Chapter II (3)

I should not have thought of enrolling a pope among the authorities in favour of the Jesuits, it being natural to suppose, that every pope was a friend to the society, had I not found a list of them arrayed against them by sir John Hippisley, on the authority of Ganganelli's rescript. Now, that the sovereign pontiffs interfered in the proceedings and writings of the members of the society; that they blamed them for the dissentions in which their zeal involved them with their enemies in all parts of the world; and that they have condemned some of the fanatical (for this is a term as appropriate to catholic as puritan zealots), I say some of the fanatical maxims formerly preached by individuals is not denied, and has {127} been already noticed in these pages; and this is all that can be gathered from the rescript; but that this renders the popes _impugners_ of the order is far from being the fact, and for this reason it is I have been induced to cite this pontiff, as well as his successor, in the catalogue of authorities. By the word _impugner_, I presume, that sir John means _assailant_; now, that the disapproval of some casuists, and the blaming of untimely or misplaced zeal of some of the society was no assailing of the order, the following words of Clement XIII, addressed to the archbishops and bishops of France, will, I think, sufficiently prove: "But the thing, which gives the deepest wound to the public weal, and to the faithful, which is the greatest insult to the apostolic see and to you, is the persecution they have raised against the society of Jesus, which has ever supplied the church with many able champions, and now, by the credit of a prevailing faction, is oppressed and dissipated. Its institute, that institute, which the Roman catholic church, {128} assembled in the council of Trent, approved of; that institute upon which our predecessors have bestowed so many solemn encomiums; which has hitherto found protection and received the most signal marks of favour from the kings of France; that institute, which you yourselves, not so much out of gratitude as from a principle of equity, have celebrated and publicly declared, that it was of very singular service to you in your respective dioceses, is now loaded with antiquated and groundless calumnies, is treated as a pest, which had crept into the church, and is publicly burned with all the marks of infamy[49]."

GANGANELLI.

Enough has been said of Clement XIV, in the foregoing pages, to entitle me to place him among the authorities in favour of the Jesuits, {129} though the solemn act, by which he extirpated the order, may be said to involve him among their assailants. The motives and grounds of that act are clear, and his private opinion of the order is no less manifest. Men, who approve of this act of Clement, are not aware that they are approving of a corrupt maxim, with which the enemies of the Jesuits calumniate the society. Besides, the destruction of the order was a certain evil, and the good to arise from it, the security and inviolability of the holy see, was far from being a certain consequence; the contrary has been proved by subsequent events. The growth of one generation sufficed to strip the tiara of the veneration due to it, and to threaten every crown in Europe with ruin. Philosophical universities and academies were every where, on the continent, substituted for the colleges of the Jesuits; religion and reason no longer went hand in hand in education; the latter, with all her spurious offspring, was held up as the grand object and distinguishing character of man; the former was neglected, {130} or ridiculed, and soon lost even its name in that of superstition. In 1773, Clement XIV abolished the order: in 1793, a king of France was beheaded; Reason was deified, and altars erected to her in various countries; anarchy followed impiety; demons were chosen to rule, or rather to confound all order. A successor of Ganganelli was torn from Rome, to die in captivity; and others have, since, been degraded into tools of the most absolute and heathenish tyranny that ever existed on the earth. It is very evident, therefore, that the preservation of the power of Rome did not depend upon the destruction of the order of the Jesuits, but, rather, that the rescript of 1773 was a warrant for the imprisonment, if not the death, of Pius VI, and the subsequent overthrow of the holy see. That rescript was, therefore, the result of a short-sighted policy. It is impossible to read Ganganelli's Letters, and deny that he was highly intellectual, virtuous, religious, and amiable; nor would I confound the philosophy which he cultivated, with that which is {131} destructive of religious hope and political order; but his whole conduct, in the affair of the Jesuits, proves, that his soul was not formed to the honours of martyrdom, as he was ready to act against his own conviction, and to sacrifice principle to convenience; a maxim peculiarly impugned by Jesuits, and by catholics in general.

