[258] The place was called Mont Louis, but was afterwards converted into a magnificent and beautiful cemetery, which now bears the name of Lachaise.
[259] A lettre de cachet was an order bearing the king’s signature, generally requiring the arrest or exile of the person specified. Under the reign of the despotic Louis, lettres de cachet were issued with scandalous profusion. The courtiers, the ministers, the king’s mistresses, asked, in exchange for a flattery or a caress, a lettre de cachet. Often the letter was blank, having only the king’s signature, and left to the person who had obtained it to fill it up with any name and any sort of punishment he pleased. Father Lachaise had always by him a quantity of letters of this last sort.
[260] In the first years of Louis’s reign that right resided in a commission composed of two prelates and a Jesuit; but Ferrier, Lachaise’s predecessor, possessed himself of the exclusive right, which ever after belonged to the king’s confessor.
[261] Letellier was accused of being the contriver of the following shameful deception. In 1690, during a dispute, M. de Ligny, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Royal College of Douay, fell out with Father Beckman, a Jesuit professor. Drawn to extremities in the argument, he menaced his opponent with revenge, saying, Ego te flagellabo—“I will give you a whipping.” Fifteen days after, Ligny received a letter under the false signature of Antoine A——; that is, Antoine Arnauld, the famous Jansenist, with an address for the expected answer. Now, the professor, flattered by the honour of receiving a letter from so famous a man as Arnauld, replied to the letter, and continued the correspondence—so that at last the impostor, under the name of Arnauld, drew from Ligny the names of those who opposed the Jesuits, all of them doctors and professors in theology. The impostor thereupon began and continued a correspondence with these doctors, who supposed they were writing to the true Arnauld, the staunch opponent of Jesuit doctrine. Ligny even begged the invisible Arnauld to be his spiritual director, and sent him a general confession of the state of his conscience. Thereupon he was induced to leave his chair, his benefice, and to send all his papers to the impostor, whilst he set out by the same command to a place appointed, which was Paris. He went to St Magloire, but found no Arnauld; proceeded from place to place, until at last the simple Fleming found that he was duped. Meanwhile, however, all the professors before alluded to were denounced by the Jesuit Letellier, and exiled to various towns in France; and Ligny himself was sent to Tours. Meanwhile, the Jesuit published a letter directed to a doctor of Douay, under the title of Secrets of the party of M. Arnauld lately discovered. Then Arnauld, in his place of exile, discovering the cheat, published a first and second complaint, and a third, concluding one in answer to the Jesuit who had replied to his second. Every one was indignant, and even Louis XIV. himself. But the Jesuits assured him that they were innocent of the plot; and having obtained forgiveness for a supposed contriver, Tournelay, a doctor whom the Jesuits had named professor in the place of the expelled Gilbert, confessed that he had himself played the part of the false Arnauld, and the Jesuits were by this imposture exculpated from this act of perfidy. In the Gazette of Rotterdam, 1692, it is said, “But little esteem was felt for him (Tournelay) since it was discovered that he consented to pass for the father of the false Arnauld, to exculpate the Jesuits, and above all, author de Vaudripont, the man who had answered Arnauld’s complaint, and who was supposed to act by Letellier’s inspiration.”
[262] See Edinburgh Review, vol. lxxiii. p. 361.
[263] Crét. vol. iii. p. 356.
[264] Ibid. p. 363.
[265] Crét. vol, iii. p. 362.
[266] Ibid. p. 363.
[267] Crét. vol. iii. p. 179.
[268] Ibid. p. 388.
[269] Ibid. pp. 371, 372.
[270] Crét. vol. iii. p. 375.
[271] This proclamation was the decree by which the bigoted Ferdinand II., with revolting injustice, dispossessed legitimate holders of property which had belonged to religious communities, but which in great part had been allotted more than a hundred years before to those monks and priests who had embraced Protestantism, and which, passing through many hands to the persons then in possession, constituted the most legitimate property.
[272] Crét. vol. iii. p. 390.
[273] Krasinski’s Lectures on Slavonia, p. 321.
[274] Ranke’s History of the Popes, vol. ii. p. 161.
[275] Literæ Academiæ Cracoviensis ad Academiam Lovaniensem, 2 July 1627.
[276] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 362.
