisans gave an indecent and unblushing expression to their joy, conveyed in the most infamous and sacrilegious satires, which they carried themselves from place to place; and this circumstance, together with what was known of Ganganelli’s illness, left no doubts whatever in the people’s minds that the unfortunate Clement had died by poison. “The human mind,” says Gioberti, “is reluctant to believe in certain atrocious crimes, and I confess that I have hesitated to believe the sect guilty of the death of Ganganelli; nor have I consented to believe it till forced by the evidence of the facts.”[409] Although our opinion exactly coincides with that of our illustrious countryman, yet we shall put the facts and documents under the eyes of our readers, and let them form a judgment for themselves.

What was Clement’s illness? How did his strong and healthy constitution undergo such an instantaneous and fatal change? And what complaint brought him to his grave? The partisans of the Jesuits, and some not very well informed historians, as Gorani, for example, Schoël, and others, deny that Ganganelli met with foul play. Georgel pretends that he died of remorse—that he made a full retractation; and, in proof of this, he points to his habitual exclamation, “Compulsus feci!” Of his retractation we shall not speak. It is contested by every historian; no mention is made of it except in the writings of the ex-Jesuit Georgel and his followers, who cannot produce a single proof or witness of their assertion. But is it true, at least, that the remorse, which had rendered him mad, as Crétineau affirms, brought him to the grave? We question whether the Jesuits can make good this other assertion. How can it be affirmed that Clement died of remorse, since, during eight long months after he had signed the Brief, he enjoyed not only his ordinary health and calmness, but was, on the contrary, more playful than ever? How came the remorse at such a late hour? What new crime had he committed in the interval? Does remorse admit of postponement? Does remorse produce all the physical diseases with which Ganganelli was suddenly affected? The extinction of voice, the inflammation of the throat, vomiting, complete prostration of strength—are these the symptoms of remorse? It is true that he often exclaimed “Compulsus feci!” and asked for mercy; but the unfortunate man asked for mercy from his assassins, not from the Supreme Judge. In his delirium, he supplicated his murderers to spare him; not to repeat the dose; or to administer to him some antidote, that his sufferings might cease. “Spare me! spare me!” he repeated; “I have been forced to the act, not so much, indeed, by the sovereigns, as by your own iniquities. Spare me, spare me these horrible sufferings!” he cried to everybody, and called upon his cherished Madonna to entreat for him, and to put an end to his tortures. Are delirium and insanity consequences of remorse, or rather the effects of several poisons—the belladonna, for example?

But let us see what other symptoms preceded and accompanied his death, and we shall be better able to judge of the quality of the illness which brought him to his grave.

“Several days before his death, his bones were exfoliated and withered—to use the forcible expression of Caraccioli—like a tree which, struck at the root, dies away, and sheds its bark. The scientific men who were called in to embalm his body, found the features livid, the lips black, the abdomen inflated, the limbs emaciated, and covered with violet spots; the size of the heart was much diminished, and all the muscles detached and decomposed in the spine. They filled the body with perfumes and aromatic substances; but nothing would dispel the mephitic exhalations. The entrails burst the vessels in which they were deposited; and when his pontifical robes were taken from his body, a great portion of the skin adhered to them. The hair of his head remained entire upon the velvet pillows upon which he rested, and with the slightest friction his nails fell off.”[410] The sight of Ganganelli’s dead body was quite sufficient to satisfy every one as to the sort of death he had met with. It did not even retain those lineaments which nature leaves to our remains at the moment when death seizes upon them, and the funeral obsequies convinced all Rome that Clement XIV. had perished by the acqua tofana of Perugia.[411]

However, Dr Salicetti, the apostolic physician, and Adinolfi, Clement’s ordinary doctor, on the 11th of December, three months after Ganganelli’s death, gave in a long procès verbal, declaring that it was false that the Pope had been poisoned; but they adduced no proofs whatever, and explained the fact of the body’s corruption by such strange and suspicious reasons, as rather to strengthen than diminish the opinion of those who thought differently. The fact is, that in Rome, after the doctors’ statement was made public, even the few who had some doubts as to the cause of this mysterious death, were now firmly of opinion that the Jesuits had poisoned the poor Pope. Gioberti, among other proofs which he adduces of the poisoning of Ganganelli, names a Dr Bonelli, famous for learning and probity, almost an ocular witness of the facts, who had often asserted to many persons still living that there was no doubt that Ganganelli had been poisoned.

