The Jesuits, 1534-1921

"Ah! Sire! our soul cannot bear the thought of that awful ruin. And what cuts us to the heart still deeper perhaps is to see the wise, just King Charles III, that prince whose conscience was so delicate and whose intentions were so right; who lest he might compromise his eternal salvation, would never consent to have the meanest of his subjects suffer the slightest injury in their private concerns without having their case previously and legitimately tried and every condition of the law complied with, is now vowing to total destruction, by depriving of its honor, its country, its property, which was legitimately acquired, and its establishments, which were rightfully owned, that whole body of religious who were dedicated to the service of God and the neighbor, and all that without examining them, without hearing them, without permitting them to defend themselves. Sire! this act of yours is grave; and if perchance it is not sufficiently justified in the eyes of Almighty God, the Sovereign Judge of all creatures, the approval of those who have advised you in this matter will avail nothing, nor will the plaudits of those whose principles have prompted you to do this. As for us, plunged as we are in inexpressible grief, we avow to your majesty that we fear and tremble for the salvation of your soul which is so dear to us.

"Your Majesty tells us that you have been compelled to adopt these measures by the duty of maintaining peace in your states, – implying we presume that this trouble has been provoked by some individual belonging to the Society of Jesus. But, even if it were true, Sire, why not punish the guilty without making the innocent suffer? The body, the Institute, the spirit of the Society of Jesus, we declare it in the presence of God and of man, is absolutely innocent of all crime, and not only innocent, but pious, useful, holy in its object, in its laws, in its maxims. It matters not that its enemies have endeavored to prove the contrary; all calm and impartial minds will abhor such accusers as discredited liars who contradict themselves in whatever they say. You may tell me that it is now an accomplished fact; that the royal edict has been promulgated and you may ask what will the world say if I retract? Should you not rather ask, Sire, what will God say? Let me tell you what the world will say. It will say what it said of Assuerus when he revoked his edict to butcher the Hebrews. It accorded him the eternal praise of being a just king who knew how to conquer himself. Ah! Sire, what a chance to win a like glory for yourself. We offer to your majesty the supplications not only of your royal spouse, who from heaven recalls to you the love she had for the Society of Jesus, but much more so, to the Sacred Spouse of Jesus Christ, the Holy Church, which cannot contemplate, without weeping, the total and imminent extinction of the Society of Jesus, which until this very hour has rendered to her such great assistance and such signal services. Permit, then, that this matter be regularly discussed; let justice and truth be allowed to act, and they will scatter the clouds that have arisen from prejudice and suspicion. Listen to the counsels of those who are doctors in Israel; the bishops, the religious, in a cause that involves the interests of the State, the honor of the Church, the salvation of souls, your own conscience and your eternal salvation."

How Charles could resist this appeal, which is among the most admirable and eloquent state papers ever given to the world, is incomprehensible. But he did. He merely replied to the Pope: "To spare the world a great scandal, I shall ever preserve as a secret in my heart the abominable plot which has necessitated this rigor. Your Holiness ought to believe my word, the safety of my life exacts of me a profound silence."

Not satisfied with writing to the king himself, the Pope also pleaded with the greatest prelate in the realm, the Archbishop of Tarragona as follows: "What has come over you? How does it happen that, in an instant, the Society of Jesus has departed so far from the rules of its pious Institute, that our dear Son in Jesus Christ, Charles III, the Catholic King, can consider himself authorized to expel from his realm all the Regular Clerks of the Society? This is a mystery we cannot explain; only a year ago, the numberless letters addressed to us by the Spanish episcopacy afforded us some consolation in the deep grief that affected us when these same religious were expelled from France. Those letters informed us that the Fathers in your country gave an example of every virtue, and that the bishops and their dioceses received the most powerful support by their pious and useful labours. And now, behold, in an instant, there come dreadful charges against them and we are asked to believe that all these Fathers or almost all have committed some terrible crime; nay the king himself, so well known for his equity, is so convinced of it, that he feels obliged to treat the members of that Institute with a rigor hitherto unheard of."

