The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Perhaps this treatment of the great Archbishop of Paris explains the silence maintained through all the uproar by the Jesuits themselves. One would expect some splendid outburst of eloquence in behalf of the Society from one of its outraged members; but not a word was uttered by any of them. Their protests would not have been printed or published. Even Theiner who wrote against the Society says: "All France was inundated with libellous pamphlets against the Jesuits. The most notable of all was the one entitled 'Extracts of the dangerous and pernicious doctrines of all kinds which the so-called Jesuits have at all times, uninterruptedly maintained, taught and published.' Calumny and malice fill the book from cover to cover. There is no crime which the Jesuits did not teach or of which they are not accused. Never was bad faith carried to such extremes. And yet there is no book that is so often cited as an authority against the Society and its spirit."

Meantime, the government had approached the Pope for the purpose of obtaining for the French Jesuits a special vicar who should be quasi-independent of the General. It was harking back to the old scheme of Philip II and Louis XIV. His Holiness replied in the memorable words: "Sint ut sunt aut non sint" (Let them be as they are or not at all.) We find in a letter of the procurator of Aquitaine that in case a vicar was appointed every member of the province of Paris would leave the Order, which under such an arrangement would be no longer the Society of Jesus. Again in his letter to the king, after declaring that the appointment of a French Vicar would be a substantial alteration of the Institute which he could not authorize, the Pope says: "For two hundred years the Society has been so useful to the Church, that, though it has never disturbed the public tranquillity either in your kingdom or in any one else's, yet because it has inflicted such damage on the enemies of religion by its science and its piety, it is assailed on all sides by calumny and imposture when fair fighting was found insufficient to destroy them." Finally, on January 9, 1765, after the final knell had sounded, Clement XIII issued his famous Bull "Apostolicum." It is given at length in de Ravignan's "Clément XIII et Clément XIV," but a few extracts will suffice.

After enumerating the glories of the Society in the past, and calling attention to the fact that it had been approved by nineteen Popes, who had most minutely examined their Institute, Clement XIII continues: "It has, nevertheless, in our days been falsely and malignantly described both by word and printed book as irreligious and impious, and has been covered with opprobrium and ignominy until even the Church has been denounced for sustaining it. In order, therefore, to repel these calumnies and to put a stop to the impious discourses which are uttered in defiance of both reason and equity; and to comfort the Regular Clerks of the Society of Jesus who appeal to us for justice; and to give greater emphasis to our words by the weight of our authority and to lend some solace in the sufferings they are undergoing; and finally to defer to the just desires of our venerable brothers, the bishops of the whole Catholic world, whose letters to us are filled with eulogies of this Society from whose labors the greatest services are rendered in their dioceses; and also of our own accord and from certain knowledge, and making use of the plenitude of our Apostolic authority, and following in the footsteps of our predecessors, we, by this present Constitution, which is to remain in force forever, say and declare in the same form and in the same manner as has been heretofore said and declared, that the Institute of the Society of Jesus breathes in the very highest degree, piety and holiness both in the principal object which it has continually in view, which is none other than the defence and propagation of the Catholic Faith, and also in the means it employs for that end. Such is our experience of it up to the present day. It is this experience which has taught us how greatly the rule of the Society has formed up to our day defenders of the orthodox Faith and zealous missionaries who animated by an invincible courage dare a thousand dangers on land and sea, to carry the light of the Gospel to savage and barbarous nations… Let no one dare be rash enough to set himself against this my present approbative and confirmative Constitution lest he incur the wrath of God."