But there is a witness far more respectable and trustworthy, who puts the question beyond doubt: that witness is Bernis; and no one that knows anything of the loyalty and nobleness of his character, would ever dare to impugn his testimony in an affair of such magnitude, when he, as ambassador, gives an account to his court of facts of which he was an eye-witness. Bernis, during the illness of the Pope, while every other person believed that Clement had met with foul play, alone had doubts; and his very hesitation, which proves his candour, leads him more surely to the discovery of the truth, which he attains step by step.[412]

On the 28th of August, twenty-four days before Ganganelli’s death, he wrote to the French minister: “Those who judge imprudently, or with malice, see nothing natural in the condition of the Pope; reasonings and suspicions are hazarded with the greater facility, as certain atrocities are less rare in this country than in many others.” Six days after the Pope’s demise, on the 28th of September, he wrote: “The nature of the Pope’s malady, and, above all, the circumstances attending his death, give rise to a common belief that it has not been from natural causes.... The physicians who assisted at the opening of the body are cautious in their remarks, and the surgeons speak with less circumspection. It is better to credit the account of the former than to pry into a truth of too afflicting a nature, and which it would perhaps be distressing to discover.” A month after, Bernis’ doubts are vanished, and on the 26th of October he writes: “When others shall come to know as much as I do, from certain documents which the late Pope communicated to me, the suppression will be deemed very just and very necessary. The circumstances which have preceded, accompanied, and followed the death of the late Pope, excite equal horror and compassion.... I am now collecting together the true circumstances attending the malady and death of Clement XIV.,[413] who, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, prayed, like the Redeemer, for his most implacable enemies; and who carried his conscientiousness so far, as scarcely to let escape him the cruel suspicions which preyed upon his mind since the close of the holy week, the period when his malady seized him. The truth cannot be concealed from the king, sad as it may be, which will be recorded in history.”

But there is another and a more imposing testimony to the fact—that of Pope Pius VI., the successor of Clement XIV.; it is transmitted to us also by Bernis, who speaks in the following cool and dispassionate terms, more than three years after the death of Ganganelli. He wrote on the 26th of October 1777, as follows:—“I know better than any one how far the affection of Pius VI. for the ex-Jesuits extends; but he keeps on terms with them rather than love them, because fear has greater influence on his mind and heart than friendship.... The Pope has certain moments of frankness, in which his true sentiments shew themselves. I shall never forget three or four effusions of his heart which he betrayed when with me, by which I can judge that he was well aware of the unhappy end of his predecessor, and that he was anxious not to run the same risks.”[414]

Such was the end of a man born with the best possible dispositions, and endowed with truly noble and amiable qualities. His spirit of tolerance, above all, deserves the highest eulogium. He tolerated all sorts of opinions, provided they were expressed in decorous language; and although he condemned the doctrines of the philosophers, he kept on good terms with them. He would not, as Benedict XIV. had done, write to Voltaire; but, in answer to some sporting jests made upon his person, which were reported to him, he intimated to the Patriarch of Ferney, through his old friend De Bernis, that he “would willingly take him to his heart, provided he would end by becoming a good Capuchin.”[415]

Ganganelli was, no doubt, a man incapable of governing under difficult circumstances. He had neither energy nor skill enough in handling difficulties, and he placed all his merits in evading them. But his moderation, his genuine spirit of tolerance, the purity of his morals, his modesty, his benevolence, deserve the sincerest respect, and his deplorable death a lasting compassion.[416]

CHAPTER XVIII.
1773-1814.
THE JESUITS DURING THEIR SUPPRESSION.

The Brief of Suppression, as our readers may have seen, made a provision by which the Jesuits might, as secular priests and individuals, exercise sacerdotal functions, subject, of course, to the episcopal authority. In consequence, some few of them had settled themselves quietly in different capacities. Others thought to conceal the Ignatian device under the new title of Fathers of the Faith, Fathers of the Cross, &c. But the greater part, the most daring and restless, would not submit to the Brief of Suppression, impugned its validity in a thousand writings, called in question even the validity of Clement’s election, whom they called Parricide, Sacrilegious Simoniac, and considered themselves as still forming part of the still existing Company of Jesus. Regardless, as we have shewn they always were, of the injuries they may cause to the faith, they declared war against Rome, against religion, and surpassed even the school of Voltaire in audacity in mocking and insulting a virtuous Pope.[417] Although overwhelmed on every side, they were not daunted, and their courage was still greater than their misfortunes. Driven from those countries in which they had been nurtured and cherished, and which ought to have been their natural abode, they turned their regards to the camp of their former enemies. As Themistocles, seeking protection from his ungrateful country, under the canopy of that Persian throne which he had shaken and almost destroyed, so those fiery persecutors of all religious sects which were out of the pale of Rome, and especially the Lutherans, had recourse for protection to the Lutheran Frederick of Prussia, and to the schismatic Catherine of Russia; and we do not hesitate to advance that, had those monarchs, in exchange for some advantages and privileges, asked of them to combat the Papal doctrines, they would not have imitated the Athenian hero, but would have fought against the Roman Catholic religion with the same ardour which they had employed in defending it.

