JESUITS
869
JESUITS
111 France the numerous enemies of the order found a welcome opi)ortunity fur arousiiiij pubUc opinion aj^ainst it in tlie commercial speculations of the .Icsuit Lava- lette, the superior of the mission of Martinique. When, in the war between France and England, his ships were captiured, his creditors applied for payment to father De Sacy, the procurator-general of all the Jesuit missions in Paris. He satisfied them, and instructed Lavalette to abstain from s[)eculations in future. When Lavalette disregarded those instructions, and when, consciiucntly. new losses occurred, amounting to "i.JOO.tiOO livrcs, Sacy refused to liold himself responsible. The creditors aj)- plied to the Parliament, whose jurisdiction was (1700) recognised by the Jesuits. The Parliament demanded a copy of the constitution of the order for examination. On April 18, 17G1, a decree of Parliament suppressed the congregations of the Jesuits ; on Jlay 8 the wliolc order was declared to be responsible for the debt of Lavalette ; on August C the constitution of the order was declared to be an encroachment upon Church and State, twenty- four works of Jesuit authors were burned as heretical and dangerous to good morals, and the order was excluded from educational institutions. A protest from the king (Aug. 29, 17G1), who annulled these decrees of the Par- liament for one year, was as unavailing as the interces- sion of the majority of the French bishops and of pope Clement XIIL Other Parliaments of France followed the example given by the Paris Parliament : on April 1, 1762, eighty colleges of the order were closed; and on August 6 a decree of the Parliament of Paris declared the constitution of the Jesuits to be godless, sacrilegious, and injurious to Church and State, and the vows of the order to be null and void. In the beginning of 17G4 all the members were ordered to forswear their vows, and to declare that their constitution was punishable, abom- inable, and injurious. Only five complied with this order; among them father Cerutti,who two years before had written the best apology of the order. On Nov. 26, 1764, Choiseul obtained the sanction of the king for a decree which banished the Jesuits from France as dan- gerous to the state. Clement XIII, the steadfast friend of the order, replied to the royal decree on Jan. 8, 1765, by the bull ApostoUcam, in which he again approved the order and its constitution.
In Spain, Aranda, the minister of Charles III, was as successful as Pombal in Portugal and Choiseul in France. During the night from Sept. 2 to Sept. 3, 1768, all the Jesuits of the kingdom, about 6000 in number, were seized and transported to the pajjal territory. When the pope refused to receive them, they were landed in Corsica, where thej' remained a few months, until, in 1768, that island was annexed to France. They were then again expelled, and this time found refuge in the papal territory. In Naples from 3000 to 4000 Jesuits were seized in the night from Nov. 3 to 4, 1767, by order of the regent Tanucci, the guardian of the minor Ferdi- nand IV, and likewise transported to the States of the Church. The government of Parma seized the Jesuits on Feb. 7, 1768, because the pope, claiming to be the feudal sovereign of Parma, had issued a brief declaring an order of the Parmese government (the Pragmatic Sanction of Jan. 16, 1768) null and void, and excom- municating its authors. All the Bourbon courts took sides in this question with Parma, forbade the publica- tion of the papal brief, and when Clement XIII refused to repeal it. France occupied Avignon, and the govern- ment of Naples Benevent and Pontecorvo. At the same time, the grand master of the Knights of St. John, Fon- seca, was induced to seize the Jesuits of llalta and transport them to the Papal States. Wlien Clement XIII, who had steadfastly refuseil the demand of the Bourbons to abolish the order of the Jesuits for the whole Church, died, on Feb. 2, 1769, there was a severe struggle in the conclave between the friends (Zelanti) and the enemies of the Jesuits. The demands of the French and Spanish ambassadors to pledge the new pope that he would abolish the order were tirmly repelled by
the College of Cardinals; but, on the other hand, the ambassadors succeeded in securing the election of car- dinal Ganganelli (Clement XIV), who, while before tne election he was regarded by both parties as a friend, soon disclosed an intention to sacrifice the hated order to the combined demands and threats of the Bourbon courts. The reconciliation with the courts of Portugal and Parma was obtained by making to them great con- cessions ; the brother of I'ombal was appointed cardinal ; tlic general of the Jesuits. Hicci, was alone, among all the generals of religious orders, excluded from the usual embrace; anil when lie solicited the favor of an audience he was twice refused. Papal letters to Louis XV (Sejit. 30, 1769) and Charles III (Nov. 20) admitted the guilt of the Jesuits and the necessity of abolishing the order, but asked for delay. When, on July 4, 1772, the mild Azpura had been succeeded as ambassador of Siiain by the more energetic Joseph Monino (subsequently count of Florida Blanca), other measures against the order fol- lowed in more rapid succession. In September the Ko- man college was closed, in November the college at Frascati. At last the brief Doinimis ac lietkinptor nos- ier (which had been signed on July 21, at three o'clock in the morning) announced on August 16 to the whole world the abolition of the order, on the ground that the peace of the Church required such a step.