Chapter XVIII

1773-1814.

THE JESUITS DURING THEIR SUPPRESSION.

The Brief of Suppression, as our readers may have seen, made a provision by which the Jesuits might, as secular priests and individuals, exercise sacerdotal functions, subject, of course, to the episcopal authority. In consequence, some few of them had settled themselves quietly in different capacities. Others thought to conceal the Ignatian device under the new title of Fathers of the Faith, Fathers of the Cross, &c. But the greater part, the most daring and restless, would not submit to the Brief of Suppression, impugned its validity in a thousand writings, called in question even the validity of Clement’s election, whom they called _Parricide_, _Sacrilegious Simoniac_, and considered themselves as still forming part of the still existing Company of Jesus. Regardless, as we have shewn they always were, of the injuries they may cause to the faith, they declared war against Rome, against religion, and surpassed even the school of Voltaire in audacity in mocking and insulting a virtuous Pope.[417] Although overwhelmed on every side, they were not daunted, and their courage was still greater than their misfortunes. Driven from those countries in which they had been nurtured and cherished, and which ought to have been their natural abode, they turned their regards to the camp of their former enemies. As Themistocles, seeking protection from his ungrateful country, under the canopy of that Persian throne which he had shaken and almost destroyed, so those fiery persecutors of all religious sects which were out of the pale of Rome, and especially the Lutherans, had recourse for protection to the Lutheran Frederick of Prussia, and to the schismatic Catherine of Russia; and we do not hesitate to advance that, had those monarchs, in exchange for some advantages and privileges, asked of them to combat the Papal doctrines, they would not have imitated the Athenian hero, but would have fought against the Roman Catholic religion with the same ardour which they had employed in defending it.

But if it is easy to understand the versatile and interested behaviour of the Jesuits, strange must appear the conduct of the sovereigns who gave them protection and help. Above all, the anomalous proceeding of Frederick, the Solomon of the North, as the philosophers called him, ought to be explained.

We have already seen that Ricci, in his examination, confessed that he was in correspondence with his Prussian majesty; and it is a fact that Frederick, even before the suppression of the Society, proved himself its friend and protector, notwithstanding the reproaches and sneers of his friends and masters, the philosophers. D’Alembert, above all, assailed the king in all his vulnerable points; but in vain: Frederick remained firm in his purpose of supporting the Jesuits. “They say,” wrote D’Alembert on the 16th June 1769 to his royal friend, “that the cordelier Ganganelli does not promise sweet meats (_poires molles_) to the Society of Jesus, and it may be that St Francis of Assisi may kill St Ignatius. It appears to me that the holy father, cordelier as he is, will commit a great blunder in thus disbanding his regiment of guards out of complaisance to the Catholic princes. It seems to me that this treaty resembles much that of the wolves with the sheep, which were obliged, as a principal condition, to give up their dogs. Every one knows how they fared for this. However, it will be singular, sire, that while their most Christian, most Catholic, most Apostolic, and most Faithful majesties endeavour to destroy the grenadiers of the most Holy See, your most heretic majesty should be the only one who wishes to preserve them.”

This letter was written, as may be seen, before the suppression, and many other missives were addressed to Berlin by D’Alembert after the Brief was issued. When the Jesuits of Silesia, refusing to obey the Papal orders, remained in their convents and houses as before, and acted as if nothing had happened, D’Alembert, on the 10th of December 1773, wrote to Frederick, telling him that he “wished that neither he nor his successors might ever have cause to repent of granting an asylum to intriguers, and that these men might prove more faithful than they had been in the last war of Silesia.” Another time, sneering at Frederick’s condescension, he says, that “he much doubted whether the Jesuits would ever pay his majesty the honour of admitting him to their order, as they did the great Louis XIV., though he could well have dispensed with it, and the poor, miserable James II., who was much more fit to be a Jesuit than a king.”—January 1774. And passing from personal arguments to more general considerations, he says: “It is not on your majesty’s account that I dread the re-establishment of these formerly self-styled Jesuits, as the late Parliament of Paris called them. What harm, indeed, could they do to a prince whom the Austrians, the Imperialists, the French, and the Swedes united, have been unable to deprive of a single village? But I am alarmed, sire, lest other princes, who have not the same power as you have to make head against all Europe, and who have weeded out this poisonous hemlock from their gardens, should one day take a fancy to come to you and borrow seed to scatter their ground anew. I earnestly hope your majesty will issue an edict to forbid for ever the exportation of Jesuitic grain, which can thrive nowhere but in your dominions.”[418]

