POMBAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 328, 1 August 1879, Page 7

POMBAL.

" What seems very strange," says Voltaire, " in their disaster," (the disaster of the Jesuits,) "is that they were proscribed in Portugal for having departed from their institute, and in France for having conformed to it." J

Strange is taken here in the sense of curious, gay, and amusing, And in fact, all philosophical Europe was greatly amused at this affair, though, at the same time, it did not hesitate to speak harshly of the butchers who were spilling blood, and to indulge in sarcasm at the expense of the silly idiots who were throwing down an edifice which for two centuries had been the bulwark of royalty. Glad as the Encyclopaedia undoubtedly was, it could do no less than scold a little. It was the journaliam of that time. A little pity was not unbecoming, nor a little bit of justice either with those self-elected judges who were ever ready to prattle on all sorts of cases at short notice. It gave an appearance of impartiality to their plead* ing ; and it is kind, easy, and agreeable to mourn for a slain enemy. Crocodiles weep.

In one of the principle squares of Lisbon there is a statue of King Joseph Emmanuel, the son of Jobn V. At the foot of the statue ia his minister, Don Sebastian de Carvalho y Melho. Count of Oeyras, Marquis of Pombal, whom the liberal school of Portugal compares to

* " The intervention of the Jesuits was especially needed to protect the ignorant Indians from the cupidity ol European traders." Ad. Archier. ".La Comp. de Jesus, 1 ' p. 227*

t He was earnestly defended by the colonial authority. He was descended from the elder brother of Jean do la Valetto, the Grand-Master of Bhodes % Bifecle de Louis XV., t. XXII. des tEuvros, p. 36*.

law wl Elch + ehe ".: * hes e pleasantries do not violate international and' if >v nt "^^P^^ge a countr y by the c mileg v contains history g " Bma m eXtent and PoP^tion, it is great in its

mv JS!/n na ! S - rt "g al conta *n more than would fill all the 53T. n lllustnou s J^bon with statues : kings, navigators, generals, and tL Camo . enß ' Albuquerque, Gama, Cabral, Henry, Johnf Pedro ' o?th?nv P i lrG ° f Brazil i S ifs work > like itßelf - built UPU P b y tn e hands hnlH » 7 r °" S JT\ 0f Bra ? anza - Her merchants were fortunate, «™L Pf^erful her fleets covered the seas, her colonies were £Ew°T i he WOrld> ter nobilit y is one of tbe Proudest and most S?mHL°s v U - rr ° PPcP u c ; and if her ancieut influence is considerably SSJa a V 1 - l S beOause no Catholic nation has ever escaped unpumshed which courted Protestant pity or that wonderful English disinterestedness that tends to create Irelands everywhere. ™ are countless crumbs of the Portuguese cake in the immense SJftw °r f?i er ge " e ™ US friend ' En g ]an <3. Certain sorts of protection cost out little, and there are many Portuguese who believe that it «v W ™r 1 Portu £ al recovers from the showy strategic agony which Arthur Wellesley made her suffer, in order that he might obtain a string ot titles, numerous pensions, his belly full of English glory, and, at last, be called « His Grace, the Duke of Wellington l " nni . o^ 1 p hou * a , tall * wittin g or blaming those who compare the Mar»rlJ? mb ( al to Cardidal Richelieu-for these patriotic mistakes are worthy of respect— l take the liberty of being astonished that the rwtugurse had chosen to erect statues on the banks of the Tagus to cne king who permitted and the minister who notoriously attempted irK,* 811 country by setting Calvin's furred cap down upon the without thtT AVIZ ' WerC DOt the Portu e uese Anglicised enough

TnJL * b SUre hat we should harbo «r resentmjnt for this against Joseph of Braganza, for most of his thinkiog was done in the brain ?£ fl™!! 11 ! t r ; but {t is certain that Pombal had formed this project, mat he had begun its execution and that he was only stopped by the nMW. n S r c^" i ? t u resißtan ce of the Portuguese to any abandonment of the Catholic faith. Throughout his life, Pombal worked for the English while i pretending to be an enemy. Never did Poituguese trwi a A I ° Ppose (iv a Ppearance) the invading caresses of England than he, and yet he had in his portfolio the famous project of marmge between the Princess of Biera and the Duke of Cumberland, which would eventually have made the latter heir to the crown or Uraganza.

