S0CIET7
89
SOCIETY
Sfhich no human guidance could save from periods
if decline and degradation. But this was more
Mcarly seen later on. A crisis for French Catholi-
cism was near when, after the death of Frangois,
Duke of Anjou, 1584, Henri de Navarre, now an apos-
tate, stood heir to the throne, which the feeble Henry
[II could not possibly retain for long. Sides were
laken with enthusiasm, and La saintc ligue was formed
"or the defence of the Church (sec League, The;
CiuisE, House of; Fr.\nce). It was hardly to be ex-
pected that the
Jesuits to a man
should have re-
mained cool, when
the whole popu-
lace was in a fer-
ment of excite-
ment. It was
morally impo.s-
sible to keep the
Jesuit friends of
the exallcsonholh
sides from partic-
ipating in their
ext reme measures.
Auger and Claude
Matthieu were
respectively in
the confidence of
the two contend-
ing parties, the
Court and the
League. Father
Acquaviva suc-
ceeded in with-
drawing bothfrom France, though with great difficulty
and considerable loss of favour on either side. One or
two hecould not control for some time, and of these the
most remarkable was Henri Samerie, who had been
phaiilain to Mary Stuart, and became later army
rhaplain in Flanders. For a year he passed as diplo-
mat ic agent from one prince of the League to another,
evading, by their means and the favour of Sixtus V,
all Acquaviva's efforts to get him back to regular life.
But in the end discipUne prevailed; and Acquaviva's
orders to respect the consciences of both sides
enabled the Society to keep friends with all.
Henry IV made much use of the Jesuits (especially Toledo, Possevinus, and Commolet), although they had favoured the League, to obtain canonical absolu- tion and the conclusion of peace; and in time (1604) took Pere Coton (q. v.) as his confessor. This, however, is an anticipation. After the attempt on Henry's life by Jean Chastel (27 December, 1594), the I'nrlement of Paris took the opportunity of attack- ing the Society with fury, perhaps in order to dis- guise the fact that they had been among the most extreme of the Leaguers, while the Society was among the more moderate. It was pretended that the Society was responsible for Chastel's crime, because he had once been their student: though in truth he wa,s then at the tmiversity. The librarian of the Jesuit College, Jean Guignard, w-as lianged, 7 Janu- ary, 1595, because an old book against the king was found in a cupboard of his room. Antoine Arnauld, the elder, brought into his plaidnycr before the Parle- mriit every possible calumny against the Societj', and the Jesuits were ordered to leave Paris in three days and France in a fortnight. The decree was executed in the districts subject to the Pnrlcmenl of Paris, but not elsewhere. The king, not being yet canoni- cally absolved, did not then interfere. But the pope, and many others, pleaded earnestly for the revocation of the decree against the order. The matter was warmly debated, and eventually Henry himself gave the permission for its readmission, on'l Sept., 1603. He now made great use of the Society, founded for it the
great College of La Fleche, encouraged its missions
at home, in Normandy and B^arn, and the commence-
meiit of the foreign missions in Canada and the Levant.
The Society immediately began to increase rapidly, and counted thirty-nine colleges, besides other houses, and 11.35 religious before the king fell under Ravail- lac's dagger (1610). This was made the occasion for new assaults by the Parlemenl, who availed them- selves of Mariana's book "De rege" to attack the Society as defenders of t>Tannicide. Suarez's "De- fensio fidei" was burnt in 1614. The young king, Louis XIII, was too weak to curb the parUmai- taires, but both he and the people of France favoured the Society so effectively that at the time of his death in 1643 their numbers had trebled. They now had five provinces, and that of Paris alone counted over 13,000 scholars in its colleges. The confessors during this reign were changed not unfrequently by the mancEuvrea of Richelieu, and include Peres Arnoux de Seguiron, Suffren, Caussin (q. v.), Sirmond, Dinet. Richeheu's pohcy of supporting the Ger- man Protestants against Cathohc Austria (which Caussin resisted) proved the occasion for angry po- lemics. The German Jesuit Jacob Keller was believed (though proof of authorship is altogether wanting) to have WTitten two strong pamphlets, "Mysteria pohtica" and "Admonitio ad Ludovicum XIII", against France. The books were burned by the hangman, as in 1626 was a work of Father Santarelli, which touched awkwardly on the pope's power to pronounce against princes.
The politico-religious history of the Society under Louis XlV centres round Jansenism (see J.\nsenius ANT) Jansenism) and the lives of the king's confessors, especially Peres Annat (164.5-60), Ferrier (1660-74), La Chaise (q. v.) (1674-1709), and Michel Le Tellier, (q. v.), (1709-1.5). On 24 May, 1656, Blaise Pascal (q.v.) published the first of his "Provin- ciales". The five propositions of Jansenius having been condcnmeii by papal author- ity, Pascal could no longer defend them openly, and found the nu^sf effective method of retaliation was sat- ire, raillery, and countercharge against theSociety He concluded with the u.sual evasion that Jansenius did not write in the sense attributed to him by the pope. The"Provinciales" were the first noti^ worthy example in the French lan- guage of satire written in stiidiou.sly polite and moderate terms; and their great literary merit appealed iiowerfully to the French love of cleverness. Too light to be effectively answered by refutation, they were at the same time sufficiently envenomed to do great and lasting harm; although they have frequently been proved to mis- represent the teaching of the Jesuits by omissions, alterations, interpolations, and false contexts, notably by Dr. Karl Weiss, of Gratz, "P. Antonio de Escobar y Mendoza als Moraltheologc in Pascals Beleuchtung und im Lichtc dcr AVahrheit".