Addressing himself personally to the king's confessor he says: "We write to you, my dear son, that you may lay this before the prince who has taken you for his guide, and we charge you to speak in our name and in virtue of the obligations which the duty of your office imposes, and the authority it bestows on you. As for us, we do not refuse to employ measures of the severest and most rigorous justice against those members of the Society of Jesus who have incurred the just anger of the king, and to employ all our power to destroy and to root out the thorns and briars which may have sprung up in a soil hitherto so pure and fertile. As for you, it is part of your sacred ministry to consider with fear and trembling as you kneel at the feet of the image of Jesus Christ, to compel the king to consider the incalculable ruin that religion will suffer, especially in pagan lands, if the numberless Christian missions which are now so flourishing, are abandoned and left without pastors." Evidently the confessor could do nothing with his royal penitent.

This mad act of Charles did not please some of his friends in France. Thus, on May 4, 1767, D'Alembert wrote to Voltaire: "What do you think of the edict of Charles III, who expels the Jesuits so abruptly? Persuaded as I am that he had good and sufficient reason, do you not think he ought to have made them known and not to 'shut them up in his royal heart?' Do you not think he ought to have allowed the Jesuits to justify themselves, especially as every one is sure they could not? Do you not think, moreover, that it would be very unjust to make them all die of starvation, if a single lay-brother who perhaps is cutting cabbage in the kitchen should say a word, one way or the other in their favor? And what do you think of the compliments which the King of Spain addresses to the other monks and priests, and curés and sacristans of his realm, who are not in my opinion less dangerous than the Jesuits, except that they are more stupid and vile? Finally, does it not seem to you that he could act with more common sense in carrying out what after all, is a reasonable measure?"

In spite of the royal order enjoining silence on his subjects high and low, there was a great deal of feeling manifested at the outrage. Roda, an agent of the ministry at Madrid, tried to conceal it and wrote to the Spanish Embassy at Rome on April 15, 1767: "There is not much agitation here. Some rich people, some women and other simpletons are very much excited about it, and are writing a great deal of their affection for the Jesuits, but that is due to their blindness. You would be astounded to find how numerous they are. But papers discovered in the archives and libraries, garrets and cellars, furnish sufficient matter to justify the act. They reveal more than people here suspect." And yet not one of these incriminating documents "found in archives and libraries and garrets and cellars" was ever produced.

Among "the simpletons" who denounced the act was the Bishop of Cuenca, Isidore de Carvajal, who told the king to his face, what he thought of the whole business. The Archbishop of Tarragona did the same, but they both incurred the royal displeasure. The Bishop of Terruel published a pamphlet "The Truth unveiled to the King our Master" and he was immediately confined in a Franciscan convent, while his Vicar-general and chancellor were thrown into jail. The Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal de Córdova, wrote to the Pope and the contents of his letters were known in Spain, for Roda, the individual above referred to, hastened to tell the Spanish ambassador on May 12, 1767: "In spite of all their tricks, the Archbishop of Toledo and his vicar-general have written a thousand stupid things to the Pope about this affair. We would not be a bit surprised if the Bishop of Cuenca, Coria, Cuidad Rodrigo, Terruel and some others have done the same thing, but we are not sure." A year and a half after the blow was struck something happened which again threw the timid Charles into a panic about his royal life. According to custom, he presented himself on November 4, 1768, on the balcony of his palace to receive the homage of his people, and to grant them some public favor out of his munificence. To the stupefaction of both king and court, one universal cry arose from the vast multitude. "Send us back the Jesuits!" Charles withdrew in alarm and immediately investigations began with the result that he drove out of the kingdom the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo and his vicar on the charge that they had prompted the demand of the people (Coxe, "Spain under the Bourbons," v, 25).

