Part 6

In expectation of this disaster of the monastick communities and the happiness of the state, let us continue and finish the account of the annihilation of the Jesuits. In spite of the war declared against the society by the magistrates, those fathers did not think their destruction unavoidable: the parliament of Paris, which had given them the first blow, had assigned them a year to judge of their institution: the party which desired their ruin, blind with hatred, and knowing neither the laws nor its forms, reproached the parliament with having granted them so long a term: they were afraid, that the friends which they had still left at court, would obtain from the king an evocation to himself alone of the judgement of this affair. These apprehensions appeared so much the better founded, as, in the interval of the time assigned for judgement, they had again received from court pretty striking marks of protection. The parliament, by the arrêt of the 6th of August, 1761, which adjourned them to appear at the end of the year for the judgement of their constitutions, had ordained provisionally the shutting up of their college on the first of October following: the king, notwithstanding the representations of the parliament, prorogued this time till the 1st of April; and this prorogation made it be apprehended, that they might obtain marks of favour still more signal. Nobody moreover could imagine that a society, lately so powerful, could ever be annihilated: their very enemies dared not flatter themselves with it fully; but they wished at least to deprive them, if it were possible, of the two principal branches of their credit, the place of confessor to their kings, and the education of the gentry.

The king, in the midst of all these proceedings, had consulted, on the institutes of the Jesuits, the bishops who were in Paris: about forty among them, either through persuasion or policy, had bestowed the greatest encomiums, both upon the institute and the society: six were of opinion, that their constitutions should be modified in certain respects: one alone, the bishop of Soissons, declared the institute and the order alike detestable. It was pretended that this prelate (so severe, or so honest) had personal and very grievous subjects of complaint against the Jesuits, who, on a delicate occasion, had deceived, exposed, and sacrificed him. Besides resentment, as they said, and that he wanted to avenge himself of them, this bishop was become Jansenist, and declared chief of a party, which had no longer a head, and was soon to have no members. Unhappily for the Jesuits, the prelate, whom they sought to cry down, was of an unblemished reputation in point of religion, probity, and manners: he affirmed, without disguise, that the parliaments were in the right, and that they could not too effectually get rid of a society, equally destructive to religion and to the state.

Nevertheless, a plurality of the bishops being favourable to the preservation of the Jesuits, the king, in order to show deference to their opinion, issued an edict, the object of which was to suffer them to subsist, modifying, in several respects, their constitutions. This edict being carried to the parliament to be registered, met there a general opposition: they made strong remonstrances against it; and these remonstrances had more success than the parliament itself could have expected. The king, without making any reply to them, withdrew his edict.

In this situation, Martinico, which had already been so fatal to these fathers, by occasioning the law-suit which they had lost, hastened, it is said, their ruin, by a singular circumstance. We received, at the end of March, 1762, the melancholy news of the taking of that colony. This capture, so important to the English, occasioned a loss of several millions to our commerce: the wisdom of the government was desirous of preventing the complaints which so great a loss would occasion to the publick. They bethought them, by way of causing a diversion, of furnishing the French with another subject of conversation; as heretofore Alcibiades thought of cutting off his dog’s tail, in order to prevent the Athenians from talking of weightier matters. They declared then to the principal of the college of the Jesuits, that nothing more remained for them but to obey the parliament, and to put a stop to their lectures, by the 1st of April, 1762. From that time the colleges were shut up, and the society began seriously to despair of its fortune: at length the 6th of August, 1762, the day so wished for by the publick, arrived: the institute was unanimously condemned by the parliament, without any opposition on the part of the sovereign: their vows were declared not binding, the Jesuits secularised and dissolved, their effects alienated and sold; the greater part of the parliaments, sooner or later, treated them pretty nearly in the same manner; some mingled still more rigour in their judgements, and drove them away without other form of process.

They lived therefore dispersed here and there, and wearing the secular habit; but they remained still about the court, and were even in greater numbers there than ever: they seemed there to brave in silence their enemies, and to wait, in order to recover themselves, a more favourable season. It was said pretty loudly, that these foxes were not destroyed, if they proceeded not at last to shut them up in the hole where they thought themselves secure; and that they were not martyrs so long as they were confessors. “They are very sick;” it was added, “perhaps dieing, but their pulse yet beats.” They were thought to be so little annihilated, notwithstanding their dispersion, that a superior of a seminary, to whom their house for novices was offered, replied, that he would not accept of it, out of fear of _spirits_.

