The Archbishop of Paris (BEAUMONT) was, at the period in question, decidedly attached to the Jesuits: he was a man eminently unqualified for his high station, it having been noto→ rious that he had only taken the degree of Doctor by mere favor; his profound ignorance and excessive vanity induced him to neglect his Diocese, and occupy himself in the concerns of the Jesuits. He seconded the Pope in the most vigorous manner, making obedience to the Bulls in favor of the Jesuits, a test of orthodoxy throughout his Diocese: he multiplied interdicts, expelled from Livings, and exercised many other arbitrary acts of Episcopal authority, with a view to the exclusive interests of the Order of Jesuits; and so manifest was his partiality and injustice, that his Pastoral Charge in favor of the Jesuits was burnt by the Parliament; and he was publicly denounced by the Magistrates of the realm as a factious disturber of the peace of his own Church and Diocese, who had, for fifteen years, only excited agitation where he should have promoted union*. Another Prelate who was at this time devotedly attached to the Jesuits, and who chiefly assisted in influencing the rest in declaring for them, was M. DE LA ROCHE-AIMON, who was President of the Assembly of the Clergy at this period. He was a Prelate in the highest favor at Court, having the disposal of the principal Church-preferments, in distributing which he had by no means forgotten himself: he was, in the first place, Bishop of Sarepta abroad; while, at home, he was Bishop of Tarbes, Archbishop of Thoulouse, Archbishop of Narbonne, and lastly Archbishop of Rheims, Grand Almoner of France, and a Cardinal! He was one of the greatest friends and patrons of the Jesuits; and it was not less owing to him than to the Archbishop of Paris, that the Jesuits were enabled to influence the Bishops and Clergy in their favor. The third Ecclesiastic who had a chief share in producing the same result, was the well-known LOMENIE DE BRIENNE, See Remontrances du Parlement, p. 6 et seq. a man whose immoralities were a scandal to the French Epis He was an Archbishop, a copacy in the reign of Louis XV. Cardinal, and a Prime Minister. mittee whose main object was the influencing of the Clergy of France, especially the Superiors of that Body, in the protection and support of the Jesuits. He was the intimate friend of D'ALEMBERT, and was generally thought to have had him for an adviser; a trait (by the way) which, if it be correct, may serve to shew that D'ALEMBERT himself favored the Jesuits, contrary to the assertion of MR. DALLAS, who, in the early part of his work, seeks to establish his opposition to the Order of Jesuits. However this may have been, it is certain that BRIENNE himself espoused the cause of the Jesuits with the greatest ardour. In the prosecution of that object, he influenced several of his Brethren on the Bench, and many of the inferior Clergy, in their favor; and, by this means, assisted in widening the breach between the Church and the Parliament, and in aggravating a dispute, which though not one of the primary, was one of the secondary causes of the French Revolution. The Bishops, as a body, although by no means sunk so low as their leaders, were yet, as a general question, in a state of secularity and corruption, which partook of any thing but the piety and zeal of vital Christianity. Their condition was at the same time truly deplorable; for, on the one hand, they were compelled to witness the powerful attack which was now in full operation on the part of the various Infidels and Philosophers, who were assailing Religion in general, through the sides of Popery and its vices; while, on the other hand, they were urged by the Pope and the Jesuits to a vigorous declaration in favor of the Order, although they had themselves well nigh lost the confidence of the nation at large. In this critical state of things, the Jesuits succeeded, by their intrigues, in inducing the Bishops to believe that they could not better promote their own interests than in declaring for them. Instead, therefore, of making common cause with that portion of the Church and Nation, in which some remains of real piety and good sense were yet to be found, they openly espoused the cause of the Jesuits, revived the ancient opposition to JANSENISM, and resolved to make the acceptance of the famous Bull Unigenitus, a touchstone of true faith, in all who were admitted to the priestly office, and even in Laymen, over whom they possessed any influence. In this object they became more completely and interminably embroiled with the Parliament. The final Edict of Louis XV. against the Order, which took place in November, 1764, sufficiently proves how little effect the arguments of the Bishops, in their boasted Judgment of 1762, had produced upon the Royal mind: the Church of France, having thus lost the confidence and countenance of its King and its Parliament, proceeded, in despair, through the influence of the Bishops who have been named, to a General Assembly of the Clergy, which was holden in the year 1765; after which they experienced the mortification of having their official acts