In addition to the proofs of his good opinion of the society already given, I will here insert a passage to be found in the twelfth volume of the Annual Register. In addressing the courts of Paris, Madrid, and Naples, after his elevation to the pontificate, he states, that, "in regard to the Jesuits, he could neither blame nor annihilate an institute, which had been applauded and confirmed by nineteen of his predecessors; that he could the less do it, because it had been authentically confirmed by the council of Trent; and that, by the French maxims, the general council was above the {132} pope: that, if it was desired, he would call a council, in which every thing should be discussed with justice and equity, and the Jesuits heard in their own defence; that he owed to the Jesuits, as to all the religious orders, justice and protection; that, besides, the states of Germany, the king of Sardinia, and the king of Prussia, had written to him in their behalf; and that he could not, by their destruction, content some princes, without displeasing others." Nevertheless, without calling a council, without hearing their defence, he destroyed them; and, certainly, it will ever be a matter of astonishment, that, in a cause of such magnitude, a Roman pontiff, whatever motives may have impelled him to pronounce the suppression, could so far assimilate himself with the ministers of Portugal, Spain, Naples, and France, as to overlook that primary maxim, which Rome, whether Pagan or Christian, had in all ages respected: "It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that {133} he, which is accused, have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him[50]."

The writer of some anecdotes annexed to his Letters, relates one, which shows the notoriety of the fact, that his suppression of the Jesuits was not the effect of a bad opinion of the order: as it is applicable to the subject I will insert it here. "While the bells were ringing, and cannon firing, to celebrate his exaltation, the general of the Jesuits observed, with a sigh, _there tolls our passing-bell_. Not," says the writer, "that Ganganelli was _hostile_ to the Jesuits, but because he thought it was _necessary_ to attend to the representations of the sovereigns."

THE PRESIDENT D'EGUILLES.

This gentleman was the Aristides of the French magistracy. I have already mentioned {134} him, when speaking of Monclar's _Compte Rendu_[51]. His opinion of the persecution of the society will be seen in the following passage, which was addressed by him to Louis XV. "If the church be incessantly outraged, by the judgments passed against the institute of the Jesuits, the throne is still more pointedly attacked, upon the two principal motives, which instigate the enemies of the Jesuits to work their destruction. The first of these motives is, plainly, to deprive a society, which is entirely devoted to the interests of its king, of the education of youth; but more especially of the youth of the nobility. The second, which is equally as dangerous, is, to astound all the other bodies of the kingdom by the terrible fall of that, which seemed the most unlikely to be shaken; and thus to make them sensible, that the hatred of the parliaments is more to be dreaded than the protection of the king to be coveted."

{135}

ABBE PROYART.

In his work entitled "Louis XVI dethroned before he was King," speaks of the Jesuits in these words: "The Jesuits, considered only in the light of public teachers, were, during their existence, the first supports of the throne."--"The destruction of the Jesuits was the ruin of the precious edifice of national education, and gave a general shock to public morality." The abbe, from his many testimonies in favour of the Jesuits, being suspected to be one of their order, openly declares, "that he never belonged to the society, and that he owed them only truth and justice, for that he was not even indebted to them for his education."

VOLTAIRE.

I have already cited Voltaire, but I place him in the list here, for the purpose of inserting some farther extracts from his Letters. When {136} he was solicited by the Jansenistical magistrates to join with them in accusing the Jesuits of the crime of regicide, he gave this remarkable answer, in his Letter to the Atheist Damilaville: "I should rouse posterity in their behalf, if I accused them of a crime, of which Europe, and Damiens himself, have acknowledged them innocent." Writing, in 1765, three years after the suppression of the Jesuits, to the same Damilaville, he thus exults in the realized expectations of D'Alembert: "Victory declares for us on every side. I can assure you, that, in a short time, the rabble alone will remain under the standard of our enemies." In subsequent letters he declares, that "a general revolution was making its appearance in every quarter; that philosophy was gaining strength in the north of Germany; that similar revolutions were taking place in Poland, Italy, and Spain." Such was the rapid effect of the substitution of philosophical to religious education! However borne away by the charms of {137} philosophy, Voltaire was greatly attached to the Jesuits, and had the highest opinion of them: this he fully expresses in a letter to father de la Tour, principal of the college of Louis le Grand, where he was himself educated, which has been already cited.

MONTESQUIEU.

Montesquieu, mentioning the government of Paraguay, then under the guidance of the Jesuits, as an instance, among other extraordinary institutions formed to exalt nations to virtue, alludes to the imputed ambition of the society to govern; to which he replies, "but it will ever be a glorious ambition to govern men by rendering them happy. It is glorious to the society to have been the first to give, in those regions, the idea of religion united with humanity. By repairing the devastations of the Spaniards, they have begun to heal one of the {138} most dangerous wounds the human race ever received. They have drawn wild people from woods, secured them regular maintenance, and clothed their nakedness; but even, had they done no more than add to the stock of industry among men, that would have been doing a great deal[52]."

