[1]History of the Council of Trent, by Fra Paolo Sarpi, tome i. p. 9.
[2] Helyot, Histoire des Ordres Monastiques, Religieux et Militaires, tome vii. p. 452. When we have modern Catholic authors who quote from Sacchinus Orlandinus, &c., we shall quote them, as books more easily to be had.
[3] Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Mon., Rel. et Mil., tome vii. p. 456.
[5] By the term “Spiritual Exercises,” Catholics understand that course of solitary prayer and religious meditation, generally extending over many days, which candidates for holy orders have to perform in the seclusion of a convent previous to being consecrated. Again, when a priest incurs the displeasure of his superior, he is sent as a sort of prisoner to some convent, there to perform certain prescribed “spiritual exercises,” which in this case may last from one to three weeks.
[13] Once for all, I promise my readers that I am not going to trouble them with the narrative of all the miraculous legends related concerning Loyola. They are in most instances so absurd as to be beneath the dignity of history. Let the two following suffice as specimens. It is said that the devil, determined to prevent his learning Latin, so confused his intellect that he found it impossible to remember the conjugation of the verb amo; whereupon he scourged himself unmercifully every day, until by that means the evil spirit was overcome, after which the saint was soon able to repeat amo in all its tenses. Again, when Ignatius was in Venice on his way to the Holy Land, it is said that a wealthy senator of that city, Travisini by name, whilst luxuriously reclining on his bed of down, was informed by an angel that the servant of God was lying upon the hard stones under the portico of his palace. Whereupon the senator immediately arose, and went to the door, where he found Ignatius.
[14] Negroni expounds the word societas “quasi dicas cohortem aut centuriam quÆ ad pugnam cum hostibus spiritualibus conserendam conscripta est.”
[15] Hel. Hist. des Ord. Mon., Rel. et Mil. tome vii. p. 469.
[16] Fra Paolo Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent, p. 118.
[17] These famous Constitutions were composed by Loyola in the Spanish language. They were not at first the perfect system we now find them; and it was not till about the year 1552 that, after many alterations and improvements adapting them to the necessities of the times, they assumed their ultimate form. They were translated into Latin by the Jesuit Polancus, and printed in the college of the Society at Rome in 1558. They were jealously kept secret, the greater part of the Jesuits themselves knowing only extracts from them. They were never produced to the light until 1761, when they were published by order of the French parliament, in the famous process of Father Lavallette.
[18] We beg to explain the sense in which we use the word Catholic. We don’t mean that the Christians of the Roman persuasion have an exclusive right to it. We only maintain to them the current denomination, as all other historians do, to prevent confusion.
[19]History of the Council of Trent, by Paolo Sarpi, tome i. p. 47.
[28]Examen, iv. § 11; and Const. pars iii. cap. i. § 7-9.
[29] After his entrance into the house of first probation, the Jesuit is not allowed either to receive or send away any letter which has not been previously read by his superior.
[31] Let not any English reader accuse me of inaccuracy on this point, upon the ground that Jesuits actually walk about the streets in this country singly, or even in disguise. They must take notice that every rule of the Constitution contains this clause—“Except the General order otherwise, for the greater glory of God, and the benefit of the Society.” Is it not “for the greater glory of God, and the benefit of the Society,” that the Jesuit, to escape suspicion, should go alone?—that he should be introduced into your family circle as a Protestant gentleman?—that he should, to gain your unsuspecting confidence, enact the part of your gay companion at theatres, concerts, and balls?—that he should converse with you upon religious matters, beginning always by cursing the Pope, &c.?
[39] In most monasteries, and more particularly in those of the Capuchins and Reformed (Riformati), there begins at Christmas a series of feasts, which continues till Lent. All sorts of games are played, the most splendid banquets are given, and in the small towns, above all, the refectory of the convent is the best place of amusement for the greater number of the inhabitants. At carnivals, two or three very magnificent entertainments take place, the board so profusely spread that one might imagine that Copia had here poured forth the whole contents of her horn. It must be remembered that these two orders live by alms. The sombre silence of the cloister is replaced by a confused sound of merrymaking, and its gloomy vaults now echo with other songs than those of the Psalmist. A ball enlivens and terminates the feast; and, to render it still more animated, and perhaps to shew how completely their vow of chastity has eradicated all their carnal appetite, some of the young monks appear coquettishly dressed in the garb of the fair sex, and begin the dance along with others transformed into gay cavaliers. To describe the scandalous scene which ensues would be but to disgust my readers. I will only say that I have myself often been a spectator at such saturnalia.
[40]A Vincenzo Gioberti Fra Pellico della Compagnia di GesÙ, pp. 35, 36.
[65]Const. pars vi. cap. iii. § 7. To be a nun’s confessor was, and is still, deemed a high privilege. Before the Council of Trent, this privilege belonged to the order of St Francis, under whose rules most of the nuns also live. The conduct of these brothers and sisters was in the highest degree improper and scandalous. Although the Franciscans are now no longer the titular confessors of these nuns, nevertheless they are on the most friendly terms with one another; upon which friendships the Italians exercise their satirical and sarcastic wit. The confessors are now chosen by the respective bishops, who confer the honour upon their most faithful adherents, as a reward for their services. The rivalries of those sainted women, and their ingenious contrivances to engage the smile of their holy father, are notorious to every one who lives near a convent.
[74]Ibid. p. 292. As this author generally quotes Orlandini and the other Jesuitical writers verbatim, we shall refer our readers to him, as it can much more easily be procured, and we shall only quote from the original when the translation is inaccurate.
[78] Our readers must not take the word parliament in the same signification it has in England. The parliament of France was composed of a body of magistrates, and formed the Supreme Court of Judicature, in which the princes of the blood had a seat; and which was sometimes presided over by the king. Every province had its parliament, but none exercised the same influence with that of Paris.