These splendid approvals of their labors did much to keep up the courage of the harassed Jesuits, but if what Father de Ravignan and Crétineau-Joly relate be true, they had ample reason to keep themselves in a salutary humility or rather bow their heads in shame. On December 19, 1761, we are told, the provincial of Paris, Father de La Croix and one hundred and fifteen Fathers addressed a declaration to the clergy assembled in Paris, by order of the king, which ran as follows: "We the undersigned, provincial of the Jesuits of the province of Paris, the superior of the professed house, the rector of the College of Louis Le Grand, the superior of the novitiate and other Jesuits professed, even of the first vows, residing in the said houses, and renewing as far as needs be the declarations already made by the Jesuits of France in 1626, 1713 and 1757, declare before their Lordships the cardinals, archbishops and bishops now assembled in Paris, by order of the king, to give their opinion on several points of the Institute: (1) That it is impossible to be more submissive than we are, or more inviolably attached to the laws, maxims and usages of this kingdom with regard to the royal power, which in temporal matters depends neither directly nor indirectly from any power on earth, and has God alone above it. Recognizing that the bonds by which subjects are attached to their rulers are indissoluble, we condemn as pernicious and worthy of execration at all times every doctrine contrary to the safety of the king, not only in the works of some theologians of our Society who have adopted such doctrines but also those of every other theologian whosoever he may be. (2) We shall teach in our public and private lessons of theology the doctrine established by the Clergy of France in the Four Articles of the Assembly of 1682, and shall teach nothing contrary to it. (3) We recognize that the bishops of France have the right to exercise in our regard what, according to the canons of the Gallican Church, belongs to them in their dealings with regulars; and we renounce all the privileges to the contrary that may have been accorded to our Society or may be accorded in the future. (4) If, which may God forbid, it happens that we are ordered by our General to do anything contrary to the present declaration, persuaded as we are that we cannot obey without sin, we shall regard such orders as unlawful, and absolutely null and void; which we could not and should not obey in virtue of the rules of obedience to the General such as is prescribed in the Constitutions. We, therefore, beg that the present declaration may be placed on the official register of Paris, and addressed to the other provinces of the kingdom, so that this same declaration signed by us, being deposited in the official registers of each diocese may serve as a perpetual memorial of our fidelity.

Etienne de la Croix, Provincial."

Quoting this document and admitting its genuineness Father de Ravignan exclaims: "In my eyes nothing can excuse this act of weakness. I deplore it; I condemn it; I shall merely relate how it came to pass" (Clément XIII et Clément XIV, I 135). He goes on to say: —

"In a personal letter the original of which is in the archives of the Gesù at Rome, Father La Croix, provincial of Paris explains to the General the circumstances and occasion of this unfortunate affair. He tells how the royal commissioners came to him with the aforesaid declaration already drawn up and accompanied by a formal order of the king to sign it immediately. It was a most unforeseen demand, for although the Jesuits of France had already suffered considerable trouble about the question of the Four Articles in 1713, and also in 1757, when Damiens attempted to assassinate Louis XV, they had been compelled on both occasions to sign only the first article which dealt with the temporal independence of the king. Shortly afterwards, a new royal decree had been brought to their attention. It consisted of eighteen articles, the fourth of which was as follows: 'Our will is that in every theological course followed by the students of the Society, the propositions set forth by the Clergy of France in 1682, should be defended, at least in one public discussion, to which the principal personages of the place shall be invited, and over and above that, the arrangements laid down by the edict of March 1682 shall be observed.'

"While these matters were being debated by the king and his ministers on one side and by parliament on the other, a royal order was despatched to the Jesuits of Paris to affix their signatures to the disgraceful capitulation given above. It is said that Louis XV imagined that he could mollify the recalcitrant parliament by this new concession: and, hence, La Croix and his associates were foolish enough to imagine that such a result could ensue."

Continuing his indictment of La Croix and his one hundred and fifteen associates, de Ravignan informs his readers that "an unpublished document which no writer has so far made mention of, furnishes important details about the matter. It is entitled 'An exact relation of all that took place with regard to the interpretation of the decree of Aquaviva in 1610, which was sent to Rome in 1761 and rejected by the General; and also the declaration which the General refused to approve.' The author is M. de Flesselles, who was charged by the commission to report to Choiseul whose agent he was.