BUFFON.

"The missions," says this celebrated natural philosopher, "have formed more men, in the barbarous nations, than the victorious armies of the princes, who subjugated them. It is only in this way, that Paraguay has been conquered: the gentleness, the good example, the charity, and the exercise of virtue constantly maintained by the missionaries, made their way to the hearts of the savages, and conquered their distrust and their ferocity. They {139} would frequently come, of their own accord, and beg to be made acquainted with the law, which rendered men so perfect; to that law they submitted and entered into society. Nothing can do more honour to religion than to have civilized those nations and laid the foundations of an empire, with no other arms than those of virtue[53]."

HALLER.

"The enemies of the society," says Haller, "disparage their best institutions: they accuse them of inordinate ambition, on seeing a kind of empire formed by them in distant regions; but what plan can be more delightful, or more advantageous to humanity, than to assemble human beings scattered widely among the gloomy forests of America, to win them from the savage state, a state of wretchedness, to put an end to their cruel and destructive wars, to {140} enlighten their minds with the truths of religion, and to form them into a society like the state of mankind in the golden age? Is this not taking up the character of legislator for the happiness of men? The ambition, that produces so much good, cannot but be a laudable passion. No virtue ever attains that purity, which men are apt to exact; but neither is any virtue disfigured by the passions, while these serve to promote the general happiness[54]."

MURATORI.

It is hardly necessary to observe, that Muratori's character for talents, piety, and virtue, stands very high in the estimation of the learned. He was a celebrated Italian writer, a fellow of the chief academies of Italy, of the royal society of London, and of the imperial academy of Olmutz, and he was consulted as the oracle of {141} the age by the literati of Europe. He was born in 1672 and died in 1750. He was unconnected with the society of the Jesuits, and the high praises he bestows upon them could, therefore, only have been dictated by a just esteem and admiration. The following extracts are from his work entitled, _Il Cristianessimo felice nella missioni de Padri della Compagnia di Gesu nel Paraguai_; a work which may serve as a commentary on the edicts, declarations, and manifestoes, of the court of Portugal under the dictatorship of Pombal. "I could wish, that some one among the enemies of the church of Rome, who carry their aversion to the Jesuits so far as to asperse the zeal of those admirable missionaries, and their purity of intention, in the laborious functions, which they discharge among the infidels, would only accompany them awhile in their apostolic excursions, to see and examine what they do, and what they suffer for the salvation of souls. He would undoubtedly, and that very soon, lay aside former prejudices, and, perhaps, what he had seen would suffice {142} to make him renounce his error." After enumerating, briefly, the charges against the Jesuits of America, such as their making themselves petty princes; engrossing the commerce of Paraguay; becoming dangerously wealthy and powerful; bribing governors; robbing the Indians, under cover of pleasing God, &c. &c., he says, "This is an abstract of the defamatory reports spread about the world, either by word of mouth, or printed libels, against the missionaries of Paraguay. I will advance nothing without clear proofs. I am not afraid of affirming, that all these imputations are calumnies and detestable forgeries, suggested by envy and malice." He then proceeds to prove them to be such[55].

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GROTIUS, LEIBNITZ, BACON.

This triumvirate of religion and genuine philosophy were friends and admirers of the Jesuits; they are cited or referred to in the following Letters, I shall therefore be satisfied with naming them here.

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

"Frederic," says the elegant scholar already twice quoted[56], "in spite of his sceptical vanity, appeared sometimes to be convinced of the dangerous principles of all those false philosophers, whose adulatory attentions he was weak enough to be pleased with. In one of these moments, in which his good sense retained the ascendency over his self-love, when the news reached him of the proscription of the Jesuits in France, by the confidential agents of supreme authority: 'Poor souls,' said he, 'they have destroyed the foxes, which defended them from the jaws of the {144} wolves, and they do not perceive that they are about to be devoured.'" Whomever the king of Prussia meant by the wolves, it is well known, that the same parliament that devoured the Jesuits in 1764, were equally disposed to devour the episcopal body in 1765.

DR. JOHNSON. DEAN KIRWAN.

