The Jesuit Conspiracy. The Secret Plan of the Order. – Jacopo Leone
Introduction by the Author.
Contents
There is no one but has devoted some attention to the reappearance of the too famous Company of Jesus on the European stage. Many have rejoiced at the event; a greater number have beheld it with deep sorrow or irritation.
To say the truth, there were various reasons why a fact of this nature should interest governments and nations; for if ever the aim of that audacious Order could be achieved, every right and every liberty would be at an end. I do not think I exaggerate in expressing myself thus; on the contrary, I am strongly persuaded that those who read the disclosures made in this work will share my opinion.
Let me be permitted, in the first place, to enter into certain personal details, before I proceed to initiate the public into the secret I am about to divulge. I will be as brief as possible.
In 1838, I voluntarily quitted Piedmont, my native country, went to Switzerland, and settled in Geneva. At that period nothing yet presaged the ascendancy which the Jesuits were soon to obtain in the affairs of that republic, and the troubles in which their intrigues were to involve various other parts of Europe. Yet I did not hesitate to say openly to a great number of persons what there was to be apprehended in that way. I was not believed. My predictions were universally regarded as dreams. In vain I repeated to them that I possessed proofs of the invisible snares and most secret projects of the Company. A contemptuous smile was the answer to my words.
Gradually the face of events was changed, and the first symptoms of the Jesuit influence began to show themselves in Prussia.
Every one knows the commotion caused by the question of mixed marriages raised by the Archbishop of Cologne, and his ultramontane pretensions. A powerful party, and celebrated writers, Gorres among the rest, declared themselves the prelate’s supporters, and undertook the defence of doctrines which had long been considered dead. At the same period, pompous announcements were made of the conversion of princes and princesses, high personages of all kinds, learned men and artists. Such events were talked of with amazement in every company.
I happened to be one evening at the house of Mr. Hare, an Anglican clergyman, when a number of distinguished foreigners were present. The conversation ran exclusively upon the subject of these brilliant conquests, and everybody strove to invent some hypothesis on which to explain them. From what was stated of several of the converts by those who knew them personally, it was inferred that the real motive of their change was not precisely of a religious nature. I declared that the conjecture was not erroneous; and I was thus led to lay before the company present the course of circumstances through which I had become in a manner an initiated Jesuit.
A person who took part in the conversation, and who was travelling under the title of count, expressed a strong desire to see some portion of the Secret Plan, which had been mentioned. At his request, I called on him next day, and read him certain pages of the manuscript. He listened with great attention, seemed very much struck by some passages, and owned to me that at last he could explain to himself many enigmas. He asked me to let him keep the manuscript for a day, in order that he might study it more at leisure. This I declined; and then he made known his name. He was a prince nearly related to the royal house of Prussia. I persisted, nevertheless, in my refusal, though he offered me his support, and even made me some tempting promises.
The prince, somewhat to my surprise, requested me to give him a French version of the Secret Plan, that he might, as he said, have it translated into German. He recommended me to observe the greatest discretion, and insisted that I should not compromise his name. I was to deal only with his son’s tutor on the subject. Furthermore, it was arranged that I should subjoin an essay on the question pending between the cabinet of Prussia and the Holy See, wherein I was to demonstrate that the attempts made by various prelates, especially their attacks upon the university system of education, and their growing audacity in enforcing the old maxims of Rome, were not a purely local and fortuitous manifestation, but a fact closely connected with a vast conspiracy, pregnant with danger to all the powers.
I set to work, and wrote an account of all the strange incidents through which I had become an invisible witness of the occult committee in which the Jesuit plot was concocted. As soon as I had finished the translation of the plan itself, which I sent off by installments, and just as I was about to enter on the conclusion, I was desired to stop short—the pretext alleged being the death of the King of Prussia, which had just occurred. I had even a good deal of trouble to recover the copy I had sent.
I was soon surrounded with people who obtruded their advice upon me; telling me, that if aid was not afforded, me towards publishing, it was for my own sake it was withheld; that I ought to beware how I braved a society known to be implacable—a society that had smitten kings. “Who are you,” they said to me, “to cope with such a power, and not fear its numerous satellites?” Then, gliding into another order of considerations, they would say, “Nothing can be more dangerous than to initiate the people into such mysteries. It is enough that they should be known to those whose position authorises and enjoins them to frustrate an ambition, which is the more enterprising and mischievous inasmuch as religion and blind multitudes serve it as auxiliaries.”