But if it is easy to understand the versatile and interested behaviour of the Jesuits, strange must appear the conduct of the sovereigns who gave them protection and help. Above all, the anomalous proceeding of Frederick, the Solomon of the North, as the philosophers called him, ought to be explained.

We have already seen that Ricci, in his examination, confessed that he was in correspondence with his Prussian majesty; and it is a fact that Frederick, even before the suppression of the Society, proved himself its friend and protector, notwithstanding the reproaches and sneers of his friends and masters, the philosophers. D’Alembert, above all, assailed the king in all his vulnerable points; but in vain: Frederick remained firm in his purpose of supporting the Jesuits. “They say,” wrote D’Alembert on the 16th June 1769 to his royal friend, “that the cordelier Ganganelli does not promise sweet meats (poires molles) to the Society of Jesus, and it may be that St Francis of Assisi may kill St Ignatius. It appears to me that the holy father, cordelier as he is, will commit a great blunder in thus disbanding his regiment of guards out of complaisance to the Catholic princes. It seems to me that this treaty resembles much that of the wolves with the sheep, which were obliged, as a principal condition, to give up their dogs. Every one knows how they fared for this. However, it will be singular, sire, that while their most Christian, most Catholic, most Apostolic, and most Faithful majesties endeavour to destroy the grenadiers of the most Holy See, your most heretic majesty should be the only one who wishes to preserve them.”

This letter was written, as may be seen, before the suppression, and many other missives were addressed to Berlin by D’Alembert after the Brief was issued. When the Jesuits of Silesia, refusing to obey the Papal orders, remained in their convents and houses as before, and acted as if nothing had happened, D’Alembert, on the 10th of December 1773, wrote to Frederick, telling him that he “wished that neither he nor his successors might ever have cause to repent of granting an asylum to intriguers, and that these men might prove more faithful than they had been in the last war of Silesia.” Another time, sneering at Frederick’s condescension, he says, that “he much doubted whether the Jesuits would ever pay his majesty the honour of admitting him to their order, as they did the great Louis XIV., though he could well have dispensed with it, and the poor, miserable James II., who was much more fit to be a Jesuit than a king.”—January 1774. And passing from personal arguments to more general considerations, he says: “It is not on your majesty’s account that I dread the re-establishment of these formerly self-styled Jesuits, as the late Parliament of Paris called them. What harm, indeed, could they do to a prince whom the Austrians, the Imperialists, the French, and the Swedes united, have been unable to deprive of a single village? But I am alarmed, sire, lest other princes, who have not the same power as you have to make head against all Europe, and who have weeded out this poisonous hemlock from their gardens, should one day take a fancy to come to you and borrow seed to scatter their ground anew. I earnestly hope your majesty will issue an edict to forbid for ever the exportation of Jesuitic grain, which can thrive nowhere but in your dominions.”[418]

Frederick remained unmoved; and when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Breslau, thinking it was his duty to see the orders of the Holy See obeyed, attempted to interdict the Jesuits, the king interfered, confiscated the bishopric, and haughtily proclaimed that the fathers were under his protection. Then all throughout Silesia sprung up a great number of houses and colleges, and Jesuits assembled here from all quarters. It was on this occasion that the old Voltaire, laughing at his quondam disciple’s strange conduct, exclaimed that “it would divert him beyond measure to think of Frederick as General of the Jesuits, and that he hoped that this would inspire the Pope with the idea of becoming mufti.”[419]

Meanwhile, the courts of France and Spain were pressing Ganganelli’s successor to execute rigorously the Brief of Suppression, pointing out all the different places, and especially Prussia, where the Jesuits were still in existence and prospering, and asking, not without a certain arrogance, the Pope to comply with their wishes. But the reigning Pontiff was not a man to be easily frightened. To the humble, plain, unpretending monk had succeeded, on the chair of St Peter, Ange Braschi, a prince in the best acceptance of the word. In the Conclave, he, after a long struggle between the two parties, had re-united the votes of both, as a man really indifferent to all political intrigues, but possessing in the highest degree qualities which commanded esteem and admiration, and as one who could restore to the low-fallen tiara some of its ancient splendour; and if any man could accomplish such a miracle, Braschi was indeed the man. In all his personal qualities shone forth something royal and great. Tall, handsome, with a slightly bald forehead, his features were impressed with majesty, tempered by a sweet and serene expression. His expenditure was royal, his magnificence such as Rome had not witnessed since the time of Leo X. His ideas were lofty and great, his love for the arts enlightened and persevering. Many are the monuments which he has left to posterity of his love for the arts and for useful enterprises. He formed and enriched the museum begun under his directions in the Pontificate of Clement, which, as we said, bears the name of Museo Pio-Clementino, and which is the greatest wonder of modern times. He spent an immense sum of money to prevent the entire fall of the Coliseum. He attempted, though with little success, to drain the Pontine Marshes, and was a generous friend and protector of all literary persons. In his capacity of Pope, Pius VI.—such was the name he assumed—was also extraordinary. While he opposed every reform, even the most necessary and urgent, and decided upon taking the singular step of going himself—the Pope—to Vienna to dissuade Joseph II. from accomplishing them, in Rome, the churches and his own chapel were filled with persons of all religions, to whom Pius granted the same protection and favour as to his own subjects.