[80] This Postel was a rabbin converted to Catholicism. He was very learned, a graduate of the university, and held in high estimation by Francis I. and all his court. In 1545 he went to Rome to enter the Society of GesÙ. This acquisition gave great joy to the Jesuits. Postel was very kindly received, and much flattered. He then went through the Spiritual Exercises; but this strange course of devotion affected his fervid imagination so much, that his faculties became impaired. He began to propound strange doctrines—to propose new rules for the Society; and, above all, would by no means obey the orders of Ignatius. Loyola having no longer any hold upon him, dismissed him, for which act of firmness Loyola’s panegyrist extols him to the skies.
[88] For nearly two centuries, miracles and saints rarely occurred. It seems as if they were in a state of embryo, slumbering until an opportune season for their appearance should arrive. After the Reformation, however, it was deemed expedient that some new miracles and saints should come forth to prove the truth and the superiority of the Roman Catholic religion over the Protestant, which cannot boast of such testimonials. It was then that the images of the Virgin Mary again began to speak, laugh, weep—that the hair of the images on the crucifix grew—that they shed blood from their wooden sides—that the relics of saints acted as a charm to keep away diseases and misfortunes—and that new saints sprang into existence like mushrooms.
[89] Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes, vol. ii. p. 231. English translation.
[90] Juvencius’ Hist. Soc. Jesu, pars v. tom. ii. lib. xviii.
[98]Letters on the State of Christianity in India, p. 74. London, 1823.
[99] The Taly bears the image of the god Pollyar, supposed to preside over nuptial ceremonies. This most indecent idol was attached to a cord of 108 threads, and worn round their necks by the women ever after their marriage, as a wedding-ring.
[100] CrÉt. vol. v. p. 47. The italics are our own.
[101] The ashes of the cows’ dung are consecrated to the goddess Lakshini, and are supposed to cleanse from sin anybody to whom they are applied. The missionaries laid these ashes upon the altar near the crucifix (horrid to relate!) or the image of the Virgin, then consecrated and distributed them in the shape of little balls among their converts. This strange sort of Christians invoked a pagan divinity as often as they applied the dung to the body. Thus, when they rub it on the head or forehead, they say, Neruchigurm netchada Shiven—that is, may the god Shiva be within my head; when they rub it on the breast, they say, Manu Rudren—that is, may the god Rudren be in my breast; and so on.—See MÉmoires Historiques, tom. iii. pp. 29, 30. Lucca, 1745.
[104] Father Norbert was a Capuchin missionary in India, who presented to Pope Benedict XIV. a book entitled, MÉmoires Historiques sur les Missions des Indes Orientales. The work is illustrated with authentic documents. It was published with the approbation of all the ecclesiastical authorities, and never contradicted. Still, we will not quote Father Norbert as a proper authority, unless what he relates can be corroborated by other proofs.
[109] Maigrot. We do not in the least wish to diminish the merit and the good intention of these two prelates. We even believe that M. de Tournon was an excellent man. We only wish to observe that both he and Maigrot were Frenchmen; that very many of the French prelates always evinced great enmity towards the Jesuits, and that this, perhaps, had some influence in stimulating their zeal for the purity of the Christian religion.
[110] “I, N., of the order N., or Society of Jesus, sent, designated as a missionary, to the kingdom or province of N. in the East Indies, by the Apostolic See, by my superiors, according to the powers granted to them by the Apostolic See, obeying the precept of our Holy Lord Pope Clement XII., in his Apostolic Letter, issued in the form of a brief, on the 13th day of May 1739, enjoining all the missionaries in the said missions to take an oath that they will faithfully observe the apostolic determination concerning the Malabar rites, according to the tenor of the Apostolic Letter in the form of a brief of the same our Holy Lord, dated 24th August 1734, and beginning Compertum deploratumque, well known to me by my reading the whole of that brief, promise that I will obey fully and faithfully, that I will observe it exactly, entirely, absolutely, and inviolably, and that I will fulfil it without any tergiversation; moreover, that I will instruct the Christians committed to my charge according to the tenor of the said brief, as well in my preaching as in my private ministrations, and especially the catechumens before they shall be baptized; and unless they promise that they will observe the said brief, with its determinations and prohibitions, that I will not baptize them; further, that I shall take care, with all possible zeal and diligence, that the ceremonies of the heathen be abolished, and these rites practised and retained by the Christians which the Catholic Church had piously decreed. But if at any time (which may God forbid!) I should oppose (that brief), either in whole or in part, so often do I declare and acknowledge myself subject to the penalties imposed by our Holy Lord, whether in the decree or in the Apostolic Letter, as above, concerning the taking of this oath, in like manner well known to me by reading the whole thereof. Thus, touching the Holy Gospels, I promise, vow, and swear, so may God help me, and these God’s Holy Gospels! Signed with my own hand—N.”
[111] I choose to speak of the procession held in this town, because I have there witnessed it myself.
[112] Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes, vol. i. p. 217. (Eng. trans.)
[113] The passage of Sacchini is most instructive upon this point. “Lainez,” says he, “did not write a single word on the matter; on the contrary, Bobadilla and Gorgodanuz did nothing else than issue pamphlet upon pamphlet, but it always happened by the Divine will (Divino tamen consilio fiebat), that their writings fell into the Vicar-General’s hand. Sometimes they (Lainez’s enemies) imprudently dropped the writings in the street, sometimes they negligently left them in their rooms unlocked, at other times they were delivered up to Lainez by the very persons to whom they were addressed.” In other words, Lainez, by the most ignoble proceedings and abject espionage, made himself master of his enemies’ writings; yet the Jesuit historian says “that it happened Divino consilio.” I wonder he does not add, ad majorem Dei gloriam.
[115] The act of making the sign of the cross is very significant. It is still the custom in Italy for the common people to do so on hearing of some great and unwonted crime, or of some extraordinary event.
[118] Paul IV. had hardly expired, when the Romans, highly incensed at the miseries caused by the war, and at the severities of the Inquisition, rose in a body, and with execrations and curses pulled down the statue which had been erected to him in the beginning of his Pontificate, broke into the Inquisition, and destroyed every thing in it.