Frederick remained unmoved; and when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Breslau, thinking it was his duty to see the orders of the Holy See obeyed, attempted to interdict the Jesuits, the king interfered, confiscated the bishopric, and haughtily proclaimed that the fathers were under his protection. Then all throughout Silesia sprung up a great number of houses and colleges, and Jesuits assembled here from all quarters. It was on this occasion that the old Voltaire, laughing at his quondam disciple’s strange conduct, exclaimed that “it would divert him beyond measure to think of Frederick as General of the Jesuits, and that he hoped that this would inspire the Pope with the idea of becoming mufti.”[419]

Meanwhile, the courts of France and Spain were pressing Ganganelli’s successor to execute rigorously the Brief of Suppression, pointing out all the different places, and especially Prussia, where the Jesuits were still in existence and prospering, and asking, not without a certain arrogance, the Pope to comply with their wishes. But the reigning Pontiff was not a man to be easily frightened. To the humble, plain, unpretending monk had succeeded, on the chair of St Peter, Ange Braschi, a prince in the best acceptance of the word. In the Conclave, he, after a long struggle between the two parties, had re-united the votes of both, as a man really indifferent to all political intrigues, but possessing in the highest degree qualities which commanded esteem and admiration, and as one who could restore to the low-fallen tiara some of its ancient splendour; and if any man could accomplish such a miracle, Braschi was indeed the man. In all his personal qualities shone forth something royal and great. Tall, handsome, with a slightly bald forehead, his features were impressed with majesty, tempered by a sweet and serene expression. His expenditure was royal, his magnificence such as Rome had not witnessed since the time of Leo X. His ideas were lofty and great, his love for the arts enlightened and persevering. Many are the monuments which he has left to posterity of his love for the arts and for useful enterprises. He formed and enriched the museum begun under his directions in the Pontificate of Clement, which, as we said, bears the name of Museo Pio-Clementino, and which is the greatest wonder of modern times. He spent an immense sum of money to prevent the entire fall of the Coliseum. He attempted, though with little success, to drain the Pontine Marshes, and was a generous friend and protector of all literary persons. In his capacity of Pope, Pius VI.—such was the name he assumed—was also extraordinary. While he opposed every reform, even the most necessary and urgent, and decided upon taking the singular step of going himself—the Pope—to Vienna to dissuade Joseph II. from accomplishing them, in Rome, the churches and his own chapel were filled with persons of all religions, to whom Pius granted the same protection and favour as to his own subjects.

In regard to the Jesuits, in which we are more particularly interested, Braschi, according to Bernis, neither loved nor hated them. He was persuaded that they had poisoned Ganganelli; and as he set an immense value on his own life, he would not endanger it by following the example of his predecessor. It seems that Pius, naturally of a benevolent disposition, pitied them; and, if he had not feared to irritate the Bourbons, would perhaps have bettered their condition. Under him the Jesuits made Titanic efforts to regain the position they had lost. They assembled in Rome, and set at work every engine which was still at their disposal, to attain their desired object; but in vain. Florida Blanca was implacable in his hatred toward the disciples of Loyola, and, as we have said, made the strongest remonstrances against the favour which he pretended was shewn to the Jesuits by the Court of Rome. Braschia, as we say, was not so pusillanimous as Ganganelli, and those intrigues or diplomatic negotiations were not able to affect him so much as to disturb his constant placid serenity; yet he thought proper to do something to appease the Bourbons, and live on good terms with everybody. He accordingly sent a copy of the remonstrances he had received from Spain and France to Frederick, asking him to withdraw his protection from those monks whom the Holy See had condemned. Frederick’s satiric spirit must have rejoiced to see the Pope implore him to disperse Roman Catholic votaries; but he answered scornfully, as a great monarch aware of his rights and dignity. The Pope insisted anew with infinite management, till at last Frederick, while maintaining the Jesuits in all their revenues and charges, consented that they should change their garb. The Pope, satisfied perhaps with this solution, wrote to the King of Spain: “I have done all in my power; but the King of Prussia is master in his own dominions.”