These observations would have had less influence over me, had they not derived weight from the increasing anxieties of an aged and timid mother. Besides, my existence then depended on families who would have been deeply offended by a publication of such a nature. All this embarrassed my projects; and eager as I had been on my arrival to send the Secret Plan of the Jesuits to press, my many disappointments led me to postpone its publication indefinitely, though I could not conceal my disgust and despondency.
During all this time the influence of the Jesuits had augmented, and the liberals were beginning to regard it with apprehension. People came to me with all sorts of solicitations; and so, notwithstanding my many disappointments, I was constrained, in a manner, by events and entreaties, again to make ready for the press this long-retarded work.
But other obstacles again delayed it, for everything seemed to conspire against an enterprise for which, in a great measure, I had voluntarily expatriated myself. The persons with whom I had come in contact for this business sought only their own interest, and wished to place me in such a position as would have entailed on me all the annoyances and dangers of the publication without any of its advantages.
The Genevese government increased my perplexities by its persecutions. That government of doctrinaires, or Protestant Jesuits, so deservedly overthrown last year, conducted itself on narrow, egotistical principles, and was particularly captious towards strangers. I was several times summoned before its police on the most futile pretexts. Unable to prove anything against me, they took upon them to judge my intentions; interpreted my religious and democratic ideas as a crime, and strove to intimidate me with threats of dire calamities. On my part I ventured to predict for that intolerable government a speedy and ignominious fall. At last I was ordered to quit the country within the briefest space of time, without any cause being assigned to justify that arbitrary measure. Thus a final stop was put in Switzerland to the publication of my work, which had already been rendered so difficult by all the obstacles I have mentioned.
When I came to Paris in 1846 I had no thought of making fresh attempts, more especially as I was told I should have great difficulty in finding a publisher. I applied myself to the composition of a work, now in a great measure completed, founded on documents of unquestionable authenticity, and which I should even have wished to print before the Secret Plan, as fitted in every respect, by its important revelations, to secure to the latter the most solid basis in public opinion. But when I was about to publish it, I received from Geneva a letter informing me of a monstrous abuse of confidence. The person I had employed to transcribe my manuscript of the Secret Plan had copied it in duplicate. He had put the second copy into the hands of a society, which, strange to say, had been formed for the express purpose of trafficking in this robbery. The excuse they offered was, that since I had during so many years divulged the secret plan of the Jesuits, the thing had become the property of the public. Moreover, as I had transcribed it surreptitiously, it did not belong to me, but was free to be used by anybody. It will scarcely be believed that the spoiler even went so far as to dictate the terms of a bargain to the despoiled, and to add irony to impudence, since the work had been printed several days before in Berne, as witness a copy sent me. The insolent letter he wrote me deserves to be known.*
* Here it is :—
“Sir,
“After having so long played with us, it is extremely surprising that you now protest against the publication of a work containing essentially the disclosure of speeches captured without permission by your ears, or rather by your eyes, in 1824.
“This protest is the more astonishing after your having yourself communicated those speeches to hundreds of persons, so as to make them be regarded as common property.
“Though I consider your protest as insignificant, and as a thing which at most can only result in giving you trouble and making you spend money uselessly, yet on the other hand, since my object has been attained, and since it is from public motives and not for any private interest that I have done so, I now offer to treat with you on the following terms:—In case you desire to become the proprietor of this publication, I consent thereto, on condition that you immediately furnish the necessary securities for the complete payment of the printer and of the incidental expenses. I have the honour to salute you.