[121] I may here repeat what I have already said in one or two of my former publications. When we in 1848 took possession of the Convent of La Minerva, the seat of the Inquisition in Rome, we found among other things a packet of autograph letters, written by the priests of different countries, revealing various confessions to the Inquisitor. And it was a very curious thing that the first letter which fell into the hands of Mr Montecchi, a secretary of State, was from the capuchin of the State Prison, in which he was a prisoner a few years before. These letters, which are now out of our reach, are, however, safe, and will, I hope, be soon published.
[122] The Jesuits, in this circumstance, were again forbidden to leave Spain, or to send any money out of the country.
[124] Lainez, among other exploits, attacked with great violence the authority of the bishops, and would have had them to be mere tools in the hands of the Pope. He maintained on another occasion that, “as the slave possesses less authority than his master, in like manner the Council could not undertake a reformation upon the matter, the annates being of Divine right.” Again, “as Jesus Christ has the power to dispense from all sorts of laws, the Pope, his vicar, has the same authority, since the Judge and his Lieutenant have the same tribunal,” and other similar blasphemies. See Fra Paolo Sarpi upon the Congregations, 20th October 1562, and 16th June 1563.
[125] See the whole letter in CrÉt. vol. i. p. 294.
[130] It is a remarkable fact that during the reign of the bigoted and persecuting Mary, the Jesuits did not make their appearance in England. Cardinal Pole, to whom they had made several applications to be permitted to establish themselves in Great Britain, always refused his consent. Pole knew Loyola intimately.
[141] “Robertus Parsonius et Edmundus Campionus facultatem impetrÂrunt, a Gregorio XIII. in hÆc verba. Petatur a summo Domino nostro explicatio BullÆ DeclaratoriÆ per Pium V. contra Elizabetham et ei adhÆrentes, quem Catholicis cupiunt intelligi hoc modo, ut obliget semper illam et hÆreticos, Catholicos vero nullo modo rebus sic stantibus, sed tum demum quando publica ejusdem BullÆ executio fieri poterit. Has prÆdictas gratias concessit summus Pontifex Padri Roberto Parsonio et Edmundo Campionio, in Anglicam profecturis die 13 Aprilis 1580, prÆsente Padre Oliverio Manarco assistente.”—Camden, p. 464.
[142] It is well known that this adventurer, whom the Pope had made his chamberlain, when off the coast of Portugal with the fleet which had been equipped for the invasion, was persuaded by king Sebastian to accompany him in his enterprise against Morocco, where he perished along with the imprudent monarch of Portugal.
[143] Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes, vol. i. p. 324. (Eng. trans.)
[161] These are some of the numberless privileges that the Jesuits had obtained from different Popes even within the first twenty-five years of their establishment:—They had the privilege of having a private chapel in every house or college, and to celebrate mass even in time of interdict; of absolving from every censure even in cases reserved for the Pope alone; of dispensing from religious vows, or from impediments to marriage; of conferring academical degrees which entitled the graduate to the honours and privileges conferred by the royal universities. They were exempted from tithes and from all other ecclesiastical contributions; and, above all, they were independent of the jurisdiction of the bishops.
[164] It is well known that in France the Roman Catholic clergymen are divided into ultramontane and Gallican; that the latter, under Louis Philippe, maintained their independence, and a sort of superiority; but that, under the rule of the pantheist Louis Napoleon, the ultramontane party, under the direction and patronage of the Jesuits, has obtained the ascendancy, which they exercise with a domineering spirit, and which is increasing every day.
[165] Father Maldonat propounded a doctrine, that no one remained in purgatory longer than ten years; and this, in order to assure the princes that, if the properties of monasteries or other benefices were given to the Jesuits, there would be no fear of their ancestors, in general the pious founders, roasting in purgatory—who knows how long?—if the benefices were appropriated to other uses than those for which they were intended.
[170] This Council was so called because it was composed of sixteen members, representing the sixteen quarters of Paris; and it possessed the supreme authority de facto. In this council the Jesuits had the greatest influence, and one of them was a member of it.
[172] It is asserted in a memoir of the Seigneur de Schomberg, that after the assassination of Guise, Sixtus, through his legate, suggested to Henry III. to name one of the Pope’s nephews as his successor to the throne of France. But we have too good an opinion of Sixtus’ sagacity to believe him guilty of such an extravagant project.
[174] How Elizabeth deplored this unprincipled act! “Ah, what grief,” she wrote to him after his apostasy, “and what regrets and what groans I have felt in my soul at the sound of such tidings as Morlaut has related! My God! is it possible that any human respect should efface the terror which Divine fear threateneth! Can we ever, by arguments of reason, expect a good consequence of actions so iniquitous? He who has supported and preserved you in mercy, can you imagine that He will permit you to advance unaided from on high to the greatest predicament? But it is dangerous to do evil in the hope that good will follow from it.—Your very faithful sister, Sire, after the old fashion—I have nothing to do with the new one—Elizabeth.”[175]
[175] Bibl. du Roi MSS. de Colbert, apud Capefique, N. 251.
[176] Mezarai, AbrÉgÉ Chronologique in the year 1576.
[177] CrÉtineau pretends that Gregory XIII., the father of all Christians, wishing rather to pacify than excite their passions, refused to comply with their request. But Ranke affirms that his approbation was given, and refers, as proof thereof, to a letter of Father Matthieu himself to the Duke of Nerves, reported in the fourth volume of Capefique RÉformÉ.
[179] See, for the first part, CrÉt. vol. ii. p. 392. As he does not quote the latter part, see for it Pasquier, or Histoire GÉnÉrale de la Naissance et du ProgrÈs de la Compagnie de JÉsus, vol. i. p. 180.
[184] Mezarai, AbrÉgÉ Chronologique pour l’annÉe 1594. Henry was naturally generous, as all gallant men are. The only revenge he took upon the corpulent Duke of Mayenne, the chief of the League, and his rival for the throne after the death of Cardinal de Bourbon, was to take him by the arm, and whilst engaged in friendly conversation, walking at a very smart pace two or three times round the garden. Henry smiled when he had walked Mayenne fairly out of breath, and all the Duke’s injuries were forgotten.