It is very common to speak of superstition as a shade in the character of Johnson; and, no doubt, a modern philosopher will object to the authority of one so bigoted as to declare, "that monasteries have something congenial to the mind of man." Such objections, however, shall not divert me from enrolling him here; for, the opinion he expressed relative to the destruction of the Jesuits was the result, not of any superstitious motive, but of that penetration, which was not to be blunted by the opposition of prejudices. Mrs. Piozzi tells us, that, when he was at Rouen, "he conversed with the abbe Rofette about the destruction of the Jesuits, and condemned {145} it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might, at length, become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundations of Christianity." With Dr. Johnson let me place Dean Kirwan, who often declared, that he imbibed the noble ambition of benefiting mankind in the college of the English Jesuits, at St. Omer's[57].

BAUSSET.

Bausset, bishop of Meth, in a Life of Fenelon, published so lately as the year 1809, passes a comprehensive and eloquent eulogium on the society, of which the following sentences form but a part: "Wherever the Jesuits were heard of they preserved all classes of society in a spirit of order, wisdom, and consistency. Called, at the commencement of the society, to the education of the principal families of the state, they {146} extended their cares to the inferior classes, and kept them in the happy habits of religious and moral virtue."--"They had the merit of attracting honour to their religious character, by a severity of manners, a temperance, a nobility, and a personal disinterestedness, which even their enemies could not deny them. This is the fairest answer they can make to satires, which accuse them of relaxed morality."--"These men, who were described as so dangerous, so powerful, so vindictive, bowed, without a murmur, under the terrible hand that crushed them[58]."

JUAN AND ULLOA.

The very names of these travellers suggest the virtues and the praises of the Jesuits. It was from their volumes that Robertson took his account of the settlement of Paraguay, and I do not think it necessary here to extend their testimony.

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RICHELIEU.

When the four ministers of Charenton presented very heavy accusations against the Jesuits to Louis XIII, cardinal Richelieu answered them all: for the sake of brevity, I shall extract only his reply on the charge of regicide. "As to what you say of their doctrine, with respect to the power they attribute to the pope over kings, you would have spoken very differently of it, if, instead of learning it from the _private writings_ of a few particulars, you had collected it from the mouth of their general, who, in the year 1610, made a public and solemn declaration, by which he not only disapproves, but forbids all those of his order, under very severe penalties, to teach or maintain it lawful, under what pretext of tyranny soever, to attempt upon the persons of kings and princes." {148}

ABBE RAYNAL.

To the foregoing testimonies, let us add that of one of the bitterest enemies of Christianity. "The magnificence of the ceremonies," says Raynal, "attracts the Indians to the churches, where they find pleasure and piety united. There it is that religion is amiable, and it is at first in her ministers that she there gains love. Nothing equals the purity of the morals, the mild and tender zeal, the paternal solicitude, of the Jesuits of Paraguay. Every pastor is truly the father, as well as the director of his parishioners. There his authority is not felt, for he orders, prohibits, and punishes, only what is punished, prohibited, and ordered by the religion, which all of them, as well as he, worship and cherish."--"A government in which nobody is idle, nobody works to excess; in which food is wholesome, plentiful, and impartially partaken by all the citizens, who are conveniently lodged, conveniently clothed; in {149} which old persons, widows, orphans, and the sick, find a succour unknown in any other part of the globe; in which every one marries according to inclination, and without interest; and where large families are a comfort, without a possibility of becoming a burthen; in which the debauchery inseparable from idleness, that equally corrupts opulence and poverty, never accelerates the degradation, or rather the decline of human life; in which factitious passions are never excited, and well-regulated desires never thwarted; in which the advantages of commerce are enjoyed; without danger of contagion from the vices attendant on luxury; in which well-stored magazines, and mutual gratuitous succours among nations, rendered brothers by the same religion, afford a secure resource against the want that the uncertainty or inclemency of the seasons may produce; in which criminal justice has never been under the melancholy necessity of condemning a single criminal to death, to ignominy, or to punishment of any duration; and in which the very name of a tax or of a lawsuit is {150} unknown." Listen, I pray, to this account, from a quarter so unsuspected, of "the _slavery_ in which the Jesuits held the Indians of Paraguay, and the _atrocities_ which they exercised there;" for such is the language of their assailant, whom one must be surprised to find unacquainted with the writings of such an author as Raynal.

THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE.

There are forty-five names of bishops subscribed to a reply made by them to certain articles proposed for their examination by Louis XV. Their judgment is given at considerable length, and the testimony of it is too valuable to be abridged. I have already referred the reader to the document, printed at length, in the Appendix, at the end of this volume; to enable him, however, to judge here of the importance of it, I will insert the articles in this place. {151}

The first is: "Of what use the Jesuits may be in France; the advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various functions, which they exercise under our authority."

The second: "How the Jesuits behave, in their instructions, and in their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions, which strike at the safety of the king's person; as, likewise, with regard to the received doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the declaration of the year 1682; and, in general, with regard to their opinions on the other side of the Alps."

The third: "The conduct of the Jesuits, with regard to their subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of their functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and privileges."

The fourth: "Whether it may not be convenient to moderate and set bounds to the {152} authority, which the general of the Jesuits exercises in France."

The replies fully substantiate the utility of the society, the purity of their doctrine, the regularity of their conduct, and the consistency of their government with their duty to their king and country[59].

Such, then, is the nature of the authorities, that rank in favour of the Jesuits; and the reader, by comparing them with the inveterate and corrupt spirits, which have been dragged from obscurity to destroy them a second time, will be able to estimate their respective value, and the motives of the new conspirators against them.

Perhaps enough has incidentally appeared, in the preceding pages, to inform the reader of the {153} chief crimes imputed to the society of the Jesuits, and to satisfy his mind of the falsehood of the imputations, as well as of the baseness and wickedness of the means contrived for attaching them upon those devoted victims. Many of the imputations are also removed in the following Letters. And when I consider, that the judgment of the bishops of France affords, on these points, a complete refutation of the slanders which have been lavished upon the society, I feel, that I should be wasting time, and abusing the attention of my reader, with unnecessary repetition. A brief notice, however, of some of the principal charges against the society, may not be unacceptable here. Let us inquire into those of ambition, commerce, and sedition.

In the searches which I have made, it appears to me, both from narrative of facts, and from reasoning on the nature of things, that the society of the Jesuits have been most basely slandered, as well as inhumanly treated. What {154} was their ambition? The glory of God, and the edification of man. But, say their enemies, how were these pursued? and were they always the real objects? The Jesuits are accused of shaping their course to the richest and most commodious countries; with extending the limits of the church to enlarge the circle of their commerce; with preaching sedition; with raising, on the cross, a throne to their ambition rather than to Christ. What do we learn from reason, and from fact? The roads to all ecclesiastical honours, all political employments, are shut to Jesuits, who renounce the former by a formal vow, and are prohibited the latter by the most rigorous penalties[60]. The countries, where we hear of Jesuits, are inhabited by cannibals, by Hurons, Iroquois, Canadians, Illinoise, Negroes, Ethiopians, Laplanders, Tartars; they are barren deserts, eternal snows, burning sands, gloomy forests; there did these _ambitious_ men live on wild herbs and bitter {155} roots, and cover themselves with leaves, or the skins of wild beasts; there did they run from cave to cave by day, and sleep at night in the hollows of rocks. Are these the abodes of luxury and wealth? It is indeed a glorious ambition to make men happy, to teach, and to save: such is the ambition displayed by the Jesuits, and the throne they raised on the cross was one of faith, hope, and charity.

