Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

This volume of assertions, extracted from the books of the Jesuits, condemned by the magistrates, had been preceded some years before by the condemnation of the work of the Jesuit Busenbaum, in which the doctrine of king-killing is openly maintained: the copy on which this condemnation was pronounced, bore date 1757, the melancholy æra of that attempt which filled France with horrour and consternation. The Jesuits have pretended that this date was a forgery of their enemies, who, to render them odious, had caused a new title-page to be prefixed to an old edition: the Jansenists maintained, that the edition was in reality quite new, and proved in a sensible manner how far, and to what a degree of impudence, the Jesuits dared be bad subjects. These Jansenists, so little dexterous in other matters, but very violent and rancorous, had actually persuaded the greater part of the French nation, that the atrocious crime in question was the work of the Jesuits. However, the answers of the criminal to the interrogatories put to him, as they were made publick, by no means accused those fathers; but he had been a servant to them, as well as to persons of the opposite party: he had declared this to his judges; the Jesuits (for good reasons without doubt, but which we are ignorant of) were not interrogated, as it seemed they should have been; this was enough to a great part of the publick, to charge them with the crime.

The assassination of the king of Portugal, which happened the year following, and in which the society was again involved, served as a new means to its enemies for maintaining, and making it believed, that the attempt, which shocked all France, was their work. The friends of the Jesuits pretended that they were innocent of the crime committed in Portugal; that the storm raised against them on this occasion, and of which also they became the victims in that kingdom, was an effect of the hatred which they had drawn upon them, on the part of the prime minister Carvalho, who was all-powerful with that prince. But why should persons of a religious order inspire a minister of state with hatred against them, unless it be because they have rendered themselves formidable to that minister by their intrigues? Why should Mr. Carvalho, who detested the Jesuits, leave in peace the Cordeliers, the Jacobins, and the Recollects, unless because he found the Jesuits in his way, and that the others vegetated in peace in their convents, without doing the state either good or harm? Every religious and turbulent society merits, on that account alone, that a state should be purged of them; it is a crime for them to be formidable.

Accordingly the Portugueze minister availed himself dexterously of the imputation laid to the charge of some of these fathers, of having advised, directed, and absolved the assassins, for causing all the Jesuits to be driven out of the kingdom: they were sent to their general, who, it is said, not knowing what to do with these new-comers, left them to perish with hunger and want on board the very vessels which brought them.

M. de Carvalho, when he expelled the Jesuits, caused three of them to be arrested, who had been declared guilty; but he was not powerful enough to procure the Jesuit Malagrida to be put to death, though he passed for the most criminal. The Portugueze populace, ignorant, superstitious, and full of Romish maxims, would not have suffered a religious to be delivered up to the secular arm for a crime deserving of the greatest punishments, because that crime was committed only against a layman: they were obliged, in order to convict Malagrida of a crime against God, which should render him worthy of death, to go and seek out some silly books of devotion, the productions of weakness and of madness, written by that unhappy Jesuit: it was solely for these rhapsodies that he was condemned to the fire of the inquisition, not as guilty of high treason, but as a heretick. They reproached him with visions and miracles, of which he had had the folly to boast; they reproached him particularly with having been able, at the age of seventy-five years, to divert himself all alone in his confinement as a young novice would have done; which might also have been looked upon as a kind of miracle, truely worthy of being counted among the others. It was upon motives of this sort that he was condemned to a most cruel death: the arrêt did not even make mention of the parricide of which he was accused; and as M. de Voltaire most excellently remarks, an excess of severity was joined to an excess of folly.

It was matter of pleasantry to observe the embarrassment into which the Jesuits and the Jansenists were thrown, on account of this victim sacrificed to the inquisition. The Jesuits, devoted till that time to this bloody tribunal, dared no longer take its part, since it had burnt one of their society: the Jansenists who abhorred it, began to think it just, from the moment that it had condemned a Jesuit to the flames. They assured us, and asserted it in print, that the inquisition was not what they had thought it till then, and that justice was done there _with much wisdom and deliberation_. Some magistrates also, till then sworn enemies of the inquisition, seemed at this juncture to soften a little towards it. One of the first tribunals in the kingdom condemned to the fire a writing, in which the Portugueze inquisition was very ill treated on account of the punishment of Malagrida: and in the declaration which condemned this writing to the fire, they bestowed many commendations, not wholly on the inquisition itself, but on the _scrupulous examination_ in consequence of which the Jesuit was delivered up to the secular arm.