The accurate and impartial historian of the fall of the Jesuits, in an admirably well written chapter, explains the conduct of Frederick, in supporting the Jesuits, by the fact, that the Prussian monarch had got angry with the philosophers, when the latter, not content with attacking the Christian religion, set to work to destroy monarchy, and ridicule every noble sentiment which had till then been held sacred. He says that not only Frederick, but almost all the ministers of other princes, if not the princes themselves, and the aristocracy, far from restraining the audacity of the philosophers, had, to follow the fashion, made it a point of honour to encourage and protect it while attacking religion and priestcraft; but when they, leaving the churches and cloisters, penetrated into the antechambers and staterooms, and their attacks became personal, then the great of the world, who had treated Christ and the Apostles with irreverence, would not endure the like towards themselves. He says, moreover, that when the school of D’Holbach produced the too famous work, the _Système de la Nature_, Frederick’s indignation knew no bounds. In this book, in fact, written by thirty clever, daring, and excited individuals, nothing was left standing: “each of them found something to take to pieces; one began upon the soul; another, the body; one attacked paternal love, gratitude, conscience; all subjects were examined, dissected, disputed, denied, condemned loudly without appeal. It was a kind of Old Testament, which prefigured the new by types and symbols.... Frederick read this hideous but prophetic book; a fatal light gleamed across his mind, and made him dread the future.”[420] All this is admirably well said; and by the answer which the King of Prussia made to the _Système de la Nature_, it clearly appears that Frederick would not go the length of the new school, and wished to have nothing more to do with them.

But, with all deference to the noble writer, we cannot see what connexion existed between the King of Prussia fearing the downfall of monarchical government and the protection he granted to the Jesuits. Does the French historian pretend to affirm that Frederick, the clear-sighted and remarkably sensible Frederick, considered the Jesuits in the light in which they themselves desired to be viewed, namely, as the foremost defenders of the throne and the altar? We scarcely should have believed St Priest capable of attributing to such a man as Frederick so erroneous a notion, yet his words leave little doubt that this is the opinion he attributed to his majesty. But, it may be asked, if this is not the case, how, then, shall we account for the favour bestowed by the Prussian monarch on those detested monks? We believe that, by assigning, as the efficient and principal causes, those which St Priest, in a dubitable tone, esteems only as secondary, we should be nearer the truth. The first of those reasons is to be found in what the king wrote himself to D’Alembert: “I did not offer,” said he, “my protection to the Jesuits while they were powerful, but in their adversity: I consider them as learned men, whom it would be extremely difficult to replace to educate youth. This most important object renders them most valuable in my eyes; for, among all the Catholic clergy in my kingdom, the Jesuits alone are given to letters;” and this was true as regarded the newly-acquired province of Silesia. The other all-powerful and efficient reason, which the French writer little insists upon, is, that Frederick wished, through the agency of the Jesuits, to gain the goodwill of those Poles whom he had so shamefully betrayed. We have seen what immense influence the Jesuits possessed over the Poles. It is known what authority they exercised everywhere over ignorant and bigoted Papists. Frederick knew this, and was very well aware that the Jesuits, who had no other asylum but his estates, would, without being asked, of their own free-will, do their utmost to persuade the unfortunate Poles who had been despoiled of their nationality, and who had been set up in lots as the booty of a conquered town, to endure patiently the yoke of the new master _for their own personal interest and the greater glory of God_. This was the all-powerful motive which induced Frederick to stand forth as the protector of a brotherhood for which he could not have any sort of esteem, but which he in no way feared.

The same motive induced Catherine II. to grant them a refuge and protection in her estates, and especially in White Russia, formerly a province of Poland, but which, in the partition, had fallen to the lot of the Russian sovereign.