They were not however very far distant from the moment of their total expulsion; and it was again to the inconsiderate zeal of their friends that they owed this obligation. A frantick partisan of the society published, in their defence, a violent treatise, abusing the magistrates, entitled, _It is Time to Speak_. Somebody said then, that the magistrates answer should be, _It is Time to Depart_. Such person was so much the less mistaken, as a new subject of complaint succeeded, to fill up the measure of these proceedings. The arch-bishop, of whom we have already made such frequent mention, thought the rights of the church violated by the arrêts of parliament, against vows contracted before the altars: he issued, in favour of the Jesuits, a mandate, which served completely to set the magistrates against them; some of these fathers were accused of having hawked about the mandate; some of their votaries, of having vended it: this was, as it were, the signal of the last blow given to the whole body. The parliament ordered, that within the space of eight days, every Jesuit, professed or not professed, who was desirous of remaining in the kingdom, should make oath that he renounced the institution. The term was short; they did not choose to give them time to deliberate: it was feared they might hold secret assemblies among themselves; that they might write to their general to beg his leave to give way to the times; that by favour of _mental restrictions_, they might take the oath which was required; that under the cover of this oath they might remain in France, in order to wait there a more favourable juncture; that they might practise at last the maxim of Acomat in Bajazet:

Promettez; affranchi du péril qui vous presse, Vous verrez de quel poids sera votre promesse.

It is certain that the Jesuits, in signing the oath which was proposed, would have greatly embarrassed the Jansenists their enemies, who sought only a pretext to get them banished, and to whom that pretext would have been wanting. It is certain moreover, that as Frenchmen and as Christians they might have signed conscientiously what was required of them: this a writer, by no means well affected in other respects to the society, has proved demonstratively, by a writing which has fallen into my hands, and which will be found in the sequel of this history: but whether it was fanaticism or reason, whether a principle of conscience or human respect, whether honour or obstinacy, the Jesuits did not what they might have done, and what it was feared they would do. These men, who were thought so much disposed to trifle with religion, and who had been represented as such in a multitude of writings, refused almost all to take the oath which was required of them: in consequence thereof they had orders to quit the kingdom; and these orders were executed with rigour. In vain several of them represented their age, their infirmities, the services which they had performed; hardly one of their requests was granted. The justice which had been done on the body, was pushed against individuals to an extreme severity, which probably was thought necessary. They wanted to take away from this society, the very shadow of which seemed to terrify even after it no longer existed, all means of springing up again one day; sentiments of compassion were sacrificed to what was deemed reason of state. Nevertheless the implacable Jansenists, irritated by the very recent remembrance of the persecutions which the Jesuits had made them undergo, thought that the parliament had not yet done enough: they resembled the Swiss Captain, who ordered the dead and the dying to be buried together on the field of battle: it was represented to him, that some of the interred still breathed, and begged only to live: “Pho,” said he, “if we were to mind them, there would not be a dead man among them.”

It is certain that the greater part of the Jesuits, those who in that society (as elsewhere) interfere with nothing, and who are much more numerous among them than is imagined, ought not, had it been possible, to have been punished for the faults of their superiors: thousands of these innocents were confounded unwillingly with a score of criminals: nay, further, these innocents were unhappily the only persons punished, and the only ones to be pitied; for the leaders had obtained, by their interest, pensions which they could enjoy at their ease, while the multitude sacrificed remained without bread as well as without support. All that could be alledged in favour of the general decree of expulsion pronounced against these fathers, was the famous passage of Tacitus, relative to that law of the Romans, which condemned to death all the slaves in a house for the crime of a single one: _habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum_; “every great example has somewhat unjust in it.” Thus, in the destruction of the Templars, a great number of innocents fell victims to the pride and insolent riches of their chiefs: and thus the disorders, of which the Templars were accused, were not the only cause of their destruction; their principal crime was that of having rendered themselves odious and formidable. Posterity will think the same of the judgement issued against the Jesuits, and of the exile to which they have been condemned: they will deem it perhaps severe, at least in appearance, but perhaps also will judge it indispensible: this time alone can decide.

For the rest, independently of the natural compassion which the aged Jesuits, or those sick, and without resource, seemed to claim, and who after all are men, one would think a distinction might have been made, in the oath which was required, between the professed Jesuits and those who were not so, between those who had already renounced the institution and those who adhered to it still, without being absolutely tied to it. Allow the oath to have been required from the professed Jesuits, whom they wanted to get rid of, such a precaution might have been thought necessary: but was it necessary to require anything more of the Jesuits who were not professed, than a simple promise that they would not bind themselves to the institution, or any thing else of the ex-Jesuits, than a bare declaration that they had renounced it? The contrary conduct which was observed, might have preserved to the society subjects who were disposed to quit it, and who were deprived of every other resource: this rigour also might restore to the order, members which it had already lost.