[185] See De Thou, L’Etoile, and all the historians of the time.
[187] See Acts of the Parliament, or D’ArgentrÉ Collect. Jud. tom. ii. p. 524.
[188] In one of these writings, speaking of Henry IV., the Jesuit says:—“Shall we call him a Nero, a Sardanapalus of France, a fox of Bearn?” and further on, he declares, that “the crown of France could and ought to be transferred to another family; that Henry, although converted to the Catholic faith, would be treated too leniently, if a monk’s crown (tonsure) were given him in some convent to do penance; that if he cannot be deposed without war, then (said he) let us make war, and if we cannot make war, let him be killed.”—CrÉt. vol. ii. p. 435.
[189] See the whole of the inscription in the authors of the epoch, in the Recueil des PiÈces touchant l’Histoire de la Compagnie de JÉsu. LiÈge, 1716. A very instructive work.
[190] Sigismond, on the death of his father John, having proceeded from Poland to Upsala for the ceremony of his coronation, the estates peremptorily refused to render him homage, till he had solemnly sworn that the Augsburg Confession should be inculcated everywhere, alone and purely, whether in churches or schools. In this strait, the prince applied to Malaspina, the Pope’s nuncio, to know whether in conscience he could give such promise. The nuncio denied that he could. The king thereupon addressed himself to the Jesuits in his train, and what the nuncio had not dared, they took upon themselves to do. They declared that, in consideration of the necessity, and of the manifest danger in which the sovereign found himself, he might grant the heretics their demands without offence to God.—Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, vol. ii. pp. 147, 8.
[191] See Ranke’s History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 411.
[192] Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes, vol. i. pp. 415-417.
[193] Ranke’s History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 411.
[198] John, before his ascension to the throne, had been confined in strict captivity by his brother Eric. His wife, a Polish princess, the last descendant of the Jagellonica family, and an adherent of the Church of Rome, shared his imprisonment; the sad and gloomy hours of which were rendered less painful by the frequent visits of a Roman Catholic priest, who shewed them the greatest sympathy. It seems that this made some impression upon John, and rendered him favourable towards the Papists.
[200] Ranke informs us that John, troubled by remorse for his brother’s assassination, was very anxious to receive absolution;—as if the word of a man could quiet the gnawings of conscience, that unsparing avenger of crime!
[203] This fact is reported by all the Jesuit historians. We, however, have too good an opinion of the Waldenses not to suspect that the Jesuits, in order to deceive and impose upon the populace, had mixed among some few apostates a number of Roman Catholics who were willing to appear converted heretics.
[207] To ascertain whether every one goes to the confessional every other Saturday, each boarder receives a card with his own name written on it, which he must deliver to his confessor, who gives it back to the rector. I may here mention that this method is also practised at Easter in the whole of the States of the Church, with all the inhabitants. If your card is not among those collected from the different confessors, it is evident that you have not fulfilled the precept, and if you do not give a satisfactory reason for it before the 26th of August, your name is fixed on the door of the parish church as that of a sacrilegious and infamous person. In the college of Senegallia, where I was educated, we were about two hundred boarders. Eight confessors were appointed to shrive. At sunset we descended to the chapel, whence we went in turn into the different schoolrooms to confess. The rooms were darkened, and the fathers were seated each in an arm chair, before a sort of confessional, through a grating of which our sins had to find their way to their pious ears. To such confessors as had been more severe on former occasions we usually played some tricks, such as putting a piece of raw garlic into our mouths, and pretending to be seized with a fit of coughing or sneezing, so that the poor confessor, who, in order to hear our confession well, was obliged to have his face close to the grating, had his olfactory nerves assailed by a puff of breath which was anything but agreeable. The penance, you may be sure, was double, but it never deterred us from playing similar pranks again, though we religiously fulfilled it. Sometimes we contrived to evade confession altogether in the following manner:—One who was going in to the confessional took with him the card of another along with his own. In kissing the hand of the confessor, after having confessed, he put into it one card, and slipped the other upon the table on which the father laid those he was receiving. After all was over, the servant brought in a light, and the confessor collected all the tickets he found on the table, and took them with him. Meanwhile, the person whose card had thus passed through the confessional without its owner was skulking in a closet or some other hiding-place, till, after the lapse of a sufficient length of time, he returned, as if he had religiously fulfilled the duty required. If you ask whether we believed in the efficacy of confession, I answer that we all firmly believed in it, and that in any illness or danger we would have earnestly asked for a confessor; only we did not like to go to it so often.
[209] Gioberti is a Roman Catholic priest, ex-Premier of the King of Sardinia, and one of our greatest living philosophers. Though strictly orthodox, and even partial to the Papal authority, he has contributed more than any other man to give the last fatal blow to the Jesuits in Italy. His Gesuita Moderno (Modern Jesuit), in which he lays bare all the iniquities of the fathers, has ruined their order for ever, in the estimation of the Italians, and effectually prevented them from again setting foot in Piedmont. I do not share his political or religious creed, but Italy must preserve the memory of the benefit he has conferred upon her on this point, and I, in particular, have to confess myself grateful to him for the advice and encouragement he has kindly given me in the compilation of this work.
[210]Gesuita Moderno, vol. iii. p. 226. Ed. di Losanna.
[214] See Bellarmine in Ranke, vol. ii. pp. 116, 117.
[215] See l’AbbÉ Racine, AbrÉgÉ de l’Histoire EcclÉsiastique, tom. x. p. 40. See also Fra Paolo Sarpi, who has immortalised his name as theologian of the Venetian Government, and historian of the contest.
[217] Mariana was one of the most learned Spanish Jesuits, the personal enemy and the most fiery opponent of Acquaviva. He opposed to his utmost Molina’s doctrine on grace and free will, and propounded, as we have in part seen, the principle of the sovereignty of the people. He was held in great veneration among the Spaniards.