"With regard to the declaration about Gallicanism" says de Flesselles "the Jesuits, after some difficulties regarding its form, determined to sign it, and even when urged by the royal commissioners they undertook to send it to their General for approbation. Soon after, when the Jesuits received the reply of their General, the provincial came to tell me that when the Pope was made aware of the declaration which the French Jesuits had made and of the one they proposed to make, His Holiness angrily reprimanded the General for permitting the members of the Society in France to maintain doctrines which are in conflict with the teachings of the Holy See."

Now it is unpleasant to contest the authority of such an eminent man as de Ravignan, but, on the other hand, his conclusions that this letter was a Jesuit production or received a Jesuit endorsement are by no means convincing. In the first place, no Jesuit would ever sign a paper which began with the words: "We the Professed, even of the first vows." There is no such category in the Society. Secondly, no Jesuit or indeed any one in his senses would ever ask a superior for a permission to teach error, and say, in the same breath, that it was a matter of indifference whether the permission was granted or not. Thirdly, as all the Jesuits of the province had announced their intention of leaving the Society if Louis XV imposed on them a commissary General independent of their superior at Rome – as we recited above from an extant letter from the procurator of the province of Aquitaine – it is inconceivable that those same men, at that very same time should solemnly declare themselves rebels against the Father General at Rome. Fourthly, as no association rewards a man who attempts to destroy it, one finds difficulty in understanding how, after this revolt, the leader in the rebellion, La Croix, was not only not expelled from the Society but was retained in his responsible post of provincial and later was made assistant general of the Society.

Moreover, it is difficult to understand why, when de Flesselles says that "the Fathers determined to sign the document," de Ravignan should go one step further and say that "they signed it." Nor does it help matters to say that this was "un acte de faiblesse," when, it was a wholesale, corporate and deliberate crime of cowardice and treason; nor will it avail to suggest that the Pope and General must have been intensely, grieved – "Ils durent être amèrement affligés." History does not deal with conjectures but with facts. The question is not whether they must have been, but whether they were really grieved over an act which had really occurred and which reflected such discredit on the Society? Again, as one of the greatest glories of the French Jesuits was their long and successful battle against Gallicanism, it is inconceivable that they should suddenly reverse and stultify themselves at the very moment when all the bishops of France, save one, had abandoned Gallicanism and had united in eulogizing the Society; and to do it at a time when the greatest friend they ever had, Pope Clement XIII, glorified them for their orthodoxy and pronounced the famous words: "Let them be as they are or not at all!"

To have declared for Gallicanism would have stripped them of their priestly functions, it would have aroused the intense disgust and contempt of the hierarchy of France and of the world and would have called down on them the anathema of the Pope. Indeed, is it likely that Pope Clement XIV would have omitted to note the defection in his Brief of Suppression, if they had been guilty? Fortunately, we may refer to the explicit declaration of the Protestant historian, Schoell (Cours d'histoire, xl, 53), who says: "These men who are accused of playing with religion, refused to take the oath to sustain the principles of the Gallican Church. Of 4000 Fathers who were in France, hardly five submitted." If there were "hardly five" Gallicans in all the provinces of France, it is a justifiable conclusion that 116 Jesuits of the provinces of Paris did not sign the famous "Statement" of de Flesselles.

Louis XV made a feeble attempt to save the situation by withdrawing the decree of expulsion from the jurisdiction of parliament, but Mme. de Pompadour and Choiseul so effectively worked on his fears that he ignominiously rescinded his order. The Pope had meantime delivered an allocution in a consistory on September 3, 1762; and had sent a letter to Cardinal Choiseul, the brother of the minister, on September 8 of the same year, in both of which he declared that "by a solemn decree, he had quashed and nullified the proceedings of the various parliaments against the Jesuits." He enjoined upon the cardinal "to use all his episcopal power against the impious act which was directed against the Church and against religion." He wrote to other bishops in the same tone of indignation and anger. It was not, however, until the November of 1764 that Choiseul succeeded in extorting the royal signature which made the decree irrevocable. Of course, Mme. de Pompadour was to the fore in securing this shameful surrender of the royal prerogative. The poor king cuts a sorry figure in signing the document. After making some feeble scrawls on the paper, he complained that the preamble was too long and that it would have sufficed to state that "the Jesuits had produced a great tumult in his kingdom." He added he did not think the word "punish" should be used; it was too strong; "he never cordially liked the Jesuits, yet they had the glory of being hated by all heretics… I send them out of my kingdom against my will; at least, I don't want people to think that I agree with everything the parliament said or did against them." He ended by saying: "If you do not make these changes, I will not sign, but I must stop talking. I would say too much and I do not want anyone in France to discuss it." One could hardly say of Louis that "he was every inch a king."