In proposing these reflexions, I am very far from disapproving of the conduct of the magistrates; who for just reasons, without doubt, thought it their duty to act otherwise: it is proper however to remark, that several parliaments have thought it their duty, on their parts, to observe a contrary conduct; after having dissolved the institution, they have left the dispersed Jesuits all the rights of subjects: but is it not to be feared, said they, that by preserving them thus in more than one half of the kingdom, they have left to these men, who are thought so turbulent, a means of forming intrigues, so much the more dangerous as they are concealed? Once more, time alone can inform us which of the judges have taken the best method in this affair; whether the one have not been too rigorous, and whether the others, in wanting to be less so, have not buried the fire under the ashes.

Some parliaments besides had pronounced no sentence against the institution; and the Jesuits subsisted still entire in one part of France. There was room to apprehend, that at the first signal of rallying, the _dispersed_ party, suddenly joining the party _united_, might form a new society, even before any should be in a condition to oppose it. The wisdom, and the honour also, of government, seemed to require, that the law, with regard to the Jesuits, whatever it was, should be uniform throughout the kingdom. These views seem to have dictated the edict, by which the king has just abolished the society throughout all France; but permitting, in other respects, its members to live quietly in their country, under the eye and under the protection of the laws. May these pacifick intentions of our august monarch be crowned with the success which they merit!

It was without doubt the better to fulfill these respectable intentions, that the parliament of Paris, on registering this new edict, ordained the Jesuits to reside each in his own diocese, and to present themselves every six months before the magistrates of the place in which they shall dwell. We know not whether the Jesuits, who are already withdrawn into foreign countries, will think proper to submit to this constraint. The same arrêt forbids them to come within ten leagues of Paris, which banishes them at least six leagues from Versailles, but prohibits them not from dwelling at Fontainbleau and Compiegne, where the court resides at least three months in the year. It was thought, perhaps, that during so short a space of time, their intrigues at court would not be to be dreaded.

On banishing the Jesuits by its first arrêt, the parliament of Paris had assigned them pensions for their subsistence: this mitigation to their exile appeared to many people a contradiction. Wherefore, said they, facilitate a retreat into foreign countries to subjects reputed dangerous, apostles of regicide, enemies of the state, and who, by refusing to renounce the society, prefer their Italian general to their lawful sovereign? There is no cause, however, for blaming with severity this apparent contradiction; though we should disapprove, in logical rigour, of what it is not our province to decide upon, we ought still more to excuse it, on account of the law of nature which existed before there were Jansenists and Jesuits. Those who have hampered themselves in the institution of the society, did it altogether under the protection of the publick faith and the laws: if they have refused to renounce it, it may be thro’ a delicacy of conscience ever to be respected, even in men who are wrong. On sacrificing them to the necessity which was thought indispensible, of no longer permitting Jesuits in France, it would have been inhuman to deprive them of the necessaries of life, and to forbid them even the air which they breathe. As to the rest, these reflexions, whether well or ill founded, have no longer place, from the moment that the Jesuits are permitted, without requiring any thing of them, to remain in the kingdom: after having deprived the society of its effects, it is right to furnish its members with the means of subsisting, inasmuch as it is thought possible, without inconvenience, to restore them to the state to which they belong.

Let us not forget, before we conclude this narrative, a singular circumstance, extremely proper to shew, in its true point of view, the pretended concern for religion, with which several of its ministers seek to bedeck themselves. Some bishops, who reside in their dioceses, joined themselves, by their mandates, to the archbishop, defender of the Jesuits: other bishops (who reside not) were ready to join themselves also. The parliament made a shew of wanting to renew, and causing to be observed with rigour, the ancient laws respecting residence: these bishops then were silent, and their menacing zeal expired on their lips. Disconcerted and humbled at their impotence against the enemies of the Jesuits, they will seek perhaps to indemnify themselves, by falling upon the philosophers, whom they accuse, very unjustly, of having communicated to the parliament of Paris their pretended liberty of thinking: even already some of these prelates, we are assured, have taken this sad and feeble revenge; like that wretch, on whom, as he was passing, a tile fell from the top of a house, the roof of which was repairing; and who, to revenge himself, threw stones up to the first story, not having strength, as he said, to throw them higher.