In regard to the Jesuits, in which we are more particularly interested, Braschi, according to Bernis, neither loved nor hated them. He was persuaded that they had poisoned Ganganelli; and as he set an immense value on his own life, he would not endanger it by following the example of his predecessor. It seems that Pius, naturally of a benevolent disposition, pitied them; and, if he had not feared to irritate the Bourbons, would perhaps have bettered their condition. Under him the Jesuits made Titanic efforts to regain the position they had lost. They assembled in Rome, and set at work every engine which was still at their disposal, to attain their desired object; but in vain. Florida Blanca was implacable in his hatred toward the disciples of Loyola, and, as we have said, made the strongest remonstrances against the favour which he pretended was shewn to the Jesuits by the Court of Rome. Braschia, as we say, was not so pusillanimous as Ganganelli, and those intrigues or diplomatic negotiations were not able to affect him so much as to disturb his constant placid serenity; yet he thought proper to do something to appease the Bourbons, and live on good terms with everybody. He accordingly sent a copy of the remonstrances he had received from Spain and France to Frederick, asking him to withdraw his protection from those monks whom the Holy See had condemned. Frederick’s satiric spirit must have rejoiced to see the Pope implore him to disperse Roman Catholic votaries; but he answered scornfully, as a great monarch aware of his rights and dignity. The Pope insisted anew with infinite management, till at last Frederick, while maintaining the Jesuits in all their revenues and charges, consented that they should change their garb. The Pope, satisfied perhaps with this solution, wrote to the King of Spain: “I have done all in my power; but the King of Prussia is master in his own dominions.”

The accurate and impartial historian of the fall of the Jesuits, in an admirably well written chapter, explains the conduct of Frederick, in supporting the Jesuits, by the fact, that the Prussian monarch had got angry with the philosophers, when the latter, not content with attacking the Christian religion, set to work to destroy monarchy, and ridicule every noble sentiment which had till then been held sacred. He says that not only Frederick, but almost all the ministers of other princes, if not the princes themselves, and the aristocracy, far from restraining the audacity of the philosophers, had, to follow the fashion, made it a point of honour to encourage and protect it while attacking religion and priestcraft; but when they, leaving the churches and cloisters, penetrated into the antechambers and staterooms, and their attacks became personal, then the great of the world, who had treated Christ and the Apostles with irreverence, would not endure the like towards themselves. He says, moreover, that when the school of D’Holbach produced the too famous work, the Système de la Nature, Frederick’s indignation knew no bounds. In this book, in fact, written by thirty clever, daring, and excited individuals, nothing was left standing: “each of them found something to take to pieces; one began upon the soul; another, the body; one attacked paternal love, gratitude, conscience; all subjects were examined, dissected, disputed, denied, condemned loudly without appeal. It was a kind of Old Testament, which prefigured the new by types and symbols.... Frederick read this hideous but prophetic book; a fatal light gleamed across his mind, and made him dread the future.”[420] All this is admirably well said; and by the answer which the King of Prussia made to the Système de la Nature, it clearly appears that Frederick would not go the length of the new school, and wished to have nothing more to do with them.