Nor was Catherine deceived in her expectation. The Jesuits at first proved of immense service to her. Before the first partition of the unfortunate Poland in 1772, the fathers resided at Polotsk, in a magnificent college, surrounded by an immense tract of land, cultivated for the fathers’ benefit by more than ten thousand serfs, partly on the right and partly on the left bank of the river Dwina. After the Brief of Suppression, the Jesuits found themselves either obliged to submit to the sentence of the Holy See, and cease to exist as a body, or to accept the offered protection of Catherine. They embraced the latter alternative, abandoned the left bank of the Dwina, which was still Polish, for the right bank, which was now Russian, and there not only preserved their garb and their name, but obtained the favour that the Brief of Suppression should not be published in all the Russian states. From that moment, setting at defiance the Papal authority, those monks, who, as a religious community, could have no existence without the consent of Rome, established in Russia a sort of patriarchate, a supreme seat of the Roman Catholic religion, represented by individuals who, by a solemn decision of the supreme chief of this same religion, were excommunicated and out of its pale.

Meanwhile, Ricci was dying in the state prison of Castel St Angelo. Pius VI. had not dared to set him at liberty, but had rendered his captivity as supportable as possible. Yet the old man expired in November 1775, making an insignificant testament, exculpating the Society from every charge which had been brought against it.[421]

The Jesuits in Russia, some time after they had heard of the death of Ricci, convened a general congregation to elect a vicar-general, with full authority over all those members who should consider themselves as Jesuits. This being accomplished, they pitched upon a man worthy of their protection, Siestrencewiecz, formerly a Calvinist, now a priest of equivocal orthodoxy, as are all those converts who have left their former religion from motives of personal interest or consideration; and through his agency they trusted to revive the Society. This is the method they adopted: They prevailed upon Catherine to nominate him Bishop of Mohilow, and have one of their number, Benislawski, appointed his coadjutor. The latter, supported by the authority of the empress, proceeded to Rome, boldly presented himself at the Vatican, and required the Pope to grant the Pallium to Siestrencewiecz, the man whom they had chosen as bishop; and as he could not at first get admittance to the Pope’s presence, he firmly declared, that, should he spend his whole life in the antechamber, he would not quit it until he was satisfied on every point. And he succeeded in his mission. Now, this Siestrencewiecz, who was afterwards named Legate for White Russia, at once permitted the Jesuits to erect a novitiate, and to receive candidates for the Society, regardless of any other consideration but that of pleasing his protectors. The Nuncio of Warsaw, and the Court of Rome, on hearing of such an abuse of authority, reproached him with this violation of the Papal decrees, and menaced him with interdiction; but Catherine took him under her protection, and upheld him with all her power. And thus was presented the singular spectacle of a Popish prelate denounced by the Holy See for upholding a sect of priests accounted the most fervent Roman Catholics, while he was defended by a princess for affording protection to these same priests, who, as devotees of Rome, were the bitter enemies of her own faith. The Jesuits, emboldened by the favour they obtained in Russia, acted entirely at their own discretion, conferred upon the Vicar-General the title and the absolute authority of General, named an assistant and an admonitor, received novices and scholastics, and nothing seemed changed in the Society excepting the residence of the General.

To exculpate them from these continued acts of rebellion against the Papal authority, Crétineau, and after him Curci, a Neapolitan Jesuit, assert, that although Pope Pius VI. had not, by any public act, re-established the Society, yet that he had, in the presence of _Benislawski_ (mark!), pronounced the words, “Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem; approbo, approbo,”—I approve of the Society of Jesus residing in White Russia; I approve, I approve. We suppose we must rely upon the veracity of Father Benislawski for this revelation of the sentiments of the Holy Father.

Three or four obscure and insignificant names[422] succeeded one another as Generals of the Order, while it still laboured under the anathema launched by Clement. At last, Pius VII., who had succeeded Braschi in 1800, authorised the Society to establish itself in White Russia, and to live according to the Constitution of Loyola. This brief bears the date of 1801, and was the forerunner of their re-establishment.

