The Golden Dog [283]
great Jansenist controversy, which rent the Church of France from top to bottom, had not spared the Colony, where it had early caused trouble; for that controversy grew out of the Gallican liberties of the national Church and the right of national participation in its administrations and appointments. The Jesuits ever fiercely contested these liberties; they boldly set the tiara above the crown, and strove to subordinate all opinions of faith, morals, education, and ecclesiastical government to the infallible judgment of the Pope alone.
The Bishop and clergy of New France had labored hard to prevent the introduction of that mischievous controversy into the Colony, and had for the most part succeeded in reserving their flocks, if not themselves, from its malign influence. The growing agitation in France, however, made it more difficult to keep down troublesome spirits in the Colony, and the idea got abroad, not without some foundation, that the Society of Jesus had secret commercial relations with the Friponne. This report fanned the smouldering fires of Jansenism into a flame visible enough and threatening enough to the peace of the Church.
The failure and bankruptcy of Father Vallette's enormous speculations in the West Indies had filled France with bad debts and protested obligations which the Society of Jesus repudiated, but which the Parliament of Paris ordered them to pay. The excitement was intense all over the Kingdom and the Colonies. On the part of the order it became a fight for existence.
They were envied for their wealth, and feared for their ability and their power. The secular clergy were for the most part against them. The Parliament of Paris, in a violent decree, had declared the Jesuits to have no legal standing in France. Voltaire and his followers, a growing host, thundered at them from the one side. The Vatican, in a moment of inconsistency and ingratitude, thundered at them from the other. They were in the midst of fire, and still their ability and influence over individual consciences, and especially over the female sex, prolonged their power for fifteen years longer, when Louis XV., driven to the wall by the Jansenists, issued his memorable decree declaring the Jesuits to be rebels, traitors, and stirrers up of mischief. The King confiscated their possessions, proscribed their persons, and banished them from the kingdom as enemies of the State.
Padre Monti, an Italian newly arrived in the Colony, was a man very different from the venerable Vimont and the Jogues and the Lallements, who had preached the Evangel to the wild tribes of the forest, and rejoiced when they won the crown of martyrdom for themselves.
Monti was a bold man in his way, and ready to dare any bold deed in the interests of religion, which he could not dissociate from the interests of his order. He stood up, erect and commanding, upon the platform under the Holy Rood, while he addressed with fiery eloquence and Italian gesticulation the crowd of people gathered round him.
The subject he chose was an exciting one. He enlarged upon the coming of Antichrist and upon the new philosophy of the age, the growth of Gallicanism in the Colony, with its schismatic progeny of Jansenists and Honnetes Gens, to the discouragement of true religion and the endangering of immortal souls.
His covert allusions and sharp innuendoes were perfectly understood by his hearers, and signs of dissentient feeling were rife among the crowd. Still, the people continued to listen, on the whole respectfully; for, whatever might be the sentiment of Old France with respect to the Jesuits, they had in New France inherited the profound respect of the colonists, and deserved it.
A few gentlemen, some in military, some in fashionable civil attire, strolled up towards the crowd, but stood somewhat aloof and outside of it. The market people pressed closer and closer round the platform, listening with mouths open and eager eyes to the sermon, storing it away in their retentive memories, which would reproduce every word of it when they
The Bishop and clergy of New France had labored hard to prevent the introduction of that mischievous controversy into the Colony, and had for the most part succeeded in reserving their flocks, if not themselves, from its malign influence. The growing agitation in France, however, made it more difficult to keep down troublesome spirits in the Colony, and the idea got abroad, not without some foundation, that the Society of Jesus had secret commercial relations with the Friponne. This report fanned the smouldering fires of Jansenism into a flame visible enough and threatening enough to the peace of the Church.
The failure and bankruptcy of Father Vallette's enormous speculations in the West Indies had filled France with bad debts and protested obligations which the Society of Jesus repudiated, but which the Parliament of Paris ordered them to pay. The excitement was intense all over the Kingdom and the Colonies. On the part of the order it became a fight for existence.
They were envied for their wealth, and feared for their ability and their power. The secular clergy were for the most part against them. The Parliament of Paris, in a violent decree, had declared the Jesuits to have no legal standing in France. Voltaire and his followers, a growing host, thundered at them from the one side. The Vatican, in a moment of inconsistency and ingratitude, thundered at them from the other. They were in the midst of fire, and still their ability and influence over individual consciences, and especially over the female sex, prolonged their power for fifteen years longer, when Louis XV., driven to the wall by the Jansenists, issued his memorable decree declaring the Jesuits to be rebels, traitors, and stirrers up of mischief. The King confiscated their possessions, proscribed their persons, and banished them from the kingdom as enemies of the State.
Padre Monti, an Italian newly arrived in the Colony, was a man very different from the venerable Vimont and the Jogues and the Lallements, who had preached the Evangel to the wild tribes of the forest, and rejoiced when they won the crown of martyrdom for themselves.
Monti was a bold man in his way, and ready to dare any bold deed in the interests of religion, which he could not dissociate from the interests of his order. He stood up, erect and commanding, upon the platform under the Holy Rood, while he addressed with fiery eloquence and Italian gesticulation the crowd of people gathered round him.
The subject he chose was an exciting one. He enlarged upon the coming of Antichrist and upon the new philosophy of the age, the growth of Gallicanism in the Colony, with its schismatic progeny of Jansenists and Honnetes Gens, to the discouragement of true religion and the endangering of immortal souls.
His covert allusions and sharp innuendoes were perfectly understood by his hearers, and signs of dissentient feeling were rife among the crowd. Still, the people continued to listen, on the whole respectfully; for, whatever might be the sentiment of Old France with respect to the Jesuits, they had in New France inherited the profound respect of the colonists, and deserved it.
A few gentlemen, some in military, some in fashionable civil attire, strolled up towards the crowd, but stood somewhat aloof and outside of it. The market people pressed closer and closer round the platform, listening with mouths open and eager eyes to the sermon, storing it away in their retentive memories, which would reproduce every word of it when they