[218] See Ratio Studiorum. See also Ranke, vol. ii. p. 88.
[225] Escobar compiled his work of Moral Theology from twenty-four Jesuit authors, and in his preface he finds an analogy betwixt his book and “that in the Apocalypse which was sealed with seven seals,” and states that “Jesus presented it thus sealed to the four living creatures,” Suarez, Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia (four celebrated casuists), in presence of the four-and-twenty Jesuits, who represent the four-and-twenty elders.
[227] Le monde s’Était plaint depuis l’origine du Christianisme de l’austÉritÉ de certains precepts; les JÉsuites venaient au secour de ces dolÉances, &c.—CrÉt. vol. iv. p. 50.
[229] Antony Escobar. L. Theol. moralis vigenti-quatuor Societatis Jesu Doctoribus reseratus. Ex. de pÆnitentiÂ, ch. vii. N. 155. (Lugduni, 1656. Ed. Mus. Brit.)
[230] Thomas Tambourin. Methodus ExpeditÆ Confessionis, L. ii. ch. iii. § 3, N. 23. (Lugduni, 1659. AntverpiÆ, 1656. Ed. Coll. Sion.)
[231] George de Rhodes. Disput. TheologiÆ ScholasticÆ, tom. i. Dis. xi. quÆs. xi. sec. 1 and 2, and Dis. i. q. iii. sec. 2, § 3. (Lugduni, 1671.)
[232] In quoting Pascal, we make use of the translation of Dr M’Crie, to render the author’s meaning better than we could do. P. 107.
[233] John of Salas. Disputationum R. P. Joannis de Salas, e Soc. Jesu, in primam secundÆ D. ThomÆ, tom. i. tr. 8, sec. 7, 9, N. 74, 83. (Barcinone, 1607. Ed. Bibl. Arch. Cant. Lamb.)
[234] Gregory of Valentia. Commentariorum Theologicorum, tom. iii. dis. v. quÆs. 7, punct. iv. (LutetiÆ Parisiorum, 1609. Ed. Coll. Sion).
[235] Thomas Sanchez. Opus Morale in prÆcepta Decalogi. L. ii. c. i. N. 6. (Venetiis, 1614. AntverpiÆ, 1624. Ed. Coll. Sion.)
[236] Antony Escobar. UniversÆ TheologiÆ Moralis Receptiores absque lite SententiÆ, necnon ProblematicÆ Disquisitiones, tom. i. L. ii. sect. i. de consc. c. 2. N. 18. (Lugduni, 1652. Ed. Bibl. Acad. Cant.)
[237] Simon de Lessau. Propositions dictÉes dans le CollÉge des JÉsuites d’Amiens. De prÆcept. Decal. c. i. art. 4.
[238] Thomas Tamburin. Explicatio Decalogi. L. i. c. iii. § 4. N. 15. (Lugduni, 1659. Lugduni, 1665. Ed. Coll. Sion.)
[245] Gregory XV. and his nephew Cardinal Ludivisi, have two magnificent monuments in the Church of St Ignatius of the Collegio Romano, which church they had built and richly embellished for the Jesuits, and where they are buried.
[246] This man is famous for working miracles. He is said to have restored to life his dear companion, a pig, which had been stolen from him, after it had been killed and eaten, and its bones thrown into a furnace; just as Thor, the great Scandinavian god, restored to life his ram. Another great miracle is recorded of him by his panegyrist. Having been forbidden by his superior (St Antony was a monk) to work too many miracles, he one day found himself in a great perplexity. As he was passing through a street, he heard a poor mason, in the act of falling from a lofty building, call upon him by name for a miracle. The poor saint, not knowing what to do, had recourse to an expedient. “Stop a moment,” said he, to the falling man, “till I go for the permission of the Father Superior;” and the man waited suspended in the air till he returned with permission to work the miracle!
[247] This was the case with many, and, to mention one, with Father Zaccheria, the founder of the Barnabites, who had been a beatifice for eighty-four years, had mass and prayers offered to him, but is at present merely Father Zaccheria.
[248] This congregation, as well as all the others, such as those of indulgences, of inquisition, &c., is composed of cardinals, bishops, prelates, and some few advocates. They form a sort of committee. There is a prefect and secretary; the others are called consultori, counsellors—the Pope is de jure prefect of them all. Those of the Congregation of Rites are very glad when there is a canonisation. They are entitled, besides, to a portrait of the saint, which, if the saint take, they sell very dear, and to I know not how many pounds of chocolate.
[249] For Loyola’s sake we should have liked that one of the three first-class miracles, recorded in the bull of canonisation, should have been a little more supernatural, and a little more decent, perhaps. It is said in the bull, that a woman of Gandia, being dropsical, applied to the part affected the image of the saint, and was cured, imagine dicti beati ventri admota, &c.
[250] The saying of one of the descendants of Charles Borromeo has remained famous in Italy. After having paid all the expenses of the canonisation, he turned to his family and said, “Be always good Christians, my dear children, but never saints; one other saint, and we are ruined for ever.”
[255] Roman Catholics consider it their duty to send children to the confessional at the early age of seven years; and nine out of ten hear for the first time, from the confessor, words which awaken in their young and innocent minds lascivious and till then unknown desires.
[257] This is the bull by which the Pope declared that the five propositions were to be found in Jansenius; and this gave rise to the celebrated distinction of fact and right.
[258] The place was called Mont Louis, but was afterwards converted into a magnificent and beautiful cemetery, which now bears the name of Lachaise.
[259] A lettre de cachet was an order bearing the king’s signature, generally requiring the arrest or exile of the person specified. Under the reign of the despotic Louis, lettres de cachet were issued with scandalous profusion. The courtiers, the ministers, the king’s mistresses, asked, in exchange for a flattery or a caress, a lettre de cachet. Often the letter was blank, having only the king’s signature, and left to the person who had obtained it to fill it up with any name and any sort of punishment he pleased. Father Lachaise had always by him a quantity of letters of this last sort.