Such has been in this kingdom the fate of the Jesuits: the circumstances of their destruction have been very strange in all respects; the storm began at a place where it was expected the least, in Portugal, the most addicted of all the countries of Europe to priests and monks, which appeared not formed for delivering itself so speedily from the Jesuits, and still less to set in that respect the example; their annihilation in France was prepared by the rigour which they assumed in spite of themselves; lastly, it was consummated by a dying and abject sect, which has finished, against all expectation, what an Arnauld, a Paschal, and a Nicole, would neither have been able to execute, nor attempt, nor even to hope. What more striking example of that inconceivable fatality which seems to preside over human affairs, and to bring them, when we expect it least, to the point of maturity or destruction? It would make a fine chapter, to add to history the great events which have happened through slender causes.

A well-known writer, speaking in 1759, three years before the destruction of the Jesuits, of the two parties which divided the church of France, said of the most powerful party, “that it would cease soon to exist[17]:” some wanted to make these words pass for a prophecy; but as probably the writer aspires not to the honour of being a prophet, he will confess that on writing this sort of prediction, he was very far from suspecting it was so true. It was plainly seen, that the party till then oppressed began to gain ground; but nobody could foresee to what a degree it was to oppress, in its turn, that by which it had been till then kept under: fine matter to the enemies of the society, to enforce the validity of their ordinary commonplace sayings, on the Providence of God in support of what they call _the good cause_!

It is not less singular, that the French nation, at a time when she suffered her weakness to appear abroad, by an unsuccessful war, should have performed this act of vigour at home: it is true, that on reflexion we shall find perhaps, in the same principle, the cause of so much weakness without, and of such great strength, or, if you please, of such great fermentation within: but this political discussion would carry us too far, and is no part of our subject.

What is more singular still, is, that an undertaking, which would have been thought very difficult, and even impossible at the beginning of 1761, should have been accomplished in less than two years, without noise, without resistance, and with as little trouble as they would have had in destroying the Capuchins and the Pickpusses. We cannot say of the Jesuits that their death has been as brilliant as their life. Nay, if any thing ought to humble them, it is that they have perished so pitifully, so obscurely, without lustre and without glory. Nothing better discovers a real weakness, which had only the appearance of strength. The Jesuits will say, without doubt, that they have only executed, and wanted only to execute, literally the precept of the gospel; “When they persecute you in one city, fly into another.” But why, after having forgot this precept for two hundred years, have they remembered it so late?

Lastly, what will complete our astonishment is, that two or three men only, who would not have thought themselves destined to effect such a revolution, should have conceived and accomplished this great project: the general impulse given to the whole body of the magistracy was their work, and the fruit of their impetuous activity. Mankind indeed are seldom led by cold and calm spirits. Tranquill reason has not, of herself alone, the warmth so necessary to enforce her opinions, and make us enter into her views: she is content with instructing her age silently, and without bustle, and to become afterwards a mere spectatress of the effect, whether good or bad, which her lessons shall have produced. She resembles, if we may use the comparison, the “old man of the mountain,” at whose voice the young people, his disciples, ran to throw themselves over precipices, but who took care not to throw himself over.

It is true, that this small number of men, who set all the tribunals of the kingdom in motion against the Jesuits, found the nation favourably disposed for that fermentation, and eager to support it by its discourses. We say _by its discourses_; for in France all that the nation can do, is to speak, right or wrong, for or against, those who govern: but it must be confessed also, that the publick cry is there held in some account. Philosophy, against which the Jansenists had declared war almost as hot as against the company of Jesus, had made, in spite of them, and happily for them, sensible progresses. The Jesuits, intolerant by system and situation, were become by it only the more odious: they were considered, if I may so say, as the giants of fanaticism; as the most dangerous enemies of reason, and as those whom it imported most to get rid of. The parliaments, when they began to attack the society, found this disposition in all minds. It was properly philosophy, which by the mouth of the magistrates, issued the decree against the Jesuits: Jansenism was only the sollicitor in it. The nation, and the philosophers at its head, wished the annihilation of these fathers, because they are intolerant, persecutors, turbulent, and formidable: the Jansenists desired it, because the Jesuits maintain _versatile grace_, and themselves _efficacious grace_. But for this ridiculous scholastick dispute, and the fatal bull which was the fruit of it, the society would perhaps still exist, after having so often merited destruction, for causes somewhat more real and more weighty. But at last it is destroyed, and reason is avenged.

Qu’importe de quel bras Dieu daigne se servir?