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 CLEMENT

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CLEMENT

i.st ill its composition, in the spring of 1761. Taking aiivantagc of the financial difficulties into which the I'>ench Jesuits had been driven over the affair of Father Lavalette, they proceeded to examine the constitutions of the Society in which they professed to find grave improprieties, and to demand that, if the Jesuits were to remain in the country, these con- stitutions should be remodelled on the principle of reducing the power of the general and practically substituting for him a commissioner appointed by the Crown. They also drew up a famous document, named the " Extraits des assertions", made up en- tirely of garbled extracts from Jesuit writers, and tending to show that their method was to establish their own domination by justifying almost every form of crime and licentiousness, particularly tyran- nicide. Louis XV, like Joseph I, had a will enervated by lust, but unlike him, was by no means a fool, and had besides an underlying respect for religion. Thus he sought, in the first instance, to save a body of men whom he judged to be innocent, and for that purpose he referred their constitutions to the French bishops assembled at Paris in December, 1761. Forty-five of these bishops reported in favour of the constitutions, and of the Jesuits being left as they were, twenty-seven or more, not then in Paris, sending in their adhesion; but the king was being drawn the other way by his Voltairian statesmen and Madame de Pompadour, and accordingly preferred the advice of the one bishop who sided with the Parlement, Bishop Fitz- James of Soissons. He therefore issued an edict in March, 1762, which allowed the Society to remain in the kingdom, but prescribed some essential changes in their institute with the view of satisfying the Par- lement.

Clement XIII intervened in various ways in this crisis of the French Jesuits. He wrote to the king in June, 1761, and again in January, 1762, on the former occasion to implore him to stay the proceed- ings of his Parlement, on the latter to protest against the scheme of setting a French vicar-general, inde- pendent of the general in Rome, over the Freiich provinces; it was likewise on this latter occasion that, whilst blaming their general for the compliance of some of his French subjects, he used the famous words "Sint ut sunt aut non sint". To the French bishops who wTote to him protesting against the doings of the Parlement, he replied in words of thankfulness and approval, e.g. to the Bishop of Grenoble on 4 April, 1762, and to the Bishop of Sarlat (with special refer- ence to the "Extraits des assertions") on 14 Novem- ber, 1764; and to the bishops collectively in June, 1762, exhorting them to use all their influence with the king to induce him to resist his evil counsellors. To the arrit of 2 August, 1762, by which the Parle- ment suppressed the Society in France, and imposed impossible conditions on any of its members wishing to remain in the country, Clement replied by an Allo- cution of 3 September, in which he protested against the invasion of the Church's rights, and annulled the am'ts of the Parlement against the Society. Finally, when the king, v.eakly yielding to the pressure of his entourage, suppressed the French provinces by his edict of November, 1764, the Holy Father felt it his duty, besought as he was by so many bishops from all parts, to publi-sh the Bull "Apostolicum", of 9 Jan- uary, 1765. Its object was to oppose to the current misrepresentations of the Society's institute, spiritual exercises, preaching, missions, and theologj', a solemn and formal approbation, and to declare that the Church herself was assailed in these condemnations of what she .sanctioned in so many ways.

Sp.^in'. — The statesmen who had the ear of Charles III were in regular correspondence with the French Encyclopedists, and had for some years previously been projecting a proscription of the Society on the same lines as in Portugal and France. But this was IV— 3

not known (o the public, or to the Jesuits, who be- lieved themselves to have a warm friend in their sovereign. It came then as a surprise to all when, on the night of 2-3 April, 1767, all the Jesuit houses were suddenly surrounded, the inmates arrested and transferred to vehicles ordered to take them to the coast, thence to be shipped off for some unknown destination — forbidden to take anything with them beyond the clothes which they wore. Nor was any other explanation vouchsafed to the outer world save that contained in the king's letter to Clement XIII. dated 31 .March. There it was stated that the king had found it necessary to expel all his Jesuit subjects for reasons which he intended to reserve for ever in his roval lireast. l>ut that he was sending them

Tomb of Clem

all to Civitavecchia that they might be under the pope's care, and he would allow them a maintenance of 100 piastres (i. e. Spanish dollars) a year — a main- tenance, however, which would be withdrawn for the whole body, should any one of them venture at any time to write anything in self-defence or in criticism of the motives for the e.xpuLsion. The pope wrote back on 16 April a very touching letter in which he declared that this was the cruellest blow of all to his paternal heart, beseeching the king to see that if any were accused they should not be condemned without proper trial, and assuring him that the charges cur- rent against the institute and the whole body of its members were misrepresentations due to the malice of the Church's enemies. But nothing could be ex- tracted from the king, and it is now known that this idea of a royal secret was merely a pretext de- vised in order to prevent the Holy See from having any say in the matter.

Foreseeing the difficulty of so large an influx of expelled religious into his states, Clement felt com- pelled to refuse them permission to land, and after various wanderings they had to settle downi in Cor- sica, where they were joined by their brethren who had been similarly sent away from Spanish America. When, a year and a half later, they were forced to move again, the pope's compassion overcame his administrative prudence, and he permitted them to