Though the power of the Jesuits had become so exten sive, and though their interests generally prospered during a period of more than two centuries, their progress was by no means uninterrupted ; and, by their own misconduct, they soon excited the most formidable counteractions. Scarcely had they effected their establishment in France, in defiance of the parliaments and universities, when their existence was endangered by the fanaticism of their own members. John Chastel, one of their pupils, made an attempt upon the life of Henry IV.; and Father Guiscard, another of the order, was cony icted of composing writings favourable to regicide. The parliaments seized the moment of their disgrace, and procured their banishment from every part of the kingdom, except the provinces of Bour deaux and Toulouse. From these rallying points, they speedily extended their intrigues in every quarter, and in a few years obtained their Even Henry, either dreading their power, or pleased with the exculpa tion of his licentious habits, which he found in their flexible system of morality, became their patron, and selected one of their number as his confessor. They were favoured by Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu, on account of their literary exertions ; but it was in the succeeding reign of Louis XIV. that they reached the summit of their prosperi ty. The Fathers La Chaise and Le Teltier, were succes sively confessors to the king ; and did not fail to employ their influence for the interest of their order ; but the latter carried on his projects with so blind and fiery a zeal, that one of the Jesuits is reported to have said of him," he drives at such a rate, that he will overturn us all." The Jan senists were peculiarly the objects of his machinations, and he rested not till he had accomplished the destruction of their celebrated college and convent at Port Royal. Before the fall, however, of this honoured seminary, a shaft from its bow had reached the heart of its proud oppressor. The " Provincial Letters of Pascal" had been published, in which the quibbling morality and unintelligible metaphysics of the Jesuits were exposed in a strain of inimitable humour, and a style of unrivalled elegance." The impression which they produced was wide and deep, and gradually sapped the foundation of public opinion, on which the power of the order had hitherto rested. Under the regency of the Duke of Oilcans, the Jesuits, and all theological personages and principles, were disregarded with atheistical supercilious ness; but under Louis XV. they partly recovered their in fluence at court, which, even under Cardinal Fleury, they retained in a considerable degree. But they soon revived the odium of the public by their intolerant treatment of the Jansenists, and probably accelerated their ruin by refusing, from political rather than religious scruples, to undertake the spiritual guidance of Madame de la Pompadour, as well as by imprudently attacking the authors of the Encyclopedic. Voltaire directed against them all the powers of his ridi cule, and finished the piece which Pascal had sketched. Their power was brought to a very low cob, when the war of 1756 broke out, which occasioned the famous law-suit that led to their final overthrow. By that time the society had indicated many symptoms of decay, both in point of talents and activity, and had rendered themselves at once contemptible and odious. They had disgusted the court by their scruples, irritated the philosophers by their cla mours, exasperated the other religious orders by their per secutions, and alienated the public by their long and inso lent domination. A reasonable pretext was all that was wanted to put down a sect, which had long ceased to be either popular or formidable. The opportunity was soon furnished by their own impudent obstinacy. The war re cently commenced, had occasioned great losses in their trade with Martinico, the weight of which would have fallen in part upon the society's correspondents at Lyons and Marseilles. These merchants, however, alleged that the Jesuits in France were responsible for the debts of their missionaries in America, and insisted upon being indemni fied from the funds of the order. The claim was resisted, and a law suit commenced, which the Jesuits, by virtue of their privilege, removed from the provincial parliament to the great chamber at Paris. This measure rendered the dispute and their defeat subjects of more general notoriety. They were condemned to pay large sums to the adverse party, and prohibited thenceforth from meddling in com mercial concerns. The sources of their wealth were thus diminished, and their enemies encouraged to renewed at tacks. The questions at issue in the commercial dispute had given the magistrates a plausible occasion for demand ing to inspect the coristitutions of the society ; and in a luck less hour for themselves, they consented to produce their books. The parliament instantly saw and seized the ad vantage which they had gained, and resolved to effect the destruction of the order. By an arrest of the I 1th August, 1761, the Jesuits were required to appear at the end of a rear to receive judgment on their constitution, which, it was now discovered, had never been approved with the re quisite forms. In the mean time the king of Portugal was assassinated ; and Carvalho, the minister, who detested the Jesuits, found means to load them with the odium of the crime. Malagrida, and a few more of these fathers, were charged with advising and absolving the assassins, and hav ing been found guilty, were condemned to the stake. The rest were banished with every brand of infamy, and were treated with the most iniquitous cruelty. They were per secuted without discrimination, robbed of their property without pity, and embarked for Italy without previous pre paration ; so that no provision having been made for their reception, they were literally left to perish with hunger in their vessels. These incidents prepared the way for a simi
lar catastrophe in France. During the year allotted for the investigation of their rules and records, the court evinc ed a disposition to protect them, and the bishops declared unanimously in their favour ; but an unforeseen public cala mity rendered it necessary to appease the nation by some acceptable measure ; and the Jesuits, after all, are supposed to have been sacrificed more as a trick of state than as an act of justice.
