238 



JESUITS. 



allowed them for preparation. The Indians, who 

 were to be torn from the ground they had first culti- 

 vated, the huts where they were born, and the graves 

 of their friends and parents, were reduced to despair. 

 Even the Jesuits, who admonished them to obey, 

 were now suspected by the Indians of conspiring 

 with their heartless oppressors in Europe. The Indians 

 armed Uiemselves for resistance. A war broke out, in 

 which the Indians were at first victorious, but w=re 

 afterwards conquered. Many burnt their villages, 

 and fled into the mountains, where most of them 

 (X-rished. After having searched in vain for gold 

 very where, Pombal was ashamed of his bloody and 

 Ixwtless measure, and, under Charles III. of Spain, 

 the lands were re-exchanged, after the innocent 

 Indians had become accustomed to all the vices of 

 Kuropean outcasts. But, as a despotic minister 

 cannot err, the Jesuits were now to be proved the 

 instigators of the resistance of the Indians to Pombal's 

 humane project of emigration. To make the world 

 believe this, Pombal laid a plan with a certain Platel, 

 whose vices had made him an outcast from various 

 countries. The world was to be persuaded that the 

 Jesuits had maintained a warlike state in Paraguay 

 for a hundred and fifty years, and even a king, 

 Nicholas, who commanded their forces, &c. In 

 Spain, the story was laughed at. People knew why 

 Spaniards liad been prohibited, with the consent of 

 government, from visiting the missions that they 

 might not infect with European vices the innocent 

 Indians. This prohibition was a point on which 

 Pombal's writer always insisted. The statements of 

 Platel were proved to be false by the governor of 

 Peru and the Mexican bishops, and the book was 

 burnt in Madrid ; yet Pombal's libels found belief in 

 Europe. The Jesuits were recalled from Paraguay, 

 and imprisoned in Portugal. There were other 

 reasons to excite the minister's anger against the 

 Jesuits. In a question respecting the marriage of 

 the king's daughter, the confessor of the king, the 

 Jesuit Moreira, gave advice contrary to that of 

 Pombal, and the king followed the Jesuit. In the 

 papers of the queen, who died in 1754, Pombal 

 discovered that the Jesuits in Maranham had often 

 apprized the queen, in consequence of her request, of 

 the extortions, &c. of the governor of the place, the 

 brother of Pombal. His passion rose to the highest 

 pitch. Pombal had excited against him the proprie- 

 tors of the vineyards of that country by a monopoly 

 of port wine, from which he derived advantage 

 himself, so that the inhabitants devastated his vine- 

 yards ; the Jesuits, it was reported, had done it. 

 When, after the dreadful earthquake of 1755, the 

 Jesuits made use of this event to bring people to 

 repentance, and the king even expressed the desire 

 to devote himself for eight days to spiritual and 

 solitary meditation, under the direction of the pious 

 Jesuit Malagrida, this resolution of the king gave 

 great uneasiness to Pombal, who feared for his 

 influence. Cost what it would, the Jesuits were to 

 fall. At the same time, another obstacle to Pombal's 

 power was to be annihilated the high nobility, 

 with whom he lived in decided opposition. These 

 two objects Pombal succeeded in accomplishing with 

 one stroke. September 4, 1758, the king, on his 

 return from a love adventure, was wounded by 

 assassins. Pombal persuaded the king that this 

 attack was owing to a conspiracy of the high 

 nobility and the Jesuits, and don Joseph was now 

 in constant fear of new conspiracies, and therefore 

 totally in the power of his minister. The duke o 

 Aveiro, the. whole house of Tavora, were tried by ai 

 extraordinary committee, and suffered an ignominious 

 death. Malagrida was arrested as concerned in the 

 conspiracy, and, after several years, was sentenced 



and burnt by the obedient inquisition as a heretic. 

 When, with the death of don Joseph, Pombal's des- 

 >otism was at an end, when the latter himself, being 

 iccused and convicted of the most execrable crimes, 

 was sentenced to death by the court unanimously, 

 nd pardoned by the queen, and only punished by 

 Minishmeiit, then also the affair of the conspiracy 

 was reviewed, and the parties who had suffered were 

 declared innocent. But, if the conspiracy really had 

 xisted, nothing proved the connexion of the Jesuits 

 with it. It is true, the Jesuit Malagrida had, shortly 

 Before that attempt, declared that, if the king, who 

 cas given to sensual pleasures, did not reform his 

 conduct, a great disaster would follow ; and othei 

 Jesuits were the friends of Tavora and Aveiro. But 

 none but Pombal could have made this circumstance 

 :he ground of an accusation against the society. 

 He accused the whole body before the pope, and 

 demanded its abolition. When the pope ordered the 

 trial of the accused, Pombal, without waiting, exiled 

 the Jesuits, sent back the papal nuncio, and broke 

 oft' all connexion with Rome. One thousand, eight 

 hundred and forty Jesuits were transported, in 1759, 

 to Italy, and suffered the worst treatment. In France, 

 also, the order declined. Madame Pompadour and 

 the minister Choiseul were hostile to it. When the 

 former had appeared at cotirt, without any other 

 claim than because she had become the king's mis- 

 tress, the scandalous event excited general attention. 

 As most people are more ready to violate the dictates 

 of morality than conventional forms, madame Pom- 

 padour resolved to procure a legal title to appear at 

 court, and adopted the idea of becoming dame du 

 palais of the queen. But for this the approval of the 

 good-natured queen was requisite, and it was con- 

 cluded to deceive her by an appearance of repen- 

 tance, and to make her believe madame Pompadour 

 had ceased to be the king's mistress. A confessor 

 was necessary, and the choice fell upon the Jesuit 

 De Sacy, a man apparently simple, who, it was sup- 

 posed, would not penetrate the plan. But Sacy 

 declared that, if it was really her earnest intention to 

 return to virtue and religion, she must, without 

 delay, leave the court, retire into solitude, and try 

 to repair the evil she had done, by real repentance : 

 until then he could not take upon him the direction 

 of her conscience, and he never would profane the 

 sacraments, and let himself be made a tool of in such 

 an intrigue. This opposition awakened in madame 

 Pompadour inveterate hatred against the order. 

 Choiseul belonged to the philosophers, so called, 

 who were opposed to all positive religion ; and the 

 Jesuits were greatly in his way, also, on account of 

 his hatred against the dauphin, who loved the society. 

 An opportunity was soon found to attack them. 

 The Jesuit Lavalette, in Martinique, had been 

 engaged in commerce ; his vessels were taken by 

 English privateers, and his bills of exchange were 

 not paid ; in consequence of which, the whole order, 

 which certainly was not obliged to answer for Lava- 

 lette's illegal conduct, were called before the parlia- 

 ment, which nourished the old haired against the 

 society, and now counted, moreover, several Jan- 

 senists amongst its members. The order was con- 

 demned. The process was the signal for a general 

 attack upon the Jesuits. Choiseul had several books 

 written against them, and the order abolished by the 

 parliament without a hearing, though the bishops of 

 all France declared in its favour. The process of 

 the parliament was a mere farce. The total abolition 

 took place in 1767. Meanwhile Charles III. ascended 

 the throne of Spain, and assured the general of the 

 order of his protection. But the minister Aranda, 

 an intimate friend of Choiseul, praised by Condorcet, 

 as a decided enemy of priests, nobles, and kings, 