[277] This Bellarmine, as is known to many of our readers, was a famous Jesuit, a cardinal, and one of the most fanatic and bigoted in the order, celebrated above all for exalting the Papal authority above every other earthly power. He is the author of a catechism, which is still taught over all Italy, under the name of La Dottrina Cristiana de Bellarmino. He was very learned, and appears not to have been a bad man, as regards his outward conduct.
[278] Jardine is, perhaps, the most impartial guide to follow in inquiring into this tragical event.
[279] Pasquino and Marforio are, or at least were (only one of them being now in existence), two statues placed at the corners of two contiguous streets in Rome, on which the Romans affix those libels in which they, generally speaking, express their hatred of the Roman court and its abominable vices. The statues are supposed to address one another.
[280] Butler, Mem. ii. 51.
[281] “N’ont ils pas conservé en Angleterre le germe qui se développe avec tant de vigueur, et qui en Irlande, après trois cents ans de martyre, devient une révolution légitime?” Vol. iii. 510.
[283] The Recorder of London, the Dean of St Paul’s, and that of Westminster, accompanied him to the fatal scaffold, and at that awful moment, when the wretched man had need to prepare himself for the presence of the supreme infallible Judge, they, for the space of an hour, obliged him to discuss the lawfulness of equivocation, and the criminality of the Plot, and thus subjected him to another trial!
[284] Oldcorne was executed on the 17th of April 1606, Garnet on the 3d of May of the same year.
[285] Crét. vol. iii. p. 476.—He might have said that Fischer was the author of many paltry contrivances, and that his endeavours were not so much directed to alleviate the misery of the persons of his persuasion as to resuscitate enemies to the established government, in conformity with the wishes of Spain and France.
[286] Politique du clergé de France, ou entretiens curieux; deuxième entretien: par Pierre Jurieu la Haye, 1682.
[287] Crét. vol. iii. p. 489.
[288] Crét. vol. iv. p. 197.
[289] Ranke, quoting Herrara, vol. ii. p. 228.
[290] We need hardly remind our readers, that when we speak of the idle, luxurious, and selfish life of the monks, we speak of the generality, for we are not so illiberal as to say, that among them was to be found no one really animated by a true zeal, and by the desire of converting infidels to that religion which they thought the true one.
[291] Crét. vol. iii. p. 292.
[292] Ibid. p. 289.
[293] Crét. vol. iii. p. 312.
[294] Crét. vol. iii. p. 502.
[295] See this and other letters of this prelate in Arnauld, tom. xxxii. and xxxiii.
[296] Palafox, wishing to see the authorisation, which the fathers pretended to have, to confess without the diocesan’s order, in opposition to a decree of the Council of Trent, asked them to shew him such an authorisation; they answered that they had the privilege not to shew it. “Let me see that privilege,” said the bishop. “We have the privilege to keep secret our privileges.” “Shew me at least this last privilege.” “We are authorised to keep secret even this other privilege.” See the letter in which the prelate relates the fact in Arnauld, tom. xxxiii. pp. 486-534.
[297] Letter to Innocent X., An. 1649, ss. 14-18.
[298] Letter of Palafox to Father Rada, Provincial of the Jesuits, 1649. See Arnauld, tom. xxxiii. p. 643. Some Jesuits have denied the authenticity of this letter, others the truth of the accusation, and have called the prelate a calumniator. As to the authenticity of the letter, it cannot be denied, since the bishop himself published it in his Defensa Canonica, dedicated to the King of Spain; and the well-known character of Palafox puts his veracity beyond question; nor would he have dared to bring before the royal throne a false accusation.
[299] I forgot to mention, in speaking of the canonisation of saints, that, in general, many years are allowed to pass after obtaining a title of Servus Dei, for example, before the other title, Venerabilis, is asked for, and so on.
[300] The office of this personage in the canonisation is to raise, pro forma, objections to its accomplishment, by questioning the virtue of the man, the reality of his miracles, and so on. In Italy he is called the advocate of the devil; and our Gioberti, with perhaps more wit than Christian charity, says, “In the case of Palafox, the name (advocate of the devil) may have well become him, as he was the advocate of the fathers.”
[301] Owing to the French Revolution of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, the proceedings for the canonisation of Palafox, which had lasted fifty-five years, were never resumed, till lately an attempt was made to make a saint of him; but the Jesuits were again too powerful to allow it, and the case is yet pending, so that it may be said that the good Palafox is in a sort suspended between earth and heaven.
[302] Gioberti, ut supra, vol. iii. p. 151.
