Part 7

To these reflexions we may join another no less important, and formed to serve as a lesson to all religious orders, which may be tempted to imitate the Jesuits. If those fathers had been prudent enough to confine the credit of the society to what it might draw from the sciences and letters, that credit would have been more solid, less envied, and more durable. It was the spirit of intrigue and ambition which they displayed, the oppressions which they exercised; in one word, their enormous power (or what was thought such) and, above all, the insolence which they joined to it, that ruined them. There is no believing to what a height they had carried their audaciousness lately: the following is a pretty recent stroke, which will make them thoroughly known.

Benedict XIV. at the beginning of his pontificate, accepted the dedication of a work, which father Norbert the Capuchin had composed against the Jesuits; for they were come to that pass, as to arm even the Capuchins against them: _Tu quoque Brute_[18]! cried a famous satyrist on this occasion. The pope thought he might permit Norbert to remain at Rome under his protection. He had not the power to do it: the Jesuits took their measures so well, that in the end they drove the Capuchin not only out of the pope’s territories, but even out of all the Catholick states: he was obliged to fly to London, and found not till 1759 an asylum in Portugal, when the society were driven from thence: he had the satisfaction, as he tells us himself, to assist at the execution of Malagrida, and to say mass for the repose of his soul, while they finished burning his body.

The persecution, so rancorously carried on by the Jesuits against this monk, who was protected by Benedict XIV. had greatly irritated that pope against them; he omitted no opportunity of giving them, on all occasions, disgust, whenever it was in his power. The Jansenists even doubt not but, if he had lived, he would have availed himself of the circumstance of their destruction in Portugal and France, to annihilate the society: but whatever they may say, it is not probable that a pope, be he what he will, should ever forget so far his own true interests. The Jesuits are the sovereign Pontif’s Janissaries, formidable sometimes to their master, like those of the Ottoman Porte, but necessary like them to the support of the empire. It is the interest of the court of Rome to curb and to preserve them: Benedict XIV. had too much sense not to think so. The Czar Peter, it is true, broke at one time 40,000 Strelitzes, who had revolted, though they were his best soldiers: but the Czar had twenty millions of subjects, and could recruit them with other Strelitzes; whereas the Pope, whose whole power is supported only by the spiritual army under his command, would not be able easily to recruit it with such soldiers as the Jesuits, so well disciplined, so devoted to the church of Rome, and so formidable to the enemies of the sovereign Pontif.

It may be asserted with truth, that Pope Benedict XIV. would have acted better on such an occasion than his successor Clement XIII. He would not, like the latter, have written to a king, who did him the honour of consulting him, “that the Jesuits must remain as they were:” he would have returned an equivocal answer, as he did on occasion of the refusal of the sacraments to the Jansenists; he would have gained time; he would have granted the parliaments some modifications in regard to the institution (at least with respect to the French Jesuits); he would have flattered and engaged the Jansenists, by some bull, in favour of _efficacious grace_: in short, he would have deadened or weakened the blows that were aimed at his regiment of guards. But it looks as if, in this affair, the Jesuits and their friends had been seized with a fit of giddiness, and that they did themselves all that was necessary to accelerate their ruin: they shewed themselves, for the first time, inflexible in a matter, where it was of the highest importance to them not to be so: they caballed in secret, and talked openly at court against their enemies: they cried out, that religion was undone, if we parted with them; that we drove them away only to establish in France incredulity and heresy: and by these means they cast oil on the fire, instead of extinguishing it. It looks as if the Jansenists had put up to God, for the destruction of the society, the following prayer of Joad in Athalia.

Daigne, daigne, grand Dieu, sur _son chef_ & sur elle Répandre cet esprit d’imprudence & d’erreur, De _leur destruction_ funeste avant-coureur.

Accordingly the Jansenists strongly assured us in their bigotted language, that the _finger of God_ was manifest on all parts in this affair: “Alas!” replied a quondam Jesuit, seemingly consoled at being no longer of the order, “you may say, all his four fingers, and the thumb too!”

Thus then was this famous society cut off from amidst us; heaven grant that it may be without return, were it only for the sake of peace, and that we may at last be able to say, _hic jacet_. Its best friends (we are not afraid to assert it) are too good subjects to think the contrary: the re-establishment of this turbulent, irritated, and fanatical society, would do more hurt to the state, than it could, in the opinion even of its own partisans, do good to the church. This event (if Providence please to make it durable) will form not only an epoch, but, according to many people, a true chronological æra in the history of religion: dates will be reckoned henceforth in that history from the _Jesuitical Hegira_[19], at least in Portugal and in France; and the Jansenists hope, that this new _ecclesiastical computation_ will not be long before it be admitted into other Catholic countries. This is the end of those fervent prayers which they put up to God for the greatest good of their enemies, and for bringing about “the return of the society to itself.”

