JESUITS. 



237 



nature can be found, than that there are men 

 who reproach such people with laxity of morals." 

 The history of the persecutions of the Jesuits, in the 

 different parts of Europe, is very interesting. The 

 first took place in France. In 1540, they appeared 

 in France. The parliament hated them as friends 

 of the Roman see, the university as dangerous 

 rivals. The hall of the parliament incessantly 

 resounded with the complaints of the university 

 of Paris, who could not bear to see their students 

 departing and putting themselves under the in- 

 structions of the Jesuits : still more painful was the 

 loss of so many emoluments, which, under the name 

 Landit, were derived from the students, while the 

 Jesuits instructed gratis; and when, at length, the 

 great fame of the Jesuit Maldorat, whose lecture- 

 room was filled two or three hours before the time of 

 the lecture, and who was at last obliged to lecture in 

 the open air, spread farther and farther, the rage of the 

 university rose to the highest degree. The rector of 

 the university therefore intimated to them that they 

 must close their schools. They obeyed ; but an up- 

 roar took place among the students, and the court 

 ordered the Jesuits to open their schools again imme- 

 diately, and not to regard the arrogant pretensions of 

 tlu> university. Afterwards, however, when public 

 business kept the king and his ministers for a long 

 time from Paris, the university accused the Jesuits 

 before the parliament. Pasquier, Arnaud, and Dol- 

 lou, the advocates of the university, loaded the 

 Jesuits witli calumnies. Their advocate, Versaris, 

 defended them so powerfully, that even the parliament, 

 hostile as it was to the Jesuits, acquitted them. When, 

 at a later period, Henry IV. besieged Paris, the 

 Jesuits attracted new odium, by asserting, when inter- 

 rogated by the citizens, in opposition to the opinion 

 of the other theologians, that excommunication was 

 not the necessary consequence of opening the gates 

 to a heretic king. All the old hatred broke forth 

 anew when Chatel attempted to murder Henry IV. 

 The Jesuits were calumniously charged with being 

 the authors of the attempt, and the parliament 

 tumultuously and unjustly condemned to death the 

 Jesuit G uignard. The judges themselves confessed, 

 some yearslater, that they had acted over hastily, and 

 all France acknowledged the innocence of the Jesuits. 

 In the first heat, the Jesuits were banished from 

 the realm by a decree of the parliament ; but some 

 parliaments in the provinces openly refused to regis- 

 ter the ordinance of the parliament of Paris, and 

 those particularly which were independent upon that 

 of the capital, declared the act illegal, hurried, and 

 unjust, and in general protected the Jesuits. For 

 nine years, the Jesuits remained unmolested in Bour- 

 deaux and Toulouse. Students from all France 

 repaired to them, and the king was so much petitioned 

 to restore so useful an order, that he recalled them. 

 The parliament refused to register the royal decree, 

 and sent a deputation to Henry, at the head of whom 

 was the president Harley, who, as the historian 

 Dupleix says, uttered a uniform strain of abuse 

 against the Jesuits. The king answered with a 

 speech* extempore, which, as De Thou has not re- 

 corded it in his History of France, is hardly known, 

 and we think it proper to give it here, to show how 

 this able monarch spoke extempore : " Your care for 

 my person and the welfare of my empire I acknow- 

 ledge with pleasure. What you have just told me I 

 have known long since ; but my ideas on it were un- 

 known to you. You speak of difficulties, which 

 appear to you great ; but I must tell you that I have 

 weighed them duly seven or eight years ago. The 

 best resolutions originate from the lessons of the past, 

 and these I know better than any body else. You 

 imagine that you understand affairs of government, 



and that you may interfere with them, which seems 

 to me much as if I should interfere with your duties 

 by making a report in a civil process. I therefore 

 must tell you, first, in regard to the affair of Poissy, 

 that, if all had behaved as one or two Jesuits who 

 happened to be present, every thing would have 

 turned out better for the Catholics. Not their ambi- 

 tion, but their modesty, from that time, has appeared 

 conspicuous ; and I cannot conceive how you can 

 accuse those of ambition, who refuse, constantly and 

 unconditionally, abbeys, honorary offices, and digni- 

 ties ; nay, who oblige themselves by vows never to 

 strive for them, and whose life, in general, has no 

 other purpose than to be useful to all people. Is it 

 the name Jesuit which excites your zeal? Then you 

 must also dispute with those who have taken their 

 name from the holy Trinity (les peres de la Trinitc}; 

 and, if you believe that you belong as much to the 

 society of Jesus as the Jesuits, you may ask yourselves 

 whether your daughters belong as much to the Fillea 

 de Dieu in Paris as the nuns who bear this name, and 

 you may as well call yourselves knights of the order 

 of the Holy Ghost as myself and the other knights of 

 the order. I, for my part, should like as well, or ra- 

 ther better, to be called Jesuit than Jacobin or Augus- 

 tine. If part of the other clergy are hostile to the order, 

 it may originate from the circumstance that ignorance 

 always was hostile to science. I have found that, as 

 soon as I declared my intention to recall the Jesuits, 

 two classes of men immeiiiateiy opposed the measure, 

 viz., the Huguenots and all the Catholic clergy noto- 

 rious for bad morals and conduct ; but this gave me 

 a greater esteem and love for the Jesuits." The 

 king speaks at length on the reason why the Sorbonne 

 could not agree with the Jesuits, because the latter 

 were more learned, and that they should now not only 

 be suffered, but take root within the realm.* 



In Britain, Jesuits never had much footing. The 

 reformed doctrines had already become the prevalent 

 religion of that country, when the order grew up. 

 The Jesuits in Britain were only a small division of 

 missionaries, who laboured among the dispersed and 

 oppressed Catholics, quietly and under the veil of 

 secrecy. Several Jesuits have suffered martyrdom 

 in Britain, and several laws enacted against them 

 manifest the grossest prejudice, and have been re- 

 pealed only in modern times. In the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, the Jesuits received their first blow in Portugal. 

 Pombal, minister of king Joseph, a powerful and 

 passionate man, wished to promote the welfare of 

 Portugal ; but his plans were those of a despotic 

 minister of a despotic government. Every thing op- 

 posed to his wishes was to fall. Many circumstances 

 co-operated to render him inimical to the Jesuits, to 

 whose influence, as confessors, he owed his elevation. 

 It would have been better for the Jesuits if they had 

 avoided accepting confessorships at court, in the 

 same way as they declined the dignities of the church. 

 Pombal believed the country of the Paraguay, in 

 which the Jesuits ruled so paternally, contained a 

 number of gold mines, unknown to the inhabitants. 

 He therefore obtained this country from Spain by 

 exchange for another, 1400 miles distant, into which 

 he wished to transplant all the Indians of Paraguay. 

 The Jesuits received orders to prepare the people for 

 this measure. The natives remonstrated very mo- 

 destly and respectfully against such a forced emigra- 

 tion, representing how impossible it would be to 

 transplant 30,000 people, with all their goods to such 

 a distance through the wilderness ; but the govern- 

 ment was inexorable. Only a few months were 



The apeech i long, and its genuineness very suspicious, 

 88 it goes carefully through all the points for which the 

 Jrsnit* had been reproached. It is too long for a king, too 

 systematic for an extempore performance. ED. 