Meanwhile, the Society made wonderful progress in Russia; and, as if all conspired to favour them, there chanced to be among them at the epoch a man whom they had the tact to choose for their General, and who was little inferior to the Lainez and Acquavivas. This man was Grouber, a learned and very able individual, who had long been at the court of St Petersburg, a welcomed guest of Catherine, much esteemed by Paul, and employed by Alexander on some delicate missions. Grouber was a man who had an exact and just idea of the times in which he lived, and repressed the immoderate zeal of proselytism displayed by his subordinates, who already spoke of working miracles, and establishing new missions in the East. Grouber received the congratulations of all the partisans of the Jesuits, and, with admirable dexterity, he made use of the influence and resources the Society still possessed, to obtain the re-establishment of the order in various parts. They had already re-entered Parma, though only on toleration, and in 1804, the Pope granted to the Jesuits of the two Sicilies the same favours he had granted to those of White Russia. He re-established them in Sicily, of course under the authority of the General residing in Russia.

Unfortunately for the Society, Grouber perished in a conflagration in 1805. After his death, the Jesuits, renouncing the wise policy adopted by their late General, and encouraged by partial success, returned to the inveterate policy of the order, and attempted to domineer over a country which had sheltered them during their days of trouble and misery.

No pages of ours could convey to our readers a more accurate idea of the conduct of the Jesuits in Russia, than a passage of the imperial decree by which Alexander expelled them from his capital. We consider this expulsion, and the motives alleged by the sovereign as having impelled him to adopt the measure, as most significant, and as stigmatising more forcibly than any pamphlet or declamation the abominable arts and practices of the incorrigible progeny of Loyola.

Alexander, after having recorded, that while the Jesuits were persecuted in the rest of Europe, Russia alone, from a spirit of humanity and tolerance, had protected them, had showered favours upon them, had put no constraint on the free exercise of their religion, and had confided to their care the education of youth; thus continued in the imperial document: “It has been, however, proved that they have not relished the duties imposed on them by gratitude, and that humility commanded by the Christian religion. Instead of remaining peaceable inhabitants of a foreign land, they have endeavoured to disturb the Greek religion, which, from time immemorial, has been the predominant religion in this country. They began by abusing the confidence they had obtained, and have turned away from our religion young men who had been intrusted to them, and some weak and ignorant women whom they have converted to their own Church. To induce a man to abjure his faith, the faith of his ancestors, to extinguish in him the love of those who profess the same belief, to render him _a stranger to his country, to sow tares and animosity among families, to tear the son from the father, the daughter from the mother_, to stir up division among the children of the same Church,—is that the voice and the will of God, and of his holy Son Jesus Christ?... After such actions, we are no more surprised that these monks are expelled from all countries and nowhere tolerated. _Where, in fact, is the state that would tolerate in its bosom those who sow in it hatred and discord?_” For all these reasons, the emperor, in 1815, expelled the Jesuits from St Petersburg, and forbade them to re-enter either that capital or Warsaw. And mark, that to prove that he did not expel them because they were Catholic priests, the emperor, in the same decree, adds, that he has already sent for monks of other orders for the benefit of his Roman Catholic subjects!

But let no one imagine that this severe admonition from a sovereign to whom and to whose ancestors the Jesuits were so deeply indebted, had the effect of bringing them to some sense of their duty. On the contrary, they redoubled their intrigues and their malignant practices; and as their numbers increased, rapidly rising in 1820 to 674,[423] and they might have become dangerous, Alexander, by another decree, of 13th March 1820, expelled them from all his dominions. In the statement of motives which the Minister of Worship presented to Alexander in asking for the expulsion, we read: “The expulsion of the Jesuits from St Petersburg has not made them change their conduct;” and it then goes on to enumerate all the mischiefs caused by the fathers in Russia and Poland. We can hardly imagine what the Jesuits can have to answer to these accusations. It is also to be remarked that their own creature, Siestrencewiecz, Archbishop of Mohilow, was one of the most ardent in procuring their expulsion.

No Jesuits are now in Russia or Poland, except those who, in Galicia, assist the Austrian sovereign to govern that province—every one knows how.