F. Roessinger.
What! The very persons who profess themselves such uncompromising enemies of the Jesuits, do not themselves refuse to act on the maxim that “the end justifies the means.” But what has been the result of their spoliation? That it has been of no manner of advantage to them. What confidence, indeed, would there be in a paltry pamphlet, without name or warrant for its authenticity? The work, too, they published was but a shapeless abortion, a rough draft of a translation, very imperfectly collated with the original, and what is worse, truncated, slovenly, incorrect, and swarming with mistakes. The edition I put forth is rigorously exact and scrupulous; I have long and minutely scrutinized it, and it has been re-corrected under the eye of guides who have helped me to convey in French the full force of the original, which is often hard to translate. I have subjoined (added) to the Secret Plan elucidations (clarifications) of great importance, and I have related the circumstances through which it has come into my possession. Finally, I have brought forward counter-proofs of various kinds, all drawn from authentic sources, in support of the essential views and ideas developed in the plan.
The publication put forth by my spoliators (robbers) is the more blamable, inasmuch as the manner of its execution has been such as to compromise the fundamental document. For, I repeat, what authority can it have without my co-operation, without my name, and the corroborative proofs that accompany it in the present volume? Is it not a culpable and shameful act to put in jeopardy a matter of such moment? If they were actuated by no sordid motives, why did they not apply to me, and offer me the means of giving publicity to my manuscript in the way necessary to secure its full effect? In acting with such bad faith, did they not expose themselves to see the blow they designed for Jesuitism turned back upon them to their confusion? What was to prevent me from annihilating the result of their manoeuvre? Was it not in my power utterly to discredit the story, by attributing it to a freak of my youth?
I will say more. What they have done has put me in a position, from which it rested only with myself to derive profit, by proving by letters, ante-dated a few years, that my design had been to play off a hoax.
Those who have at all reflected on the Order of the Jesuits, who have studied its history, and have had a near view of its workings, will by no means be surprised at its profound artifices and superb hopes. Do we not see it at this moment in France become the guide of the bishops, and giving law to the inferior clergy. M. Henri Martin thus expresses himself in a remarkable work recently published:
“The clergy, in its collective action, is little more than a machine of forty thousand arms, impelled by its leaders against whomsoever they please, and those leaders themselves are pushed forward by the Jesuit and neo-catholic congregations.”*
* De la France, de son Genie et de ses Destinies. Paris, 1847, p. 92.
Well-informed clergymen have assured me that the Jesuits were never so well seconded and supported as they now are. The establishments dependent on them are very numerous, and increase daily. Their resources are prodigious. A letter addressed to the Siecle thus speaks of their progress. Such a letter serves well to corroborate what is contained in the Secret Plan. I will quote the greater part of it:—*
* December 17, 1847.
“The hill of Fourvieres, which commands Lyons, on the right bank of the Saone, is a sort of entrenched camp, wherein all the bodies of the clerical militia are echelonned, one above the other, in the strongest positions; thence they hold the town in check, like those formidable fortresses which have been built to intimidate rather than to defend it. The long avenues that lead to Fourvieres and the chapel that surmounts it, are thronged with images of saints and ex voto; and but for that industrious city which unfolds its moving panorama below your feet, you might fancy yourself in the midst of the middle ages, and take its factory chimneys for convent spires.
“The exact statistics of the religious establishments of Lyons, with the number of their inhabitants and the revenues they command, would form a very curious book; but the archbishopric, which possesses all the elements of those statistics, is by no means disposed to publish them. The clergy, since the severe lessons given it by the July event, likes better to be than to appear; its force, disseminated all over France, and not the less real because they do not show themselves; and it can at any moment, as occasion may arise, set in motion that huge lever, the extremity of which is everywhere, and the fulcrum at Rome.
“Now, the soul of this great clerical conspiracy, the vital principle that animates it, is the Jesuits. Every one knows the well-grounded dislike with which this able and dangerous order is regarded from one end of Europe to the other. Yet it must be owned that in it alone resides all the life of Catholicism at this day; and the clergy would be very ungrateful if they did not accept these useful auxiliaries even while they fear them.
“All France knows that famous house in the Rue Sala in Lyons, one of the most important centres of Jesuitism. At the period of the pretended dispersion of the order, that great diplomatic victory in which M. le Comte Rossi won his ambassador’s spurs, the house in the Rue Sala, as well as that in the Rue des Postes in Paris, dispersed its inmates for a while, either into the neighbouring dioceses, as aide-de-camps to the bishops, or as tutors in some noble houses of the Place Bellecour; but when once the farce was played out, things returned very quietly to their old course, and the Rue Sala, at the moment I write, is still with the archbishopric the most active centre of politico-religious direction.