The desire to close the mouths of every one of his subjects on a matter that concerned them all as intelligent beings and as citizens was carried out with extreme rigor. Thus, when two secular priests had the temerity to condemn the decree, they were promptly hanged. The audacity of the ministers and parliament went still further; and on December 3 the Duke de Praslin sent a note to Aubeterre, the French ambassador at Rome to advise him that "under the circumstances, it would be very futile and still more dangerous for the Pope to take any measures either directly or indirectly in contravention of the wishes and intention of his majesty; and hence His Holiness must, out of zeal for religion and out of regard for the Jesuits, observe the same silence which His Majesty had ordered to be observed in his states." The Pope replied to the insult by the Bull "Apostolicum," which was a splendid proclamation of the absolute innocence of the proscribed Order. It aroused the fury of the Governments of France, Portugal, Naples and other countries. In France it was burned in the streets of several cities by the public executioner. In Portugal, any one who circulated it or had it in his possession was adjudged guilty of high treason; but on the other hand, from the bishops of the entire Catholic world came enthusiastic letters of approval and praise for the fearless Pope who dared to stand forth as the enemy of tyranny and injustice.

Böhmer-Monod, in their "Jésuites," are of the opinion that the Pope was "injudicious, and that out of the hundreds of Catholic bishops, only twenty-three assured him of their approbation." De Ravignan, who is better informed, tells us that "almost the whole episcopacy of the world were a unit in this manifestation of loyalty to the supreme Pastor." Before the event, two hundred bishops had sent their appeals to the Pope, in favor of the Society; and the Pope himself says in the Bull: "Ex omni regione sub cœlo est una vox omnium episcoporum" (From every region under the canopy of heaven, there is but one voice from the episcopal body). After the Bull appeared, other bishops hastened to send him their adhesions and felicitations. Even in France itself, in spite of the terrorism exercised by parliament, the assembly of the clergy of 1765, by a unanimous vote, protested against the condemnation of the Jesuits, extolled "the integrity of their morals, the austerity of their lives, the greatness of their labors and science"; and declared that their expulsion left a frightful void in the ministry, in education, and in the sublime and laborious work of the missions. Not only that, but they wanted it put on record that "the clergy would never cease to pray for the re-establishment of the Order and would lay that plea at the feet of the king."

The exiles lingered for a while in various parts of France; for some of the divisional parliaments were not at one with Paris in their opposition to the Society. Indeed, in many of them, the proscription was voted only by a small majority. Thus at Rennes, there was a majority of three; at Toulouse two; at Perpignan one; at Bordeaux five; at Aix two; while Besançon, Alsace, Flanders and Artois and Lorraine pronounced in their favor and proclaimed "the sons of St. Ignatius as the most faithful subjects of the King of France and the surest guarantees of the morality of the people." On the other hand, Brittany, the country of Chalotais, author of the "Extraits," was especially rancorous in its hate. Thus, it voted to deprive of all civil and municipal functions those parents who would send their children abroad to Jesuit schools; and the children on their return home were to be punished in a similar fashion. The Fathers lingered for a few years here and there in their native country employed in various occupations; but in 1767 a decree was issued expelling them all from the territory of France.