With regard to the supposed letter of Father Ricci which brought on this disaster, it may be of use to refer here to what was told thirty years after these events, in a work called "Du rétablissement des Jésuites et de l' éducation publique" (Emmerick, Lambert, Rouen). The author says: "It is proper to add an interesting item to the story of the means employed to destroy the Society of Jesus in the mind of Charles III. Besides the pretended letter of Father Ricci, there were other supposititious documents, and among these lying papers was a letter in the handwriting of an Italian Jesuit which had been perfectly imitated. It contained outrageous denunciations of the Spanish government. When Clement XIII insisted on having some proof to throw light on the allegations, this letter was sent to him. Among those who were commissioned to examine it, was a simple prelate, who afterwards became Pius VI. Glancing at the missive he remarked that the paper was of Spanish manufacture, and he wondered why an Italian should send to Spain for writing material. Looking at it closer and holding it up to the light he saw that the water-mark gave not only the name of a Spanish paper-factory, but also the date on which it was turned out. Now it happened that this date was two years after the letter was supposed to have been written. The imposture was manifest, but the blow had already been struck. Charles III was living at the time, yet he was not man enough to acknowledge and repair the wrong he had done." (Crétineau-Joly, v, 241).

On the day appointed by the king, April 2, 1767, every ship selected to carry out the edict was in the harbor assigned to it, in every part of the Spanish world, where there happened to be a Jesuit establishment. The night before at sundown the captain had opened the letter which had the threat on its envelope: "Your life is forfeited if you anticipate the day or the hour." He obeyed his instructions; and early in the morning the Fathers in the college of Salamanca, Saragossa, Madrid, Barcelona and all the great cities, as well as in every town where the Jesuits had any kind of an establishment, heard the tramp of armed men entering the halls. The members of the household were ejected from their rooms, seals were put on the doors, and the community marched down like convicts going to jail. Old men and young, the sick and even the dying, all had to go to the nearest point of embarcation. Not a syllable were they allowed to utter as they tramped along, and no one could speak in their defence without being guilty of high treason. When they reached the ships, they were herded on board like cattle and despatched to Civita Vecchia, to be flung on the shores of the States of the Pope, whose permission had not even been asked; nor had any notice been given him. It was a magnificent stroke of organized work, and incidentally very profitable to the government, for at one and the same moment it came into possession of 158 Jesuit houses, all of considerable value as real estate and some of them magnificent in their equipment. How much was added to the Spanish treasury on that eventful morning, we have no means of computing.

There was one difficulty in the proceedings, however. The supply of ships was insufficient, for 2,643 men had to be simultaneously cared for; but their comfort did not interfere with the progress of the movement. "They were piled on top of each other on the decks or in the fetid holds," says Sismondi, "as if they were criminals." It was worse than the African slave-trade. Saint-Priest thinks "it was a trifle barbarous, but the precipitation was unavoidable." It was indeed a trifle barbarous and the precipitation was not unavoidable.

In rounding up the victims, the king and the ministers were naturally anxious about the effect it might have upon many of the best Spanish families who had sons in the Order; notably the two Pignatellis, who were of princely lineage. Inducements were held out to both of them to abandon the Society, but the offer was spurned with contempt. Indeed very few even of the novices failed in this sore trial. As for the Pignatellis they were the angels of this exodus, particularly Joseph, whose exalted virtue is now being considered in Rome in view of his beatification. He was at Saragossa when the royal order arrived, and though suffering with hemorrhages, he started out afoot on the weary journey to Tarragona, and from there to Salu, nine miles further on, where nineteen brigantines were assembled to receive this first batch of 600 outcasts. He was so feeble that he had to be carried on board the ship.