Nothing will be, without doubt, more advantageous and more pleasing to them. It is well known that every Jansenist, provided he can say, with the savages in Candide, “Let us have a slice of the Jesuit,” will be at the summit of his happiness and joy: but it remains to know what profit reason (which is full as good as Jansenism) will derive at last from a proscription so greatly desired. I say _reason_, and not _irreligion_: this is a precaution necessary to be taken; for the theology of the Jansenists is, as we have seen, so reasonable, that they are apt to consider the words _reason_ and _irreligion_ as synonimous. It is certain that the annihilation of the society may be productive of great advantages to reason, provided the intolerant spirit of Jansenism succeed not in credit to Jesuitical intolerance; for we are not afraid to say that, between these two sects, both which are wicked and pernicious, if we were obliged to choose, and supposing them to be invested with the same degree of power, the society, which has just been expelled, would be still the least tyrannical. The Jesuits, a complaisant set of people, provided we declare ourselves not their enemies, give sufficient permission to think as we please. The Jansenists, devoid of consideration as well as abilities, will have us think just as they do: if they were masters, they would exercise over our writings, over our understandings, over our discourses, the most violent inquisition. Happily it is not much to be feared, that they will ever acquire much credit: the rigor which they profess will not make its way at court, where folks are very desirous of being Christians, but on condition that it cost them little; and their doctrine of Predestination and Grace is too harsh and too absurd not to shock their minds. Let foreigners reproach France as much as they will (it is of small importance) on the little concern she seems to take in her national theatre, so esteemed throughout all Europe, and on the distinguished favour which she bestows on her musick, though despised by all nations: those foreigners, envious of us and our enemies, will not surely ever have the melancholy advantage of reproaching our government with a more material fault, that of taking, for the object of its protection, men without talents, without understanding, unknowing and unknown; after having heretofore carried, on a violent persecution against the illustrious and respectable fathers of so pitiful a posterity. Furthermore, the nation, which begins now to be enlightened, will probably grow enlightened more and more. Disputes concerning religion will be despised, and fanaticism will be held in horror. The magistrates, who proscribed the fanaticism of the Jesuits, are men of too much understanding, too good subjects, too much fitted for the age they live in, to suffer another fanaticism to succeed it: even already some of them (among others Mr. de la Chalotais) have explained themselves so openly as to displease the Jansenists, and to merit the honour of being placed by them in the rank of philosophers. That sect seems to say like God, whose language it so often and so abusively makes use of, “He that is not for me is against me:” but it will not thereby make the more proselytes. The Jesuits were regular troops, bred and disciplined under the standard of superstition: they were the Macedonian phalanx, which it imported reason to see broken and destroyed. The Jansenists are only Cossacks and Pandours, of whom reason will have a cheap conquest, seeing they will fight singly and dispersed. In vain will they cry out as usual, that it is sufficient to shew an attachment to religion, to be reviled by _modern philosophers_. It will be replied to them, that Paschal, Nicole, Bossuet, and the writers of the Port-Royal, were attached to religion; and that there is not one _modern philosopher_ (at least, one worthy of that name) who does not revere and honour them. In vain will they imagine, that because they succeeded to the Jansenism of Port-Royal, they are to succeed also to the respect which it enjoyed: it is as if the valets de chambre of a great lord should want to make themselves be styled his heirs, because they inherited a few of his cast clothes. Jansenism, in the Port-Royal, was a blemish which it effaced by great merit: in its pretended successors it is their sole existence; and what, in the age wherein we live, is an existence so poor and ridiculous?

Accordingly it need not be doubted but the destruction of their enemies will soon bring on theirs, not with violence, but by slow degrees, by insensible transpiration, and through a necessary consequence of the contempt with which that sect inspires all sensible people. The Jesuits, driven out by them, and dragging them along with themselves in their fall, may put up, from this instant, to their founder St. Ignatius, the following prayer for their enemies, “Father, pardon them, for they know not what they do.”