“That activity is principally directed upon two points; by means of the brotherhoods (confreries) it reaches the lower classes, whom the clergy drills and holds obedient to it; by education it gets hold of the middle classes, and thus secures to itself the future by casting almost a whole generation in the clerical mould. Let us begin with the brotherhoods. We will say nothing of those that are not essentially Lyonnese, and whose centre is elsewhere, though they possess hosts of affiliated dependents here. We will merely mention by name the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, whose centre, next after Rome, is Lyons, and which alone possesses a revenue of four millions and a half of francs. But the most important, the one which draws its recruits most directly from this industrious population, is the Society of St. Francis Xavier. Its name sufficiently indicates to what order it belongs; it is Jesuitism put within the reach of the labouring classes, and you may recognize it by the cleverness of its arrangements. The workmen, of which it consists almost exclusively, are disposed in sections of tens, hundreds, and thousands, with leaders to each section. The avowed purpose of the society is to succour invalid workmen, who, for a subscription of five sous a-month, or three francs a-year, are insured medical aid and twenty-five sous a-day in sickness. Such are the outward rules of the society; but in reality its design is clerical and legitimist: the two influences are here blended together in one common aim.
“Another and perhaps more dangerous means of action is the vast boarding-school which the brethren of the Christian schools, under the supreme control of the Rue Sala, have established at Fouvrieres. This gigantic establishment, which can accommodate upwards of four hundred interns, was founded about eight years ago in defiance of all the universitary laws. Its object, which is distinct from that of the small seminaries, is to give young men of the middle and inferior trading classes a sort of professional education, comprising, with the exception of the dead languages, all the branches taught in colleges. The complete course of study embraces no less than eight years. In this institution, as in all others of its kind, the domestic arrangements are excellent, and the instruction indifferent, being imparted by the brethren. Masters, fit only to teach little children their catechism, instruct adults in the highest branches of rhetoric, philosophy, and the physical and mathematical sciences. In consequence, too, of the continual removes of each of the brethren of the doctrine to and from all parts of France, any able professors who may have been formed in Lyons are soon appointed directors in some other town; and the system of teaching in the institution, however high in appearance, does not in reality rise above a very humble level.
“The annual charge is as low as possible, not exceeding 550 francs, which barely covers the indispensable expenses. This low rate of charge, aided by the all-potent influence of the confessional over mothers of families, attracts to the institution multitudes of lads of the middle class. As for the children of the poor, they belong of right to the schools of the doctrine— the primitive destination of the order, and one in which it can render real services. But this is not all: one of the centres of the Christian schools being placed at Lyons, there was requisite a noviciate house; and the order has just procured one, by purchasing for 250,000 francs a magnificent property at Calvire, within a league of Lyons. The vendor allowed ten years for the discharge of the purchase money; but the whole was paid within eighteen months; and a vast edifice, capable, when complete, of accommodating more than four hundred resident pupils, has risen out of the earth as if by enchantment. The estimate made by the engineer who directed the works, and who is a member of the society, amounted, it is said, to a million and a half of francs, and it has been exceeded.
“As for the lesser seminaries, of which there are many in the diocese, we will only mention that of Argentine, which contains five hundred pupils, and that of Meximieux, which has two hundred. Hence we may form an approximate idea of the immense action on education exercised in these parts by the clergy, in flagrant contravention of the university laws and regulations. The low charges of their institutions, not to mention many supplementary burses, give it the additional attraction of cheapness; and for those very low charges (about 400 francs) the Jesuit schools are supposed to afford their pupils instruction in all those branches of knowledge, Greek and Latin included, which are taught in those gulphs (archaic variant of gulf) of perdition which are called Colleges.
“On the whole, we may reckon at the number of one hundred the religious establishments intended whether for the education of both sexes, or for the relief of the distressed. All the suburbs of Lyons have their nunneries; and monastic garbs of every form and colour swarm in the streets. The Capuchins, however, who were formerly found there, have migrated to Villeurbonne; and the Jesuits, jealous of any rivals of their supremacy here, are said to have purchased their retirement at the cost of 900,000 francs.