From there, they set sail for Civita Vecchia, where they arrived on May 7, but were not allowed to land. Even the generally fair Schoell describes the Pope's action in this instance as "characterized by the greatest inhumanity." On the contrary, it would have been an act of the greatest inhumanity to receive them. There were some thousands of Portuguese Jesuits there already, who had been flung on the shore unannounced, and in that impoverished region there was no means of providing them with food or medicine or even clothes and beds. To have admitted this new detachment of 600 who were merely the forerunners of 4,500 more, and who, in turn were to be followed by all the Jesuits whom Tanucci would drive out of the Neapolitan Kingdom, and those whom Choiseul would hasten to gather up in France, the result would have been that ten or fifteen thousand Jesuits without money or food or clothing, some of them old and decrepit and ill, would have to be cared for and the native population in consequence would be subjected to a burden that would have been impossible to bear. It was "inhuman" no doubt, but the inhumanity must be ascribed to Charles III who had plundered these victims, and not to Clement XIII who would have died for them. His first duty was to his own people and his next was to proclaim to the world and to all posterity, the grossness of the insult as well as the injustice inflicted on the Vicar of Christ by the Most Catholic King, Charles III. Nor were the "unhappy wretches," as Böhmer-Monod call them, "received by cannon shot, at the demand of their own General, who had trouble enough with the Portuguese already on his hands;" (p. 274) nor did the Jesuits, as Saint-Priest adds: "vent their rage against Ricci and blame his harsh administration, as the cause of all their woes." Ricci was begging for bread to feed his Portuguese sons at that time, and he certainly would not have received those from Spain with a cannon shot; nor would the Jesuits have vented their rage against him and blamed his harsh administration, especially as his administration was the very reverse of harsh; and, finally, Jesuits were not accustomed to vent their rage against their superior.

Sismondi (Hist. des Français, xxix, 372) says that "many of them perished on board ship, and Schoell describes them as lying on top of one another on deck for weeks, under the scorching rays of the sun or down in the fetid hold." The filthy ships finally turned their prows towards Corsica where arrangements had been made for them to discharge their human cargo. It took four days to reach that island, but Paoli was just then fighting for the independence of his country, and French ships which were aiding Genoa occupied the principal ports. At first the exiles remained in their ships, but, later, they were allowed to go ashore during the day. Meantime, a vessel had been despatched to Spain for instructions and when it returned on July 8, the "criminals" were ordered to go to Ajaccio, Algoila or Calvi. They reached Ajaccio on July 24, and as they were then in a state of semi-starvation, Father Pignatelli went straight to the insurgent camp, though at every step he risked being shot or seized and hanged, but he did not care, he would appeal to Paoli's humanity. He was well received, help was sent to the sufferers, and they were given liberty to go where they chose on the island.

They remained there a month and were then sent to the town of Saint-Boniface, where they bivouacked or lived in sheds until the 8th of December, when they were ordered to Genoa. This time the number of brigantines in which they embarked had been reduced from thirteen to five, though the number of the victims had considerably increased; but that mattered little; they finally reached the mainland but were not permitted to go ashore. Meantime, other Jesuits had arrived and they now numbered 2,000 or 2,400. After a short delay in the harbor, they made their way separately or in groups to different cities in the Papal States, chiefly to Bologna and Ferrara.

Their ejection from the Two Sicilies was a foregone conclusion, for it was ruled by the terrible Bernardo Tanucci, whom Charles III on his accession to the throne of Spain had left as regent during the minority of Ferdinand IV. Tanucci was a lawyer who began his career in a most illegal fashion by exciting riots in Pisa against his rival Grandi. They had quarrelled about the discovery of the Pandects of Justinian. He next drew the attention of Charles by assailing the right of asylum for criminals, which he maintained was in contravention of all law human and divine. "He attacked the prerogatives of the Court of Rome and of the nobles of Naples, with more fury than prudence," says de Angelis (Biographie universelle). Subsequently he showed himself the enemy of the Church in every possible way, and, meantime, so neglected to provide for the security of the State that during the war of the Pragmatic Sanction, King Charles had to sign an act of neutrality at the mouth of the cannons of a British man-of-war. His political incapacity continued to injure the country during the reign of Ferdinand until it was no longer reckoned among the military powers of Europe. Meantime, he kept the young king in ignorance of everything so as to maintain himself in power. He robbed the courts of justice of their power; drew up the Caroline Code which was never published; ruined the finances of the country, as well as its industry and agriculture, and allowed men of the greatest ability and learning to die in penury. In brief, says his biographer, "Tanucci's reputation both before and after his death is a mystery. It is probably due to his prominence as a bitter enemy of the Holy See. He seized Beneventum and Pontecorvo which belonged to the Patrimony of Peter; he suppressed a great number of convents, distributed abbeys to his followers, fomented dissensions against the bishops and, of course, persecuted the Jesuits."

