742 



JESUITS. 



Jesuits. 



relaxed, and whose members, while it existed, scrupled 

 no subtilties in promoting its interests, it is a remark- 

 able circumstance, that, as secularized individuals, they 

 acted in this instance with strict integrity, and refused 

 the alternative of the oath. They were therefore or- 

 dered to quit the kingdom, and this judgment was ex- 

 ecuted with the utmost rigour. The poor, the aged, 

 the sick, were included in the general prescription. 

 But in certain quarters, where the provincial parlia- 

 ments had not decided against them, Jesuits still sub- 

 sisted ; and a royal edict was afterwards promulgated, 

 which formally abolished the society in France, but 

 permitted its members to reside within the kingdom 

 under certain restrictions. * 



In Spain, where they conceived their establishment 

 to be perfectly secure, they experienced an overthrow 

 equally complete, and much more unexpected. The 

 necessary measures were concerted under the direction 

 of De Choiseul, by the Marquis D'Ossun, the French 

 ambassador at Madrid, with Charles III. King of Spain, 

 and his prime minister the Count D'Aranda. The ex- 

 ecutio:i of their purpose was as sudden as their plans 

 had been secret. At midnight, (March 31st 1767), 

 Iar f. bodies of military surrounded the six colleges of 

 the Jesuits in Madrid, forced the gates, secured the 

 bells, collected the fathers in the refectory, and read 

 to them the king's order for their instant transportation. 

 They were immediately put into carriages, previously 

 placed at proper stations ; and were on their way to 

 Carthagena before the inhabitants of the city had any 

 intelligence of the transaction. Three days afterwards, 

 the same measures were adopted with regard to every 

 other college of the order in the kingdom, and ships 

 having been provided at the different sea-ports, they 

 were all embarked for the ecclesiastical states in Italy. 

 All their property was confiscated, and a small pension 

 assigned to each individual as long as he should reside 

 in a place appointed, and satisfy the Spanish court as 

 to his peaceable demeanour. All correspondence with 

 the Jesuits was prohibited, and the strictest silence on 

 the subject of their expulsion was enjoined under pe- 

 nalties of high treason. A similar seizure and depor- 

 tation took place in the Indies, and an immense pro- 

 perty was acquired by the government. Many crimes 

 and plots were laid to the charge of the order ; but 

 whatever may have been their demerit, the punishment 

 was too summary to admit of justification ; and many 

 innocent individuals were subjected to sufferings beyond 

 the deserts even of the guilty. Pope Clement III. pro. 

 hibited their landing in his dominions ; and, after en- 

 during extreme miseries in crowded transports, the 

 survivors, to the number of 2300, were put ashore on 

 Corsica. The example of the King of Spain was im- 



mediately followed by Ferdinand VI. of Naples, and Jesuits. 

 soon after by the Prince of Parma. They had been V """Y" ^ 

 expelled from England in 1604; from Venice in 1606; 

 and from Portugal in 1759, upon the charge of hav- 

 ing instigated the families of Tavora and D'Aveiro to 

 assassinate King Joseph I. Frederick the Great of 

 Prussia was the only monarch who shewed a disposi- 

 tion to afford them protection ; but, in 1773, the order 

 was entirely suppressed by Pope Clement XIV. who 

 is supposed to have fallen a victim to their vcngeance.t 

 In 1801, the society was restored in Russia by the Em- 

 peror Paul ; and in ISO*, by King Ferdinand in Sardi- 

 nia. In August 1814, a bull was issued by the pre- 

 sent Pope, Pius VII. restoring the order to all their for- 

 mer privileges, and calling upon all Catholic princes to 

 afford them protection and encouragement. This act 

 of their revival is expressed in all the solemnity of Pa- 

 pal authority ; and even affirmed to be above the recal 

 or revision of any judge with whatever power he may 

 be clothed ; but to every enlightened mind it cannot 

 fail to appear as a measure altogether incapable of jus- 

 tification, from any thing either in the history of Jesuit- 

 ism or in the character of the present times. 



It would be in vain to deny, that many considerable General 

 advantages were derived by mankind from the labours character of 

 of the Jesuits. Their ardour in the study of ancient the Jesuits, 

 literature, and their labours in the instruction of youth, 

 greatly contributed to the progress of polite learning. 

 They have produced a greater number of ingenious 

 authors than all the other religious fraternities taken to- 

 gether; and though there never was known among 

 their order one person who could be said to possess an 

 enlarged philosophical mind, they can boast of many 

 eminent masters in the separate branches of science, 

 many distinguished mathematicians, antiquarians, cri- 

 tics, and even some orators of high reputation. They 

 were in general, also, as individuals, superior in de- 

 cency, and even purity of manners, to any other class 

 of regular clergy in the church of Rome. Their ac- 

 tive and literary spirit furnished, likewise, a most be- 

 neficial counteraction to the deadening influence of their 

 contemporary monastic institutions. Even the debased 

 species of Christianity, which they introduced among 

 the savage tribes of America, and the more civilized 

 nations of the East, was infinitely superior, both in its 

 consolations and morals, to the bloody and licentious 

 rites of idolatry. But all these benefits by no means 

 counterbalanced the pernicious effects of their influence 

 and intrigues on the best interests of society. 



The essential principles of the institution, viz. that 

 their orders is to be maintained at the expencejof so- 

 ciety at large, and that the end sanctifies the means, 

 are utterly incompatible with the welfare of any com- 



* The Duke de Choiseul, the French minister, was a principal agent in procuring their final suppression, and the following origin 

 lias been assigned to be the hostility with which he pursued the whole order in every quarter of Europe. The Duke having no em- 

 ployment in the government of France, happened one evening at supper to say something very strong against the Jesuits. Some 

 years afterwards, he was sent ambassador to Rome, where, in the usual routine of his visits in that situation, he called upon the Ge- 

 neral of the Jesuits, for whose order he professed the highest veneration. " Your Excellence did not always, 1 fear, think so well 

 of us," replied the General. The Duke, much surprised at this observation, begged to know what reasons he had for thinking so, as 

 he was not conscious that he had ever mentioned the order but in terms of the highest respect. The General, to convince him of the 

 contrary, shewed him an extract from a large register book belonging to the sooiety, in which the particular conversation alluded to, 

 and the day and the year in which it happened, were minuted down. The ambassador blushed, and excused himself as well as he 

 could, and soon went away, resolving within himself, whenever he should become prime minister, to destroy a society that kept up 

 such particular and detailed correspondences, of which it might make use to the detriment of administration and government." 

 Seward's Biographitna. 



) It was long a current story at Rome, that this pontiff was accustomed to withdraw in the course of the grand mass to take some 

 refreshment; that a young priest, on one of these occasions, brought chocolate to his Holiness, and immediately withdrew; that the 

 proper officiating priest soon after appeared with another cup, the pope shook his head, as conscious of having received a fatal potion ; 

 that he pined from that day of a lingering disease, which reduced his body to the appearance of a skeleton; and that he was known 

 to have said, in allusion to the secret cause of his death, " I am going to eternity, and I know for what." 



