JESUITS. 



233 



above mentioned house brought an action against 

 them, which terminated in the sentencing of the 

 former to make full reimbursement, and was the 

 means, also, of bringing to light other abuses of the 

 onler. Lorenzo Ricci, their general, refusing to 

 make: any change in their constitution, by the de- 

 claration, Siiif tit aunt, out non sint (Let them be as 

 they are, or not be), the king issued a decree, in 1764, 

 for abolishing the order, in all the French states, as a 

 mere political society, dangerous to religion, whose 

 object was self-aggrandizement. In vain did Clement 

 XIII., in a bull issued at the same time, recommend 

 the Jesuits as the most pious and useful members of 

 the church. They were also driven out of Spain, in 

 1767, and soon after from Naples, Parma, and Malta, 

 by the efforts of Choiseul and the Spanish minister 

 Aranda. The voice of public opinion at length com- 

 pelled pope Clement XIV. to publish his famous bull, 

 Dominus ac Redemptor noster, of July 21, 1773, by 

 which the society of Jesus was totally abolished in 

 all the states of Christendom. These measures were 

 every where executed with a qnick and strong hand, 

 because a formal process would have given time for 

 a formidable opposition. Yet their most important 

 treasures and documents were already taken out of 

 the way, as it is supposed, and their archives and 

 coffers did not satisfy expectation. Ricci, who 

 might have averted this fate by making some con- 

 cessions towards a change in their constitution, 

 protested the innocence of their order, which was 

 bound to regard every thing which came from him as 

 necessarily right arid obligatory ; but, in fact, the 

 great infringements on the natural rights of others, 

 incompatible with every well-ordered church or 

 state, which were in a manner legalized by their 

 privileges, rendered the existence of such a body in 

 a state a political solecism. Unquestionably the 

 world had much reason to rejoice at their fall, al- 

 though a great part of the members were entirely 

 innocent ; and their former services will always be 

 gratefully remembered. The ex-Jesuits, however, 

 suffered no further penalty than being obliged to quit 

 their houses, lay aside the garb of the order, renounce 

 all intercourse with one another, and either enter 

 some of the other orders, or put themselves under the 

 superintendence of the bishops. They received annu- 

 ities from the revenues of their confiscated estates, 

 except in Portugal. In this kingdom, and in Spain, 

 the ex-Jesuits were also prohibited from residing in 

 the country ; while, in the States of the Church, in 

 Upper Italy, and in Germany, where they were 

 treated with the most forbearance, in Hungary, 

 Poland, and even in France, they were suffered to 

 remain as private persons. Frederic II., indeed, 

 would not join in the general expulsion of the order, 

 in order to gratify his Catholic subjects in Silesia, to 

 retain a school-establishment which cost him nothing, 

 and to keep a productive source of revenue. Never- 

 theless, the Jesuits in the Prussian states were obliged 

 to give up the garb of their order, and to renounce 

 their constitution. Under the name of the priests of 

 the royal school-institute, they were henceforth , con- 

 fined to the office of instructing youth; and even this 

 institution was abolished by Frederic William II. 

 Russia was now the only country that remained to 

 them. Peter the Great had expelled them from his 

 empire as early as 1719 ; but, in 1772, several houses 

 of their order fell, with the eastern part of Poland, 

 under the dominion of Russia. Catharine spared 

 them, even after the abolition of the order, out of 

 regard to her Catholic subjects, and on account of 

 the usefulness of their schools. The patronage of 

 Czernitscheff and Potemkin enabled them to obtain 

 permission to erect a novitiate-house in 1779, and 

 in 1782 to choose a vicar-general. Meanwhile, cir- 



cumstances had taken a favourable turn for them in 

 Rome. Clement XIV. died 1774, and his successor 

 soon showed himself a friend of the society, which was 

 yet very far from being extinct. The ex-Jesuits, who 

 were deprived at once of their offices by the decrees 

 of abolition, having been condemned unheard, still 

 remained respectable clergymen, who had powerful 

 friends in all classes, and were intrusted with impor- 

 tant stations in the church and offices of instruction. 

 In the year 1780, there were 9000 of them out of 

 Italy, who were thought to maintain a constant 

 union, under private directors or superiors ; they 

 were also thought to have possessed themselves of 

 the secrets of the Rosicrucians, and to have taken a 

 part in the schemes of the Illuminati. They were 

 charged, moreover, with a plot to destroy Protestan- 

 tism. But the clamour against them was, no doubt, 

 often unfounded. By Jesuitism was still understood, 

 not only the opposition to all ideas and institutions 

 unfavourable to the Roman church, but also the sly 

 and insidious arts of intrigue, the acting according to 

 the principle that " the end sanctifies the means," 

 the concealed movements of a manoeuvring ambition, 

 under the mask of piety and devotion to the public 

 good, which had become a second nature with many 

 of the followers of Loyola. Undaunted by these 

 assaults of an often unjust prejudice, the ex-Jesuits, 

 firmly united to each other, were hoping in the mean- 

 while for the restoration of their order, on which, 

 according to their belief, the welfare of mankind de- 

 pends. An attempt, in 1787, to revive their order, 

 under the name of Vicentines , was unsuccessful. The 

 Fathers of the faith, an ecclesiastical order founded 

 by Paccanari, a Tyrolese enthusiast, and formerly a 

 soldier of the pope, under the patronage of the arch- 

 duchess Mariana, was composed mostly of Jesuits, 

 and put in operation at Rome, by the aid of the easily 

 persuaded pope, as a new form of the society of Jesus, 

 under altered regulations; but they were never 

 recognised by the secret superiors of the ancient 

 Jesuits, as their brethren. The plans of the Jesuits 

 were aided by Pius VII. He established their order 

 in White Russia and Lithuania, where it continued 

 in operation, but confined to offices of teaching and 

 priestly duties, under the vicar-general, Daniel Gru- 

 ber; and silently restored them, in 1804, in the 

 island of Sicily, which was entirely separated from 

 Europe by the fate of the continent. Hence it ex- 

 cited no surprise among observing men, that this 

 pope, who, in 1806, had canonized a Jesuit, should 

 make use of the first opportunity to revive the order. 

 The bull issued to this effect (Solicitudo omnium, Aug. 

 7, 1814), speaks of urgent entreaties and a general 

 desire of the Christian princes and bishops for the re- 

 storation of the society, which restoration is called a 

 rcpristination, thereby intimating that it would again 

 appear in precisely the same form in which it had fal- 

 len. Accordingly, the novitiate at Rome was solemnly 

 opened, November 11, 1814, and about forty men, 

 mostly eminent for rank and attainments, have since 

 been admitted. In 1824, they took possession of the 

 collegium Romanum in that city. In 1815, a college 

 was given them at Modena, and they did not delay to 

 accept the invitations of the kings of Sardinia, Naples, 

 and Spain. Ferdinand VII. (May 29, 1815) rein- 

 stated them in the possession of all the privileges 

 and property which had been taken from them in 

 1707. He subsequently appointed St Ignatius cap- 

 tain-general of the Spanish army, and conferred 

 on him the grand cross of the order of Charles 

 III. The Helvetic canton of Friburg, also (Sep- 

 tember 15, 1818), restored the old Jesuit college, 

 formerly established there, for the instruction of 

 youth. The Spanish revolution of March, 1820, was 

 followed by their banishment from the kingdom ; but 