With respect to commerce. By the canons of the church, it is forbidden to ecclesiastics, and, certainly, for good reasons. Commerce is a profession, a pursuit, to which men devote their time, for the purpose of obtaining a livelihood, and of amassing fortunes. It is a pursuit inconsistent with the habits and duties of the ministers of religion. This is the imputation meant to be thrown on the Jesuits, and which Pombal, their great enemy, and the enemy of every virtue, endeavoured to fix upon them. It was not difficult for them to repel this charge. They had a depot at Lisbon, where {156} they kept effects, which served them instead of money. These things were sold, as a proprietor of land would sell his corn, to support the brothers of the order in America, who, having no income, could only be supplied with commodities, in those savage countries. If this did not militate against the spirit that prohibits commerce to priests, as little did the kind of traffic which was superintended by the missionaries in Paraguay, and which was, in fact, a species of piety. With what delight does one read the account of it, in the Voyage of Juan and Ulloa. "The Jesuits take upon them the sole care of disposing of the manufactures and products of the Guaranies Indians, designed for commerce; these people being naturally careless and indolent, and, doubtless, without the diligent inspection and pathetic exhortations of the fathers, would be buried in sloth and indigence. The case is very different in the missions of the Chiquitos, who are industrious, careful, and frugal; and their genius so happily adapted to commerce, as not to stand in need of any factors. {157} The priests in the villages of this nation are of no expense to the crown, the Indians themselves rejoicing in maintaining them, and join in cultivating a plantation, filled with all kinds of grain and fruits, for the priest; the remainder, after this decent support, being applied to purchase ornaments for the churches. That the Indians may never be in any want of necessaries, it is one part of the minister's care to have always in readiness a stock of different kinds of tools, stuffs, and other goods; so that all who are in want repair to him, bringing, by way of exchange, wax, of which there are here great quantities, and other products. And this barter is made with the strictest integrity, that the Indians may have no reason to complain of oppression, and that the high character of the priests, for justice and sanctity, may be studiously preserved. The goods received in exchange are, by the priests, sent to the superior of the missions, who is a different person from the superior of the Guaranies; and, with the produce, a fresh stock of goods is laid in. The {158} principal intention of this is, that the Indians may have no occasion to leave their own country, in order to be furnished with necessaries; and, by this means, are kept from the contagion of those vices, which they would naturally contract in their intercourse with the inhabitants of other countries, where the depravity of human nature is not corrected by such good examples and laws[61]." This is the commerce, the only commerce carried on by the Jesuits; a commerce, that the apostles themselves would have maintained as a duty. I speak of the society, and of their spirit as a body; for I am not ignorant of the scandal which was brought upon them by the conduct of P. Lavalette, who, under pretence of augmenting the revenues of St. Peter's, ruined the mission at Martinique, and the cause of the Jesuits in France. What numerous body can be answerable for every individual of it? The circumstances attending the conduct of Lavalette are not very clear; but to contend {159} for his innocence is not necessary to the character of the order, the purity and integrity of which, however, derive a new demonstration from the very effect produced by his misconduct, be the guilt of that what it may, for it exonerates all the other Jesuit missionaries from the charge of trading. This charge had long existed, previous to Lavalette's affair: long before had hatred been upon the watch, and calumny active: long before had both the old and new world been full of Jesuit missionaries, and every where were they exposed to the scrutinizing looks of their enemies: no sooner was Lavalette denounced, than all eyes were turned upon him, and immediately all Europe rang with his name. Scarcely had that of the bold navigator, who discovered, or that of the sanguinary captain, who conquered America, travelled so rapidly, or with so much noise. Innumerable libels issued from the press, and nothing equalled the celebrity of the subject. What is the evident inference? This: that, although their enemies were so vigilant in observing, so skilful in {160} detecting, so eager to expose such of the missionaries, who, in spite of their institute, should become merchants, yet Lavalette was the only one that had ever afforded them a shadow of proof for such a charge.