[260] In the first years of Louis’s reign that right resided in a commission composed of two prelates and a Jesuit; but Ferrier, Lachaise’s predecessor, possessed himself of the exclusive right, which ever after belonged to the king’s confessor.
[261] Letellier was accused of being the contriver of the following shameful deception. In 1690, during a dispute, M. de Ligny, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Royal College of Douay, fell out with Father Beckman, a Jesuit professor. Drawn to extremities in the argument, he menaced his opponent with revenge, saying, Ego te flagellabo—“I will give you a whipping.” Fifteen days after, Ligny received a letter under the false signature of Antoine A——; that is, Antoine Arnauld, the famous Jansenist, with an address for the expected answer. Now, the professor, flattered by the honour of receiving a letter from so famous a man as Arnauld, replied to the letter, and continued the correspondence—so that at last the impostor, under the name of Arnauld, drew from Ligny the names of those who opposed the Jesuits, all of them doctors and professors in theology. The impostor thereupon began and continued a correspondence with these doctors, who supposed they were writing to the true Arnauld, the staunch opponent of Jesuit doctrine. Ligny even begged the invisible Arnauld to be his spiritual director, and sent him a general confession of the state of his conscience. Thereupon he was induced to leave his chair, his benefice, and to send all his papers to the impostor, whilst he set out by the same command to a place appointed, which was Paris. He went to St Magloire, but found no Arnauld; proceeded from place to place, until at last the simple Fleming found that he was duped. Meanwhile, however, all the professors before alluded to were denounced by the Jesuit Letellier, and exiled to various towns in France; and Ligny himself was sent to Tours. Meanwhile, the Jesuit published a letter directed to a doctor of Douay, under the title of Secrets of the party of M. Arnauld lately discovered. Then Arnauld, in his place of exile, discovering the cheat, published a first and second complaint, and a third, concluding one in answer to the Jesuit who had replied to his second. Every one was indignant, and even Louis XIV. himself. But the Jesuits assured him that they were innocent of the plot; and having obtained forgiveness for a supposed contriver, Tournelay, a doctor whom the Jesuits had named professor in the place of the expelled Gilbert, confessed that he had himself played the part of the false Arnauld, and the Jesuits were by this imposture exculpated from this act of perfidy. In the Gazette of Rotterdam, 1692, it is said, “But little esteem was felt for him (Tournelay) since it was discovered that he consented to pass for the father of the false Arnauld, to exculpate the Jesuits, and above all, author de Vaudripont, the man who had answered Arnauld’s complaint, and who was supposed to act by Letellier’s inspiration.”
[271] This proclamation was the decree by which the bigoted Ferdinand II., with revolting injustice, dispossessed legitimate holders of property which had belonged to religious communities, but which in great part had been allotted more than a hundred years before to those monks and priests who had embraced Protestantism, and which, passing through many hands to the persons then in possession, constituted the most legitimate property.
[277] This Bellarmine, as is known to many of our readers, was a famous Jesuit, a cardinal, and one of the most fanatic and bigoted in the order, celebrated above all for exalting the Papal authority above every other earthly power. He is the author of a catechism, which is still taught over all Italy, under the name of La Dottrina Cristiana de Bellarmino. He was very learned, and appears not to have been a bad man, as regards his outward conduct.
[278] Jardine is, perhaps, the most impartial guide to follow in inquiring into this tragical event.
[279] Pasquino and Marforio are, or at least were (only one of them being now in existence), two statues placed at the corners of two contiguous streets in Rome, on which the Romans affix those libels in which they, generally speaking, express their hatred of the Roman court and its abominable vices. The statues are supposed to address one another.
[281] “N’ont ils pas conservÉ en Angleterre le germe qui se dÉveloppe avec tant de vigueur, et qui en Irlande, aprÈs trois cents ans de martyre, devient une rÉvolution lÉgitime?” Vol. iii. 510.
Per la contradizion che nol consente.”—Dante’sInferno.
[283] The Recorder of London, the Dean of St Paul’s, and that of Westminster, accompanied him to the fatal scaffold, and at that awful moment, when the wretched man had need to prepare himself for the presence of the supreme infallible Judge, they, for the space of an hour, obliged him to discuss the lawfulness of equivocation, and the criminality of the Plot, and thus subjected him to another trial!
[284] Oldcorne was executed on the 17th of April 1606, Garnet on the 3d of May of the same year.
[285] CrÉt. vol. iii. p. 476.—He might have said that Fischer was the author of many paltry contrivances, and that his endeavours were not so much directed to alleviate the misery of the persons of his persuasion as to resuscitate enemies to the established government, in conformity with the wishes of Spain and France.
[286] Politique du clergÉ de France, ou entretiens curieux; deuxiÈme entretien: par Pierre Jurieu la Haye, 1682.
[290] We need hardly remind our readers, that when we speak of the idle, luxurious, and selfish life of the monks, we speak of the generality, for we are not so illiberal as to say, that among them was to be found no one really animated by a true zeal, and by the desire of converting infidels to that religion which they thought the true one.
[295] See this and other letters of this prelate in Arnauld, tom. xxxii. and xxxiii.
[296] Palafox, wishing to see the authorisation, which the fathers pretended to have, to confess without the diocesan’s order, in opposition to a decree of the Council of Trent, asked them to shew him such an authorisation; they answered that they had the privilege not to shew it. “Let me see that privilege,” said the bishop. “We have the privilege to keep secret our privileges.” “Shew me at least this last privilege.” “We are authorised to keep secret even this other privilege.” See the letter in which the prelate relates the fact in Arnauld, tom. xxxiii. pp. 486-534.
[298] Letter of Palafox to Father Rada, Provincial of the Jesuits, 1649. See Arnauld, tom. xxxiii. p. 643. Some Jesuits have denied the authenticity of this letter, others the truth of the accusation, and have called the prelate a calumniator. As to the authenticity of the letter, it cannot be denied, since the bishop himself published it in his Defensa Canonica, dedicated to the King of Spain; and the well-known character of Palafox puts his veracity beyond question; nor would he have dared to bring before the royal throne a false accusation.