But, with all deference to the noble writer, we cannot see what connexion existed between the King of Prussia fearing the downfall of monarchical government and the protection he granted to the Jesuits. Does the French historian pretend to affirm that Frederick, the clear-sighted and remarkably sensible Frederick, considered the Jesuits in the light in which they themselves desired to be viewed, namely, as the foremost defenders of the throne and the altar? We scarcely should have believed St Priest capable of attributing to such a man as Frederick so erroneous a notion, yet his words leave little doubt that this is the opinion he attributed to his majesty. But, it may be asked, if this is not the case, how, then, shall we account for the favour bestowed by the Prussian monarch on those detested monks? We believe that, by assigning, as the efficient and principal causes, those which St Priest, in a dubitable tone, esteems only as secondary, we should be nearer the truth. The first of those reasons is to be found in what the king wrote himself to D’Alembert: “I did not offer,” said he, “my protection to the Jesuits while they were powerful, but in their adversity: I consider them as learned men, whom it would be extremely difficult to replace to educate youth. This most important object renders them most valuable in my eyes; for, among all the Catholic clergy in my kingdom, the Jesuits alone are given to letters;” and this was true as regarded the newly-acquired province of Silesia. The other all-powerful and efficient reason, which the French writer little insists upon, is, that Frederick wished, through the agency of the Jesuits, to gain the goodwill of those Poles whom he had so shamefully betrayed. We have seen what immense influence the Jesuits possessed over the Poles. It is known what authority they exercised everywhere over ignorant and bigoted Papists. Frederick knew this, and was very well aware that the Jesuits, who had no other asylum but his estates, would, without being asked, of their own free-will, do their utmost to persuade the unfortunate Poles who had been despoiled of their nationality, and who had been set up in lots as the booty of a conquered town, to endure patiently the yoke of the new master for their own personal interest and the greater glory of God. This was the all-powerful motive which induced Frederick to stand forth as the protector of a brotherhood for which he could not have any sort of esteem, but which he in no way feared.

The same motive induced Catherine II. to grant them a refuge and protection in her estates, and especially in White Russia, formerly a province of Poland, but which, in the partition, had fallen to the lot of the Russian sovereign.

Nor was Catherine deceived in her expectation. The Jesuits at first proved of immense service to her. Before the first partition of the unfortunate Poland in 1772, the fathers resided at Polotsk, in a magnificent college, surrounded by an immense tract of land, cultivated for the fathers’ benefit by more than ten thousand serfs, partly on the right and partly on the left bank of the river Dwina. After the Brief of Suppression, the Jesuits found themselves either obliged to submit to the sentence of the Holy See, and cease to exist as a body, or to accept the offered protection of Catherine. They embraced the latter alternative, abandoned the left bank of the Dwina, which was still Polish, for the right bank, which was now Russian, and there not only preserved their garb and their name, but obtained the favour that the Brief of Suppression should not be published in all the Russian states. From that moment, setting at defiance the Papal authority, those monks, who, as a religious community, could have no existence without the consent of Rome, established in Russia a sort of patriarchate, a supreme seat of the Roman Catholic religion, represented by individuals who, by a solemn decision of the supreme chief of this same religion, were excommunicated and out of its pale.

Meanwhile, Ricci was dying in the state prison of Castel St Angelo. Pius VI. had not dared to set him at liberty, but had rendered his captivity as supportable as possible. Yet the old man expired in November 1775, making an insignificant testament, exculpating the Society from every charge which had been brought against it.[421]

The Jesuits in Russia, some time after they had heard of the death of Ricci, convened a general congregation to elect a vicar-general, with full authority over all those members who should consider themselves as Jesuits. This being accomplished, they pitched upon a man worthy of their protection, Siestrencewiecz, formerly a Calvinist, now a priest of equivocal orthodoxy, as are all those converts who have left their former religion from motives of personal interest or consideration; and through his agency they trusted to revive the Society. This is the method they adopted: They prevailed upon Catherine to nominate him Bishop of Mohilow, and have one of their number, Benislawski, appointed his coadjutor. The latter, supported by the authority of the empress, proceeded to Rome, boldly presented himself at the Vatican, and required the Pope to grant the Pallium to Siestrencewiecz, the man whom they had chosen as bishop; and as he could not at first get admittance to the Pope’s presence, he firmly declared, that, should he spend his whole life in the antechamber, he would not quit it until he was satisfied on every point. And he succeeded in his mission. Now, this Siestrencewiecz, who was afterwards named Legate for White Russia, at once permitted the Jesuits to erect a novitiate, and to receive candidates for the Society, regardless of any other consideration but that of pleasing his protectors. The Nuncio of Warsaw, and the Court of Rome, on hearing of such an abuse of authority, reproached him with this violation of the Papal decrees, and menaced him with interdiction; but Catherine took him under her protection, and upheld him with all her power. And thus was presented the singular spectacle of a Popish prelate denounced by the Holy See for upholding a sect of priests accounted the most fervent Roman Catholics, while he was defended by a princess for affording protection to these same priests, who, as devotees of Rome, were the bitter enemies of her own faith. The Jesuits, emboldened by the favour they obtained in Russia, acted entirely at their own discretion, conferred upon the Vicar-General the title and the absolute authority of General, named an assistant and an admonitor, received novices and scholastics, and nothing seemed changed in the Society excepting the residence of the General.