The accusation of preaching sedition, and sowing the seeds of revolt, is equally unmerited. It is true, that the Jesuits were assiduous in preventing all personal intercourse between the Indians and the Spaniards and Portugueze, for which they were charged with a seditious intention of throwing off the Spanish government. I know not that the throwing off of governments should shock modern philosophers, or the modification of religion disturb their brain; but I know, that very different motives are assigned for this assiduity of the Jesuits, in excluding the Europeans from the Indians; motives, which merit honour here and crowns of glory hereafter. The reader will thank me for communicating them in the simple and affecting language of the Spanish travellers last cited. "The {161} missionary fathers will not allow any of the inhabitants of Peru, whether Spaniards or others, Mestizos or even Indians, to come within their missions in Paraguay. Not with a view of concealing their transactions from the world; or that they are afraid lest others should supplant them of part of the products and manufactures; nor for any of those causes, which, even with less foundation, envy has dared to suggest; but for this reason, and a very prudent one it is, that their Indians, who being as it were new born from savageness and brutality, and initiated into morality and religion, may be kept steady in this state of innocence and simplicity. These Indians are strangers to sedition, pride, malice, envy, and other passions, which are so fatal to society. But, were strangers admitted to come among them, their bad examples would teach them what at present they are happily ignorant of; but should modesty, and the attention they pay to the instructions of their teachers, be once laid aside, the shining advantages of these settlements would soon come {162} to nothing; and such a number of souls, who now worship the true God in the beauty of holiness, and live in tranquillity and love (of which such slender traces are seen among civilized nations), would be again seduced into the paths of disorder and perdition."--"Hence it is, that the Jesuits have inflexibly adhered to their maxim of not admitting any foreigners among them: and in this they are certainly justified by the melancholy example of the other missions of Peru, whose decline from their former happiness and piety is the effect of an open intercourse[62]." It is also true, that the Indians did revolt, if that term can be applied to an act rendered unavoidable by the horrid avarice and despotism, which had conspired to sacrifice these happy and innocent tribes; but so far were the Jesuits from being instigators of the revolt, that they were in danger of being the victims of it, of which they were well aware. The facts would form a long and interesting {163} narrative; but it is only necessary, at present, to state a few particulars. A notion had been generated in the imagination of Pombal, the Portugueze minister, that, in the region of those happy settlements, there were mines of gold, unknown to the inhabitants. On these he cast his eyes, and commenced an intrigue for exchanging that territory with Spain, for others, at the immense distance of three hundred leagues. This being effected, he resolved, that the whole Indian population of Paraguay should be transported. The Jesuits were ordered to dispose the people to transmigrate. They, at first, ventured to represent modestly the difficulty of such a removal, and to conjure the officers of government to consider, what an undertaking it was, to transport, over such wildernesses, thirty thousand souls, with their cattle and effects, to a distance of nearly a thousand miles: they were sharply told, that obedience and not expostulation was expected. The consequences present a history, that might draw tears from the most obdurate. Now would have been the time for the {164} Jesuits to establish their empire, had the project imputed to them been founded. What was their conduct? Rather than become rebels, these faithful and humble subjects laboured earnestly to prevail upon the Indians to obey the mandate. Their exertions, however great, were not satisfactory, and new commands for haste were issued; a few months were allowed for an undertaking, which, if it could be executed at all, required years. This precipitation ruined the whole. The poor creatures, who were to be torn from their habitations, driven to extremities, began to distrust their own missionaries, and suspected them of acting in concert with the officers of Spain and Portugal. From that moment they looked upon them only as so many traitors, who were seeking to deliver them up to their old inveterate enemies. In the course of a short time, peace, order, and happiness, gave way to war, confusion, and misery. Those Indians, previously so flexible, so docile, insensibly lost that spirit of submission and simplicity, which had distinguished them, {165} and they every where prepared to make a vigorous resistance. The contest lasted a considerable time, during which the Indians experienced some success, but were ultimately defeated; some of them burnt their towns and betook themselves in thousands to the woods and mountains, where they perished miserably. After surveying all the plains, searching all the forests, digging all the mountains, sounding all the lakes and rivers, to establish the limits of the country, no mines were found, and the director of the scheme, Gomez, finding himself the dupe of his mad imagination and puerile credulity, wished it possible to conceal his shame and prevent his disgrace, by having the treaty between the two courts annulled. He even descended so low as to beseech the Jesuits themselves to endeavour to effect the annulling of it. They, of course, paid no attention to the entreaties of a man, whose insatiable avidity had caused the ruin of thirty thousand of their fellow creatures; and it was not till Charles III succeeded to the crown of Spain, that the treaty, {166} of which he had never approved, was annulled. There was now an end to the war in Paraguay, so fatal to its once happy, pious, and virtuous population, who, in consequence of it, lost not only their property, but their innocence, their piety, their docility, their gentleness, their simplicity, which were superseded by European debauchery, hypocrisy, and perfidy; vices that formed a new and almost insurmountable obstacle to the progress of religion, in those immense regions, where, for so many years, it had flourished[63].

Having shown the pious nature of the ambition, which inflamed the zeal of the Jesuits; the paternal nature of the commerce, which consisted in necessary commodities, taken in barter for the provision of their establishments, and not in rich products, of various countries, freighted on wealthy speculations; and having {167} shown also that their conduct, in excluding Europeans from the Paraguay settlements, was not the effect of a seditious disposition, I should now conclude this chapter, did I not, as I proceed, feel more and more a desire to remove the prejudices, which an extraordinary combination of passions and talents, operating on the progress of human affairs, has spread over the character of men, who appear to me to have been actuated by the sublimest motives, such as might be attributed to angels; the glory of God, and the benefit of mankind. The picture drawn by the abbe Barruel of one of the ex-Jesuits, who was murdered at Avignon, in one of the revolutionary massacres, is a genuine and convincing representation of a celestial spirit, which never could have been nourished in a corrupt society, which must have owed its qualities to an exalted one. This portrait cannot but be viewed with love and admiration, and the reader would think an apology for placing it before him superfluous. {168}