“If you are astonished at the immense sums which the clergy here dispose of, recollect that one individual, Mademoiselle de Labalmondiere, the last scion of a noble family, has left the church a sum of ten millions, of which the archbishop has been named supreme dispenser. Through the confession, by means of the women, and by all kinds of influence direct and indirect, the clergy keeps the whole male population in a state of obsession and blockade. A trader who should revolt against this influence would instantly provoke against him the whole clerical host, and would be stripped of his credit and put under a sort of moral interdiction that would end in his ruin. The university, which possesses at Lyons some distinguished men, a brilliant faculty, and an excellent royal college, is put in the archiepiscopal index; and what here as elsewhere is called freedom of teaching, that is to say the power of taking education entirely out of lay hands and committing it to corporations, is the object of all the prayers of pious souls here, and of all the combined efforts of the archbishopric and the Rue Sala.”
The Jesuits have shown themselves in their true colours in Switzerland, where, merciless as ever, they chose rather to provoke the horrors of civil war than to yield, as the Christian spirit enjoined them. They have thereby augmented the hatred and contempt with which they are regarded on all sides. So sure were they of victory, that in their infatuation they disdained to take the most ordinary precautions.
“Apropos of the Jesuits,” said the Swiss correspondent of the National at that period, “it will be well to give you some account of the documents which most deeply compromised the reverend fathers and their allies both in Switzerland and in other countries. It will be seen whether or not the presence of the order is extremely dangerous to the countries that afford them an asylum.
“In the first place, there has been discovered at Fribourg a catalogue in Latin of all the establishments which the Jesuits possess in a portion of France and Switzerland, with a list and the addresses of all the persons connected with them. I have sent you two numbers of a Swiss journal in which there is an abstract of this catalogue, drawn up with the greatest care. You will perceive from it that the Jesuits’ houses have greatly augmented in number in France, since the pope made a show of promising M. Rossi and M. Guizot that they should have no more establishments in your country. The chambers will see how their demands have been derided. France will learn how she is duped, and what is the occult power that rules the government. For proof of all this, I refer to the analysis of the famous catalogue, which you will not fail to publish.
“There are two other documents, which you can see in the Helvetie of Dec. 18. The first is an address of two Fribourg magistrates, the president of the old great council, and a councilor of state, who humbly prostrating themselves at the feet of the Holy Father, recommend M. Marilley for bishop of the diocese, carefully insisting on the feet that he is most favourable to the order of the Jesuits. Now that prelate, a consummate hypocrite, had been at war with the society, and gave himself out for a liberal.
“The other document is still more curious and instructive. It is an address from the deaconry of Romont (Canton of Fribourg) to the apostolic nuncio at Lucerne, dated Dec. 20, 1845, and recommending the same Marilley, a parish priest expelled from Geneva, to the pope’s choice as bishop. The clergy of the deaconry, labouring hard to refute one by one the calumnious accusations directed against their protege, prove that M. Marilley by no means deserves the epithet of liberal; that he is not even a little liberal; and that far from being hostile to the reverend Jesuit fathers, he has given them authentic testimonies of his special veneration and esteem. The most remarkable passages of the address from the deaconry of Romont are those relating to politics. Speaking of the Catholic association, of which, like almost all the clergy of the diocese, M. Marilley was a member, his protectors say, ‘In 1837 this association wrested by its influence the majority in the grand council from the radicals, who were threatening among other things to dismiss the reverend Jesuit fathers from the canton. So the conservatives owe to this calumniated association their majority and their places, and the reverend Jesuit fathers owe to it their actual existence in Fribourg.’
“Further on, with respect to the old doctrinaire conservative government of Geneva, the address says, ‘Geneva does not choose to be either frankly conservative, because it is Protestant, or openly radical, because its votes are swayed by its material interests, and by the potent suggestions of Sardinia and France.’ Other passages manifest the close alliance of the Jesuits and of the conservatives, both protestant and catholic.