[303] For the persecutions to which all those ecclesiastics, regular or secular, were subjected, because they would not submit to the domineering spirit of the Jesuits, see the preface of tom. xxxii. of Arnauld’s work, with documents.
[304] Inhibendum est Patri Grenerali, totique societate ne in posterum recipiant novicios ad habitum societatis, neque admittant ad vota sive simplicia sive solemnia.
[305] See the Mémoires Historiques de Norbert, already quoted. See also Anecdotes sur Le Chine, t. vi. p. 408.
[306] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 388.
[307] Epist. Meutii Vitelleschi, &c. (Antwerp, 1665.)
[308] Gioberti Il Gesuita Moderno, vol. iii. p. 299.
[309] Diario Deone apud Ranke, vol. ii. p. 389.
[310] Vincentii Caraffæ Epistole de Modis conservandi primævum spiritum Societatis. Part of it apud Ranke, in a note, vol. ii. p. 391.
[311] Ibid.
[312] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 389.
[313] Circumstantial narration in the contemporary discorso, apud Ranke, vol. ii. p. 396.
[314] Crét. vol. iv. p. 96.
[315] Gioberti, vol. iii. p. 299.
[316] Gioberti, vol. iii. p. 299.
[317] The tone in which Annat wrote to his general deserves to be remarked, and to be compared with the letters that Lainez and Borgia used to write to Loyola—“I cannot omit to communicate,” he writes, “to your paternity my grief on seeing that the hope which I had conceived of a speedy conclusion of the peace between the sovereign pontiff and the most Christian king has vanished.... I do not know what malignant coincidence of events destroys all my plans,” &c.
[318] MS. Bibl. Harl. v. 895, f. 143.
[319] Bartoli Giappone, t. 22.
[320] Crét. vol. iv. p. 417.
[321] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 293.
[322] St Priest’s History of the Fall of the Jesuits, English Trans. p. 3.
[323] A Jesuit was the confessor of that faithful wife!
[324] St Priest’s History of the Fall of the Jesuits, English Trans. p. 4.
[325] Crét. vol. v. p. 158.
[326] St Priest, p. 9.
[327] Ibid.
[328] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 392.
[329] Voyage de Duquesne Chef d’escadre, tom. xxxv. p. 15.
[330] Crét. vol. v. p. 171.
[331] Lavallette.
[332] Ranke, vol. vii. p. 443.
[333] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 444.
[334] St Priest, p. 12.
[335] St Priest, p. 13.
[336] Fifteen hundred of these monks landed at Civita Vecchia. It was a pitiful sight to behold some of those very old priests torn from the place where they had spent their lives, and thrown upon a foreign land. Even the Dominicans, their constant opponents, were touched with compassion, and received them kindly; and they have perpetuated the memory of this act of generosity by an inscription on stone.
[337] See it reported in St Priest, p. 21, and following.
[338] Crét. vol. v. p. 236.
[339] Three generals, Retz, Visconti, and Centurioni, had, after Tambourini, governed the Society; and the 19th General Congregation, named Lorenzo Ricci, who was the 18th General before the suppression.
[340] The debts of Lavallette amounted to 2,400,000 francs; but Crétineau assures us that the houses and lands belonging to the Company were bought by English capitalists for the sum of four millions of francs! Did not the Jesuits well observe the vows of poverty, this bulwark of religion?
[341] St Priest, p. 27.
[342] Ranke, vol. ii. p 447; St Priest, p. 29.
[343] State Papers and Manuscripts of the Duke of Choiseul. See St Priest, p. 18.
[344] See Ranke, vol. ii. p. 447; Crét. vol. v. p. 274.
[345] The property which the Jesuits possessed in France was estimated at fifty-eight millions of francs; but in that sum, says Crétineau, must not be included the alms which were given to the Maisons Professes. They possess fifty-eight millions, and ask for alms! Oh! holy poverty!
[346] Despatches of the Marquis d’Ossun to the Duke of Choiseul. See St Priest, p. 34.
[347] Crét. vol. v. p. 293.
[348] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 448.
[349] St Priest, p. 35.
[350] See in Ranke, vol. ii. p. 447, a note, where he quotes a passage of a MS.
[351] Crét. vol. v. p. 296.
[352] St Priest, p. 36; Crét. vol. v. p. 297.
[353] Crét. vol. v. p. 284.