To speak seriously, and without circumlocution, it is time that the laws should lend reason their aid for the annihilation of that party-spirit, which has so long disturbed the kingdom with ridiculous controversies; controversies, we are not afraid to assert it, more fatal to the state than infidelity itself, when it seeks not to make proselytes. A great prince, it is said, reproached one of his officers with being a Jansenist or Molinist, I know not which: they told him he was mistaken, for that the officer was an Atheist: “If he be only an Atheist,” replied the prince, “that is another affair, and I have nothing to say to it.” This answer, which some have wanted to turn into ridicule, was however extremely wise: the prince, as head of the state, has nothing to fear from an Atheist, who is silent, and dogmatizes not. Such a wretch, while extremely culpable in the eyes of God and of reason, is hurtful only to himself, and not to others: the party-man, the disputant, disturbs society by his idle controversies. In this case that law of Solon prevails not, by which all who took not some side in the troubles of the state were declared infamous. That great legislator was too knowing to rank in this number the controversies concerning religion, so ill calculated to interest good subjects; he would rather have made it an honour to shun and to despise them.

Our gloomy theological quarrels confine not to the limits of the kingdom the injury and hurt they do us: they debase, in the eyes of Europe, our nation, already too much humiliated by her misfortunes: they make strangers, and even the Italians, say, “that the French know not how to be warm, excepting for billets of confession, or for buffoons, for the bull Unigenitus, or for the comick opera[20].” Such is the very unjust idea which a handfull of fanaticks give to all Europe of the French nation, at a time nevertheless when the truely estimable part of that nation are more enlightened than ever, more taken up about useful objects, and fuller of contempt for the follies and the men that disgrace it.

It is not only the honour of France which is interested in the annihilation of these vain disputes; the honour of religion is still more concerned in it, on account of the obstacles which they oppose to the conversion of unbelievers. I will suppose that one of those men, who have had the misfortune, in our times, to attack religion in their writings, and against whom the Jesuits and the Jansenists have equally exerted themselves, should address at the same time the two most intrepid theologists of each party, and speak to them thus: “You are right, gentlemen, to cry out shame against me, and it is my intention to repair it. Dictate to me then in concert a confession of faith proper for the purpose, and which may reconcile me first with God, and afterwards with every one of you.” On the very first article of the creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” he would infallibly set by the ears the two Catechists, by asking them if God is equally powerful over the heart and over the body? “Without doubt,” the Jansenist would aver: “Not quite so,” the Jesuit would mutter. “You are a blasphemer,” the former would cry; “And you,” would reply the second, “a destroyer of the freedom and the merit of good works.” Both addressing themselves afterward to their proselyte, would say to him, “Ah, Sir, infidelity is still better than the abominable doctrine of my adversary: beware of confiding your soul to such bad hands. If the blind,” says the Gospel, “lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch.” It must be owned, that the blind infidel would find himself a little embarrassed between two men, who offer each to serve him as guide, and yet mutually charge each other with being blinder than him. “Gentlemen,” would he say to them, without doubt, “I thank you both for your charitable offers: God has given me, to conduct me in the dark, a staff, which is reason, and which you say will lead me to the faith: well, I will make use of this salutary staff, and I will draw from it more utility than from you two.”

Nothing more remains then to government and the magistrates, for the honour of religion and the state, than to repress, and render alike contemptible, both parties. We say it with so much the more confidence, as nobody calls in doubt the impartiality of the wise depositaries of justice, and the hearty contempt which they have for these absurd contests, the dangerous effects of which their office has required them to prevent. With what satisfaction will wise and enlightened subjects see them complete their work? Ought not the Jansenist Gazetteer and the Convulsionaries[21] to expect from them, on the first occasion, the same treatment as the Jesuits; with this difference, however, which we are to put (in point of honour) between the punishment of a revolted noblesse, and that of a turbulent populace? The Jesuits uttered their dangerous maxims in open day: the Convulsionaries and the Jansenist Gazetteer preach and print their extravagancies in the dark. The obscurity alone with which these wretches envelope themselves, can shield them from the fate which they merit: perhaps also there needs to destroy them only to drag them out of that obscurity, only to order the Convulsionaries (under pain of whipping) to exhibit their disgusting farces, not in a garret, but in a fair, for money, among dancers on the rope, and players with cups and balls, who will soon bring them down: and as to the Jansenist Gazetteer (under pain of being led through the streets upon an ass) of printing his dull libel not in his garret, but at an authorised bookseller’s, at the publisher’s, for example, of the _Christian Journal_, so widely circulated, and so deserving of being so. Convulsionaries and gazetteers will vanish, the moment in which they shall have lost the little merit which remains to them, that of _clandestineness_. In a very short time the name of the Jansenists will be forgotten, as that of their adversaries is proscribed; the destruction of the one, and the disappearance of the others, will leave no longer any trace to recollect them by: this event, like those which have preceded it, will be effaced and buried by those which shall follow; and nothing at most will remain of it but that French witticism, that the chief of the Jesuits is a broken captain, who has lost his company.