In March 1762, the French court received intelligence of the capture of Martinico by the British ; and dreading a storm of public indignation, resolved to divert the exas perated feelings of the nation, by yielding the Jesuits to their impending fate. On the 6th of August 1762, their institute was condemned by the prliament, as contrary to to the laws of the state, to the obedience due to their so vereign, and to the welfare of the kingdom. The order was dissolved, and their effects alienated. But still the members, though no longer dressed in their religious hab it, continued to hover about the court ; and had they pre served their original cautions and patient policy, might have succeeded in recovering their privileges. But for mer successes inspired them with a fatal confidence. One of the archhishops, indignant that the parliament should presume to dispense with ecclesiastical vows, issued a mandate in favour of the Jesuits, and the fathers were ac cused of having employed themselves tno industriously in the circulation of this paper. The parliament took the alarm, and pronounced a decree that every Jesuit, whe ther professor or novice, should, within eight days, make oath that he renounced the institution, or quit the kingdom. In a body whose moral principles were so relaxed, and whose members, while it existed, scrupled no subtleties in promoting its interests, it is a remarkable circumstance that, as securalised individuals, they acted in this instance with strict integrity, and refused the alternative of the oath. They were therefore ordered to quit the kingdom, and this judgment was executed with the utmost rigour. The poor, the aged, the sick, were included in the general prescription. But in certain quarters, where the provin • cial parliaments had not decided against them, Jesuits still subsisted ; • and a royal edict was afterwards promul gated, which formally abolished the society in France, but permitted its members to reside within the kingdom un der certain restrictions.* In Spain, where they conceived their establishment to be perfectly secure, they experienced an overthrow equally complete, and much more unexpected. The necessary measures were concerted under the direction of De Choi seul, by the Marquis D'Ossun, the French ambassador at Madrid, with Charles III. King of Spain, and his prime minister, the Count D'Aranda. The execution of their purpose was as sudden as their plans had been secret. At midnight, (March 3 I st 1767,) large bodies of military sur rounded the six colleges ol the Jesuits in Madtid, forced the gates, secured the bells, collected the fathers in the refectory, and read to them the king's order for their instant transportation. They were immediately put into carriages, previously placed at proper stations ; and were on their way to Carthagena before the inhabit.-nts of the city had any intelligence of the transaction. Three days afterwards, the same measures were adopted with regard to every oth er college of the order in the kingdom, and ships having been provided at the different sea ports, they were all em barked for the ecclesiastical states in Italy. All their pro perty was confiscated, and a small pension assigned to each individual as long as he should reside in a place ap pointed, and satisfy the Spanish coutt as to his peaceable demeanour. All correspondence with the Jesuits was prohibited, and the strictest silence on the subject of their expulsion was enjoined, under penalties of high treason. A similar seizure and deportation took place in the Indies, and an immense property was acquired by the government. Many crimes and plots were laid to the charge of the order ; but whatever may have been their demerit, the punishment was too summary to admit of justification ; and many in nocent individuals were to sufferings beyond the deserts even of the guilty. Pope Clement 111. prohibited their landing in his dominions ; and, after enduring extreme miseries in crowded transports, the survivors, to the num ber of 2300, were put ashore on Corsica. The example of the king of Spain was immediately followed by Ferdi nand VI. of Naples, and soon after by the Prince of Parma. They had been expelled from England in 1604 ; from Ve nice in 1606; and from Portugal in 1759,upon the charge of having instigated the families of Tavora and D'Aveiro to as sassinate KingJoseph I. Frederick the Great of Prussia was the only monarch who sheaved a disposition to afford them protection ; but in 1773, the order was entirely suppressed by Pope Clement XIV. who is supposed to have fallen a victim to their vengeance.t In 1801, the society was re stored in Russia by the Emperor Paul; and in 1804, by King Ferdinand in Sardinia. In August 1814, a bull was issued by the present Pope, Pius VII. restoring the order to all their former privileges, and calling upon all Catholic prin ces to afford them protection and encouragement. This act of their revival is expressed in all the solemnity of Pa pal authority ; and even affirmed to he above the recal or revision of any judge, with whatever power he may be clothed ; but to every enlightened mind it cannot fail to ap pear as a measure altogether incapable of justification, from any thing either in the history of Jesuitism or in the character of the present times.