[354] See it in Crétineau, vol. v. p. 301.
[355] Ibid.
[356] St Priest, p. 43.
[357] See St Priest, p. 45; Crét. vol. v. p. 312.
[358] Ranke, vol. ii. p. 448.
[359] Ibid.
[360] Instructions to the Cardinals De Luynes and De Bernis, February 19, 1769. See St Priest, p. 54.
[361] St Priest, p. 58.
[362] Crét. vol. v. p. 326. He quotes the No. 14 of the Lettres inédites D’Aubeterre. We have not an opportunity of verifying these letters, and must rest on his authority. St Priest says that it was, on the contrary, De Bernis who promised to the ambassadors to consult Ganganelli; but however it is, what appears incontestable is, that Ganganelli was consulted.
[363] In the time of our short republic, we were once moved to tears by seeing some Trasteverini throw off their hats, and spontaneously, without being told or taught, go and kiss these magical and once respected letters, S.P.Q.R. Indeed I even feel moved in writing them.
[364] St Priest, p. 55.
[365] St Priest, p. 56.
[366] See St Priest, p. 57, who reports all these details, as given by the emperor himself to D’Aubeterre. Joseph enlarged complacently on his contemptuous policy toward the Holy See, and declared, in plain terms, that he knew the Court of Rome too well not to despise it, and thought very little of his admission to the Conclave. “Those people,” said he, speaking of the cardinals, “tried to impress upon me the value of this distinction, but I am not their dupe.”
[367] In Italy, the monasteries of the orders called mendicant are the refuge of three peculiar classes of persons. The first class of those who repair thither are idle, unthinking fellows, who disdain to do any sort of work; the second are those who have but the convent to escape the prison; and the third, those youth who, feeling within themselves the power, the capacity, or the ambition of achieving some great deeds, and seeing no possibility of emerging from the crowd, have recourse to the cloister as the only way left them of arriving at eminence. Almost all the men of mark among the Italian clergy have been monks, born of poor and humble parentage; and many Popes were of the same. It is known that not a penny is requisite to enter into those monasteries, while, to become a secular priest, one requires to possess some little property.
[368] It was he who began that magnificent museum in the Vatican, increased afterwards by Pius VI., which bears the name of Museo Pio-Clementino, and which is the admiration of all Europe.
[369] See Ranke, vol. ii. p. 449, in a note quoting “Aneddoti riguardanti la famiglia e le opere di Clemente.”
[370] Francesco was a lay brother, for whom Ganganelli preserved to the last the most sincere friendship and affection.
[371] St Priest, p. 60. It was in this convent that Ganganelli resided before his exaltation to the pontificate, and he often went thither afterwards to spend some hours.
[372] Ranke (vol. iii. p. 449) exaggerates Ganganelli’s virtues, and represents him as faultless and holy, which brings us to make a remark on the celebrated German historian. His indefatigable industry in searching archives and public and private libraries, and inspecting unpublished manuscripts, has enabled him to throw light on many obscure questions; but we think that often, on the simple authority of some ambassador’s relation, or private letters, or of writings without name, which only express the private opinion of the writer, he has established principles, and deduced consequences, that are not in accordance with what is known or may be ascertained by an accurate examination of the facts. We could give many instances of what we assert.
[373] 1 Tim. iii. 1.
[374] Gioberti, vol. iii. p. 347.
[375] Crét. vol. v. p. 332.
[376] St Priest, p. 61.
[377] It is to be remarked, that now that the most perfect concord reigns between the Court of Rome and the fathers, and that they support each other, the latter have changed their language in regard to this affair, and that same Crétineau assures us that he disbelieves this imputation.
[378] See St Priest, p. 63.
[379] St Priest, p. 63.
[380] Ibid. p. 64.
[381] St Priest, p. 65.
[382] St Priest, p. 66.
[383] Ibid.
[384] Letter of Choiseul to the Cardinal de Bernis, August 10, 1769. See it, Crét. vol. v. p. 342, ff.
[385] St Priest, p. 73.
[386] Ibid.
[387] See it in St Priest, p. 73, in a note.
[388] St Priest, p. 86.
[389] Brief Dominus ac Redemptor.
[390] Vol. ii. p. 450.
[391] St Priest, p. 86.
[392] St Priest, p. 28.
[393] St Priest, ubi sup. He has extracted all those details from a letter of Florida Blanca, addressed to Pope Pius VI.