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 SOCIETY

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SOCIETY

was due to the same causes which in further develop- ment brought about the French Revolution. These causes varied somewhat in different countries. In France many influences combined, as we shall see, from Jansenism and Free-thought to the then prev- alent impatience with the old order of things (see France, VI, 172). Some have thought that the Suppression was primarily due to these currents of thought. Others attribute it chieflj- to the absolu- tism of the Bourbons. For, though in France the king was averse to theSuppression,thedestructiveforcesac- quired then power because he was too indolent to exer- cise control, which at that timehe alone possessed. Out- side France it is plain that autocracy, acting through high-handed ministers, was the determining cause.

Portugal. — In 1750 Joseph I of Portugal appointed Sebastian Joseph Carvalho, afterwards Marquis of Pombal (q. v.), as his first minister. Carvalho's quarrel with the Jesuits began over an exchange of territory with Spain. San Sacramento was exchanged for the seven Reductions of Paraguay, which were under Spain. The Society's wonderful missions there were coveted by the Portuguese, who believed that the Jesuits were mining gold. So the Indians were ordered to quit their country, and the Jesuits endeav- oured to lead them quietly to the distant land allotted to them. But owing to the har.sh conditions imposed, the Indians rose in arms against the tran.sfer, and the so-called war of Paraguay ensued, which, of course, was disastrous to the Indians. Then step bj' step the quarrel with the Jesuits was pushed to extremi- ties. The weak king was persuaded to remove tiiem from Court; a war of pamphlets against him was commenced; the Fathers were first forbidden to under- take the temporal administration of the missions, and then they were deported from America.

On 1 April, 1758, a Brief was obtained from the aged pope, Benedict XIV (q. v.), appointing Cardinal Saldanha to investigate the allegations against the Jesuits, which had been raised in the King of Portu- gal's name. But it does not foOow that the pope had forejudged the case against the order. On the con- trary, if we take into view aU the letters and instruc- tions sent to the cardinal, we see that the pope was distinctly sceptical as to the gravity of the alleged abuses. He ordered a minute inquiry, but one con- ducted .so as to safeguard the reputation of the Soci- ety. All matters of serious importance were to be referred back to himself. The pope died five weeks later on .3 May. On 15 May, Saldanha, having received the Brief only a fortnight before, omitting the thorough, hovise-to-house visitation which had been ordered, and pronouncing on the issues which the pope had reserved to him.self, declared that the Jesuits were guilty of having exercised illicit, public, aud scandalous commerce both in Portugal and in its colonies. Three weeks later, at Pombal's instiga- tion, all faculties were withdrawn from the Jesuits throughout the Patriarchate of Lisbon. Before Cle- ment XIII (q V.) had become pope (6 July, 1758) the work of the Society had been destroyed, and in 1759 it was civilly suppressed. The last step was taken in consequence of a plot against the chamberlain Texciras, but suspected to have been aimed at the king, and of this the Jesuits were supposed to have approved. But the grounds of suspicion were never clearly stated, much less proved. The height of Pombal's persecution was reached with the burning (1761) of the saintly Father MaUigrida (q. v.) ostensi- bly for heresy; while the other Fathers, who had been crowded into prisons, were left to perish by the score. Intercourse between the Church of Portugal and Rome was broken off till 1770.

France. — The s\ipi)ression in France was occasioned

by the injuries inflicted bj' the English na^-y on

French commerce in 1755. The Jesuit missionaries

held a heavv stake in Martinique. They did not

XIV.— 7

and could not trade, that is, buy cheap to sell dear, any more than any other religious. But they did sell the products of their great mission farms, in which many natives were eniplo\-ed, and this was allowed, partly- to provide for the current expenses of the mi.^sion, pai-tly in order to protect the simple, chilillike natives from the common plague of dishonest intermediaries. Pere Antoine La Valette, superior of the Martinique mission, managed these transactions with no little success, and success encouraged him to go too far. He began to borrow money in order to work the large undeveloped resources of the colony, and a strong letter from the governor of the island dated 1753 is extant in praise of his enterprise. But on the outbreak of war, ships conveying goods of the estimated value of 2,000,000 litres were captured and he suddenly became a bankrupt for a very large sum. His creditors were egged on to demand pay- ment from the procurator of the Paris province: but he, relying on what certainly was the letter of the law, refused responsibility for the debts of an inde- pendent mission, though offering to negotiate for a settlement, of which he held out assured hopes. The creditors went to the courts, and an order was made (1760) obliging the Society to pay, and giving leave to distrain in case of non-payment.

The Fathers, on the advice of their lawyers, appealed to the Grand' chamhre of the Parlement of Paris. This turned out to be an imprudent step. For not only did the Parlement support the lower court, 8 May, 1761, but, having once got the case into its hands, the Society's enemies in that assembly deter- mined to strike a great blow at the order. Enemies of every sort combined. The Jansenists were nu- merous among the gens-de-robe, and at that moment were especially keen to be revenged on the orthodox party. The Sorbonnists, too, the university rivals of the great teaching order, joined in the attack. So did the Galileans, the Pliilosophes, and Encyclo- pedistes. Louis XV was weak, and the influence of his Court di\ided; while his wife and children were earnestly in favour of the Jesuits, his able first minis- ter, the Due deChoiseul (q. v.), plaj-ed into the hands of the Parlciiiint, and the royal mistress, Madame de Pompadour, to whom the Jesuits had refused absolu- tion, was a bitter opponent. The determination of the Parlement of Paris in time bore down aU oppo- sition. The attack on the Jesuits, as such, was opened by the Jansenistic Ab'oe Chauvelin, 17 April, 1762, who denounced the Constitutions of the Jesuits as the cause of the alleged defalcations of the order. This was followed hy the cojnpte-rendu on the Consti- tutions, 3-7 July, 1762, full of misconceptions, but not yet extravagant in hostility. Next day Chauve- hn descended to a vulgar but efficacious means of exciting odium by denouncing the Jesuits' teaching and morals, especially on the matter of tjTannicide.

In the Parlement the Jesuits' ca,se was now despe- rate. After a long conflict with the Crown, in which the indolent minister-ridden sovereign failed to assert his will to any purpose, the Parlement issued its weU-known " Extraits des assertions", a blue-book, as we might say, containing a congeries of passages from Jesuit theologians and canonists, in which they were alleged to teach every sort of immorality and error, from tyrannicide, magic, and Arianism to trea.son, Socinianisni, and Lutheranism. On 6 August, 1762, the final arret was issued condemning the Society to extinction, but the king's intervention brought eight months' delay. In favour of the Jes- uits there had been some striking testimonies, espe- cially from the French clergy in the two convocations summoned on 30 November, 1761, and 1 May, 1762. But the series of letters and addresses published by Clement XIII afford a truly irrefragable attesta- tion in favour of the order. Nothing, however, availed to stay the Parlement. The king's counter-