“A fourth document is the report of an inquiry made in Fribourg by order of the provincial government as to the reality of an alleged miracle attributed to the Virgin Mary. A priest and other witnesses had deposed that a soldier of the landsturm, who wore one of those medals of the Immaculate Virgin of which I have told you, had been preserved, on the night of Dec. 7, from the effect of a ball which had struck him on the spot covered by the medal The whole is attested by Bishop Etienne Marilley. Now the inquiry has rendered the imposture clear and palpable; the knavery of the bishop, the priests, and the Jesuits is laid bare. The matter of this inquiry will assuredly acquire great publicity.
“The Valais is not less rich in revelations than Fribourg and Lucerne. The federal representatives have in their hands all the official documents and the correspondences respecting the Sonderbund and the late military events, among others an authentic deed proving that Austria made the League the present of three thousand muskets which you know of. These documents contain proof that the League was a European affair, and that the purpose was*to establish in Switzerland the forces of ultramontanism and the centre of re-action; that what was designed was not an accidental association, and a defence merely against the attacks of the free corps, but a permanent League, and a dissolution of the Confederation in order to the reconstruction of another which should be recognized, supported, and ruled by foreign diplomacy.
“We have not exhausted the stock of documents. Fresh ones are discovered every day.”
Enough so far to raise a corner of the veil. The plot is seen in action just as it is laid down in the Secret Plan, with which the reader is about to be acquainted. Its scope, we perceive, is formidable. Every means is welcome to its concocters that can forward their success. Their journals, especially the Univers, strangely mistaking the age, have promulgated plenty of miracles to sanctify the cause of the Jesuits in July. Their abominable fraud has not been able to remain concealed; the press holds up its perpetrators to contempt. Here then we have it proved for the thousandth time, that this order, continually urged by infernal ambition, meditates the ruin of all liberty, and by its counsels is hurrying princes, nobles, and states to their ruin. It is its suggestions that petrify the heart of the King of Naples, in whose dominions one of the members of the Company has been heard preaching the most hideous absolutism and blind obedience, as the most sacred and inviolable duty of the multitude. This is their very doctrine; and when they preach a different one, it is but a trick, and is practised there only where they lack the support of despotism.
Lastly, let us hear the captive of St. Helena expressing his whole opinion of this order. But be it remembered in the first place, that it is not for the sake of right and reason Napoleon declares himself an enemy to Jesuitism. He feared reason; right he deemed a thing not to be realised; and as for liberty, he could never comprehend it. “Louis XIV.,” he exclaimed,. “the greatest sovereign France has had! He and I— that is all.”*
* Recits de la captivite de l’Empereur Napoleon a Sainte Helene, par M. le General Montholon. Paris, 1847, t. 2, p. 107.
He even thought that the people should not be allowed the Bible. “In China,” said he, “the people worship their sovereign as a god, and so it should be.” Now, he felt strong enough, as he says, to make the pope his tool, and Catholicism a means of his power. He liked the latter, because it enjoins men to distrust their reason and believe blindly. “The Catholic religion is the best of all, because it speaks to the eyes of the multitude, and aids the constituted authority.” In another place he says he prefers it because “it is an all-potent auxiliary of royalty.” He admitted all sorts of monks, and thought he could make something of them, except the Jesuits. On his rock he speaks of them with nothing but abhorrence, and is convinced that he could not resist them with more profound or more decisive means than their own; and that wherever they exist, such is the force of their stratagems and manoeuvres, that they rule and master everything in a manner unknown to everybody.
“But,” says he, “a very dangerous society, and one which would never have been admitted on the soil of the Empire, is that of the Jesuits. Its doctrines are subversive of all monarchical principles. The general of the Jesuits insists on being sovereign master, sovereign over the sovereign. Wherever the Jesuits are admitted, they will be masters, cost what it may. Their society is by nature dictatorial, and therefore it is the irreconcilable enemy of all constituted authority. Every act, every crime, however atrocious, is a meritorious work, if it is committed for the interest of the Society of Jesus, or by order of the general of the Jesuits.”*
* Becits de la captivity &c., t 2, p. 294.
The first step in the reform of Catholicism is the absolute abolition of this order: so long as it subsists it will exert its anti-social and anti-christian influence over the Church and the Powers; and so long as the Church is filled with the hatred for progress which that order cherishes, it will only hasten its own decay, and its regeneration will be impossible.