It does not follow that Pombal was devoted to the English ; he was devoted to no one ; he was greedy of power, and he sought it by any and every means. What is certain, is that the Jesuits were opposed to English domination in Portugal and, consequently, to this ? f "I? u e^ „ . c Duke of Cumberland," says the Marechal de Belle1 it flattered himself with the hope of becoming King of Portugal; i have no doubt he would have succceeded, had not the Jesuits, who were confessors to the royal family opposed it." || them "8 addS ' " That W&S & ° rime that COuld never be foi 'g iven Here we have already one motive of Pombal's hatred for the Jesuits ; ha intended to import Protestantism into Portugal, and in an conscience the Jesuits could not agree to that : first grief. ni, Fombal bad other reasons for hating the Fathers. First of ♦v. .!u WaS s ° e f cessive in his passion for the philosophical doctrines tnat the small knot of atheists who rule the encyclopedic school at x ans, more than once were forced to deny him as a compromising i Jr Choiseul - w ho was to end by following him, step by step, aiong the road of persecution, began by laughing at him in company with his protectress ; and his sister Mrne. de Grammont pleasantly asked the Ambassador of Spain (where, by the way, Charles 111. was naving Pombal's pamphlets burned by the executioner), -'Does the great marquis of the little country always have a Jesuit astraddle of nis nose ?

In the second place, Pombal had flattered the Jesuits very much at the opening of his career, going so far as to have his second son wear the habit of their Order ; he was spiteful against them for his own platitude. In the third place the Jesuits were very powerful : as the Marechal de Belle-Isle has just told us, they heard the confessions of all the members of the royal family.* People like the Marqms of Pombal are jealous of every power, and envy is the most valid element of hatred.

Finally, ancient and modern moralists have asserted, that every man who does evil detests his victim ; as an example, the instinctive and incurable aversion which the spoliator feels for the one he has despoiled. Now the Marquis of Pombal was the sworn despoiler of the Jesuits, and he had ruined per fas et nefas their magnificent establishments of Maragnon, of Uruguay, and others, as history says, not without soothing his conscience by a considerable addition to his personal wealth.

By this enumeration, which is not at all complete, we see that the great marquis had numerous and solid reasons for abhorring the Company of Jesus. The first of these excuses, in point of time, was the Jesuit habit put on his son to win the good- will of Father Moreira, the king s confessor ; the most important was the destruction cf tbe establishments of Uruguay, and the violent expulsion of thirty thousand Christians from Parana in order to facilitate the working of the gold mines of which, according to Pombal's belief, the Jesuits had been enjoying the benefit, and which turned out to be a puie chimera.

This was some years before la Valctte's case. The French court made light of the great marqui^s disappointment, but this court was soon to begin a less sanguinaiy but a more unreasonable war against the Order. Pombal did not forgnc the Jesuits the terrible misery he had brought upon the eaithly paradise of their poor Indians, nor the absence of gold mines, nor the witticisms of Mines, de Pompadour and de Giammont.

I' " Tp=tflincnt Folitique." p 108. § Ibid. Maria, Duchess of Brogaza ; 11.1 1. da Cotta, of Doni Tedio of l'ojtngal.

At the moment when he entered the ministry he was a man' of nfty worn out in private conflicts and by a life of unceasing political efforts which had not always prospered. He had other enemies than tne Jesuits. In his younger days he had offended the high nobility by outraging many venerable sentiments, and above all by publicly marrying one who was called a girl of blue blood (sannre azulj. Perhaps he had to put up with too much haughtiness on this score. He took horrible vengeance for this, and if he is compared to Cardinal Kicnelieu by his admirers on this account, they certainly do him in] ustice. Pombal deserves the prize of honour for ferocity and should be compared to no one.

In France he passed for a skilful minister. His fine conduct during the earthquake at Lisbon had been remarked, and excepting the Jesuits, whose devotion at that time became legendary, no one showed more spirit and courage than he. M. de Choiseul, in spite of the witticisms which he aimed at him to amuse the king, held him in some esteem, and hoped that " the good Carvalho," as he called him, would some day or other rid the universe of that annoying Jesuit, whom all the philosophers and all the Jansenists ever seemed to have " astraddle of their nose."

*v J he Uru ? uav matter and the hostile attitude which Pombal wag the first to assume against the Holy See, were not calculated to disappoint that hope. * r ° m 176 ° t0 1758 > Pombal did not quite break with the members ot the Company who were still in favour at the court, and he employed himself in great efforts to win the nobility. He did not succeed The nobility hated him and it was right ; but it despised him, and there it was wrong.

(2'o be continued.)