Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

Such a man as the Cardinal of Lorraine could, of course, render most essential aid to the Jesuits, as the Jesuits could to him. He and Loyola were " par nobile fratrum ," each possessing such qualities as fitted him to become a proficient auxiliary of the other in the pursuit of a common object. After he had succeeded in combining against the French Protestants all who were under royal influence, he hastened to Rome, where, under the immediate auspices of the pope, he desired to arrange with Loyola personally for the introduction of the Jesuits into France. To facilitate the measure, he proposed the establishment of the Inquisition in France, with the purpose of disposing of heretics according to the method employed against the Albigenses by Innocent III, and which had been, after many years of disuse, successfully revived in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, under papal patronage and protection. He was received with marked distinction at Rome by both the pope and Loyola; and, having experienced no difficulty in obtaining their approval of his proposed plan of operations, he returned to France to carry it into execution by exterminating Protestantism, destroying the liberties of the Gallican Christians, and re-establishing the unity of religious faith by inquisitorial compulsion. He found the king still in full sympathy with him, and consequently had no difficulty in procuring from him royal letters-patent, by which he gave his consent to the Jesuits to enter France as an organized religious society, to build a house and college in Paris, and to "live therein according to their rules and statutes."49

These facts—narrated with all possible brevity—show the extraordinary means of which Loyola availed himself, in his lifetime, to force his society into France in opposition to the Gallican Church, the almost entire body of the Gallican Christians, and the people. Relying upon the aid of the pope, the king, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and such courtiers as crowded about the royal palace and echoed the royal will, he expected to overcome all opposition, and, by employing the terrible machinery of the Inquisition, to make himself master of France, or prepare the way for his successors to do so. And thus the founder and builder of the Jesuit society himself stamped upon it one of its leading and most distinguishing characteristics—the utter disregard of everything that does not contribute to its own ends and objects.

But the enemies of the Jesuits in France were not so easily reduced to submission as the Cardinal of Lorraine, the pope, and Loyola had supposed. The powerful combination they had formed, with the assistance of the king and his courtiers, was not sufficient to remove or counteract the deep-seated antipathy existing in France against the Jesuits. The orders of the king were not mandatory without the approval of Parliament, which was the highest public representative body in France. When the letters-patent of the king, admitting the Jesuits, came before Parliament, they were rejected with great unanimity, for the avowed reason that their introduction into France would be prejudicial to the public welfare and the Gallican Christians.50 The bulk of the French clergy, and the entire faculty of the University of Paris, also took strong and decided grounds against the Jesuits. The king, offended by this opposition to his royal will, and assuming an air of monarchical supremacy, commanded Parliament to register his letters-patent. But Parliament again refused, and appealed for advice to the Archbishop of Paris—the chief ecclesiastical functionary of the Church. The archbishop also decided against the Jesuits. The Faculty of Theology in the university unanimously charged them, among other things, with arrogant presumption in assuming "the unusual title of the name of Jesus," and with admitting into their society "all sorts of persons, however criminal, lawless, and infamous they may be." They further declared the society to be "dangerous as to matters of faith, capable of disturbing the peace of the Church, overturning the monastic orders, and were more adapted to break down than to build up." This severe indictment is made more important and conspicuous by the fact that it was not preferred by Protestants, but by Roman Catholics, who had for many centuries faithfully adhered to such teachings of the Church as had universally prevailed, before the popes, in imitation of temporal monarchs, had built up the papal system. In addition to all this, the Archbishop of Paris issued an interdict against them, forbidding their exercise of any of the sacred functions.51 The Bishop of Paris followed with other interdictions, and the entire clergy denounced the Jesuits in the pulpits. Placards in censure of them were hawked about the streets. At last the public indignation against them became so intense and violent that they were driven out of Paris, and compelled to seek shelter elsewhere. They did this, however, as they had done when forced by the popular tumult to leave Saragossa; that is, with the seeming appearance of submission, but with the real purpose of renewing their efforts when some occasion attended by more favorable circumstances should arise—when the royal authority could be more successfully employed to defy the Gallican Church and the popular sentiment. This was at that time, has been ever since, and is to-day, an essential part of Jesuit tactics, in the pursuit of which they are persistent and tireless. And where they have had the united aid of popes and monarchs, of Church and State, they have generally succeeded among populations not awakened by Protestant influences to a just appreciation of their own rights and dignity. In the case we have been considering they did not have very long to wait before the king, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and their allies, patronized by the pope, secured for them a conspicuous triumph over public opinion in France. The combination formed for that purpose needed their assistance in the bloody and congenial work of persecution, and this furnished a pretext for their introduction into France, notwithstanding the odium in which they were almost universally held. Nicolini says: "Soon they were called into France to help and cheer that atrocious and cruel hecatomb, that bloody debauch of priests and kings—the Saint Bartholomew."52

Thus far a clear and distinct view is furnished of the estimate in which the Jesuits were held during the lifetime of their founder by those who were steadfastly obedient to the Christian teachings of the Roman Church. None of the opposition here noted came from Protestants, but alone from those attached to the Church which the Jesuits professed to be serving. It originated with those who had a most favorable opportunity of becoming familiar with the general character and purposes of Loyola, many of whom, in all probability, had opportunities of seeing and conversing with him, as Melchior, the Dominican monk, had done. His boasts of extraordinary sanctity, of his frequent interviews with Christ and the Virgin Mary, and his impious pretense that he occupied the place of God in the world, and, like him, possessed miraculous powers, misled very few besides those who became his minions, or those who expected to profit by alliance with him. We shall see all this still more fully in the subsequent events which attended the final introduction of the society into France, all of which combine to show the methods by which, in the course of time, it became odious to the Christian populations of Europe, was expelled ignominiously from all the Christian nations, and was, at last, when its iniquities could be patiently borne no longer, suppressed and abolished by a pope distinguished for his Christian virtue and purity of life.

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The facts stated in the last chapter prove incontestably that the persistent efforts of the Jesuits to procure the establishment of their society in France as a recognized religious order were insidious and stealthy, if not incendiary, from the beginning. The Bishop of Clermont—influenced, probably, by the Cardinal of Lorraine—was favorable to them; and being the owner of a house in Paris, he offered it to them, that they might inaugurate the Jesuit method of education. But neither the French Parliament, nor the universities, nor the Gallican Church could be prevailed upon to withdraw their opposition. Consequently, in order to accomplish by indirection what was forbidden by law and the public sentiment, the Jesuits opened a college at Clermont, within the diocese and under the patronage of the bishop, and beyond the limits of the city of Paris.53