When Charles III of Spain expelled the Society from Spain everyone knew what was going to happen in Sicily, and news was eagerly expected from the peninsula. While they were waiting, an eruption of Vesuvius took place, which the excitable Italians regarded as a sign of God's wrath. Penitential pilgrimages were organized to avert the danger and angry murmurs were heard against the government. To quell the tumult, Tanucci sent out word that the Jesuits would be undisturbed, though ships were at that time on their way to carry off the victims. The young king's signature to the decree had, however, to be procured, but he angrily refused to give it until the official confessor, Latelle, the retired Bishop of Avellino entreated him to yield, saying that he himself would answer for it on the Day of Judgment. The prelate did not know that he himself was to die at the end of the month. The expulsion took place in the usual dramatic fashion. At midnight of November 3, 1767, squads of soldiers descended on every Jesuit establishment in the land. The doors were smashed in; the furniture shattered; all the papers seized, both official and personal, and then surrounded by platoons of soldiers, the Fathers were led like criminals through the streets to the nearest beach with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The whole affair was managed with such lightning-like rapidity, that though the prisoners had been taken from their houses at midnight, they were out at sea before dawn and were heading for Ferrara.

At Parma another Spanish prince ruled. He was still a child, however, but his minister was du Fillot, a statesman of the school of Tanucci and Choiseul. The expulsion took place simultaneously on the night of February 7, 1768 at Piacenza, Parma, San Domino and Busseto. In the first city, all the available vehicles of the place had been requisitioned. At seven o'clock at night a dozen soldiers entered the house. Later, an officer, two adjutants and a magistrate appeared, read the decree, the fourth article of which declared that any one not a priest or professor who would take off the habit of the society would be received among the faithful subjects of his royal highness. The fifth announced that the innate clemency of his highness accorded an annual pension of sixty scudi to the professed and forty to the brothers who were his subjects. The scholastics were to get nothing. In a quarter of an hour they were hurried to the citadel where carriages and carts were waiting and were driven all night at top speed to Parma, where they arrived at day break. Passing through the city they caught up with those who had been expelled from the other places. Half an hour's rest and a bite to eat were allowed and then the journey was continued on to Reggio and Bologna. Not to be outdone in zeal for the king, the Knights of Malta drove them from the island on April 22, 1768. The expulsion at Parma was disastrous not only to the Jesuits but to the Pope. Parma was his fief, and he protested against the action of the duke. It was precisely what the plotters were waiting for. France immediately seized the Comtat Venaissin, and Naples took possession of Beneventum, both of which belonged to the Patrimony of St. Peter. Of course, the Jesuits were immediately expelled and their property confiscated.

The expulsion in Spanish America meant the seizure of at least 158 establishments belonging to the Jesuits in Mexico, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru and Chili. It involved the flinging out into the world of 2,943 Jesuits, some of them old and infirm and absolutely unable to earn their living. Of those who embarked at Valparaiso sixty were drowned in the wreck of the ship "Our Lady of the Hermitage." Carayon gives some interesting diaries of the journeys of these exiles (Doc. inédits, xvi), while Hubert Bancroft in his monumental work of thirty-nine volumes about the Pacific Coast furnishes abundant and valuable information about the exodus from the missions of Mexico. The victims underwent the same sufferings as their Portuguese brethren in the long journeys over mountains and through the primeval forests and in the long, horrible crossing of the ocean to their native land, which they were thought unworthy to enter.