To conclude, we shall observe that the title of _Society of Jesus_ is still one of the reproaches which the Jansenists cast on the Jesuits, as a too proud denomination; by which they seemed to attribute to themselves alone the quality of Christians: this is a pretty slight subject of quarrel, and proves only what we have already said, that hatred has formed weapons of every thing to attack them. The true crime of the society, we cannot repeat it too often, is not the being called the _Company of Jesus_, but the having been really a company of intriguers and fanaticks; the having endeavoured to oppress every thing which gave it umbrage; the having wanted to domineer in every thing; the having intermeddled in all affairs and all factions; the having sought, in a word, rather to render themselves necessary than useful.

The spirit of giddiness, which has occasioned the misfortune of the Jesuits in France, seems to announce to them a like fate in the rest of Europe. They have long been cried down in the territories of the king of Sardinia, and the republick of Venice; and the little existence they yet preserve there, may very possibly be shaken anew by the shocks which they have just felt elsewhere: their conduct in Silesia, during the last war, has not disposed favourably towards them a prince, in other respects an enemy to superstition and the monkish race: the house of Austria, which has so long protected them, begins to be tired of them, and to find out what they are; and they have all room to fear, lest the bomb, which has burst in Portugal and in France, should dart some of its splinters against them into all parts of Europe.

* * * * *

We shall close this treatise with the queries, of which mention has been made above, respecting the oath which was required of the Jesuits: they are proposed in such a manner, that there seems to be no doubt, either as to the answer to be made to each, or consequently as to the part which these fathers should have taken. It appears, in the writings published on this subject by the Jansenists and the Jesuits, as if they had made it their business to deviate from the true point of view of the question. Instead of the idle declamations which have been printed on both sides, the author seems to have meant to substitute a little logick: this is the secret for abridging a number of controversies, which the rhetorick of lawyers and of mandates would perpetuate to eternity.

QUERIES.[22]

I.

Are not the king, or the magistrates who represent him, competent judges for deciding, whether a religious institution be conformable or contrary to the laws of the kingdom?

II.

Is it necessary that the spiritual power concur with the temporal, for this decision, which is purely civil?

III.

Did not the king’s subjects, who submitted themselves to this institution, submit thereto, on the supposition, nay, in the persuasion, that the king and the state approved thereof?

IV.

If the king, or the magistrates who represent him, having at first permitted or tolerated the institution, come afterwards to be of opinion, that it is contrary to the laws of the kingdom, would the king’s subjects, who had subjected themselves to this institution, and who took the resolution of renouncing it, wound thereby their consciences?

V.

Does the renunciation of the institution import a renunciation of the vow of _chastity_ and that of _poverty_, which they had taken, and which neither the king nor the magistrates can hinder them from observing?

VI.

Is it making an attempt upon the rights of the spiritual power, to declare that their vow of obedience, (considered only in a civil light) is inconsistent with the obedience which they have vowed from their birth to their lawful sovereign; an obedience, by virtue of which they live in the territories of that sovereign, under the protection of the laws?

VII.

If the vow which they have made as subjects, be declared contrary to that which they have made as monks, is not this second vow null of itself, being destroyed by a vow more ancient and more sacred?

VIII.

If they think themselves, notwithstanding this consideration, engaged by their vow of _obedience_; if they prefer a religious state to that of subjects; can, nay indeed ought not the prince, or the magistrates who represent him, to declare, that they have forfeited the rights of subjects, and oblige them to quit a state of which they refuse to be members?

IX.

Have not the professed monks, who shall renounce the institution, and who are bound besides, by their vow of _poverty_, and by the renunciation of their effects, a right to require the state to charge itself with their subsistence?

X.

Would professed monks, who on refusing to renounce their vow of _obedience_, should receive either from the court, or their friends[23], notwithstanding their vow of _poverty_, pensions much greater than is necessary for their subsistence, prove by this conduct, that they were much less attached to _their vow_ than to their General; that they refused much more through pride than through religion, to renounce the society; that they were, in a word, more Jesuits than Christians?

XI.

Ought not those professed monks, who shall renounce the institution, at the same time, in order to put out of dispute their religion and their honour, to declare the motives of attachment to their sovereign and their country, which oblige them to that renunciation, and to demand a juridical act of that declaration?

XII.

Is it necessary to require of the _non-professed_ monks, any thing more than a mere juridical declaration, that they have made no vows; and a promise of not making any?

XIII.

And with regard to those who voluntarily renounced the institution, before the arrêt, which requires the oath, is it necessary to require of them any thing else than a simple juridical declaration that they have renounced it?

XIV.