To exculpate them from these continued acts of rebellion against the Papal authority, Crétineau, and after him Curci, a Neapolitan Jesuit, assert, that although Pope Pius VI. had not, by any public act, re-established the Society, yet that he had, in the presence of Benislawski (mark!), pronounced the words, “Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem; approbo, approbo,”—I approve of the Society of Jesus residing in White Russia; I approve, I approve. We suppose we must rely upon the veracity of Father Benislawski for this revelation of the sentiments of the Holy Father.

Three or four obscure and insignificant names[422] succeeded one another as Generals of the Order, while it still laboured under the anathema launched by Clement. At last, Pius VII., who had succeeded Braschi in 1800, authorised the Society to establish itself in White Russia, and to live according to the Constitution of Loyola. This brief bears the date of 1801, and was the forerunner of their re-establishment.

Meanwhile, the Society made wonderful progress in Russia; and, as if all conspired to favour them, there chanced to be among them at the epoch a man whom they had the tact to choose for their General, and who was little inferior to the Lainez and Acquavivas. This man was Grouber, a learned and very able individual, who had long been at the court of St Petersburg, a welcomed guest of Catherine, much esteemed by Paul, and employed by Alexander on some delicate missions. Grouber was a man who had an exact and just idea of the times in which he lived, and repressed the immoderate zeal of proselytism displayed by his subordinates, who already spoke of working miracles, and establishing new missions in the East. Grouber received the congratulations of all the partisans of the Jesuits, and, with admirable dexterity, he made use of the influence and resources the Society still possessed, to obtain the re-establishment of the order in various parts. They had already re-entered Parma, though only on toleration, and in 1804, the Pope granted to the Jesuits of the two Sicilies the same favours he had granted to those of White Russia. He re-established them in Sicily, of course under the authority of the General residing in Russia.

Unfortunately for the Society, Grouber perished in a conflagration in 1805. After his death, the Jesuits, renouncing the wise policy adopted by their late General, and encouraged by partial success, returned to the inveterate policy of the order, and attempted to domineer over a country which had sheltered them during their days of trouble and misery.

No pages of ours could convey to our readers a more accurate idea of the conduct of the Jesuits in Russia, than a passage of the imperial decree by which Alexander expelled them from his capital. We consider this expulsion, and the motives alleged by the sovereign as having impelled him to adopt the measure, as most significant, and as stigmatising more forcibly than any pamphlet or declamation the abominable arts and practices of the incorrigible progeny of Loyola.

Alexander, after having recorded, that while the Jesuits were persecuted in the rest of Europe, Russia alone, from a spirit of humanity and tolerance, had protected them, had showered favours upon them, had put no constraint on the free exercise of their religion, and had confided to their care the education of youth; thus continued in the imperial document: “It has been, however, proved that they have not relished the duties imposed on them by gratitude, and that humility commanded by the Christian religion. Instead of remaining peaceable inhabitants of a foreign land, they have endeavoured to disturb the Greek religion, which, from time immemorial, has been the predominant religion in this country. They began by abusing the confidence they had obtained, and have turned away from our religion young men who had been intrusted to them, and some weak and ignorant women whom they have converted to their own Church. To induce a man to abjure his faith, the faith of his ancestors, to extinguish in him the love of those who profess the same belief, to render him a stranger to his country, to sow tares and animosity among families, to tear the son from the father, the daughter from the mother, to stir up division among the children of the same Church,—is that the voice and the will of God, and of his holy Son Jesus Christ?... After such actions, we are no more surprised that these monks are expelled from all countries and nowhere tolerated. Where, in fact, is the state that would tolerate in its bosom those who sow in it hatred and discord?” For all these reasons, the emperor, in 1815, expelled the Jesuits from St Petersburg, and forbade them to re-enter either that capital or Warsaw. And mark, that to prove that he did not expel them because they were Catholic priests, the emperor, in the same decree, adds, that he has already sent for monks of other orders for the benefit of his Roman Catholic subjects!

But let no one imagine that this severe admonition from a sovereign to whom and to whose ancestors the Jesuits were so deeply indebted, had the effect of bringing them to some sense of their duty. On the contrary, they redoubled their intrigues and their malignant practices; and as their numbers increased, rapidly rising in 1820 to 674,[423] and they might have become dangerous, Alexander, by another decree, of 13th March 1820, expelled them from all his dominions. In the statement of motives which the Minister of Worship presented to Alexander in asking for the expulsion, we read: “The expulsion of the Jesuits from St Petersburg has not made them change their conduct;” and it then goes on to enumerate all the mischiefs caused by the fathers in Russia and Poland. We can hardly imagine what the Jesuits can have to answer to these accusations. It is also to be remarked that their own creature, Siestrencewiecz, Archbishop of Mohilow, was one of the most ardent in procuring their expulsion.