in that Assembly condemned and annulled by the Parliament. The brief history, therefore, of the Bishops and Clergy of France at this period of their open licentiousness, and concealed Atheism, is simply this, that having long lost the confidence of the nation by their private and personal conduct, they now lost the confidence of the King and the Parliament, by a blind obedience to the Pope, and an infatuated attachment to the Jesuits; their protection and support of whom against the united voice of all the authority and virtue left in the nation, at once sealed their own destruction, and precipitated the overthrow of the national Church, over which they so unworthily presided*. MR. DALLAS, therefore, will not find THE JUDGMENT OF THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE, in this last and most degraded pe *The above facts are principally drawn from the work, entitled, "Les Jesuites tels qu'ils ont été dans l'Ordre politique, religieux, et morale," which MR. DALLAS pleasantly imagines (see p. 95 of his work) he has answered without having seen! riod of their history, entitled to all the credit and consequence which he is desirous to attach to it, especially when the intrigues which produced it, and the consequences to which it led, are considered; and had he really desired to consult the interests of the Jesuits, as well as the character of the Modern Roman Catholic Prelacy, he would not have selected with so much care, or produced with so much pomp, a document which the more prudent friends of the Jesuits and of Popery would rather wish to have seen for ever buried in oblivion. In concluding the observations upon MR. DALLAS's authorities in favor of the Jesuits, it may be right to observe, that most of such authorities (particularly those of MONTESQUIEU, HALLER, RICHELIEU, BUFFON, and MURATORI, as also his Defence of the Jesuit LAVALETTE, which will be noticed hereafter) and all that he has said respecting the excellence of the Institute, the advantages of the Missions, and the discipline of the Schools, may be found in the Apology for the Jesuits, which was avowedly the work of one of their own Order! See Apologia pro Instituto Societatis Jesu cum Licentiâ Superiorum; Editio Augusta Vindelicorum, 1765-and also the Edition of the same work in the French language. Perhaps, as "great wits jump," MR. DALLAS may wish to have it thought, that, in conducting his Defence of the Jesuits, he discovered the same authorities, and stated the same arguments, as the Jesuit who defended them before, without his having been indebted to so able a prompter. This, however, is a matter of little consequence to the main argument; since, as MR. DALLAS has thought it worth his while to come forward on this occasion, it appeared necessary to the cause of truth, that he should not be left in undisputed possession of the field, whether his authorities and arguments were his own, or those of other men. MR. DALLAS then professes (p. 153) to consider the objections arising from the Ambition, the Commerce, and the Sedition of the Jesuits. As to their Ambition, he denies that they "have shaped + "their course to the richest and most commodious countries, "or raised on the Cross a throne to their ambition, rather than "to Christ;" and he asserts, that, "on the contrary, the "Jesuits renounced all ecclesiastical honours, by a formal 66 VOW, and were prohibited all political employments, by the "most rigorous penalties of their own Institute;" that "the "countries where we hear of Jesuits, are inhabited by Can"nibals, by Hurons, Iroquois, Canadians, Illinoise, Negroes, Ethiopians, Laplanders, and Tartars; they are" (says he) "barren deserts, eternal snows, burning sands, gloomy forests: "there did these ambitious men live on wild herbs, and bitter "roots, and cover themselves with leaves or the skins of wild "beasts." 66 The more complete proof that the very essence of the Jesuits' system was an ambition which knew no bounds, must be reserved for the following History, as must the proof that they enjoyed as much of the good things of this life as any of the most favored of the species. They were, indeed, neither ascetics nor hermits, and both these facts will appear satisfactorily hereafter; at present the following remarks shall suffice. The University of France shews, in its second Apology in 1643, that they abandoned those regions where there was nothing to gain, for such as were favorable to commerce *. The Jesuits themselves, in their Address to the King in 1594, said, “We have Colleges" (Colleges, Mr. Dallas, not Hermitages)" in Japan towards the East; in Brazil towards "the West; in Lima and the farthest part of Peru, and in "the extremity of the western Regions; in Mexico, which lies between them towards the North; in Goa, a town and country forming two thirds of the distance between Lisbon and Japan, a journey of 6000 leagues: we have Colleges in many parts of the East and West Indies; and where we "have no regular Colleges, our members are to be found in "the regions of Mount Libanus and Egypt, of Africa and China t 366 166 * See Seconde Apologie de l'Université, 1643, 3d part, p. 3 • |