"Avignon and the Comtat had been declared, by the assembly, united to France. Jourdan, surnamed _Coup-tete_, was at Avignon with his banditti. The unfortunate persons shut up in the prisons were devoted by him to death. An immense pit was opened to serve as their grave, and loads of sand were carried thither to cover the bodies. There were six hundred prisoners in the castle: the hour was fixed for putting them to death and throwing them, one after the other, into the pit. There was, at Avignon, a virtuous priest, one of those men for whom we feel, on earth, a veneration, like that paid to the saints in heaven. His name was Nolhac; he had formerly been rector of the noviciat of the Jesuits at Thoulouse, and was now eighty years old. For thirty years he had been the parish priest of St. Symphorien, a parish, which he had taken in preference, from its being that of the poor. During all these years, spent in the town, he had been the father and refuge of the indigent, the consoler of the afflicted, the adviser and friend of the {169} inhabitants, and he would not listen to their entreaties, to quit the place, on the arrival of the jacobins with Jourdan and his banditti. He could never resolve to leave his parishoners, deprived of their minister, in the beginning of the troubles of the schism, and far less to leave them, deprived of the consolations of religion, while under the tyranny of the banditti. Martyrdom, the glory of shedding his blood for Jesus Christ, for his church, or for the faithful, were, to him, but the accomplishment of desires and wishes, which, all his life, had been formed in his soul, and with which he knew how to inspire his disciples, when he was directing them in the paths _of perfection_. His life itself had been but a martyrdom, concealed by a countenance always serene, and always beaming angelic joy, with peace of conscience. His body, clothed with the hair-shirt, had needed the strong constitution, with which nature had endowed him, to support him under the mortifications, watchings, and fasts he endured, through all the activity of a minister and the austerity of {170} an anchorite. Daily at prayer and meditation long before light; daily visiting the sick and the poor, whom he never left without administering, together with spiritual consolations, temporal comforts, confided to his hands by the faithful; always poor as to himself, but rich for others, it was at length time to consummate the sacrifice of a life wholly devoted to charity and to his God.

"M. Nolhac, whom the banditti themselves had hitherto held sacred, was sent prisoner to the castle the very day before that on which the six hundred victims were to be put to death. His appearance among those unhappy persons, who all knew and revered him, was that of a consoling angel; his first words were those of an apostle of souls, sent in order to prepare them for appearing before the judge of the quick and the dead: 'I come to die with you, my children: we are all going together to appear before God. How I thank him for having sent me to prepare your souls to appear at his {171} tribunal! Come, my children, the moments are precious; to-morrow, perhaps to-day, we shall be no longer in this world; let us, by a sincere repentance, qualify ourselves to be happy in the other. Let me not lose a single soul among you. Add to the hope, that God will receive myself into his bosom, the happiness of being able to present you to him, as children all of whom he charges me to save, and to render worthy of his mercy.' They throw themselves at his knees, embrace, and cling to them. With tears and sobs they confess their faults: he listens to them, he absolves them, he embraces them with that tenderness, which he always manifested to sinners. He had the satisfaction of finding them all impressed by his paternal exhortations. Already had that unspeakable pleasure, that peace which only God can give, as in Heaven he ratifies the absolution of his minister on Earth, taken place of fear on their countenances, when the voices of the banditti were heard calling out those, who were to be the first victims, for {172} whom they waited at the gate of the fort. There, on the right and on the left, stood two assassins, each having an iron bar in his hands, with which they struck their victims, as they came out, with all their force and killed them. The bodies were then delivered to other executioners, who mangled the limbs and disfigured them with sabres, to render it impossible for the children and friends of the persons to distinguish them. After this, the remains were thrown into the infernal pit, called the ice-house. Meanwhile, M. Nolhac, within the prison, continued exhorting and embracing the unhappy prisoners, and encouraging them to go as they were called. He was fortunate enough to be the last, and to follow into the presence of his God the six hundred souls, who had carried to Heaven the tidings of his heroic zeal and unshaken fortitude[64]."--Nolhac was a Jesuit!

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