CLEMENT
35
CLEMENT
Francis and changed his baptismal name (Giovanni
Vincenzo Antonio) for that of Lorenzo. Kis talents
and his virtues had raised him to tlie dignity nf ilcfmi-
tor gcneralis of his order (1741); Benoilict XI \' made
him Consultor of the Holy Office, and ('lenient XlII
gave him the cardinal's hat (1759), at the instance, it
is said, of Father Ricci, the General of the Jesuits.
During the conclave he endeavoured to please both
the Zelanti and the Court party without committing
himself to either. At any rate he .signed a paper
which satisfied Solis. Cretineau-Joly, the historian
of the Jesuits, gives its text; the fviture pope declared
"that he recognized in the sovereign pontiff the right
to extinguish, with good conscience, the Company of
Jesus, provided he observed the canon law ; and that
it was desirable that the pope should do everything
in his power to satisfy the wishes of the Crowns".
The original paper is, however, nowhere to be foimd,
but its existence seems estalilished by sulisequent
events, and also by the testimony of Bernis in letters
to ChnLseul (2S July, and 20 November, 1769). Gan-
ganelli had thu.s secured the votes of the Court cardi-
nals; the Zelanti looked upon him as indifferent or
even favourable to the Jesuits; d'Aubeterre had al-
ways been in his favour as being " a wise and moderate
theologian", and C'hoiseul had marked him as "very
good " on the list of papnbili. Bernis, anxious to have
his share in the victory of the sovereigns, m-ged the
election. On 18 May, 1769, Ganganelli was elected
by forty-sLx votes out of forty-seven, the forty-
seventh being his own which he had given to Cardinal
Rezzonico, a nephew of Clement XIII. He took the
name of Clement XIV.
The new pope's first Encyclical clearly defined his policy: to keep the peace with Catholic princes in order to secure their support in the war against irre- ligion. His predecessor had left him a legacy of broils with nearly every Catholic power in Europe. Clement hastened to .settle as many as he could by concessions and conciliatory measures. Without re- voking the constitution of Clement XIII against the young Duke of Parma's inroads on the rights of the Church, he refrained from urging its execution, and graciously granted him a ilispensation to marry his cousm, the Archtluchess Amelia, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. The King of Spain, soothed by these concessions, withdrew the uncanonical edict which, a year before, he had issued as a counterblast to the pope's proceedings against the infant Duke of Parma, the king's nephew; he also re-established the nuncio's tribunal and condemned some writings against Rome. Portugal had been severed from Rome since 1760; Clement XIV began his attempt at reconciliaticm Ijy elevating to the Sacred College Paulo de Carvalho, brother of the famous minister Pombal ; active negotiations terminated in the re- vocation, by King Joseph I, of the ordinances of 17(i0, the origin and cause of the rupture between Portugal and the Holy See. A grievance common to Catholic princes was the yearly publication, on Holy Thursday, of the censures re.scrved to the pope; CIcrnonI abol- ished this custom in the first Lentof his pontificate. But there remained the ominous qviestion of the Jesuits. The Bourbon princes, though thankful for smaller concessions, would not rest till they had ob- tained the great object of their machinations, the total suppression of the .Society. Although perse- cuted in France, Spain, Sicily, and Portugal, the Jesuits had still many powerful protectors: the rulers, as well as the public conscience, protected them and their numerous establishments in the ec- clesiastical electorates of (iermany, in the Palatinate, Bavaria, Silesia, Poland, Switzerlaml, and the many countries subject to the sceptre of Maria Theresa, not to mention the States of the Church and the foreign mi.s,sions. The Bourbon princes were moved in their persecution by the spirit of the times, represented in
Latin countries by French irreligious philosophism, by
Jansenism, Gallicanism, and Erastianism; probably
also by the natural desire to receive the papal sanction
for their unjust proceedings against the order, for
which they stood accused at the bar of the Catholic
conscience. The victim of a man's injustice often
becomes the object of his hatred; thus only the con-
duct of Charles III, of Pombal, Tanucci, Aranda,
Moniiio can be accounted for.
An ever-recurring and almost solitary grievance against the Society was that the Fathers disturbed the peace wherever they were firmly established. The accusation is not unfounded: the Jesuits did indeed distvirb the peace of the enemies of the Church, for, in
the words of d'A-
lembert to Fred- erick II, they were "the grenadiers of the pope 's guard ". CardinaldeBernis, now French am- bassador in Rome, was instructed by Choiseul to follow the lead of Sjiain in the renewed campaign against the Jesuits. On the 22nd of July, 1769, he presented to the Jiope a memorandum in the name of the three ministers of the B o VI r b o n kings. " The three monarchs", it ran, " still believe the destruction of the Jesuits to be useful and necessary ; they have already made their request to Your Holiness, and they renew it this day. " C'lement answered that " he had his conscience and honour to consult"; he asked for a delay. On 30 September he made some vague promises to Louis XV, wlio was less eager in the fray than Charles III. This latter, bent on the immediate suppression of the order, ob- tained from Clement XIV, under the strong pressure of Azpuru, the written promise "to submit to His Majesty a scheme for the absolute extinction of the Society" (30 November, 1769). To prove his sin- cerity the pope now commenced open hostilities against the .Jesuits. He refused to see their general, Father Ricci, and gradually removed from his en- tourage their best friends; his only confidants were two friars of his own order, Buontempo and Francesco; no princes or cardinals surrounded his throne. The Roman people, dissatisfied with this state of things and reduced to starvation by maladministration, openly showed their discontent, but Clcinriit, hound by his promises and caught in the meshes of Bourbon diplomacy, was unable to retrace his steps. The col- lege and seminary of Friiscati were taken from the Jesuits and handed over to the bishop of the town, the Cardinal of York. Their Lenten catechisms were prohibited for 1770. A congregation of cardinals hostile to the order vi.sited the Roman College and had the Fathers expelled; the novitiate and the German College were also attacked. The German College won its cause, but the sentence was never executed. The novices and students were .sent back to their families. A similar system of persecution was extended to Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Modena, Macerata. No- where did th(? Jesuits offer any resistance; they knew that their efforts were futile. FatluT Garnier wrote: " You ask me why the Jesuits offer no defence: they can do nothing here. All approaches, direct and in- direct, are completely closed, wallecl up with double walls. Not the most insignificant memorandum can