[299] I forgot to mention, in speaking of the canonisation of saints, that, in general, many years are allowed to pass after obtaining a title of Servus Dei, for example, before the other title, Venerabilis, is asked for, and so on.
[300] The office of this personage in the canonisation is to raise, pro forma, objections to its accomplishment, by questioning the virtue of the man, the reality of his miracles, and so on. In Italy he is called the advocate of the devil; and our Gioberti, with perhaps more wit than Christian charity, says, “In the case of Palafox, the name (advocate of the devil) may have well become him, as he was the advocate of the fathers.”
[301] Owing to the French Revolution of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, the proceedings for the canonisation of Palafox, which had lasted fifty-five years, were never resumed, till lately an attempt was made to make a saint of him; but the Jesuits were again too powerful to allow it, and the case is yet pending, so that it may be said that the good Palafox is in a sort suspended between earth and heaven.
[303] For the persecutions to which all those ecclesiastics, regular or secular, were subjected, because they would not submit to the domineering spirit of the Jesuits, see the preface of tom. xxxii. of Arnauld’s work, with documents.
[304] Inhibendum est Patri Grenerali, totique societate ne in posterum recipiant novicios ad habitum societatis, neque admittant ad vota sive simplicia sive solemnia.
[305] See the MÉmoires Historiques de Norbert, already quoted. See also Anecdotes sur Le Chine, t. vi. p. 408.
[317] The tone in which Annat wrote to his general deserves to be remarked, and to be compared with the letters that Lainez and Borgia used to write to Loyola—“I cannot omit to communicate,” he writes, “to your paternity my grief on seeing that the hope which I had conceived of a speedy conclusion of the peace between the sovereign pontiff and the most Christian king has vanished.... I do not know what malignant coincidence of events destroys all my plans,” &c.
[336] Fifteen hundred of these monks landed at Civita Vecchia. It was a pitiful sight to behold some of those very old priests torn from the place where they had spent their lives, and thrown upon a foreign land. Even the Dominicans, their constant opponents, were touched with compassion, and received them kindly; and they have perpetuated the memory of this act of generosity by an inscription on stone.
[337] See it reported in St Priest, p. 21, and following.
[339] Three generals, Retz, Visconti, and Centurioni, had, after Tambourini, governed the Society; and the 19th General Congregation, named Lorenzo Ricci, who was the 18th General before the suppression.
[340] The debts of Lavallette amounted to 2,400,000 francs; but CrÉtineau assures us that the houses and lands belonging to the Company were bought by English capitalists for the sum of four millions of francs! Did not the Jesuits well observe the vows of poverty, this bulwark of religion?
[343]State Papers and Manuscripts of the Duke of Choiseul. See St Priest, p. 18.
[344] See Ranke, vol. ii. p. 447; CrÉt. vol. v. p. 274.
[345] The property which the Jesuits possessed in France was estimated at fifty-eight millions of francs; but in that sum, says CrÉtineau, must not be included the alms which were given to the Maisons Professes. They possess fifty-eight millions, and ask for alms! Oh! holy poverty!
[346]Despatches of the Marquis d’Ossun to the Duke of Choiseul. See St Priest, p. 34.
[362] CrÉt. vol. v. p. 326. He quotes the No. 14 of the Lettres inÉdites D’Aubeterre. We have not an opportunity of verifying these letters, and must rest on his authority. St Priest says that it was, on the contrary, De Bernis who promised to the ambassadors to consult Ganganelli; but however it is, what appears incontestable is, that Ganganelli was consulted.
[363] In the time of our short republic, we were once moved to tears by seeing some Trasteverini throw off their hats, and spontaneously, without being told or taught, go and kiss these magical and once respected letters, S.P.Q.R. Indeed I even feel moved in writing them.
[366] See St Priest, p. 57, who reports all these details, as given by the emperor himself to D’Aubeterre. Joseph enlarged complacently on his contemptuous policy toward the Holy See, and declared, in plain terms, that he knew the Court of Rome too well not to despise it, and thought very little of his admission to the Conclave. “Those people,” said he, speaking of the cardinals, “tried to impress upon me the value of this distinction, but I am not their dupe.”
[367] In Italy, the monasteries of the orders called mendicant are the refuge of three peculiar classes of persons. The first class of those who repair thither are idle, unthinking fellows, who disdain to do any sort of work; the second are those who have but the convent to escape the prison; and the third, those youth who, feeling within themselves the power, the capacity, or the ambition of achieving some great deeds, and seeing no possibility of emerging from the crowd, have recourse to the cloister as the only way left them of arriving at eminence. Almost all the men of mark among the Italian clergy have been monks, born of poor and humble parentage; and many Popes were of the same. It is known that not a penny is requisite to enter into those monasteries, while, to become a secular priest, one requires to possess some little property.
[368] It was he who began that magnificent museum in the Vatican, increased afterwards by Pius VI., which bears the name of Museo Pio-Clementino, and which is the admiration of all Europe.
[369] See Ranke, vol. ii. p. 449, in a note quoting “Aneddoti riguardanti la famiglia e le opere di Clemente.”
[370] Francesco was a lay brother, for whom Ganganelli preserved to the last the most sincere friendship and affection.
[371] St Priest, p. 60. It was in this convent that Ganganelli resided before his exaltation to the pontificate, and he often went thither afterwards to spend some hours.
[372] Ranke (vol. iii. p. 449) exaggerates Ganganelli’s virtues, and represents him as faultless and holy, which brings us to make a remark on the celebrated German historian. His indefatigable industry in searching archives and public and private libraries, and inspecting unpublished manuscripts, has enabled him to throw light on many obscure questions; but we think that often, on the simple authority of some ambassador’s relation, or private letters, or of writings without name, which only express the private opinion of the writer, he has established principles, and deduced consequences, that are not in accordance with what is known or may be ascertained by an accurate examination of the facts. We could give many instances of what we assert.