On account of this charge of regicide, so often renewed against the Jesuits, we shall relate here a curious anecdote. It is astonishing, that among so many pieces which have called these fathers _assassins_, not one has made mention of a circumstance indeed little known, but which seems to afford a fine light to their enemies. At Rome, in their church of St. Ignatius, they have caused to be represented in the four corners of the cupola (painted about a hundred years since by one of their fathers) subjects drawn from the Old Testament; and these subjects are so many assassinations, or at least murders, committed in the name of God by the Jewish people: Jael, who, impelled by the Divine Spirit, drives a nail into Sisera’s head, to whom she had offered and given hospitality; Judith, who, conducted by the same guide, cuts off the head of Holofernes, after having seduced and made him drunk; Sampson, who massacres the Philistines by order of the Almighty; lastly, David, who slays Goliah. At the top of the cupola, St. Ignatius, in a glory, darts out flames on the four quarters of the world, with these words of the New Testament; “I came to set fire to the earth; and what would I but that it be kindled?” Methinks, if any thing could make known the spirit of the society, with respect to the murderous doctrine that is imputed to them, these pictures would be a stronger proof of it than all the passages which are related from their authors, and which are common to them with many others: but the truth is, that these principles, supported in appearance by the scriptures ill understood, are the principles of the fanaticks of all ages; and we may add, of the greater part of any sect, when they believe it to be their interest to propagate them, and that they can preach them in safety. To them an heretick and infidel prince is a tyrant, and of course a man whom religion and reason order us equally to rid ourselves of. The only thing which the Jesuits ought to be reproached with, is that of having forsaken these abominable principles later than others, after having more strongly maintained them; of making particular profession of obedience to the pope, and of a stricter obedience than the other orders; of being, on this account, so much the more to be dreaded in the state, the more they are in credit there, the more dispersed, the more addicted to the ecclesiastical function, and above all to the instruction of youth; of never having expressed themselves frankly and clearly (when they have not been forced to it) on the maxims of government, touching the infallibility of the pope, and the independence of kings; and of having given too much room to understand, that they looked upon these maxims as mere local opinions, which might be maintained either pro or con, according to the country in which they found themselves placed. We may say with truth, and without passion, that this manner of thinking breaks forth in all their works, and in those even of the French Jesuits, who have wanted to appear less Romish with respect to our maxims, than their brethren of Italy or Spain.

We must not believe, however, that this submission to the pope, with which the society are so often reproached, is with them an irrevocable doctrine. While the Jesuits preached it in Europe with so much zeal, we may say with madness, to effect the acceptance of the bull which they had drawn up, they opposed in China the decrees which the sovereign pontiffs launched out against them on account of the Chinese ceremonies: they went even so far, as to call in question the pope’s authority to decide on subjects of that nature. So far it is true, that their pretended devotion to the pope was only, as we may say, by way of _inventorial benefit_, and on the tacit condition of favouring their pretensions, or at least of not prejudicing their interests.

However this be, the parallel which has just been made of the doctrine of the Jesuits with the other orders, is, in my opinion, the true point of view from which we should have set out in their destruction. Among so many magistrates, who have written long examinations on the affair of the society, M. de la Chalotais, attorney-general of the parliament of Bretagne, appears more than any other to have considered this affair like a statesman, a philosopher, an enlightened magistrate, and one disengaged of all spirit of hatred and of party. He has not amused himself with proving laboriously and weakly, that the other monks were better than the Jesuits: he has penetrated farther and deeper: his march to the fight has been more frank and firm. “The monastick spirit,” said he, “is the scourge of states: of all those whom this spirit animates, the Jesuits are the most hurtful, because they are the most powerful; it is then with them that we must begin to shake off the yoke of that pernicious race.” It seems as if this illustrious magistrate had taken for his device the following verses of Virgil[16].

Ductoresque ipsos primùm, capita alta ferentes
Cornibus arboreis, sternit; tum vulgus, & omnem
Miscet agens telis nemora inter frondea turbam.

The war which he has made with so much success upon the society, is only the signal of the examination to which he appears desirous of having the constitutions of the other orders submitted, with a proviso of preserving those, which on such examination shall be judged useful. There are even some particular communities, for example, that of the fraternity called _Ignorantins_, whom he points out expressly to the vigilance of the magistrates, as having already gained silently much ground: however, I know not whether I am mistaken, men who bear a name so little formed to command respect, ought by no means to flatter themselves with succeeding one day to the Jesuits, among a people with whom names are apt to give law: it is necessary, in order to have in France success and enemies, to begin by calling one’s-self otherwise.

With regard to the other monks in general, it belongs to the wisdom of government to judge of the method they ought to take with them; but supposing they should one day want to destroy them, or at least to weaken them enough to prevent their being hurtful, there is an infallible way of succeeding therein, without employing violence, which must be avoided even with them: this would be to revive the ancient laws, which forbid monastick vows before twenty-five years of age. May the government yield in this respect to the unanimous desire of enlightened citizens!

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?

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.”