An interesting manifestation of affection by the pupils of St. Omers for their persecuted masters occurred when the parliament of Paris issued its order of expulsion in 1767. St. Omers was founded by Father Persons in 1592 or 1593. It was not for ecclesiastics as were the colleges of Douai, Rome and Valladolid, but to give English boys an education which they could not get in their own country. It was twenty-four miles from Calais and in territory which at that time belonged to the King of Spain. Shortly after its transfer from Eu in Normandy where an attempt had been made to start it, there were one hundred boys on its register and, thirty years later, the number had doubled. For years it was a favorite school for English Catholics and it rejoices in having had twenty of its students die for the Faith. It continued its work for a century and a half. When the expulsion of the Jesuits left the college without teachers it was handed over to the secular clergy, but when they arrived there were no boys. They had all decamped for Bruges in Belgium, and there the classes continued until the general suppression of the Society in 1773. Even after that, the English ex-Jesuits kept the college going until 1794, when the French Revolution put an end to it. By that time, however, one of the former students, Mr. Thomas Weld, had established the Fathers on his property at Stonyhurst in England, so that St. Omers and Stonyhurst are mother and daughter.

The buildings and land at St. Omers were handed over by the French government to the English secular priests, who were at Douai. Alban Butler, the author of the "Lives of the Saints," was its president from 1766 to 1773. At present a military hospital occupies the site.

In Louisiana, which still owed allegiance to France, the dismissal of the Fathers was particularly disgraceful. For no sooner had the news of Choiseul's exploit in the mother-country arrived than the superior council of Louisiana set to work. "This insignificant body of provincial officers" as Shea calls them (I, 587), "issued a decree declaring the Society to be dangerous to the royal authority, to the rights of bishops, to the public peace of society" and pronounced their vows to be null and void. These judges in matters ecclesiastical, it should be noted, were all laymen. They ordered all the property to be seized and sold at auction, though personal books and clothes were exempted. The name and habit of the Society were forbidden; the vestments and plate of the chapel at New Orleans were given by the authorities to the Capuchins; but all the Jesuit churches in Louisiana and Illinois were ordered to be levelled to the ground. Every Jesuit was to embark on the first ship that set sail for France; and arriving there, he was to report to Choiseul. Each one was given about $420 – to pay for his passage and six month's subsistence.

There was a deviation in some cases about going to France, for Father Carette was sent to San Domingo; and Father Le Roy made his way to Mexico. A difficulty arose about Father Beaudoin, who was a Canadian. Why should he be sent to France where he had no friends? Besides, his health was shattered by his privations on the missions, and he was at that time seventy-two years old. He was to go to France, however, but just as he was about to be dragged to the ship a wealthy friend interceded for him and gave him a home. Another Father in Alabama did not hear of the order for several months; and when at last he made his appearance in New Orleans, he was arrested like a criminal and packed off to France.

On September 22, a courier reached Fort Chartres, which was on English territory; and in spite of the danger of embroiling the government, Father Watron who was then sixty-seven years old was expelled, and with him his two fellow missionaries. The official from Louisiana gave the vestments to negro wenches and the altar-plate and candelabra were soon found in houses of ill-fame. The chapel was then sold on condition that the purchaser should demolish it. At Vincennes, the same outrages were perpetrated and Father Duvernay, who had been for six months confined to his bed, was carried off with the others to New Orleans and despatched to France. Two only were allowed to remain, owing to the entreaties and protests of friends. One of the exiles was Father Viel, who was a Louisianian by birth. The most conspicuous personage enforcing this expulsion was a certain Lafrenière, but he soon met his punishment. In 1766 Louis XV made a gift of the entire province to his cousin of Spain, and when Count Alexander O'Reilly was sent out with three thousand soldiers to quell the disturbance that ensued, Lafrenière and three associates were taken into the back yard of the barracks and shot to death. Others were sent in chains to Havana.

Thus the Suppression of the Society in France was not carried out with the same brutality as in Portugal. There were no prisons, or chains, or deportation, and they had not the glory of suffering martyrdom. They were merely stripped of all they had and told to go where they wished. Whether they lived or died was a matter of unconcern to the government. It was merely a difference of methods; but both were equally effective. The Portuguese Jesuits were scourged; their French brethren were sneered at. Perhaps the latter was harder to bear.