[377] It is to be remarked, that now that the most perfect concord reigns between the Court of Rome and the fathers, and that they support each other, the latter have changed their language in regard to this affair, and that same CrÉtineau assures us that he disbelieves this imputation.
[393] St Priest, ubi sup. He has extracted all those details from a letter of Florida Blanca, addressed to Pope Pius VI.
[394] It is differently reported by what means the consent of Austria to the destruction of the Jesuits was obtained. The report most current at the time was, that Charles III. obtained it from Maria Theresa, by sending to the empress her own confession, which her Jesuit director had sent to the General, and which the king had had the means of obtaining. St Priest, in contradicting this opinion, says that Maria Theresa’s resistance was conquered by her son Joseph, who, although he took little interest in the affair as it affected the Jesuits, yet coveted their possessions.
[395] These are the words attributed to the Pope by the popular tradition. However, St Priest, following Caraccioli, makes the Pope exclaim, after having signed the brief, “Questa suppressione mi darÁ la morte”—This suppression will be my death.
[404] Georgel, Memoires, vol. i. p. 160. Apud St Priest, p. 90.
[405] Gioberti, quoting Florida Blanca, vol. iii. p. 394.
[406] St Priest, p. 91, and following. All these details of the illness and death of Ganganelli we have taken from St Priest, adding now and then some particulars which we have found in other writers. But St Priest is the best authority on the subject. He has drawn from original sources—the Letters of Bernis, of Florida Blanca, the History of Botta Gorani Caraccioli—and has condensed his materials into a most accurate and impartial narrative. It would be useless, then, either to send back our readers to those authors, or to endeavour to analyse them ourselves. We shall, then, be contented with some reflections or deductions at the proper place.
[411] It is a popular tradition, and, indeed, not at all unfounded, that in Perugia some persons had the secret of composing a sort of water which, when drunk, produced certain death, although life was prolonged for more or less space of time, according to the quantity and strength of the dose given. The nuns, in particular, had a sad celebrity for composing this drug.
[416] It is commonly reported in Italy, and it is also believed in France, that on the day commemorating Ganganelli’s death, every year, the Jesuits, at least those who are deep in the secrets of the order, assemble in a room, and, after one of them has addressed a volley of curses and imprecations against Clement’s memory, every person present pierces his image with a poniard. We repeat the popular belief, without, however, warranting its correctness.
[440] It is to be remembered that all the revolutions which have taken place in Italy since 1814 were prepared and executed by the upper classes of the nation.
[441] We have to lament the decease of this illustrious Italian, which has happened while we were writing these pages. His country has not forgotten that it is due to him, perhaps more than to anything else, that Piedmont is without Jesuits. Monuments are to be erected to him, and his mortal remains will be transported from Paris to Turin at the public expense. But while all Italy is unanimous in regretting his loss, a Jesuit newspaper, the Armonia, attributing his sudden death to the judgment of God, exclaims, “See what it is to wage war against Heaven! Gioberti died like Simon the magician, like Arius!” A Jesuit in Rome asserted the same thing from the pulpit; while the Romans repeat that the Jesuits have poisoned him. He was firm to the end in his hostility to the fathers, and in the last letter he wrote to the author of this history, encouraging him to proceed with the work, he adds, “You will render a good service to our country.”
[442] See my History of the Pontificate of Pius IX., p. 29 and ff.
[443] A month before the Pope fled from Rome to Gaeta, the author had a conversation with Joseph Mastai, the Pope’s brother, who had been an exile and a political prisoner during the last reign. He, to excuse the change in his brother’s conduct, said, “I warned you not to attack religion, or you would ruin the cause of liberty. You have not listened to my advice, and you must abide the consequences.” When I asked him in what respect we had shewn disrespect to religion, he answered, with great earnestness, “You have driven the Jesuits from Rome, and attempted to deprive the ecclesiastics of all authority.” These words speak volumes. They express the true sentiments of the Pope, which were adopted, it seems, by his brother, who had formerly been a Carbonaro.
[444] The author was a member of this second deputation. Oudinot was at first indignant that we should think of offering opposition to his troops. “How!” said he, “two armies, the Neapolitans and the Austrians, are marching against Rome! We come to succour you, and you speak of fighting us!” And half an hour after this, when we pressed him hard, forgetting himself, he exclaimed, “Eh bien! nom de Dieu nous venous pour remettre le Pape sur le trÔne.”
[448] Oudinot was named by the Pope Duke of St Pancrace, in commemoration of his having destroyed a church dedicated to that saint, and also that part of the wall by which the French entered, which bears the same name.
[449] Many public officers were dismissed or imprisoned for refusing to be present at the Te Deum.
[451] When nothing can be invented which may at least have the appearance of criminality, and the man is punished merely for his opinions, he is not interrogated at all, but is kept a prisoner as long as his persecutors please, and released after five, six, or more years, without ever having been interrogated, or even seeing the face of a judge.
[452] English readers must be aware that in France, as well as in Italy, murder does not necessarily and inevitably import capital punishment. There are certain extenuating circumstances admitted. In the Roman states, indeed, very seldom is the common assassin executed.
[453] The fate of this generous and unfortunate young man has excited, and indeed deserves, the deepest commiseration. He was a merchant, and in ’48 left his business to march with us into Lombardy; he became lieutenant of the battalion commanded by the chevalier Geraldi, one of the Pope’s nephews, and was intimate with Ercole Mastai, who was an officer in the same battalion. On returning from the war, he was raised, by the esteem of his fellow-citizens, to the rank of colonel in the national guard. When the fatal acts of revenge above narrated were perpetrated at Sinigallia, the author wrote to Simoncelli from Rome, entreating him to use all his influence to repress these murders. He answered in a tone which left no doubt that he entirely condemned them. He said he had been able to save the lives of some, and would redouble his exertions to put a stop to crimes, which he abhorred and detested. I gave the letter to Mazzini. Yet this same man has been shot as an abettor and accomplice. Such is the justice of the priests!
