46 The Origin of the Jesuits. 



been placed by Ignatius at the head of the French Jesuits, not only 

 braved the storm, but even had the audacity to remain in Paris, re- 

 tiring with his companions to the quarter of St. Germain, which they 

 pretended was out of the jurisdiction of the bishop. Here they con- 

 tinued to perform their exercises in the abbey. The prior was 

 pressed to dismiss them; but he was too well pleased at having such 

 an opportunity of vindicating the rights of his church to be persuaded 

 to put them away. They remained here therefore, quietly waiting 

 for any turn of the tide, which, if taken good advantage of, might 

 lead to as brilliant successes as those they had to boast of in Italy. 



In Spain, John Silic, archbishop of Toledo, declared that the Je- 

 suits interfered with the rights of the bishoprick by giving sacraments 

 in all places. It so happened that the college of Jesuits at Alcala was 

 in his diocese. He interdicted them on their refusal to obey his re- 

 quisition of silence from their preaching; and he fulminated a sentence 

 of excommunication against all such as should confess to them. 

 Finally, he forbade the curates and religious of his whole diocese to 

 allow a Jesuit to preach or say mass in their churches.* 



This was only a continuation of the opposition they had already 

 met with in Spain. In 1548 Melchior Cano, a Dominican friar, a 

 celebrated theologian and distinguished for his learning, treated 

 them as impostors and the emissaries of the Antichrist. Such was the 

 influence he possessed at Salamanca, that they not only lost the con- 

 fidence of the great, but even of the common people. The youth of 

 the town were no longer committed to their charge for the purposes 

 of education; and they were at last driven from Salamanca by the joint 

 efforts of the magistrates and the university as a corrupt race. ' The 

 society indeed, seemed likely to have sunk into decay and oblivion in 

 Spain except for the exertions of Bartholomew Torus (afterwards 

 bishop of the Canaries) and the ^countenance shown them by the 

 Holy Inquisition. t 



In the year 1555 they were compelled to quit Saragossa also. But 

 here their own violent conduct, and not the principles they inculcated 

 on their disciples, was the immediate cause of their expulsion. Pre- 

 suming on the privilege granted them by the Pope to build their 

 churches wherever they pleased, and to consecrate them themselves, 

 they had seized on a piece of land belonging to the Augustines, and 

 despite of their remonstrances, (which they treated'as disobedience to 

 the Holy See), proceeded to erect their chapel and say mass in it 

 without applying to the ordinary. The grand vicar of the archbishop 

 ef Saragossa, finding them deaf to his admonitions, excommunicated 

 them, and placed them under an interdict until they should depart 

 from the city. They found means, however, to return under the pa- 

 tronage of Joan, mother of the emperor Charles V.J 



Towards the end of the life of Ignatius he made great efforts to 

 establish his order in the low countries. He sent Ribadeneira to 

 Philip LI. at Antwerp, proposing as a reason why he should favour 

 their establishment, the essential service they should render to the 



* Helyot, Chap. 60. f Ibid. J Poynder, Chap. 3. 