No Jesuits are now in Russia or Poland, except those who, in Galicia, assist the Austrian sovereign to govern that province—every one knows how.

CHAPTER XIX.
1814.
RE-ESTABLISHMENT.

The events which took place in Europe in 1814 are known to every one. Napoleon, who represented abroad that same French Revolution which his military despotism had smothered at home, fell under the united efforts of Europe, favoured by the elements and by the treachery of his former companions in arms, to whom he had given either the staff of the field-marshal or the sceptre of the king. The restoration of all the dethroned sovereigns followed, and on re-entering their dominions, these monarchs directed all their cares to obliterate even the remembrance (foolish and useless attempt!) of all that had been done, said, and published, in the past time of hurricane and revolution, and hurried back with inconsiderate earnestness to their old and primitive system of governing. The Jesuits, skilful in profiting by every circumstance, then stepped forward, and offered to those sovereigns their unconditional services. Already, after their suppression, and during the ascendant march of the French Revolution, they, with infinite address, had persuaded the different sovereigns, either menaced on their thrones or already hurled from them, that their overthrow—the crimes which, it is unfortunately true, in a moment of delirium, had been committed in the name of liberty—the impious and subversive doctrines which had invaded Europe, and extinguished every sense of morality and religion—all were to be attributed to the suppression of the order. They asserted that the Encyclopædists, after the destruction of the Society, the surest bulwark of the throne and the altar, finding no more opposition, and passing from theory to practice, had caused the revolution, and set the whole of Europe in a blazing conflagration; and this is even now repeated by the fathers and their partisans. We must, before proceeding any farther, give the answer Gioberti makes to their assertions. He grants that the Encyclopædists did make the revolution. “But,” says he, “the Society, by altering and disfiguring, in the opinion of many, the Catholic faith, the morality of the gospel, the authority of princes, and all those fundamental laws which form the basis of all states and governments—in fact, by substituting for religion their own sect—had shaken all principles of morality, religion, and good government, and had indeed brought the Encyclopædists into existence; the most conspicuous of whom, in fact, as Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius, Marmontel, St Lambert, Lametrie, and many others, had issued from Jesuitical colleges, or had had Jesuits as their tutors.”[424]

However, these monks, who, as we have seen, had conspired against the life and independence of almost all the sovereigns of Europe, now had the art to persuade the reigning monarchs that they would be always insecure on their thrones without the assistance and the support of the Company; and, strange to say, some actually believed them, while others feigned to do so. From that moment to our days, in the eyes of such bigoted and short-sighted despots as the Ferdinands of Naples, the Leopolds of Tuscany, the Francis Josephs of Austria, and all the supporters of absolutism, the Jesuits have been considered as the best pillars and supporters of despotism and tyranny. Nor is this belief destitute of foundation so far as the intentions of the fathers are concerned. The Liberals in our time are in their eyes what the Reformers were two centuries back. Against them are now directed all their efforts; the Liberals are now the accursed of God, the impious whom all the courage and ability of the sons of Ignatius can hardly keep at bay. Nor is this the first time that these mendacious and impudent monks have contrived to impose themselves on different states, representing their interference as indispensable to the welfare of society and to the repression of its enemies. Thus they had imposed themselves as necessary to combat the Reformers in the sixteenth century, the Jansenists and Calvinists in the seventeenth, and again, in the eighteenth, the philosophers and the approaching revolution; although it was not till very late, and when the first persecutions had awakened them from their state of beatitude, that they proclaimed themselves the opponents of the Encyclopædists. In the nineteenth century, the adversaries with whom they are wont to contend are, as we said, the Liberals; and the fathers must, indeed, be skilful and powerful instruments for suppressing all ideas of liberty, all free aspiration, all generous sentiments, all personal dignity, and for keeping the people in servitude, since the supremely cunning Louis Napoleon has chosen them as his most useful auxiliaries, and lavished on them all sorts of favours.

