Edmond Paris - The Secret History of the Jesuits

"Then, under diverse disguises, they spread from county to county, from country house to castle. In the evening, they would hear confession; in the morning, they would preach and give communion, then they would disappear as mysteriously as they had arrived. For, from the 15th of July, Elizabeth had proscribed them".(31)

They printed and distributed secretly virulent pamphlets against the Queen and the Anglican Church. One of them, Father Campion, was caught, condemned for high treason and hanged. They also plotted at Edinburgh to win to their cause King James of Scotland. The result of all these disturbances was the execution of Mary Stuart in 1587.

Then came the Spanish expedition, the invincible Armada, which made England tremble for a while and brought about the "sacred union" around Elizabeth's throne. But the Company pursued none the less her projects and was training English priests at Valladolid, Seville, Madrid and Lisbon, while her secret propaganda continued in England under the direction of Father Garnett. After the Gunpowder Plot against James I, successor of Elizabeth, this Father Garnett was condemned for complicity and hanged, like Father Campion.

Under Charles I, then in Cromwell's Commonwealth, other Jesuits paid fo r their intrigues with their lives. The Order thought it would triumph under Charles II who, together with Louis XIV, had concluded a secret treaty at Dover, pledging to restore Catholicism in the land.

"The nation was not fully informed of these circumstances, but the little that transpired was enough to create an unbelievable agitation. All England shuddered before Loyola's spectre and the Jesuits'

conspiracies".(32)

A meeting of them in the palace itself brought popular fury to a head.

"Charles II, who enjoyed the life of a king and did not want to go on another 'journey across the seas', hanged five Fathers for high treason at (30) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.137-139.

(31) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.140-142.

(32) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.140, 142.

44

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS

Tyburn... This did not abate the Jesuits.. However, Charles II was too prudent and too cynical for their liking, always ready to drop them. They thought victory was in sight when James II acceded to the throne. In fact, the king took up Mary Tudor's old game, but used softer means. He pretended to convert England and established for the Jesuits, at the palace of Savoy, a college where four hundred students immediately took residence. A downright camarilla of Jesuits took over the Palace...

"All these combinations were the main cause for the 1688 revolution. The Jesuits had to go against a stream too powerful. Then, England had twenty Protestants for each Catholic. The king was overthrown; all the members of the Company put in prison or banished. For some time, the Jesuits recommenced their work of secret agents, but it was nothing more than a futile agitation. They had lost the cause".(33) (33) Pierre Dominique, op.cit, pp.101, 102.

45

Section II

Chapter 6

France

In 1551, the Order started to establish itself in France, which was seventeen years after its foundation in the chapel Saint-Denis at Montmartre.

Indeed, they presented themselves as effective adversaries of the Reformation which had won about one seventh of the French population, but people mistrusted these soldiers too devoted to the Holy See. So, their penetration on French soil was slow at first. As in all other countries where general opinion was not in their favour, they insinuated themselves first amongst people at Court, then, through them, into the upper classes. But in Paris, the Parliament, the University and even the clergy remained hostile.

It came out clearly when they first attempted to open a college there.

"The Faculty of Theology, whose mission is to safeguard the principles of religion in France, decreed on the 1 st of December 1554, that 'this society appears to be extremely dangerous regarding the faith, she is an enemy of the Church's peace, fatal to the monastic state and seems to have been born to bring ruin rather than edification' ".(34) The Fathers were nevertheless allowed to settle at Billom, in a corner of Auvergne. From there, they organised a great action against the Reformation in the provinces of southern France. The famous Lainez, the man at the Council of Trent, distinguished himself in polemics, especially at the Colloquy of Poissy, in an unhappy attempt to conciliate the two doctrines (1561).

Thanks to the Queen-Mother Catherine of Medici, the Order opened its first Parisian establishment, the College of Clermont, which was in competition with the University. The opposition from this university, the clergy and the parliament was more or less pacified with concessions, verbal at least, made by the Company who promised to conform to the (34) Gaston Bally, op.cit., p.69.

46

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS

common right; but the University had fought hard and long against the introduction of "men bribed at the expense of France to arm themselves against the King", according to Etienne Pasquier, and whose words were proved right not long after.

There is no need to ask if the Jesuits "consented" to the Saint Bartholomew Massacre (1572). Did they "prepare" it? Who knows?... The Company's politics, subtle and supple in their proceedings, have very clear aims; it is the popes' politics: "destray heresy". Everything must be subordinated to this major aim. "Catherine of Medici worked towards this aim and the Company could count on the Guises".(35) But this major design, helped so much by that massacre on the night of the 24th of August 1572, provoked a terrible blaze of fratricidal hatred.

Three years later, it was the League, after the assassination of the duke de Guise, nicknamed "the king of Paris", and the appeal to His Most Christian Majesty to fight the Protestants.

"The shrewd Henry III did his best to avoid a war of religion. In agreement with Henry of Navarre, they gathered the Protestants and most of the moderate Catholics against Paris, the League and these partisans, mad Romans backed by Spain...

"The Jesuits, powerful in Paris, protested that the king of France had surrendered to heresy... The directing committee of the League deliberated at the Jesuits' house in the Street Saint-Antoine. Was Spain holding Paris?

Hardly. The League? The League was only an instrument in skilful hands...

"This Company of Jesus who had been fighting in the name of Rome for thirty years now... This was Paris's secret master".

"So, Henry III was assassinated. As the heir was a Protestant, the murder seemed at first glance to have been for other than political reasons; but is it not possible that those who planned it and persuaded the Jacobin Clement to carry it out were hoping for an uprising of Catholic France against the Huguenot heir? The fact is that a little later Clement was called an

"angel" by the Jesuit Camelet, and Guignard, another Jesuit who was eventually hanged, gave his students as a means of moulding their opinions tyrannicidal texts as subjects for their latin exercises".(36) Amongst other things, these school exercises contained this: "Jacques Clement has done a meritorious act inspired by the Holy Spirit... If we can make war against the king, then let us do it; if we cannot make war against him, then let us put him to death..." And this: "We made a big mistake at the Saint-Bartholomew; we should have bled the royal vein".(37) In 1592, a certain Barriere who tried to assassinate Henry IV confessed that Father Varade, rector of the Jesuits in Paris, had persuaded him to do (35) Pierre Dominique, op.cit., p.84.

(36) and (37) Pierre Dominique, op.cit., pp.85, 86, 89.

FRANCE

47

it. In 1594, another attempt was made by Jean Chatel, former pupil of the Jesuits who had heard his confession just before carrying it out. It was on that occasion that the previously mentioned school exercises were seized at the house of Father Guignard. "The Father was hanged at Greve while the king confirmed an edict of Parliament banishing the sons of Loyola from the kingdom, as "corrupters of youth, disturbers of public peace and enemies of the State and crown of France...".