numerous and influential than in most of the other Euro- I pean countries. They attracted great attention by their | attacks upon Bajus and the Jansenists, both of whom were condemned" at Rome at their instigation. In the northern provinces (Holland) stringent laws were re- peatedly passed against them, and they were charged with the assassination of William of Orange, as well as with the attempt against the life of INIaurice of Nassau, but both charges were indignantly denied by the order. In France, where the Jesuits established a novitiate at Paris as early as 1540, they encountered from the begin- ning the most determined opposition of the University and the Parliament, and the bishop of Paris forbade them to exercise any priestly functions. In 1550 the cardinal of Lorraine obtained for them a favorable patent from Henry II, but the Parliament refused to record it. In 15G1 Lainez received from the Synod of Poissy the concession that the Jesuits should be permitted to estab- lish themselves at Paris under the name of " Fathers of the College of Clermont." This college, which was sanc- tioned by Charles IX in 1565, and by Henry III in 1580, attained a high degree of prosperity, and in the middle of the 17th centurj' numbered upwards of 2000 pupils. In the south of France the Jesuits gained a greater in- fluence than in the north, and were generally regarded as the leaders in the violent struggle of the Catholic party for the arrest and suppression of Calvinism. They were closelv allied with the Ligue, but general Aquaviva disapproved the openness of this alliance, and removed fathers Matthieu and Sommier, who had been chiefly instrumental in bringing about the alliance, to Italy and Ik'lgium. The Jesuit Toletus brought about the reconciliation between the Ligue and Henry IV, who remained a warm protector of the order. Nevertheless, Jesuits were charged with the attempts made upon the life of Henry by Chastel (1594) and Kavaillac (1610), as they had before been charged with complicity in the plot of Clement (1589) against Henry HI. The Parlia- ment of Paris instituted, accordingly, proceedings against the Jesuit Guignard, who had been the instructor of Chastel, sentenced him to death, deprived the Jesuits of their goods, and exiled them from France. Henry IV was, however, prevailed upon to recall them, contin- ued to be their protector, and again chose a Jesuit as his confessor. The same office was filled by members of the order during nearly the whole reigns of Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV, and through the royal confessors the order therefore did not cease to exercise a very conspicuous influence upon the policy of the kings both at home and abroad. The connivance of these confessors with the scandalous lives of the kings did more than anything else to undermine the respect for the Koman Catholic Church, and for religion in general, among ihe educated classes. To Rome, however, they rendered invaluable services by heading the opposition against Louis XIV and the bishops when the latter con- jointly tried to enforce throughout the Catholic Church of France submission to the four Galilean articles, and after effecting a full reconciliation between Rome and Louis, by securing the aid of the secular arm for arrest- ing the progress and averting a victory of Jansenism, which had obtained full control of the best intellects in the Church of France. In Spain, which had been the cradle of the order, its success was remarkably rapid. As early as 1554 three provinces of the order (Castile, Aragon, and Andalusia) had been organized. They were, however, opposed by the learned INIelchior Canus; in Saragossa they were expelled by the archbishop, and the Inquisition repeatedly drew them before their tri- bunal as suspected of heresy. But the royal favor of the three Philips (Philip II," III, and IV) kept their in- fluence unimpaired. In Portugal, Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez visited Lisbon on their way to India, 'i'hey were well received by the king, and Rodriguez was induced to remain, and became the founder of a pnivinee, which soon belonged to the most prosperous of the order.
IV. Suppression of the Order (1750-73).— In the mid- dle of the 18th century the order was at the zenith of its power. As confessors of most of the reigning princes and a large number of the first aristocratic families, and as the instructors and educators of the children, thty wielded a controlling influence on the destinies of most of the Catholic states. At the same time they had amassed great wealth, which they tried to increase by bold commercial speculations. Both influence and wealth the}' used with untiring energy, and with a consistency of which the history of the world hardly knows a par- allel, for the development of their ultra papal system. In point of doctrine, extermination of Protestantism, and every form of belief opposed to the Church of Rome, and within the Church blind and immediate submission to the doctrinal decision of the infallible pope ; in point of ecclesiastical polity, the weakening of the episcopal for the benefit of the papal authority, the defence of the most exorbitant claims of the popes with regard to sec- ular government, and a controlling influence upon the popes by the order— these were the jirominent featiu-es of the Jesuit system. As the Jesuits were anxious to crush out everything opposed to the Roman Catholic system, as they understood it, it was natural that all these elements should, in self-defence, combine for plan- ning the destruction of so formidable an antagonist. As the Jesuits had attained their influential position chief- ly through the favor of the princes, the same method was adopted for crushing them. The first great victory was won against them in Portugal. Sebastian Jose Calvalho, better known under the title (which he re- ceived in 1770) of marquis of Pombal, probably the greatest statesman which Portugal has ever had, was fully convinced that commerce and industry, and all the material interests of the country, could be successfully developed only when the monarchy and the nation were withdrawn from the depressing connection with the hi- erarchy and the nobility, and that the first step towards effecting such a revolution was the removal of the Jes- uits. Opportunities for disposing the king against the order soon offered. In Paraguay, a portion of which had in 1753 been ceded by Spain to Portugal, an insur- rection of the natives broke out against the new rule. The Jesuits, according to their own accounts, had estab- lished in Paraguay a theocratic form of government, which gave them the most absolute power over the minds of the natives. They were therefore opposed to the cession of a portion of this territory to Portugal, and spared no efforts to prevent it. When, therefore, the natives rose generally in insurrection, it was the gen- eral opinion that an insurrection in a country like Par- aguay was impossible without at least the connivance of the order. The Jesuits themselves denied, however, all participation in the insurrection, and asserted that the provincial of the order in Paraguay, Barreda, in loyal compliance with the order of the general, Visconti, had endeavored to induce the natives to submit to the partition of the country. I'ope Benedict XIV was pre- vailed upon to forbid the Jesuits to engage in commer- cial transactions (1758), and the patriarch of Lisbon, who was commissioned by the pope to reform them, withdrew from them all priestly functions. An attempt to assassinate the king (Sept. 3, 1758) supplied an occa- sion for impeaching them of high treason, as the duke of Aveiro, when tortured, named two Jesuits as his ac- complices. The two accused denied the guilt, and the writers of the order generally represent the whole affair as arranged by Pombal in order to give him a new pre- text for criminal proceedings against the order. On Sept. 3, 1759, a royal decree forever excluded the order from Portugal and confiscated its property. Most of the members were, on board of government ships, sent to Italy ; and one of their prominent members, jNIalagrida, was in 1761 ])urned nt the stake. The pope, in vain, had interceded for them ; the nuncio had to leave the country in 1760, and all connection with Rome was broken off.