Among the sovereigns who, in 1814, re-ascended the thrones from which a daring and unscrupulous conqueror had hurled them, was the old Pontiff, who, after his captivity at Fontainebleau, had, on the 24th of May, re-entered Rome amidst unfeigned marks of love and veneration from his people. Indeed, the man who at this epoch occupied the pontifical chair was, for many reasons, worthy of the greatest admiration and respect. This person was Barnaba Chiaramonti, a Benedictine monk, who assumed the name of Pius VII. His life was pure and uncontaminated; his intentions were good; his character was mild and benevolent; and before his misfortunes, he had shewn some readiness to make concessions required by the times and the circumstances; but after his captivity, after the series of direct miseries which had befallen him and the Sacred College, miseries which he attributed to the spirit of irreligion then prevalent in Europe, Pius VII., now a feeble old man, gave way to all the propensities of a fanatical, bigoted monk, which in his better days he had subdued and restrained by reasoning. His first care, therefore, was to re-establish all the monastic orders he could, and among the first was that of the Jesuits, who had already flocked to Rome from every part, with the certainty of soon re-acquiring their former position and splendour. Nor were they disappointed in their expectations. On Sunday, the 7th of August 1814, Pius VII. went in state to the church of the Gesù, celebrated himself the mass before the altar consecrated to Loyola; heard a second mass, immediately after which he caused to be read and promulgated the bull by which the Society of Jesus was re-established according to the ancient rules.

Party writers, too eager to find Popes in contradiction with each other, and to hold up their pretended infallibility to the ridicule of their readers, have taken up these two acts, and asked, “Who was infallible—Clement XIV., who abolished the Society, or Pius VII., who re-established it?” We do not aspire to so easy a triumph, and we shall consider Chiaramonti’s bull in a somewhat more serious manner.

In our opinion, the bull of Pius VII. is less in contradiction than may be supposed with the brief of Clement. Pius does not in the least condemn either the brief or its author; nor does he say that it had been extorted, as Ganganelli said of the bull of Rezzonico. On the contrary, he speaks of it as of a legal and perfectly authoritative act by which the Company had ceased to exist; and when he is obliged in some sort to annul it, he does not annul it, except in that part which is contrary to his own bull, namely, that which affects the existence of the Society. In the whole bull there is not a word, not a syllable, to contradict or to weaken the long list of terrible accusations brought against them by Clement. If it was an injustice done to the Jesuits, which Pius wished to repair, he ought at least to have mentioned that they had been wronged, and that it was the duty of the Supreme Chief of the Church to reinstate them in the good estimation of Europe. But the bull is silent as to any such wrongs, and is very chary of its commendations of the sons of Ignatius. Why, then, one may ask, did Pius VII. re-establish the Company of Jesus? First, as I have stated, because he was a bigoted monk, and thought that it might be in the power of the fanatical and idle brotherhoods of all kinds to extinguish the light spread by the new doctrines, and to bring humanity back to the blessed darkness of the middle ages. In other words, he thought, and many of the sovereigns, some of them not Roman Catholics, thought with him, that the priests and monks would be able to arrest the progress of civilisation; for it must be remembered that the horrors and acts of barbarity which were committed during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, and which were the consequences of a forced and exaggerated application of the new theories on government and religion, could in no way be laid to the charge of the doctrines themselves, which are calculated to promote the real and beneficent progress of society. Besides Chiaramonti’s predilection for all monks, to whose re-establishment, as he says in the bull, “all his care and all his solicitude are given,” Pius was requested by all the sovereigns to re-establish the Company; and he says that he should consider himself as wanting in his duty if, while the bark of Peter was tossed to and fro amidst dangerous rocks, he should disdain the help of those vigorous and experienced rowers.

Such were the motives, of a purely political nature on the part of the sovereigns, and of a mixed nature on the part of the Pope, which induced the former to request, and the latter to grant, a new existence to the Society of Jesus. But observe, that in the act itself, by which he re-instated the order, Pius reserved to the Holy See the power of modifying it if its provisions were abused. He subjects the members of the Company, in the exercise of all their spiritual functions, to the jurisdiction of the ordinaries, thus despoiling it of the most precious of its privileges, the whole of which he expressly recalls. And the bull is still more significant, when it conjures all the members of the Society to return to the primitive rules of Ignatius, and to take him as their model. The Pontiff does not say, return to your occupation, to those exercises in which you were engaged before the Suppression. But he tells them to return to the primitive spirit of their institution, from which they had so far departed. The noble and virtuous Pontiff hoped that their past misfortunes would have instructed those inconsiderate and wicked monks, and warned them not to incur again the hatred of Christendom. Vain hopes! useless admonitions! Before fifteen years shall pass, the whole of Europe, except, perhaps, some despots and their supporters, will look anxiously for the happy day when the troublesome progeny of Ignatius shall be irrevocably banished from its bosom!

However, as the bull is very short, we shall submit it to the calm and serious consideration of our readers, and we feel confident that they will form the same opinion of it that we have done, namely, that in the act itself, in which Pius re-establishes the Jesuits, he modifies their institutions and condemns their past conduct.